Free The Turning: A Tale of the Living Dead by Kelly M. Hudson

passed between them:  a way out.
    They searched the room and,
satisfied no one was there, shut the door and went back into the main area. 
They looked around, ducking down any nooks and crannies, checking for any other
people or zombies.  They found no one.  They walked back to the small office
and stood outside it, listening to the dead outside.   
    “We need to nail up something over
the window, just in case,” Jenny said. 
    Jeff nodded.  His eyes found
Clint, the dead man with the hammer buried in the side of his skull, and the
headless body of the other man he’d shot. 
    He’d killed two men.  He committed
murder.  They were dead because of him.  Those thoughts struck him like a
sledgehammer to his gut.  Wheezing, he collapsed to his knees, his legs unable
to support him, and fell to all fours.  He shook, quivering with fear and anger
and guilt.  Jenny dropped to his side and held his head.
    “What’s wrong?” she said.
    “I killed them,” he said.  “I
killed them.”
    “It’s okay,” she said.  She
brushed his forehead with her hand.  “They were going to kill us.”
He quaked, spun, and vomited.  The spray hit the headless body, coating it
with chunks of half-digested hamburger and stomach juices.  It was hard to
believe that just an hour ago they were in her apartment, in their little
perfect paradise, safe and secure and living easy.  And now, it had all gone to
hell
    The full weight of everything came
crashing on him, all the things he'd either pushed aside and tried to ignore or
simply couldn't deal with.  The end of the world, the death and resurrection of
millions, the fact that life would never be the same again, these realizations
were all so overwhelming. 
    In those few moments, on the
floor, shivering like a frightened child, Jeff felt like he went just a little
bit insane.  Through it all, Jenny was there, holding him, keeping him from
going off the rails.
    And when he was coming out of it,
when he was starting to get it together, he felt a tugging at the heel of his
shoe and turned and looked. 
    Gnawing on the rubber of his shoe
was the head from the body of the second man he’d murdered.  Somehow, at some
point, his right tennis shoe had come unlaced and those laces had gotten
tangled in the hair of the bodiless head.  Jeff had been dragging it around
this whole time, without noticing.   
    The jaw of the zombie worked open
and shut, its teeth scraping against the rubber, making a squeaking noise, like
a mouse.  Jeff rolled and fell on his ass, eyes wide and full of horror.  Jenny
turned, grabbed the hammer handle, and pulled the implement from Clint's dead
head.  She took it, turned it claw-side up, and buried it into the top of the
zombie head at Jeff’s feet.  A wet and ripe sound, like the carving of a
cantaloupe, squished from the head when she chunked the hammer into it.  The
head stopped moving as blood slowly trickled from the wound.  Jenny planted her
foot against the side of the head and pulled the hammer out.  She wiped it on
Clint's shirt and squatted down to untangle the hair from Jeff's shoelaces. 
Jeff just sat there, his mouth opening and shutting, no sound coming from
between his lips.
    It took a while, but she finally
got his shoe free.  When she did, she punted the head into the corner of the
office and smiled grimly at Jeff.
    “Let’s get out of here,” she
said.  He nodded, still out of it.  She offered her hand and he took it and she
led him from the room, taking the hammer and shotgun with her.  When they were
out, she shut the door and guided Jeff to one of the tables in the small dining
area.  She sat him down and returned to the door, moving a few crates of boxed
food stuffs to block the entrance.  When she finished, she sat down on the
boxes and sighed.
    Jeff was staring at her, still in
shock.
    She walked to him and stroked his
hair softly.  Jeff did not respond.  He didn’t have a thought in his head; it
was like