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In the mid afternoon of the second day Jeff kept me prisoner, I watched him fall into a tin bath filled with water that the pigs drank from. He thrashed around for a while before he managed to tip the bath over and get up again, the unexpected dip had left him a lot cleaner since he had come out of the coal shed and I noticed something different about him, his right leg was false.

With this in mind I unlocked the front door and bolted for Jeff, I was upon him before he had turned to face me and I clattered him to the mud face first. I sat on his back and pulled at the prosthetic leg until it came off in my hands. Now he really was quite harmless, and had to drag himself across the floor at a painfully slow pace.

So work continued as normal as it possibly could at the farm, Jeff still wanted to eat me but was hampered by his disability. A typical day would involve dragging his writhing body by his good leg away from where I worked about ten times. If for instance I was collecting lettuces, I would drag him as far as I could away from the lettuce patch. When he got too close I would down tools and drag him away again. At night I would simply lock the door and leave Jeff outside like a common dog, I would awake to sounds of him shuffling around the farm house and chicken pen.

It had been around six months into the stay at the farm, and I had become depressed and lethargic. What news I managed to pick up from the radio (TV broadcasts had become increasingly rare) did nothing to help me, I had become increasingly weary as I realized the hopelessness of my and America's plight. Work on the farm nearly ground to a halt.

I remember one night sitting by the radio in the living room when I heard the now famous speech that was delivered by the British Prime Minister. During this whole phenomenon Britain and a few Commonwealth countries had been the only ones to help us. They created the "A.T.A.F" (Aid to America Force), a whole new army made from battle hardened soldiers and top scientists designed solely to assist the people of America during this phenomenon. They started losing the war on both fronts, the scientists were still no closer to the source of this strange disease, and the soldiers faced heavy casualties. The British Prime Minister delivered a speech that spelled the end of the great nation that night, he said that the A.T.A.F efforts where futile and instead of trying to rid America of the undead they would concentrate on assisting survivors. It was during this speech that the "U.K-U.S Bomb Pact" was announced, this agreement was the hardest thing any two real allies could do for each other. Because the U.S had lost control of most of her nuclear arsenal she would ask her ally to do it for her. The concentration of the undead in some cities was such that this was considered the only solution; Britain would hit us with weapons of mass destruction every time the President ordered it.

On hearing this I drank the two bottles of wine I had been saving for a special occasion, I became savagely angry as the alcohol worked upon me. I went outside and kicked Jeff in the face until my foot was wracked with pain and I could kick him no more.

It was in the morning a few days after when news filtered through that around fifteen major cities had been destroyed by order of the President. That evening the horizon seemed to be deep blood red, it made the world around me seem alien and strange.

I was no longer happy working at the farm, I worked only to sustain myself and every small job seemed like a heavy chore. It was around this time that I noticed the first major change in Jeff; he began to make a lot of noise every time I dragged him away from me. He would make a frustrated cry from the back of his throat like he was complaining; he was becoming tired of chasing me.

After a few weeks Jeff completely lost interest in me and spent his days shuffling at the chicken pen walls. He would still try and bite me if I got too near, but if I walked away he would pay attention only to the chickens again. One day one of the chickens lay dead in the pen, I took it out and passed the still warm bird to Jeff, he ate it in such a desperate bloody way that he turned my stomach and I waited inside until he had finished.

Jeff no longer seemed a threat to me; he was just a mere nuisance. As I toiled on the farm I would talk to him about anything, the weather, football, girls. And every time I spoke I would end the sentence with the words "ain't that right Jeff?” at which he would grunt in recognition before continuing to crawl around the foot of the chicken pen.

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