Meet Sam

I'm not here to tell you an entertaining story and keep you thrilled at each turn. I'm here to tell you how I survived so you can do the same. New York had gone to hell and I hadn't seen or heard from a family member or a friend since. I'd been on the move tearing through the Bronx non-stop trying to stay alive. Most houses were empty so I usually had a place to crash for a night or two. Occasionally you bump into an occupied residence and have to convince people you weren't going to hurt them. Sometimes you had to leave the houses because if the zombies didn't kill you then the people in the house would. It might seem cruel thrusting a drifter out into a zombie infested city, but I can't blame anyone for doing what they needed to survive. After all, I was doing the same thing.

I bumped into Sam in a house just outside the Pelham Bay area of the Bronx. The house was a nice cozy two-story not too far from the park. I liked two story houses because they provided good places to hide. They offered you different ways to get in and out of the house if you knew how to utilize the second floor properly. Sam seemed like a pretty decent guy who wouldn’t try anything funny with me like stealing my weapons or anything. He was nice enough to let me stay in for a few nights. He figured the company was worth the risk and besides he saw how well prepared I was and figured I'd be more help than harm. He was in his mid 40's and in decent shape; aside from this hacking cough he had he didn't seem to have any issues. He had a good amount of food stock piled, more than enough for the two of us, and he didn't mind sharing. He had the house boarded up pretty tight as well. The only way I managed to get in was through the attic window. He said he had honestly forgotten about the window in the attic and I offered to take care of it for him. We weren’t too worried though, we figured the zombies weren’t really coordinated enough to think about climbing up onto a roof and checking for windows. All in all, it turned out to be a decent place to crash. I'd be a fool to turn it down. Then again, only a fool wouldn't think twice about that cough.

Three days straight and Sam was getting worse. He swore he hadn't been bitten or scratched and my gullible ass didn't think to check him. I told him to just go lie down and rest for a bit while I got some food together. I was preparing our lunch and I went into the pantry to grab some beans off the shelf. I heard a chair get knocked over in the kitchen behind me. I turn around and lucky me; I see Sam standing in the doorway of the pantry practically foaming at the mouth. Bastard was bitten and now here he's got me trapped in a damn pantry! I’m standing in this room little bigger than a closet with nothing but canned goods surrounding me and, oh yeah, a zombie blocking my only exit! Of course I didn’t think that my hunting knife or any of my other weapons were necessary to make lunch, so they were all stashed neatly away in my bag in the living room. Too bad I had this infected bastard standing between me and my stash of zombie killing toys. Well I'll be damned if after all this I'm going to get killed and eaten with a can of peas on my side. He lunges at me; man these things sure are fast. I pelt him in the face with the can of beans. It hits him square on the bridge of his nose and I can hear the bone crack. Too bad he's too dead to know how much that should have hurt, because he stumbled back one measly step and regained his composure. Thankfully that one step was all I needed. Sam was big but I was bigger; more importantly I was determined to live. I charged at him and tackled him straight through the kitchen table. In hindsight it wasn't the smartest idea to essentially embrace a zombie whose very bite or scratch could end my whole existence. The only problem with hindsight is you never have it when you need it. It's only around after you've done something stupid. The table shatters under our weight, and I see the back of his head slam down against the floor. I knew he was stunned and this was going to be my only opportunity. Before he could move, I grab a broken table leg and jam it through his skull. I turn my head at the last second to avoid getting any blood in my mouth or eyes. Sam was a goner, and I wasn't. In the end that was all that mattered. I stocked up on some food, rinsed myself off while I still had access to running water and I left that house and the experience behind me. Sorry Sam, guess you weren't hungry enough.