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The cold sweat drips from my forehead, even though it's almost 10 degrees in this filth drenched sewer. I have my one weapon in my right hand-a blood and gore covered kitchen knife- and a small, worn out creased picture of my girlfriend in the left. Red sticky blood is oozing it's way from the two slits in both of my wrists, and I finally find out the life-flashing-before-your-eyes-when-you're-about-to-die thing is true.

As the zombies in the street above me tear away at the rusty sewer grate I'm laying under I think about my grandma's funeral, about 8 years ago. It was the grimest day of my existence. I had loved my grandma to death, and to see her rise back out of that coffin the day every other corpse did was some shit if I ever went through it. My girlfriend and I ran. We ran as these rotten slabs of meat tore it's way through humankind bite by bite. We got out of that town in northern Pennsylvania and went cross country in my beaten to hell Ford pickup as the United States government fell, and the highest-ranking officials were torn piece by piece and eaten alive. I couldn't believe how lucky we were when we made it a year. There were survivor groups here and there, but Lisa and I kept moving along, trying to find a small settlement that we could clear of the living dead to start our own life.

My blood is completely soaking my shirt now. I'm in amazement that I can think of 8 years in 7 or so minutes. The zombies can smell my flesh and leaking blood which I am sitting in a pool of now. About halfway into the second year of the plague, while we were staying in an old office building in northwestern Illinois, a military group composed of rednecks and random revenge-hungry men and women from the southern states went on a hunt. There was maybe 6,000 people in this little group bent on wiping out the zombies, and after the first few months there were 2,000. The group didn't stop though... and they managed to completely clear Miami of the creatures, as amazing of a feat that that may sound and they kept it secure. Until the third year, when one of the men went crazy and destroyed a front line barricade. Miami didn't last a week after that.

The creatures were smarter than we thought, and less and less survivors were around these days. By the fifth year, we were staying in an abandoned factory in Ohio. Cleveland was overrun. No hope left in this city. But surprisingly from there we found our first survivor that would come with us. Michael was a crazy motherfucker, I'm telling you. But he was the coolest guy I had ever met. He was about 10 years older than Lisa or I, making him about 35 or so. We continued on, traveling state to state through this wasteland. Survivors were never found. The closest thing to a survivor would be a corpse laying on the roadside with a group of zombies chewing it's insides out.

The creatures above me are practically tearing themselves apart trying to get to me now. They should lose interest in a few minutes, I think to myself. This thought makes me cringe-the one where I see myself crawling around the sewer, rotten and decaying to shit, with nothing to eat. I stand up now, and begin to walk down the narrow passageways for some kind of way to end the transformation process.

The sixth year my angel died. Her wings were torn off and eaten in front of her. I wish I could have touched her one last time. I loved her to death, and it was the hardest thing for me ever to do when I pulled out my shotgun and blasted her head into a splash of blood and brain matter. Michael and I buried what was left of her dismembered body in a shallow grave outside of Philly. I lay on her burial spot for the whole night, crying and screaming until blood ran from my dry lips. A zombie came up about then, and I was going to let it have me. I lifted my arms and begged for it to tear out my insides, rip off my arms and eat them, just as they had done to Lisa.

The only thing that kept me from killing myself then was The Promise. Lisa and I told each other the first year that no matter what, if there was hope, even if just a little bit, we would not end it there.

I ran forward from my crucified-in-air position and took the zombie down, and I tore at it with my bare fucking hands. I ripped its decaying stomach open and puked into it because of the stench coming from its rotten maggot-infested organs. I kept going at it, tearing its throat out. I ripped its limbs off one by one, sparing one arm. I hung it on a tree with one of my knives by its hand. It just hung there for weeks. We were staying in a storm cellar nearby so I would come by every day and punish the fucking demon with one arm for taking Lisa. For taking my friends. For taking my family. For taking the world. But one day it's arm muscles gave and I came to find it laying completely dismembered near the bottom of the tree, biting the dirt because its mouth was the only thing that could move. I kicked the head against the tree, smashing it open and I watched as its brains splattered all over the tree.

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