Free Alive! Not Dead! by R.M. Smith Page A

lap.
    “Rodney.  I know what’s going on.  I know you and Debra are having an affair.”
    Rodney sat up quick, shocked.  He was about to call Bob a liar.  Instead Bob put a bullet through Rodney’s head.
    Debra was at home.  She would probably still be in bed.  She rarely got up before 11 o’clock.  It was only nine now.  He would just go home, look at her lump in the bed, and shoot her.  No problem.
    He did just that.  Point blank into the back of her head while she slept. BLAM!
    With that done, he stuffed the pistol into the back of his belt.  His mind turned once again back to his work.  Inventory.  The numbers were off again on the inventory for some reason.
    As he pulled back into the Harvest Foods parking lot, his left elbow jockeyed out the window, the world shifted.  His car jerked sideways.  He tried to over-correct the yank but the car leaned, teetered and fell onto the driver’s side.  Bob’s arm was pinned under the car.  The vehicle’s weight caused his arm to roll out of the socket.  Bob shrieked.  The pain was so immense.  He climbed out of the car, screaming, blood pouring out of his open wound.  The pain took over all of his body functions.  He was mindless.  All he could think of was the pain.  The pain! The pain! Oh God the fucking pain! Suddenly, someone was on him – trying to tackle him? Trying to hold him down so he wouldn’t run around, getting his heart-rate up? Then a bite to the neck.  Sharp.  Painful again.
    He struggled away somehow.  He headed for the store.  Running through it, he saw chaos, groceries everywhere, shelves knocked down, lights overhead swinging.  People fighting, screaming, lying dead in the aisles.  All of this was blur to him.  In his office, there was a first aid kit that he knew would not do justice to the damage of his arm or the blood he had lost – or the maddening headache that had started pounding deep in his skull.  Maybe he should have someone call an ambulance for him? Marge the check-out girl would call them.  Marge would do it.
    He passed out, lying on the floor of his office in front of the desk where the kid he murdered now slouched.
    When he came to, he didn’t know how long he had been out, but he was weak.  His whole body shook. The whole floor was puddled in dried blood.  He needed help.  Help badly.
    Where was Marge? Hadn’t he told her to call the ambulance?
    God he was hungry! He had a hunger inside that he never knew could be.  It was fiendish.  He could eat anything.  He could eat flesh! Fuck the pain, he wanted to eat, god dammit.  He crawled over to his fridge.  Nothing in there but an old carton of milk.  Damn why didn’t he keep this thing full of food?
    He managed to get up.  He slowly made his way down into the grocery store.  The whole place had bee n looted.  Where was everyone? Marge.  Where was Marge?
    He saw a flash of light out of the corner of his eye.  Someone was heading up to his office.
    The pistol was still jammed into the back of his belt.  He yanked it out.
    He needed to stop them before they found Rodney.
     
    When I first looked, I tho ught a dead had spoken to us.  It was a man completely covered in blood from the right side of his neck all the way down to his belt.  His neck was torn open.  Blood was oozing slowly from the rip.  There was a large bruise in the direct center of his forehead.  The man stumbled toward us, a pistol pointing at us in his shaking hand.
    “Lookie who’s been going through my stuff,” he painfully laughed.  “You guys lookin for food! Huh ? That what you’re lookin for? What ya doin in my office?”
    Ski’s flashlight was stabbing the man into brightness in the dark room.  He had a limp.  He was wearing a white collared shirt with a black tie that was now half-soaked with blood.  He only had one arm.  The other had been ripped from his body.
    We all were shocked at the sight of him.  We didn’t say anything.
    He shouted “ I said