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exactly what happened: I bumped into the zombie.
    It wrapped its arms around my legs and bit into my thigh. I involuntarily cried out in pain, causing my knife to fall to the floor, and kicked back at him. My foot pressed against his chest and I used it to push off, sending the zombie stumbling backward and me swinging in a spinning motion toward the dogs. I flailed my legs out, hoping to collide with the stout dog if it dared to leap, and struggled to pull myself up the slick rope. I collided with the splintered railing that still hung down from the ceiling and was finally able to get a foothold on one of the rope's lower knots.
    I gripped the floorboards above with one hand and used the other to securely hold onto the r ope as I pulled myself up. The pug yipped at me as I struggled to safety, finally getting my torso over the hole and swinging my legs up after. The puppy crawled over to me on its belly, as if doing its best to be as submissive as possible, and licked at my nose when it got close enough.
    "Stop that, you stubby little bastard."
    I had to push the dog away as it continued to lick at me. The little thing seemed fully aware of the sacrifice I nearly made to save its life.
    I sat up and pulled my camouflage pants down to inspect the zombie bite. It was small, thankfully, but I knew well enough to get alcohol on it before any infection set in. Zombies had a bad habit of carrying a shocking number of pathogens in their mouths. They were fetid, walking Petri dishes of disease. I was immune to the virus that turned humans into zombies, a side effect of an experiment when I was thirteen, but zombie bites could still be lethal if not cared for properly.
    I went back to the bedroom where I kept my things and the pug limped along behind me, each step followed by a pathetic whine. I turned to it and then pointed at my thigh, "I know how you feel." He looked at me with his saucer-wide eyes and tilted his head to the side as if he was confused by what I said. I pointed at my wound again. "I said I know how you feel. I got hurt too."
    He yipped as if offering the best answer he could, and I knelt down to scoop him up. He was the fattest dog I'd seen since the apocalypse and weighed at least six pounds despite his small size. His skin molded around my grip as if he had far more of it than he needed and he let his legs droop relaxed under him. He looked up at me and started panting. I swear that dog looked like he was smiling.
    "I've got no use for a pet, especially not one with stubby ass little legs like yours." I spun him to examine the wound on his left hind leg. There were three gashes in it that had torn away a large chunk of flesh. He looked back at it and then glanced at me. I put my finger on his thigh to pull the skin back to get a better look at the damage. I expected him to growl, or bite me for daring to touch his wound, but he just watched calmly and whined when I pulled too hard.
    "Come on, Stubs, let's get you patched up." And that's how he got his name. His stubby nose, stubby legs, and wounded back leg earned him a nickname that would last the rest of his life.
    I set Stubs on the end of my bedroll as I pulled my gear out of the corner. My backpack was precisely organized, each available square-inch packed with the exact gear I needed to survive. I traveled too much to waste energy on unnecessary gear, which I reminded myself of as I looked down at the wounded puppy on my bed. The last thing I needed to add to my list of things to haul around was another mouth to feed.
    There was a brown glass bottle in my bag that had been used to hold hydrogen peroxide in a previous life. Now it served as an all-purpose grain alcohol holder for me. It had a strong cap with a tight seal, which was the main requirement for any liquid container to a survivor. I had traded a few pelts for a gallon of moonshine with a band of Greens I'd met on the road a month prior and every drop of it had been used to either clean wounds or