I never wanted to live through this. I never agreed to be zombie bait. My initial plan was to just end it all before any of it even began. But even then, with the gun in my hands, I couldn’t do it. Something nagged at me to stay.

Now I wish I had. If I knew it would be this much work to survive, maybe I’d of just done it. Maybe I’d of just given up.

“We aren’t quitters.” My father would say. My father would still say, if the zombies didn’t take him from me.

Now I walk alone, with my head down, and the ghost of my father looming over my shoulder.

Even though I’m surprised by a pair of boney hands that clasp me, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was expecting it. I was wishing for it. It’s convenient how you just wish things, and the universe throws them at your feet. It happened before when I wished for a pack of Swedish Fish.

And it’s happening again when I wish to leave the life I live.

I fight back lazily, but this zombie is different. It’s grasp is stronger, despite its frail looking build. It wrestles me onto the ground, and I don’t realize how much I’m fighting back now-limbs shaking and straining, while I hold it’s forearms parallel to me.

I look into its dead eyes, and I observe it’s decomposed skin. When it’s saliva falls onto my chin, I realize that I don’t want to become it. I don’t want to become this flesh hungry corpse.

I don’t want to die anymore.

And maybe that’s just the other half of my brain finally waking up and knocking some sense into me. Or maybe it’s my father taking control of my calloused hands. “Jesus take the wheel” I grit, handing him control. And with my father in mind, somehow I feel lighter, lighter but stronger.

Maybe I’ll regret not ending it all in the first place, again, in a couple of hours.

But for now, all I can think about is kicking this son of a bitches ass. “We aren’t quitters.” I say, for me and for him.