by Oliver Smith
“Hey” he whispered hoarsely.
“Oh Jack.” She sobbed looking at his complexion with grave hopelessness.
“It’s over, don’t look so sad.” Jack said.
“Please Jack, don’t speak, we need to help you.”
“Don’t look so sad. It’s over, we can move on. Life can get better now. Don’t you see it?” Jack said, mustering energy to speak as Beth joined his side followed by James appearing from the stairs.
“I’m not following you Jack?” Lucy said stroking his hair whilst Beth applied pressure to his wound.
Wincing with pain, Jack continued, “Even before these abominations rose from the grave I was lost, from despair to where? I had no idea. Not just me though, as a species we’d lost sight of what was important, we needed a catastrophe to change everything from the foundations up. We can build a better world.
“That guy,” Jack looked towards Richie’s gruesome form, “has done so many things to us, the horde, Scott, Magda.” Chloe’s eye’s widened, but she remained mute as Jack continued.
“He was a man-made problem. This whole world is a man-made problem, but we’ve been given the chance to start again. Mankind has been reduced so dramatically that we’re already completely changed from our old selves. In the few months that we’ve been here, you’ve seen how this whole community has pulled together, working for survival, working for each other and sharing everything for the common good.
“That man, we don’t even know his name. He was a product of mankind. The old world. I don’t know what made him the way he was, but it wasn’t the uprising of the dead, it was something deep inside him, something that only the greed, envy and cruelty of the old world could produce.
“We have the chance to leave all that behind, we can be kind to the earth, leave behind material possessions, become a simpler version of man. We can use the mistakes of yesterday to guide us to a bright and brilliant future.” Jack spluttered and wheezed with pain.
In the background, Beth whispered into James’ ear. James turned on the spot and rapidly retreated down the stairs with a look of concentrated numb despair on his face.
Lucy continued to stroke Jack’s hair, the worry and stress had somehow brought Lucy out of her fever and gave her cheeks more colour. Chloe cried gently by his side, saying nothing. The innocent girl, thrust into a world of chaos, having just gruesomely killed a man, was in a precarious mental state. She wasn’t even fully aware of Magda’s demise; the girl was having to deal with more than any child or adult should have to handle.
Jack looked at Chloe and smiled at her, he continued, “Chloe, James and Beth’s child, this is the future. Our community, our family, this is the future. If we stick together, we can survive anything. We might be outnumbered, but these last few months have given me hope and I know we are better and stronger than the dead.
“We’ve shown our collective strength and how we can work together in harmony, build our futures for Chloe, for the children. A year ago, I was stuck in a bubble, the bubble around my life. My house, my job, my commute, it was all I did, and it was all I knew. It wasn’t just me; it was everybody, we were all stuck in our own little bubbles while the world was burning. We were heading for disaster while we all worked to earn money to buy things when everything was going to Hell.
“We’ve shaken off our shackles and we’re now free from the self-inflicted ills of mankind. Money and status no longer matter, we have been forced to evolve.
“Imagine; no more distasteful politics, no more corporations, no more terrorists, no more worshiping of false deities, no more vanity, no more greed, no more rat race, no more destroying the earth for the sake of convenience. Humanity needed the sorrow and loss of everything they thought was important for them to understand what really is important.
“The old world is gone and good riddance to it. We’re at the dawn of a new world and I know we’re not going to be focusing our futures on the pointless luxuries that drove the world insane.
“Our species and our world have come from despair to an age of hope and opportunity. We can learn from the existence that mankind had calved out for itself and use this knowledge to create something beautiful.” Jack trailed off as he felt shivers of cold running through his body.
He looked at Chloe and then at Lucy. Smiling, he squeezed Lucy’s hand as his eyes filled with tears, “Thank you. You made me love again.”
Lucy held Jack closely and kissed him gently on the lips.
“I love you Jack.”
Jack smiled and shut his eyes.
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THE END
