Page 2

We were too weak to do any damage to each other. We stopped, chests heaving, and made a scramble for a gun but we didn't know which one that we would end up with. It was ten days since we ate anything, just before I passed out I checked the chamber, I had the bullet, then all went black.

When I awoke I was in the same spot, the gun in the same place. I picked it up and looked at the chamber, it was gone or I had the other gun the way it was going, the little game that is.

I stood up and went into the other room, his eyes popped wide open. "Don't make me shoot you," he said.

"Don't do me any favors, but wait 'til I get closer so you don't miss."

" If I kill you and I miss your head and you come back, then what would I rekill you with?"

"Good point there, but I ain't going out there to the deads, and I can't take this lingering dead shit."

"Yeah well, it's my bullet anyway, I remember dropping it. And it's got my name on it."

"We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, asshole! And don't give me any horse shit about finders keepers," I said.

That's the way it went 'til the end, it was like Spy vs. Spy. The guns went back and forth several times. As we got weaker it became harder and harder to stay focused. If it looked like the other guy was gonna cap himself, the other guy came over to interfere with the shot.

The dead never shut up the dead never stop pounding, we were long out of food and cigarettes, my mind wandered out of this time to some kind of scene from when I was a kid, yep, it was a birthday of mine. Blam. Then there I was on my first date and getting my first kiss. Man, this is my life flashing before me and I started to have a seizure, and I started to convulse.

He started over to me and I saw that he was going for my gun. There was a break in my motions and I took the safety off the pistol and aimed at him and pulled the trigger. The gun fell out of my hand and clattered to the floor. My death throes stopped for now and I started over to the body on the floor . . . the he that put me through a lot of shit for that bullet and in the end he got it.

There was a channel in the left side of the head that took out the eye. He was dead, but not zombie dead. I am so hungry. I looked down at the blood spreading out over the mess on the floor. If I die soon I will come back and eat this guy because he is fresh and he is just lying here. The thought occurred to me that if I don't eat him, I will come back anyway and then eat him. My brain was so out of it, I was truly pressed. I took out my pocket knife and cut off his biceps. I had downed it before I knew that I swallowed anything, I went to work on the shoulder muscle, trying to hack and rip off a chunk of my former companion. The irony of the situation was not lost on me at all.

I was on my third chunk of Chuck's meat when he started to twitch. His eyes started to flutter under his closed lids. His fingers started to open and close and flicker up and down. I knew I was done for here. Chuck's remaining meat sat up and turned his head to me and opened his mouth. I was still chewing and gulping down my mouthful, and I thought that in a few minutes he would be doing the same to me and there was nothing that I could do about it.