The End

by P. A. Douglas

  Some of the structure must have leaked. The walls on one side of the room were covered in rust from the roof to the floor. A large trail of water descended from the ceiling line to the floor, causing that corner of the room to have a faint odor of mold and mildew. If it wasn’t for the toilet being backed up, the place wouldn’t have smelled of piss. The first day into their hideaway, the toilet started overflowing and urine ended up all over the floor. The toilet pump stopped working. Kent got a good laugh out of it. Something about seeing Cynthia get all worked up seemed kind of funny to him. At least he still had a good sense of humor in the middle of all this. It was surprising, to say the least, that he still had one, but Eric was thankful for it.

  There was a sink by one of the beds, but it didn’t work. It was on the same side as the rust-stained wall. Probably where the rust had come from. There were some dry goods and canned food in the room, but not a lot. Eric didn’t know what Mr. Wellington was thinking. Maybe he planned to buy some more and never got around to it. There was no way to warm any of the food, and of course, just like a bad movie, they had been unsuccessful at finding a can opener—another small detail that seemed to slip past Mr. Wellington.

  The overhead latch leading to the outside was at the end of the room opposite the beds. A small ladder leaned against the wall to get to the door handle. The ladder looked as if it was supposed to be mounted to the wall, but Mr. Wellington had failed to do that too.

  The shelter door had a small glass window about the size of a dollar bill, but it wasn’t worth the trouble of trying to look out of. All you could do was look straight up and right into the rot-festering mouths and hands of the dead. By this point, so many of them had gathered over it that you couldn’t tell when it was day or night. The scratching and banging of their efforts to get in had Eric feeling like he was in a pot of water slowly heating up. He couldn’t take much more.

  “This is the last one. I can’t believe I’m already down to the last smoke,” Kent said.

  Eric perched on the bed looked over at Kent, who was lying against the wall beside the ladder. Eric had only just met the man but liked his attitude right away. Kent came across cool and like he had his shit together. Like he didn’t have a care in the world, which didn’t make any bit of sense. Because the world as they had known it was turned upside down overnight—delivered over to rotting cannibals, and Kent was just… cool with it. Something Eric admired. Kent was lighting a cigarette no doubt. When did he ever not have one lit?

  Cynthia obviously had worn herself out in the last hour from all that pacing and stressing. She sat across from him on the other bed, surprisingly silent. For an older woman, Eric couldn’t place it, but he found something rather familiar about her, but decided it best to keep that to himself. It just didn’t seem like the right time or place; not after just meeting her two days ago right before leading her and Kent to the underground safe haven.

  He stared at Cynthia for a moment, taking to memory her supple form as she lay still on the bed. Her fiery red hair halfway down her back definitely shined true to her similar personality.

  Surely she’s a professional of some type. Maybe even a school principal.

  Despite the bit of dirt on her face and the ragged attacked by flesh eating zombies look that she had going on, he imagined her cleaned up and in a feminine business suit, standing tall and thin. She had the legs for it if anything.

  Eric briefly smiled to himself before looking back at Kent, who seemed to be enjoying that cigarette just a little too much. 12:00 flashed from behind the bed, and Kent sat with a red shadow of himself blinking against the floor from the clock.

  “I’m surprised you have any cigarettes left. You’ve been chain smoking those things since the three of us arrived,” Eric said.

  “Man, what I wouldn’t give for a tall glass of scotch right about now,” Kent said. “It would help me catch some sleep. I just don’t understand how she does it.” Kent pointed to Cynthia lying on the bed. “The constant racket from up top is just too much, and she manages to get some shut eye. To tell you truthfully, I probably wouldn’t be able to fall asleep even if I had an entire bottle of scotch. And yet, she is out like a light. But seriously… just a single glass, oh that would be sweet. Just enough maybe to knock the edge—”

  “You know, I’ve pretty much decided that you talk as much as you do simply because you’re in love with your own voice,” Eric said. “Instead of thinking about what we don’t have that we really need, like a can opener, we should decide what to do with what we have. Cynthia is right, man. We need to figure something out before we’re totally out of food. We can’t stay down here forever.”

  “Speaking of food, it’s obvious why those things want to get in here. To fucking eat us!” Kent grumbled and puffed on his cigarette. Blowing the smoke up toward the overhead door in little O shapes, he flicked his cigarette ashes on the floor. “We’re stuck in here like sardines in a can, just waiting to get plucked out and chewed up.”

  Kent cocked his head to the side and gazed out at Eric through narrow eyes. After pulling a drag off the smoke, he said, “Less than a few minutes before I ran into you on the street the other night, I watched three of those things take down an old man. He moved slow—slower than those things, even. They cornered him. Had him trapped. What was I supposed to do? Get attacked with him? They tore out his guts with their bare hands and ate that crap like it was spaghetti. That old man died before any of them even took the first bite, man. It was insane.”

  “Would you two please shut up? I’m trying to sleep over here.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Kent said and shook his head. “Man, she gets bossy when she hasn’t had her beauty sleep.” He chuckled and blew smoke from his nose.

  “That’s right, and I’m trying to get it now. So turn off the generator, will ya? Let’s lie down for a bit. It isn’t like we have anything better to do, and I’m tired. Can’t sleep with that generator running all night. It shakes the bed too much. How you two aren’t tired is beyond me. We’ve been up forever, it seems.” Cynthia lay with her back turned to the rest of the room. “What sleep I’ve had so far is mostly from my body shutting down on its own.”

  *

  Cynthia laid there, thinking of life and how unexpected it could be. Less than a month prior, she lay in that same position in her apartment, an empty bottle of sleeping pills and over fourteen shots of Crown in her stomach. Her attempt at suicide only led to an embarrassing trip to the hospital, thanks to her roommate coming home from a trip one day early. What she found ironic in her current situation was how the tables had turned. There was surely nothing left to live for now. Everyone she knew had to be dying or dead and eating people, but now she somehow felt the need to survive. She found her second wind of purposeful hope. It made no sense.

  If anyone was going to make it out of this alive and live to tell the tale, she wanted more than anything for it to be her. And on the plus side, being stranded in a locked-up shelter, at least she was with a halfway decent-looking man. She thought of Kent and that scruffy, unkempt beard, his too cool for school aviators and attitude. So what if he was probably close to thirty and still dressed like a teenager. On him, it worked.

  He may not actually be a real rock star like he said he was, but he sure does play the part, Cynthia thought. And besides, she had been a girl long enough to tell when a man was hitting on you, even just a little.

  Above them in the backyard as they prepped for yet another night tucked away in the underground bunker, things weren’t getting any better. For the last two days, the number of living dead continued to increase. The constant moaning became louder and louder with each new member that joined the ranks, which brought others from even farther away.

  2

  “Can you guys make it around to the back? That’s the only place safe enough to let you in,” a man hollered from a building.

  “How do we get there?” George craned his head out the window, staring up at maybe his last hope of s
alvation.

  “The alley to the right—beside the building—it leads to the back. You’re going to have to ditch the truck. It won’t make it through there. I have most of the alley blocked off. You’re gonna have to run like hell!”

  The older gentleman flung the driver’s side door open and leaped out of the truck, pulling a young boy across the passenger seat and along the driver’s side, leading them both out of the vehicle’s safety, and into the parking lot surrounded by the madness of an approaching blood-hungry mob. Turning to the rear of the cab in a spastic frenzy, the old man opened the back door and grabbed a bag from the seat. When he turned around, the man that had been yelling from the second-floor window only moments before had vanished. Without hesitation, he bounded forward—snatching the boy along with him.

  There was no other choice than to chance this escape. The truck was practically out of gas, and George was getting worn down. Besides, this was the only radio station broadcasting he had been able to find in the last forty-eight hours, which meant that someone was alive, which meant that it was a safe place to be. George knew exactly where the WKBM radio station was located, because his nephew had interned with the station just this last summer. Unfortunately, this area seemed everything but safe, which was the last thing the old man had hoped to find as they had pulled up to the building.

  As they had idled across the street a block away, he could tell right then that things were about to get ugly. The crazed mob was everywhere. The ones that didn’t take immediate notice of the truck still lingered in the streets and at the entrance of the radio station, just banging away at the door, or what was left of it. George imagined it was boarded up pretty good. But how long would that last?

  Even with a good dozen or so of the irrational maniacs completely oblivious to their new visitors, George still had his hands full. “Run, Billy! Run.”

  The little boy took off, disappearing around the side of the building and into the alley.

  They had made their way across the parking lot and about fifty feet away from the side of the building leading into the ally. Those blood-covered cannibal freaks were right behind them. “There’s just too many of them!”

  At this point, it’s not like there were any other options. At least fifteen crazies had made their way past the truck and were headed right for him. Him and Billy.

  Time seemed to stop. For the first time in two days, his mind finally wrapped around the situation. His attackers were dead. All dead. From the time he was chased from that gas station and found Billy in the park all alone, he had thought something had caused the people to go insane. Perhaps by a disease or something terrorists put in the water supply. But no, these people, these things, were dead and yet continued to function.

  The smell of scorching flesh in the heat of day created a potent odor. It was like leftover dead fish on the porch in summertime. Just gut wrenching. With more than a dozen of them closing in, he saw the closest one was a young male. He had to have been in his mid-twenties and was definitely anything but alive.

  The young man walked right at George, arms raised, and a mouth wide open, dripping fresh blood. There was dried blood too, over its cheeks and neck. Some had run down its white shirt and formed a stain shaped like Lake Michigan. It was too hard to tell if the blood was from someone else or if it was the creature’s. A huge chunk of its neck was completely torn open, but the blood in that area was all clotted up on the torn, puffy skin. One eye socket was caved in where an eye had once been. The ghoul had scratches going from the crushed socket up the side of its face to its forehead that looked like they had been made by a human hand. Large bits of flesh were missing, and parts of the skull showed beneath the deep cuts in its scalp.

  George then noticed another one behind it, traveling with a slight limp. Part of the knee bone was visible. The tendons from the knee down to the ankle were showing. A large trail of blood followed behind on the pavement as it shuffled toward him.

  It wasn’t until one of the other zombies behind the small horde closing in on George let out a guttural moan that he realized he had been standing there for a moment totally dazed. He also hadn’t noticed how much closer the mob had gotten and that their pace had increased as they neared him and the boy.

  Snapping out of it, he finally realized that there were more walking in his direction from all over the parking lot, all with that same wide stare of sheer madness. The expressions marring their faces said you have something I want and I’m coming to get it. The ones that had been banging on the front of the building were no longer there. Instead, they had joined the ranks of those already in pursuit of the fresh meat. The moaning started to get out of control as each slowly joined in, one by one. The truck was blotted out by bodies closing in on George and the boy.

  “Mr.! Hey, Mr.!” The voice came from directly overhead. “What are you doing? Get to the back! Get to the back of the alley!”

  George shook himself back in control, turned, and made off toward the alley.

  Jumping over a few small boxes and bumping into a trash can or two along the way didn’t seem to slow him down at all. He could see the end of the alley just a few yards ahead.

  Billy had managed to make his way back there, and stood at the end staring up at a huge gate, chain, and padlock that blocked them or anyone else from going any farther.

  The fence had to have been at least eight or nine feet tall. The only thing it was missing was barbed wire at the top to give it that prison look. Even without the wire, there was no way they were going to make it over that.

  In a state of total defeat, the harsh reality that this was it shown on their faces. This was how it was going to end, finally set in for George. Leaning as tightly against the fence as they could, George took Billy into his arms and squeezed him so hard he felt it cut off circulation.

  The rotting things were making their way across the parking lot directly on their path. A path that led to a literal dead end.

  “I’m glad I met you, Billy.” Dropping to his knees against the fence as the alley began to fill with the undead, George closed his eyes, and almost began to faint. The smell of rot and decay intensified. “Close your eyes, Billy. Just close your eyes.” Shuffling feet and wailing moans grew closer. The alley’s tight walls echoed the dread as the seconds passed.

  Wincing with one eye barely open, Billy wrapped tightly in the old man’s embrace, he watched the creatures steadily closing in on them. The zombies shambled their way through the alley, some falling over boxes and crates, while others climbed over the fallen, taking the lead.

  One zombie tripped over an empty broken pallet that leaned against the alley wall and fell head first toward the ground. Its head popped like a melon, blood spraying onto the ground around its head. It made no attempt to break its own fall.

  Another zombie immediately climbed over the fallen creature, stepping on its neck, unconcerned for anything other than advancing on the two helpless souls trapped in their path. Then, blood shot from its mouth onto the ground, along with chunks of something red. A sea of the undead would soon fall upon them like a tidal wave and compressed them into the brick wall cage.

  Something metallic rattled behind him. He let out a loud scream with his eyes still closed as a hand grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him in toward it. Images of open mouths filled with festering teeth swarmed into George’s head.

  “Get in! Get in!” a tall man with long, dark hair shouted at them. He had unlocked the gate and held it open.

  Billy darted through the opening and to an open door leading into the building.

  Shock had George’s feet cemented to the pavement. His body no longer responded to the command of his will.

  The stranger grabbed George by the shirt and pulled him past the gate, snaked the chain through the fence, and then secured the lock. “Get in there!” He pushed George toward the open door.

  George stumbled toward the open door and breached the opening. He fell to his knees and then crashed face down
toward the tile floor, his bare hands cushioned the impact at the last second.

  The door closed behind him, and vomit slowly made its way up his throat and into his mouth. Choking the emesis down, George feebly rose and looked around the room.

  “Dude, your dumb ass almost got us killed. What were you thinking?” the stranger said.

  The moaning grew louder, or was it all just in George’s head? He struggled with the idea that what he had witnessed could easily have been something his subconscious created. They had been on the run for days without much rest. The amount of calories burned far exceeded the paltry amount of food they had scavenged along the way.

  “Hey, you deaf? Acting like one of those things isn’t going to make them ignore you. You got to stay ahead of them. If—”

  “I’m sorry,” George said in a soft, distant voice. He bit his lip and turned his gaze to the floor. “My son…” The bitter words hung in the air. For the first time in two days, he dropped the inner walls blocking his emotions. His incapacitation wasn’t due to the lack of rest or food, not even the dead coming back to life. It was the stress of not knowing where his only child was in this hellish disaster. “We came here because we thought it would be safe since the—”

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  The door started to rattle, and the tall man leaped over to it and shoved his shoulder against it.

  The quick action of the man slapped George back into the moment. Basic survival instinct kicked in and he joined his newly unacquainted friend, pressing against the door.

  Billy had his hands spread across his chest. His gaze darted from side to side. “What do I do?” Billy asked.

  The stranger replied, “Grab that two-by-four over on the wall! Hurry!”