Victor wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the back of his left hand and fired, half blind, down the hall with his right. His wrist continued to throb from the unfamiliar kick of the .45. The hazy silhouette shuddered from the impact, but continued forward unabated. Several more rounded the corner behind the first, and as one they shambled towards him. He pulled the trigger again. Nothing. Out of ammo.

            He tried the closest door. Locked, of course. He kicked it once. The door shuddered but remained standing. He listened for scuffling from within, and when he heard none, he kicked the door again, and again.

            Victor was no S.W.A.T., but he was strong enough, and on the fourth kick the door splintered and swung open. He bolted inside and shut the door behind him, only to watch it swing open again. Of course: He’d just kicked it in, it was broken, it wasn’t going to shut again. Stupid. He looked around. The closest piece of furniture was a cheap motel chair, the cushion probably covered in more semen than – well, it was better than being eaten by zombies. He grabbed the chair and dragged it in front of the door. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it would buy him a moment to reload.

            He slung his backpack off his back and unzipped it, sifting for more ammo. Clint had given him a couple spare clips, they were floating around in there somewhere, along with the granola bars and extra batteries. He found one and pulled it out, but his hands were shaking so badly he dropped it on the floor, and it bounced and slid under the TV stand.

            He tried to reach under the TV but he couldn’t quite grab the clip, he couldn’t reach it, he was going to die, he was going to die, he was going to –

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            Stop. Is this happening? He looked at his hand, his right hand. Am I dreaming? This was how he’d coped, ever since he was a kid, with a world that never seemed real. By asking himself if it was a dream. His parents divorced, he looked at his hand to determine whether it was a dream or real. His best friend died in a car accident, drunk driver, and when the phone call came he hung up and stared for ten minutes, his eyes asking his hand whether it was real, asking for it to be a dream. It wasn’t. It never was. He tended not to dream much.

            He traced the lines of his palm with his eyes, weaving back and forth along the swooping creases that made this hand a hand like no other. It shook violently, this hand, the soft hand of an office worker, of an inside-person, the hand of a person that did not fire guns at zombies and that did not survive the end of the world for any meaningful amount of time. This had to be a dream. Half a dozen undead cannibals were clambering down the halls of whatever cheap hotel – he’d already forgotten the name – and Lauren and Clint were trapped somewhere else in the same hotel; and it was 105 degrees in February in Spokane; and he stared at his hand, eyes furrowed because there must be a clue hidden somewhere in the secret patterns of its flesh. This didn’t feel like a dream, but it had to be. Didn’t it?

            Where were you yesterday? Where were you an hour ago? He closed his eyes and tried to remember.