Stale blood spilled onto decomposing dirt. I dragged today’s meal back to camp, a zombie dog. Judging by the rancid smell, it had been infected for years, but I didn’t have the luxury of choice. Food became scarce after the world went to shit, so putrified zombie meat had to do.
I barged into my base—the ruins of a trailer—and started a fire. Dark smoke drifted through the torn roof and mixed with the darker smoke of burning forest.
My cooking skills sucked, but I could throw the dog over a flame. To kill the virus, I needed to burn the zombie black. It didn’t leave much meat, but I wasn’t feeding a family.
While the dog charred, I clutched my zombie sternum necklace carved into a heart. My habit had rubbed the milky white bone smooth. I shut my eyes and listened to the desolate world, waiting for footsteps, but there were none. I was the last human alive.
No one bothered me. No noise, conflict, or burden. Just me and the zombies and the burning forest.
The scorched dog’s scent made my stomach growl. I whipped out a hunting knife and cut into the dog to see the meat. The outside smoldered like black charcoal while the inside hovered between red and pink. Not cooked at all.
I wiped blood and juices off my knife with a clean rag. The edge gleamed in the firelight, reflecting corrupt light around my trailer and drawing me in. It sneered at me. Taunted me. Enticed me….
----------------------------------------
“Hey Ten! Ten look. Ten look at me.”
I quit polishing my knife as pitter pattering footsteps bounded down our temporary camp’s stairs. A 12 year old girl hoisted a toothless zombie head beside hers.
“Look, it’s me when I die.”
She burst into laughter. A scar danced across her face and ended at her missing front tooth. Her wild brown hair leapt in all directions, grasping for freedom. Annoying. I grunted in the hope she’d be quiet for once.
“Hey Ten, let me use that zombie. I’m making a tooth necklace.”
She hovered over a dead zombie on the kitchen table.
“Stop playing with the dead, Blazar.”
“What else am I supposed to do for fun? I’ll let you have my teeth too when I die.”
“Stop talking about dying. It’s bad luck.”
“Stop this, stop that, stop telling me what to do. You’re not my dad.”
I grunted. Good. If I was Arcturus, a heart attack would’ve already killed me from all the stunts she’d pulled. Too bad zombies massacred him and everyone else from Dixon Base. Now I had to babysit this kid by myself.
Blazar fished pliers from her backpack and extracted teeth knocked out when I had crushed the zombie’s head with my steel bat. Then she tore out the remaining teeth. God, I was stuck with a crackpot. We needed to get to my brother’s bunker soon, or I’d go crazy.
I lit a smoke to chase away the irritation while watching Blazar. She disinfected the teeth with rubbing alcohol and shoved them into a backpack pocket. Then she drew a necklace from another pocket. The tooth necklace? No, a flat heart-shaped bone hung from the wire.
“Take this. I made it from a zombie sternum for you.”
“Don’t want it.”
“I said take it. It’s for you.”
I snatched it from her and contemplated throwing it out a window, but stowed it in my front pocket next to my lighter instead. She pouted. Not my problem.
My watch buzzed meaning 12 hours had passed since our last meal. I tossed Blazar a sack of jerky and a water bottle and snuffed my cig.
She sat next to me to devour her jerky. Meat crumbs spilled all over the table, so Blazar licked her finger to trap and eat the fallen pieces. Unlike her, I didn’t let anything escape. I ate over my jerky bag so everything fell back in.
“Hey Ten, can’t I have a little more? One more piece.”
“No.”
“Please~?”
“No.”
“But-“
“No.”
“Don’t be cheap. Let me die with a full stomach.”
We needed to save our food or we’d never make it to the bunker. Young ones never think for the future. I’d survived decades in this forsaken world and wouldn’t starve to death because this kid couldn’t ration food.
I clenched my bat and contemplated abandoning her. Survival was easier alone. She ate my food, drank my water, and attracted zombies with her noise. Maybe….
Zombie groans tickled my ears and I strained to locate them. Two near the door and three across the street. They must’ve been sweeping houses on this street for food.
“Zombies. Let’s go.”
“What? But I left some stuff upstairs.”
“There’s five.”
“They should hurry and starve. They’re so annoying.”
Blazar groaned but gathered her pack and jagged steel pipe to follow me. I snuck to the back door and poked it open, trying not to make a sound. We tiptoed past a broken wood fence and escaped the property into a grassy field. Occasionally, I peered behind myself to confirm the kid didn’t wander off.
“Blazar.”
Too late, she didn’t hear my whisper. Blazar stepped on a board which shot up and launched pebbles into the ruined fence. They rained down like thunderclaps against the silent plain.
“Oops.”
God damned kid. We waited where we stood, hoping the zombies didn’t notice, but their hearing improved to compensate for impaired vision. However nothing reacted, so maybe we were safe.
A zombie with squirming maggot hair popped up over our temporary camp’s roof and it roared. Four other’s flipped over the fence to charge us. The first’s brow ridge shadowed its face, but it lacked actual eyebrows. Towering moldy nails sank into another's hands like yellow spiral staircases. The last two were twins differentiated by a missing eye. Fuck me. I swept Blazar behind me as I readied my bat.
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“I’m sorry, Ten! I didn’t-“
“Shut it and pay attention. Don’t get in my way.”
I rushed to meet the four zombies, my bat front and center. It flashed forward, braining a twin before it could fight back. The others surrounded me and advanced in Tiger or Crane Kung Fu stances. Luckily, they never learned anything new. I’d killed hundreds of these types.
My bat spun like a tornado to keep the fiends back. Every chance I had, I shattered their extended limbs. The long nailed zombie got greedy and advanced early, earning it a jaw splintering uppercut. As it plummeted, the others pounced together.
I ducked under a kick from the browless zombie and bashed the remaining twin’s seeking hand. The other hand drove towards my face, but Tiger techniques could never surprise me. My bat’s pommel blocked the palm strike and I redirected the force to shatter the zombie’s sternum.
My bat whirled as I sprung away, expecting the browless zombie to pounce. But it didn’t. Blazar screamed and my heart dropped as I assumed the worst. Fortunately, my fears were unfounded. Blazar had lanced the browless zombie through the head with her makeshift spear and it lay dead at her feet.
“Blazar.”
“W-what? I wanted to help.”
I grunted. She didn’t do too bad for a kid. A piercing howl derailed my train of thought. The maggot haired zombie on the roof dove to the ground and rolled to negate the force. Up close, I discerned a faint shimmer around its limbs and iridescent scaled skin. Fuck, it’s a Dragon type. Its cry earlier must’ve called reinforcements.
“Blazar run. Get to the woods.”
“I’m staying.”
“I’ll be right behind you. We can’t win this fight.”
A frown wandered her paling face.
“You’re not my dad, so you better not die like him.”
I snorted and she sprinted off while glancing back. Now to hold this monster down. It hoisted the surviving twin to its feet, but I left it with a broken sternum so strenuous movements would be impossible.
The twin hobbled towards me and I pulverized its skull to finish it off. The maggot haired zombie materialized beside me, its hand drilling at my neck. I swatted at the limb with my bat, but it bounced off with a clang as if I had hit a truck. Panicking, I fell on my butt and rolled away from the deadly claws.
It chased me with lethal passion as I barely avoided its barrage. I waved my bat in its face, but it snatched the weapon from my hands and shredded it like paper. I’m fucked.
A jagged pipe flew into the zombie’s eye. The Dragon type ripped the makeshift spear out and clutched its face. I took that chance to wheel to my feet. Blazar stood a yard away, so I scooped her into my arms and sprinted into the woods. Dry summer leaves crunched under every step.
“I told you to go.”
“I didn’t want to be alone again.”
I couldn’t say anything. Dumb kid always making things difficult. The zombie roared after me. Shit, it wouldn’t cut me a break. What could I kill it with? Dragon type zombies were so rare I’d only encountered one in my life and it annihilated my whole scavenging party. Think. Necklace, knife, cigarettes, lighter….
“You still have that rubbing alcohol?”
I wheezed between every word. Running through the woods on unsteady ground while carrying a kid strained my lungs to the limit. I swore if I survived this, I’d quit smoking.
“Yep, why?”
“Get the lighter from my pocket. The right one. Also get out the alcohol.”
She fished out both items and held them in her hands, unsure of what to do.
“We’re setting the bastard on fire.”
“Huh? I don’t know how to do that.”
“Uncap it. Light it. Throw it.”
She scrunched her face, unconvinced, but she followed my directions anyway. The maggot haired zombie ran slower than me, but my stamina was bottoming out. My old bones rattled with every step.
Blazar unscrewed the cap and tilted the half empty bottle so the lighter could reach alcohol. She flicked the lighter three times, but no flame appeared.
“Hurry.”
“It’s not working.”
“Push harder.”
She tried again with ashen skin, but each failed attempt irritated me. I ducked under and around trees and skipped over rocks and roots, exhaustion battering me.
“If I have to light it for you-“
“I did it, geez.”
A small flame hovered above the lighter and she brought it to the alcohol which ignited a yellowish orange flame.
“Throw it!”
Side stitches pierced my abdomen and made running difficult. The maggot haired zombie trailed my heels much closer than before. Blazar raised the flaming bottle and launched it over my shoulder. The rush of heat and scream from behind told me she hit the monster.
But I didn’t stop. I needed to get away since fire may not finish it. After a while, I couldn’t hear it anymore, so I let my guard down. My foot slipped on a rock and I tumbled into a ravine, shielding Blazar on the way down.
“Oof.”
I groaned when I landed in the dried stream bed. My body screeched and I smelled blood. Blazar wriggled in my arms.
“Ten, are you okay?”
My back and lungs ached, but I survived.
“Yeah.”
I coughed and tried to rise, but my bruised ribs screamed at me. This was not the time. I forced myself to my feet and heard the maggot haired zombie lurking closer again. Shit, fire didn’t kill it. I had to hide.
Tall cattails grew from cracked earth and weeds hung from overhanging dirt and stone walls. I scooted underneath the overhang and hoped the maggot haired zombie wouldn’t find us, otherwise, we’d be finished.
It stalked closer to our hiding place until it stood right above us. The maggots on its head popped from the fire. The smell of dirt and burning skin mixed in the air to form a revolting concoction. I held Blazar to my chest and we trembled. Finally, the zombie moved on, its howls getting further away.
“We’re safe.”
Blazar didn’t respond, so I glanced down at her. She still shook, her skin colorless.
“Blazar, what’s wrong?”
She peered at me with hollow eyes, drained of hope.
“Ten, I got bit.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“I saw you fighting and I wanted to help so I attacked one of them….”
Tears rimmed her eyes. The dam shattered and they spilled down her face in heavy droplets.
“It bit me before I could kill it.”
Warmth left my chest and a sour taste built in my mouth.
“Where?”
She shifted her legs so I could see. A perfect crescent bite mark. She buried her head in my chest.
“I’m scared, Ten. I don’t want to die yet. I’ve always joked about it, but I’m not ready.”
She sobbed against me, a wet spot growing on my shirt.
“I want to go to the bunker with you and make sculptures while you tell me to knock it off and run around a new base and play without worrying about zombies.”
I clenched my teeth. Maybe the bunker would assure our safety, but the zombie virus inhabited every inch of this world. Even still, she no longer had a chance to find out for herself.
“Me too.”
Her heart beat at a million miles a second.
“Please don’t let me die. I want to stay with you forever.”
I hugged her. We both knew this scenario’s end. She’d witnessed it herself when Dixon Base fell.
“Alright. Let’s sit for a while.”
I sat with her as night fell and clenched the bone necklace in my pocket. Her little fingers held my shirt’s lining and I watched, hoping blood would return to her features. But she stayed pale and bloodless.
“Thank you.”
I rubbed her back, stroked her hair, and drove my knife into her heart. She squeaked and fell limp in my arms. Still, I held her, for minutes or for hours until her tiny body went cold.
Tears rolled down my face as I cradled her. I finally had the silence I wanted. The kid couldn’t drag me down. Surviving would be easy. I was on my own.
The maggot haired zombie had set the forest ablaze as it passed through, so I cremated Blazar with the fire. Lit by flames and moonlight, I cleaned my knife. The edge shone with corrupt light and drew me in. It sneered at me. Taunted me. Enticed me. Finish the job.
But I didn’t. I walked. Without a destination. Alone.