• Year after year.
    They haunt me.
    Year after year.
    They torment me.
    Year after year.
    I hear their screams.

    My sanity was in question, even to myself. Every morning I woke up to the screams, the death-cry's of little children. But I didn't find myself back at war, until that morning.

    I was in my room.
    My tiny room.
    My tiny red room.
    My tiny red room in the middle of suburbia.

    But that day, that day was different. The screams, they didn't stop. At first I thought I had finally lost it. That I was hallucinating. That schizophrenia was bringing me back to war. Then there were gunshots. I was now sure of it now, I was insane. Then came the moans. I never knew the moans. They were horrible. It wasn't a human sound, it was this brainless, needy, horrible sound. That made me hopeful, that I wasn't insane. It also scared me, "Why are there kids crying? Why are people shooting? What is making that sound?" I remember asking myself.

    I got half-dressed, underwear and pants. I didn't feel the need for a shirt, I wasn't going anywhere but outside. When i got to the front door, I saw through the peephole that there was someone on the other side, bleeding from a gunshot that seemed to have pierced his lower jaw and came out his right cheek. It wasn't really bleeding, though. There was blood, sure, but it was old, congealed. What I was seeing coming out was clear. Like saliva. Then he looked back through, with his dull gray eyes. OH how I wish he never looked through back at me. I learned what made that moan, right there. He opened its mouth, and let out the most horrible, disturbing sound Ive ever heard. Then he started beating on that door...

    Bang!
    Moan.
    Bang!
    Moan.
    BANG!
    Creak.
    Moan.

    It was trying to bust my door down. I say it because it didn't seem human. Nothing about it was human. Sure, it was human shaped, but it wasn't human. There was no soul behind those eyes. There was no blood passing through its heart. It was an it. I didn't know what it was exactly, I just knew it wasn't right.

    Only later would I realize it was a zombie.

    That it was the most unearthly thing I could encounter.

    Now, It wanted something indoors, and i didn't want to give anything to that, that, thing.

    BANG!
    CRACK!
    Moan.

    It was almost in. I was in a panic.

    "Where is my god dammed putter!" I quickly ranted to myself. Sadly it was in the back of my '07 impala, which was parked out front. I quickly decided to run to the kitchen. "Butter knife, no! Steak knife, no! Cleaver, no! Rolling pin, no! Meat tenderizer. YES!" I remember hurriedly thinking. I figured if it could get shot and still be standing, a stab wasn't going to bring it down. A 5 pound solid metal hammer, on the other hand would have some serious kick behind it.

    BANG! The door had broken loose of its hinges and had hit the floor with a loud SLAM!
    Moan.
    Shuffle.

    "Damn!", I think I yelled "I liked that door!" It dragged its foot across my floor with an audible scrape. Now it was standing just past my doorway, and I was facing it. When it noticed I was there, by god, it locked on with those eyes. Those, those, horrible eyes, and it let out another moan. This one wasn’t like the others, it sounded cocky, a "I just got dinner" look. My training kicked in. CQC its called, close quarters combat, designed to take a grown man down as fast as possible. The problem with this is, CQC is meant for a person, someone who will block you. Someone who will try and stab you, or break your bones. This thing didn't try and block, it accepted my punch with grace. It did, though grab at my arm, and it got a hold of my right arm. That was the scariest moment of my life. 3 seconds felt like 3 years. It had my arm in the most solid grip I have ever felt, it was excruciating pain. I was lucky though, it didn't get the arm which was holding the tenderizer. It began to move its head closer to my arm, ready to sink its teeth into me. It was a beautiful thing when I let that shiny metal wonder plow into its head.

    Do you know what its like when bone gets crushed? Its horrible. There is a nasty sound, a crack, as it breaks apart. As the tenderizer continued its path past its skull, pushing the pieces of bone either to the side, or deeper inside, the slam gave way to just squishing of brain matter. It was a sick beauty. I was in the army. I was in a war. I saw terrible things. This, the look on this face, or I guess by this point lack thereof, was just plain disturbing. The good news of this fact is that I had my arm back, and he wasn’t going to have me for dinner.

    After this encounter, I realized why I woke to those screams. Why gunshots had rung in the air. Why the most ungodly of sounds you should be unfortunate to hear still sounded. It was like a war, and I was caught by surprise. Now it was time to come up with a plan....