Apocalypse: An Anthology Part 8

The humidity had risen rather sharply when I noticed the smell. It felt like we were swimming as much as walking, which Greg the Moron thought came from my a.s.s for some reason. Why was there so much water in the air down here? The temperature was pretty low, so the entire thing had me concerned.

I stepped in another puddle and cursed when I felt the water run into my shoes. Our torch had almost burned out so I wrapped the pants I'd found around the end of the mop handle and waited for it to light before continuing. The fabric burned better than I expected and I could see the walls of the tunnel for the first time since we left the station. Almost every inch of them had been covered in some kind of goo.

"What the h.e.l.l is this stuff, bro?"

I didn't know what was covering the walls, but I recognized what I was standing in. The puddle of water was actually a puddle of blood. It ran along the ground, like a river of crimson.

"Oh s.h.i.+t," I said. I held the torch over my head, trying to see further ahead.

The light from the flames flickered off of two spots further down the tunnel.

"Do you see-"

The two spots moved.

"Are those eyes, bro?"

"I think so," I said.

Fortunately for us, vampires don't have eyes. The converts did though. I didn't want to try and fight one of those things down here with nothing more than a flaming mop. I looked around in a hurry and spotted a door. It might have been some kind of utility closet, or a maintenance entrance. If it was the latter, we might be able to get to the surface faster than I thought.

The eyes moved then. They flew forward, blinking in and out in quick succession, their height dropping as they came toward us. I lowered the torch in front of me, hoping to fend off whatever it was.

A severed head rolled to a stop in front of Greg.

"f.u.c.k me, bro!"

The shriek of a vampire exploded throughout the tunnel, making me wince. The sound had a devastating effect in such tight quarters. I saw the outline of the beast ahead of us, walking forward on all fours. Two more followed it - four more after that. The reasoning for the converts not wanting to come into the subway hit me then. They knew what hid in the darkness.

"Oh s.h.i.+t," I said. "I think we found where they hide during the day."

I took off for the door, unsure if I would make it before they pounced on me. Their speed was incredible and they closed the distance between us in an instant. I grabbed the door k.n.o.b, praying it would be unlocked, and cried out in triumph when it turned. I threw the door open and spun inside, never taking my hand off the k.n.o.b. Greg ran in as I swung it closed, squeezing through the opening. I had planned on closing it, whether he made it or not.

The door felt solid and was made of some kind of metal. I didn't think it would hold long, but at least it hadn't been made of balsa wood.

"Did you see those things?" Greg asked. His eyes looked like they were about to bug out of his head.

I waived the mop around, trying to get a bearing on our situation. The room didn't lead anywhere a it was just a maintenance closet. We were screwed. I slid to the rear wall, putting my back against it. My hands shook like crazy, making the light flicker around the room. I took off my pack and threw it to the ground. I couldn't believe the only weapon I had was a stupid mop handle. I might as well have been holding a toothpick.

f.u.c.king Greg. If I hadn't let him come back to the vault with me, none of this would have happened. He just had to play that s.h.i.+tty music in the middle of the street. I'd survived for weeks by myself. Now I was going to die less than twelve hours after picking him up. I looked over at him, preparing to hit him in the head with the mop, when I saw that he had his messenger bag.

"Your bag! Give me your bag!" I tore it from his shoulder, dropping the makes.h.i.+ft torch to the ground.

I pulled at the cover too hard and heard the fabric rip. Greg protested beside me as I tipped the bag over and dumped the contents on the floor, hoping for something flammable that I could put in front of the door. The light would keep them at bay for a little while, giving me some time to try and figure out what to do.

"What the h.e.l.l is this?" I asked.

He had brought four p.o.r.no magazines and a large bottle of hand lotion. No clothes, weapons, food, or water.

"Hey bro a it's lonely at the end of the world, ya know?"

"You stupid mother-"

The door exploded inward. A large, incredibly muscled vampire stepped inside the room, walking on all fours like a silverback. It shrieked at us, exposing two pairs of four inch long canine teeth, and sending globs of spittle to the floor.

"f.u.c.k you, Greg," I said as the vampire lunged at us.

UNTIL THE END.

BRITTANY HIESTER.

Author Info: Brittany Hiester was born in 1992. She plans to write many more works, mainly in the YA, romance, horror, and paranormal genres. She does not care about being a famous author that makes tons of money. All of the proceeds of her first book go to charity. She has been writing since she was eight, works full-time doing surveys on the phone, and also reviews books.

You can connect with Brittany at: https://www.facebook.com/brittany.hiester https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBrittanyHiester Until the End The world, as we have always known it, is over. I knew it the moment I woke up huddled next to my friend Christian. We hid out in an abandoned bas.e.m.e.nt while everyone else found sanctuary at the Ramada hotel here in Pottsville. Or at least what was left of Pottsville. I knew, and Christian knew, that the hotel would not protect everyone against a gigantic tsunami, but they all had faith that they would survive in there.

I already knew that everyone was gone. I couldn't think about that right now though. The world was gone. Christian and I would have to try and survive on our own. Christian had a packet of matches that we could use to light fires. We also had a backpack that contained four bottles of water, enough food to last us for at least three days, and a bow.

We found all this stuff in the bas.e.m.e.nt where we were hiding out. We used the light from our cell phones to try and find arrows for the bow, but there were none. We would just have to make do with what we had, and hope for the best.

"Christian," I said groggily.

Christian made some sort of incoherent noise in reply.

"Wake up," I said. "I think it's over."

I pressed a b.u.t.ton on my cell phone for some light so I could see Christian. Christian was not only a good friend of mine, but my coworker/boss. It was funny how we were friends. He was like the boy version of a popular girl. He was popular; cared about the way he looked, was stick skinny, dressed fas.h.i.+onably, had a pretty face, and was stuck-up. Plus, he was a gentleman and had a great sense of humor. If he was a girl we would probably not be friends. But that confused me and made me question why we were friends, even if he was a guy. I guess it was because we had crazy, fun adventures and always made each other laugh.

I was more of a loner who only had a few friends and my own style.

If Christian saw his dark hair right now he'd be horrified. It stuck out at different angles and lay flat near the front. He hated the way it would lay flat sometimes. I'm sure he could care less right now though. Our families and friends were gone. For all we knew it could just be us on this planet with no one else inhabiting it.

"I'm not ready to face it," Christian said softly.

This was the first time I had ever witnessed Christian being upset. I knew exactly how he felt. I didn't want to face the harsh reality that was about to come upon us either. We would have to emerge sometime though.

"I'm not ready to face it either," I admitted. "We can do this though."

Right now was not the time to be down about things. If Christian and I were going to survive this ordeal we would have to stay strong. I would pick him up if he was down and hopefully he'd do the same for me. We needed to be each other's rocks until we knew if there were any others alive.

We stood up and stretched lazily. Christian put the straps of the backpack on his shoulders, ready to go. We took out our cell phones and used them to guide our way to the dirty cement stairs which would lead us to the door and outside into a whole new world.

I wasn't sure what to expect when our feet touched the ground, which was nothing but patches of dirt now. I looked around and there was literally nothing around us. Everything was completely wiped out. There was maybe a piece of wood here, a toy over there, but that was it. There was no gra.s.s either. There was only dirt beneath our feet, which was more like mud because of the tsunami.

The sky above us was no longer a beautiful blue color. The sun was no longer a golden yellow to make the days seem brighter. The sky cascaded with dark purple and black, ugly clouds that threatened to tear apart the Earth once more. The sun wasn't even present, which wasn't a surprise at all.

The sky wasn't what scared me though. What scared me was that there was practically nothing around us. The Earth was just this wide open s.p.a.ce for us to walk miles and miles on. But what was out there miles and miles away? Somebody? Something? Anything?

Besides the patches of dirt, the streets and sidewalks were still around us too. Except they were in pretty bad shape, with multiple cracks, and they looked like they were on the verge of caving in if you dared to take even one step.

"Well, it's somewhat how I imagined it would be," Christian said in a monotone.

I had nothing to say. It felt like all the energy I had received from my long nap had been swiped away from me. I just wanted to curl up in a ball and wait for death to claim me as its next victim. This world wasn't worth living in. Everyone I had known and loved was gone as far as I knew. If they weren't, they were probably wis.h.i.+ng for death just like I was.

My ears perked up as I heard a crackling moan. It didn't exactly sound like a zombie, but it was close enough.

"Brittany, did you hear that?" Christian asked.

I nodded as my body tensed up. We had no way to defend ourselves. We could just head back down into the bas.e.m.e.nt, but if the living creature was strong enough it could simply break in and kill us.

"No way," I breathed as I finally saw who was making the sounds.

It was Monica. Monica was a woman who worked with us, and not well I might add. She'd use the bathroom every hour, was bad with p.r.o.nunciation, and randomly wouldn't show up for work. Our supervisor and monitor were afraid to fire Monica so she stayed at our work longer than necessary. Truth was that she shouldn't have been hired in the first place.

Monica was a little strange as well. She would laugh to herself at random times, she talked like she smoked for eighty years, and she would try to sell egg rolls and candy to people for a little extra money.

Monica was walking toward us making her crackle/moan noise. Her "perm" looked like she put it into two braids and just took it out in the morning, as usual. She wore her red sweats.h.i.+rt and tan pants. In her hand she carried what appeared to be an egg roll. How did she find it? I have no clue. There was hardly anything around us right now.

"Out of all the people who could've lived along with us of course it'd be her," Christian said under his breath.

I understood what Christian meant. Monica would be no use to us whatsoever. I don't think she could hit water if she fell out of a boat! Not only that, but Monica went ballistic two weeks ago and attacked a new worker. Monica chewed off the employee's hand before the police came to reprimand her. She was thrown into the insane asylum.

Christian and I used to joke that Monica could pa.s.s for a zombie. Alas, she had pretty much become one and now she was free. Free to attack us.

Monica held out the egg roll from where she stood about ten feet away.

"You guys have any egg rolls you want to sell?" Monica asked. "Or some candy I can sell to the children?"

Christian raised his eyebrow at me and I tried hard not to laugh at her ridiculous question. She must've been oblivious to the tsunami. I wondered at that moment how she survived it like we did.

Christian was more talkative than I was so he took it upon himself to answer for us.

"No, we do not," Christian replied, keeping a straight face.

"Hold on, I have to pee. I'll be right back," Monica said. "Stay right there."

When Monica was far enough away Christian and I had the same idea and headed off in the other direction.

"Why am I not surprised that Monica, of all people, survived the end of the world?" Christian asked.

"Not only that, but she's clearly a zombie," I added.

"Not a surprise either and I told you I could see her being one," Christian reminded me.

"I can't believe it actually happened though!" I exclaimed. "We were only joking. Besides that, if it so happens that it's just Monica and us as survivors, we should continue walking and get as far away from her as possible."

As we continued our walk we ate some bread and drank some more water to keep our strength up. I hoped we'd find some more supplies soon.

We finally came to find a house with no roof, doors, or windows, but it was more or less still intact. It was salvation for now. What I hoped for more than anything was that there'd be some items in this house and it not just end up an empty shelter to crash in.

We carefully walked up the stairs. The stairs cracked and groaned in protest as we ascended them. Luckily, they didn't cave in on us.

As we walked through the front door I noticed a few shards of gla.s.s on the wooden floor. I wondered if it was carpeted before the tsunami came and wiped everything out.

Christian searched the bas.e.m.e.nt of the house while I looked around the living room, dining room, and kitchen for anything that would be of use to us. The house seemed to be completely empty besides the shards of gla.s.s that lay on the floor.

"Brittany, I found a few arrows for that bow we found," Christian called out.

I used my cell phone light to guide my way down to the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"There's nothing upstairs. Did you find anything else?" I asked.

Christian proceeded to put the seven arrows into the backpack. They would come in handy if we saw Monica again, or someone else who might be a zombie.

"Well, not something, but someone," Christian replied.

Christian s.h.i.+ned his flashlight on whoever the other survivor was. But it was not a survivor he was speaking of. The body was of a skinny, frail woman. One of her eye sockets was missing an eye and her hair was just little tufts of gray. The woman's limbs were rearranged in impossible angles. Blood had poured from where her heart should have been and was now all dried up and crusted on her clothes.

It was the most graphic and horrific scene I had ever witnessed in my life. I didn't know who this woman was, but I automatically felt terrible for the fate she had suffered. The only person I could think of who could have done this to her was Monica. She was the only other person who we had seen alive and who was a zombie.

"Do you think it was her?" I asked.

"I don't know," Christian replied knowing who I was referring to. "I mean, yes, she is technically a zombie, but we haven't been around enough yet to know if she's the only one. I hope she is though."

"Let's go. This place isn't of any use to us," I said.

Christian followed me back up the stairs and waiting for us at the entrance was Monica... and she wasn't alone.

Along with Monica were five other people... or should I say five other zombies?

"My friends are hungry as well. I hope you don't mind," Monica said with a smirk.

My mouth dropped open in shock. Monica didn't have that crackling voice of hers. She sounded like a normal woman. Not only that, but her voice sounded like an intellectual woman. A woman with cla.s.s who could make you believe every word out of her mouth.

"What happened to her voice?" I asked myself in a hushed tone.

Monica must've heard me because she answered my question.

"I had you all fooled, didn't I?" Monica asked. "I wasn't really stupid nor did I have a raspy voice. I only acted that way so people would feel sorry for me. It worked beautifully!"

Christian and I exchanged a shocked look. Monica wasn't some weird, unintelligent employee after all. Now, because we had been fooled by her acting skills, we would become her next lunch.