Hammer – The End ofa Legend by Kevan Chandler

The hammer lay heavy in his grip, heavier than it had been thirty seconds earlier. Now blood dripped from its end and the gravities of life and death pulled it downward. He loosened his fingers on the tool and it thumped fast onto the carpet floor, the wooden handle bouncing to rest. Out of bullets, but at least he knew now that he could survive without them, even if he felt closer to Hell with any other weapon. His gaze swayed between the hammer and the corpse at his feet. Dead people try to eat us, so we kill them. Then comes the great war within ourselves in which reason tries to balance the scales of whether or not we are in fact murderers. This girl, for example. She was already dead, and had been for a long time before he came along and she started moving again. But a body, freshly dead or long gone, falls the same every time. He allowed himself a moment (it was all he could spare) to wonder when his time would come – when he would finally fall, and if there was anyone else left out there to wonder the same thing.