*CRASH*

The window behind my couch crashed inward, flooding the living room with light, spilling glass on me and throwing samurai swords that I had in the window sill into the living room.  Right after the glass and other sharp objects, a significantly heavier object landed on me.  I instinctively pushed it off and hopped out of my blanket, sitting on the arm of the tan, checker patterned couch.  I shook my head, getting some of the glass out of my hair.  A bit of it fell to my face, scraping my cheeks.  There was a moment of silence, save for the movie that I was watching at the time, Pulp Fiction, playing.  Just when Samuel L. Jackson’s character tossed the cheap table Brett and his guys were eating on, the heavy load on the floor started moving.  I stepped off of the couch, nearly tripping onto my matching love-seat.  Then, through the glass and vertical blinds on the floor, I realized what had fallen through my window.  
It was a human being.
“H-hey.  Hey, you okay?”  The only response I got was an injured moan.  “Ahh, shit.  Umm…hold on, ok,” I said to the person, holding my arms out as if to steady myself on an invisible table.  I ran to my kitchen table and snatched up my cell phone, flipping it open.  I dialed 9-1-1 just as the person (it was a man) started to get up with another moan.  I put the phone to my ear and heard nothing.  I knew I was poor, but my phones weren’t shut off yet.  I switched ears and dialed again as if the change would improve reception.  Still, I got nothing.  
“Jesus Christ.”
I tossed the phone back to the table where it fell with a clatter on the bare glass and turned to survey the damage.  As soon as I turned, I noticed that the man who had just fallen through my window was now standing right in front of me.  
“Holy shit, man,” I said, stumbling backward.  His face was covered in blood, and from the placement of it, a lot of that blood wasn’t even his.  I didn’t notice that at first though.  All I noticed was that the man raised one of his hands toward me.  I took his hand, kind of confused, thinking he wanted to shake my hand.  
“Yeah, man, my name’s Carl.  You o–”  I didn’t get much farther than that.  With a hard jerk, the man pulled me toward him.  With my free arm, I extended my elbow, slamming it into his face.  I’m a friendly guy, but not that friendly.  A shock wave of pain ran through my elbow as the man’s head jerked back, and I saw at least three teeth fly from his mouth.  But he didn’t let go of my hand.  I tried to pull my hand loose, but his grip just tightened.  
“Hey man, let go!”  My voice sounded too scared.  I tried to yank my hand away again to no avail.  My left hand isn’t my strong hand, but I punched like it was that day.  My fist slammed into the man’s forehead, making a sickening THUNK sound as it connected.  Three more hits didn’t make the man let go of me, but a flower vase I grabbed from the table against his Adam’s apple did the trick.  The force of the hit made the man stumble backward.  When he fell, it made the most disgusting noise I had yet to hear.  He had fallen onto the glass door of my entertainment center.  The glass shattered under his weight.  The impact rolled the man onto his stomach, exposing the wound his fall had left.  That was my first time ever seeing a real spine.   
“Holy fuckin.’  Oh, my god.”  My hands went up to my mouth as if to hold morning breath in.  I yanked the phone off of the table and tried to dial 9-1-1 again.  But I got the same results as last time: Nothing.  I put the phone back on the table with a sigh.  Just then, a putrid smell hit me, damn near knocking me backward.  I covered my nose with my hand and squinted as I looked around for the source of the smell.  Instead, I found that my friend with the iron grip was standing back up.  My eyes opened as wide as they have ever been as I watched him stand back up.  As he unfolded himself completely, a small chunk of bloody flesh fell from his face.  It was right then that I finally understood.  
“Motherfucker.”  I whispered.  The man reached out with his right arm, probably his only good one.  I looked around, looking for a good weapon.  Finally, my eyes rested on the all black samurai swords that ‘punchy’ over there knocked over when he made his entrance.  I scooped up the biggest of the three and tossed the black-painted, wooden sheath away.
I swung the sword at his head, trying to cut it off but only cutting off the hungry groan he made.  The blade vibrated loosely in my hand as it connected with the soft, decomposing flesh of the man (he wasn’t even a man anymore, but I couldn’t bring myself to think the ‘Z’ word).  I pulled the sword back and swung again, connecting with the top of his head, buckling his knees.  I hopped backward as he fell and hoisted to sword up again.  Before I could begin the swing, the blade of the sword fell completely out of the hilt.  I groaned in annoyance.  As if in response, the man (face it, the zombie) groaned again, blood and saliva dripping from his mouth and onto my brown carpet, turning it a brick red kind of a tone.  I hopped over him and grabbed another sword, this one smaller and a bit sturdier than the other.  
I stood over the man as he tried to rise to his feet.  Turning my head, I stabbed the sword through the back of the zombie’s head.  He collapsed completely.  I yanked the sword from his head and stood in shock for a moment.  I was getting really dizzy.  I’d never killed anything bigger than a rabbit before, and this was a huge jump from that.  Resident Evil is my favorite video game.  Dawn of the Dead is a damned good flick.  And, trust me, my imagination throws out some pretty good ideas.  But nothing, nothing could have prepared me for reality.
Another moan jerked me from my thoughts.  I looked down in disbelief at the zombie on my living room floor, but he didn’t move.  I heard it again, coming from my left.  I looked out of my window and noticed that the parking lot to my apartment building was overrun with zombies.  I knew that I had to leave this place.
I ran into my bedroom and pulled on an old pair of black tights from a production of Romeo and Juliet that I was in (they had once saved me from being stabbed in the thigh with a sharp dagger, so I trusted them).  I put socks over those and pulled on a pair of jeans.  I threw on a t-shirt, a long-sleeved, cotton shirt, and a turtle-neck sweater over that.  Zombies seem to go right for the neck, after all.  I pulled open a dresser drawer and found an old pair of leather gloves.  I threw those on, making sure the edge of my sleeves would stay under the opening on the gloves.  Finally, I rummaged through my closet and found a pair of hiking boots.  I pulled those on and tucked the end of my pant legs into the boots.  Save for my face, I was completely covered.  I found an old belt and tied it to the sheath of the sword, then tried to tie the belt around my waist, but it wouldn’t fit around both at the same time.  So I tried to tie it over my shoulder and around my upper torso, but it wouldn’t fit that way either.  I fought for about ten minutes with the sword, trying to tie the belt to both ends of the sheath.  When that was finally done, I draped the sword over my shoulder like a guitar and let it rest on my back.  When the time came, I’d be able to pull the sword with no problems.  
I was already weighing in at about twice what I normally would weigh, but I decided to pack a few more things.  I grabbed my girlfriend’s backpack and dumped all of her stuff out of it.  As soon as I touched the bag, I thought of her and nearly cried.  
My mind wandered for a moment as my girlfriend, Athena, filled my thoughts.  She was about four inches shorter than I was, with long, brunette hair.  She had the most wonderful smile on earth, I guarantee it, not to mention a body that put Shakira and J. Lo to shame.  But the thing that had originally attracted me to her was her intelligence.  She knew more about more stuff and I could ever hope.  That was a huge turn on to me.  After about four months of dating, she was getting tired of her household and I was getting kicked out of mine.  So it seemed like a prime idea to pool our resources and move in together.  It was like having a really hot roommate.  And we’d been able to survive together as well.  But, earlier that day we had an argument.  I felt like I cleaned up around the house enough, and she felt like I half-assed everything.  So she took her car and went, apparently, to her mother’s house to cool down.  And I let her go, thinking that this would be a blessing in disguise.  After all, I’d finally be able to watch my favorite movie and her least favorite: Pulp Fiction.  But now, I just  wanted to kick myself.
“She better be alright,” I said aloud, mainly to hear a voice.  I trotted into the kitchen and grabbed a few canned foods and forks.  I decided to toss in a couple of canned sodas as well as a few snack cakes and potato chips.  To top it all off, I put my portable CD player and my CDs in the backpack as well.  I zipped up the backpack, then heard some shuffling followed by a loud thud.  As soon as I stepped out of the kitchen, I noticed that the zombie I downed wasn’t down anymore.  In fact, he was very much up.  His eyes were glazed over and grey.  The zombie’s skin looked hard, as if he’d been taking lessons from Benjamin Grimm.  On top of that, another zombie, a young woman without a left eye or a right arm, had joined him.  The Thing looked me in the eyes, his mouth watering like I was a Big Mac (I grinned as I thought about Pulp Fiction and the Quarter Pounder/Royale with Cheese discussion).  Suddenly, the man lunged at me, much quicker than he was before.  I sidestepped, letting the zombie trip and fall behind me.  Without another word, I ran to my front door and yanked it open.
I paused in the apartment building hallway and took in my surroundings.  We were on the bottom floor, so there was a carpeted staircase leading up to the door and continuing up two more floors.  I’d seen this place hundreds of times before, but now was the first time I looked around with fear.  The place was empty, for now at least.  I hopped up the stairs and pushed the front door open.  There were two zombies in the front yard, one on the steps leading to the parking lot, and at least seven more in the parking lot itself.  I closed the door behind me.  As soon as the door closed, all ten of the zombies noticed me.  One of the zombies in the yard let a guttural growl escape his bloodied lips.  All I can remember thinking was, this wasn’t a part of zombie survival 101.  
Just then, I saw that ‘Royale With Cheese’ look in the zombie’s eyes, and he ran toward me.  It was a slow kind of run, lumbering and kind of clumsy, but it was definitely a run.  I outran that zombie, his pants falling off of decomposing hips.  Running past the slower zombie in the yard, I climbed up the hill next to the stairs.  Finally on level ground, I surveyed my surroundings again.  There were three cars and eight zombies (I missed one, so sue me) in between myself and my ‘99 Dodge Intrepid.  Looking back on my downhill pursuers, I took my car keys out of my pocket and unlocked my car door with the keyless entry remote.  I put the keys in the breast pocket of my sweater and ran, dodging in between zombies as they swung lazily at me.  When I reached my car, I almost pulled the door off of the car when I opened it.  
I sighed and sat for a moment, watching the zombies hobble to my car.  I locked the doors and started up the car.