The zombies were almost into the living room and it was only a matter of time before they would break through our shoddy barricade at the kitchen doorway.

“Matt, I just want you to know…” The fingers on my left hand trembled as I loaded the explosive rounds into my shotgun. “…That I value our friendship, and you were a great roommate.” I snapped it shut. The moaning grew louder behind our paper-thin walls.

“They’re in the living room now,” Matt said as he wiped away sweat from his brow. “And thanks, man. I feel the same.” He picked up our two largest kitchen knives and began sharpening them against one another.

“There are more of them now.”

“I can hear them pouring in through the garage. We’re dead.”

“So are they.”

Matt stopped sharpening his knives and looked over at me. We stared at each other in silence for a few seconds. And then long, hard, exhausting, nervous laughter.

“I’m gonna miss you man,” I said, catching my breath.

“You too, bro. You too.”

A decrepit, decaying hand burst through the kitchen door. The fridge we had pushed against the entryway was beginning to slowly inch our way. Matt stepped forward and chopped off the corpse’s hand with a full-body swipe of his knife. With unnerving grace, it landed on its finger tips and began to crawl in my direction. I promptly exploded it.

The incoherent mumblings had become a deafening chorus. The door and walls were trembling under the weight of dozens of hammering reanimated hands and feet. The fridge had by now moved some distance, and zombies’ arms and legs were forcing their way through the steadily opening door. I pumped the shotgun. Empty shells clanged atop the rustic tile floor. The knife in Matt’s left hand dripped a small pool of zombie blood beside him. We stood ready.

A large explosion threw us both to the ground. I looked over my shoulder to a large opening where our kitchen wall had been blown away. Military tanks were roaming the streets, mowing down zombies and lighting them aflame with mounted blowtorches. A team of dust-covered soldiers was standing outside our apartment.

“Come with us!” the soldier in the front shouted. “We’ll take you to a guarded shelter!”

I looked past him at a flaming zombie shambling towards his unit. Two of the men turned and opened fire. The undead man’s arms and legs fell away amidst a barrage of bullets. Now limbless, it persisted in its attempt, so one of the men calmly walked over and fired a round at its head point blank. Brain matter painted the soldier’s pants.

After gathering my bearings, I hastily started grabbing the first things that came to mind - water, food, ammunition - and threw it all into my backpack. I zipped it up and ran over to the soldiers. Looking back, I found Matt on his knees in the kitchen, forcefully trying to lodge my George Foreman Grill into his satchel. I threw my backpack to the ground and ran over to him.

“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled, cupping my hands around my mouth to create a rudimentary megaphone. The thundering of circling helicopters was near-deafening.

“Taking my George Foreman Grill with me to the shelter!” he screamed back at me as he finally managed to jam the grill in amongst the rest of his supplies.

“It’s my grill!”

“What?” He stood up and threw the bag over his shoulder.

“IT’S MY GRILL!”

“No it’s not, it’s mine!” He moved to walk past me, but I placed my hand firmly on his chest.

“Give it to me, Matt.”

“You don’t have any more room in your backpack for my grill, Mike.”

“It’s my grill. And yes I do have room. I’ll carry it in my hands.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not yours, and I’m not giving it to you.”

“I wrote my initials in Sharpie on the back of it. Check.”

“I am not going to check the damn grill. There are ravenous zombies on the other side of that fridge, and the soldiers are not going to wait here for you to grow up.” He pushed my hand away and began walking towards the supply truck that was quickly filling up with neighbors. I ran back in front of him and shoved him to the ground.

“Give me my goddamn grill, you son of a bitch.” My eyes narrowed.

He looked up at me for a few moments with an almost dazed expression. Throwing his bag off his shoulder, he pulled out the George Foreman Grill and threw it at me. It hit my chest with a hard thud and fell to the ground. I picked it up, turned it over and pointed at the underside.

“See? M C.” I declared as he hoisted himself up and dusted off his jeans. “Thank you very much.”

Matt glared at me for a few moments before turning to walk to the truck. He threw his bag into the back, and some fellow survivors pulled him up and in. Soldiers began to pile into the vehicle’s front cab.

I tucked the grill under my arm and ran back through the opening in our kitchen wall. Opening the door to the highest cupboard, I placed the George Foreman Grill atop the highest shelf and closed the cupboard door behind it. After fighting off a few probing zombie arms I ran back out, got my backpack and climbed into the back of the truck right before a soldier closed the gate. The truck lurched forward with a jolt and threw us all off balance, but we began putting some distance between us and the zombified masses.

Matt and I sat staring at each other for a few minutes on either side of the large truckbed.

“So where’s your precious grill?” Matt asked, his words dripping with venom.

“I left it in one of the cupboards.”

“You what?”

“Don’t worry - I put it on the top shelf of the highest cupboard. I think it should be safe from the hordes there.”

“You didn’t bring it with you.” Matt’s voice was monotone.

“No, why?”

“You made that big stink over a stupid George Foreman Grill that you didn’t even bring?”

“I didn’t want to bring it.”

“Then why did you insist on taking it from me?”

“Because it’s my property, Matt. You should have asked me before you decided to take it. Actually, if you had asked I probably would have gladly let you borrow it. But it’s my grill and I’m in charge of it and I want it in the cupboard for when I get back.”

“For when you…” He stopped for a moment and his mouth hung half open. His eyes narrowed into slits. “The whole city…no the whole state, is overrun by the walking dead. We are in the middle of a nationwide zombie pandemic.” He paused again, grit his teeth, and said in his best casual tone, “But you just want your George Foreman Grill waiting for you so you can cook up some nice Ballpark Franks when you return to what’s left of our decimated apartment in, oh, five or so years?”

“Yeah.” I let a small grin creep across my face.

“You’re a sad, sad son of a bitch.” Matt shook his head. “You’re a goddamn bastard.” He grabbed his bag and turned his back to me.

A few minutes passed. I crawled around several other passengers, getting within a few feet of where Matt was seated. I leaned in behind him.

“Matt,” I said in a low, almost whisper.

He continued looking straight ahead.

“I promise you can use the George Foreman Grill when we get back.”