by Jeff Strand
“Come here, you grotesqueries!” she shouted.
“Shit!” she quickly shouted after that.
Missy quickly scaled down the ladder, just in time to avoid another falling mutant. This one was barefoot, and its feet exploded into mush as it struck the floor. It flopped over and landed flat on its face.
Kevin and Missy repeated the process of beating the crap out of it with the metal shelf and dragging it out of the way. The shelf was getting pretty badly dented; hopefully it could withstand splattering a couple dozen more mutants.
“Just an FYI,” said Kevin. “I didn’t enjoy a single moment of that.” He cringed and contorted his face into an “Ugh” expression, to better sell the lie that it hadn’t been kind of fun.
Kevin climbed up the ladder and peeked into Uncle Jake’s home. He counted at least eight mutants shambling around without even moving his head. When he moved his head he counted quite a few more. One of them was reaching for his head.
Kevin ducked out of the way, but not fast enough to avoid having his right ear grabbed. He yelped in pain. The mutant squeezed its hand into a tight fist, which was not a soothing feeling, and then tugged. Fortunately, Kevin’s ear did not tear off, but unfortunately, he had to yank his head really hard to pull it out of the mutant’s grip.
The side of his head struck the side of the hatch.
There was a burst of pain and a sudden wave of dizziness, which was enough for him to lose his balance and fall off the ladder.
He hit the floor, landing on his tailbone.
“Oh my God! Are you okay?” asked Missy.
Kevin wasn’t sure if he was. He couldn’t speak and his legs had gone numb. It might have been better if the mutant had ripped off his ear.
Missy looked up. Her eyes widened, and she grabbed Kevin’s arms. She was almost able to pull him out of the way of the falling mutant.
When it landed on him, Kevin heard a snap that he was pretty sure had come from his own body and not the mutant’s.
After that, Missy’s screams sounded like they were coming from far away, even though they couldn’t be, because she was right there slamming a butcher knife into the mutant.
Kevin wanted to offer some assistance, but nothing was working.
CHAPTER NINE
It took a while for Missy to hack up the mutant enough to be sure it was no longer a threat. It was not fun. She kept having to blink tears out of her eyes, and tried to sing a happy song in her mind to distract herself from the fact that Kevin might be really, seriously hurt.
Stab the little mutant.
Stab, stab, stab.
Stab the little mutant.
Stab, stab, stab.
What do you do with a butcher knife?
You stab, stab, stab!
And that’s what I’m a-doin’!
I’m going stab, stab, stab with the knife, knife, knife!
It was a terrible song and it wasn’t doing any good, but at least it was better than insane shrieking.
Finally, she dragged the mutant out of the way. She almost got it into the mutilated mutant corner before another one fell into the shelter, landing on Kevin’s legs.
Missy hurried over and began slamming the butcher knife into the creature. She skipped the song this time.
She rolled the mutant far enough away to give Kevin about twenty seconds of safety, then hurried up the ladder and pulled the lid shut. She climbed back down, stabbed the mutant several more times, then dragged it away.
“Can you feel your legs?” Missy asked.
“I can’t feel much of anything.” Kevin’s voice was panicked, and he sounded like he was close to hyperventilating.
“Just stay calm,” said Missy. “I’m sure you’re fine.”
“No way am I fine.”
“Don’t be cynical.”
“I might have broken my neck, or my back, or my legs. Or all three. Or two of the three.”
“If you broke your neck, at least you didn’t break it badly. Let’s get your pants off and see how your legs look.”
“I’m really scared,” said Kevin. “I don’t want to make a joke about that. I can’t even think of one.”
Missy couldn’t think of a joke either, although she had not ruled out the idea of giving him a blowjob to keep him from freaking out over possibly being paralyzed. Of course, if he were paralyzed, his penis might not respond properly, which would freak him out even more.
She held up the butcher knife.
“No!” said Kevin. “Don’t put me out of my misery yet!”
“I’m cutting away your pant legs.”
“No. Don’t ruin my pants. I may never get to wear another pair.”
“If I tug them down from the waist, I might hurt your back.”
“Just look through the foot holes.”
Missy knew she wouldn’t be able to assess the extent of his injuries through the foot holes. There was plenty of ooze on them from the mutants, but his pants were also getting increasingly soaked with blood, which wasn’t a good sign.
She knelt down by his feet and peeked under one of his pant legs. “Looks good,” she said.
“Liar.”
“No, really.”
“I’m screwed, right?”
“No.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“Because today has sucked. But you’re not screwed, Kevin. We’ve made it through worse than this.”
“No, we haven’t. We haven’t been through anything even remotely this bad. This is literally the worst thing that has ever happened to me. By far. Like, by a factor of ten.”
Missy tried to think of something worse that had happened to them, but drew a blank. He was probably right.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said.
“What are you going to do? Tie some ropes to me, attach them to a car outside, and pull me up the ladder like that? Then what? Drag me around while you’re fending off hundreds of mutants?”
Missy had to admit, that idea didn’t sound feasible.
“You have to end this,” said Kevin.
“What?”
“End it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know what I mean. I’m boned. There’s no reason for you to be boned, too.”
“You’re not boned! Stop saying that!”
“Stop saying I’m not boned! Of course I am!”
Missy wiped her eyes. “We’ll fix this.”
“Ow!”
“What’s wrong?”
Kevin grimaced. “It hurt when I tried to shake my head.”
“I don’t want to hear any more defeatist talk.”
“Best case scenario, the damage isn’t permanent. I’m still stuck down here until I’m healed.”
“So we’re stuck down here until you’re healed.”
“Ow!”
“Quit trying to shake your head!”
“You need to leave me,” said Kevin. “And if you leave me, I’ll starve to death. So you need to kill me.”
“Under no circumstances am I going to kill you.”
“I don’t want to starve to death. I also don’t want a mutant to crawl over here and chew off my face. I’d rather you kill me.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You have to.”
“I’m not.”
“Then we’re both doomed.”
“Worst case scenario—worst—I’ll leave you while I go out in search of help. But I’ll bring back somebody.”
“Ow! I’m not trying to be noble. If you go off in search of help, and you get killed, then I’m back to starving to death or getting my face chewed off by a mutant. Just smother me.”
“Suffocation is a horrible way to go.”
“Then jab that butcher knife into my head.”
“What if it doesn’t pierce your skull on the first try?”
“My heart, then! I’m broken and paralyzed! It’s not going to be that goddamn hard to kill me!”
�
��I won’t do it.”
“Smothering can’t possibly suck as much as starvation! No matter how bad it is, it’s, what, two minutes? Maybe three? Missy, I’m not a good candidate for post-apocalypse survival anymore. You don’t get months of recovery time in this new world.”
Missy shook her head, an ability she’d always taken for granted before today.
Kevin spat at her. “Bitch! Don’t be so stupid!”
“Stop trying to make me mad enough to stab you.”
“Saw right through that one, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, let’s table the decision. Neither one of us are in the proper frame of mind to discuss it. We’ll get a good night’s sleep and talk about it in the morning.”
“Maybe you’ll feel better in the morning,” said Missy.
“Maybe.”
“You sleep. I’ll watch the mutants.”
“All right.” Kevin closed his eyes. “I love you.”
“What?”
“I said, I love you.”
“Did you really say that the night before I might have to murder you?”
“I wasn’t trying to complicate things. I just didn’t want you to kill me without me having said it.”
“Well, it does complicate things. I’m definitely not going to kill you now.”
“It should make you want to kill me more.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“If I’m in love with you, you shouldn’t want me to suffer.”
“So now you’re in love with me?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Jesus, Kevin!”
“You’re in love with me too, right?”
“Kevin!”
“I’m going to be dead soon. Why wouldn’t you just say it? Why not grant me a bit of insincere happiness before I die?”
“Fine! I’m in love with you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t know how I feel! This is the worst possible time to be pushing the issue!”
“Fair enough. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
* * *
Kevin opened his eyes. His plan had been to stay awake, but he’d fallen asleep within a matter of minutes. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out. It didn’t matter, as long as Missy was asleep.
He didn’t want to turn his head to look at her, but he could hear her softly snoring. She was lying on the floor very close to him.
I don’t fear death, he told himself, lying his ass off.
But his time in the post-apocalypse was over. Kevin had good memories and bad memories. Most of them were bad, but he’d had sex with Missy, which was not worth the death of billions of people including himself, but it had been awesome nevertheless.
He tried to wiggle his fingers and toes, just in case he’d made a miraculous recovery.
He hadn’t.
So it was self-sacrifice time. Missy would never survive in the outside world if she had to protect him. Hell, she probably wouldn’t survive anyway; it was really awful out there.
If only he could reach out, grab the butcher knife, and cut his own throat.
But maybe that was for the best. He’d probably wuss out. Instead, he’d have to just jerk his head back and forth, really hard and fast. If his neck was fractured, that should mess him up enough to be fatal.
He took a deep breath.
Goodbye, Missy.
Goodbye, everything else.
Hello, reincarnation as a cat in a parallel universe where there was no apocalypse.
Kevin jerked his head around like a dog with a chew toy.
The pain was unbelievable.
And then it stopped.
* * *
He was still alive and conscious. He just couldn’t feel anything or move at all, even to speak.
Shit.
* * *
Missy snapped awake. She rolled over and saw Kevin still lying there. His eyes were open wide.
“Kevin?”
He didn’t respond.
“Kevin? Can you hear me?”
He looked like he could kind of hear her, but he wasn’t moving or blinking. He seemed terrified.
Missy decided that postponing this to cry or have a nervous breakdown was selfish and cowardly. She went over to their bed, got a pillow, and did what needed to be done.
* * *
Because of increased safety precautions, it took Missy almost two weeks to kill another ten mutants through the “drop through the hatch and beat to a pulp” method. When she reached that goal, she climbed out of the shelter and ran.
She made it out of Uncle Jake’s house, and ran down the road.
She ran and ran and ran.
There were some close calls, but no mutants caught her.
* * *
Missy slept in a tree, which sucked, especially when she fell out.
* * *
When she could run no longer, she checked her cell phone. Once again, there was no—
A bar! She had a fucking bar!
She dialed her mother, sobbing with relief. She’d never imagined that she’d get to hear her mother’s voice mail greeting again.
“Hello? Missy?” Mom answered.
“Mom?”
“Missy?”
“Yes, it’s me!”
“Oh my God! Oh my God!”
It took a while for them both to stop crying enough to understand what each other was saying.
“Where have you been?” Mom asked.
“Trapped in a shelter! I can’t believe that cell phone service still works!”
“It didn’t for a while. When seventy percent of earth’s population dies, there are technical problems, but we got it fixed.”
“Seventy percent? That’s all?”
“Well, that’s pretty bad,” Mom noted.
“I know, I know. I guess I just thought it was more. Does anybody know what caused it?”
“Aliens. You missed a whole war. We won.”
“Oh.”
“That’s why it went up to seventy percent.”
“I can’t believe this. I never thought I’d get to talk to another human being ever again.”
“Most of the mutants have fled out to the woods for some reason, so as long as you try to stick to urban areas, you’ll be fine. And you’d be proud of humanity—there really aren’t any roaming gangs of bandits to speak of. I guess there’s plenty of food and supplies to go around with the population decrease, and people get to take their violent impulses out on the mutants. Don’t get me wrong, the world isn’t a great place to live these days, but it could be worse. You’ll be able to charge your phone, at least.”
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, sweetheart. When you find a place to get settled for the night, text me and we’ll make plans to meet halfway.”
* * *
Missy sat on the floor of the convenience store, surrounded by junk food. She was going to eat until she could no longer fit into these jeans, which was fine, since there was an abandoned clothing store a couple of blocks away where she could get new jeans.
She was heartsick over the loss of Kevin, but she knew that he was smiling down at her as she gorged herself.
She tore open another candy bar and shoved it into her mouth. This one, and the next five, were for him.
