'This is hell,' Haruka thought. 'This is what it means to be dead.' She felt her nose drip, and her head tossed as she struggled to wipe it free of moisture on her shoulder. Seeing her effort, Toma raised his arm and buried her fingers in her blonde coif. Yanking her head up to him, he peered into her haunted eyes. He suppressed a shudder at the way she stared at him blankly from the ball she had curled into on the floor, but then involuntarily his body began to tremble as her eyes reflected a smothering rage. She looked at him, and he smirked as he jerked her head towards him again, shaking off whatever fear he had lost himself momentarily to, and he quietly spoke:

"If only you had shown that kind of enthusiasm earlier… I reckon you'd have enjoyed yourself a touch more." He noticed with a soft internal pleasure that her eyes had gone dull again, and he slipped his fingers out of her hair. Her head fell down, chin resting against her bare chest; he was surprised, however, when she spoke.

"I am going to be free. And when I am, I am going to fed you to those things outside. I am going to peel your flesh from your body and I will laugh, I will dance, and I will smile as I watch you be chewed apart slowly. You will see-" she paused "what it's like to be devoured against your will." She looked up at him. She slowly smirked. "The only difference is I am still here alive. And soon, you will be dead."

He struck her then. With fury, he struck her in the mouth and at the sound of the crack, she thought fleetingly of before to the sound a stick of fresh celery makes when it is broken apart. He raised one booted foot to her and brought it down on her bare pelvis, between her legs. Grinding her into the dirt, his voice spoke little to hide the simmering rage he felt at her outburst.

"You came to us, girl. You crawled here, and we took care of you. And now, whether you can handle it or not, we are going to take what you owe us. This is no zombie movie. No one is going to save you. We are all you have. Resign yourself to us, or I will take pleasure in hanging you from a tree and watching them rip you apart. After, " he smirked "I get to, again, of course."

He reached out to caress her face, but was interrupted when he heard a rustling, then a cry and he knew. He placed another well-measured stomp on Haruka's groin and flung open the flap of the tent. He recoiled as he saw in the distance about 6 staggering figures quickly approaching the camp. Scanning the perimeter of the camp, his eyes fell upon his friends, his men. They lay in drunken stupor after the night of enforcing their pleasures on the woman who lay curled on the floor still, warily watching her captor. A bottle of whiskey was roughly kicked aside as one of the creatures, an emaciated man wearing nothing but stained briefs, plowed through the camp. Blood oozed from his mouth as he cooed at the 

sight of the 2 sleeping men. Toma seemed to snap out of his trance and shaking himself free of a sneaking fear, he turned to grab his gun.

"What a stupid move, leaving me un-tied. Guess you thought I was more of a girl than I actually am, huh? On your knees!" Haruka spoke cockily, pointed the barrel of Toma's shot gun at his face. She was still naked, her body only covered in a thin layer of sweat. Her eyes seemed etched in coal-like shadows and Toma slowly knelt down, and crawled his way outside of the entrance flap, hands in the air.

"Please…" He spoke slowly and gently, his eyes seemingly squinted in sincerity. "It doesn't have to be like this… We can do this together. We can get—" A scream interrupted him as one of his men awoke to a pair of jagged and uneven teeth shredding apart his belly.

"TOMA! SHOOT THIS FUCKER!" Jos screamed and kicked at the undead that was slowly trying to make its way upon his vital organs. Another man awoke at the sound of Jos' screams and looked up in shock to the face of a female zombie; her long hair was tangled and her singular arm clutched out at the air; she was a lover, looking to dance with the man she saw before him. What was left of her other arm, flapped about in excited circles. The man scooted back on his bottom through the dirt, his hands fluttering around blindly feeling for his gun.

Haruka laughed cruelly.

"Why don't you show her the same good time you showed me, boys?"

Toma stared in horror, his mouth open in a gaping scream, reminiscent of the famous painting by Edvard Munch. He had loved art before. He slowly looked around him, wondering what could have caused this carnage, this hell on Earth. As he stood, his mind filled with thoughts of the past, he felt a stabbing pain in his knee caps and he tumbled to the ground, landing on his hands and knees upon stinging gravel. Haruka was resting the gun against the back of head, and for a momentary second, then gun felt final. It felt cool, and he could feel the salvation building up in its barrel.

"Now watch. Let your eyes get a good long drink, man. Because once they are done with your friends, you are going to walk to them with arms open and embrace them. "

Toma shook his head. Haruka hesitated a short moment, before grabbing the man by the scruff of his neck and dragging him a few meters from where his friends lay motionless amidst the dead, who were still caressing their lifeless bodies; they lapped the blood gently, and cooed amongst each other in a language neither the blonde nor the trembling man could understand. Toma lay there his flesh seeming to jiggle involuntarily as he shivered in revulsion and curled into the defensive position he had watched the blonde assume just a short while earlier.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Haruka tipped an imaginary hat at the zombies who had perked up at the sound of her voice, "I present you Toma the tasty. He is yours to devour as you see fit." Bowing quickly, first at the zombies, then at Toma, she slung the shotgun over her shoulder and trotted back into one of tents, in search of something decent.

Once in one of the tents, she tried to suppress a sob. She quickly threw on a pair of slim-legged jeans, despite the aching in her loins, and quickly covered herself in the tightest fitting clothing she could find. Tears ran down her face, making tract marks in the grime that covered her even skin. Slinging a pack over her shoulder, she bit down on her fingers as she stood still a moment and waited until the screams outside subsided. Her arms wrapped protectively around her shotgun, she gingerly poked her head out of the tent flap. She awkwardly bowed at the zombies who had helped her so just minutes earlier.

"May God forgive your souls," Haruka mumbled apologetically and she emptied a clean shot into each of their foreheads. She wondered momentarily who they had been.

Feeling a sense of dire exhaustion, Haruka trotted over to one of the Jeeps that Toma and his men had driven from safe-spot to safe-spot. Reaching up, she pulled herself into the driver's seat and sat. For a slight moment, she let her head rest wearily upon the cool leather of the steering wheel. Throwing her pack and gun onto the empty passenger seat beside her, she drove and drove.

Author's Note: This is the first thing I have written since I dropped out of the fiction writing program at Columbia College. I'm sorry if it's terrible; I haven't written a fic since I was maybe 13? It's nice however, to have the good ole writing juices flowing again, regardless of whether this is quality work or not. I would appreciate kind and constructive comments, but no "flames" please. I should have the second part up soon. Thanks for reading.