Instead of checking at the end of the aisle to make sure the coast was clear, in my hurry I bumbled into a slick wet spot. Losing my footing, I fell hard onto my left knee but managed to keep somewhat erect. I was not looking where I was going when I stumbled headfirst into a dead thing, who grabbed me with vise-like hands. I was amazed this one was still mostly intact. One of his eyes hung like a shrunken grape onto what was left of his cheek, and he howled in my face. His breath was worse than the putrid odor of the long-rotted food. In the glare of my flashlight, I could see specks of dried blood on his face, evidence of his last meal. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered who his victim could have been.

Fortunately, I still held my backpack in front of me. I managed to bring it up just enough to protect my face and neck as the dead thing tried to take a bite. Scared spitless, my next action was purely instinctive. I shoved at the dead thing, using my whole body to push against it. The thing tottered, unable to keep its balance, but it wouldn’t let go of my arms. I shoved it backwards into the shelves and managed to hit its arms with my flashlight. One wrist made a crunching sound, but the thing held on.

My biggest fear was not that I couldn’t get away from this thing, but that others might show up before I could escape, and their sheer numbers would bring about my demise as they slowly devoured me alive. That knowledge alone gave me the strength to drop to the floor and wrench both my arms and my backpack from its grip. The dead thing swayed forward. But because its nerves and responses were as dead as it was, it was unable to stop itself from falling. With me directly in front of it, the dead thing tumbled headfirst like an acrobat, up, over and behind me. It finally released its grip. I heard a hollow, squishy sound as it landed, but I wasn’t about to turn around and look. I hightailed it out of there as fast as I could.

My survival instinct was in high gear, carrying me a good mile down the road before I had to stop and catch my breath. Stupid, stupid. I knew better than go roaming inside a dark store without taking more caution. The dead things don’t need flashlights. I had been somewhat fortunate that the foulness of the place masked my presence there. No telling how many more of those things had been in there. It was probably just by accident that the thing found me. Or rather, ran into me. But it was sheer luck I was able to break free. I’ve seen grown men unable to break from the clutches of a dead thing.

Now, as I sit in this cold little room above a roadside gas station, and eat my chocolate pudding, there’s the faint odor of purulence from the store emanating off the spoon. Or maybe it’s just my imagination. I just know it’s going to be a long time before I ever eat a grape again.