Michael decided not to go into the rest of the bedrooms, knowing that he would likely find nothing in particular, so, instead he made his way back to Mrs. O'Brian's living room, a place where the two had shared many an hour talking, eating her homemade cookies and playing board games. As he walked in, his mind began to race; he was fixated on finding a stove, so much so that he'd forgone looking around and figuring out how he could use what he could find.

The first room that he found himself in was her living room, where he'd often spent the most time talking with the elderly lady, but a quick scan told Michael there wasn't anything useful other than a large pile of newspapers that she had stacked in a pile in the corner. He looked at them knowing they would come in useful as a source of fuel, either for his own fire at home, or for some other thing he hadn't thought about.

Engrossed, he didn't hear the small scratching of barely-lifted feet along the upstairs landing.

Moving through the house, the kitchen seemed like the next best place to look. With a renewed sense of curiosity about what there was and what he could use, Michael immediately threw a box of matches into his backpack, a can opener and some candles he found, a large tub of cooking oil and some dry packets of spaghetti. He'd thought that Keith, with his "survivalist" tendencies might have a gas stove or camping equipment, but he hadn't found any in the home, but maybe he had just missed them, he reasoned. Still, it was starting to become something of an obsession, as he looked around Mrs. O'Brian's home for anything useful, Michael kept an eye out for anything else he could use, including some dry food he could eat, if not necessarily something he could use for heating it.

Mrs. O'Brian had a cupboard with dry and tinned foods; tinned fruit and beans and dried spaghetti, packets of biscuits, flour. She was the type to make a lot from scratch and can her own preserves, but she still had things she had brought in the local grocery stores, too.

The footsteps on the landing moved slowly and steadily towards the top of the stairs, their sound hidden by the loud shuffles Michael was making in Mrs. O'Brian's kitchen, but even so, the noise they did make were almost like nails being dragged along a wooden surface, like sharp metal on a rough wooden table.

In his search, Michael came across a cupboard that contained some more candles and another large box of matches, so he grabbed a bunch of each, hoping that they'd be useful for starting a fire. Looking out of the kitchen window towards the back of the garden, his eyes trained upon the old shed which the O'Brien's had had for years, long before Mr. O'Brien had died.

He figured there was an outside chance that he might find something useful there, so that was going to be the final place he checked before he gave up and went back home for the evening.

When he turned around he forgot all about the shed.

"Ahh-" he let out a yelp of fear and surprise as Mrs. O'Brien, her black eyes glinting in the light from outside the window, stood directly in front of him, a mere five feet away from Michael himself.

Even more terrifying, her corpse looked like it was grinning.

Instinctively, Michael walked backwards, soon finding himself pressed against the kitchen countertop as the creature in the body of Mrs. O'Brien shuffled forward.

"W...what... Mrs. O'Brian?" he stuttered in horror.

Her smile was a fixed grin of horror as her hands came up, arms stretched in a sort of slow-motion grasping motion. Her arms, outstretched, looked as though they were trying to grasp him in an attempt to hold on, or maybe even hug him, though she was too far away. And, anyway, he had a feeling it would be more of an aggressive attack.

He stood, staring in terror at the sight before him, for a full five or six seconds. She, on the other hand, took a few steps closer, as if trying to move faster.

His breath was getting shorter and faster. His body was tensing, as if he were preparing for a fight. His mind, on the other hand, was starting to try to make sense of things, but there wasn't much to make sense of, and what his eyes were telling him, and the noises she was making, weren't matching up with reality at all.

It took only a few more seconds before the dead lady was in front of Michael. She seemed to have gotten much quicker in the last couple of steps.

She grabbed his shirt, her mouth open and revealing rotten teeth, some missing and a foul-smelling odour escaping.

He managed to push her away, causing her to fall backward to the ground.

"Oh, God! What is this?" Michael shouted.

His hands went up to his face and he wiped the sweat away from his brow.

"I... I'm sorry!" he shouted, as the thing in the corpse got to her feet. She didn't look angry. In fact, her expression looked rather like she had no idea what had happened.

"What...what is happening?" he asked.

The creature said nothing, just let out an unearthly, raspy growl that sounded more like something you'd hear on a documentary of an alligator attack in some remote part of Africa or Australia. Her body was struggling to get up from the floored position, and Michael took the opportunity to try and make his escape, leaping past her as quickly as possible. But she grabbed at his ankle as he went by, causing him to sprawl across the floor.

His heart rate went through the roof, his brain flooded with panic, his whole body tingled with the electricity of adrenaline. His only thought now was of survival; of making sure that whatever the creature was that inhabited the dead body of the kindly old lady that had once lived in the house he was currently trying to flee, didn't catch up with him. Didn't attack him and maim him. Or kill him, like the woman she now inhabited had already been killed. She grabbed him with a fierce, strong grasp.

He cried out, more from the shock and horror than any actual pain. She wasn't able to move him far and was merely pulling his body to her with all the strength of the very weak old lady Michael had once known. It was an awkward position though and Michael knew it was going to be difficult for him to fight her off.

"Let me go!"

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His legs flailed about wildly, and she was holding him tightly by one foot, but he rolled over so he was on his back and could pull himself away, and then he did something that he would usually have thought horrifying; he curled his free leg upwards, and with as much force as possible, he brought it crashing down upon the side of the woman's head.

He could almost feel the crunching of the skull beneath the sole of his boot as the heel connected. His stomach lurched in revulsion as his eyes were filled with the sight of her dead, decaying flesh.

Michael cried out as his stomach twisted in revulsion at the sight, his captured foot slipping from the corpse's grasp.

It was pushed backwards, yet was otherwise undeterred, the left arm reaching for Michael's legs once again. Michael kicked at her again as he got to his feet. It took all his effort, but Michael was finally able to crawl backward to his feet, sprinting towards the living room. He didn't want to stop to think, but he needed to, in order to get away. His heart raced, but he knew what to do next.

The back door. He could get through there and run. He ran, grabbing a vase as he passed by the small cabinet by the door to the room and threw it with all his might at the advancing dead woman.

The glass vase broke upon the thing, not really bothering her much but enough that she stumbled, which gave him an opportunity.

He made his way quickly to the back door, happily abandoning all the supplies and his backpack for the opportunity to escape. But then, as he reached the door, it hit him; it was locked.

And, looking back at the zombie-like corpse, it had now gotten up again, making it's way slowly toward Michael once again, its arms stretched out, the horrible black-eyed stare focused directly at Michael himself.

He felt as though it had targeted him specifically and he knew that his life depended upon him escaping.

In front of Michael, Mrs. O'Brien, the kindly old woman, was walking towards him with an outstretched hand. It wasn't her though; not really. Something else inhabited the body of this corpse. Some monster that he couldn't comprehend. His hand searched for something to defend himself with.

"Shit, shit, shit!" he exclaimed, reaching into his back pocket, trying to find the key.

The zombie corpse continued its advance on Michael, a low, growling moan escaping from her throat, her eyes focused on him, and Michael knew that if it came close enough it would attack him again.

The key wasn't in his pocket.

Frantically, his hand searched for the key. He tried his front pockets and side pockets as well, but no use; the key must have fallen out during his earlier scuffle with the dead woman.

Panic set in as Michael searched desperately, the creature now just five or so feet away. It seemed like a moment of absolute panic; one that felt like a life and death situation.

His fingers, slick with the sweat that now covered his whole body in the rush of adrenaline that had kicked in at the attack, tried once again in vain to pull the door knob open. He pushed it, and then realised that it wasn't going to move.

His hand went back in his front pockets and felt for anything that could help him, but there was nothing but the inside of the pockets.

His body pushed at the door again, but still, it wouldn't open. The dead creature that had once been the sweet and kind old woman was drawing even closer. It was a scene from a nightmare. A scene of panic and fear, of horror. It felt as though his heart were going to beat straight through his chest and he could hear his breathing getting shorter. The key wasn't anywhere, and the creature that had inhabited Mrs. O'Brien was only feet away. In fact, her arms reached for him, ready to grasp and take hold. Michael didn't know what was going to happen if the thing caught hold of him. But he wasn't going to go down without a fight.

He decided to strike first, throwing a wild haymaker at her face.

It wasn't enough. He had thrown a wild haymaker, but he'd thrown it in a way that the punch would only glance the zombie, not really hitting it. He tried again, but this time, she was able to block it, grabbing hold of him with a force that was too much for him.

His wrists were stuck in her grip, and she seemed much stronger than she had even a few minutes ago on the floor. She had a grip that he couldn't get free of, no matter how much strength he used.

She pushed herself closer to him, and Michael tried to pull away. But it wasn't going to be easy; she had a grip on him, and was pulling herself close, closer than he wanted. Her face, just inches from his own.

Her teeth snapped, like an alligator, as she pulled Michael towards her mouth, trying to take a bite out of him. He could feel her teeth scrape the flesh on his cheek and he recoiled. In trying to avoid her, Michael tripped backwards, ending up on the floor with the reanimated corpse on top of him.

And in that moment, he thought he was done. He'd managed to survive the apocalypse for merely days only to end up dead on his back with the body of the dead Mrs. O'Brien on top of him.

The idea of death wasn't a new one; it had been on his mind since his parents had been abducted or taken, and his dreams and visions had been filled with horrific things, but the idea that this was the moment that he'd actually die filled him with a sense of fear.

He could hear the sounds of Mrs. O'Brien's teeth as she bit down close to his shoulder, almost breaking the skin. She then took a second bite and a third. She was narrowly missing him as he squirmed.

"Fuck!"

It wasn't over, and as Michael felt himself get ever closer to being bitten again and again, the terror was growing inside him. His heart rate was rising and the feeling of his blood pumping was like the sound of thunder in his ears. His eyes saw everything as a blur; the living room, the hallway and the stairs, all blending together. His mind was in chaos; the pain in his shoulder was getting more intense. The zombie that was on top of him kept taking chunks of his shoulder, chewing on them.

In the middle of it all, though, something else began to happen in his mind. In fact, it felt like there were a dozen other thoughts happening all at once, all in his head. Different voices called to him from the black haze that had taken over his vision.

One of the voices told him to push her away.

The voice sounded like a male's, but not like anyone Michael knew.

The next voice said that he had the strength and the courage to fight the undead woman, and he could beat her, if only he tried. It sounded more female.

And the next, and then the next; and each of them said something similar. All these thoughts seemed to come at once, but it was a matter of moments in the midst of an intense, horrifying fear as the dead old woman chomped at him over and over again. And in his pain, and terror, he saw, he heard, and he felt, as the thoughts came to him.

Michael saw a hand appear above the undead thing that was attacking him. A large, black, ethereal hand, made from a smoke that moved with intention. The smoke seemed to flow around his head and body. He felt the force as if it was his own.

And the ethereal hand seemed to push at the dead creature that had attacked him. The woman, the zombie, was lifted up and off Michael. Michael couldn't believe it; it seemed that the voice, and then the hand that he'd imagined were real; and, as the smoke around the hand faded away, he could see it had lifted Mrs. O'Brien up, up and up into the air and over Michael himself, before throwing her away with some force, into the living room, against a far wall. Her frail, dead body crumpled like a bag of, well, bones.

Michael scrambled to his feet as soon as he had realised that he wasn't being attacked any more.

He looked in awe as he watched the dead thing, which was once a sweet, old woman who he had known all his life, lay there, now broken.

He could hardly breathe; he couldn't believe it, but it was all he could see and think about at that moment.

A sense of fear, but also a strange sense of victory and relief washed over Michael. A sense that he was the victor in a fight with a foe who had intended him harm, probably death, and who had lost the fight.

It took Michael several long seconds to calm down. And in the silence of that moment, Michael took stock, realising that the house had fallen completely silent, save for the sound of his own breathing, still heavy from the exertion.

He had no idea what had happened, what the voices in his head were, nor the black hand that had helped him when he needed it. As he gathered all the useful items he'd scavenge earlier from the house, he whistled, hummed and did anything he could to try and clear his mind of the thoughts of the dead woman and what had just transpired. But no matter what, his thoughts were dark and filled with despair.