Free Least Likely To Survive by Lisa Biesiada

paying attention while checking ammo.” I shook my head at myself, amazed at my own misjudgment as I turned to see how Jack was faring.
    Obviously better than I, as he was just standing there, staring at me with a look of sheer amusement plastered over his face.  “Have a little trouble there?”  He smirked at me as he pulled the hose from the tank, and placed it back onto the pump.
    I didn’t have a witty comeback, so I just sneered at him, and headed over to the passenger side to get in.  I opened the door, and climbed back in, when it occurred to me we didn’t fill the reserve tanks.
    “Jack, we need to fill up the gas cans on the back.  I completely forgot,” This as I was starting to climb back out of the car.
    “Seriously?  You couldn’t remember that before we stopped the pump?”  He mumbled something indiscernible under his breath as he too, climbed back out. 
    We both rounded the back, and unlatched the cans from the rear, and carried them over to the pump.  Luckily whatever switch he had flipped inside had turned on all the pumps, so we were able to tag team and fill the cans at the same time. 
    As the can was filling, I happened to glance over at the three girls he had killed.  They seemed to be about twenty-something and were probably pretty cute, when they hadn’t been somewhat green and covered in blood.  I noticed that their skin had taken on a weird blotchy look, and it almost looked like their veins were bloated and about the burst under their skin.  This was the first chance I had really had to study the body of an infected without them trying to eat me. 
    “Jack, look.”  I pointed to the blonde I had been examining.  “Look at her skin, and tell me that’s not some fucked up shit.  Her veins look like a tick does when it’s done eating; bloated and nasty.”
    He had walked over to me, and was staring at the girl as well.  He cocked his head to the side, and rubbed his beard with one hand, thoughtfully.  “Hmm.  That’s odd.  Too bad; those girls were cute, too.”  He turned away and pulled the hose from the can, once again returning it to the cradle on the pump.
    I looked back at him, completely astonished.  Okay, so I was the only one who thought dead bodies turning colors and looking as if their veins would explode and shower us all with infected zombie blood at any moment was alarming.  Awesome.
    I shook my head at his back, and returned my now full gas can to the back of the Hummer, and made sure it was snug next to the other one.  I glanced once more at the bodies of the girls, not just a little worried at the physical changes in the dead, as I once again climbed back into the car.  I unholstered, unstrapped my sword, and buckled my seatbelt as he revved up the engine and pulled out of the parking lot back onto the highway.
    Once we had cleared the intersection, and were back on 84 headed towards Abilene, I started thinking out loud.
    “Don’t you think it was weird that the bodies looked like that?”  I looked over at him with concern.
    “Not really,” he shrugged.  “They’re dead, how else are they supposed to look?” He looked back at me, expression blank.
    “I’ve seen dead people before Jack, and they never looked like that.”  I decided not to add that the only body I had ever seen was my great aunt at a viewing before her funeral.  “It just seems weird that their veins would be puffed up like that, and the skin turning colors.”  I sat back to ponder this phenomena.
    “It’s probably the virus. It might just mutate the cells and cause clotting.”  He frowned as he turned back to the road.
    “Yeah, you’re probably right.”  I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.  What if he was wrong?  What if the infected were mutating and becoming something else?  Something much scarier, and harder to kill?  Fucking fantastic.  Like we didn’t already have enough to worry about.  Now the possibility