Apocalypse: An Anthology Part 6

Without an ounce of warning the tip of a scythe popped through the rotting wood above me. I screamed. I screamed in short, cough interrupted, screams. The tip of the scythe retracted and left a large fissure in the wood planks. Light shown through and burned my eyes. I closed them as quickly as I could and backpedaled to the wall at my back. After a few seconds I opened my eyes and searched the room for my husband. My stomach sank at the thought of seeing his face after so long in the dark.

My eyes darted around the room trying to take everything in. After so long in the black room my eyes didn't want to cooperate. I wasn't seeing him. I found the empty workbench to the back wall, the pile of fis.h.i.+ng equipment next to it, our discarded food cans, but no husband. The bas.e.m.e.nt is the size of a bedroom, no hallways, no creva.s.ses to hide in, just one large room. Where could he have gone in the dark?

My breaths came out in short, ragged heaves. I was starting to cry. The scythe came through the floor above me again, this time with greater force. Chunks of wood splintered down on me. I crawled on hands and knees around the room, waving my hand in front of me, searching the dim s.p.a.ce for the solid feel of my husband. Overly salty tears flooded down my cheeks and into my open mouth. My movement across the dirt floor kicked up flurries of dust that stuck to my wet face.

The scythe pierced the wood again and flooded the room with light. I could see more clearly now. Every corner was illuminated with gray light from the hole the scythe wielding stranger had created. I saw nothing. No safety net. No husband hiding away in the dark. Only my pile of empty cans. My discarded plastic bottles. A sob escaped my ash heavy lungs and vomit followed. Reality had found its way into my consciousness. Every moment of the previous week flooded through my brain and I knew all I truly had was myself. I was alone. Wholly and utterly alone. No daughter, no husband, no hope.

In a dramatic effort to save our child my husband had raced to the school in the middle of the first quakes. He promised to keep her safe. He made me swear to stay in the house. Made me promise to hide in the bas.e.m.e.nt if I needed to. To save myself and the child I held inside me. I was alone for days before the stranger made his way up the street. I prayed he'd found her, prayed he'd come through the door carrying my beautiful girl in his arms, prayed he'd save me from the stranger in the street. Days past, alone in this bas.e.m.e.nt, listening to the beckoning of the strange man above me. He never came.

Everything that had kept me alive, forced me to survive, begged me to fight, was gone. Out there somewhere in the middle of the apocalypse was my family. And here I was, stuck in a bas.e.m.e.nt with a raving maniac breaking his way into my sanctuary with his fierce blade.

Splintered wood showered my hair and shoulders. My head hung until my hair drug in the dirt. On all fours in the dirt I fought the urge to lie down, to give up, to give in to the maniac and let him have me. Another swing of his blade and a plank of wood came cras.h.i.+ng to the ground near my feet. A deep, ragged breath broke my sobs and I held it. I held my breath until I thought I'd faint. A light fluttering in the center of my stomach forced me to inhale. I pulled in my lifesaving breath and laid a hand on my belly. Of all the times he chose to allow me to feel his movement, his life, he chose this one.

My head lifted quickly from the dirt and my eyes focused on my would-be attacker. For the first time in days I saw his face. His clothes were sprayed with rusty blood and his face smeared with ash. A white smile shown bright and cut the dreary gray of his ashy face. He disgusted me. The fis.h.i.+ng knife that I'd used to open my cans sat alone in the center of the floor near my pile of cans. The stranger laughed and swung his blade one last time. I scurried on all fours toward my only weapon. My filthy hand swept across the dirt floor and scooped up my weapon. The knife was long, curved, and sharp as h.e.l.l.

I flipped to my backside in time to watch the skeleton skinny man drop from the hole he'd created to the dirt floor a few feet away from me. He held his scythe at his side, as though he was death coming for me, a.s.suming I was defenseless; weak. I let him think that while he shuffled his feet toward me. He smiled as he had the first day I'd seen him on the street outside my house. He knew I was alone. He knew I was vulnerable. Maybe I was, the first time I'd seen him. I'd been so lost and scared. Not anymore. My husband was gone, my daughter was gone, but my hope was alive and kicking inside me. It was all I needed.

The man came closer to me. He worked his belt that held his oversized pants up while he stared into my eyes. He snickered as he had so many times before, this time knowing he was so close he could finally touch me. He'd gotten his belt off and started to kneel to my level. This was my only shot. I held my blade tight in my small hand and shoved it deep into his stomach just below the sternum. I looked into his eyes only inches from mine and watched as his smile widened. My eyes focused on his white teeth and I jerked my wrist upward. The razor sharp blade plunged into his chest cavity. The smile he was so f.u.c.king proud of fell. His already dead eyes glazed as his heart slowed to a stop. Blood guzzled from his body and pooled between my legs. The thin man collapsed against me and heaved the knife so far into his body my index finger slid into the sloppy wound with it.

In that instant something in me hardened. Like an armor sliding over me my strength rose. I shoved the man off of me and into the dirt. The flutter returned and I knew I had only one option.

I grabbed an empty shoulder bag from the pile of fis.h.i.+ng equipment and tossed my last bottle of water, a granola bar, and my book of matches into it. My knife, I held at my side. For the first time in so many days I slid the locks on the large metal door and pulled it open. My lungs filled with ashen air and I knew this was reality. Everything in my kitchen had been broken or eaten. There was nothing left to salvage.

I took one last look around the house that had known so many memories, the house that held so much security, and walked out the door. I had nothing left in this crumbling world, but the will to find my everything.

Out there somewhere, in the middle of the apocalypse, was my family. Here I am, ready to die to find them.

I am alone. I am pregnant. I killed a man. And I'm pretty sure I'm bat s.h.i.+t crazy.

Welcome to the end of the world.

LOTION.

GRAYCE JANTSON.

(JASON BRANT).

Author Info: Jason Brant grew up in the mountains of western Pennsylvania where he eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

After spending more than half a decade working as a Digital Forensics a.n.a.lyst contractor for the Department of Defense, Jason prefers to spend his time writing and watching movies.

As a Steelers fan living outside of Baltimore, Jason and his wife Erin spend most of their days dodging flying cans of National Bohemian Beer being thrown at them by Ravens fans.

You can connect with Jason at: http://www.facebook.com/jmbrant http://jasonbrant.blogspot.com/ https://twitter.com/jason_brant http://www.amazon.com/Jason-Brant/e/B007OLXYI8/ref Lotion "For the love of all that is holy, will you hurry the h.e.l.l up?"

I could hear him doing something on the other side of the apartment door but I had no idea what he was up to. He'd been in there for almost five minutes now and I could feel my blood pressure increasing with every pa.s.sing moment. It would be dark soon and we'd be dead if we were caught in it.

"Coming, bro!"

I'd been talking to him for only a couple of minutes now and the *bro' thing had been grating on my nerves for every single one of them. I already regretted coming up here. This felt like a huge mistake.

"We have ten minutes until sundown!"

"So?"

There was no way he could be this monumentally stupid. Everyone else had been dead for d.a.m.n near two weeks, except for me and this dumb a.s.s?

"So? Are you r.e.t.a.r.ded?" I asked.

The door to his apartment finally opened and he stepped out wearing a t-s.h.i.+rt, jeans, and sandals. The idiot had actually changed clothing while I sat in the hallway, waiting. Not only did he waste time doing that, he also put on the least functional things he could find.

"Hey, my third cousin was slightly r.e.t.a.r.ded. That's not cool, bro," he said.

"I'm sorry, have I offended all of the dead special needs people? I'm pretty sure no one is around to care if I'm politically correct." I pointed at his sandals. "What the h.e.l.l is the matter with you? How are you going to run in sandals?"

He looked genuinely shocked at that. "Why would I run?"

I wanted to slap the s.h.i.+t out of him. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and tried to focus on not murdering the only other living person I'd seen in the past week. I looked him over again after a few seconds of trying to calm down. He didn't have the one thing that I told him to get.

"Where is your bag?"

"Oh yeah, sorry," he said, snapping his fingers. He went back into his apartment, leaving me in the dark hallway again.

I looked out the window at the end of the hall and cursed when I saw how dark it was. The odds of us getting back to the bank vault before the night fully set in were getting slimmer by the second. I should have known better than to come back here.

"Sorry, man. Let's do this." He closed and locked his apartment door behind him. Why he would bother locking the door when no one could possibly steal his stuff was a mystery to me.

"What is that?" I asked, gesturing to the messenger back over his shoulder. "I said to get something that could hold a lot."

"This is all I've got, bro," he said.

"If you call me *bro' one more time, I'm going to throw you down the stairs."

"Easy, bra" He caught himself, barely, and tried to act nonchalant about it. "Dude, relax. Everything's cool."

I wanted to slap him around like one of the Three Stooges, but I didn't think we had much time before they came out. "Just follow me." I turned around and sped down the hallway, just slower than a jog.

Before today, I hadn't been inside my place for almost two weeks. My clothing had started to smell like a compost heap so I had come back to get more. Unfortunately, and shockingly, I'd run into Greg here. I hated Greg a always had. He's the kind of neighbor that made you cringe every time you saw him coming down the hallway.

"Where we headed, bro?" His sandals flopped against the floor as he hurried up behind me.

"I've been staying in a vault two blocks away in Slessinger's bank," I said. Though I'd been getting in better shape over the past two weeks, I had already started huffing as I took the stairs two at a time.

"In a bank vault? That's just weird." His breaths came even faster than mine. "Why are we running, bro?"

"It's almost dark."

We reached the first floor and I sprinted across the small lobby of our apartment building. The front door stood ajar, as I'd left it, and I burst through it, almost tripping over a garbage can lying on the sidewalk. I jumped over it without breaking stride, only to hear Greg crash to the ground behind me.

"d.a.m.n! I skinned my knee!"

I turned around to see Greg sprawled in the pile of trash, rolling around in it. He was going to smell fantastic when we were locked in the bank vault together.

"Get up, you fool!" I didn't run back to him, but I did stop and wait. The sun had already set and I could feel myself starting to panic.

"What is the rush? I'm in pain here." He lifted himself from the garbage, brus.h.i.+ng it away from his pants.

I didn't bother answering him. It had grown so dark that the streetlights would have been on already, had civilization not come to an end. We had seconds, if that, to reach the bank. I took off, sprinting faster than I ever had in my life. My quads felt like they were about to tear.

"Bro, slow down!"

A car had stopped in the middle of the street in front of me. I ran around it, b.u.mping it with my hip. My backpack jostled, the water bottles inside it slos.h.i.+ng around. The extra weight of the bag slowed me down, but it was my lifeline and I wouldn't dare leave it behind. It only had a couple of day's food and water in it and I was thankful for that much.

The bank loomed at the end of the block. I picked up my pace as much as I could. The first shriek came then, scaring the s.h.i.+t out of me. That sound had haunted my nightmares since the first time I'd heard it. It bounced off the hard street and buildings, echoing throughout the entire area.

Another one pierced my ears, making me wince. That one came from nearby. Christ, they were so close that I expected one of them to pounce on me as I reached the revolving door at the front of the bank. I ran into it, throwing my shoulder against the gla.s.s, trying to get it moving as fast as I could.

"Hold up, man! I'm falling behind!"

I didn't wait. I ran across the open lobby, trying to remember where everything was located. The room was bathed in darkness and I couldn't see a d.a.m.n thing. I b.u.mped into the teller's booth and I worked my way around it. The vault sat ten yards past that, the door open. Ever since I'd found this place, I had always left everything accessible, just in case I had to get back here in a hurry. I ran through the door and tripped over the bottom lip, banging my s.h.i.+n against the harsh metal.

I fell inside and slid across the cool floor. Piles of stuff that I'd been collecting were spread about. I rifled through the one nearest me and found a long, metal flashlight. It took me a few seconds to figure out how to use it, as it didn't have any b.u.t.tons. I twisted the cap on the front and the end lit up, illuminating the vault. The revolving door squeaked as Greg came through it, so I angled the beam across the lobby, trying to show him the way.

"What the h.e.l.l, bro? Why are you-"

Another shriek, louder and shriller, echoed through the lobby. That got Greg's a.s.s moving. He ran toward me, looking over his shoulder as he came. "What is making that crazy a.s.s sound?"

I pushed the heavy vault door shut as he ran through it. It latched into place with an audible thunk. I spun the wheel on the back of it, locking it just as one of them slammed into the other side of it. Even though I knew they couldn't get through the thick steel, I still jumped away. The pounding grew worse for a solid minute before finally abating.

Greg stood beside me, staring at the door in horror. "What the f.u.c.k, bro?"

I took my bag off and dropped it to the floor. My matches were in the bottom of it and it took me a few seconds to fish them out and light a couple of candles that I'd placed around the vault. Greg continued to watch the door with a stupid look on his face. How did he not know what was going on outside?

"Here," I said, handing him a bottle of water from my bag. "It'll help calm your nerves."

"Really? Is there booze in it? I haven't had a drink in so long," he said.

"Booze? Only a complete dips.h.i.+t would get drunk nowadays."

He took the bottle from me and drank half of it in one go.

"Easy! We only have a limited supply of water," I said, taking it back.

"Sorry, bro, I'm thirsty as s.h.i.+t."

"I told you to stop calling me bro, for the love of G.o.d."

Greg sat against the wall opposite of me. "What was making those sounds? What is bouncing off the door? This is some seriously scary s.h.i.+t, br-"

My glare stopped him before he could finish the word. I couldn't believe it. How could he have survived in an apartment building for half a month? Not even taking into account his nonfunctioning brain, I didn't understand how he'd stayed alive while everyone else around him had died. Especially since he didn't seem to comprehend the situation they found themselves in.

"You keep asking me these weird questions," I said. "Do you not know what is going on out there?"

"I've been chilling in my apartment, bro." He winced at his use of the word, but continued. "I've heard those screaming sounds a lot, but I figured they were just sick people that sounded funny."

"Sick people?" I tore open a bag of potato chips that I'd taken from my apartment.

"Yeah, the news said to stay indoors because of a plague or some s.h.i.+t," he said.

I remembered the news agencies saying that at first. That was before the power went out though. Everyone thought that some kind of airborne disease had been making people sick; mutating their bodies into disfigured freaks. It was just before everything collapsed that people figured out that the disease spread through their bites.

Emergency broadcasts had told everyone to stay indoors and not to come in contact with anyone that you didn't know. I'd still been inside my apartment at that time. It wasn't until the power went out that I fled, trying to find something safer than my two bedroom place. I found the bank and the open vault that same day. Someone else had discovered it at the same time I did and we ended up getting into a h.e.l.l of a fight over it. I won.

"You've been in your apartment since this started? That was weeks ago." I wiped my oily fingers on my s.h.i.+rt.

"Well, yeah. I didn't want to get whatever s.h.i.+t was flying around in the air, you know?"

"How did you have enough food at your place? I ran out after a couple of days."

"I don't like to shop so I always buy a month's worth of groceries at a time. It kind of blows because I've got s.h.i.+t coming out of cabinets at first, but-"

"You never once looked out the window to see what was making those awful sounds? How did you not hear the people screaming in the streets?"

"Well, I heard it, but I taped my curtains against the windows. I figured that might help keep the disease s.h.i.+t out, you know?"

Wow. This guy actually thought that duct tape and fabric could keep a virus out of his house. People were being slaughtered in the streets and he sat in his apartment, getting wasted most likely, and managed to stay alive. If he hadn't been the only other person I'd seen alive, I would have thrown him out of the vault.

"So you have no idea what's happening? You think everyone got sick and died?"

"That's what the news said, bro. What else could kill everybody in a couple of days?"

"If everyone got sick and died, where are the bodies?" I couldn't believe that he hadn't thought of such a simple question already.