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"Genesis"

Two men stood alone on the road leading on to the next town. It was an empty, desolate path, each of its edges lined with dead, dried-up pine needles and spruce leaves. The atmosphere smelled faintly of juniper, not surprising for a forest made of evergreens.

The two men on that road were my husband and myself.

Felice Reinhart, my husband, was a beautiful example of the Chinese Crested hairless dog. He had only tufts of fur that wrapped around his wrists and ankles, with a massive, curly plume sprouting from the ending half of his tail and a full head of blood-red hair. It was all the fur he had on his body. The rest of him was grey and pink, delicate, supple skin, smooth to the touch and not unlike that of a pure human. Complimenting all that were two beautiful blue orbs and tusk-like premolars. He had a multitude of scars that etched horizontally across his throat, and two old and faded through-and-through gunshot wounds on his left shoulder, close to his collarbone.

I, on the other hand, am a dhole. That's the, er, Asiatic wild dog in case you're not familiar with that name. My fur pattern is what you wouldn't see on your ordinary dhole, feral or otherwise. While my base color is still the same rusty red, I've got delicate chocolate bands around my wrists and digitigrade ankles. I've got similarly colored "straps" that start from the middle of my pectorals and end at about a quarter of the way down my shoulder blades, both fading to from brown to black. The toes on my hind paws are something that would drive a person with heavy OCD crazy; they're all a woeful mismatching of brown, rust, white, and black.

What's worse... my scars. On my right cheek, I carry five wounds that were once deep scratches that poked through to the other side. On my belly, it looks like a kindergartner mistook a knife for a crayon and went to town. My back is covered in whip marks, and I've got a Lichtenberg figure covering half of my right pectoral and shoulder. All in all, it looks like I've been through hell, and people tell me so.

My scars run deeper than flesh and blood, though. But that's a story for a different time.

So the two of us were alone, just... walking. Aimlessly, really. We had a plan to simply run into town, grab what we could and check out as fast as possible. The last thing we would need is getting spotted by... them. They could chase you for miles, never stopping. Granted, they're pretty slow, so, I mean... If you, I dunno, jogged?... for half a mile, maybe you're lose them and they'd sort of just keep wandering in a general direction.

Problem with that is, it can create herds; entire waves of the things, thousands upon thousands of them, eating and destroying anything in their path. The last time that happened, it wiped out the whole Gulf Coast from New Orleans to Corpus Christi. No one stood a chance. What was left of the Army and the Air Force decided the best way to slow them down in order to give people in Texas enough time to evacuate was to drop a MOAB on Texarkana while most of the herd was still there. There's nothing left of the town square, from what my husband and I have seen, or the surrounding areas, but it did knock out at least half of them. Too bad half wasn't enough.

I glanced over at Felice, patted his shoulder, clothed by a leather jacket. "We're nearly there. I think over the next hill we'll be able to see Richmond." He nodded solemnly, holstering his Walther. Both of us have been tense from day one, after I crashed. See, it started in Atlanta, because one of the doctors at the Center for Disease Control had gotten infected because saliva had gotten in his mouth without his knowing. He swallowed it, and when he left work, turned and bit his next-door neighbor. This was stuff they told us in our briefing at Fort Campbell. I was reinstated by the Army when there was a crisis alert established in Fulton county and the surrounding areas. It wasn't long before people started spreading it to Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina. The Army got called in from Fort Campbell to defend Nashville. My unit, the 160th SOAR, was the first on the scene, dropping off whole platoons of the 5th Special Forces. Even with the National Guard and the 101st Airborne tearing the shit out of the undead, we were still having difficulty containing it. Too many civilians were still in the city after being told they'd be safe because the Army would be there. Well, we couldn't hold the barricades at all. The wounded kept piling up, and the dead even faster. From my little spot in the sky, I saw people dying in the most painful way possible-- being literally torn to pieces and eaten alive.

My wingman, Stalker 2-4, had an infected on board. They were our medevac bird, and one of the soldiers they picked up was bitten and bleeding out. Well, he turned within a matter of minutes and started attacking the crew. I heard all of this over the radio. He then went for the pilot when two guys fell out. Next thing I know, they're spinning out of control, there's blood in their windshield, and then BOOM, they come crashing into my bird. I'm sent flying into the AT&T tower, right between the 13th and 14th floors. I was out for maybe two days, but when I woke up, I was able to get out relatively unscathed. I had climbed into the back of the bird just to grab one of the M16s the crew dropped. The dead pilot had an M9 with only one clip, and the infected soldier had plenty of spare magazines.

Felice was still at home, on base. Almost everyone was gone, actually, most having been killed in Nashville. But there were still a few platoons that stayed behind to keep the base protected. It was a lucky thing, too, else I might never have seen my husband again.

But... I knew better than to stay in a place with more than ten people, since that would attract way too much attention from the undead. It's too bad that the undead weren't the only people we had to deal with.

My husband and I hit the road with all of our stuff in my car. If I had tried to take a bird, I might've gotten shot down, but I could at least take what was mine. So, in my 1968 Shelby GT500KR, we rolled on out to take our chances alone.

And here we are now, thirsty and beyond exhausted, our clothes stained in undead and living blood. It was blistering hot, summer down here. We had just gone through Houston-- er, gone AROUND Houston. Smarter move, really, all things considered. We were able to pick up some basic supplies from places that hadn't been looted yet, which were far more plentiful than either of us had imagined. I suppose realism is often trumped by the hopes and dreams of optimism. And yet, my car is empty. It sits ten miles down the road behind us, hidden behind trees and under leaves to keep it from being taken. And since I'm the kind of person that firmly believes in "if I can't have it, no one can," I've got the entire vehicle rigged with a claymore, so if someone opens either of the doors, the engine will explode. I'm the only person on this earth who would know how to take that trap apart, because I invented it.

Felice and I have together over 25 years of survival in both urban and wilderness environments. It's because of this that we've survived for 6 months now. However, the two of us know that after about a year or so, all the gasoline in the world will start to congeal, separating into thick sludge on the bottom and really thin watery shit on the top. Essentially what you've got right there is napalm and piss in a cup.

After a while of walking, just looking for gas, I get this hazy feeling, and I sort of let myself go. I nearly collapse on the ground next to my husband. Neither of us have had clean water for over 3 days, and I'm beginning to feel it. It rains so much here, the floods are out of control, and because of this, bacteria grow in the water. We know they're there, because when we were crossing over the river, there were bodies everywhere-- skeletons. Some, less than skeletons. I took a rotter and shot him, then I scooped water over his face, and the next day, it was nearly gone. So, my husband and I moved on after clearly knowing we'd never be able to set foot in that river. I thought from there, our best bet would be water towers. Turns out, the one in Sugar Land had been hit with a tank shell, which nullified that option. So from there, we kept moving to Rosenberg. We're nearly there. "Nearly there," is what I would keep telling the both of us. I felt as though I was going to die on this road, and my husband was going to be rendered helpless. We need each other, him and I.

He helped pick me back up to my feet, and I gripped his shoulder. "If we don't get water soon," I croaked to him in a hoarse, pained gasp, "we'll never make it."

"I know, luv," he chided in his familiar Cockney accent. He patted my back reassuringly. "We're gonna get there, and then we can go to your old house, yeah? Think that old man is still alive in there?" That joke was something I had trouble laughing at, despite wanting to. Simply put, I felt like I had too much weight on my shoulders, and as if my throat were a desert. All I could do was sigh and smile a smidge, if only to make an attempt to show Felice that I did appreciate him keeping a sense of humor when I could not.

We were climbing over a hill in the road when we came upon them. At least a dozen or so, maybe less. Eight is as few as I could say. The two of us dropped our packs. I laid down my rifle and unholstered my Colt Anaconda. She was a beautiful piece, with an eight inch barrel, nickel-plated finish and a black rubber grip. The trigger was smooth and easier to pull than any other handgun I'd previously held. The sights were accurate out to about a hundred or so meters. The barrel was Magna-Ported to help lower recoil and hide some of the flash. The powerful .44 magnum rounds gave quite the kick, but it's nothing I'm not already used to. Felice carried something a little lighter; a simple Walther P99. Great gun, if I do say so.

So it was just the two of us, and nearly a dozen undead freak- shows. Their fur was matted, stained with blood, especially around the mouths and wherever each individual had been bitten. Most of them, it looked as if they were bit right on the shoulder, or somewhere along those lines. One rotting jaguar turned around when it heard me cocking my revolver. Felice dropped his magazine into his paw to check how many rounds were sitting in it. "Twelve," he muttered before sliding it back in. Now, he prefers the much heavier and more powerful .40 S&W cartridge over the typical 9mm Parabellum ones that the pistol is usually manufactured in.

I held out my revolver in front of me. With how weak I was feeling, I had to support my left hand with my right. I cocked back the hammer and took the first shot. Turned out, there was another rotter directly behind the canid biter, and my first bullet went straight through the first head and into the next. Felice chuckled, raising his pistol. "Gonna have to try to beat that, huh?" I shrugged.

"Not every day you kill two freaks with one bullet," I mused dryly in return. He pulled the trigger on his Walther, and right away, another freak went down, brains flying out of the back of its equine skull. After that, the two of us started getting to work. We finished rather quickly. I still had two rounds left in the cylinder and decided to go fishing through my vest pockets for a few spare rounds. I quickly got loaded up and Felice holstered his handgun. The two of us kept walking.

A few hundred yards down the road, we came upon a vehicle graveyard. There was a massive eight-vehicle pile-up, all of it having occurred when a pickup truck slammed into what might've once been a mid-size sedan, probably a Toyota. I whistled softly, and Felice understood the message to start searching cars.

I approached the wrecked pickup, hopped up onto the tail to start scouring the bed. There was a large, dark grey tarp that covered most of the cargo. I sliced off the ropes that kept the waterproof sheet from being carried away by the wind and threw the tarp onto the asphalt road. I whistled again to my husband and he came bounding over. "Wassup, hon?" he chided, and I motioned at the bed of the truck. What the two of us beheld was heaven on earth: 6 unopened three-gallon jugs of water. They were warm, of course, but water is water. I immediately grabbed one and lifted it onto the open tailgate, taking out my pocket knife to slice it open and puncture the top for a vent. Holding out my open, empty canteen, I began filling it to the brim before bringing the edge of the opening to my lip, smoothly drinking down the precious fluid. Felice came in right behind me, filling up his bottle as well. Before long, the two of us were fully quenched and ready to get moving.

It was doubtful we'd be able to take any of these jugs with us, so instead we decided to take them by twos over to the underbrush, covering them over with foliage. I grabbed the map I carried in my back pocket and a pen, making an "x" on the spot on the road where we decided to leave them after carefully observing the highway signs and mile markers.

I found myself resting on the tailgate of the truck, my husband and I finishing off the jug we had opened just to keep ourselves hydrated. After drawing a cigar out of the left pocket of my uniform jacket, I lit up and puffed a few rings while Felice sat in the front seat of the vehicle, attempting a hot-wire. "I doubt you'll get it to start," I shouted at him, but he didn't answer. Eventually, I heard a few decent sparks, and concluded that the battery must've still been connected. Next thing I knew, Fel was swinging through various radio channels. Most of it came out as static and pings and whistles, but then he caught something. Of course, the mindless Crestie scrolled right past it, but I got up from the bed and snapped, "Wait, go back!" He started gently adjusting the knob, and I stopped his paw on 107.5 FM. Someone, somewhere, was still broadcasting... "Hey, wait a minute," I mumbled. "That's the old classic rock station..." The two of us paused for a minute, taking a gander to listen.

"... Right, and I told the damn dog, 'stick your hand in that thing and you'll never see it again!' Sure enough, when he wasn't paying attention, the gate slid down and it sliced his paw off, clean off at the wrist!"

"Is that right?" sounded a more feminine voice.

"You're damn right it is," was what came from the first voice we heard, who continued, "and then he's screaming and wailing and my buddy goes to pick up his paw. We rush him off to the ER with his hand in a gallon baggie full of ice, and, oh," the guy begins to laugh hysterically, "his face is just completely white! They managed to get his hand back on, but hoooo, he learned himself a lesson. Anyways, you're listening to 107.5 FM, the Eagle, with your host and hostess Liam and Sarah. You can find us in our broadcasting center here in Lake Jackson and our sister station, 106.9 at Post Oak Boulevard in Houston. If you've got a working landline or cell phone, our new number is seven one three, five five five, eight six seven six. Right, moving on... So this next song coming up is an old favorite of mine. Now, it's Swingin' Saturday, folks, so today we're gonna get started with a classic: Here's Glenn Miller's In The Mood."

Next thing the two of us heard was this beautiful ensemble of music, full of brass and saxophones. No lyrics though, not that it needed any. I was feeling a little playful, so I grabbed my rejuvenated mate by the wrist and wrenched him out of the truck, putting my left paw on his hip and my right on his shoulder. The two of us started doing a jive of sorts, and smiling and giggling only felt natural. When the song was over, I leaned forward and gave him what you could consider a somewhat dry kiss, given that my lips were still feeling rather parched. Of course, he didn't seem to mind at all.

The two of us composed ourselves and kept searching the various cars. I opened up the door of a dusty red Interceptor. On the other side of the car, a rotting freak was reaching towards me, trapped by his seatbelt and an infant car seat that stood between us. I peeked into the seat and breathed a sigh of relief when I found there wasn't a speck of blood about it. Reaching into my pocket, I drew out my Smith and Wesson Special Tactical knife, flicked it open, and leaned forward to sink my blade into the gnarly creature's temple. Dark, almost black blood squelched out around the steel when I hilted my weapon into the former equine teenager's skull before drawing it out quick as I had shoved it in, wiping the blade on the dusty seat cover and then folding my knife and pocketing it at last.

Darting my eyes around in the car, I noticed a few lonely CD cases and reached for them from behind the passenger seat. I glanced them over, chuckling. Marty Robbins. Dean Martin. A few other good artist, and some of their best albums. I slipped the cases into my duffel bag and tied it closed, heaving it over my right shoulder. I went around to the front of the car to pop the trunk. Upon opening it, I dug around and found a few random boxes of crackers and fruit leather. Deciding the fruit leather would be light enough to carry and nutritious enough to even bother, I tore off the top and poured the contents into my open-again bag. It was filled with an even mix of grape, strawberry, apricot and Granny Smith, which would please me indeed. Satisfied with my findings so far, I closed up my bag and went to check up on my husband, who was still rummaging through the truck we got the water from.

Felice finally surfaced, holding out to me (with a very proud expression), a pump-action shotgun with a high-capacity tube and folding stock. I relieved him of it awkwardly as he darted back into the cab for the box of shells. 16 gauges. Rats. "What's wrong," he asked, puzzled.

"They're 16 gauge shells. This being a 16 gauge shotgun, it'll be rather difficult to find ammunition here. While in Britain, hunters tend to prefer 16 gauge, here, hunters typically the heavier 12." He shrugged.

"Least we got 32 shells here, and this thing holds 8, I think." He seemed rather content either way, but I sighed.

"Felice," I kept on, "with a weapon as loud as this, and as important as this, those shells are gonna go mighty fast, you'll see. But," I paused, decided to at least do him a favor. "But, since you found it, you can keep it. Can't afford to leave behind good weapons and ammunition." I gazed up at the driver seat of the truck and was able to infer this man was indeed once a redneck of sorts. No doubt it didn't serve his driving skill very well.

With the day finally coming to a close and our hours of sunlight now fading over the horizon, the two of us decided to climb into the front seat of a large Ford F-250 that had managed to stray away from the pileup, and locked the doors behind ourselves. Leaning the driver seat all the way back and ove the super cab seats, Felice lay cuddled on my chest, leaning his head on my shoulder and letting his eyes drift closed. I tenderly kissed his forehead, and soon found myself dozing off as well. No doubt, we'd still have a lot of work to do in the morning, and we'd have to try whatever we could to make it to the radio station, but for now... We simply needed rest.