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"Put the knife down you son of a bitch." said Tony, leveling his shotgun at the sickly young man. Randy pulled back the hammer on his revolver. The man stepped back a bit, and seemed to calm down. Suddenly he lunged at Tony with his knife. Tony fell on his back, firing his shotgun in the air, missing the other man by a wide margin. He felt something cold stick into his side, and then a rush of pain filled his body. Tony screamed and struggled to force the man off of him. Then a gunshot rang out. Tony opened his eyes after the ringing in his ears stopped, and saw the sickly looking man's face inches in front of his own. The man's eyes stared pleadingly at him, and his lips parted in a silent scream. With great effort Tony rolled the man off of him. The stranger hit the pavement with a soft moan and a trickle of blood ran down his lip. Tony breathed a long sigh of relief, and then the pain in his side returned. Groaning, he rolled the stranger off of him and tried to stand up. Again, the sharp pain in his side returned.

"Oh shit." he heard Randy say. Tony knew he shouldn't look but he did. The knife was stuck into the side of his ribcage to the hilt and a steady flow of blood was running down his side. He suddenly felt faint and fell back to the ground.

Randy looked at the knife sticking in Tony's ribs. He didn't know if he should take it out or leave it in. He had heard somewhere that it would increase the blood flow if he took it out but he didn't remember for sure. He heard the moans of the undead rising about him. Bastards must have heard the gunshot. He cursed to himself. They would be here in a minute or so probably. He decided it would be best to take the knife out. He ran to the car and pulled out Tony's first aid kit. After removing the blade, he wrapped a long strip of gauze around Tony's side. Then he pulled Tony up and tried to drag him to the car. Damn, Randy thought, fucking heavy bastard. Tony was younger than Randy, but the guy was a big football player type and must have weighed close to 200 pounds. Finally he threw him in the back seat of the car. He closed the door and sat down in the drivers seat. He dared a quick look back and could make out a handful of shambling figures converging on the car. He turned the key and hit the gas.

The stranger gasped and coughed blood up on the pavement as he tried to pull himself up. The bastards had left. His only chance for escape was gone. He staggered to his feet, clutching at his bleeding stomach. He was feeling faint and his vision was fading in and out. He looked about him. He was barely able to make out several figures staggering towards him with outstretched hands. Oh fuck, he thought. He hobbled along as well as he could in his current state. He was so dizzy, it was becoming harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other. Suddenly he felt a cold hand on his back. He turned around and looked into a pair of pale dead eyes set in a face of rotting flesh. He let out a pitiful moan as the zombie sunk its teeth into his already festering shoulder wound. The stranger pushed feebly against the ghoul as it tore at his muscles, but it seemed to be to little avail. Finally with a burst of strength he pushed it away and staggered backwards into the waiting arms of an old woman in the remains of a tattered dress. She hissed as her fingers ran along his warm flesh, but he threw himself away before she grabbed hold of him. He stumbled on down the road. It was getting harder and harder to make out the ground in front of him, and everything kept swaying back and forth. The moans around him grew louder. Unable to take any more, the man collapsed to his knees with a groan. Cold rotted hands clawed at his body as he collapsed on to his side, sobbing.

That night, on the open highway, Randy shook himself awake for the third time. The road never seemed to change. The street lights hadn't worked in years and it was impossible to make out anything beyond the few yards of road illuminated by the old Volvo's one good headlight. Randy didn't know where he was going. He hadn't for the past three years. Somehow, the road had been good to him and he had managed to stay alive, but for the first time in a long time Randy felt a sense of despair come over him. If he didn't do something soon, he knew Tony would die. Sitting behind the wheel of the old Volvo, on an open highway, in a dead country in a dying world, Randy felt completely helpless. In the back seat, after a long silence, Tony moaned.