It was a bright, sunny day. Scattered white clouds drifted over the city, drifted over the trees dense green in the full growth of summer, over his beautiful wife and daughter who walked the path a few feet ahead. One a half size, spot on version of the other. A slight breeze tossed their long brown hair and brought him some relief from the June heat. A sound drifted into his ears and grew louder, louder, and louder with each short burst. He opened his eyes, reached out and turned off the alarm. He woke alone, abruptly ending his dream. He sat up, still wearing his clothes and shoes. Sticking a hand under the pillow he pulled out the revolver, an old .454 Casull that began to hurt his wrist with recoil after twelve shots or so.
He checked the monitors and saw nothing particularly troubling before rising to his feet and stepping over to the floor to ceiling window opposite his bed. It was just before dawn and the pink orange light of the rising sun shown through the dusty air and cast dark silhouettes of the buildings across from his 12th floor condominium. There was no sound. It had been eleven months and sixteen days since that day in the park, the day he had last seen his wife alive, the day she left for a research trip to Zurich. It had been 340 days since he first heard reports of the infection, 335 since he had seen the infected kill and eat a man in the middle of the street and he had tried to shield his daughter from seeing, 300 days since the news went off the air, 250 since the power failed, 102 since the thunder in the distance stopped, 60 days since he heard the last airplane flying overhead, 30 days since the last of the campfires went out in one of the dark buildings he now surveyed out his window. It had been 75 days since she had opened the front door and gone downstairs, 75 days since one had got in, 75 long days since he came upon his own daughter half eaten and clawing at him from the floor with her one arm, driven by that insatiable hunger, her eyes glazed in a silver grey that reflected evil. 75 days since he had drawn his pistol and said goodbye to her.
The sun was coming up over the horizon now and he thought back again to that day in the park. They had gone to the pond that day and fed the ducks. He remembered how swarms of carp came to the surface and fought over the stray pieces of bread that they threw. The dark brown, slimy fish writhing over each other and snapping at the bread, spooking the white ducks away. Their crowding and devouring and moving over each other so much like the horde of infected that were now teaming at the base of his building. With the revolver still in his hand he leaned forward with his forehead pressed to the glass, looking down at them. He remembered how foolish it was that he even kept a gun before. After all he had been just a programmer, a white collar suit who drove a Volvo. But it had been a gift from his father, so he had kept it in a box in the top of his closet and it had saved his life in those first few days. Now his entire guest room was full of rifles and shotguns and pistols and ammunition stacked against the wall all the way to the ceiling. Another room was likewise packed with canned meat and canned vegetables and bottled water and ramen noodles and everything he might need.
He wished he could go back to sleep and dream again. He wished he could make the feeling go away. He had death with the news of the fall of Zurich and the panicked phone call he got which was cut off by screams and the terrible groan that they always make just before grabbing and biting. He had dealt with his daughter. He had dealt with friends and neighbors and strangers bitten but not yet turned. This feeling grew from something more than mourning, more than regret. He looked out on the dead landscape and knew what it was. The whole world was ending. Nothing was left but smoke and darkness and the shambling masses of groaning infected. It was hopelessness. Nobody ever thought about what it would feel like to know the entire planet was at an end, to know that you were the only one left. But still he couldn’t bring himself to end it. He still wanted to live, to keep going, but the bleakness of the picture outside was like fishhooks through his soul whose lines were tugged hard whenever he even glanced through the glass.
He leaned back from the glass and walked out the front door and across the hall. Ever since the floor had been secured he had developed a new hobby. Two doors down the hall was another condo that had been undergoing renovation. New tile floors, carpentry, appliances, and what would have been a new redbrick fireplace, but was a palette of bricks when he had found it. He stacked up an armload of bricks and headed back to his living room balcony. After setting the stack down on the floor, he took one up in his right hand and leaned over the rail. He took careful aim and judged the wind. When he was sure he had it right, he released the brick and watched it accelerate towards the ground. It found its target, a rather fat man wearing a blue bathrobe and boxer shorts. The brick struck him in the top of the head and ripped it apart with a splat. The splat was of course inaudible to him at this height, but the red spray of brain matter and the funny way in which the wretch fell gave him satisfaction. He dropped another. This time the brick clipped what used to be a fit young woman in the shoulder, taking the arm clean off. The dead were always weakened to impact with the breakdown of natural decay. He continued. Another brick, another one of them ripped apart, neutralized. This was the best part of his day.
A couple hours later he sat at his table eating a plate of green beans and rehydrated pork. He heard a sound in the distance come from below. Quickly he got up and unholstered his pistol as he walked to the window. He couldn’t hit anything with the revolver from this range, but for him it was an instinctual reaction to trouble. Below he saw that the horde was gone, only a handful of them remained and they were coming into the building. It was a breach in the barricade. He dropped the revolver, spit out the food he had still been chewing on and ran to the gun room. He knew he had little time before they climbed the stairs to his level, before the whole lot of them would breach the weaker secondary barricade and pour into his home. He picked out his 12 gauge mossberg pistol grip shotgun, chambered a round, and slung it over his shoulder. He then grabbed an M16 he had found on a dead S.W.A.T. member. The drum magazine held 50 rounds, the shotgun held six. He was working out the grim math as he snatched two home made grenades from beside the door. He decided the gun room would be his fallback position.
He sat in the middle of the hall facing the stairwell. He could hear their footsteps growing closer and closer. When he thought they sounded about two or three levels down he lit the fuse on one of the grenades and tossed it through a small hole in the wood barricade. It bounced down the stairs and went off. Loud screams came back up and made him go cold. They were many, and they were hungry. One came into view, just a shadow, he fired a burst of rounds and it went down. Then a black cylinder came soaring through the barricade and hit the floor. It erupted in a blaze of white light and thunder. He was terrified and began to empty his magazine at the oncoming horror which he could now no longer see. His torrent came to an abrupt end when a bullet struck him in the head, blowing red out of the back and across the wall behind him.
Three soldiers came up the stairs. One knelt to there fallen comrade and put two fingers to his throat.
“He’s dead”
“Fuckin A, every town we come to there’s always one of these kooks.”
They dismantled the barricade and walked over to the other man and stood over him.
“Dickhead, we were here to save your ass and you shoot us all to hell”
The man’s lifeless body had no rebuttal. The soldier’s radio cracked,
“Bravo Company, First Battalion, you guys cleared that tower yet?”
“uh-roger, cleared of all creepers.”
“What about that LaMOE?”
“Negative, Last Man On Earth KIA, went all Alamo on us, killed Robeson.”
“Roger that, Alpha company is coming down from the tower next door, link up with them and precede to next location.”
“Alright boys, lets move out, Anderson, Dentel, grab Robeson.”
“And Charleton Heston over there?”
“Leave the bastard to rot.”
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