Our Last Bow

by Edward Punales

  “Mom push, I think we can do this.” I said.

  “Ben, run!” She said. I looked up. “Get a backpack from the back, and run!”

  “Mom I-”

  “Do what I say.”

  “No!”

  “You can’t push it off me, it’s stuck!”

  “We just have to move it a little bit so you can slide out!” I tried to ignore the zombies coming down the road.

  “My leg is broken!” Mom shouted. “I’ll just slow you down. Get a backpack and run!”

  “I’m not going to just run away and leave you here!”

  “I can’t lose all three of you!” She shouted. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. She started shaking her head, and said, “Please. There is nothing you can do.”

  “Just let me try one-”

  “There is nothing you can do!” her voice was starting to crack. “Please, go.”

  I still stood there. The zombies had reached the end of the park.

  “Please.” Mom said.

  I nodded, and walked around to the back of the jeep. Of the three backpacks we’d loaded into the jeep, only one remained. Its strap had gotten caught on a metal hook that was sticking out of the floor. I don’t know what happened to the other ones. I presumed they’d flung out like me and Stan, but I wasn’t thinking about that.

  I reached down, and began to undo the pack’s strap. My fingers moved slowly. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hoped that if I just waited a little longer, something would happen; something about our situation would change if we would just be patient enough. Maybe my mother would suddenly slip out from under the dashboard, and she could escape, or a military attack helicopter would show up, and mow down the zombie hoard with the machine guns mounted on its side. Or maybe the zombies would stop again, to look at the sun, or maybe they would-

  “Ben, hurry up!” Mom said. I grabbed the bag, and ran back to her.

  “Now go!” She said. I looked down the road. The zombies were still coming. I turned back to Mom, and again she said, “Go!”

  “I love you Mom.” I said.

  “I love you too baby.” She said, as she hugged me for the last time. The sounds of the horde kept getting louder. They were less than ten yards away when my mom had to shove me off her.

  “Go!” she said. I was a second too long in hesitating, and for the first and only time in my life, my mom hit me. “Run!”

  I took off. I don’t remember if she screamed. If she did, my mind had wisely chosen to forget it.

  I ran straight for seven blocks before stopping. I collapsed to the ground on my hands and knees, my gasps and cries competing for air.

  I looked up and through watery eyes saw the school. It sat down the road I was on, about three blocks away. There were no zombies around, but they could be heard in the distance.

  From where I sat on the road, it looked more or less unscathed. I couldn’t see any broken windows or bodies, or anything that would indicate it had been damaged. If there was anyone inside, they might still be safe.

  With a final painful gasp, I stood back up, and ran the remaining three blocks to the school.

  It wasn’t until I’d gotten within half a block that I noticed that some of the doors had fallen off. It was as though they’d been pushed or ripped off their hinges. There were no bodies, but I could see blood on the threshold. And I could hear something moaning inside.

  Drawing my rifle, I stepped inside.

  I was in a hallway, lined with doors and lockers on both sides. Some of the doors were open, others were closed. Most led to classrooms.

  The floor was covered in trays, backpacks, cardboard boxes, and other items that could be used to carry supplies. On one of walls between the rows of lockers was a bulletin board that had a message reminding people about the curfew, and pictures of missing friends and relatives. Puddles and streaks of blood could be seen along the floors and walls.

  On the floor just in front of me lay a fire axe covered in glass and blood. I picked it up, and let the rifle hang over my shoulder. I was terrible with a rifle anyway, and I figured an axe would be better for close quarters.

  Then I started to hear footsteps. The footsteps grew louder and were accompanied by a low moaning. I readied my axe, and saw it exit one of the open classroom doors, dragging its feet across the blood-stained hallway.

  It was Suzy.

  The bite mark on her arm wasn’t bleeding, which meant that she’d been a zombie for a little while. How long I couldn’t say. I kept shaking my head, hoping this would stop. I’d wake up, or something, anything.

  “Suzy,” I said. She replied with a growl. It sounded just like her mother. “Suzy please.”

  Her arms were outstretched and reached out at me with dirty nails at the end of hungry claws. The axe in my arms suddenly felt very heavy.

  She kept getting closer. I tried to think about how I could do it, how and where I should swipe, whether it would be good to risk using the rifle. But every scenario ended in me killing Suzy. And I still…

  She was about five feet away from me when she tripped. One of the bags filled with supplies was lying directly in her path, and she tripped over it onto her stomach.

  I ran around her side. Quickly, I placed the sharp end of the axe on the back of her neck, and lined myself up. She turned to look up at me just as I was lifting the axe into the air.

  “I’m sorry.” I said. She growled at me, and again I said, “I’m so sorry.”

  She reached out and grabbed the axe. I shook her hand off, lifted the axe behind my head and brought it down on her neck.

  Her head didn’t move or roll away when I severed it from her neck. It stayed exactly where it had been on the floor, as blood flowed from the stump that was her neck.

  Her fingers and legs twitched. Her eyes moved a little, and her mouth continued to open and close for a few moments, before they were still.

  I dropped the axe, and took a few steps backward, before bumping into a metal locker. I slid to the ground; my head was spinning, and I suddenly felt very cold. Her face still stared at me, with an expression of shock and anguish.

  “I’m sorry.” I said. No matter what that virus did, they still looked so human. I cupped my head in my hands, and felt empty. Then the moans came back.

  I got up, ran to the nearest classroom, and looked out the window. The shapeless mob had returned, and they were heading down the street this way.

  I ran out of the classroom, careful to avert my gaze from the decapitated creature that lay on the floor, and ran through the emergency exit in another hallway.

  The alarm immediately went off, and could be heard clearly even outside the building. As long as they didn’t see me, the mob would just concentrate on the alarm sound. I had a chance to get out.

  I got to the edge of town, and ran into the woods. I slowed down, but still kept moving, even into the night. I didn’t stop, and eventually I fainted.

  I didn’t dream that night.

  The next day, I woke up confused as to why I was in the middle of the forest, and not on the base. Then I remembered, and the only thing that stopped me from having a nervous breakdown was remembering what my mom had said.

  “I can’t lose all three of you.” I wiped the tears from my cheeks. I needed to survive this, and that meant staying focused. Not thinking about anything else, but getting to safety.

  Where was safety?

  “I heard something about a fortress city called Brooks…” Dave had said. That was my objective. Brooks. I would get to Brooks, and I wouldn’t think about anything else until I got there.

  XI

  I was in Brooks, and I didn’t have anything else to think about.

  My heart was sinking. Up until then, I’d been running from all these things in my mind; running from what had happened to my family. I’d been able to block these thoughts with a barricade, constructed from the fear of death, and a clear objective.

  But with the objective completed, my mind was fre
e to wander to other places, as it so cruelly does sometimes. That dream. Amazing how something as simple as dream can…

  I lay on the couch, trying to hold myself together. A deep, painful coldness set-in. I couldn’t breathe. Images of my family kept flashing in my head, like a slideshow. I could still remember the gasoline smell of that jeep; remember my father sprawled out on the ground, remember every word we said to Dave when we said goodbye, remember the way my brother’s blood mingled with the playground sand.

  I remember my mother’s arms around my shoulders, and the feeling of her hard shove, when she told me to leave.

  No, she didn’t say “leave.” Her exact words were “Run!”

  What happened after I left her in that jeep? I didn’t want to think but my mind forced me too. I could see her being ripped apart by dozens of undead hands. Her screams. I still couldn’t remember if she had screamed, and I’d never heard her scream before that day, at anything. She was always so brave, like nothing could faze her, or stop her. But in my head, I did hear her scream.

  “Help, help!” She screamed, before a zombie ripped out her vocal chords, in the horror movie that played in my brain.

  And Suzy. I don’t know how long she’d stayed in that school, how long she was able to hold out. I could see her hiding in a corner, tears streaming down her face as she heard the screams and undead moans.

  She hopes that someone will come to save her. Then one of them finds her.

  In my mind I see her running down endless dark hallways, desperately begging the creature to stop. She either trips or hits a dead end, and it gets her. She screams, and it echoes in the hallway, a sound of desperation and indescribable fear, that reaches no one.

  And I killed her. Did she recognize me? Was the real Suzy still trapped in there, screaming, begging to be let out? Did she see that I was the one who killed her?

  I threw up. It fell on the carpet of the break room, just next to the couch.

  “I’m sorry.” I said to no one.

  I had a headache. The part of the couch my head laid on was covered in streams of snot and tears. Guilt, anger, and sorrow coursed through me, like a chemical that had made its way into my blood stream.

  My head had become a torrent of emotions, thoughts, images, and memories, but the dark break room I sat in was silent. It was indifferent, peaceful. It did not care that I was losing my mind.

  Why did I let myself stay at that fucking base? Why did I ever leave town in the first place? If I’d stayed, then maybe I would’ve gone with Suzy to the supply depot and been able to help her.

  But help her how? The zombies still would’ve come. What could I have done? My mind groped for an answer, but couldn’t find one.

  And how could I have stayed in the town? The soldiers would have no doubt taken me away if I refused to go. There was nothing that I could have done.

  My family had been taken away from me, and there was nothing I could’ve done about it.

  My stomach started to ache. The room around me felt like it was spinning. No matter how I tried to rationalize it, the simple truth was that I’d been helpless from day one.

  When they’d first come, I didn’t think much of it. I sat in my parent’s living room, watching it on the news, like every other goddamn tragedy in the world. Suzy had been scared. I told them all they were stupid, that nothing was going to happen.

  Now I found myself crying in a room, alone in a city of corpses. I tried to stand up, but quickly collapsed to the floor on my hands and knees.

  Sometimes when I’d get angry at Mom, Dad, Stan, or Suzy, I’d go somewhere to be alone, and silently wish that I could be all alone, somewhere faraway from these people.

  It was always over something stupid, and we’d always make up afterward. My parents would joke about it, Stan and I would play video games, and Suzy and I would spend a day together.

  I hated myself for ever wanting to be away from them. I wanted them all back so much. I missed everything about them. I wanted to see my Dad and brother tease me for not being any good with a gun. I wanted to hear my Mom tell me to stop cursing. I wanted to hear Suzy tell me that I was being too upset about a video game. I would’ve done anything to have them back.

  But they weren’t coming back.

  Slowly, I began to stand up. I felt dizzy. My stomach still hurt, and I threw up again. My hands and feet shook, and my heart raced.

  I was alone.

  There was nothing I could’ve done to prevent it, and nothing I could do to make it better. I didn’t know what to do. The break room I stood in seemed smaller, like it was closing in on me, and I needed to get out of there.

  I picked up my backpack and rifle, and burst through the door. The smell of fish hit me in the face. I needed fresh air, and began to search for a way outside.

  After running around in the dark for what felt like hours, I tripped. The rifle didn’t go off, but I did drop my flashlight. It crashed into the ground, and the bulb immediately cracked on impact. The white-yellow beam of light was gone.

  A sharp cold terror came over me. The place had become a maze. I don’t know how long I spent zigzagging through hallways and crashing into glass tanks, before I saw the crack of light. It stood on the floor in the distance. There was another crack of light that ran perpendicular to the one on the floor, going up the wall. I realized I was looking at a doorway.

  I ran to it, and crashed against it. It was locked. I kicked at it, but that didn’t do anything. So I pulled out my rifle, aimed at the spot where I’d felt the door knob, and fired. The shot knocked me to the ground, but the door flew open. I scrambled up on my feet, and ran through.

  I stood in an alleyway, the morning sun shining down upon me. Besides some old pieces of garbage, and a large blue dumpster, there was nothing else in the alleyway. The stuffy saltwater air had been replaced by fresh morning air. I took a deep breath, and felt the air fill my lungs. My head and stomach still ached, but they were both getting better.

  I felt incredibly thirsty, and took a water bottle out of my backpack. I was just unscrewing the white plastic lid, when I heard footsteps behind me.

  For a moment, I let myself hope that they might be human. That behind me would be somebody who I could talk to, somebody who could show me to a safe place, where I wouldn’t be alone; where I could find comfort and company; a safe place to grieve.

  I turned around, and it was just another one of them.

  He stood at the end of the alley. His eyes were the same dull yellow, his skin the same sickly gray, his hands reaching out to me with the same dirty fingernails.

  He wore a brown business suit, with a white shirt and a red tie. His brown blazer jacket was spotted with blood along the left sleeve. A circle of white, wispy hair, surrounded the spot of bald scalp in the middle of his head, like a monk from the middle ages.

  I couldn't see or hear any other zombies, but that wouldn't last. Where there is one zombie, more are sure to appear.

  Across from where I stood in front of the aquarium exit door, on the other side of the alley, was a ladder. It ran all the way to the roof of the five-story building it was attached to. For a moment I thought about climbing that ladder. But then the zombie growled.

  I turned and saw that it was slowing walking toward me; staring at me with the dead eyes shared by all zombies. I was sick of those eyes.

  I hated them. I didn’t want to see another pair of eyes like that, hear another of their fucking moans.

  My body started to shake again. I balled my hands into fists. I didn't care at that moment if I lived or died. But I wanted my revenge.

  I put my backpack and rifle on the ground, and charged the motherfucker. I crashed into him, and his frail frame fell to the ground instantly. Sitting atop his torso, I began my assault.

  Trembling fists collided into a decaying skull, creating bruises that would never heal, and fractures that caved-in his face. The creature’s arms flailed, attempting to reach up at me. One of his brown, dirty fingernails
dug into my cheek, cutting me. I howled, before grabbing both his arms by the wrist, and slamming them to the ground. The beast didn’t howl or scream, it just continued to moan that lethargic moan, and snap at me.

  After a few minutes, my arms gave out, and I stood up and resorted to kicking. My foot crashed into his rib cage, and I could hear the cracks through his decaying skin. I brought my foot down hard on his stomach. I knocked the wind out of him for sure, but it didn’t seem to mind. He just kept reaching out to me with his arms.

  In the corner of my eye on the alley floor, I found a shard of glass. It gleamed in the morning sunlight. I picked it up, and climbed back on top of the beast before he could stand up. I grabbed his arms that still reached up to me, and pinned them under my knees. I brought the blade down on his chest, stabbing him again, and again, and again.

  Red spots began to form under his white shirt, as I made use of the glass blade. Once his shirt had been completely covered in blood, I looked up at his face. There was no expression of distress or pain, no cries of anguish. He never begged and he didn’t scream. He didn’t do anything.

  All he did was look up at me with those dull yellow eyes, moan dull moans, and try to grab me with those clawed fingers.

  “You son of a bitch!” I said through tears of rage. I leaned forward, and dug the glass shard under his left eye ball, and pried it out. He didn’t seem bothered. His mouth gently opened and closed, as he tried to eat the hands that had removed his eyeball. It reminded me of a baby when it tries to latch onto the nipple of his bottle while he’s being fed.

  I climbed off the creature, and threw the glass shard to the ground. A straight red cut ran along where my fingers had gripped the glass blade. I was bleeding. The gash on my cheek was also bleeding, and I had to cover it with one of my hands.

  I looked down on the creature on the ground, a feeling of disgust beginning to set-in. I felt empty. I stumbled backward down the alley, until I got back to the spot where I’d left my rifle and backpack. I sat down, and watched the zombie on the ground through watery-eyes.