• The streets were silent as twilight turned into dusk. The broken glass and splintered wood, the busted cars and bicycles, even a few stray bullet casings and knives littered the concrete of the road, where weeds and grass was dominating the ground.

    Mia reloaded her shotgun, belted a large bear knife, and adjusted her rectangular glasses as she walked cautiously towards a battered red beetle buggy. When night fell, they would come, and she needed to be moving long before then.

    From across the street came her friend, the only other person in the entire city of Boston who wasn’t undead.

    Nicolette’s belt was lined with shotgun shells and assorted knives that jingled when she moved, like a wind chime. Her long blonde hair was pulled up into a ponytail, and her jeans and v-neck tee were torn, dirty, and flecked with spots of blood. Her leather combat boots made it easy for her to run.

    Mia and Nicolette had met when Nicolette had saved Mia from a horde of the undead, when she was trapped in a corner between two brick buildings, about to be bitten and infected. Her ammo had run out, and she was prepared to go down with a knife in hand when Nicolette had appeared out of nowhere and dragged her through a hidden escape route.

    They had been saving each other’s backs since then, and now, six days later, they were heading from Boston, Massachusetts, to a northern forest in Maine where a safe haven was rumored to be.

    “Mia, how much gas is in the tank?” Nicolette swung herself into the passenger seat of the buggy, not bothering to buckle her seatbelt.

    Mia fixed the rearview mirror. “Little more than half a tank, and that’s not counting the fuel we have in the trunk.”

    “Is that enough to get us to Maine?” Nicolette handed Mia the keys.

    “It should be.” Mia twisted the keys, and the buggy sputtered slowly to life. “If we drive under seventy miles an hour.”

    “What if we run out of fuel? The zombies are crawling over every gas station from here to Augusta.” Nicolette asked as Mia eased the car through the empty streets out of Boston.

    “Then we won’t run out of fuel,” Mia gritted her teeth.

    Nicolette was sixteen years old, Mia was fifteen, but Mia had been taking Driver’s Education classes when the infection had happened, so she did the driving.

    They drove for four hours when they had to stop in the middle of the empty highway just outside of Portland, Maine, and pour the remainder of their fuel into the tank to ensure they made it to the forest without stopping.

    As Mia retrieved the fuel, Nicolette shouted, “They’re here!”

    Mia whipped her head to where Nicolette was pointing and saw about ten of the undead lurching their way toward the buggy.

    “Pour in the fuel, I’ll hold them back as long as I can!” Nicolette loaded her shotgun and ran to meet the zombies while Mia helplessly, carefully, filled the buggy’s tank. Time seemed to slow down as the fuel slowly emptied into the car.

    Shots rang out, and in the corner of her far-sighted eyes Mia could see zombies staggering, but getting back up again.

    The infection must be mutating again!

    “Nicki! Come on!” Mia jumped into the car, and Nicolette nodded, running back towards her. But bursting from the soft earth next to the pavement, several decaying arms pulled the rest of their bodies from the ground to swarm Nicolette.

    Her angry shouts were stifled by the decomposing flesh that suffocated her and prevented her from reaching her weapons.

    Mia leapt from the buggy and fired several shotgun rounds at the mob around Nicolette, and one by one they fell, only to get back up and come for Mia.

    Pulling the bear knife from its sheath, Mia decapitated one zombie, then another, cut a leg and an arm from one, and fought her way to Nicolette, who was bleeding from her shoulder.

    Slashing their way back to the buggy, Mia threw Nicolette into the passenger seat and peals down the highway, away from the undead horde.

    “What the hell?” Mia cursed, keeping her eyes on the road and away from her blood-spattered companion. “Where did they come from?”

    Nicolette coughed. “They came up from the ground just in front of us, off the pavement, and I don’t really know where else.”

    “Did they bite you?” Mia asked urgently, knowing what the bite would mean.

    Silence.

    “Nicolette, did they bite you?!” Mia’s voice rose hysterically.

    “Yes!" Nicolette shouted, and swallowed. "The mofos got me.” She kept her eyes out the window and wouldn’t turn. “You know what has to be done, right?”

    “I know,”

    They drove in silence until the sun began to rise, and then Mia stopped the car in the middle of the road and turned off the ignition, reaching back into the trunk and pulling out her shotgun.

    “Get out of the car, Nicki.” she muttered to Nicolette, who said nothing as she obeyed.
    They walked slightly off into the forest on the right side of the road. The left side was dominated by the ocean.

    “It doesn’t have to be like this, Nicki,” Mia whispered, stopping. “I could just leave you here and keep driving.

    “Mia, please,” Nicolette laughed harshly. “I’ve got maybe a day. If you think I want to turn into one of them rather than have my head blown off, I’ll blow my own head off.”

    “Do you want to look at me or would you rather keep facing away?” Mia raised the shotgun and pointed it at the back of Nicolette’s blonde head.

    “I want to see you before you shoot my brains out.” Nicolette slowly turned and looked Mia straight in the eyes.

    Mia swallowed hard. This was much harder than shooting Nicolette when she wasn’t looking.

    “I can turn away, if you want.” Nicolette sensed her discomfort and offered.

    “No, I’m fine.” Mia cleared her throat, tears burning behind her eyes.

    “Don’t think about it,” Nicolette said. “Just do it.”

    Mia cocked the shotgun.

    “Thanks, Nicki. For everything.”

    Nicolette smiled softly, and closed her eyes.

    Mia pulled the trigger.

    She kept her tearing eyes on Nicolette’s black combat boots, instead of on the explosion of blood that came from her friend’s ruined face. Mia left the body where it fell and walked back to the car.

    When Mia reached the walls of the safe haven in the forests of northern Maine, she hadn’t said a word for several long, lonely hours.

    She was stopped by the police at the border, which was a wall of cut-down trees so close together nothing would fit through.

    “Are you or anyone in your party infected by the undead?” one man called.

    “I am my own party,” she said back. “and no one is infected. Not anymore.”

    They let her in.

    As Mia drove her buggy through the opening gates, she heard one woman call to the man on the border.

    “We’ve done it! We’ve discovered the cure! We can begin with your daughter!”

    “Thank God!” the man sighed happily, his weary, weathered face splitting into an enormous smile of relief. “Thank God!”

    All Mia could think as her heart slowed was that she could have saved Nicolette, if they had known about the cure.

    It was all a nightmare.

    She sputtered out in a whisper, “I killed my best friend for no reason.”