Was constantly running really the way I wanted to live?
Was it really the way I wanted to die?
*
We made it to Missouri and then we went south. I’d never been to Florida and it seemed like as good a place as any to go. Dane got us a car somehow and we drove as far as we could, until the gas ran out, then we walked some more. We couldn't drive through cities anyway, so it was fine to walk. We found back roads and sometimes we'd rob a gas station to find a map. Then we'd plot our way like a couple of teenagers on an adventure.
As much as possible, we tried to forget the changing.
We tried to forget how the world was rotting.
Sometimes, though, we couldn't forget. Sometimes we would find something that had turned, something that was wrong, something that used to be human but no longer was. Dane did most of the killing, but sometimes I had to, as well.
It never got easier.
Even months after the first balloons appeared, killing wasn't easy for us. We had to do it. It was just the way things were. If we didn't, they would kill us. There was no outrunning, outwitting, or outsmarting them. They had endurance that never ceased. If we ran until we couldn't see them, then slowed, they would catch us while we were bathing or sleeping. If we tried to hide in a tree, they would wait until we died and fell out. If we tried to trick them to think we'd gone another direction, they would sniff us out.
They were never ending.
Sometimes I thought we could find a way out, but we never could. Dane told me to stop trying, to give up hope, but I wouldn't.
If I gave up hope, what was I left with?
A 40-year-old ex-computer programmer and a backpack that was falling apart.
*
By the middle of October, we were halfway to Florida and halfway to insanity. I had scars on both of my legs, courtesy of a fence I tried to climb and failed. Dane got homesick when we passed a little suburb. He wanted to visit a house that happened to have a chain link fence around it. While he jumped easily over it, I stumbled and fell. I ended up with cuts on both of my shins. Luckily, the house had a first aid kit and none of the infected saw us.
If they had, I would have been damaged much more drastically, probably beyond repair.
It didn't matter, though. We were getting so close we could taste the salty ocean air. Would there still be an ocean when we got to Florida? Would there still be sand? Would we be able to access the beach? Would there be infected there? Would there be carnivorous survivors?
I tried not to worry.
Worrying wouldn't change anything.
"What do you think happened to the ocean animals?" I asked Dane. He shrugged.
"Probably choked on the plastic," he muttered. We both wondered if the balloons had released the virus underwater. It didn't seem possible, but then, neither did the way people changed when they were exposed. Maybe the whales were all dead now, swimming beneath the surface of the ocean in their own hell.
I couldn't imagine it being worse than my own.
*
The day Dane turned was the worst day of my life.
Losing him was worse than losing my parents, worse than losing my friends, worse than losing my colleagues. Losing Dane was like fire and needles piercing my soul, like burning embers in my eyes.
"You can't go," I said, staring at him. His eyes were already glazed over as he looked at me from across the road. I had already shot the one that changed him, the one who took my Dane away from me. I had already fired the gun that took the infected to the ground.
But now Dane was dead, too.
I stared at him for a long time and he stared at me. I wondered if he could remember me. I wondered if he knew who I was, what we'd been through together. I would like to say that he did, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw nothing.
They were blank.
He began ambling toward me, slowly. I backed up equally slowly, never taking my eyes from him. I could just run, I thought. I could run and run and leave him and then Dane could live in peace. He could wander around the earth, killing and eating as he pleased, and I would have nothing to do with it.
But then I thought about him, really thought about him.
Is that how he'd want me to leave him?
We had been through hell together and survived. We had been through the fire, but now it was ending. I had 200 miles to Florida left. 200 miles I could travel on my own, or not. 200 miles and the decision was going to kill me slowly.
Unlike the way Dane would die.
I raised the pistol and fired four times.
He fell with a plop, with a thud. He landed on the ground in front of me and the blood poured out. I didn't go over to him even though I wanted to. I didn't know if the blood could infect me. Instead, I sat a few feet away, staring at my friend, staring at the only man who had been with me through the darkness.
Dane was gone.
Nothing else mattered.
*
I made it to Florida in one piece.
Almost.
I made it to Florida and I made it to the ocean and for a long time, I just sat on the beach. I stared at the waves as they washed in and out from the shore, taunting me, teasing me, reminding me of a time when things were all right.
Nothing was ever going to be okay again.
Dane should have been there with me. Dane should have been there to see that there were still fish and dolphins and sharks. He should have been there to see that the virus hadn't destroyed the ocean.
It was still there.
It was still beautiful.
The infection was alive and well in Florida, but I decided to stay anyway. I had nowhere else to go, after all. I had nowhere else to be. At least here, I could have a little reminder of what the world used to be like.
I stared at the waves for what felt like hours, then I took off my shoes and waded in. I kept going, desperate to feel alive, desperate to feel anything at all. I went in until the water was around my waist. Then it was at my chest. Finally, it was at my neck. I swam out further, enjoying the coolness of the water against my skin.
Nothing could touch me here.
I was unbreakable here.
All of the death, all of the pain, all of the sadness and heartbreak was gone, just for a little while.
When I turned back around to swim to shore, I saw them. They had come. The beach was covered with people who had changed, covered with infected. There were dozens of them, and even though they were slow, I couldn't outrun them.
I had time, though. I didn't have to rush. They couldn't come into the water and I was an amazing swimmer. Well, I was an okay swimmer. I took lessons when I was little.
I began to swim parallel to the beach, trying to find a spot to approach shore where the infected couldn't get me. They were everywhere, but surely there would be a spot of beach they hadn't reached yet.
Then I felt it.
A sharp, burning sensation that started in my ankle and spread quickly through the rest of my body.
Something had me.
Maybe the sea creatures were infected, after all, or maybe they were just hungry. I didn't know, but it seemed fitting, somehow, that it should end that way. Here I was, in Florida. I had finally felt the peace I'd been searching for. I had finally felt the calmness I had been trying to grasp.
I caught one last glimpse of sunlight as I slithered beneath the waves.
At least I had made it to Florida.
At least I had done that for Dane.
I closed my eyes and allowed myself to feel every sensation that raced through my body. The creature that bit me was long gone, but my body was too damaged to swim anymore. The pain overtook me as I sunk lower and lower, grasping for anything I could.
My hand wrapped around something floating in the water.
A piece of plastic.
I knew exactly what it was, but I still gripped it like it would save me.
It didn't.
The End
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Mortimer, L.C., Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse (Episode 5)
Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse (Episode 5) Page 6
