I stood up in the wheat field, the grass swaying side to side in the wind, and saw a familiar figure in the distance. "Jimmy?" I asked. He was a five foot something red-haired and freckled kid with somewhat crooked teeth and glasses. He had gone missing recently, and I was sent off, like the rest of the kids, to check and see if we could find him. He'd had some sort of confrontation with his brother, and stormed out of the house. That was the last anyone had seen of him. Now, I could make out his figure in the distance. Something was a little.. off with the way he was standing, though, and even from behind I could tell that his glasses were off kilter. "Hey Jimmy, are you okay? Everyone's been so upset!" I raced over towards him. He was standing near a tall oak tree, slumped a little. Maybe he'd gotten hurt. I got nearer to him, and he turned suddenly. "Yah!" I squeaked, surprised and horrified at his face. Or rather, the lack thereof. Most of Jimmy's face looked like it had been bitten off! There were huge gouges of flesh out of his cheek, and his molars were visible through a tear on the right cheek. One of his eyes was missing, and half of the other was dangling on his cheek. His glasses were smashed completely and crushed into his nose. Then the memory hit me; the one of my grandmother, saying the thing that horrified me as a child, when one of our drunken family members started going on about the zombies.

"They always go for the eyes," she said in a matter-of-fact voice. The room went cold and silent, then, because she had known what it was like to have to run from them, and to lose loved ones to them. Most people thought they didn't exist, and some denied that the zombie apocalypse had happened. The real story was that scientists had worked out a vaccine and it had pretty much taken the pandemic out overnight. Most kids had to take them to go to school. Life returned to normal, and zombies were slowly forgotten. Some people, like Jimmy's mother, were so sure that the vaccines were harmful that she advocated against them and wouldn't let him near a vaccine. And because of that choice, I was pretty sure Jimmy was a zombie.

Suddenly, Jimmy lurched. I screamed and reared back, but was hit by his dive and knocked to the ground. "HELP!" I yelled, squirming. Jimmy caught hold of my leg and bit into my jeans hard. "ZOMBIE! HELP! I NEED MHPHMHM HE-AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The pain in my leg was unbearable. He was beginning to tear into the fabric, and was nearly into my skin, when I heard a loud POP and a wet thwacking noise. Jimmy's head exploded into a fine mist. "Aghhhhuhghhh!" Was all I managed to get out of my mouth. My jeans still had a couple of teeth in them, and Jimmy's lifeless body was pouring blood from the neck all over my legs. I quickly tried to get up, but the pain in the leg he had bitten was too much for me to be able to stand; I stumbled over, and was caught by a hand. "You okay, friend?" I looked up. A tall man, grey bearded with a cheerful smile and a rifle in one hand, looked back. He was also in some type of uniform, but I couldn't recognize its affiliation. "Yes.. thank you.. how did you-?" "Let's just say I kill zombies for a living," the man cut me off. "No.. there aren't enough of those in the world for you to do that! I haven't seen one before today!" "No, that isn't true either. We just do a good job." I stood there, stunned. "Now... do you know that kid? Because I need to find his house. His parents might want to know they and his siblings, if he has any, are at risk of infection. Have you been vaccinated? That bite on your leg looks bad." "Y-yes," I stammered. Jimmy's mom was going to be pissed.