Desolation Boulevard

by Mark Gordon

  Chapter 21

  The Man in Black

  When the sun was high enough in the sky Sally began walking the streets. The eye contact she’d made with the creature last night had shaken her badly and she didn’t want to be alone any longer. Eventually those creatures would be looking further afield for their meals and she didn’t want to end up trapped in her apartment with hordes of the creatures waiting for her in the street below. Their behaviour had already changed, and she knew there was also a possibility that they would get smart enough to eventually find a way into her building. She also couldn’t be sure that they would stay creatures of the night forever. At the moment they didn’t venture out during the daytime, but there was no guarantee that their habits wouldn’t change over time as they became more comfortable with their new, savage personas and the environment that they now ruled.

  As she walked the deserted streets Sally considered calling out for help, but the regular sound of gunshots in the distance discouraged that idea. If she encountered other survivors like herself, she hoped to spy on them and make a character judgement before making herself known to them. She knew that her instant psychological assessment wouldn’t be foolproof, but she had to take as many precautions as she could because in this dangerous new world, she would pay a heavy price for any error in judgement.

  Trudging through the streets was a very unpleasant experience, and Sally tried to keep a reasonable distance from the ever-present corpses, as they began to decompose and putrefy. She’d wrapped a red bandanna, sprayed with perfume, around her face to help with the smell, but could do nothing about the hideous sight of them. By now the rats had realised that there was a feast available and were becoming bolder. A nasty rat bite was the last thing Sally needed so, deciding that some type of personal protection may be prudent, she entered a sporting goods store and armed herself with a dangerous looking knife, which she holstered to her belt, and a baseball bat, which she stuffed into her partially unzipped backpack. She experimented before leaving the store and found that she could reach behind her, grab the handle of the bat and have it poised to strike quickly if she needed to. She hoped that she would only ever use it to protect herself from rats.

  As Sally headed further away from her hotel, she was becoming more panic-stricken. If there were other people unaffected by the 'virus', why hadn’t she seen them? Since the 'event' it seemed that the only people left in the city were herself, the crazy guy she saw on day one, and whoever was responsible for the gunshots she’d been hearing for the last couple of days. Sally looked at her watch and she was shocked to see that it was almost 1:30. That meant she had been walking almost non-stop for three hours and had seen no one. It was time to find somewhere shady to eat lunch and have a drink before beginning the long journey back to her hotel. She starting walking towards a tree studded park at the end of the street.

  She was aware of how motionless the city was now. Without the hustle and bustle of people and traffic, the only movement was from the occasional roaming animal, pieces of litter blowing through the streets or trees swaying in the breeze. And that was how she first noticed him. If her brain hadn’t become so attuned to the smallest of movements in her deadly new environment, she may not have seen the brief flash in the hotel, as the man inside raised a beer bottle to his mouth. She stood at the big window and stared into the gloomy front bar. He was sitting with his back to her, wearing black jeans, a tight fitting black t-shirt and heavy-duty elastic-sided boots. His muscular arms were covered in intricate tattoos and his short, dark hair had that ruffled on purpose look that young men seemed to like so much. Lying on the bar in front of him was some kind a big gun. Not a pistol though; it was a rifle or a shotgun. Sally didn’t really know the difference, but, whatever it was called, it looked pretty serious all the same. Sally stared. The man didn't know he was being watched. What should she do? She was torn. This was the first person she had seen since the first day, and she was desperate for company. On the other hand, his body language was giving her no clues at all. He might be a gentle, caring soul who was as scared as she was, or a crazy serial killer who would rape her and leave her for dead, if given half a chance. The tattoos and black outfit meant nothing. Every boy other boy looked like a rock star these days. She surveyed the empty streets behind her. Nobody was going to help her with this decision. She had two choices - take a chance and make herself known to him, or sneak away and pretend she’d never seen him. What to do? The problematic decision was made for her, however, when the man turned around and stared straight at her.

  Sally prepared to take flight and run away as fast as she could, but even as this thought was racing through her mind the object of her fear motioned for her to come inside, with a non-threatening wave of his hand. Indecisively, she stood rooted to the spot as she pondered her course of action. Again, the man tried to coax her inside with a little 'come here' gesture, without moving from his barstool. Sally still couldn't move. Her desire to be with another human being was being cancelled out by her fear of being trapped inside the pub with a complete stranger and his gun. Finally the man lost patience. He smiled, shrugged his shoulders and turned his back on Sally, returning his attention to his drink once more. Sally frowned. 'Is he ignoring me? We’ll see about that!' she thought crankily, as she snatched the baseball bat from her backpack and headed inside to confront him.