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Lassie, don't come home.

The scratching woke me even through the furniture barricading the door. Alone in the house, only I had made it back to our cottage in the hills. They’d killed everyone else as we’d fled the city. No-one had taken the reports of zombies seriously till flight had been the only option. That had been two weeks ago and I was the only member of my family left.

The scratching grew louder, and a pitiful whine came through the thick oak panels. Sebastian! My dog, he’d followed me here, a hundred miles! The last time I saw him was with his teeth fixed in the rotting arm of a zombie as it flailed him around like a rag doll, giving me and my sister a few extra precious seconds to escape.

I threw myself at the barricade, tearing it down, screaming “Good boy,” and, “I’m coming.” Opening the door, I found my Sebastian behind it, but as I looked down, I began to cry. His fur, once shiny, was hanging in tufts from exposed flesh, matted with gore. He looked up at me, green ichor dripping from broken fangs, and leapt.

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