“Stinks like somethin’ ate itself, died, then crapped itself out down here…” Stan groaned as we shuffled as quietly as we could along the four foot wide concrete walkway beside the stream of urine and feces.

“Really?” Cara jabbed, “Because I was sittin’ here thinkin’ that everything smelled of roses and cupcakes.”

“Then you really ought to see someone.” Stan replied with a little smirk, “Man, I ain’t gonna be able to get this smell out of my nose for at least a week.”

“Can you two shut up?” I snapped from the front of the pack, the barrage to my olfactory system having made me slightly more irritable than usual, “Seriously, it’s like being around a couple of yippy dogs.”

Based on the silence I received in response, I figured that I’d stunned the two of them with my uncharacteristic outburst, and, for some reason, that made me feel somewhat guilty.

“Sorry,” I said somewhat abashedly, “I’m just a bit stressed is all. I didn’t mean to be such a tool.”

Again, silence.

“Guys..?” I trailed off as I turned around to see that both Stan and Cara were gone, “Guys?”

Unsurprisingly, I felt like I’d been abandoned again, but that issue was quickly smothered by the stress I felt when I remembered just how little ammunition I had left and that if so much as a single zombie decided to grab at me from the bog I was liable to waste it.

There weren’t a whole lot of places for them to go, and I was quick to write off the stream of crap as I was pretty confident I would’ve heard that, but other than that I would’ve seen them running back the way we came or that they’d jumped over to the other walkway opposite the fecal river.

I was stuck, my feet practically magnetized to the concrete beneath my feet as I struggled to either go searching for them or to continue moving the way we were going.

And then I heard a snarl.

It was hard to pinpoint at first with all the echoing, but I eventually surmised that it came from where the guys had vanished.

“C’mon…” I muttered as I started slowly shuffling backwards, “don’t make me do it…”

Another snarl rippled through the sewer, followed by two more that were clearly from other zombies, and I was left with no choice but to start running away.

I hated it, and not just because I was abandoning Stan and Cara, but also because I was making a lot of noise.

My shoes slamming against the concrete, my panting bouncing off the walls and down the tunnel of stench, everything I was doing was drawing the zombies closer and letting every player within a mile’s radius know where I was.

I rounded a sharp bend and froze as I came face-to-face with more zombies than I knew what to do with.

“Shit…” I breathed as the hungry monsters started curiously shifting toward me, making sure not to push each other into the bubbling river.

I was about ready to accept my fate and eat a bullet when three sets of hands grabbed my side and pulled me through a doorway I hadn’t seen into a dark space.

The door slammed.

Someone snatched my gun.

“It’s in your best interests to stay very still and very quiet.”

-AR-15