The Final Day [Complete Edition]

by Shawn W. Salzman

  I couldn't move. I don't know what happened, but I couldn't walk and, as bad as it was, I couldn't take my eyes off of it either. They tore him apart, limb from limb. It was grotesque. When you see stuff like that in the movies, it's gruesome, but at least you know that it is fake. It is nothing compared to reality. And the screaming - I don't think that sound will ever leave me. Even after this kills me, if my spirit or my soul lives on, I will never forget the sound of his scream as they ate him alive.

  "Oh, God, I feel like I'm going to throw up," the bile rises in my throat. "Could you slide that wastebasket over here, please?"

  "Absolutely," he does just that. "Do you want to stop?"

  The nausea subsides. "No, no. I'll - I'll be fine." I take a deep breath and continue.

  Once I had to witness that, going through the park was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to see my wife and kids. Death was not an option at that point. It's funny, look where I ended up, anyway. I decided to go around. As far as I was concerned, the extra half hour added on to my trip had instantly become irrelevant, especially considering I would have lasted - maybe five minutes in there.

  I cut to my west and headed off down Park Street. The houses to the left of me were all quiet. Either they evacuated safely or everyone is dead. I'm hoping for the former, though it probably was the latter. As I got closer to the intersection at Park and Willow, just past the baseball diamond, the sirens stopped. I heard a little girl scream out my name. I spun around and looked in the sound's direction, but I didn't see anything - the trees are really thick right there.

  I didn't want to give up, so I looked harder. With her back against the garage door of the city's storage building, was Amy. She's the daughter of my buddy, Charlie Halverson, and his wife, Trish. There were five of those bastards closing in on her. She had room to move, but shit, she's only six. She called out for me again and this time, I answered her call. I took off across the road. As soon as the blood started pumping, though, my head started to pound harder with each step - they could have shut off the damn sirens sooner. I couldn't run. Every step felt like I was being punched in the back of the head.

  When I took my first actual step on the park grounds, it was sickening. The normal, quiet crunch of grass beneath my feet was missing. Instead, there was a soft, wet sloshing sound and when I looked down, the grass was soaked with fresh blood. I took another step and slipped. Thank God, I kept my balance. Otherwise, the ground would have been soaked with what was left of my insides after I threw up.

  I forced myself back onto my feet. I felt the blood on my hands and quickly wiped it away. I had to hurry. The things closed in around Amy faster than I had expected. All inhibitions aside, I took off at a dead run toward them. Four out of the five were pretty big. I'm talking football player size. The fifth guy happened to be closest to me. He - should I even call him that? - was a short, balding fat guy. I concentrated on him. I thought to myself that, if I took him out first, maybe he'd crash into the others and break their advance, too. I had a plan.

  I was within ten feet of that one when I slipped again. So much for the plan. This time, I couldn't catch my balance. Momentum got the best of my and, before I knew it my feet flew out from underneath me and I ended up sailing through the air, head-first, at the biggest one. When I hit him, he didn't even budge. It was like hitting a rock.

  He grabbed me by the wrist and squeezed. The strength was unbelievable. Not only do they look wild and pissed off, as I soon found out, they are strong as hell, too. I tried to wriggle free, but he wouldn't release me. I knew I wasn't getting away, so I attacked him.

  I slammed my foot against his ankle as hard as I could. I felt the bone snap beneath my foot and before I knew it, we were both on the ground. He had my left arm pinned tight behind my back, closer to him than I expected. He was practically on top of me.

  The first time his head sprung forward, I freaked. His jaws snapped within an inch of my neck. He pulled back and took a chunk of my shirt collar with him. He gnawed on the chunk for a little bit, then shook his head back and forth until the piece of cloth fell from his mouth.

  I don't know what it is. Maybe they lose control of their tongues. That would explain why they can't talk.

  Anyway, there was no way in Hell I was going to let him snap at me again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his head go back again. He was going to take another shot at my throat. I rolled my shoulder and tucked my chin tight against my chest. As soon as I felt his head flinch, I drove my elbow back against his face. I felt his jaw dislocate beneath my elbow. It was disgusting, but I didn't stop there. I kept driving my elbow against his face until the bones beneath me felt like Jell-O (italics). I wasn't about to stop until I knew for sure that bastard wouldn't be able to bite me.

  The funny thing about this - I never thought about it before - is, all the while I struggled with that one, none of the others even bothered to step in. I would've been an easy target for them, but they chose to keep going after Amy and they left me to contend with their fallen cohort. Weird, isn't it?

  Anyway, after I smashed his face in, he finally let me go. My wrist throbbed so bad, I was sure he had broken it. I couldn't waste any time pondering on it, though, the others had Amy pinned against the building. Poor little girl, she was almost as pale as they were when I reached in and yanked her away from them.

  I pulled her in front of me and asked her where her dad was. She just stared at me. I shook her and asked her again, but got no answer. I was just about to ask her again when she screamed. Before I could look, I was yanked backward by my hair and slammed to the ground. My lungs emptied and instantly started burning as I fought to breathe.

  The first one was on top of me before I knew it. He went straight for my throat. I pressed my hands against his chest and pushed as hard as I possibly could. My strength was waning fast and it took everything I had left in me to keep him from tearing my throat out. My muscles burned something fierce and they were about to give out. I thought for sure that I was going to die. I was within a second of closing my eyes and accepting my fate when a bright flash of yellow zipped through the air and disappeared inside my attacker's skull. A small hand was wrapped around the end of a pencil.

  I felt the weight lifted from me as the thing convulsed, then fell off of my arms. Either it was outstanding aim, or just blind luck, but Amy managed to drive that pencil through his ear canal, directly into his brain.

  She grabbed my hand and said, "Come on, Mike. Daddy's waiting for us."

  I smiled and nodded. It took all I could muster to get up on one knee. Just as I was about to stand up, the most excruciating pain I had ever felt in my life shot through my shoulder and into my neck. Another one grabbed hold of me. I felt his teeth sink in to my shoulder, just below the back of my neck. For a moment, I felt paralyzed. The pain was immeasurable. It felt like a pit bull closed its jaws on my neck and injected me with hydrochloric acid.

  I tried to shake him off, but I couldn't give him the slip . He wasn't interested in just a chunk, he wanted the whole damn thing. I yelled at Amy and told her to find Charlie. I wanted to go with her but I couldn't move. All I could do was sit there as his teeth ground back and forth inside my shoulder. He jerked his head back and took a piece of me with him, then lunged in for more. No freakin' way was I going to go through that again!

  I slammed my forehead into his face as hard as I could. He staggered back but, in no time, he was on the rebound and came after me again. I had to slam him in the face at least three more times before he finally dropped. But, I didn't stop there. I knew what just happened. I knew it and I knew there was no way I was going to let him get away with it. I stepped up to his face and I stomped my foot down on his skull. I stomped it over and over again until there was nothing left of his face that was recognizable. Then I did what any self-respecting person would do in this situation... I threw up and then I cried.

  I felt fingers running gently through my hair and when I looked up, Amy was the
re. I forced myself up on my feet and hurried off with her as fast as I could. My shoulder felt cold as ice, but my back was warm and wet. I knew I was bleeding like a stuck pig. We were just about to the road when I heard a familiar voice call out.

  "Mike! Amy! Thank God you're alive," Charlie shouted out to us.

  He rushed up, scooped Amy in his arms and held her tight for what seemed like forever. I started to feel dizzy. I thought for sure that I would pass out so I dropped to one knee. Charlie rushed up to me. I will never forget his last words to me.

  "Mike, are you alright?" Charlie looked at me. "Get up, buddy. We have to get out of here!"

  He wrapped his hand around my left arm and reached around my back. As soon as his hand touched my shirt, he let go and jumped back. He held his hand out in front of him. It was saturated with fresh blood, my blood. I thought his eyes said it all, but it was nothing compared to the daggers that flung from his mouth when he shoved me to the ground.

  "Stay away from me," Charlie growled. "Stay away from us! Get out of here, you freak, before you infect us all!"

  Before I could rebuke, Charlie slung Amy up into his arms and ran away as he stole hateful glances at me as he disappeared down the street.

  That was the final hour of my "normal" life.

  3 PM

  HOUR TWO

  When I arrived at my house, it was probably a little after three. The front door was broken off the hinges. Cocked at an angle, it was wedged in the door frame. Streaks of blood stretched across the width of the door and there were bloody handprints all over it.

  I felt my heart sink. As soon as the thought of those things getting my wife and kids stormed in to my conscious, that was it. I dropped before I even knew what was coming. Passed out cold. It seemed like I was out for an eternity. Right before I regained consciousness, I had a horrible dream - you know, one of those nightmares that creeps in when you're sleeping and completely beats the shit out of you right before you wake up in a cold sweat, screaming bloody murder. It felt so real.

  "What happened in your dream, Michael?" Kinnelson sets his pencil down on the clipboard and watches me. He actually looks intrigued by this.

  I was standing in the doorway of my house. It was dead silent, it didn't look like anyone was there. Then, I heard my kids scream, not like they were playing around, but a serious, tortured scream. As hard as I tried, I couldn't get to them. It was almost like I was trapped behind a plate glass window. I could move anywhere I wanted to, but I couldn't touch anything. My son ran through the living room holding my daughter in his arms. They were both looking back at the kitchen, mumbling something about Kari being attacked by a monster. I tried running to the kitchen to help her, but every time I got to within an arm's reach of anything, I couldn't touch it. The barrier between me and whatever I came into contact with wouldn't allow it.

  I heard Kari's blood-curdling scream. Something was definitely wrong. She was terrified. All the while, she was calling my name. I yelled out for her, but she wouldn't answer. I reached the corner of the wall by the kitchen door and, all of a sudden, the screaming stopped. When I stood in the doorway, I couldn't get into the kitchen. The barrier was blocking me. It completely sealed me off.

  Kari was laying on the floor, full of blood. One of those damn things was on top of her, growling as it tore away at her flesh. I yelled as loud as I could at the thing - and it heard me. It stopped chewing and sat up. I hollered at it again and it turned its head toward me. Staring at me with those lifeless, clouded eyes was the one thing that terrified me the most, and still does. The face was drenched in blood, a chunk of flesh... hanging from its mouth.

  "Who was it, Michael?"

  I shudder as the words leave my lips. "It was me."

  I screamed and dropped to my knees. I could feel someone shaking me and when I opened my eyes, I was lying on the sofa and Kari was right next to me. I couldn't tell if I was in another dream, or not. It's hard to tell anymore. I don't even know what's reality anymore and what isn't. Everything just seems to blend together.

  "Surely, you must know she's alive, Michael," Doctor Kinnelson is having a hard time digesting this. "Your wife is in the waiting room, right now."

  There's no assurance for anything, anymore.

  "I see that," I try to put in simpler terms. "But, it is still hard to tell fiction from reality. How do I know this isn't some dream? I'm so confused. I've blacked out several times since that first time and each time I do, the lines between my dreams and reality seem to blur just that much more."

  "I assure you, Michael, this is not a dream,” Kinnelson raps his knuckles on the desk. “This is as real as it gets."

  "How the hell do you know?" Anger builds in me, for no apparent reason. "How do any of us know? For all I could know, none of this shit is real. This shit that's happening to me sure isn't supposed to be real, is it?"

  "Please, Michael," Doctor Kinnelson backs his chair up a bit. "You need to calm down."

  "Fuck calm! It's easy for you to say, you're not the one who's infected with no hopes of being cured."

  How dare he tell me to calm down?

  "No one ever said there wasn't a cure," Doctor Kinnelson fires back at me. "I assure you, the CDC is working as fast as they can possibly work. The nation's top scientists are probably locked away in a laboratory right now. You need to calm down."

  "How the hell am I supposed to calm down? It's easy for you to say, you're not infected," I'm losing myself. "You're not dying from this shit!"

  "Michael, if you don't calm down, you are going to leave me no choice but to have you sedated and put in restraints."

  None of this is helping. Not one damn bit.

  "Maybe you should restrain me," I'm even starting to scare myself. "I don't know what's happening to me. I can barely control my emotions anymore."

  Doctor Kinnelson watches me for what seems like forever. His eyes study me, scrutinize me. And I know he's waiting for another outburst.

  "If you can control yourself," he finally continues. "Then please, continue with what you were saying before."

  Let’s only hope. A lot of things are getting more and more difficult. I take a deep breath and continue.

  I came to and found myself on the sofa. Kari was right at my side. I wanted to wrap my arms around her, right then and there. When I tried to sit up, though, it felt like someone was stabbing me in the back of the head, repeatedly. I fell back down and just lied there. The pain was paralyzing. My whole body ached and I was so cold. Kari had three thick quilts over me and I was still shivering.

  She asked me what was happening outside. I could barely answer, there was a huge lump in my throat and I couldn't speak. It was mortifying and, even though I wanted to tell her, I couldn't. How do you explain to someone that their entire world is upside down, that everyone around them - friends, family, whatever - are probably already dead? I suppose that wouldn't be too hard to do, but the fact that I am infected made it almost impossible. How do you tell

  someone that you are infected and there's a very good chance you are going to be one of them?

  I still haven't told her the entire story. I can't.

  "Don't you think she has a right to know, Michael?"

  "Believe me, she already does," I feed him the unavoidable truth. "It doesn't take much more than a few steps outside to see what the hell's going on. I watched one of my closest friends turn his back on me like I was some kind of monster. I don't want that to happen with Kari. I couldn't handle it if she did that to me. "

  "Michael, your condition is deteriorating as we speak," He has a certain gravity in his voice that sends chills down my spine. "You should let her leave. Let her go somewhere that she can be safe. Don't you want her to be safe?"

  That's a dumb question. "Of course I want her to be safe! I've told her several times to take the kids and go to her mother's house, but she refuses to leave. I even told her to find Charlie and Trish. I'm sure Charlie's on his way to Minocqua right now. He's got a cabin
up there in the middle of the forest, completely secluded from civilization. She said she couldn't leave without me."

  "Does she understand the how serious this is?"

  "She already knows what's going on. The only thing I haven't told her about is the dream and I don't ever plan on telling her about that. How could I tell her about that? I can see how that would turn out already. Hi, honey. I had a dream that I tore you apart on the kitchen floor. Oh, don't worry, everything will be fine," I know I sound like a cock, but there would be no other way to say it. "See what I mean?"

  "Do you even know what's happening to me, yet? Do you know what's happened to any of those people? The first doctor I talked to before you told us that it was some sort of rabies, or some shit like that. Is that what it is? Is it some sort of rabies?"

  Doctor Kinnelson shrugs. "We don't have any information on it, yet."