(http://www.tribute.ca/tribute_objects/images/stars/cherry_jones.jpg)<br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">CLAIRE ANDERSON</span></span><br/><strong>Location:</strong>Forecourt of a gas station in Wellington<br/><strong>With:</strong>Lily and Olivia. Two newcomers called Marcus and Desi.<br/><br/>Things began to happen very fast, faster than I, right then, in shock from seeing Charlie, was able to handle. Now that my gun was no longer pointing at him, the guy who called himself Marcus ran out of sight to talk to his companion, then ran back insisting it was the car engine that could have drawn the zombies. His running around and talking was distracting me too and had he wanted to kill us and take the car now was a good time. He made me nervous as well.<br/><br/>From what he was saying I knew it wasn’t the car, it was Charlie’s bad luck. He’d just been caught the one time, a small careless slip as he entered some shitty gas station in some butt-hole dead town in the middle of nowhere. He’d been a wonderful friend this last two weeks and had been strong for me when I had thought it all hopeless. And now… now this.<br/><br/><strong>“Get in the car girls, just grab your gear and get in, we’re leaving.”</strong><br/><br/>As I spoke I saw the girl Marcus was talking about run from around the corner of the store to him. After her scurried one of those horrible crawlers. They shuffled along on hands and feet, almost hopping, seeming to bounce and obscenely fast. Hoppers, the people at the police station in Denver called them. To me they moved like monkeys. Another appeared behind it, this one was – I mean<em>had been</em>– a woman, some happy housewife who was almost naked, the shredded remains of a floral print dress around her hips, her white bra now grey and stained, pulled down to not even cover her chest. Her large grey-white, blood-splashed breasts swayed obscenely. The ones in the gas station were almost at the door. I raised my gun at the doorway, bracing my wrist firmly, waited for a clear shot and from only twenty feet put a bullet between its eyes. The .38’s bark seemed pitifully small, like an apologetic cough from a polite person in a library but the zombie at the door, the meaty one in the oil-stained coveralls, gave a short<strong><em>“Ghur!”</em></strong>sound and folded forwards in the doorway with a heavy thump, it’s brains spattered out in the face of the dead cashier-girl behind.<br/><br/>I turned to the man and his girlfriend. I was in a fix now. Did we leave them? Or invite possibly dangerous strangers? Suddenly time had run out. I had no options left, the pair of hoppers from behind the building were moving fast.<br/><br/><strong>“Get in the car,”</strong>I said to Marcus.<strong>“Both of you!”</strong>I swung through ninety degrees, aimed and fired at the male hopper as he began a kind of bouncing crazy rush towards us. The revolver barked again and the shot hit his shoulder, spinning him over. He rolled in the dirt and said,<strong><em>“Fuck that hurts!”</em></strong>very clearly and his shout reminded me these were still humans, with muscles, nerves and brains. They were just… horribly infected.<br/><br/>The ruined, naked housewife bounded past him. He got back up to a squatting pose, looked disinterestedly at the patch of red staining his shirt, and moved in for the kill.<br/><br/>As people began to pile into the car I had to face attacks from two directions. This was bad.