I wake up with an itch on my head. I raise my hand to scratch it.

No. I raise. I raise... I raise my --

God damn it, what is –

My hands are tied behind my back.

I look around. I'm in an empty warehouse. Boxes scattered around make a sort of meter-high maze across a hay covered floor.

I try setting myself free again. Nothing. By my side, Levon wakes up in a sudden movement.

"-- finish him!"

He looks around like the idiot that he is, eyes wide.

"Over here, idiot."

"Eve! What's going on? Did you do this?"

 I blink. "Yes, Levon. I tied you up. Then I tied myself up. I'm really into doing some fifty shades of zombie with your dumb ass."

 "What?"

I try breaking free from the ropes again.

Hey! Remember when I was just hungry? As opposed to hurt, tied to a chair in the middle of Roadside, Anywhere with a random kid? And hungry?

There's really no such thing as a free meal.

This damn knot is sealed shut worse than a nuns –

"Looks like Lassie's up."

By the large front entrance, the bearded man slow steps inside the warehouse, making his way across the strips of sunlight on the hay towards us. On the chair by my side, Levon shivers.

The man stops between the two of us, eyes on Levon.

"So..." he starts, with a smile, "what's the deal with zombiechick here? Old girlfriend?"

"Ew..." I whisper.

Levon doesn't answer. With a confident step, bearded man crouches to his eye level. Coming from the front door, his two bouncers make their way towards us.

"Where do you live?"

Again, Levon is silent. He turns his face away like the man has bad breath, which he probably does.

Bearded Man drags Levon's gaze back to him with a pull of his hair. "Are you with doctors? Do you have food?"

"It's cool, Levon," I say. "These guys are after food and supplies, that's all. They're looters. As long as you don't piss them off, they won't –"

"Fuck you," Levon says, spitting on the floor next to the man.

Alrighty then... Look who's decided to go all macho.

The two men behind laugh, and bearded man slams his fist against Levon's face.

"Ok," he says, rubbing his knuckles. "So... what? This is just your regular zombie? Regular, day-to-day, flesh-eating, grunting, foul smelling walking dead?"

Levon raises his eyes, his nose dripping in blood in that way that makes you look cool if you're already attractive, but like a dork with chronic nose bleed if you're not.

"It's just a zombie," Levon says. He looks like a dork.

"Why are you keeping it captive?"

Levon doesn't answer.

"Well," Bearded Man says, turning to me. He pulls the .38 and raises it to my forehead. "If it's just a zombie, I guess I can –"

"DON'T!"

Bearded lowers the pistol. Smiles.

Oh, Levon, you have the spine of a slug orgy.

"Well..." the man restarts, turning back to Levon, "are you going to tell me where you were taking the zombie? Or should I get my boss?"

He gets closer again, and I see Levon's eyes going from the man's face to his waist, where a second gun is tucked between pants and skin.

"Where's your colony?" the man asks. "You people working on a cure?"

"I'm going to New York," Levon says. "I'm not with any colony. I don't have any –"

"I say we kill the zombie and take the boy's car and food," one of the men suggests.

"No," bearded man answers, eyes still on Levon. "We don't do anything until the boss talks to him."

These guys are pirates. I've met groups like them, once of twice. Living people who prey on other living people – scavengers and thieves. They don't usually dwell in the cities, but out on the highways, where zombies are rarer...

That log on the road was no accident.

Behind his back, I see Levon has managed to free his hands from the rope.

"No. Don't do it, Levon. They are three men with guns and we one Mortal Kombat ex-champion and a grumpy zombie. Don't go for that gun."

"What's she grunting about?"

"I don't speak zombie." Levon's eyes go down to the gun again.

"I'm grunting for you to don't do what you're about to do, Levon!"

Levon takes a deep breath. Bites his lips.

Don't do it, don't do it, don't do –

Crap. He's doing it.

Levon jumps for the gun, which has two effects:

First, he doesn't really get up from the chair, seeing as his ass is still tied to it, only his hands are free. He just stands, seat still glued to his body as he makes his not-very- heroic charge for the gun.

Second, he does get the gun, but he also falls down face first on the floor, the chair legs pointing to the sky from his ass like he's some sort of man-metal machine. And now I have to act, because Bearded Man is drawing his gun on Levon.

My own chair still tied to my body, I get up and swing. The metal leg bumps hard against the man's hand. He drops his pistol.

And now his friends are drawing their own guns at us.

I recoil, turning my face away as man number two points the gun my way. I hear the shot.

Am I dead? Is this it? That's really not so –

And another shot. And another.

I open my eyes. Levon – the dorky thing – is firing the gun like crazy from the ground. Got one dude in the arm, the other on the leg.

You go, Clint Dumbwood! You shoot those –

I feel a hand grabbing me by the throat.

"Drop the gun or the girlfriend dies."

Uh-oh.

Bearden Man's got me in an arm lock, the barrel of his gun rubbing hard against my temple.

"She's not my girlfriend," Levon grunts, from the floor.

"Yeah, cause that's the part to focus on, here, Levon!"

"Tell her to stop grunting!"

"You drop the gun!"

I hear the pistol cocking. The man presses harder against my head. "You wanna play chicken, boy?"

 Levon hesitates for a second, his gun waving dangerously as he attempts to keep the aim on the man's face.

"You'll lose, I guarantee you."

Levon sighs. He drops the pistol. Bearded Man kicks it away.

From the ground, Wounder Bouncer is all anger. "He shot me in the leg, kill him!"

"No one's killing anybody." Bearded Man pushes down on my shoulder hard. My chair (still glued to my ass, mind you) bangs against the floor and I'm seated again. "You don't move, zombie bitch, hear me?"

He goes for Levon, pulling him up by the collar and slamming his body back to seating position like me. Goes behind his back and ties Levon again, extra-tight this time, by the look on Levon's face.

"You," Bearded Man says, waving at his friend with the arm-wound, "Go get the first aid kit. And the boss. Time to make this kid talk."

"What about the zombie?" Bloody-Leg-Still-On-The-Floor asks.

Bearded man's eyes stop on me. "We'll kill her."