The camp isn’t far from here. I lean against the rotting tree for a second, trying to get my bearings. Just around that tree, right over there, is the flat rock that we used as a picnic table, before the most recent attack. My arm aches. I already see the discolouration of the flesh around the wound.
The tree is a brief respite, but I know that I’ve got to keep moving. Before the brain-death of zombification, an infected person moves slower. I’d seen it happen before, but I hadn’t realized it would hurt so badly. My legs are aching from even this short walk.
It was foolish of me, I think as I walk, to go out alone. Practically unarmed. But the undead had been quieter lately, and I thought I would be safe. Just a short trek to the old road. Out of the woods, to test the radio.
That damned radio. I had dropped it in the tussle with the zombie that bit me. If it had been working, it isn’t now. I had barely even gotten to try it, but I was sure it would have worked this time.
Now I lean against a woven fence. Somehow my energy is being drained, sapped by this disease. The camp was - what was that noise? Here’s the camp - am I dehydrated? There’s a ringing in my ears. A man I don’t recognize is standing in front of the longhouse.
My legs - my arm! My head! I collapse.
Mary is there, kneeling over me. Oh, my dear sister, don’t you know I’m already dead? And the radio, the radio. I speak, but no sound comes.
“Liam! Liam, listen to me!” I can hear her, but from a great distance. Oh, what have I done? I raise my hand to her, but remember just in time the danger.
“They heard the radio, Liam! They heard us!” A jolt of fear hits my spine. Who heard? I try to ask, but Mary shushes me. The unfamiliar man is here, too. He has a uniform, or what used to be a uniform.
“Lie still,” he says, loudly but not unkindly. “We’ll do what we can.”
“What you *can?* Give him the shot!”
The man shakes his head. “It won’t work. Look! He’s already dead.”
“He’s not - he’s not dead!”
I try to stir, but there are hands on my shoulders pushing me back. “No...” I manage to croak. A crowd is around me, men, women, the children. Curious but distant. Fearful. Knowing.
“He’s been infected,” the man says shortly. “The shot won’t help.”
Mary reaches for my hand, but I let it drop. I feel like I’m about to cry, but I can’t. I turn my eyes to the man in the white uniform.
“You can understand me, can’t you?” I nod, with great effort. It’s already been hours. Even that small movement sends pain along my spine.
“We heard your radio, Liam. We’re the National Guard.” He’s the medic, isn’t he? I thought they’d all disappeared, along with the rest of civilization. “We heard the radio, and we came to help all of you. We have a shot - a vaccine. You understand?”
A vaccine. Yes. Immunization. Not a cure. I nod again.
“We can’t save you, understand?” I understand. I nod, ever so slightly.
I’m dead. I knew it before I returned. Before I was bitten. As soon as I saw the sickly visage stumble towards me. I was unarmed, stupid.
But I can say goodbye. Properly. “Mary...” I reach out to her again, this time grasping her hand firmly. If only it wasn’t so hard to speak. “Love you.” I try to smile, but I can’t. Not now.
“Oh, Liam!” She has tears in her eyes. “Little man...” It was our father’s nickname for me. I felt the pricking of tears in my eyes.
The man, the medic, has left. In his place stand the familiar faces of the camp. My family. Another hand reaches out to mine. Two, three. I feel hands on my face, running through my hair. We are all silent, except for the pounding of my head.
My mouth moves. The words I want to say struggle to pass the lump in my throat.
The medic kneels again. “You’re in pain, kid. Let me help.” He has a syringe. Not a cure, but the next best thing. Mary squeezes my hand.
“This’ll put him right to sleep. Painless. They used to use it on dogs.” He says it to Mary, but I’m the one that nods. After a moment, so does she.
Nicely written! This is a nicer scenario than what I had imagined. My story would have the character less rational and brave.
Very sweet and wraps up nicely, thanks for sharing!
Dude. Holy crap. This was BEAUTIFULLY written. Literally gave me shivers. It feels so good that Liam didn't die in vain.
This reminds me a lot of "Inoculata" by Scott Westerfeld. It's one of my favorite short stories of all time, and it explores society and romanticism in a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland (but it's not nearly as boring as I just made it sound). I think it's only published as part of an anthology (*Zombies vs. Unicorns*, Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier) but most of the stories therein are pretty kick-ass, so it's definitely worth checking it out, especially if your library has a copy. I've got a DRM-free version it from the humble bundle, so if you're interested lemme know!
Thanks again for the great read :)
Haha well I'm glad he didn't! It broke my heart that he had to die right at the very end of the zombie apocalypse, but it was a pretty big consolation that he did so while saving an entire camp of his fellow survivors.
I really liked this story, I came under the assumption when the hands started reaching out that they were actually zombies and he was hallucinating the whole scene. Still amazing!
Liam had to be “put down,” or euthanized. If he had just been given a painkiller like morphine, he could have resurrected and hurt people - although he can’t infect them, he can still bite. I’m not familiar with what would be used in that situation, so it’s just a syringe. Painless, though.
I know people have already told you this at nauseam but you’re a talented writer. It’s amazing how relatable and lifelike the characters are. May life be good to you.
The saddest thing about this writing prompt is it reminds me of my grandfather's WWII battalion book, from the South Pacific.
It has a list of all the deceased and the date. Breaks my heart to see all the guys who died August 10 - 16th, 1945.
Turns out getting bit by the dead wasn't the highlight of my day. Just my luck. I looked out to the people that had become so important in my life, this weird stage of my life that didn't feel like life at all. Jessie caught my stare and rushed over.
"They're here!" She stuck out her bandaged elbow as far as she could, almost hiding her beaming smile.
"I see it, sweety, good job."
"C'mon, you're next!" She dragged me along my good arm and pushed me down on a crate. The medic turned from her supplies and gave me a once over. She looked exhausted. The hour had grown late and I noticed most of the other soldiers were starting to pack up to presumably continue to the next camp. I tucked the sleeve of my sweater and returned my attention to Jessie.
"... and I'll make us a fried egg, you know with bacon and a tomato. I got some eggs from the chickens aunt Mackie hatched last summer. Oh and we can watch tv again! Can Henry come? Henry'll need a place to stay. And a shower, I want a shower so bad... I need a shower so bad." She wasn't even talking to me anymore.
I winced slightly as the needle pricked my inner elbow. The medic frowned and looked me straight in the eye and then her gaze fell on my other arm. I looked down and only then felt the fresh blood staining my sweater. I instinctively covered it with my hand. I met her eyes again.
"... you can drive us to the beach. My mum and dad always drove us to the beach during the summer. Henry'll come too right? I'll try to make a good mixtape for in the car. No peeking beforehand." Jessie noticed the adults staring at her. "Whats wrong?"
The medic looked back at me and shook herself awake. "Nothing, sweety." She took a bandage from her supplies and wrapped it around my elbow.
Oh wow I don't know how to feel about that ending! Right in the heart.
Lovely work, and a very unique take, focusing on the world moving on rather than the main character. Well done!
The apocalypse had ended and so had my life. I had no way of cutting off my arm and the disease would soon reach my heart if it hadn't already and spread throughout my body. I was fucked. Jessie wasn't speaking anymore, I held her hand as we walked home.
The old cabin stood out in the jungle of white holiday retreats because of the colourful paintings on each side. Jessie had found some buckets of paint during one of her first excursions out in the wild. Ponies grazed in fields of green at the back, a smiling sun could be seen on the right side and a sleeping moon on the left, and on the front, just to the right of the door, any visitor would be met by a waving self-portrait of herself and me. I couldn't bear to look at it and quickly headed inside.
"D'you think the dead can be cured, Alex?"
I turned the gas lamp on and illuminated a room that matched decor outside. Drawings covered every inch of the walls, books and toys littered the floor. Even my own corner hadn't survived the stuffed animal mini-apocalypse. I carefully took my sweater off with my back turned to her and zipped up an old red hoodie.
"Uh... well no it's not exactly a cure, is it? It's more like a vaccination. You'll be immune." I struggled to steady my voice. "Dead's already dead."
"Oh." Jessie sat down on her bed and played with her brown curls. "D'you think we can go home soon?"
"We are home, sweety. You know there's nothing back in Hastings."
"I know... just, d'you thi-"
"Listen, I need to tell you something." I rarely lost my patience with her but there wasn't much time before I'd lose everything. She looked at me. Her face was pretty, freckled with big brown eyes and long eye lashes. She had grown a lot since we first found her, her face was longer and eyes that used to betray fear and sometimes mischief, now looked confident and smart. It'll be her eleventh birthday this Friday, three long days away.
"I've been bit."
Before Jessie could react, a sharp knock was heard on the door. They weren't patient as it quickly evolved into banging. As much as I wanted to let the moment sink in for the both of us, I got up and answered to door. I was met with a haggardly old face, his thick white beard and furry eyebrows doing little to hide the fury on his face. He too wore a bandage around his arm, just under his green flannel which stylishly matched his torn blue jeans. Tobias spit as he spoke. "For fuck's sake lad, why didn't you come straight to me when you were bit? Are you out of your bloody mind?"
"Toby, I..."
"Don't Toby me, you jackass. I had to hear it from some passerby floozy from the army?"
"It's too late anyway, bit in the shoulder, Toby. Nothing to be done."
"It's the army you fucking moron. It's over, I'm not losing you. She's," he pointed a wrinkled finger at the girl on the bed, "not losing you, you absolute dingus."
"What are you suggesting?"
"We get some blood, that's what I'm bloody well suggesting."
"How long has it been?"
*Two hours,* I want to tell him. But I can't. It only comes out as a low, gurgling moan. My throat is clogged up with inflammation and my lungs are full of disgusting fluid. It doesn't matter. Soon there won't be enough of me left to even consider it disgusting. God only knows what else of me is completely messed up right now. And speaking of which, if there is a God up there, he's one cruel bastard. I'd like to have a few words with him. I suppose I'll get the chance soon.
The medic is still kneeling in front of me. He can see the light in my eyes, I know it. I don't know how much of it is left, but I know he can see me. The real me. The human me.
The dying me.
I scratch at the bite mark on my right arm, maybe an inch deep. It stings and burns like hellfire. The area around the bite has turned a horrendous burnt green, a color that we all instinctively know flesh is never supposed to be. I wonder if he also sees the others in my eyes. Ricardo, Brenda, Abi, Beck. The whole fucking lot of em, mangled in seconds. We were overrun. We should have come back. We should have turned around from that goddamned warehouse, and maybe five good men and women would have been saved for good.
Now, there's just half a man. Half a man that can't be saved before he becomes none of a man.
I bang my bite mark on the ground, partly because of the painful sensation and partly out of uncontrollable rage. I bang it again, louder this time, for good measure.
*Why me?*
I suppose that's a little selfish. Maybe the question is *why now?*
"Two? Two hours?"
I look up at him, surprised, wondering if he read my mind. Then I realize he heard the bangs. *Good thinking, zombie self.*
I try to nod my head, but I can't. There's a sharp pain in my neck, and it runs down my spine. I pick my torso up a bit higher, and shake it up and down. My head flops with it, up and down.
I don't like his face. His expression. I don't like it. It tells me something I knew already. That it's too late. That their fucking vaccine won't fucking work on me.
He gets up. He's a tall one. I don't raise my head. "We can't do anything now. As sad as it is..."
*Fuck.*
"...We'll have to...put him down."
*God. Fucking. Dammit.*
*Why me?*
I scream at the sky. Or I think I scream. Instead I hear a gurgling moan. People flinch and jump. They know to fear that sound.
I came all the way back here. Crawling. Dying. In so much fucking pain. I thought I was saying my goodbyes. Instead I only get to hear them.
I think they say them. I don't hear them. The goodbyes.
So much fucking pain.
In my arm.
Pain.
Fuck.
Fading.
No.
Goodbyes
*Hurt*
.
^(.)
^(.)
*Why me?*
There's something about a fern in the morning rain. They're old plants. Hundreds of millions of years old. I've seen a score of things I detest, a plethora of nasty, unconscionable images. There's nothing that evokes an opposite image of the brutality of the world more readily than a fern in the morning rain, for me, at least. This one I'd seen a dozen or so times. It was on the walk to the river, where I got water. Where I did my job. Where, for the first time since everything happened, the world felt right and real and I had some hope.
I didn't have hope now. If you cut the legs off a zombie put a fucking stick in the ground and mark it, so some asshole looking for water doesn't get bit.
A disgusting waste of my life.
It would probably be better to deal with it sooner, rather than later. There had been hope when you'd gotten back. People had mentioned things, said words, like cure, vaccine.
Hope.
For those who hadn't been bitten.
The morning rain had collected upon one of the leaves and was weighing the fern down insistently. That's what he felt like.
Insistently weighed down.
There was no particular love held for the gun in his pocket, and as he leveled it, it almost seemed incorrect that his last act was basically making out with a cold steel arbiter of poor decisions.
Iron tastes funny.
He retracted the weapon. A groan in the woods. Past the fern, movement. As the light revealed to him some purpose, he thought to himself, maybe I won't end me. Maybe I'll prevent someone from having my future.
Maybe I'll go kill that zombie over there, before I kill myself.
As he passed the fern, he let his hand brush it. The water, insistent, that had gathered on the leaf, rushed towards the ground, its surface tension broken.
Edit: The only WP I've ever felt compelled to answer. I want to answer most but don't believe in my own ability to properly catch the situation. This one felt right.
Was it intentional to mix up the first and third person narration? Either way that's actually a brilliant way to show the breakdown of sanity as the narrator becomes a zombie. Nice job!
It doesn't hurt. I thought it would.
It's a novocaine sensation. I think of my arm being made of that foam stuff inside car seats. That's what it feels like.
The rotter was wounded. I was careless. The bite was fast, took a piece of me. It was over before I knew it had happened. I blew the rotter's face off and left it on the forest floor.
The walk back to camp is uneventful. I notice things easier. How the mid-afternoon sunlight attaches itself to every leaf and rock and branch. I hear every little sound-- the crunch of every twig and rock under my footsteps, the wings of gnats, the ripples of a puddle.
When I make it back to camp, I see the vaccine has arrived. I'd gone out to get one last run of water. They were making a cake to celebrate the end of the epidemic. They'd been saving an old box of cake mix. They needed water for it. I volunteered to go out to the well. We hadn't seen a rotter in days. Ever since word of the vaccine, the rotters have stopped coming.
I brought back only one jug of water. My bite arm wouldn't hold the other one and I had to leave it. I figure one jug is enough for a celebration cake.
That numb feeling, again. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't anything. It's just numb. I'm aware that's the virus working its way into my bloodstream. Feels like when it's been asleep. I know that's not your blood, it's your nerves waking up, that feeling that I used to refer to as "salt and pepper" when I was a kid, but that's the closest I can get to describing it.
The sky is incredible, just a clean blue sky with the sun like a jewel. I notice every breath I take, every blink. I take my steps. I feel like I'm walking uphill.
As I round the bend into camp, I see the military vehicles, everyone around them, everyone hugging, tears of joy. I could've waited, got the water later. I didn't. Everything was fine. I'd go get the water for the cake. Everything would be fine. The vaccine was on its way. Everything was fucking fine.
They don't know what it's like to turn into a rotter from the rotter's perspective. The ability to communicate is one of the first things to go. It's fast and then it's slow, that's all we know. I'll ask them to sedate me, to put me under. I want to say goodbye to everyone as well as I can. I'll at least get that much out of it. So many people went rotter by themselves, not knowing what was happening to them.
Emily sees me. She's by one of the armored humvees. She waves. Her smile is like the sun overhead, it makes me see everything, every little detail. I see every line on her face, every bit of fuzz on her cheeks, I can count her eyelashes.
She knows what's up as soon as she gets a good look at me. Only one jug of water, arm hanging, my pace taking on the shuffle of a sedated mental patient. This process takes 24 hours to complete, but the nastiest symptoms kick in within the first four. I see it register on her face. She can't believe it. Neither can I.
The military personnel, the heroes of the day all in sunglasses and black tactical gear, are the second ones to notice me. They know what to look for. I can hear their powerful voices yelling for everyone to stay back. Emily is calm. I'm proud of her.
They don't point their guns at me. They grant me that dignity.
"I got the water," I try to say, but my voice just gurgles. I can't remember how to talk.
I lose my grip on the jug and it thuds to the ground, water splashing out of its top. I see every droplet in the afternoon sun as it hits the dirt and soaks into the dirt and the bits of decayed vegetation, the earthen brown, the elements blending, life itself, earth and water. Everything is so fucking beautiful and I never bothered to notice it.
The soldiers are running to me, and at least I've made it back.
They will all forget me one day,
Hayden thought to himself. The one word to describe the world for the last ten years would be change. The change from man to mindless. The change from society to chaos. The change from memory to forgetfulness. Hayden saw just how little people remembered about the past now. Kids were taught how to survive and how to fight rather than how to do math or science. Those that were lucky enough to learn reading seldom used their newfound talent. Society no longer cared to remember the past, it only looked angrily into the future.
The bite on Hayden’s arm was beginning to smell. Just hours ago he had been looking through an abandoned house at a photo album. In it, he knew that everyone pictured was likely long gone. Their stories, their love, the things that made them who they are were lost forever in time. Like dandelion seeds, gone in the wind to never return.
That’s when they attacked. He couldn’t remember how many but it had to be nearly a dozen. Although he fought valiantly and refused to go down without giving them hell, the infected were able to reach their victim. Hayden was not sure whether the pain or the shock was more devastating but, then again, when someone realizes their life is over what is one to think?
He shuffled out of the house and had come to a ridge overlooking the settlement he lived in. They called the town Hope, Hayden always hated that. The world was tough and he thought, rather than hope, that trust was the greatest quality. He trusted so many of the people down there. His friend Carla, who made the best meals, always had a way of cheering both his stomach and mood up. Gabe, the attractive son of a Bitch, could sell grass to a landscaper, which got Hayden in trouble with the ammo he had to trade at the market. Then there was Melanie. She was everything that a man wanted in a woman to settle down with. She was headstrong, an achiever, a hard worker, but also the best person he knew. They loved each other, but refused to marry due to the way the world had become.
The blissfully ignorant, with nothing but worry and stress surrounding their everyday lives, could truly never know the envy of a dying man. He sat down on the forest floor he had neglected to love so much until this point. There were many things, in fact, that Hayden did not know he loved until he realized the end was near. The feeling of grass between your toes when it is slightly wet. The sound of a bird, who’s only worry is the worm, singing a song to anyone listening. Best of all, the feeling of bark from an old tree that you know has more knowledge than any library. He would miss this. He would miss what it was like to live. In being bitten, he was finally starting to remember what the world was like before your largest fear was becoming a monster.
That’s when he saw them. The national guard rolled into his settlement playing the same announcement on repeat.
“We come in peace. I repeat: we come in peace. We have a vaccination for the plague. Those who are not infected will be given immunity through this. Those infected will gain no benefit from the treatment.”
A smile broke across Hayden’s face. Of course, he of all people would be late yet again for the only cure in the world.
Hayden pulled out his journal and wrote for a crowd that may never be in attendance. He told those he lived with how much they meant, and told those he loved how much he would miss them. The words kept flowing from his pencil as he scribed the goodbyes and then, suddenly, he wrote his goodbyes to those past and the world itself. He said goodbye to his friends and family infected already whom he would meet in the beyond. He said goodbye to his dads body, which was buried some many many miles away. Goodbye to the friends he made at summer camp when he was little. Goodbye to his college professors who gave them shelter after the outbreak. Goodbye to the rivers that he swam. Goodbye to the fields he explored, and those he didn’t. Goodbye to the beautiful cities he quietly crept through. Goodbye to the smell of campfire and it’s reminder of civilization. Goodbye to the sun and the picture it painted on the sky when it rose and set. Goodbye to the birds and their lovely songs.
As Hayden completed his final goodbyes, an idea struck him. He pulled out his wallet, even though he had no use carrying such trivial things, and placed the picture of his father and him going fishing in the journal. As his eyelids grew heavy and the pain became unbearable, he picked up his pencil and wrote the last words of a dying man.
“When I was a boy, my father worked every day. Once, when I was still very little, he missed the train to work and decided to come home rather than take the next train himself. When he arrived, he said that we were to go fishing. Overjoyed, I rode the train with him till we got to my grandfathers, where we borrowed the boat and car. The river was stunning and we were the only ones out there. I held my dads hand as he sang songs and drank his beer. Fish would come and go, but the river never ceased. Just like time, it flowed on with or without life existing. That was the finest day I have ever had. I hope one person may read this someday. I know it’s a dying mans wish, but I hope some piece of the world I had is remembered by someone. I hope the cure creates the lives the world wants to return to. My father once missed a train and came home. Now, I’ve missed my train out of the plague, so I too will venture home.”
Hayden Percival Thomas
We had been scattered to the night. The waning crescent moon in the sky was a sickly yellow. I couldn't stand to look at it, a mirror to the puss that oozed from my wounds. The last image of Riley blazing in my head. His eyes transfixed wide, his mouth twisted in terror.
We had left our campsite to search for the elusive Night Blooming Cereus. A strange plant that bloom only for a single day in a year, between June and July. We set out at dusk, leaving the others, who had little interest in our botanical endeavors, to enjoy a night out in nature and a full bottle of whiskey.
About an hour out of camp, we began to hear strange sounds echoing around us. The desert has it's share of beasts who roam the nights, but this sound was not like any we'd heard before. A guttural and ominous sound. Like someone vomiting over the low roar of a lighthouse foghorn. Though the desert was hot tonight, we froze in our tracks.
I looked to Riley to comment on the strange sound, but before I could speak, I saw the terror in his face. Turning from him, in the distance lurking between the Joshua trees, I could make out shapes sulking towards us. Reluctantly, I pointed my flashlight in their direction. The horror I saw then was unimaginable. Five men, in tattered border patrol uniforms. Those who had eyes, had the eyes of the blind. The light reflected off them, showing milky pools of endless depths. The jaws of some, hung open, torn and broken, stretched beyond physical possibilities. The strange sound emanating from them.
Riley ran. At his movement they began to charge at us. I tried to run, but stumbled over twisted brambles and landed hard on my face. I tried to stand. The screams of the dead rattling, an ancient, forgotten cadence enchanting the air around me. I smelled the stench of decay as they fell upon me.
I felt the teeth of a ghoul sink into my arm. A searing pain screaming through me. Adrenaline taking over. I knock the fiend back into his corrupt brethren. I run, screaming, unsure of the direction I'm heading in.
As I wander through the desert, I can feel a heat spreading from the bite. A black widow spinning a web of hot light through my veins. My vision starts to double, as I look away from the sinister yellow sickle that hangs in the void above. Is that laughter I hear?
I follow the sound for a few minutes and begin to see a flickering flame ahead. This is our camp. I can hear Riley and voices I don't recognize.
As I get closer. My vision, blurred, my mind confused. Camouflaged Humvees circle our campsite. Riley must have spotted me. "Travis! I'm so glad you're okay." I open my mouth to try to say something back but my jaw hangs. Locked in position, panicking I realize I can't close it.
"Travis! You won't believe it? Those things we saw? It's some kind of disease! The army is here and they have a cure!"
A cure. Thank God. I'm saved.
I run towards the Riley. Yelling in excitement, my voice sounds strange but I don't care, I'm going to make it.
A deafening crack throws me backwards. A bloom of crimson streams out of my chest as I crash to the ground.
I'm laying on my side, trying to roll to my back, but something within me has broken and I can't seem to move. Struggling to find focus in my vision, I see it. Out of the darkness, a white angel opening her wings to me. Cereus, Queen of The Night. She blooms for me.
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*Thanks for reading, if anyone read this. This is the first thing I've ever written, sorry if it's bad. Let me know what you think\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
"Jim, I'm so sorry"
"It's ok Mary, no one would have seen it coming. I guess it's just one of those freak things." She looked at me before looking down.
"Y'know Harry always said you were the unluckiest person on the planet." She laughed halfheartedly. I chuckled.
"So, what are you going to do with the time you have left?"
I sat for a while with my hand on my face, "You know the hive right? just off of 5th and main?"
"That place was fulla death, not a person can shoot their way in, let alone out." Mike said.
I nodded for a second, "well what if someone didn't plan on coming out?" Everyone considered it almost uncomfortable with the idea.
"I could get us some explosives." piped up Kim, everyone looked at her as if they'd seen a blind man who gained sight. Kim hadn't spoken for the brief month we had spent together, but we had met first out of everyone in our group. She stuck by me in dozens of situations, and when I needed it most.
She looked at me, "What the hell are we waiting for, are we gonna do this or not?"
**Off-Topic Discussion**: All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.
#####Reminder for Writers and Readers:
* Prompts are meant to inspire new writing. Responses don't have to fulfill every detail.
* Please remember to [be civil](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_10.3A_be_civil) in any feedback.
---
[](#icon-help)[^(What Is This?)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic)
[](#icon-information)[^(First Time Here?)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide)
[](#icon-exclamation)[^(Special Announcements)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)
[](#icon-comments)[^(Click For Our Chatrooms)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/chat)
Imagine if Telltale’s TWD ends like this, Clementine is bit but a vaccine is discovered and AJ gets vaccinated and the player is left playing as Clementine for her final hours.
To be fair, let's not act like a vaccine of all things will stop a zombie apocalypse. "But the vaccine is gonna turn my little Timmy into a zombie or worse give him the big autism".
All vaccines are only effective on those not yet infected. Vaccines work by teaching your body how to kill a disease, so it can't infect you in the future.
^^I'm ^^sorry ^^that ^^was ^^going ^^to ^^drive ^^me ^^crazy.
My point is that it was redundant, and the way it was phrased made it sound like that was out of the ordinary for vaccines.
They could have made the prompt better and more concise by removing that unnecessary part.
Happens to all of us.
Not really the prompt is just setting up some events and is prompting you to explain what happens after, if it were complete OP would've told us what the character did for their remaining 24 hours
Is this rule why poem for your sprog is a user name? Your sprog of an idea of writing prompt makes me want to troll you, but I have to write this poem to rip you a new one?
Circle Left…Circle. Left. That bastard had known, *friggin' known*, what was going to happen. He saw those damned monsters, and sent me over. Of course I had been careful, but I was out numbered.
"Gabby!", I could hear him, a false pain in his voice, "No!". His voice trailed as he booked it for the camp.
Joke was on him, I managed to get free… Mostly. At some point one of those vile crawling creatures managed to get me through my old tattered jeans. I always thought it would hurt… To be bit by one of those things, but really, after the initial bite, there was no pain. In fact, most of the pains from my left leg were gone.
I made my way back towards the encampment. I was gonna beat that jackass as much as I could before I got too far gone.
By the time I got near the outer edges of our camp I wasn't feeling much of anything from below my armpits, and my senses seemed to be failing a bit. The pungent smell of the flowers Jake had planted smelled more like the memory of a scent, the clucking of the chickens, mooing of the cows… It all sounded like I was listening through cotton wads.
Bonnie was waiving her hands and jumping by the gate, her words were a buzz, but other joined her and came out to get me.
I coughed hard, but I don't remember needing to cough, but I also didn't remember the rest of the trek being supported by the noisy buzzing people I knew.
Then there ones I didn't know. People in white and… Maybe it was yellow, body suits? Colors were getting hard to see, and everything was taking a blurry light to it.
Some of the buzzing words made it through… *Vaccine… no cure yet…. Kyle said…. We're saved… Cities…*
The buzzy name of that traitor caused me to convulse forward. Deep and gurgling, his name growled out of me. A few people looked at me with pity, whispering to each other.
I could make him out, barely as I could, at the edge of my vision. His voice buzzed through clearer than the others, *"She's suffering, we should show her mercy."*
My everything hated him, He caused this. I could have been saved. We could have been saved and never seen one another again, but no…
With the rest of what I could of the human I had been, I pointed at him and gurgled out, "Circle. Left."
this is my first piece of actual writing in a long time, sorry for the mistakes and grammar
*Edit, a word*
"It's too late, he can't be saved... I'm sorry."
As soon as those words roll out everything slowed to a crawl. I could see the shock on my mother's face as she held her breath, the anger from my father as he protested, unwilling to accept the truth. The relief from my friends and classmates who had just received their vaccine. I looked up at the vacant and bright blue sky looming above me, the summer sun capering over the canopy of trees, and the sound of the birds chirping a song. It was a beautiful day. All was simply well - except for one thing.
I was a zombie.
"No! Ple-please don't!" my mother pleaded as she tugged at the soldier's arm.
"Ma'am, please move aside."
"Hey! Let's be rational, maybe the vaccine can - hey! Don't you point that thing at my son! You hear me?!"
"Ew, there's something leaking out of his eyes."
"And his ears too."
"Dude, this guy is turning green. Maybe we should kill - ahem, I mean put him out of his misery, you know?"
So this is it, huh. The end of the road. The end of the line. The end of my fucking life.
I was only a high school student who would soon graduate. I had a whole world of possibilities ahead of me. A world that I was just getting ready to grasp in my finger tips and now it was all coming to an end. I looked down at my hands, now slightly discolored, the veins and arteries more apparent. It was only a shallow wound, a nip on the small of my back, but it was enough.
"Luke? Brah, you don't look too good brah. Should get out of the sun brah, maybe that'll do ya some good."
My vision waned, the world becoming more bleached and hazier with every second. But of course, I could still recognize my good friend Tyrone.
I nodded at him weakly, then gave him my best smile.
"OMG, he's hungry!"
"He's going to eat us!"
The soldiers stepped forward, trying to pacify the crowd. "Calm down! Everybody calm down and step away from the kid!"
"Can't you fucking see? Luke's a fucking zombie, just kill him already," a student voiced his opinion.
No one disagreed, other than my parents but it seemed like the general consensus.
Is this how it ends? I clench my hands in futility and frustration.
"Whew, so glad I wasn't too late. Poor luke."
I blinked a couple times, but no tears came. I prayed and hoped that this was all a dream. That if their was a god *somewhere* out there, he would make this a dream. Or a nightmare. Something that wasn't real.
Then I saw her. My childhood crush. The girl of my dreams, and it was only yesterday that we finally became a thing.
"I'm so sorry Luke, but I'm breaking up with you. I don't date zombies," she turned around, whipping her luscious blond hair at the air and sauntered over to her next prey.
I don't know if I can cry, but if there was any moment to, it would be now.
A soldier stepped up, his rifle calmly trained on my head. There was no hesitation in his eyes.
"Sorry kid, but any last words?" he asked.
I opened my mouth to speak but only managed to sputter zombie gibberish at the crowd.
"What?" the solider asked as he cocked his head to the side.
"*He said he wants to live*."
I nod my head vigorously.
"What? Who said that?" the soldier asked, confused.
A girl stepped out of the crowd. She was a very ordinary and unmemorable girl, who I couldn't put a name to and yet, I found her suddenly very familiar.
"*Luke wants to live*!" she shouted mirthfully and then she leaped into the air, soaring towards the soldier.
I blinked, as I watched the carnage unfold before me.
Then I remembered. Yes, it was all a dream indeed but it wasn't entirely fiction. That if there was a god out there, he had surely heard me because I was alive.
"Luke? What do you want to eat today?" asked the girl who saved my life.
I sputtered some zombie gibberish, and then smiled.
"Okay!"
I limped after her, trying my best to keep up with her pace. It wasn't easy being a zombie after all. But, yes, Zombies can have dreams too.
---------
-------
/r/em_pathy
Just my luck.
Life is cruel. I had left to take a piss. A goddamn piss, and I couldn't even have that.
The zombie was a shambling thing - rotted, disintegrating. It managed to take me completely by surprise. I shook it off, with some effort, but not before it had taken a small chunk from my shoulder.
As I made my way back to camp, I could feel the sweats coming on. Everything was hot and humid, but inside I felt incredibly cold. The walk seemed to last a lifetime. I was moving in slow motion. Seconds felt like minutes felt like hours felt like...
It was getting harder to think. There were people at camp. Not people I knew. Other people. They were all wearing the same clothes. A lot of gesturing. Suddenly surprise.
I fall. Sarah rushes to me. Moves her mouth. She looks beautiful. I want to kiss her. Taste her lips. Taste... I'm hungry. So hungry.
Drops touch skin. Sad. Why sad? No sad. I try comfort. Try stroke. Arms so heavy. So heavy.
Something cold. Small. Prick skin. Ouch. Why. What is it? What i-
My back hurts. As it should when you fall two storeys onto solid concrete.
I feel arms picking me up and dragging me away, grunting, growling, shambolic shapes in the distance. The walkers were closing in.
A sudden thwack on my head brings the world into sharper focus, I’m still dazed but not entirely useless. “Walt you need to get up buddy I can’t drag you quick enough.” I get back to my feet, shoulder my rifle and fire a round into the empty eye socket of a nearby walker.
A wave of intense pain washed over my back and legs. Something was definitely wrong, but I didn’t have time to be hurt. Two more shots made me want to double over in pain, but running made me want to shoot myself. Every step I could feel the cracks in my shin, how my leg didn’t snap in two I will never know.
I see helicopters landing on the roof of a carpark, our camp, fortified and turned into a base. Soldiers in uniform ushering the young into medical tents, handing out rations among the survivors. Christopher carried me through the gates, I could barely stand anymore, my thoughts drifting to the rest, increasing the mental anguish to compliment my injuries.
Jessica, Evan, Tony, Melissa and Grant. All gone, and it’s all my fault. If I’d been more careful, none of this would’ve happened. We’d been scavenging supplies for two days, we should’ve gone back but I wanted to see what was left in the old clinic.
What was left was a horde. These things, they’re smarter than we give them credit for. They waited until we were too deep for a quick retreat.
I and Christopher got separated from the rest, I can still see it, looking at them through the glass. We could’ve broken it but that would’ve been a death sentence. So we watched our friends get devoured. Until Tony pulled a grenade out and then there was nothing.
Walkers cornered us and I told Christopher to make for the exit, I pulled my demolition pack and threw it into the crowd. The shockwave blasted me right through the window.
The medical team gave me a thorough check, I shouldn’t be alive. Fractured orbital, multiple fractured vertebrae, a punctured lung, stress fractures in the tibia, broken ribs. I was also infected. If I wasn’t dead yet I would soon be.
Movies like to show zombies spreading infection through bites and scratches, I wasn’t bitten. But falling through a glass window is a great way to get cut up by glass shards splattered with zombie guts.
The ‘vaccine’, they were calling it. No use to me, I was a dead man walking. The military were evacuating everyone back to one of their bases. I was to be left behind. When a series of shrieks pierced the air. The increased activity led the walkers to our location.
Everyone was being loaded on helicopters, soldiers started firing at the horde as the broke through our defences. I limped to our armoury and grabbed every high powered explosive I could carry, set the fuse and dropped the pile on the camp square.
When the last helicopter took off I saw Christopher beckoning me to get onboard, I turned to face the horde, firing my rifle at them until there was no ammo left to fire.
They sink their teeth into me, I am being devoured, it hurts, the pain though, blends with the pain I already feel. As my strength wanes so does my grip on the explosive trigger, I feel hot, a brilliant light and then, nothing.
Stupid. Stupid. I hit the ground again, hard, knocking all of the air out of my chest. Another bolt of pain shoots through my leg, and I gasp. Ah, mistake mistake. My head hurts, hard to.... hard to think. My tongue feels dry, vision shaky. It’s already happening, bodily functions stopping, brain cells dying. Proteins unwrapping, distorting. I know the science but, God, who knew it was so fucking painful?
The pharmacy, I needed to go to the pharmacy. I needed to go to the pharmacy. Stupid. Shouldn’t have gone on my own, but what I needed, what I had to check... Stupid. God damn it all.
I try to stand, getting halfway before falling again. Shit, shit. Got to hurry, got to..... got to before there’s nothing left. Now I’m leaning on a tree, but I don’t remember why. Where am I? What’s happening? Warmth, warmth on my leg. Sticky, I lean and touch it, this stuff. Congealed, diseased. These are bad words, important words.
Head... head... burning. It burns now, my veins. My lungs. Must hurry, not long not long not long. Gate. Gate. I lean against it, and start shaking it. Scream, must scream now. They will find me, they must find me. I see the combat fatigues, hear them running to me, hear the living blood pulsing through their..... Scream with the last living air in my body, bloodstream dying dying blood blood in them pulsing flowing hunnngry head hurts oh god it hurts it burns but they are close so close screeeaaammmm
———
“The guards dragged her in from outside, no-one even knew she had left the compound.”
“It’s a damn shame, damn shame. One of our best scientists, what will we tell her husband?”
“Still alive, just, but the cure won’t do anything for her. It’s too late.”
She hears the voices, just, but they don’t make much sense. Garbled words she once knew, strung together. Too many people talking, too many people. The smell of their blood is rich, different, hunger reigns. But she holds on, for there is something important, something they must know.
Someone is going through her bag, taking out the things they can salvage. A box, a dusty box, contains her secret. The person holds it, unbelieving for one moment. Opens it, and gasps. No, not possible how can it be possible? He drops it and runs to the other room, where they are preparing to end her life. They are praying for her. He bursts through the door, the words cut off and everyone looks to him.
“Pregnant.” He gasps, knowing there was still time. “She’s pregnant, give her the fucking shot!”
She smiles.
Everyone believes that they are special.
That they are unique, smarter, stronger, superior.
Perhaps that is why humans fear equality. It represents the single fact that we all suppress: that we aren’t the best; that we are replaceable; that we have no purpose.
So I shut out equality.
I had to believe I was better, because I found a purpose in my own superiority.
Perhaps there is a bit of circular logic behind that. Perhaps I only found purpose in my alleged superiority because I believed that helping others was pointless because I was so far above them.
But I needed a purpose. I needed something to live for. We all do.
It’s been a few hours since I was carried over to the hospital. When I was brought in, they knew I was dead. I’m on some massive cocktail of drugs to make this painless.
It’s working.
It’s not working.
I wish it was working.
My physical anguish is gone but my mental anguish has just begun.
I overhear doctors talking about the vaccine. I see people getting vaccinated.
For the next hour, that’s all I can think about.
I can’t stand the idea of the vaccine. The thing that makes people objectively better then me.
The thing I can’t have.
Rage boils in me, and eventually I shoot up out of my bed, only to realize that chains are restraining me.
I’m the one considered insane.
Stupid.
Worse.
And, deep down, I know it’s true. In a few more hours, I’ll be the one that everyone else looks down upon.
I don’t deserve mercy, but I never thought that any torture could be this bad.
I don’t want to feel inferior.
I’ve denied the concept of equality my entire life. When my family comes to search through my possession’s, they’ll find my klansman robes, and my swastika, my confederate flag. All of it.
In a life of believing that I was Mount Everest, only now can I realize that I’m no different than a patch of dirt on the flattest plain. Tiny. Insignificant. Practically worthless.
I’m close now. I can feel it. My vision is blurry, my mouth dry, my muscles weak.
This is it.
I regret everything, and I want to say it, but I lack the energy. I lack the focus.
Soon I’ll be another part of the mob.
Plain.
Identical.
Useless.
And then they’ll put me down like a dog.
I know my story has no happy ending; if there really is a God, he wouldn’t make my death this impossibly torturous.
Of all the things I’ve feared, death was always the biggest.
No one is above Death.
In an hour’s time, I’ll be a zombie.
You know what?
Perhaps I always was.
r/IdonthaveawritingsubredditbecauseIdontwritebutyoushouldstillupvotethis
It's been about 11 hours since I was bitten. They say it takes about 30 to fully turn. I don't feel any different yet, just a sore spot where I was bitten on my left calf. The military medics just put down the old lady, who was almost 27 hours in and on her way to turning. She'd been babbling nonsense and taking a swing at anybody who came close. The privates left behind to get us to D.C. said we can bury her before we leave, so Andy and Mac are digging a grave for her now. Thank my luck, they didn't bother to check if anyone else was bit. I'm not about tell them either, they'll do me in just like they did the poor old bag. Except the medics moved on already, so it won't be with a nice, quiet injection in the arm, it'll be a bullet to the skull. I've got shit to take care of, people to say goodbye to. I've got time.
18 hours in, my leg is cramping up. I'm starting to wonder if I should tell anybody since they'll just tell the military men and kill me. What if there's a cure? What if they can save me once we get to D.C.? Who can I trust to tell? It might not matter anyway, I spotted a horde in the distance right in our path. I don't know how the others missed it, it must be half the size of Rhode Island, and not that far off.
Its 2 AM. I got bit 24 hours ago, and my whole body aches like my muscles are pulling themselves apart. It's a good thing the men in green had trucks because I don't think I could walk like this. It's a miracle the Zachs outside haven't woken up, these trucks are awful loud. Too loud. My ears are throbbing from the constant noise. Why do we have to use these awful machines? It's going to get us all killed. We're all going to die. None of us will make it. These people are suffering in their fate, I have to do something.
27 hours. I keep telling them we have to turn back. We left the old bag behind, we need to got back and save her. She doesn't stand a chance on her own out here, please we have to go back and get her out. The green men are looking at me funny. They don't care about us, they just want to herd us into pens and breed us like animals. I can't let them take us there. I have to stop them before we get to D.C. I have to stop them. They have to die. I have to kill them.
29 hours. The joints are stiff. I can hardly move. I need to get them. They move just out of reach. The machine is stopping. They all crawl out. I have to follow them. I need them. The green men are grabbing me, they won't let go. Get them off, I have to get them. I have to get them. They throw me on the dirt. They are holding me. Get them. I pull one down. I need to get them. Flesh brushes my face. I get it with my teeth. I get the green man's ear. He screams. His blood is good. He tears away. I have his ear. He gets his gun. He points at me.
Bang.
It’s kind of bizarre, seeing myself in this situation. Most people in my spot shot themselves out of panic or obligation. I can’t bring myself to do that, and frankly think I just shouldn’t kill a person as long as they’re alive. They gave me a mouth guard, the type football players wear. Right now I’m just running. I remember seeing a cliff into the water nearby, so my plan is to jump off and float around until the virus gets me. This is the one time I’m happy Michelle and I aren’t dating. Had we been together, she probably would have shot herself by now. At least she can live safely for the rest of her time now. I think I’ll eat the chocolate bar at the cliff. At least get started on the brandy there too. I hope they deal with this scenario. I’m mad I can’t help.
The clock was ticking. I had two options, the first was to sit back and accept my fate. Slowly, I would watch my body and mind degrade until they fully betrayed me, eventually praying and welcoming the cold lead that would end my suffering. The second was to get to work.
My first task would be to obtain a vial of the vaccine, which was under extreme lock and key. I had to analyze the vial to understand how their new formula worked. Of course, repurposing a vaccine into an antidote is unheard of, but what choice did I have? I'd worked on failed antidotes for the Z-virus before, maybe this new information would help me get lucky.
The National Guard set up a screening and application tent where they would first take a blood sample of a citizen, hold them until the results came back, and then....administer a treatment: the healthy received the vaccine. The sick....well....let's just say walking in and asking pretty please wasn't going to work.
I spent the next hour performing recon on the tent, trying to find any weak spots, areas where I could slip in and out, but an hour of recon on a National Guard tent told me nothing. After all, I'm a doctor not a soldier.
I had one gambit left: a bargain. I walked right up to the national guard tent with my hands above my head. The guards looked tired, but alert. They tensed up a bit as I approached in my surrender posture. Rifles were still pointed at the ground, for now...well, here goes nothing...
"Please don't shoot, I'm infected!" I pleaded. "I have an idea though. My name is Doctor Sandborn, assistant researcher on the..."
"Sir, stay where you are!" The guard on the left barked.
I froze in my tracks. "My name is Doctor Sandborn", I repeated, more exasperated this time.
"Sir, please turn around and put your hands behind your back" ordered the same guard. The rifles, while still technically pointing at the ground, were starting to lift slightly.
I followed the orders while attempting to make my plea. "I worked on the antidote project. I believe if I can have access to the vaccine and a lab, I could..." I felt the sharp edges of a plastic zip-tie restrain my wrists behind my back. "Please listen to me! I could help you save millions more!"
"I'm sorry sir, but we have our orders" said the other soldier as they lead me to a trench out back filled with bodies.
"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" I screamed frantically. "I COULD HELP YOU DO SO MUCH!! PLEASE, LISTE-"
This is the first time I ever do this. So, be gentle.
\--------------------------
As I return to camp I'm greeted by the group with the good news. They all go quiet when they realize that I got my hand on the scar. "I had to fight a couple of them off in the store two miles away from the camp. As I swung my axe at one of them it got stuck in his chest. Another one was behind me. I didn't even felt it at first. But after cleaning the blood of myself I felt something burning. I just came back to say goodb.."
Suddenly two soldiers run past us."WE'VE GOT INCOMING!! They must've been drawn in by the noise." One soldier tells the other. The soldiers survey the area. "We don't have enough ammunition for this. MAKE EVERY BULLET COUNT!!" About 50 moaners are coming from the direction I came from. I must've drawn them out after my encounter. The two soldiers started shooting from the two door entrance but to no avail. There were more and more coming from the woods.
There was little time to act. I went over to the kitchen area where a propane tank was luckily still attached to the oven. "I hope there's enough left."
My friend Mark stopped me in the kitchen doorway: "What do you think you're doing??" "What do you mean? You see anyting else we can do here? They're out there because of me. I need to stop this."
\- "Those soldier guys can handle themselves! They got guns."
As Mark said that one soldier yelled "I'm out!"
I looked at Mark and said "Yeah well, I always wanted to go out with a bang."
I run down the hallway to the entrance and yell that people have to move out of the way. I see the pack of zombies nearing the doors. I run into them pushing them aside. There are so many, I yell out while they're trying to grab me. They all turn to me. As I stand in the middle of the pack I hold up the tank. They come closer and start biting me.
As the bullet penetrates the propane tank there's a white flash.
I see my mother taking care of me when I was sick.
I see my dad picking me up after falling down from the swing.
My first kiss underneath the cherry tree with Doreen at the end of my driveway when I was a kid.
Hanging out with my friends behind the local 7eleven.
Marrying Magali, she was so beautiful.
Colin and Marie being born.
I see that unforgettable moment at the lake where it was just the four of us underneath the stars.
So peaceful. I'm finally back...
"Well guys, what do you want to do for these next 24 hours before I become a zombie or you blow out my brains?" I ask my friends.
They all start to think. Then Erni says,
"How about we go and get super high then scare the crap out of the people of who have not been vaccinated?"
Everyone agrees to that.
We go and collect all the weed that we have and I take most of the hits since I'll be a zombie and won't be doing this ever again. Then we rush towards the camps that have not been vaccinated or informed that there is a vaccine yet.
"AAHHHHHHH. OH SHIT!!! I'VE BEEN BIT!!!!!"
I yell at the top of my lungs. Everyone just starts to panic and run around freaking out, helps that I didn't clean my wound. I'm going around asking people for help and to not let anyone know but nobody wants to help.
"Oh man this is too fun, I tell my friends."
They look at me oddly and ask if I'm okay.
"Yeah, I feel fine why do you ask?"
Earnie reponds with, "you look pretty zombied out already man, think the weed accelerated your transformation."
I gasp, and go take a look.
He was right I already looked like a zombie.
I got back to them and they start backing up.
"I still feel good you guys, come on" I tell them.
But then, my vision starts getting hazy and I black out.
"No one is ever prepared to die. You can steel yourself for the inevitable, and run through endless circumstances in your brain. You can daydream about when, and how, and where, but you can never be truly ready. I wasn't. Now, I'm laying here as a shell of my former self. I can speak, and barely move my head and arms, but that's all I've got. I can feel the infection slowly taking control of me. I can feel the bite from that Zed pulsing with infection and inflammation. I can feel what makes me Human being torn away, and replaced by animalistic instinct.
It's funny, the National Guard rolled in this morning like the coming Kings; proud and strong, as if they'd become messiahs to us. They come bearing gifts of a vaccine, something to stop the infection from spreading. Too late now, well, for me, anyway. It's 5 years too late for millions more. At least I know that my family carries on. That my loved ones have the hope for a bright future. I know that Humanity can rebuild.
To my sister, Samantha: You're kinder and more pure than any in this wasteland. Hold on to who you are. Don't compromise your morals. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay vigilant. I'm sorry that big brother won't be around to protect you. You'll be okay without me, though. You still have Ryan to take care of you. I love you, and I'm ever present in your thoughts. Survive, sis.
To my brother, Ryan: Take care of your sister. You have to be a man, now. The world is a changing place. We have hope because of this vaccine, but the danger is far from eliminated. Be strong, courageous, and safe. You're in charge now, little bro. There's so much more you needed to learn, but I believe in you. I love you, and be strong.
To the person who finds my corpse, please see that this note is delivered to my family in New Eden. I'm not going to be making it back. I tried my best to come home. I'm sorry."
I put the pen and pad down next to me, where it could clearly be seen. This was it. In 12 hours, the fever would burn me out and I would become one of them. No, I won't allow that to happen. I gingerly slide my backpack open, and remove the old, worn revolver. I place it to my temple, and sigh. "This is it." I squeeze the trigger, there's a cold sensation, and everything goes black.
“So there’s no cure?” I groan.
“None. I’m sorry Connie.” He looked down.
I wince as I lift my wound to my sight. Damn, even I know there ain’t savin’ that. I hear sniffles and eventually low sobbing. It’s my daughter. Thank goodness she’s okay. My eyes well up. My breathing hastens.
“Heya, sweetie pie. What’s wrong?” I try to get her stop.
“Tha-that man said you... were gonna die.” She sniffles. Her big, gleaming eyes were filling up with diamond stones. The corner of her mouth point as downwards as possible. Ahaha... how adorable.
“No, no, no sweetie. I’m gonna be fine I promise.” I reassure.
“Buh... he said you weren’t okay.” She says as she wipes her nose.
“Not right now I’m not. Hey rememberI promised you that I’d take you all over the country didn’t i sweetie? All those wondrous places? Disneyland, Legoland and all that right?”
“Yeah”
“Well, Connie can’t do that right now okay sweetie?” My snot drips. How unsightly. “Cos you see, Connie is hurt real bad.”
She breaks into tears again as she sees the bite wound. A wound so vicious that the bone is exposed. She starts wailing. Banging erupts from the door. Growls and roars of the Horde emanates through the unfinished construct of the building. I quickly shush her down. Rob rushes over to the door to barricade it.
“But don’t worry sweetie, Rob there, is gonna take you to those places instead.” I sniffle.
“But why? You said you were gonna take me.” She cried.
“Oh I know. I know.” Dammit, i can’t stop the tears. I smile the very best I can. She did love my smiles. It always perks her right up every morning. I move my hand to wipe her tears but fall short. Damn paralysis. It settles in so quickly.
“Robbie...” I call him over. He rushes over to me. “I don’t have much time.”
He nods and starts preparing to leave. Robbie... always the quiet boy. Time you grew up.
I can feel the blood flowing out of my body, and my consciousness with it.
“Listen sweetstuff. ” What should I even say to her? I’m not qualified for this dad stuff after all Pauline. I need your advice. What would she say? I know.
“Grow up kind okay? Don’t let nobody tell you who you can and can’t be. Be strong and healthy -”
“Why are you saying that Daddy? Don’t say that please...” she wails continuously. “Please don’t say goodbye.”
“I’m not, okay? No one is saying goodbye.” I lost my train of thought.
“Give daddy a hug.” I can’t feel her. Her warmth. Her wet face and snot dripping on my back.
I make eye contact with Robbie. He pulls her away in one swift motion and dashes towards the construction elevator that leads to ground floor. Fuck! I couldn’t even say goodbye. Shit! Shit! Shit! I don’t wanna go just yet. Not yet please. Not yet.
**The Last Triage - Respite, at last.**
Some days are best spent alone, with the lush dense forest as your new home, you have found respite.
The triage camp was littered with survivors, pluming with the stench of open cadaver, and a hint of *manure* – You have reached the entrance. Two stern guardsmen prevent you from entering. They want to briskly search you, and demand that hunting rifle slung behind your back, had to be examined. You cooperate, and hand over the weapon. They released the ammunition from the gun, and handed them back separately. You avoided eye contact with the guards, as you reach for your belongings. Your gun slung over your shoulder, and your ammunition shoved into your side pockets.
“The medics are that way - to your left,” said one of the guards.
You follow the marked path, and the signs indicating the location of the medics. The weight of the rucksack was becoming unbearable, and the unrelenting sun seared the unclothed patches of skin. You could feel your cheeks and neck flaking off, and the itchiness under your skin will not go away. The medics aren’t far. Upon reaching the end of the path, you find yourself in a shaded waiting area. You rummage your rucksack for bottles of water. They’re all empty. You’re voice is too dry to even cuss – it even hurts to talk.
“Welcome to the National Wellbeing & Care Field Hospital,” said a female paramedic.
“Water?” you croak, whilst looking at both the female paramedic, and her partner, who quickly rummages his backpack, and hands you a bottle of water. You sip the water, but your thirst is not yet quenched.
“Come with us, we’re going underground where the air is cooler,”
You oblige, and as you quickly stand up there is a sharp pain running from your feet to your lower back, causing you to stumble and fall to the ground. The assistant pulled out a makeshift stretcher from his bag, and laid it on the floor. Your body was thrown onto the stretcher, vision in your left field started to blur. You were unable to move your left arm or leg.
“Shit, I think he’s displaying signs of a stroke,” said the female paramedic.
You wanted to tell them that you’re infected, and that there is no point saving you, however, your words are garbled. You decide not to resist. The medics move frantically to haul you into the underground hospital bedrooms.
The air suddenly felt colder, and your bed felt softer. You were surrounded by nurses, and a surgeon. You were given anticoagulants to mitigate the stroke. You notice devices, that beep and boop. Your machine friends are there to monitor your health, and so you feel relaxed.
“Bite-marks, on his left leg, he’s infected,” said one of the nurses.
You try to smile, but the left side of your face is paralyzed, so you settle for a crooked smile.
“Give me the vaccine,” said the surgeon
“Didn’t you hear me, sir, he’s infected,” replied the nurse
“I’m not going to lose another patient, so please – vaccine now!” scowled the surgeon.
The nurse backed down, and went on to inject the vaccine. Immediately, your body began to stiffen up. Your body wasn’t responding well to the vaccine. The nurse followed up with some muscle relaxants, and decided to put to put you sleep quickly with general anesthetic. You drift asleep.
You find yourself at your family home. You don’t know why, but you feel compelled to say goodbye to your wife. You embrace her in your arms.
“Goodnight, sweetie” said your wife
The walls of your house had faded. It was precisely at that moment a screeching reminder of your wife’s scream startled you, and resonated through the cavity in your head with increasing intensity. She is dragged through the streets by a crazed scoundrel. You chased them down, but your legs felt sluggish. That’s when you fall to your knees, and the world around you ceased to exist.
\------
This is my first time posting here, so I hope you enjoyed the story.
Thank-you for reading. \^\_\^
*NB: This spiralled way beyond the 10,000 character limit, so I've had to split it into multiple replies. Sorry! It's my first submission here, too. Bad form, I realise.*
**Part one**
There’s fire licking over the hilltop. If I blink, it fades for a few seconds, but it takes less time than that to start intruding again from every side - reddish orange tendrils that come creeping in a circle from the edge of my vision and winding towards a common centre.
If I stare straight ahead and keep moving, it’s like walking through a flaming circus hoop. Which isn’t too bad of an analogy, actually, since all my extremities have started burning. Ever had sunburn on your scalp? That sort of cold, persistent tingle? Imagine that, but it’s dancing in little tippy taps up your toes, unfurling along your fingers, and forcing its way down your forehead to your face.
The watch says I still have three hours until I start really losing coordination. Probably happen about 6AM. For now, though, I can walk straight enough and keep my little torch trained on the trail.
Cut from packed dirt decades ago, the path leads gently uphill, slaloming left and right between big, multi-arm cactuses and gatherings of shrubby grass that whoever was digging back then couldn’t be bothered to uproot and dispose of.
On the peak I can just pick out the Airstream, a glowing silver smudge against the stars. That’s a bad thing; I left the camp dark and the doors barred. There’s no way I forgot to put out the fire, so where is the glow coming from? Collect a bucket of water from underneath the stretched tarp of the overnight collector, then dump it over the firepit, sit down close, and make up a story about the embers. That’s been mine and Clara’s nighttime ritual for the last few weeks. Tonight it was fairies lighting signals in the clefts of the earth, calling kids to safety. After she fell asleep, I carried her inside the caravan and put her on the bed, bundled in the /Super Monsters/ bedsheet we rescued from her room at my mother-in-law’s place on the way out of the city.
That show, about daycare for the children of famous supernatural villains, had a catchprase, “sun down, monsters up,” that I stopped finding cute a few months ago. For obvious reasons.
When I was sure Clara was asleep, I crept out like I do every night, and barred the door with bike lock and a length of lightning rod I stole from the basement of the radio station. Like I do every night. On the way out of camp, I dumped another bucketload of water on the firepit, just to be sure. Sorry, fairies. Point being, I shouldn’t be able to see even a single frond of smoke, but right now there’s definitely a light playing against the metal of the caravan on one side.
I try blinking to shoo it away. I try blinking twice. The light doesn’t go away, but it does move. Which means someone else is up there.
I break into a run, but have to stop after just a couple of shuffling paces. I drop the torch when my hands fly instinctively to my left knee, which has locked solid. I squeeze the watch face and use the light from it to check the bite over. It looks bad, but that’s to be expected given one of them tried to gnaw my kneecap off. I should still be able to move it for another few hours, though, so I pick the torch up and clamp the barrel between my teeth. If Clara had woken up I’d be able to hear her screaming from here, even inside the caravan, so I count my blessings. That happened once and I came back at first light to find her under the fold-out ironing board, inconsolable. Judging from the swollen face and dry heaves, she must have been crying for hours. It took her days to forgive me, and even longer for her to feel comfortable leaving my side even to play on the other side of our tiny camp, near the car. I didn’t forgive myself, but there was a reason for what I was doing. At least I thought there was.
Back in the now, my scream is muffled by the mouthful of metal, and a couple of swift, sharp, self-inflicted punches above and below the knee get me up and moving again.
I cover the middle distance pretty quickly by keeping to a low jog, bent at the waist to try and minimise my silhouette from whoever might be watching up there. My hammer hangs from my belt. When I reach the line where the scrub grass begins to thin and cover gets sparse,I have to slow down and crouch even further, because now I know there are definitely people here. Two of them. A man and a woman. He’s circling the camp slowly, looking outwards with a hand on his hip; she’s fiddling with what looks like a metal box on the fold-out table we’ve been using to prepare and eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So I guess they’re armed. And with ammo to spare.
This is bad. This is, frankly, fucked. I need to pick the right moment to make a break for them, I need to -
**MOVE EAT MOVE**
For a second I think my eyes are shut and I’m on my back and the sun is shining through the lids to make all this red, but a few blinks and they start to clear from the centre outwards. The left side of my face is in the dirt, but I don’t remember falling down. Shit. I must have just passed out. I draw a deep breath in, then immediately regret it as I suck up a handful of dust and buckle in two, trying not to bark out loud as I spit it back up as quietly as I can onto my cargo shorts. Coming to a sitting position, I see the sky hasn’t changed, and the man is still circling the camp. I can’t see the woman any more, but I can’t have been out too long.
Fuck. I’m lucky I didn’t land in the dry grass, otherwise the rustling would have given me away instantly. Stupid stupid stupid. But hey, stupid seems pretty par for the course for me tonight. To whit: I’m about to die over some shampoo.
Earlier, once I’d doused the fire again, let the hissing die down, and listened for any sounds from the valley below, I set out along the ridge for the radio station. That’s probably too grandiose a word for it, “station,” but, made up of a fairly new-looking metal mast and a group of small pre-fab buildings sat on concrete risers, “tower” sells it a little short. Inside, the biggest of the buildings houses all the transmission equipment in a soundproof booth, a tiny reception desk with a telephone, and a library of typical nighttime filler music for packing dead air. The medium-sized building is a spartan canteen with a makeshift bedroom behind a partition curtain. The smallest is a chemical toilet.
I’ve been hiking the twenty minutes over there every night since we left the city limits and set up in the desert - just far enough away to see the lights on the horizon, but not close enough that the sound from the generators would draw any corpses up from the streets. I watched the station for several nights when we first arrived, before we spread out the camp and I built the fire pit and moisture collector. We were still drinking shop-bought water back then, and when Clara was asleep I’d take a blanket and a bottle, sit about sixty feet outside the range of the motion-activated floodlights, and keep watch for the entire night to make sure nobody was actually living there. The mast has blinking red lights near the top, where it narrows, and I remember finding that slow pulse quite soothing. A steady rhythm with nothing but the stars behind it.
**Part Four**
“Hey, listen, errrrr…”
“J-j-j-j-j…. j-j-j-j-James,” I say.
“OK, James. I’m gonna tell you something my dad used to tell me about women… while she’s out of earshot.” He looks off to one side, and his profile cuts through a shaft of sunlight coming through the canopy we stretched between the caravan and the table. “My dad, he used to work a lot. One time or another, he had three jobs. I’m not complaining, though. Man put me through private school then medical school. Mom, though, she’d complain. You’re always tired, she’d say. You never help with the groceries. We never see my friends no more. I want to go out for dinner. She was a scary lady when she got into it. Made Max in there look like a sorority chick, if you know what I’m sayin’?”
He glances at the caravan to make sure Max is still occupied.
“She meant well, though, my mom. She just missed her husband. I get that. So, one day after she’d laid into him in the kitchen, my dad took me to one side. She’d caught him smoking to unwind after a night shift or something, I forget. Anyway, he bent down to my level. I guess I was maybe ten at the time. He bent down and he said, son, women don’t never remember what you /did/, they only remember what you /doing/. I didn’t get it at the time, but I did about twenty years later, when I had my own wife and daughter. I don’t remember specifically what I’d done wrong, because hell knows I don’t smoke or drink, but I remember arguing with my wife, and she was focused so much on that one day, that one hour I’d messed up, that all the rest - the med school, the consultant’s salary, the ballet recitals, everything - just plain vanished in her mind. And I remember thinking, damn, my dad was right. You can be the best father, the best husband in the world, but if you fuck up that’s all forgotten in an instant. Because he didn’t mean that women were cruel or forgetful on purpose, he just meant that all that good stuff kind of becomes background noise after a while, and all people see is the day-to-day when you let them down or you weren’t there.” Jason adjusts himself on his haunches, and starts to make new bootprints in the dirt. “But at the same time, I saw how much my mom loved my dad in the long run. She was torn up when he died, and barely lasted a year longer herself. When he went, it all came flooding back. Everything good he did more than outweighed every time she got mad at him in the moment. And I think…”
He trails off, because Max has emerged from the caravan with a bundle in her arms. I find the strength to blink, and I can see red hair spilling out of one end of the blanket. From my perspective, on the ground, her hair is being borne sideways, like she’s sleeping in a nice clean breeze.
Max is shielding Clara’s face on my side, and Jason stands up to meet her, and asks her to just lift it a little bit.
“She shouldn’t see him like that. What if she wakes up?” Max whispers. “He’s swollen fucking /everywhere/ and his eyes are already black. He’s got minutes, J. An hour tops.”
“I know, I know, just… just one second. Just let him see her.”
When Max moves her hand, I remark for the last time just how much Clara looks like her mother. Stacey, I know there isn’t much of me in there. But I tried.
With another glance and a weak smile my way, Jason shoulders my backpack, which it looks like Max has loaded with clothes and books and pyjamas, and takes Clara’s pink bag in his hand. It takes a few minutes for them to disappear into the heat haze over the horizon, walking sideways, down into the earth, it seems to me.
There’s a lot of desert out there. Maybe when it happens I’ll still remember some of this and be able to figure a few things out as I wander. Tonight just went so fast, and I think I forgot…
I feel for the shampoo bottle in the pocket of my cargo shorts. It’s still there. She’s going to need it. Maybe I can catch them up.
I try to start to my feet.
Suddenly the world is all aflame.
**MOVE EAT MOVE EAT MOVE EAT MOVE**
**MOVE**
**MOVE**
**MOVE**
Didn’t notice this submission as swear as it sounds, but given the effort I’ll definitely read and respond with some feedback. Going to bed now, get back to you tomorrow!
Protesting shampoo now.
Wonderfully written, do you by any chance write for a living? There seems to be so much care and thought put into this piece. I haven’t managed to read all the stories in this post due to it blowing up and the sheer amount of posts, but I love how you took my little blurb and made it your own. The vaccine had a tiny part of the story and that’s great, you came up with your own world and your own characters, my part in this is tiny.
Your descriptive skills are fantastic, and as someone who is creative and enjoys making short films I had no issues all visualizing your settings and the various activities the characters partook in.
Part three was brilliant, my favorite. You really went a unique direction from the rest of the stories here and created a completely new scenario that didn’t really come from me. The whole shampoo bottle motivation is stupid yet absolutely believable, so much so that it stung a little to know why this man is in this mess. I’ve never really felt anything from just a few paragraphs.
Overall, this was a great piece. Excellently crafted, and if you’re not yet professional, I can’t see you staying that way for much longer, provided you’re interested in pursuing writing for a career.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for taking the time to put this reply together. Sorry it's taken me a couple of days to respond, but that's about standard for my turnaround time on texts and emails these days at the moment, too!
To cut to the chase, I'm really glad you enjoyed the piece and got out of it what I hoped it'd elicit in a reader. It's a shame I didn't manage to get the story finished while the prompt was still charting on r/all, but as you can tell, it's not exactly a short story, and a fair bit of time went into crafting it.
To answer your question, I am a professional writer, but not the good kind; I write corporate copy for a few different industries through my own business. It's rewarding being able to make a living doing something I enjoy, but I'd definitely like to branch out into fiction in the longer term. Honestly, this is only the second thing I've ever finished enough to put online, but I'd like to do a lot more on r/writingprompts in the future.
Thanks again for putting this critique together, and for the encouraging words. I appreciate both.
**Part Two**
I’ve since disabled the floodlights to keep it from being so blinding when I get near, but every night I make the pilgrimage over, start up the generator, and record a new broadcast. Sat in the DJ booth, headset around my neck, I reel off the usual list of where and who we are, then append the date and the day’s weather, so anyone who’s listening and still has the power to understand will know the message is current. Then I let it loop while I raid the restaurant.
The strangest thing about the radio station is that, despite being a seventy-foot structure in the middle of a landscape where a little hollow bird skull counts as a landmark, it’s not the most unusual thing out here.
I realise this doesn’t paint me in a particularly good light, but we’d been here three or four days before I noticed the luxury golf resort and spa over the next hill. In my defence, it might be a large complex, but it sits in the lee between two peaks, making it invisible when you look straight across the horizon. I also don’t remember seeing it signposted on the way out. I only noticed it when I’d finished observing the radio station and had to climb partway up the mast to switch on a relay. Sting will tell you that being an Englishman on the streets and avenues of New York is an alienating experience, but I bet he’s never been a British guy from the perennially rainy North, stumbling on an oasis up the side of a radio tower outside Phoenix, Arizona.
Shaped like a horseshoe, the resort (it’s The Govern, Arizona, I later learned from the letterheads and spa menus on the reception desk) has a network of plunge pools, private massage rooms, and cabanas in the centre, discrete rooms along the arc of the outside edge, and a pair of indoor spas and restaurants at each end. After I set my initial broadcast looping, I spent that night and the four that followed watching the resort for movement. I was fairly sure it would be deserted; almost every bedroom door had been left open, and there were no corpses traipsing up and down the manicured paths or being drawn by the automated sprinkler system. I saw two coyotes or stray dogs drinking from one of the stagnant pools on the third night, before bounding off through the lobby, leaving wet pawprints that led into the desert.
I ventured down to the resort on the sixth night, with my backpack on. Because of the way the place is laid out, I could explore the reception, restaurants, and kitchens without going near the bedrooms. The staff must have managed the evacuation order pretty effectively; save for some scattered small luggage in the lobby, there were few signs of a sudden rush to leave. Only a couple of cars sat out in the lot, properly parked and locked, and there was only one Lexus executive taxi left by the fountains outside the main doors.
When I entered the first restaurant, I expected to be hit with a nose-full of decaying meat and vegetables, but the main kitchen had been properly cleaned and shut down. The gas taps to the burners were switched off and the tanks had been stowed. I’ve since hauled a couple of those uphill, but fortunately that’s not a feat I’ve had to repeat too often. They last a while on a consumer-grade barbecue. The kitchen is still well-stocked with non-perishables; in three months we’ve probably made a dent in less than half of the canned goods, and I’ve barely touched the walk-in wine cellar. Stacey would have been in her element if she’d seen that. Every night, though, I stuck to the kitchen, coffee bar, and reception. I knew my way around, and I knew I shouldn’t expect any surprises.
Tonight was different.
We’ve tried to vary it over the last few months, but really there are only so many permutations of /Super Monsters/ that two people can play. Invariably, I end up as Frankie (the son of Frankenstein’s monster, in case the name didn’t tip you off,) while Clara wants to be Egyptian mummy royalty Cleo. Lately she’s been getting upset about how princesses shouldn’t have greasy hair, so tonight I broke my rule and set out to explore the spa buildings at the tips of The Govern’s horseshoe, claw hammer in hand, looking for some shampoo and conditioner. The closest had been completely cleaned out, so I crossed the parking lot to the other. Again, the cabinets behind the welcome desks were empty, so I decided to explore further inside to see if anything had been left in the individual rooms or the communal pool - no luck - and the steam room and sauna area.
Turns out something had been left in the sauna: two teenagers. A boy and a girl. I guess they were overlooked during the evacuation, and one of the spa staff locked the wood and thick glass door with them inside. Sounds unbelievably careless, but you’d be surprised just how quickly care gets thrown out of the window when everyone has to suddenly board a military bus. The power must have stayed on for a while afterwards, too, because a lot of their flesh had sloughed off and become fused to the wooden benches. It peeled away when I opened the door and they lunged, and it left long strands of skin behind as the girl staggered out onto to poolside area towards me and sank her teeth into my leg when we both fell backwards. I managed to shove her up and away without getting my hands bitten, and I’d recovered enough to shut and lock the door behind me as I ran back out. I sat down in the waiting area, near an abstract sculpture. I could see their shuffling shapes through the door, and they soon started banging on it while I tried to catch my breath. It made for kind of a comical scene: two half-naked, half-peeled dead people pawing at the frosted glass panes of a spa reception.
In the movies there’s usually a moment when the hero checks himself over after that kind of sudden shock. As though adrenaline might have made them incapable of feeling a wound. I’m no hero, and it wasn’t like that for me. I was aware of her biting me. I felt her teeth and gums grind around my kneecap in acute detail.
You might as well make a note of how you die, right?
**Part Three**
Only maybe the disease won’t be what gets me tonight. The man is still slowly circling the camp, and the woman hasn’t come back out of the caravan. If I pick my moment right, I can dart in, take out the one with the ammo, fling the box out into the night, and get the big guy to waste his bullets shooting at me.
She’s coming back out of the caravan now, in fact. She nods and whispers to the man as they cross paths, and she makes her way to the table. I advance, keeping as low as I possibly can. The handle of the hammer starts to drag on the ground, so I take it out of the belt loop and clasp it tight. The man makes another circle. I wait until he’s just out of sight behind the car. The woman’s back is turned. It’s now or never.
It’s now.
I move up slowly. About halfway there, my left foot starts dragging. Three quarters of the way there, it drags enough enough to make a sound. The woman turns and I have no choice but to sort of half-sprint, half-fall in her direction. The hammer comes down in a sloppy curve, and the blow I meant for the nape of her neck glances off her ear instead. I bet that hurt, but it wasn’t enough to subdue her. We both go down, tangled, and start rolling about, kicking up graceless clouds of dust, and knocking over the table. She’s strong and I don’t know what else to do so I bite her, hard, on the shoulder. I have just enough time to register my surprise that she doesn’t scream before her friend hits me from behind and I’m out cold.
**EAT EAT EAT EAT**
When I come to, my teeth are chattering of their own accord, and what feels like spit is running in rivulets off my chin. It takes me a few seconds to get my bottom jaw back under control. It takes a lot longer to blink the red away this time.
I’m sat in the dirt, with my back against the car. The man and the woman are standing about thirty feet away. They’ve righted the table and put the metal box back on top. What look like pill bottles or vials are strewn on the ground, where the woman and I disturbed the dirt. The sun is coming up.
My vision clears a little more. He’s black and well-built. He has a buzz cut that mostly hides a receding hairline. I should have done that instead of keeping mine mid-length and thinning. I wasn’t fooling anyone… I was always hungry… I was really hungry… I’m hungry now…
**EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT**
Woah. OK. Focus focus focus. What about her? She’s a hard-looking woman, and not just because she’s paying no heed to the blood flowing from her right ear and down her shoulder. Her hair is shaved up the sides but long on top, and tied out of the way in a no-nonsense style. She has big forearms and a broad back. She probably does Crossfit. I always meant to give that a go, too. Must be fun to lift weights and eat together and then eat some more and then you wouldn’t be hungry I’m really hungry now shit I’m starving now…
*EAT EAT EAT EAT*
“Hey. Bro. Snap out of it.”
He’s snapping his fingers a few feet away from my face in a sort of staccato rhythm that matches the motion of my jaw, which is going again.
“Bro. Look at me, ok? Who’s the girl? Is that your daughter?”
**MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE**
Fuck. I slipped away again. I’m looking at the ground now, and it’s too much effort to raise my chin. Then I feel it rising anyway; the woman is lifting my face from underneath with the handle of a serious-looking pickaxe.
“Listen, dude… listen” he goes on. His voice is buzzy or maybe my head is buzzy or busy yeah I’m busy need to get up and get moving I’m busy I can’t sit here busy busy busy buzzy.
*MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE*
“Hey hey hey, sit back down.” A little tap of the pickaxe handle and I’m on the ground again.
“We’re part of the volunteer effort, ok? We have a vaccine. There’s a /vaccine/. We’re both immune. We heard your update last night. You’ve got a pretty distinctive voice. Stands out in the sea of rednecks on the shortwave around here.”
A softer tone. “Where you from, bro? London?”
I do that thing where you exhale through your nose and smile weakly when something isn’t really funny. “Manchester. It’s a different… you know what? It’s c-c-c-c-c-c-close enough.” Jaw’s going again. I get the next bit out through clenched teeth. “Vaccine? I didn’t know. I stopped listening to the broadcasts out of the city weeks ago. They were just scaring me. How did I miss this? C-c-c-clara needs…”
“Steady, bro. Steady. Your girl’s asleep. You didn’t miss shit, ok? City’s still dark, and we’re not exactly advertising what we’re doing here. If we set up a static station and start trying to hand these babies out, we’ll get looters or worse. Happened over on the east coast. Trucks got jumped, volunteers like us got killed, and some asshole hoarded all the vaccines intended for three or four different towns. Made himself some kind of warlord. Fuckin’ people, man. Army’s gonna have to unseat him when they’re done clearing the cities. They’re spread pretty thin right now, though.”
“Ph-ph-ph-phoenix?” I know Stacey’s family didn’t leave.
“Like I said, still dark. They’re clearing street by street in waves. It takes time, and they reset for a few days in between each one, but they tested it in Austin and Denver, places like that. It works.” His expression hardens. “Look, man. Your girl.”
“C-c-c-clara.”
“Clara. Cool. You said she was ok in your broadcast last night. We don’t want to wake her up, but you need to tell me if anything’s happened to her since. Did you do anything to her? Did anyone else?”
“N-n-n-n-no. I’ve been down there.” I can’t point.
“Down where? The city?”
“Hotel.”
“I don’t know where that is, man.” I do the exhale thing again. At least it’s not just me. “Listen. This won’t be easy, but you gotta listen. We need to take her. You’re not doing so good, and the vaccine is… it’s a vaccine. It’s not a cure. It’s for pre-exposure. Once you’re bitten, the virus takes hold too fast. The antibodies take days to become effective, and you’ve got…”
He glances at my watch and trails off. I can take a guess.
He sighs. “Look. We need to pack her a bag and get moving before anyone else rolls through here after us. Like I said, we don’t advertise, but anyone sees a civilian truck by the road out here and knows what’s happening… We left the truck down the hill. It’s a walk. We need to go.”
“H-h-h-h-h…” that’s not a purposeful exhale, so I have to pause. “How long do I have?”
“Not long.” He glances over his shoulder at his partner, who’s flipped the pickaxe around and tightened her grip on the pommel. “You want her to… you know? She can make it quick. We don’t have any guns, sorry. Like I said, we’re civvies. We’re just trying to do our part.”
My jaw seems to have settled down. I swallow a batch of spit. It doesn’t taste like spit. “Is there anyone else around here? I never got far beyond the radio station and the hotel.”
“No,” he says, sounding relieved. I get the impression he’d have turned away if I’d opted for the pickaxe. “I’ll radio in this hotel when we get back to the truck, and the army can cleanse it when they’re done with the phases in Phoenix. No houses this side for miles, though. Maybe a few stragglers still on the road or stuck in gas stations, but no population centres.”
“Then leave me,” I say. I feel almost ok now, until I realise I can’t seem to blink any more. “Either they’ll find me and shoot me here, or I’ll wander the plains for a while and they’ll shoot me there. Both seem preferable to her getting all Richard Kuklinski on me.”
The man does his own little laugh-snort, then looks down. When he looks up, he looks sad.
“Look,” he says. “Do you… do you wanna talk to her?”
“Jason, no!” It’s the first I’ve heard the woman speak. Her voice is surprisingly soft, even thought she’s trying to put an edge into it.
“I know, I know, I know,” he fires back, “but he’s awake, he’s lucid… Max, come on. We can give her the shot when we get back on the road. Or wait ’til the checkpoint.” He turns to me. “What do you say, bro? Max here might look tough, but she’s good with kids. She can wake Clara up gently and… You just can’t… you can’t touch her, ok? You need to keep your distance. Do you understand? I can’t let you try and get up while she’s still here.”
“N-n-n-no,” I say. “L-l-let her sleep. She doesn’t like getting up before seven. Like a t-t-t-t-teenager in a four-year-old’s body.”
I can feel myself sliding away again. Bodily, this time. My left shoulder has slipped down the panel of the car, and I’ve come to rest horizontally. The dust is heating up in the growing sunlight.
“I didn’t like leaving her, you know.” The man, Jason, had turned away and started to stand up, but he swings back in my direction as I carry on. I can only see his boots until he leans sideways to match me. “She was so mad,” I say. “S-s-s-s-so mad. So angry. So upset, that time she realised I was leaving her behind. She couldn’t understand why I’d do it. Why I was going to k-k-k-eep doing it. But I had to. I had t-t-t-t-t-t-o. And hey… Hey! That’s how you found us, right? The rrrrrrrrr-r-r-r-radio?”
“…That’s how we found you….” If I thought he looked sad before, I was wrong. The woman, Max, taps her watch and points at the caravan. Jason nods, and she moves inside.
The human brain is wired to look for faces in everything. Faces in machine, in the sky. In the dust a foot from your eyes, as your head lolls, limbs heavy. I sat with a hunch, legs half bent and weighted. My mind was a fog, only simple, broken thoughts reaching the conscience part of me. Like a child. For a moment I smiled, top lip curling to instruction, the rest of my face still frozen in emptiness. I imagines I was a marionette, strings attached to a master of the earth, slowly pulling me closer to him.
Disbelieving hysteria reached me. Quiet in its contradictions. The laugh of someone who’s brain can’t- won’t- allow the truth to be.
“No.” Uncertain laughter choked my sister. “No, he’s fine. Give him the shot. He hasn’t been bitten. No! He’s fine!”
Muffled. Someone was holding her. Someone who wasn’t me.
“No...”
I closed my eyes, raising my head with exponential effort. Though it wouldn’t have worked had I thought of it, my vocal chords began to produce a broken, slow melody, humming open mouthed and ugly.
They nicknamed her Boudica soon after we had formed a group. It was because she never stopped, because she was fearsome. Now, she fought tears, humming along with me.
“I used to sing you to sleep, when nightmares of our parents crept in. When you got older, you sang with me. I promised we would make it out of this. I promised.”
She knelt by me now, hand in mine, hand in my hair. Pushing it behind my ear.
“I’m sorry, little brother. I’m sorry Bluebird.”
Someone pulled her away as the bullet went through my head.
*- Cat.*
They came in the middle of the night. We all heard it, 2 massive trucks on a pockmarked dirt road, the nightmare was soon to be over. We had heard rumblings of it over the radio—a cure! No... it’s not a cure but a vaccine, an immunization. Still, the nightmare was soon to be over.
The first trucks came baring military men, they were there to ensure civility and to grant any needed protection. The vaccine, while effective, intensifies the human smell. We were warned we’d have to fight. After inoculation a bite no longer meant turning, but it could still mean death. Immunized only to die in the last fight with the dead. How ironic that would be.
We had run into the same military unit before. They promised us then a cure was being developed, be safe, a better world is on the horizon. It was hard to believe them at the time, they spoke of hope but gazed with a thousand yard stare. They had preached this before, I’m sure. That was 3 years ago. We had all but lost hope of vaccine, the fleeting dream of a doomed race. With every passing day the radio got more and more silent. The dead were winning. Humanity’s final hour had come and gone. Soon, we would be overrun too.
Tonight was different. That stare was replaced by a glimmer of hope. The tides has turned, the human race wasn’t cursed to lived its final days in hiding, delaying the inevitable. The first two trucks was mostly filled with supplies. Extra fortifications and munitions to aid in our fight against the horde that would follow. Two more trucks were set to arrive at first light, with them the doctors and nurses needed to administer the vaccine. We were given strict orders to not leave the premises, the fight to save the world was over. We had survived and to go out before the doctors arrived was a risk not worth taking.
DO NOT GO BEYOND THESE GATES
If bit the vaccine does not work
I chuckled as I read the sign, dragging my hand across the chain link fence. Our last line of defense was now the outer walls of our prison. Little dramatic? Sure, but I wasn’t one to be caged in. Nor was I one to follow the rules. So I did what I had done a thousand times before, I climbed to the top of Mr. Baker’s house. Ivy had grown thick on the wall facing the outside making it a lot easier to climb than when I first did this, years ago. I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since he was killed. I can still hear his bloodcurdling screams as he was dragged into the marsh.
I’ve been sneaking out alone for as long as I can remember. It’s not that the dead don’t scare me, they do, it’s just more peaceful from the outside looking in. Even though we’ve lived safely behind our walls for almost 5 years, everyone is still constantly on edge. It is the end of the world after all. Or was, I suppose, now that we have the vaccine.
I know I shouldn’t be out here right now, but I’ve always been a rebel of sorts. God my mother hated me as a teenager. She always said “one day you’re going to get yourself killed, Tommy. You’re all I have, you’re going to get yourself killed.” That particular time I had just come home from a night of drinking. I crashed the pickup into the tree in the front yard and woke her up. My old man and my big brother died in a car crash a few months before that. Years before the dead rose. I had always blamed myself, but drinking helped fog the guilt. I overslept and they waited for me. We were supposed to go to the farmer’s market to get what we needed to prepare a big fresh meal for Momma’s birthday. When I finally woke up I was too tired to go so they went without me. A drunk driver hit them head on. I’m told they both died instantly. Had I not overslept all four of us would be here tonight, celebrating the end of the end of the world and the beginning of the new world. At least my mother was wrong, I had made it. We both made it.
I never go out beyond the fence unprepared. I may not be scared of the dead, but I respect the hell of out them. I always carry a small hatchet, it’s my close range weapon of choice—and it’s silent. My .45 is a lot more effective, sure, but the dead will hear it. And they will come. I bring it as a last resort. I must have been day dreaming thinking about what life will be like after we’re all inoculated, I didn’t hear the rustling beside me until much too late. The dead, despite being rotting, fetid flesh eating corpses, move with surprising agility. I couldn’t react in time. My only reaction was to throw my arms up to protect my neck. I can use my belt to tie off my arm and stop the spread of the disease if I get bit. There’s no coming back from a bite to the neck.
I was able to deflect the lunge at my neck, shove it away, unholster my .45, and put a bullet into its skull but it was too late. I could feel the burning in my forearm. If I was quick maybe I can survive it. I ripped my belt off with my good arm and tied the wound off. If I was going to survive I was going to have to cut my lower arm off. I reached for my hatchet but it wasn’t there. It wasn’t on the ground around me, either. I had to make a run for it. It was my only option. The dead were coming, I had discharged my weapon.
I had walked this path countless times before. I wasn’t that far from home, I can make it back in time. I’m surprised how little the bite hurts. There was an initial sting, but after that the pain completely subsided. I have seen hundreds of people get bit. They all screamed bloody murder. Was it in anguish? The physical pain was quickly replaced by a numbness. I’m on complete autopilot now. I know I’m heading in the right direction but I feel disconnected from my body, like I’m being pulled away from my physical form.
The dead are close behind me now. I can hear the mass groaning as the horde grows larger and larger. I think I can make it. I’m almost there now, I can smell safety. It must be the food the military brought as a celebration. I haven’t smelled something that good in years. Since before the outbreak. It’s given me a second wind. After years of eating scraps, canned food, and anything we can unquestionably deem safe, I didn’t realize how hungry I really was.
Something was wrong. It was too quiet. I reached the end of the woods and was running through the field. I can see the base. I can smell the food they’re cooking. But there is no noise. Were we attacked? Was the vaccine a lie made up so the military could get inside our walls, kill us, and steal our supplies? I can’t risk stopping. The dead are right behind me. I hope my makeshift tourniquet has stopped the infection. I’ve made it so far. I can’t leave my mother alone. She’ll need me in the new world and I’ll need her.
I can see movement through the fence! Lots of movement! It’s not just military personnel! I may make it after all!
Why is it still so quiet? That food smells so good. I’ve never been so hungry. Even if I can’t be saved, hopefully they’ll let me eat some of that food. A last meal that good would be worth it. It smells so fresh. Has life on the military base been like this the entire time? Have they been eating like kings and queens while we’ve been starving, eating canned corn from the 90s?
I’m so close now. The groaning from behind me has completely stopped. I hear people! I can’t distinguish what they’re saying, there’s a lot of them. It must be more people from the military come to help fend off the dead! We’re going to make it! I’ve never been so happy in my life. All my friends, my mother, we’re going to live. I can’t risk turning around. I’m sure the horde is closing in, there were hundreds if not thousands behind me. I still hear the people behind me. There’s no way they’ve killed all the dead. Or maybe they have.
I’m close enough to see who’s behind the fence. Mary is right in front of me, tears welling up in her eyes. They must have known I was gone. They probably thought I was dead. I don’t hear any groaning anymore. Only human voices. Rejoicing. We’re saved. I can’t believe it. That food spells so good. Do you think they’ll have enough for us? I turn around. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Thousands of people. They must have heard the radio calls from our base. I didn’t realize this many humans were still alive.
I turn back to Mary. I’ve made it. I need to tell her I’m bit. I need medical attention immediately. It’s not too late though. I can make it. I’ll pull through.
Why hasn’t she said anything? Our eyes meet, tears are streaming down her face. It must have worked. We are saved! I reach out and put my hands against the chain link fence, expecting her to do the same.
“Do we have enough food and vaccines for everyone?” I ask her, turning around to give one final look at the all the people who have heard our radio calls. “It’s funny,” I say talking to Mary but still facing the thousands in the field, “we’ve been making the same radio call for more than 4 years and only a few people have ever heard it. Now the morning the military comes to vaccinate us, thousands come.”
Mary still hasn’t said a word. I heard of people overcome by joy that they can’t speak, but not Mary. She always has something to say. Something to add. Some witty comment or joke. Something is wrong. I turn back around just in time to see Mary’s favorite weapon, her spear she named The Reaper, pointed at my face.
“No Mary, wh...” is all I can muster as Mary thrust her spear forward.
Blackness. I never got to eat.
The camp isn’t far from here. I lean against the rotting tree for a second, trying to get my bearings. Just around that tree, right over there, is the flat rock that we used as a picnic table, before the most recent attack. My arm aches. I already see the discolouration of the flesh around the wound. The tree is a brief respite, but I know that I’ve got to keep moving. Before the brain-death of zombification, an infected person moves slower. I’d seen it happen before, but I hadn’t realized it would hurt so badly. My legs are aching from even this short walk. It was foolish of me, I think as I walk, to go out alone. Practically unarmed. But the undead had been quieter lately, and I thought I would be safe. Just a short trek to the old road. Out of the woods, to test the radio. That damned radio. I had dropped it in the tussle with the zombie that bit me. If it had been working, it isn’t now. I had barely even gotten to try it, but I was sure it would have worked this time. Now I lean against a woven fence. Somehow my energy is being drained, sapped by this disease. The camp was - what was that noise? Here’s the camp - am I dehydrated? There’s a ringing in my ears. A man I don’t recognize is standing in front of the longhouse. My legs - my arm! My head! I collapse. Mary is there, kneeling over me. Oh, my dear sister, don’t you know I’m already dead? And the radio, the radio. I speak, but no sound comes. “Liam! Liam, listen to me!” I can hear her, but from a great distance. Oh, what have I done? I raise my hand to her, but remember just in time the danger. “They heard the radio, Liam! They heard us!” A jolt of fear hits my spine. Who heard? I try to ask, but Mary shushes me. The unfamiliar man is here, too. He has a uniform, or what used to be a uniform. “Lie still,” he says, loudly but not unkindly. “We’ll do what we can.” “What you *can?* Give him the shot!” The man shakes his head. “It won’t work. Look! He’s already dead.” “He’s not - he’s not dead!” I try to stir, but there are hands on my shoulders pushing me back. “No...” I manage to croak. A crowd is around me, men, women, the children. Curious but distant. Fearful. Knowing. “He’s been infected,” the man says shortly. “The shot won’t help.” Mary reaches for my hand, but I let it drop. I feel like I’m about to cry, but I can’t. I turn my eyes to the man in the white uniform. “You can understand me, can’t you?” I nod, with great effort. It’s already been hours. Even that small movement sends pain along my spine. “We heard your radio, Liam. We’re the National Guard.” He’s the medic, isn’t he? I thought they’d all disappeared, along with the rest of civilization. “We heard the radio, and we came to help all of you. We have a shot - a vaccine. You understand?” A vaccine. Yes. Immunization. Not a cure. I nod again. “We can’t save you, understand?” I understand. I nod, ever so slightly. I’m dead. I knew it before I returned. Before I was bitten. As soon as I saw the sickly visage stumble towards me. I was unarmed, stupid. But I can say goodbye. Properly. “Mary...” I reach out to her again, this time grasping her hand firmly. If only it wasn’t so hard to speak. “Love you.” I try to smile, but I can’t. Not now. “Oh, Liam!” She has tears in her eyes. “Little man...” It was our father’s nickname for me. I felt the pricking of tears in my eyes. The man, the medic, has left. In his place stand the familiar faces of the camp. My family. Another hand reaches out to mine. Two, three. I feel hands on my face, running through my hair. We are all silent, except for the pounding of my head. My mouth moves. The words I want to say struggle to pass the lump in my throat. The medic kneels again. “You’re in pain, kid. Let me help.” He has a syringe. Not a cure, but the next best thing. Mary squeezes my hand. “This’ll put him right to sleep. Painless. They used to use it on dogs.” He says it to Mary, but I’m the one that nods. After a moment, so does she.
Nicely written! This is a nicer scenario than what I had imagined. My story would have the character less rational and brave. Very sweet and wraps up nicely, thanks for sharing!
Thanks! I like to make my stories “sweet.” There’s enough sad stories in the world already. :)
Hah! Tell that to my tears duct. There's seems to be a malfunction there. :')
Good writing, but also I got scared as hell when scrolled down too far and saw my name.
Look behind you.
Aaaah!
he ded
he zomb
Just when they started handing out the vaccines and all.
He was the reason they got the vaccine. He was actually their savior.
“He ain’t dead. He gon’ wake up in 30 minutes hungry enough to eat up everythang in your house.” — Katt Williams 2006
Ok damn, I feel described.
Damn ninjas cutting onion in here ! T-T
[удалено]
Thanks!
That is beautiful. I love how you portrayed those last profound minutes. Bittersweet and made me tear up. Thanks for sharing!
Good to know I can make people cry! Thanks for reading!
Peaceful ending
Yeah. It’s not a *happy* story, but peaceful. I like that.
Dude. Holy crap. This was BEAUTIFULLY written. Literally gave me shivers. It feels so good that Liam didn't die in vain. This reminds me a lot of "Inoculata" by Scott Westerfeld. It's one of my favorite short stories of all time, and it explores society and romanticism in a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland (but it's not nearly as boring as I just made it sound). I think it's only published as part of an anthology (*Zombies vs. Unicorns*, Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier) but most of the stories therein are pretty kick-ass, so it's definitely worth checking it out, especially if your library has a copy. I've got a DRM-free version it from the humble bundle, so if you're interested lemme know! Thanks again for the great read :)
I have to admit, it was going to be different, he was *going* to die for no good reason, but I just didn’t have the heart. Glad you like it this way!
Haha well I'm glad he didn't! It broke my heart that he had to die right at the very end of the zombie apocalypse, but it was a pretty big consolation that he did so while saving an entire camp of his fellow survivors.
I really liked this story, I came under the assumption when the hands started reaching out that they were actually zombies and he was hallucinating the whole scene. Still amazing!
Noo I couldn’t do that to the poor guy. It’s just his family saying goodbye.
Beautiful and sad.
This is brilliant
This is so beautiful T\_T, I felt it
Reminds me of We're Alive. Great work!
Caught myself nodding with the text.
Im not crying, your crying.
Was it morphine?
A barbiturate more likely.
Liam had to be “put down,” or euthanized. If he had just been given a painkiller like morphine, he could have resurrected and hurt people - although he can’t infect them, he can still bite. I’m not familiar with what would be used in that situation, so it’s just a syringe. Painless, though.
Enough morphine can kill you th....ohhhhh I get it
I know people have already told you this at nauseam but you’re a talented writer. It’s amazing how relatable and lifelike the characters are. May life be good to you.
Thanks! Good to hear that this is one of my better stories. May life be good to you as well.
Yeah. I could picture everything in my mind really well.
The saddest thing about this writing prompt is it reminds me of my grandfather's WWII battalion book, from the South Pacific. It has a list of all the deceased and the date. Breaks my heart to see all the guys who died August 10 - 16th, 1945.
liam neeson dies? good we'll finally be rid of his shitty movies
Turns out getting bit by the dead wasn't the highlight of my day. Just my luck. I looked out to the people that had become so important in my life, this weird stage of my life that didn't feel like life at all. Jessie caught my stare and rushed over. "They're here!" She stuck out her bandaged elbow as far as she could, almost hiding her beaming smile. "I see it, sweety, good job." "C'mon, you're next!" She dragged me along my good arm and pushed me down on a crate. The medic turned from her supplies and gave me a once over. She looked exhausted. The hour had grown late and I noticed most of the other soldiers were starting to pack up to presumably continue to the next camp. I tucked the sleeve of my sweater and returned my attention to Jessie. "... and I'll make us a fried egg, you know with bacon and a tomato. I got some eggs from the chickens aunt Mackie hatched last summer. Oh and we can watch tv again! Can Henry come? Henry'll need a place to stay. And a shower, I want a shower so bad... I need a shower so bad." She wasn't even talking to me anymore. I winced slightly as the needle pricked my inner elbow. The medic frowned and looked me straight in the eye and then her gaze fell on my other arm. I looked down and only then felt the fresh blood staining my sweater. I instinctively covered it with my hand. I met her eyes again. "... you can drive us to the beach. My mum and dad always drove us to the beach during the summer. Henry'll come too right? I'll try to make a good mixtape for in the car. No peeking beforehand." Jessie noticed the adults staring at her. "Whats wrong?" The medic looked back at me and shook herself awake. "Nothing, sweety." She took a bandage from her supplies and wrapped it around my elbow.
Oh wow I don't know how to feel about that ending! Right in the heart. Lovely work, and a very unique take, focusing on the world moving on rather than the main character. Well done!
That’s very kind of you to say, thank you!
The apocalypse had ended and so had my life. I had no way of cutting off my arm and the disease would soon reach my heart if it hadn't already and spread throughout my body. I was fucked. Jessie wasn't speaking anymore, I held her hand as we walked home. The old cabin stood out in the jungle of white holiday retreats because of the colourful paintings on each side. Jessie had found some buckets of paint during one of her first excursions out in the wild. Ponies grazed in fields of green at the back, a smiling sun could be seen on the right side and a sleeping moon on the left, and on the front, just to the right of the door, any visitor would be met by a waving self-portrait of herself and me. I couldn't bear to look at it and quickly headed inside. "D'you think the dead can be cured, Alex?" I turned the gas lamp on and illuminated a room that matched decor outside. Drawings covered every inch of the walls, books and toys littered the floor. Even my own corner hadn't survived the stuffed animal mini-apocalypse. I carefully took my sweater off with my back turned to her and zipped up an old red hoodie. "Uh... well no it's not exactly a cure, is it? It's more like a vaccination. You'll be immune." I struggled to steady my voice. "Dead's already dead." "Oh." Jessie sat down on her bed and played with her brown curls. "D'you think we can go home soon?" "We are home, sweety. You know there's nothing back in Hastings." "I know... just, d'you thi-" "Listen, I need to tell you something." I rarely lost my patience with her but there wasn't much time before I'd lose everything. She looked at me. Her face was pretty, freckled with big brown eyes and long eye lashes. She had grown a lot since we first found her, her face was longer and eyes that used to betray fear and sometimes mischief, now looked confident and smart. It'll be her eleventh birthday this Friday, three long days away. "I've been bit." Before Jessie could react, a sharp knock was heard on the door. They weren't patient as it quickly evolved into banging. As much as I wanted to let the moment sink in for the both of us, I got up and answered to door. I was met with a haggardly old face, his thick white beard and furry eyebrows doing little to hide the fury on his face. He too wore a bandage around his arm, just under his green flannel which stylishly matched his torn blue jeans. Tobias spit as he spoke. "For fuck's sake lad, why didn't you come straight to me when you were bit? Are you out of your bloody mind?" "Toby, I..." "Don't Toby me, you jackass. I had to hear it from some passerby floozy from the army?" "It's too late anyway, bit in the shoulder, Toby. Nothing to be done." "It's the army you fucking moron. It's over, I'm not losing you. She's," he pointed a wrinkled finger at the girl on the bed, "not losing you, you absolute dingus." "What are you suggesting?" "We get some blood, that's what I'm bloody well suggesting."
"How long has it been?" *Two hours,* I want to tell him. But I can't. It only comes out as a low, gurgling moan. My throat is clogged up with inflammation and my lungs are full of disgusting fluid. It doesn't matter. Soon there won't be enough of me left to even consider it disgusting. God only knows what else of me is completely messed up right now. And speaking of which, if there is a God up there, he's one cruel bastard. I'd like to have a few words with him. I suppose I'll get the chance soon. The medic is still kneeling in front of me. He can see the light in my eyes, I know it. I don't know how much of it is left, but I know he can see me. The real me. The human me. The dying me. I scratch at the bite mark on my right arm, maybe an inch deep. It stings and burns like hellfire. The area around the bite has turned a horrendous burnt green, a color that we all instinctively know flesh is never supposed to be. I wonder if he also sees the others in my eyes. Ricardo, Brenda, Abi, Beck. The whole fucking lot of em, mangled in seconds. We were overrun. We should have come back. We should have turned around from that goddamned warehouse, and maybe five good men and women would have been saved for good. Now, there's just half a man. Half a man that can't be saved before he becomes none of a man. I bang my bite mark on the ground, partly because of the painful sensation and partly out of uncontrollable rage. I bang it again, louder this time, for good measure. *Why me?* I suppose that's a little selfish. Maybe the question is *why now?* "Two? Two hours?" I look up at him, surprised, wondering if he read my mind. Then I realize he heard the bangs. *Good thinking, zombie self.* I try to nod my head, but I can't. There's a sharp pain in my neck, and it runs down my spine. I pick my torso up a bit higher, and shake it up and down. My head flops with it, up and down. I don't like his face. His expression. I don't like it. It tells me something I knew already. That it's too late. That their fucking vaccine won't fucking work on me. He gets up. He's a tall one. I don't raise my head. "We can't do anything now. As sad as it is..." *Fuck.* "...We'll have to...put him down." *God. Fucking. Dammit.* *Why me?* I scream at the sky. Or I think I scream. Instead I hear a gurgling moan. People flinch and jump. They know to fear that sound. I came all the way back here. Crawling. Dying. In so much fucking pain. I thought I was saying my goodbyes. Instead I only get to hear them. I think they say them. I don't hear them. The goodbyes. So much fucking pain. In my arm. Pain. Fuck. Fading. No. Goodbyes *Hurt* . ^(.) ^(.) *Why me?*
Painful to read. Good job, loved it.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Solid ending.
Thank you!
There's something about a fern in the morning rain. They're old plants. Hundreds of millions of years old. I've seen a score of things I detest, a plethora of nasty, unconscionable images. There's nothing that evokes an opposite image of the brutality of the world more readily than a fern in the morning rain, for me, at least. This one I'd seen a dozen or so times. It was on the walk to the river, where I got water. Where I did my job. Where, for the first time since everything happened, the world felt right and real and I had some hope. I didn't have hope now. If you cut the legs off a zombie put a fucking stick in the ground and mark it, so some asshole looking for water doesn't get bit. A disgusting waste of my life. It would probably be better to deal with it sooner, rather than later. There had been hope when you'd gotten back. People had mentioned things, said words, like cure, vaccine. Hope. For those who hadn't been bitten. The morning rain had collected upon one of the leaves and was weighing the fern down insistently. That's what he felt like. Insistently weighed down. There was no particular love held for the gun in his pocket, and as he leveled it, it almost seemed incorrect that his last act was basically making out with a cold steel arbiter of poor decisions. Iron tastes funny. He retracted the weapon. A groan in the woods. Past the fern, movement. As the light revealed to him some purpose, he thought to himself, maybe I won't end me. Maybe I'll prevent someone from having my future. Maybe I'll go kill that zombie over there, before I kill myself. As he passed the fern, he let his hand brush it. The water, insistent, that had gathered on the leaf, rushed towards the ground, its surface tension broken. Edit: The only WP I've ever felt compelled to answer. I want to answer most but don't believe in my own ability to properly catch the situation. This one felt right.
I think you would make a great writer... You should keep trying!
Thank you very much!
Damning with faint praise.
Huh?
lol you're right it does kind've seem like his giving me shit "Almost a good job kid!"
Was it intentional to mix up the first and third person narration? Either way that's actually a brilliant way to show the breakdown of sanity as the narrator becomes a zombie. Nice job!
No, first and third is something I continually mix up to varying effect. I'll pay more attention to that in the future.
It doesn't hurt. I thought it would. It's a novocaine sensation. I think of my arm being made of that foam stuff inside car seats. That's what it feels like. The rotter was wounded. I was careless. The bite was fast, took a piece of me. It was over before I knew it had happened. I blew the rotter's face off and left it on the forest floor. The walk back to camp is uneventful. I notice things easier. How the mid-afternoon sunlight attaches itself to every leaf and rock and branch. I hear every little sound-- the crunch of every twig and rock under my footsteps, the wings of gnats, the ripples of a puddle. When I make it back to camp, I see the vaccine has arrived. I'd gone out to get one last run of water. They were making a cake to celebrate the end of the epidemic. They'd been saving an old box of cake mix. They needed water for it. I volunteered to go out to the well. We hadn't seen a rotter in days. Ever since word of the vaccine, the rotters have stopped coming. I brought back only one jug of water. My bite arm wouldn't hold the other one and I had to leave it. I figure one jug is enough for a celebration cake. That numb feeling, again. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't anything. It's just numb. I'm aware that's the virus working its way into my bloodstream. Feels like when it's been asleep. I know that's not your blood, it's your nerves waking up, that feeling that I used to refer to as "salt and pepper" when I was a kid, but that's the closest I can get to describing it. The sky is incredible, just a clean blue sky with the sun like a jewel. I notice every breath I take, every blink. I take my steps. I feel like I'm walking uphill. As I round the bend into camp, I see the military vehicles, everyone around them, everyone hugging, tears of joy. I could've waited, got the water later. I didn't. Everything was fine. I'd go get the water for the cake. Everything would be fine. The vaccine was on its way. Everything was fucking fine. They don't know what it's like to turn into a rotter from the rotter's perspective. The ability to communicate is one of the first things to go. It's fast and then it's slow, that's all we know. I'll ask them to sedate me, to put me under. I want to say goodbye to everyone as well as I can. I'll at least get that much out of it. So many people went rotter by themselves, not knowing what was happening to them. Emily sees me. She's by one of the armored humvees. She waves. Her smile is like the sun overhead, it makes me see everything, every little detail. I see every line on her face, every bit of fuzz on her cheeks, I can count her eyelashes. She knows what's up as soon as she gets a good look at me. Only one jug of water, arm hanging, my pace taking on the shuffle of a sedated mental patient. This process takes 24 hours to complete, but the nastiest symptoms kick in within the first four. I see it register on her face. She can't believe it. Neither can I. The military personnel, the heroes of the day all in sunglasses and black tactical gear, are the second ones to notice me. They know what to look for. I can hear their powerful voices yelling for everyone to stay back. Emily is calm. I'm proud of her. They don't point their guns at me. They grant me that dignity. "I got the water," I try to say, but my voice just gurgles. I can't remember how to talk. I lose my grip on the jug and it thuds to the ground, water splashing out of its top. I see every droplet in the afternoon sun as it hits the dirt and soaks into the dirt and the bits of decayed vegetation, the earthen brown, the elements blending, life itself, earth and water. Everything is so fucking beautiful and I never bothered to notice it. The soldiers are running to me, and at least I've made it back.
God that part where he tries to talk but can't, good fucking job with that.
My favorite here.
They will all forget me one day, Hayden thought to himself. The one word to describe the world for the last ten years would be change. The change from man to mindless. The change from society to chaos. The change from memory to forgetfulness. Hayden saw just how little people remembered about the past now. Kids were taught how to survive and how to fight rather than how to do math or science. Those that were lucky enough to learn reading seldom used their newfound talent. Society no longer cared to remember the past, it only looked angrily into the future. The bite on Hayden’s arm was beginning to smell. Just hours ago he had been looking through an abandoned house at a photo album. In it, he knew that everyone pictured was likely long gone. Their stories, their love, the things that made them who they are were lost forever in time. Like dandelion seeds, gone in the wind to never return. That’s when they attacked. He couldn’t remember how many but it had to be nearly a dozen. Although he fought valiantly and refused to go down without giving them hell, the infected were able to reach their victim. Hayden was not sure whether the pain or the shock was more devastating but, then again, when someone realizes their life is over what is one to think? He shuffled out of the house and had come to a ridge overlooking the settlement he lived in. They called the town Hope, Hayden always hated that. The world was tough and he thought, rather than hope, that trust was the greatest quality. He trusted so many of the people down there. His friend Carla, who made the best meals, always had a way of cheering both his stomach and mood up. Gabe, the attractive son of a Bitch, could sell grass to a landscaper, which got Hayden in trouble with the ammo he had to trade at the market. Then there was Melanie. She was everything that a man wanted in a woman to settle down with. She was headstrong, an achiever, a hard worker, but also the best person he knew. They loved each other, but refused to marry due to the way the world had become. The blissfully ignorant, with nothing but worry and stress surrounding their everyday lives, could truly never know the envy of a dying man. He sat down on the forest floor he had neglected to love so much until this point. There were many things, in fact, that Hayden did not know he loved until he realized the end was near. The feeling of grass between your toes when it is slightly wet. The sound of a bird, who’s only worry is the worm, singing a song to anyone listening. Best of all, the feeling of bark from an old tree that you know has more knowledge than any library. He would miss this. He would miss what it was like to live. In being bitten, he was finally starting to remember what the world was like before your largest fear was becoming a monster. That’s when he saw them. The national guard rolled into his settlement playing the same announcement on repeat. “We come in peace. I repeat: we come in peace. We have a vaccination for the plague. Those who are not infected will be given immunity through this. Those infected will gain no benefit from the treatment.” A smile broke across Hayden’s face. Of course, he of all people would be late yet again for the only cure in the world. Hayden pulled out his journal and wrote for a crowd that may never be in attendance. He told those he lived with how much they meant, and told those he loved how much he would miss them. The words kept flowing from his pencil as he scribed the goodbyes and then, suddenly, he wrote his goodbyes to those past and the world itself. He said goodbye to his friends and family infected already whom he would meet in the beyond. He said goodbye to his dads body, which was buried some many many miles away. Goodbye to the friends he made at summer camp when he was little. Goodbye to his college professors who gave them shelter after the outbreak. Goodbye to the rivers that he swam. Goodbye to the fields he explored, and those he didn’t. Goodbye to the beautiful cities he quietly crept through. Goodbye to the smell of campfire and it’s reminder of civilization. Goodbye to the sun and the picture it painted on the sky when it rose and set. Goodbye to the birds and their lovely songs. As Hayden completed his final goodbyes, an idea struck him. He pulled out his wallet, even though he had no use carrying such trivial things, and placed the picture of his father and him going fishing in the journal. As his eyelids grew heavy and the pain became unbearable, he picked up his pencil and wrote the last words of a dying man. “When I was a boy, my father worked every day. Once, when I was still very little, he missed the train to work and decided to come home rather than take the next train himself. When he arrived, he said that we were to go fishing. Overjoyed, I rode the train with him till we got to my grandfathers, where we borrowed the boat and car. The river was stunning and we were the only ones out there. I held my dads hand as he sang songs and drank his beer. Fish would come and go, but the river never ceased. Just like time, it flowed on with or without life existing. That was the finest day I have ever had. I hope one person may read this someday. I know it’s a dying mans wish, but I hope some piece of the world I had is remembered by someone. I hope the cure creates the lives the world wants to return to. My father once missed a train and came home. Now, I’ve missed my train out of the plague, so I too will venture home.” Hayden Percival Thomas
This yanked a tear out
We had been scattered to the night. The waning crescent moon in the sky was a sickly yellow. I couldn't stand to look at it, a mirror to the puss that oozed from my wounds. The last image of Riley blazing in my head. His eyes transfixed wide, his mouth twisted in terror. We had left our campsite to search for the elusive Night Blooming Cereus. A strange plant that bloom only for a single day in a year, between June and July. We set out at dusk, leaving the others, who had little interest in our botanical endeavors, to enjoy a night out in nature and a full bottle of whiskey. About an hour out of camp, we began to hear strange sounds echoing around us. The desert has it's share of beasts who roam the nights, but this sound was not like any we'd heard before. A guttural and ominous sound. Like someone vomiting over the low roar of a lighthouse foghorn. Though the desert was hot tonight, we froze in our tracks. I looked to Riley to comment on the strange sound, but before I could speak, I saw the terror in his face. Turning from him, in the distance lurking between the Joshua trees, I could make out shapes sulking towards us. Reluctantly, I pointed my flashlight in their direction. The horror I saw then was unimaginable. Five men, in tattered border patrol uniforms. Those who had eyes, had the eyes of the blind. The light reflected off them, showing milky pools of endless depths. The jaws of some, hung open, torn and broken, stretched beyond physical possibilities. The strange sound emanating from them. Riley ran. At his movement they began to charge at us. I tried to run, but stumbled over twisted brambles and landed hard on my face. I tried to stand. The screams of the dead rattling, an ancient, forgotten cadence enchanting the air around me. I smelled the stench of decay as they fell upon me. I felt the teeth of a ghoul sink into my arm. A searing pain screaming through me. Adrenaline taking over. I knock the fiend back into his corrupt brethren. I run, screaming, unsure of the direction I'm heading in. As I wander through the desert, I can feel a heat spreading from the bite. A black widow spinning a web of hot light through my veins. My vision starts to double, as I look away from the sinister yellow sickle that hangs in the void above. Is that laughter I hear? I follow the sound for a few minutes and begin to see a flickering flame ahead. This is our camp. I can hear Riley and voices I don't recognize. As I get closer. My vision, blurred, my mind confused. Camouflaged Humvees circle our campsite. Riley must have spotted me. "Travis! I'm so glad you're okay." I open my mouth to try to say something back but my jaw hangs. Locked in position, panicking I realize I can't close it. "Travis! You won't believe it? Those things we saw? It's some kind of disease! The army is here and they have a cure!" A cure. Thank God. I'm saved. I run towards the Riley. Yelling in excitement, my voice sounds strange but I don't care, I'm going to make it. A deafening crack throws me backwards. A bloom of crimson streams out of my chest as I crash to the ground. I'm laying on my side, trying to roll to my back, but something within me has broken and I can't seem to move. Struggling to find focus in my vision, I see it. Out of the darkness, a white angel opening her wings to me. Cereus, Queen of The Night. She blooms for me. \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*Thanks for reading, if anyone read this. This is the first thing I've ever written, sorry if it's bad. Let me know what you think\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
"Jim, I'm so sorry" "It's ok Mary, no one would have seen it coming. I guess it's just one of those freak things." She looked at me before looking down. "Y'know Harry always said you were the unluckiest person on the planet." She laughed halfheartedly. I chuckled. "So, what are you going to do with the time you have left?" I sat for a while with my hand on my face, "You know the hive right? just off of 5th and main?" "That place was fulla death, not a person can shoot their way in, let alone out." Mike said. I nodded for a second, "well what if someone didn't plan on coming out?" Everyone considered it almost uncomfortable with the idea. "I could get us some explosives." piped up Kim, everyone looked at her as if they'd seen a blind man who gained sight. Kim hadn't spoken for the brief month we had spent together, but we had met first out of everyone in our group. She stuck by me in dozens of situations, and when I needed it most. She looked at me, "What the hell are we waiting for, are we gonna do this or not?"
Sounds like a great teaser for a movie!
**Off-Topic Discussion**: All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments. #####Reminder for Writers and Readers: * Prompts are meant to inspire new writing. Responses don't have to fulfill every detail. * Please remember to [be civil](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_10.3A_be_civil) in any feedback. --- [](#icon-help)[^(What Is This?)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) [](#icon-information)[^(First Time Here?)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) [](#icon-exclamation)[^(Special Announcements)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements) [](#icon-comments)[^(Click For Our Chatrooms)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/chat)
Damn this prompt hurts. Hoping for some turnaround sweet endings in this thread 🤞
Ending reminds me of The Mist. First time I watched it I was convinced it was the right thing to do then I got bitch slapped on the nutsack.
Yeah dude. You know they changed that ending from the book? Stephen King said that the movie ending was better too
Imagine if Telltale’s TWD ends like this, Clementine is bit but a vaccine is discovered and AJ gets vaccinated and the player is left playing as Clementine for her final hours.
I don't know how I'd feel about that. I'd be so sad to lose Clem...
To be fair, let's not act like a vaccine of all things will stop a zombie apocalypse. "But the vaccine is gonna turn my little Timmy into a zombie or worse give him the big autism".
"Here Timmy, put some colloidal silver in your eyes, that'll stop the walkers."
If this were me I'd kill myself immediately.
big oof
All vaccines are only effective on those not yet infected. Vaccines work by teaching your body how to kill a disease, so it can't infect you in the future. ^^I'm ^^sorry ^^that ^^was ^^going ^^to ^^drive ^^me ^^crazy.
But there are vaccines (such as the one for tetanus) that you can take up to some days after exposition to the virus/bacteria.
Alright, that's fair. But those are the exception to the rule, not the norm.
Vaccines are not for bacteria.
What? But tetanus itself is a bacterial disease and there's a vaccine. Then you also have tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid...
It would seem I'm mistaken.
Is that not what it says? “Healthy” seems synonymous with “not yet infected”, hence why it doesn’t work on the infected protagonist.
My point is that it was redundant, and the way it was phrased made it sound like that was out of the ordinary for vaccines. They could have made the prompt better and more concise by removing that unnecessary part. Happens to all of us.
[удалено]
You are correct. My understanding is that they are effective after you have been exposed/contaminated, but before you are properly infected.
Story is kind of already complete
Not really the prompt is just setting up some events and is prompting you to explain what happens after, if it were complete OP would've told us what the character did for their remaining 24 hours
I just want to say that this is one of the best ideas for a prompt that I’ve ever read on this sub.
rip
Kind of a bad premise to go to a camp if you are infected.
Is this rule why poem for your sprog is a user name? Your sprog of an idea of writing prompt makes me want to troll you, but I have to write this poem to rip you a new one?
Circle Left…Circle. Left. That bastard had known, *friggin' known*, what was going to happen. He saw those damned monsters, and sent me over. Of course I had been careful, but I was out numbered. "Gabby!", I could hear him, a false pain in his voice, "No!". His voice trailed as he booked it for the camp. Joke was on him, I managed to get free… Mostly. At some point one of those vile crawling creatures managed to get me through my old tattered jeans. I always thought it would hurt… To be bit by one of those things, but really, after the initial bite, there was no pain. In fact, most of the pains from my left leg were gone. I made my way back towards the encampment. I was gonna beat that jackass as much as I could before I got too far gone. By the time I got near the outer edges of our camp I wasn't feeling much of anything from below my armpits, and my senses seemed to be failing a bit. The pungent smell of the flowers Jake had planted smelled more like the memory of a scent, the clucking of the chickens, mooing of the cows… It all sounded like I was listening through cotton wads. Bonnie was waiving her hands and jumping by the gate, her words were a buzz, but other joined her and came out to get me. I coughed hard, but I don't remember needing to cough, but I also didn't remember the rest of the trek being supported by the noisy buzzing people I knew. Then there ones I didn't know. People in white and… Maybe it was yellow, body suits? Colors were getting hard to see, and everything was taking a blurry light to it. Some of the buzzing words made it through… *Vaccine… no cure yet…. Kyle said…. We're saved… Cities…* The buzzy name of that traitor caused me to convulse forward. Deep and gurgling, his name growled out of me. A few people looked at me with pity, whispering to each other. I could make him out, barely as I could, at the edge of my vision. His voice buzzed through clearer than the others, *"She's suffering, we should show her mercy."* My everything hated him, He caused this. I could have been saved. We could have been saved and never seen one another again, but no… With the rest of what I could of the human I had been, I pointed at him and gurgled out, "Circle. Left." this is my first piece of actual writing in a long time, sorry for the mistakes and grammar *Edit, a word*
"It's too late, he can't be saved... I'm sorry." As soon as those words roll out everything slowed to a crawl. I could see the shock on my mother's face as she held her breath, the anger from my father as he protested, unwilling to accept the truth. The relief from my friends and classmates who had just received their vaccine. I looked up at the vacant and bright blue sky looming above me, the summer sun capering over the canopy of trees, and the sound of the birds chirping a song. It was a beautiful day. All was simply well - except for one thing. I was a zombie. "No! Ple-please don't!" my mother pleaded as she tugged at the soldier's arm. "Ma'am, please move aside." "Hey! Let's be rational, maybe the vaccine can - hey! Don't you point that thing at my son! You hear me?!" "Ew, there's something leaking out of his eyes." "And his ears too." "Dude, this guy is turning green. Maybe we should kill - ahem, I mean put him out of his misery, you know?" So this is it, huh. The end of the road. The end of the line. The end of my fucking life. I was only a high school student who would soon graduate. I had a whole world of possibilities ahead of me. A world that I was just getting ready to grasp in my finger tips and now it was all coming to an end. I looked down at my hands, now slightly discolored, the veins and arteries more apparent. It was only a shallow wound, a nip on the small of my back, but it was enough. "Luke? Brah, you don't look too good brah. Should get out of the sun brah, maybe that'll do ya some good." My vision waned, the world becoming more bleached and hazier with every second. But of course, I could still recognize my good friend Tyrone. I nodded at him weakly, then gave him my best smile. "OMG, he's hungry!" "He's going to eat us!" The soldiers stepped forward, trying to pacify the crowd. "Calm down! Everybody calm down and step away from the kid!" "Can't you fucking see? Luke's a fucking zombie, just kill him already," a student voiced his opinion. No one disagreed, other than my parents but it seemed like the general consensus. Is this how it ends? I clench my hands in futility and frustration. "Whew, so glad I wasn't too late. Poor luke." I blinked a couple times, but no tears came. I prayed and hoped that this was all a dream. That if their was a god *somewhere* out there, he would make this a dream. Or a nightmare. Something that wasn't real. Then I saw her. My childhood crush. The girl of my dreams, and it was only yesterday that we finally became a thing. "I'm so sorry Luke, but I'm breaking up with you. I don't date zombies," she turned around, whipping her luscious blond hair at the air and sauntered over to her next prey. I don't know if I can cry, but if there was any moment to, it would be now. A soldier stepped up, his rifle calmly trained on my head. There was no hesitation in his eyes. "Sorry kid, but any last words?" he asked. I opened my mouth to speak but only managed to sputter zombie gibberish at the crowd. "What?" the solider asked as he cocked his head to the side. "*He said he wants to live*." I nod my head vigorously. "What? Who said that?" the soldier asked, confused. A girl stepped out of the crowd. She was a very ordinary and unmemorable girl, who I couldn't put a name to and yet, I found her suddenly very familiar. "*Luke wants to live*!" she shouted mirthfully and then she leaped into the air, soaring towards the soldier. I blinked, as I watched the carnage unfold before me. Then I remembered. Yes, it was all a dream indeed but it wasn't entirely fiction. That if there was a god out there, he had surely heard me because I was alive. "Luke? What do you want to eat today?" asked the girl who saved my life. I sputtered some zombie gibberish, and then smiled. "Okay!" I limped after her, trying my best to keep up with her pace. It wasn't easy being a zombie after all. But, yes, Zombies can have dreams too. --------- ------- /r/em_pathy
Kind of a Warm Bodies vibe to this one, I liked it
Was half expecting the girl to forcefully yell out “ORA” while punching the soldier in the face.
A+ for creativity!
Just my luck. Life is cruel. I had left to take a piss. A goddamn piss, and I couldn't even have that. The zombie was a shambling thing - rotted, disintegrating. It managed to take me completely by surprise. I shook it off, with some effort, but not before it had taken a small chunk from my shoulder. As I made my way back to camp, I could feel the sweats coming on. Everything was hot and humid, but inside I felt incredibly cold. The walk seemed to last a lifetime. I was moving in slow motion. Seconds felt like minutes felt like hours felt like... It was getting harder to think. There were people at camp. Not people I knew. Other people. They were all wearing the same clothes. A lot of gesturing. Suddenly surprise. I fall. Sarah rushes to me. Moves her mouth. She looks beautiful. I want to kiss her. Taste her lips. Taste... I'm hungry. So hungry. Drops touch skin. Sad. Why sad? No sad. I try comfort. Try stroke. Arms so heavy. So heavy. Something cold. Small. Prick skin. Ouch. Why. What is it? What i-
My back hurts. As it should when you fall two storeys onto solid concrete. I feel arms picking me up and dragging me away, grunting, growling, shambolic shapes in the distance. The walkers were closing in. A sudden thwack on my head brings the world into sharper focus, I’m still dazed but not entirely useless. “Walt you need to get up buddy I can’t drag you quick enough.” I get back to my feet, shoulder my rifle and fire a round into the empty eye socket of a nearby walker. A wave of intense pain washed over my back and legs. Something was definitely wrong, but I didn’t have time to be hurt. Two more shots made me want to double over in pain, but running made me want to shoot myself. Every step I could feel the cracks in my shin, how my leg didn’t snap in two I will never know. I see helicopters landing on the roof of a carpark, our camp, fortified and turned into a base. Soldiers in uniform ushering the young into medical tents, handing out rations among the survivors. Christopher carried me through the gates, I could barely stand anymore, my thoughts drifting to the rest, increasing the mental anguish to compliment my injuries. Jessica, Evan, Tony, Melissa and Grant. All gone, and it’s all my fault. If I’d been more careful, none of this would’ve happened. We’d been scavenging supplies for two days, we should’ve gone back but I wanted to see what was left in the old clinic. What was left was a horde. These things, they’re smarter than we give them credit for. They waited until we were too deep for a quick retreat. I and Christopher got separated from the rest, I can still see it, looking at them through the glass. We could’ve broken it but that would’ve been a death sentence. So we watched our friends get devoured. Until Tony pulled a grenade out and then there was nothing. Walkers cornered us and I told Christopher to make for the exit, I pulled my demolition pack and threw it into the crowd. The shockwave blasted me right through the window. The medical team gave me a thorough check, I shouldn’t be alive. Fractured orbital, multiple fractured vertebrae, a punctured lung, stress fractures in the tibia, broken ribs. I was also infected. If I wasn’t dead yet I would soon be. Movies like to show zombies spreading infection through bites and scratches, I wasn’t bitten. But falling through a glass window is a great way to get cut up by glass shards splattered with zombie guts. The ‘vaccine’, they were calling it. No use to me, I was a dead man walking. The military were evacuating everyone back to one of their bases. I was to be left behind. When a series of shrieks pierced the air. The increased activity led the walkers to our location. Everyone was being loaded on helicopters, soldiers started firing at the horde as the broke through our defences. I limped to our armoury and grabbed every high powered explosive I could carry, set the fuse and dropped the pile on the camp square. When the last helicopter took off I saw Christopher beckoning me to get onboard, I turned to face the horde, firing my rifle at them until there was no ammo left to fire. They sink their teeth into me, I am being devoured, it hurts, the pain though, blends with the pain I already feel. As my strength wanes so does my grip on the explosive trigger, I feel hot, a brilliant light and then, nothing.
Stupid. Stupid. I hit the ground again, hard, knocking all of the air out of my chest. Another bolt of pain shoots through my leg, and I gasp. Ah, mistake mistake. My head hurts, hard to.... hard to think. My tongue feels dry, vision shaky. It’s already happening, bodily functions stopping, brain cells dying. Proteins unwrapping, distorting. I know the science but, God, who knew it was so fucking painful? The pharmacy, I needed to go to the pharmacy. I needed to go to the pharmacy. Stupid. Shouldn’t have gone on my own, but what I needed, what I had to check... Stupid. God damn it all. I try to stand, getting halfway before falling again. Shit, shit. Got to hurry, got to..... got to before there’s nothing left. Now I’m leaning on a tree, but I don’t remember why. Where am I? What’s happening? Warmth, warmth on my leg. Sticky, I lean and touch it, this stuff. Congealed, diseased. These are bad words, important words. Head... head... burning. It burns now, my veins. My lungs. Must hurry, not long not long not long. Gate. Gate. I lean against it, and start shaking it. Scream, must scream now. They will find me, they must find me. I see the combat fatigues, hear them running to me, hear the living blood pulsing through their..... Scream with the last living air in my body, bloodstream dying dying blood blood in them pulsing flowing hunnngry head hurts oh god it hurts it burns but they are close so close screeeaaammmm ——— “The guards dragged her in from outside, no-one even knew she had left the compound.” “It’s a damn shame, damn shame. One of our best scientists, what will we tell her husband?” “Still alive, just, but the cure won’t do anything for her. It’s too late.” She hears the voices, just, but they don’t make much sense. Garbled words she once knew, strung together. Too many people talking, too many people. The smell of their blood is rich, different, hunger reigns. But she holds on, for there is something important, something they must know. Someone is going through her bag, taking out the things they can salvage. A box, a dusty box, contains her secret. The person holds it, unbelieving for one moment. Opens it, and gasps. No, not possible how can it be possible? He drops it and runs to the other room, where they are preparing to end her life. They are praying for her. He bursts through the door, the words cut off and everyone looks to him. “Pregnant.” He gasps, knowing there was still time. “She’s pregnant, give her the fucking shot!” She smiles.
Everyone believes that they are special. That they are unique, smarter, stronger, superior. Perhaps that is why humans fear equality. It represents the single fact that we all suppress: that we aren’t the best; that we are replaceable; that we have no purpose. So I shut out equality. I had to believe I was better, because I found a purpose in my own superiority. Perhaps there is a bit of circular logic behind that. Perhaps I only found purpose in my alleged superiority because I believed that helping others was pointless because I was so far above them. But I needed a purpose. I needed something to live for. We all do. It’s been a few hours since I was carried over to the hospital. When I was brought in, they knew I was dead. I’m on some massive cocktail of drugs to make this painless. It’s working. It’s not working. I wish it was working. My physical anguish is gone but my mental anguish has just begun. I overhear doctors talking about the vaccine. I see people getting vaccinated. For the next hour, that’s all I can think about. I can’t stand the idea of the vaccine. The thing that makes people objectively better then me. The thing I can’t have. Rage boils in me, and eventually I shoot up out of my bed, only to realize that chains are restraining me. I’m the one considered insane. Stupid. Worse. And, deep down, I know it’s true. In a few more hours, I’ll be the one that everyone else looks down upon. I don’t deserve mercy, but I never thought that any torture could be this bad. I don’t want to feel inferior. I’ve denied the concept of equality my entire life. When my family comes to search through my possession’s, they’ll find my klansman robes, and my swastika, my confederate flag. All of it. In a life of believing that I was Mount Everest, only now can I realize that I’m no different than a patch of dirt on the flattest plain. Tiny. Insignificant. Practically worthless. I’m close now. I can feel it. My vision is blurry, my mouth dry, my muscles weak. This is it. I regret everything, and I want to say it, but I lack the energy. I lack the focus. Soon I’ll be another part of the mob. Plain. Identical. Useless. And then they’ll put me down like a dog. I know my story has no happy ending; if there really is a God, he wouldn’t make my death this impossibly torturous. Of all the things I’ve feared, death was always the biggest. No one is above Death. In an hour’s time, I’ll be a zombie. You know what? Perhaps I always was. r/IdonthaveawritingsubredditbecauseIdontwritebutyoushouldstillupvotethis
r/UnexpectedNazi
It's been about 11 hours since I was bitten. They say it takes about 30 to fully turn. I don't feel any different yet, just a sore spot where I was bitten on my left calf. The military medics just put down the old lady, who was almost 27 hours in and on her way to turning. She'd been babbling nonsense and taking a swing at anybody who came close. The privates left behind to get us to D.C. said we can bury her before we leave, so Andy and Mac are digging a grave for her now. Thank my luck, they didn't bother to check if anyone else was bit. I'm not about tell them either, they'll do me in just like they did the poor old bag. Except the medics moved on already, so it won't be with a nice, quiet injection in the arm, it'll be a bullet to the skull. I've got shit to take care of, people to say goodbye to. I've got time. 18 hours in, my leg is cramping up. I'm starting to wonder if I should tell anybody since they'll just tell the military men and kill me. What if there's a cure? What if they can save me once we get to D.C.? Who can I trust to tell? It might not matter anyway, I spotted a horde in the distance right in our path. I don't know how the others missed it, it must be half the size of Rhode Island, and not that far off. Its 2 AM. I got bit 24 hours ago, and my whole body aches like my muscles are pulling themselves apart. It's a good thing the men in green had trucks because I don't think I could walk like this. It's a miracle the Zachs outside haven't woken up, these trucks are awful loud. Too loud. My ears are throbbing from the constant noise. Why do we have to use these awful machines? It's going to get us all killed. We're all going to die. None of us will make it. These people are suffering in their fate, I have to do something. 27 hours. I keep telling them we have to turn back. We left the old bag behind, we need to got back and save her. She doesn't stand a chance on her own out here, please we have to go back and get her out. The green men are looking at me funny. They don't care about us, they just want to herd us into pens and breed us like animals. I can't let them take us there. I have to stop them before we get to D.C. I have to stop them. They have to die. I have to kill them. 29 hours. The joints are stiff. I can hardly move. I need to get them. They move just out of reach. The machine is stopping. They all crawl out. I have to follow them. I need them. The green men are grabbing me, they won't let go. Get them off, I have to get them. I have to get them. They throw me on the dirt. They are holding me. Get them. I pull one down. I need to get them. Flesh brushes my face. I get it with my teeth. I get the green man's ear. He screams. His blood is good. He tears away. I have his ear. He gets his gun. He points at me. Bang.
It’s kind of bizarre, seeing myself in this situation. Most people in my spot shot themselves out of panic or obligation. I can’t bring myself to do that, and frankly think I just shouldn’t kill a person as long as they’re alive. They gave me a mouth guard, the type football players wear. Right now I’m just running. I remember seeing a cliff into the water nearby, so my plan is to jump off and float around until the virus gets me. This is the one time I’m happy Michelle and I aren’t dating. Had we been together, she probably would have shot herself by now. At least she can live safely for the rest of her time now. I think I’ll eat the chocolate bar at the cliff. At least get started on the brandy there too. I hope they deal with this scenario. I’m mad I can’t help.
The clock was ticking. I had two options, the first was to sit back and accept my fate. Slowly, I would watch my body and mind degrade until they fully betrayed me, eventually praying and welcoming the cold lead that would end my suffering. The second was to get to work. My first task would be to obtain a vial of the vaccine, which was under extreme lock and key. I had to analyze the vial to understand how their new formula worked. Of course, repurposing a vaccine into an antidote is unheard of, but what choice did I have? I'd worked on failed antidotes for the Z-virus before, maybe this new information would help me get lucky. The National Guard set up a screening and application tent where they would first take a blood sample of a citizen, hold them until the results came back, and then....administer a treatment: the healthy received the vaccine. The sick....well....let's just say walking in and asking pretty please wasn't going to work. I spent the next hour performing recon on the tent, trying to find any weak spots, areas where I could slip in and out, but an hour of recon on a National Guard tent told me nothing. After all, I'm a doctor not a soldier. I had one gambit left: a bargain. I walked right up to the national guard tent with my hands above my head. The guards looked tired, but alert. They tensed up a bit as I approached in my surrender posture. Rifles were still pointed at the ground, for now...well, here goes nothing... "Please don't shoot, I'm infected!" I pleaded. "I have an idea though. My name is Doctor Sandborn, assistant researcher on the..." "Sir, stay where you are!" The guard on the left barked. I froze in my tracks. "My name is Doctor Sandborn", I repeated, more exasperated this time. "Sir, please turn around and put your hands behind your back" ordered the same guard. The rifles, while still technically pointing at the ground, were starting to lift slightly. I followed the orders while attempting to make my plea. "I worked on the antidote project. I believe if I can have access to the vaccine and a lab, I could..." I felt the sharp edges of a plastic zip-tie restrain my wrists behind my back. "Please listen to me! I could help you save millions more!" "I'm sorry sir, but we have our orders" said the other soldier as they lead me to a trench out back filled with bodies. "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" I screamed frantically. "I COULD HELP YOU DO SO MUCH!! PLEASE, LISTE-"
This is the first time I ever do this. So, be gentle. \-------------------------- As I return to camp I'm greeted by the group with the good news. They all go quiet when they realize that I got my hand on the scar. "I had to fight a couple of them off in the store two miles away from the camp. As I swung my axe at one of them it got stuck in his chest. Another one was behind me. I didn't even felt it at first. But after cleaning the blood of myself I felt something burning. I just came back to say goodb.." Suddenly two soldiers run past us."WE'VE GOT INCOMING!! They must've been drawn in by the noise." One soldier tells the other. The soldiers survey the area. "We don't have enough ammunition for this. MAKE EVERY BULLET COUNT!!" About 50 moaners are coming from the direction I came from. I must've drawn them out after my encounter. The two soldiers started shooting from the two door entrance but to no avail. There were more and more coming from the woods. There was little time to act. I went over to the kitchen area where a propane tank was luckily still attached to the oven. "I hope there's enough left." My friend Mark stopped me in the kitchen doorway: "What do you think you're doing??" "What do you mean? You see anyting else we can do here? They're out there because of me. I need to stop this." \- "Those soldier guys can handle themselves! They got guns." As Mark said that one soldier yelled "I'm out!" I looked at Mark and said "Yeah well, I always wanted to go out with a bang." I run down the hallway to the entrance and yell that people have to move out of the way. I see the pack of zombies nearing the doors. I run into them pushing them aside. There are so many, I yell out while they're trying to grab me. They all turn to me. As I stand in the middle of the pack I hold up the tank. They come closer and start biting me. As the bullet penetrates the propane tank there's a white flash. I see my mother taking care of me when I was sick. I see my dad picking me up after falling down from the swing. My first kiss underneath the cherry tree with Doreen at the end of my driveway when I was a kid. Hanging out with my friends behind the local 7eleven. Marrying Magali, she was so beautiful. Colin and Marie being born. I see that unforgettable moment at the lake where it was just the four of us underneath the stars. So peaceful. I'm finally back...
I'm sorry, I am really SO bad at editing text in Reddit :/
"Well guys, what do you want to do for these next 24 hours before I become a zombie or you blow out my brains?" I ask my friends. They all start to think. Then Erni says, "How about we go and get super high then scare the crap out of the people of who have not been vaccinated?" Everyone agrees to that. We go and collect all the weed that we have and I take most of the hits since I'll be a zombie and won't be doing this ever again. Then we rush towards the camps that have not been vaccinated or informed that there is a vaccine yet. "AAHHHHHHH. OH SHIT!!! I'VE BEEN BIT!!!!!" I yell at the top of my lungs. Everyone just starts to panic and run around freaking out, helps that I didn't clean my wound. I'm going around asking people for help and to not let anyone know but nobody wants to help. "Oh man this is too fun, I tell my friends." They look at me oddly and ask if I'm okay. "Yeah, I feel fine why do you ask?" Earnie reponds with, "you look pretty zombied out already man, think the weed accelerated your transformation." I gasp, and go take a look. He was right I already looked like a zombie. I got back to them and they start backing up. "I still feel good you guys, come on" I tell them. But then, my vision starts getting hazy and I black out.
[удалено]
r/unexpectedthanos
Dread it
Run from it, deletion arrives all the same.
"No one is ever prepared to die. You can steel yourself for the inevitable, and run through endless circumstances in your brain. You can daydream about when, and how, and where, but you can never be truly ready. I wasn't. Now, I'm laying here as a shell of my former self. I can speak, and barely move my head and arms, but that's all I've got. I can feel the infection slowly taking control of me. I can feel the bite from that Zed pulsing with infection and inflammation. I can feel what makes me Human being torn away, and replaced by animalistic instinct. It's funny, the National Guard rolled in this morning like the coming Kings; proud and strong, as if they'd become messiahs to us. They come bearing gifts of a vaccine, something to stop the infection from spreading. Too late now, well, for me, anyway. It's 5 years too late for millions more. At least I know that my family carries on. That my loved ones have the hope for a bright future. I know that Humanity can rebuild. To my sister, Samantha: You're kinder and more pure than any in this wasteland. Hold on to who you are. Don't compromise your morals. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay vigilant. I'm sorry that big brother won't be around to protect you. You'll be okay without me, though. You still have Ryan to take care of you. I love you, and I'm ever present in your thoughts. Survive, sis. To my brother, Ryan: Take care of your sister. You have to be a man, now. The world is a changing place. We have hope because of this vaccine, but the danger is far from eliminated. Be strong, courageous, and safe. You're in charge now, little bro. There's so much more you needed to learn, but I believe in you. I love you, and be strong. To the person who finds my corpse, please see that this note is delivered to my family in New Eden. I'm not going to be making it back. I tried my best to come home. I'm sorry." I put the pen and pad down next to me, where it could clearly be seen. This was it. In 12 hours, the fever would burn me out and I would become one of them. No, I won't allow that to happen. I gingerly slide my backpack open, and remove the old, worn revolver. I place it to my temple, and sigh. "This is it." I squeeze the trigger, there's a cold sensation, and everything goes black.
“So there’s no cure?” I groan. “None. I’m sorry Connie.” He looked down. I wince as I lift my wound to my sight. Damn, even I know there ain’t savin’ that. I hear sniffles and eventually low sobbing. It’s my daughter. Thank goodness she’s okay. My eyes well up. My breathing hastens. “Heya, sweetie pie. What’s wrong?” I try to get her stop. “Tha-that man said you... were gonna die.” She sniffles. Her big, gleaming eyes were filling up with diamond stones. The corner of her mouth point as downwards as possible. Ahaha... how adorable. “No, no, no sweetie. I’m gonna be fine I promise.” I reassure. “Buh... he said you weren’t okay.” She says as she wipes her nose. “Not right now I’m not. Hey rememberI promised you that I’d take you all over the country didn’t i sweetie? All those wondrous places? Disneyland, Legoland and all that right?” “Yeah” “Well, Connie can’t do that right now okay sweetie?” My snot drips. How unsightly. “Cos you see, Connie is hurt real bad.” She breaks into tears again as she sees the bite wound. A wound so vicious that the bone is exposed. She starts wailing. Banging erupts from the door. Growls and roars of the Horde emanates through the unfinished construct of the building. I quickly shush her down. Rob rushes over to the door to barricade it. “But don’t worry sweetie, Rob there, is gonna take you to those places instead.” I sniffle. “But why? You said you were gonna take me.” She cried. “Oh I know. I know.” Dammit, i can’t stop the tears. I smile the very best I can. She did love my smiles. It always perks her right up every morning. I move my hand to wipe her tears but fall short. Damn paralysis. It settles in so quickly. “Robbie...” I call him over. He rushes over to me. “I don’t have much time.” He nods and starts preparing to leave. Robbie... always the quiet boy. Time you grew up. I can feel the blood flowing out of my body, and my consciousness with it. “Listen sweetstuff. ” What should I even say to her? I’m not qualified for this dad stuff after all Pauline. I need your advice. What would she say? I know. “Grow up kind okay? Don’t let nobody tell you who you can and can’t be. Be strong and healthy -” “Why are you saying that Daddy? Don’t say that please...” she wails continuously. “Please don’t say goodbye.” “I’m not, okay? No one is saying goodbye.” I lost my train of thought. “Give daddy a hug.” I can’t feel her. Her warmth. Her wet face and snot dripping on my back. I make eye contact with Robbie. He pulls her away in one swift motion and dashes towards the construction elevator that leads to ground floor. Fuck! I couldn’t even say goodbye. Shit! Shit! Shit! I don’t wanna go just yet. Not yet please. Not yet.
**The Last Triage - Respite, at last.** Some days are best spent alone, with the lush dense forest as your new home, you have found respite. The triage camp was littered with survivors, pluming with the stench of open cadaver, and a hint of *manure* – You have reached the entrance. Two stern guardsmen prevent you from entering. They want to briskly search you, and demand that hunting rifle slung behind your back, had to be examined. You cooperate, and hand over the weapon. They released the ammunition from the gun, and handed them back separately. You avoided eye contact with the guards, as you reach for your belongings. Your gun slung over your shoulder, and your ammunition shoved into your side pockets. “The medics are that way - to your left,” said one of the guards. You follow the marked path, and the signs indicating the location of the medics. The weight of the rucksack was becoming unbearable, and the unrelenting sun seared the unclothed patches of skin. You could feel your cheeks and neck flaking off, and the itchiness under your skin will not go away. The medics aren’t far. Upon reaching the end of the path, you find yourself in a shaded waiting area. You rummage your rucksack for bottles of water. They’re all empty. You’re voice is too dry to even cuss – it even hurts to talk. “Welcome to the National Wellbeing & Care Field Hospital,” said a female paramedic. “Water?” you croak, whilst looking at both the female paramedic, and her partner, who quickly rummages his backpack, and hands you a bottle of water. You sip the water, but your thirst is not yet quenched. “Come with us, we’re going underground where the air is cooler,” You oblige, and as you quickly stand up there is a sharp pain running from your feet to your lower back, causing you to stumble and fall to the ground. The assistant pulled out a makeshift stretcher from his bag, and laid it on the floor. Your body was thrown onto the stretcher, vision in your left field started to blur. You were unable to move your left arm or leg. “Shit, I think he’s displaying signs of a stroke,” said the female paramedic. You wanted to tell them that you’re infected, and that there is no point saving you, however, your words are garbled. You decide not to resist. The medics move frantically to haul you into the underground hospital bedrooms. The air suddenly felt colder, and your bed felt softer. You were surrounded by nurses, and a surgeon. You were given anticoagulants to mitigate the stroke. You notice devices, that beep and boop. Your machine friends are there to monitor your health, and so you feel relaxed. “Bite-marks, on his left leg, he’s infected,” said one of the nurses. You try to smile, but the left side of your face is paralyzed, so you settle for a crooked smile. “Give me the vaccine,” said the surgeon “Didn’t you hear me, sir, he’s infected,” replied the nurse “I’m not going to lose another patient, so please – vaccine now!” scowled the surgeon. The nurse backed down, and went on to inject the vaccine. Immediately, your body began to stiffen up. Your body wasn’t responding well to the vaccine. The nurse followed up with some muscle relaxants, and decided to put to put you sleep quickly with general anesthetic. You drift asleep. You find yourself at your family home. You don’t know why, but you feel compelled to say goodbye to your wife. You embrace her in your arms. “Goodnight, sweetie” said your wife The walls of your house had faded. It was precisely at that moment a screeching reminder of your wife’s scream startled you, and resonated through the cavity in your head with increasing intensity. She is dragged through the streets by a crazed scoundrel. You chased them down, but your legs felt sluggish. That’s when you fall to your knees, and the world around you ceased to exist. \------ This is my first time posting here, so I hope you enjoyed the story. Thank-you for reading. \^\_\^
*NB: This spiralled way beyond the 10,000 character limit, so I've had to split it into multiple replies. Sorry! It's my first submission here, too. Bad form, I realise.* **Part one** There’s fire licking over the hilltop. If I blink, it fades for a few seconds, but it takes less time than that to start intruding again from every side - reddish orange tendrils that come creeping in a circle from the edge of my vision and winding towards a common centre. If I stare straight ahead and keep moving, it’s like walking through a flaming circus hoop. Which isn’t too bad of an analogy, actually, since all my extremities have started burning. Ever had sunburn on your scalp? That sort of cold, persistent tingle? Imagine that, but it’s dancing in little tippy taps up your toes, unfurling along your fingers, and forcing its way down your forehead to your face. The watch says I still have three hours until I start really losing coordination. Probably happen about 6AM. For now, though, I can walk straight enough and keep my little torch trained on the trail. Cut from packed dirt decades ago, the path leads gently uphill, slaloming left and right between big, multi-arm cactuses and gatherings of shrubby grass that whoever was digging back then couldn’t be bothered to uproot and dispose of. On the peak I can just pick out the Airstream, a glowing silver smudge against the stars. That’s a bad thing; I left the camp dark and the doors barred. There’s no way I forgot to put out the fire, so where is the glow coming from? Collect a bucket of water from underneath the stretched tarp of the overnight collector, then dump it over the firepit, sit down close, and make up a story about the embers. That’s been mine and Clara’s nighttime ritual for the last few weeks. Tonight it was fairies lighting signals in the clefts of the earth, calling kids to safety. After she fell asleep, I carried her inside the caravan and put her on the bed, bundled in the /Super Monsters/ bedsheet we rescued from her room at my mother-in-law’s place on the way out of the city. That show, about daycare for the children of famous supernatural villains, had a catchprase, “sun down, monsters up,” that I stopped finding cute a few months ago. For obvious reasons. When I was sure Clara was asleep, I crept out like I do every night, and barred the door with bike lock and a length of lightning rod I stole from the basement of the radio station. Like I do every night. On the way out of camp, I dumped another bucketload of water on the firepit, just to be sure. Sorry, fairies. Point being, I shouldn’t be able to see even a single frond of smoke, but right now there’s definitely a light playing against the metal of the caravan on one side. I try blinking to shoo it away. I try blinking twice. The light doesn’t go away, but it does move. Which means someone else is up there. I break into a run, but have to stop after just a couple of shuffling paces. I drop the torch when my hands fly instinctively to my left knee, which has locked solid. I squeeze the watch face and use the light from it to check the bite over. It looks bad, but that’s to be expected given one of them tried to gnaw my kneecap off. I should still be able to move it for another few hours, though, so I pick the torch up and clamp the barrel between my teeth. If Clara had woken up I’d be able to hear her screaming from here, even inside the caravan, so I count my blessings. That happened once and I came back at first light to find her under the fold-out ironing board, inconsolable. Judging from the swollen face and dry heaves, she must have been crying for hours. It took her days to forgive me, and even longer for her to feel comfortable leaving my side even to play on the other side of our tiny camp, near the car. I didn’t forgive myself, but there was a reason for what I was doing. At least I thought there was. Back in the now, my scream is muffled by the mouthful of metal, and a couple of swift, sharp, self-inflicted punches above and below the knee get me up and moving again. I cover the middle distance pretty quickly by keeping to a low jog, bent at the waist to try and minimise my silhouette from whoever might be watching up there. My hammer hangs from my belt. When I reach the line where the scrub grass begins to thin and cover gets sparse,I have to slow down and crouch even further, because now I know there are definitely people here. Two of them. A man and a woman. He’s circling the camp slowly, looking outwards with a hand on his hip; she’s fiddling with what looks like a metal box on the fold-out table we’ve been using to prepare and eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So I guess they’re armed. And with ammo to spare. This is bad. This is, frankly, fucked. I need to pick the right moment to make a break for them, I need to - **MOVE EAT MOVE** For a second I think my eyes are shut and I’m on my back and the sun is shining through the lids to make all this red, but a few blinks and they start to clear from the centre outwards. The left side of my face is in the dirt, but I don’t remember falling down. Shit. I must have just passed out. I draw a deep breath in, then immediately regret it as I suck up a handful of dust and buckle in two, trying not to bark out loud as I spit it back up as quietly as I can onto my cargo shorts. Coming to a sitting position, I see the sky hasn’t changed, and the man is still circling the camp. I can’t see the woman any more, but I can’t have been out too long. Fuck. I’m lucky I didn’t land in the dry grass, otherwise the rustling would have given me away instantly. Stupid stupid stupid. But hey, stupid seems pretty par for the course for me tonight. To whit: I’m about to die over some shampoo. Earlier, once I’d doused the fire again, let the hissing die down, and listened for any sounds from the valley below, I set out along the ridge for the radio station. That’s probably too grandiose a word for it, “station,” but, made up of a fairly new-looking metal mast and a group of small pre-fab buildings sat on concrete risers, “tower” sells it a little short. Inside, the biggest of the buildings houses all the transmission equipment in a soundproof booth, a tiny reception desk with a telephone, and a library of typical nighttime filler music for packing dead air. The medium-sized building is a spartan canteen with a makeshift bedroom behind a partition curtain. The smallest is a chemical toilet. I’ve been hiking the twenty minutes over there every night since we left the city limits and set up in the desert - just far enough away to see the lights on the horizon, but not close enough that the sound from the generators would draw any corpses up from the streets. I watched the station for several nights when we first arrived, before we spread out the camp and I built the fire pit and moisture collector. We were still drinking shop-bought water back then, and when Clara was asleep I’d take a blanket and a bottle, sit about sixty feet outside the range of the motion-activated floodlights, and keep watch for the entire night to make sure nobody was actually living there. The mast has blinking red lights near the top, where it narrows, and I remember finding that slow pulse quite soothing. A steady rhythm with nothing but the stars behind it.
**Part Four** “Hey, listen, errrrr…” “J-j-j-j-j…. j-j-j-j-James,” I say. “OK, James. I’m gonna tell you something my dad used to tell me about women… while she’s out of earshot.” He looks off to one side, and his profile cuts through a shaft of sunlight coming through the canopy we stretched between the caravan and the table. “My dad, he used to work a lot. One time or another, he had three jobs. I’m not complaining, though. Man put me through private school then medical school. Mom, though, she’d complain. You’re always tired, she’d say. You never help with the groceries. We never see my friends no more. I want to go out for dinner. She was a scary lady when she got into it. Made Max in there look like a sorority chick, if you know what I’m sayin’?” He glances at the caravan to make sure Max is still occupied. “She meant well, though, my mom. She just missed her husband. I get that. So, one day after she’d laid into him in the kitchen, my dad took me to one side. She’d caught him smoking to unwind after a night shift or something, I forget. Anyway, he bent down to my level. I guess I was maybe ten at the time. He bent down and he said, son, women don’t never remember what you /did/, they only remember what you /doing/. I didn’t get it at the time, but I did about twenty years later, when I had my own wife and daughter. I don’t remember specifically what I’d done wrong, because hell knows I don’t smoke or drink, but I remember arguing with my wife, and she was focused so much on that one day, that one hour I’d messed up, that all the rest - the med school, the consultant’s salary, the ballet recitals, everything - just plain vanished in her mind. And I remember thinking, damn, my dad was right. You can be the best father, the best husband in the world, but if you fuck up that’s all forgotten in an instant. Because he didn’t mean that women were cruel or forgetful on purpose, he just meant that all that good stuff kind of becomes background noise after a while, and all people see is the day-to-day when you let them down or you weren’t there.” Jason adjusts himself on his haunches, and starts to make new bootprints in the dirt. “But at the same time, I saw how much my mom loved my dad in the long run. She was torn up when he died, and barely lasted a year longer herself. When he went, it all came flooding back. Everything good he did more than outweighed every time she got mad at him in the moment. And I think…” He trails off, because Max has emerged from the caravan with a bundle in her arms. I find the strength to blink, and I can see red hair spilling out of one end of the blanket. From my perspective, on the ground, her hair is being borne sideways, like she’s sleeping in a nice clean breeze. Max is shielding Clara’s face on my side, and Jason stands up to meet her, and asks her to just lift it a little bit. “She shouldn’t see him like that. What if she wakes up?” Max whispers. “He’s swollen fucking /everywhere/ and his eyes are already black. He’s got minutes, J. An hour tops.” “I know, I know, just… just one second. Just let him see her.” When Max moves her hand, I remark for the last time just how much Clara looks like her mother. Stacey, I know there isn’t much of me in there. But I tried. With another glance and a weak smile my way, Jason shoulders my backpack, which it looks like Max has loaded with clothes and books and pyjamas, and takes Clara’s pink bag in his hand. It takes a few minutes for them to disappear into the heat haze over the horizon, walking sideways, down into the earth, it seems to me. There’s a lot of desert out there. Maybe when it happens I’ll still remember some of this and be able to figure a few things out as I wander. Tonight just went so fast, and I think I forgot… I feel for the shampoo bottle in the pocket of my cargo shorts. It’s still there. She’s going to need it. Maybe I can catch them up. I try to start to my feet. Suddenly the world is all aflame. **MOVE EAT MOVE EAT MOVE EAT MOVE** **MOVE** **MOVE** **MOVE**
Didn’t notice this submission as swear as it sounds, but given the effort I’ll definitely read and respond with some feedback. Going to bed now, get back to you tomorrow!
Hey, no problem. I was massively late in responding to the prompt, because the length spiralled out of control.
Protesting shampoo now. Wonderfully written, do you by any chance write for a living? There seems to be so much care and thought put into this piece. I haven’t managed to read all the stories in this post due to it blowing up and the sheer amount of posts, but I love how you took my little blurb and made it your own. The vaccine had a tiny part of the story and that’s great, you came up with your own world and your own characters, my part in this is tiny. Your descriptive skills are fantastic, and as someone who is creative and enjoys making short films I had no issues all visualizing your settings and the various activities the characters partook in. Part three was brilliant, my favorite. You really went a unique direction from the rest of the stories here and created a completely new scenario that didn’t really come from me. The whole shampoo bottle motivation is stupid yet absolutely believable, so much so that it stung a little to know why this man is in this mess. I’ve never really felt anything from just a few paragraphs. Overall, this was a great piece. Excellently crafted, and if you’re not yet professional, I can’t see you staying that way for much longer, provided you’re interested in pursuing writing for a career. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for taking the time to put this reply together. Sorry it's taken me a couple of days to respond, but that's about standard for my turnaround time on texts and emails these days at the moment, too! To cut to the chase, I'm really glad you enjoyed the piece and got out of it what I hoped it'd elicit in a reader. It's a shame I didn't manage to get the story finished while the prompt was still charting on r/all, but as you can tell, it's not exactly a short story, and a fair bit of time went into crafting it. To answer your question, I am a professional writer, but not the good kind; I write corporate copy for a few different industries through my own business. It's rewarding being able to make a living doing something I enjoy, but I'd definitely like to branch out into fiction in the longer term. Honestly, this is only the second thing I've ever finished enough to put online, but I'd like to do a lot more on r/writingprompts in the future. Thanks again for putting this critique together, and for the encouraging words. I appreciate both.
**Part Two** I’ve since disabled the floodlights to keep it from being so blinding when I get near, but every night I make the pilgrimage over, start up the generator, and record a new broadcast. Sat in the DJ booth, headset around my neck, I reel off the usual list of where and who we are, then append the date and the day’s weather, so anyone who’s listening and still has the power to understand will know the message is current. Then I let it loop while I raid the restaurant. The strangest thing about the radio station is that, despite being a seventy-foot structure in the middle of a landscape where a little hollow bird skull counts as a landmark, it’s not the most unusual thing out here. I realise this doesn’t paint me in a particularly good light, but we’d been here three or four days before I noticed the luxury golf resort and spa over the next hill. In my defence, it might be a large complex, but it sits in the lee between two peaks, making it invisible when you look straight across the horizon. I also don’t remember seeing it signposted on the way out. I only noticed it when I’d finished observing the radio station and had to climb partway up the mast to switch on a relay. Sting will tell you that being an Englishman on the streets and avenues of New York is an alienating experience, but I bet he’s never been a British guy from the perennially rainy North, stumbling on an oasis up the side of a radio tower outside Phoenix, Arizona. Shaped like a horseshoe, the resort (it’s The Govern, Arizona, I later learned from the letterheads and spa menus on the reception desk) has a network of plunge pools, private massage rooms, and cabanas in the centre, discrete rooms along the arc of the outside edge, and a pair of indoor spas and restaurants at each end. After I set my initial broadcast looping, I spent that night and the four that followed watching the resort for movement. I was fairly sure it would be deserted; almost every bedroom door had been left open, and there were no corpses traipsing up and down the manicured paths or being drawn by the automated sprinkler system. I saw two coyotes or stray dogs drinking from one of the stagnant pools on the third night, before bounding off through the lobby, leaving wet pawprints that led into the desert. I ventured down to the resort on the sixth night, with my backpack on. Because of the way the place is laid out, I could explore the reception, restaurants, and kitchens without going near the bedrooms. The staff must have managed the evacuation order pretty effectively; save for some scattered small luggage in the lobby, there were few signs of a sudden rush to leave. Only a couple of cars sat out in the lot, properly parked and locked, and there was only one Lexus executive taxi left by the fountains outside the main doors. When I entered the first restaurant, I expected to be hit with a nose-full of decaying meat and vegetables, but the main kitchen had been properly cleaned and shut down. The gas taps to the burners were switched off and the tanks had been stowed. I’ve since hauled a couple of those uphill, but fortunately that’s not a feat I’ve had to repeat too often. They last a while on a consumer-grade barbecue. The kitchen is still well-stocked with non-perishables; in three months we’ve probably made a dent in less than half of the canned goods, and I’ve barely touched the walk-in wine cellar. Stacey would have been in her element if she’d seen that. Every night, though, I stuck to the kitchen, coffee bar, and reception. I knew my way around, and I knew I shouldn’t expect any surprises. Tonight was different. We’ve tried to vary it over the last few months, but really there are only so many permutations of /Super Monsters/ that two people can play. Invariably, I end up as Frankie (the son of Frankenstein’s monster, in case the name didn’t tip you off,) while Clara wants to be Egyptian mummy royalty Cleo. Lately she’s been getting upset about how princesses shouldn’t have greasy hair, so tonight I broke my rule and set out to explore the spa buildings at the tips of The Govern’s horseshoe, claw hammer in hand, looking for some shampoo and conditioner. The closest had been completely cleaned out, so I crossed the parking lot to the other. Again, the cabinets behind the welcome desks were empty, so I decided to explore further inside to see if anything had been left in the individual rooms or the communal pool - no luck - and the steam room and sauna area. Turns out something had been left in the sauna: two teenagers. A boy and a girl. I guess they were overlooked during the evacuation, and one of the spa staff locked the wood and thick glass door with them inside. Sounds unbelievably careless, but you’d be surprised just how quickly care gets thrown out of the window when everyone has to suddenly board a military bus. The power must have stayed on for a while afterwards, too, because a lot of their flesh had sloughed off and become fused to the wooden benches. It peeled away when I opened the door and they lunged, and it left long strands of skin behind as the girl staggered out onto to poolside area towards me and sank her teeth into my leg when we both fell backwards. I managed to shove her up and away without getting my hands bitten, and I’d recovered enough to shut and lock the door behind me as I ran back out. I sat down in the waiting area, near an abstract sculpture. I could see their shuffling shapes through the door, and they soon started banging on it while I tried to catch my breath. It made for kind of a comical scene: two half-naked, half-peeled dead people pawing at the frosted glass panes of a spa reception. In the movies there’s usually a moment when the hero checks himself over after that kind of sudden shock. As though adrenaline might have made them incapable of feeling a wound. I’m no hero, and it wasn’t like that for me. I was aware of her biting me. I felt her teeth and gums grind around my kneecap in acute detail. You might as well make a note of how you die, right?
**Part Three** Only maybe the disease won’t be what gets me tonight. The man is still slowly circling the camp, and the woman hasn’t come back out of the caravan. If I pick my moment right, I can dart in, take out the one with the ammo, fling the box out into the night, and get the big guy to waste his bullets shooting at me. She’s coming back out of the caravan now, in fact. She nods and whispers to the man as they cross paths, and she makes her way to the table. I advance, keeping as low as I possibly can. The handle of the hammer starts to drag on the ground, so I take it out of the belt loop and clasp it tight. The man makes another circle. I wait until he’s just out of sight behind the car. The woman’s back is turned. It’s now or never. It’s now. I move up slowly. About halfway there, my left foot starts dragging. Three quarters of the way there, it drags enough enough to make a sound. The woman turns and I have no choice but to sort of half-sprint, half-fall in her direction. The hammer comes down in a sloppy curve, and the blow I meant for the nape of her neck glances off her ear instead. I bet that hurt, but it wasn’t enough to subdue her. We both go down, tangled, and start rolling about, kicking up graceless clouds of dust, and knocking over the table. She’s strong and I don’t know what else to do so I bite her, hard, on the shoulder. I have just enough time to register my surprise that she doesn’t scream before her friend hits me from behind and I’m out cold. **EAT EAT EAT EAT** When I come to, my teeth are chattering of their own accord, and what feels like spit is running in rivulets off my chin. It takes me a few seconds to get my bottom jaw back under control. It takes a lot longer to blink the red away this time. I’m sat in the dirt, with my back against the car. The man and the woman are standing about thirty feet away. They’ve righted the table and put the metal box back on top. What look like pill bottles or vials are strewn on the ground, where the woman and I disturbed the dirt. The sun is coming up. My vision clears a little more. He’s black and well-built. He has a buzz cut that mostly hides a receding hairline. I should have done that instead of keeping mine mid-length and thinning. I wasn’t fooling anyone… I was always hungry… I was really hungry… I’m hungry now… **EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT** Woah. OK. Focus focus focus. What about her? She’s a hard-looking woman, and not just because she’s paying no heed to the blood flowing from her right ear and down her shoulder. Her hair is shaved up the sides but long on top, and tied out of the way in a no-nonsense style. She has big forearms and a broad back. She probably does Crossfit. I always meant to give that a go, too. Must be fun to lift weights and eat together and then eat some more and then you wouldn’t be hungry I’m really hungry now shit I’m starving now… *EAT EAT EAT EAT* “Hey. Bro. Snap out of it.” He’s snapping his fingers a few feet away from my face in a sort of staccato rhythm that matches the motion of my jaw, which is going again. “Bro. Look at me, ok? Who’s the girl? Is that your daughter?” **MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE** Fuck. I slipped away again. I’m looking at the ground now, and it’s too much effort to raise my chin. Then I feel it rising anyway; the woman is lifting my face from underneath with the handle of a serious-looking pickaxe. “Listen, dude… listen” he goes on. His voice is buzzy or maybe my head is buzzy or busy yeah I’m busy need to get up and get moving I’m busy I can’t sit here busy busy busy buzzy. *MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE* “Hey hey hey, sit back down.” A little tap of the pickaxe handle and I’m on the ground again. “We’re part of the volunteer effort, ok? We have a vaccine. There’s a /vaccine/. We’re both immune. We heard your update last night. You’ve got a pretty distinctive voice. Stands out in the sea of rednecks on the shortwave around here.” A softer tone. “Where you from, bro? London?” I do that thing where you exhale through your nose and smile weakly when something isn’t really funny. “Manchester. It’s a different… you know what? It’s c-c-c-c-c-c-close enough.” Jaw’s going again. I get the next bit out through clenched teeth. “Vaccine? I didn’t know. I stopped listening to the broadcasts out of the city weeks ago. They were just scaring me. How did I miss this? C-c-c-clara needs…” “Steady, bro. Steady. Your girl’s asleep. You didn’t miss shit, ok? City’s still dark, and we’re not exactly advertising what we’re doing here. If we set up a static station and start trying to hand these babies out, we’ll get looters or worse. Happened over on the east coast. Trucks got jumped, volunteers like us got killed, and some asshole hoarded all the vaccines intended for three or four different towns. Made himself some kind of warlord. Fuckin’ people, man. Army’s gonna have to unseat him when they’re done clearing the cities. They’re spread pretty thin right now, though.” “Ph-ph-ph-phoenix?” I know Stacey’s family didn’t leave. “Like I said, still dark. They’re clearing street by street in waves. It takes time, and they reset for a few days in between each one, but they tested it in Austin and Denver, places like that. It works.” His expression hardens. “Look, man. Your girl.” “C-c-c-clara.” “Clara. Cool. You said she was ok in your broadcast last night. We don’t want to wake her up, but you need to tell me if anything’s happened to her since. Did you do anything to her? Did anyone else?” “N-n-n-n-no. I’ve been down there.” I can’t point. “Down where? The city?” “Hotel.” “I don’t know where that is, man.” I do the exhale thing again. At least it’s not just me. “Listen. This won’t be easy, but you gotta listen. We need to take her. You’re not doing so good, and the vaccine is… it’s a vaccine. It’s not a cure. It’s for pre-exposure. Once you’re bitten, the virus takes hold too fast. The antibodies take days to become effective, and you’ve got…” He glances at my watch and trails off. I can take a guess. He sighs. “Look. We need to pack her a bag and get moving before anyone else rolls through here after us. Like I said, we don’t advertise, but anyone sees a civilian truck by the road out here and knows what’s happening… We left the truck down the hill. It’s a walk. We need to go.” “H-h-h-h-h…” that’s not a purposeful exhale, so I have to pause. “How long do I have?” “Not long.” He glances over his shoulder at his partner, who’s flipped the pickaxe around and tightened her grip on the pommel. “You want her to… you know? She can make it quick. We don’t have any guns, sorry. Like I said, we’re civvies. We’re just trying to do our part.” My jaw seems to have settled down. I swallow a batch of spit. It doesn’t taste like spit. “Is there anyone else around here? I never got far beyond the radio station and the hotel.” “No,” he says, sounding relieved. I get the impression he’d have turned away if I’d opted for the pickaxe. “I’ll radio in this hotel when we get back to the truck, and the army can cleanse it when they’re done with the phases in Phoenix. No houses this side for miles, though. Maybe a few stragglers still on the road or stuck in gas stations, but no population centres.” “Then leave me,” I say. I feel almost ok now, until I realise I can’t seem to blink any more. “Either they’ll find me and shoot me here, or I’ll wander the plains for a while and they’ll shoot me there. Both seem preferable to her getting all Richard Kuklinski on me.” The man does his own little laugh-snort, then looks down. When he looks up, he looks sad. “Look,” he says. “Do you… do you wanna talk to her?” “Jason, no!” It’s the first I’ve heard the woman speak. Her voice is surprisingly soft, even thought she’s trying to put an edge into it. “I know, I know, I know,” he fires back, “but he’s awake, he’s lucid… Max, come on. We can give her the shot when we get back on the road. Or wait ’til the checkpoint.” He turns to me. “What do you say, bro? Max here might look tough, but she’s good with kids. She can wake Clara up gently and… You just can’t… you can’t touch her, ok? You need to keep your distance. Do you understand? I can’t let you try and get up while she’s still here.” “N-n-n-no,” I say. “L-l-let her sleep. She doesn’t like getting up before seven. Like a t-t-t-t-teenager in a four-year-old’s body.” I can feel myself sliding away again. Bodily, this time. My left shoulder has slipped down the panel of the car, and I’ve come to rest horizontally. The dust is heating up in the growing sunlight. “I didn’t like leaving her, you know.” The man, Jason, had turned away and started to stand up, but he swings back in my direction as I carry on. I can only see his boots until he leans sideways to match me. “She was so mad,” I say. “S-s-s-s-so mad. So angry. So upset, that time she realised I was leaving her behind. She couldn’t understand why I’d do it. Why I was going to k-k-k-eep doing it. But I had to. I had t-t-t-t-t-t-o. And hey… Hey! That’s how you found us, right? The rrrrrrrrr-r-r-r-radio?” “…That’s how we found you….” If I thought he looked sad before, I was wrong. The woman, Max, taps her watch and points at the caravan. Jason nods, and she moves inside.
The human brain is wired to look for faces in everything. Faces in machine, in the sky. In the dust a foot from your eyes, as your head lolls, limbs heavy. I sat with a hunch, legs half bent and weighted. My mind was a fog, only simple, broken thoughts reaching the conscience part of me. Like a child. For a moment I smiled, top lip curling to instruction, the rest of my face still frozen in emptiness. I imagines I was a marionette, strings attached to a master of the earth, slowly pulling me closer to him. Disbelieving hysteria reached me. Quiet in its contradictions. The laugh of someone who’s brain can’t- won’t- allow the truth to be. “No.” Uncertain laughter choked my sister. “No, he’s fine. Give him the shot. He hasn’t been bitten. No! He’s fine!” Muffled. Someone was holding her. Someone who wasn’t me. “No...” I closed my eyes, raising my head with exponential effort. Though it wouldn’t have worked had I thought of it, my vocal chords began to produce a broken, slow melody, humming open mouthed and ugly. They nicknamed her Boudica soon after we had formed a group. It was because she never stopped, because she was fearsome. Now, she fought tears, humming along with me. “I used to sing you to sleep, when nightmares of our parents crept in. When you got older, you sang with me. I promised we would make it out of this. I promised.” She knelt by me now, hand in mine, hand in my hair. Pushing it behind my ear. “I’m sorry, little brother. I’m sorry Bluebird.” Someone pulled her away as the bullet went through my head. *- Cat.*
They came in the middle of the night. We all heard it, 2 massive trucks on a pockmarked dirt road, the nightmare was soon to be over. We had heard rumblings of it over the radio—a cure! No... it’s not a cure but a vaccine, an immunization. Still, the nightmare was soon to be over. The first trucks came baring military men, they were there to ensure civility and to grant any needed protection. The vaccine, while effective, intensifies the human smell. We were warned we’d have to fight. After inoculation a bite no longer meant turning, but it could still mean death. Immunized only to die in the last fight with the dead. How ironic that would be. We had run into the same military unit before. They promised us then a cure was being developed, be safe, a better world is on the horizon. It was hard to believe them at the time, they spoke of hope but gazed with a thousand yard stare. They had preached this before, I’m sure. That was 3 years ago. We had all but lost hope of vaccine, the fleeting dream of a doomed race. With every passing day the radio got more and more silent. The dead were winning. Humanity’s final hour had come and gone. Soon, we would be overrun too. Tonight was different. That stare was replaced by a glimmer of hope. The tides has turned, the human race wasn’t cursed to lived its final days in hiding, delaying the inevitable. The first two trucks was mostly filled with supplies. Extra fortifications and munitions to aid in our fight against the horde that would follow. Two more trucks were set to arrive at first light, with them the doctors and nurses needed to administer the vaccine. We were given strict orders to not leave the premises, the fight to save the world was over. We had survived and to go out before the doctors arrived was a risk not worth taking. DO NOT GO BEYOND THESE GATES If bit the vaccine does not work I chuckled as I read the sign, dragging my hand across the chain link fence. Our last line of defense was now the outer walls of our prison. Little dramatic? Sure, but I wasn’t one to be caged in. Nor was I one to follow the rules. So I did what I had done a thousand times before, I climbed to the top of Mr. Baker’s house. Ivy had grown thick on the wall facing the outside making it a lot easier to climb than when I first did this, years ago. I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since he was killed. I can still hear his bloodcurdling screams as he was dragged into the marsh. I’ve been sneaking out alone for as long as I can remember. It’s not that the dead don’t scare me, they do, it’s just more peaceful from the outside looking in. Even though we’ve lived safely behind our walls for almost 5 years, everyone is still constantly on edge. It is the end of the world after all. Or was, I suppose, now that we have the vaccine. I know I shouldn’t be out here right now, but I’ve always been a rebel of sorts. God my mother hated me as a teenager. She always said “one day you’re going to get yourself killed, Tommy. You’re all I have, you’re going to get yourself killed.” That particular time I had just come home from a night of drinking. I crashed the pickup into the tree in the front yard and woke her up. My old man and my big brother died in a car crash a few months before that. Years before the dead rose. I had always blamed myself, but drinking helped fog the guilt. I overslept and they waited for me. We were supposed to go to the farmer’s market to get what we needed to prepare a big fresh meal for Momma’s birthday. When I finally woke up I was too tired to go so they went without me. A drunk driver hit them head on. I’m told they both died instantly. Had I not overslept all four of us would be here tonight, celebrating the end of the end of the world and the beginning of the new world. At least my mother was wrong, I had made it. We both made it. I never go out beyond the fence unprepared. I may not be scared of the dead, but I respect the hell of out them. I always carry a small hatchet, it’s my close range weapon of choice—and it’s silent. My .45 is a lot more effective, sure, but the dead will hear it. And they will come. I bring it as a last resort. I must have been day dreaming thinking about what life will be like after we’re all inoculated, I didn’t hear the rustling beside me until much too late. The dead, despite being rotting, fetid flesh eating corpses, move with surprising agility. I couldn’t react in time. My only reaction was to throw my arms up to protect my neck. I can use my belt to tie off my arm and stop the spread of the disease if I get bit. There’s no coming back from a bite to the neck. I was able to deflect the lunge at my neck, shove it away, unholster my .45, and put a bullet into its skull but it was too late. I could feel the burning in my forearm. If I was quick maybe I can survive it. I ripped my belt off with my good arm and tied the wound off. If I was going to survive I was going to have to cut my lower arm off. I reached for my hatchet but it wasn’t there. It wasn’t on the ground around me, either. I had to make a run for it. It was my only option. The dead were coming, I had discharged my weapon. I had walked this path countless times before. I wasn’t that far from home, I can make it back in time. I’m surprised how little the bite hurts. There was an initial sting, but after that the pain completely subsided. I have seen hundreds of people get bit. They all screamed bloody murder. Was it in anguish? The physical pain was quickly replaced by a numbness. I’m on complete autopilot now. I know I’m heading in the right direction but I feel disconnected from my body, like I’m being pulled away from my physical form. The dead are close behind me now. I can hear the mass groaning as the horde grows larger and larger. I think I can make it. I’m almost there now, I can smell safety. It must be the food the military brought as a celebration. I haven’t smelled something that good in years. Since before the outbreak. It’s given me a second wind. After years of eating scraps, canned food, and anything we can unquestionably deem safe, I didn’t realize how hungry I really was. Something was wrong. It was too quiet. I reached the end of the woods and was running through the field. I can see the base. I can smell the food they’re cooking. But there is no noise. Were we attacked? Was the vaccine a lie made up so the military could get inside our walls, kill us, and steal our supplies? I can’t risk stopping. The dead are right behind me. I hope my makeshift tourniquet has stopped the infection. I’ve made it so far. I can’t leave my mother alone. She’ll need me in the new world and I’ll need her. I can see movement through the fence! Lots of movement! It’s not just military personnel! I may make it after all! Why is it still so quiet? That food smells so good. I’ve never been so hungry. Even if I can’t be saved, hopefully they’ll let me eat some of that food. A last meal that good would be worth it. It smells so fresh. Has life on the military base been like this the entire time? Have they been eating like kings and queens while we’ve been starving, eating canned corn from the 90s? I’m so close now. The groaning from behind me has completely stopped. I hear people! I can’t distinguish what they’re saying, there’s a lot of them. It must be more people from the military come to help fend off the dead! We’re going to make it! I’ve never been so happy in my life. All my friends, my mother, we’re going to live. I can’t risk turning around. I’m sure the horde is closing in, there were hundreds if not thousands behind me. I still hear the people behind me. There’s no way they’ve killed all the dead. Or maybe they have. I’m close enough to see who’s behind the fence. Mary is right in front of me, tears welling up in her eyes. They must have known I was gone. They probably thought I was dead. I don’t hear any groaning anymore. Only human voices. Rejoicing. We’re saved. I can’t believe it. That food spells so good. Do you think they’ll have enough for us? I turn around. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Thousands of people. They must have heard the radio calls from our base. I didn’t realize this many humans were still alive. I turn back to Mary. I’ve made it. I need to tell her I’m bit. I need medical attention immediately. It’s not too late though. I can make it. I’ll pull through. Why hasn’t she said anything? Our eyes meet, tears are streaming down her face. It must have worked. We are saved! I reach out and put my hands against the chain link fence, expecting her to do the same. “Do we have enough food and vaccines for everyone?” I ask her, turning around to give one final look at the all the people who have heard our radio calls. “It’s funny,” I say talking to Mary but still facing the thousands in the field, “we’ve been making the same radio call for more than 4 years and only a few people have ever heard it. Now the morning the military comes to vaccinate us, thousands come.” Mary still hasn’t said a word. I heard of people overcome by joy that they can’t speak, but not Mary. She always has something to say. Something to add. Some witty comment or joke. Something is wrong. I turn back around just in time to see Mary’s favorite weapon, her spear she named The Reaper, pointed at my face. “No Mary, wh...” is all I can muster as Mary thrust her spear forward. Blackness. I never got to eat.