The Final Day [Complete Edition]

by Shawn W. Salzman

  "Alright, you son of a bitch," I hear myself mutter as I reach out for the recliner, wrap my fingers around the armrest and tip it aside.

  My heart sinks. The graying hair - neatly kept despite the situation - atop the head of a man I have come to know quite well in such a short period of time, along with a capped syringe teetering at the edge of his front coat pocket brings the realization that, if he is dead, the end of my life may be coming quicker than I want it to.

  The man on the floor is none other than Dr. Kinnelson. A deep gash, at least three inches long, spans his forehead. It doesn't look too deep, though I don't think it makes much of a difference. Every time I've gotten a cut on my head, I bled like a stuck pig. And there's a lot of blood.

  "Doc?" I call out to him. "Doc, it's me, Michael."

  Nothing.

  I press my hand against his cheek. His skin is cold and clammy. I press my fingers against his neck. The pulsation of blood coursing through his arteries has got to be one of the most welcome things. He is just knocked out.

  "Doc, wake up," I shake him. "C'mon, Doc. You gotta wake up."

  His brow furrows, his eyes close tight as his hand creeps up to his head. The slightest touch of his fingers to the wound is enough for him to wince from the pain.

  "Christ, Doc," My voice quivers unintentionally. "You had me scared for a minute there."

  "You were scared?" Kinnelson manages a weak chuckle as he attempts to sit up. "I thought you were going to murder that man."

  I wish I would have. "Where's my wife and kids?"

  "I tried to stop him," Kinnelson dodges me.

  "Doc, where are they?"

  Kinnelson inhales deeply. "I don't know where he took them. When I tried to stop him, he hit me across the head with his gun."

  Rage fuels the temper within me. My blood feels like its boiling in my veins. The world is going to shit out there and my wife and kids are with some incompetent asshole who couldn't even save his own family.

  You don't know that, Michael. For all you know, Trish could still be alive.

  That's true. I already know Amy is still alive, or at least was. Trish has to be alive. She has to be. I never heard her or Charlie say anything that would make me think otherwise. Kari always liked Trish, but that's still not enough to make me any more comfortable about this.

  "I do remember him saying something right before I lost consciousness completely," Kinnelson adds. "He mentioned something about a Marty, or something... taking them to Marty's. Yes, that's it!"

  Marty's? Trish's dad? That means Trish must still be alive.

  It takes all the strength in me to pull myself to my feet. The hole in my leg burns like hell. I press my fingers into the hole of the fabric and tear it. Just like the wound on my shoulder, the blood around the hole has already coagulated and the hole is starting to speckle with black. My body's changing into one of them, but hopefully not for long.

  "Doc," I begin. "Is that it? The antidote?"

  He nods. "Thankfully, it wasn't damaged when your friend attacked me."

  My face heats up. Just thinking about that pisses me off again. If he would have broken that syringe, I would be screwed. This would be the end.

  "Now," Kinnelson says as he pops the cap off the syringe and gently flicks the side, burping the air out. "You do understand that I cannot guarantee this will work, right?"

  "Geez, Doc, you make it sound like I'm gonna sue you if it doesn't."

  Kinnelson forces a smile as I roll up my shirt sleeve.

  "I know," I reassure him. "Science isn't an exact science. There's nothing wrong with hoping, right?"

  Kinnelson takes a deep breath, then jabs the needle into my arm.

  "Here's to hoping."

  An onrush of iciness shoots through me as the contents of the syringe empty into my blood stream. Is this the beginning of the end? Or, is this the pseudo-genesis marking the beginning of the rest of my life?

  The frigid cold vanishes as the mercury begins to rise. So hot. The blood begins to boil in my veins. Every vessel, every artery begins to throb with each beat of my heart. Stronger and stronger, they swell and contract to the point that they are plainly visible.

  "Doc," I wince. "What's happening? I'm burning up!"

  Kinnelson's calm demeanor is gone, replaced by fear. He snatches his bag and flips it over next to me, spilling the contents across the floor; his eyes dart about as he scans the goods.

  "Goddammit!"

  My vision begins to fade; my eyes feel like they're on fire. Every beat of my heart pounds in my head like a war drum, its tempo increasing ever faster, harder and harder. Sweat drips from every pore of my body.

  Kinnelson's hand blankets my forehead. It feels icy-cold against my skin, but fuck, is it ever welcome.

  "Michael, you're having a severe allergic reaction."

  That's an understatement. "I'm burning up, Doc!"

  "You have to be strong, Michael," Kinnelson blurts out, entirely unaware of his own voice, as he looks at the spilled crap from the bag. "Where is that goddamn epi-pen!"

  "Doc!"

  The heat is overwhelming. The pain is increasing substantially. My head feels like it is going to explode. Every heart beat is an excruciating exercise in pain, a pain I can take no longer. I feel the world around me slipping away.

  Fists slam down on my chest, fists that come from the blurry silhouette crouched over me. At least, I think they are. Everything's numb...

  ... And fading...

  3 AM

  HOUR FOURTEEN

  "Good God..."

  I open my eyes, not much more than slits. That's the best I can do. At least the heat is gone. Too bad the pain isn't. My head is pounding something fierce. A fist to the face from a god that I don't think really gives a shit about us anymore. How else would anyone be able to explain all of this? Is this our final countdown? Is this the payback for all of the evil we've done?

  "Doc?" I force my head up and look around. "Doc, you here?"

  It’s still dark out. I couldn't have been out for that long. The way my body feels right now, I could have been out for an eternity. I've never felt this weak, this... old (italics) in my life.

  Everything appears to be just the way I remember it. His leather bag is next to me, collapsed and empty, its contents litter the surrounds. The empty syringe teeters on the edge of the coffee table next to me. Yep, everything's the same, except no Kinnelson.

  "Doc?"

  I can hear the shuffle of feet from across the room. I don't see anyone.

  "Doc," I'm starting to freak. "Doc, is that you?"

  Another shuffle. It's coming from just outside the battered remnant that used to be my front door. A faint moan follows, a telltale giveaway - a fucking hungry cadaver.

  "Doc!"

  The thing steps over the threshold. One look and I instantly want to throw up. This one looks like it has been dead for months, not a day or two. Rotted flesh dangles like loose cloth from muscles that are barely attached to the bone. How does this guy look so much more... dead than all of the other ones?

  No doubt, he's an ugly one. He's a hungry one, too. His teeth gnash together, visible through his rotting, deteriorating cheeks. Brackish, watery goo drips down his chin - zombie spit, I guess.

  A total misjudgment of distance, he's within a few feet of me. I guess I shouldn't have spent so much time analyzing the thing.

  I draw my right arm back, ready to swing. It eyeballs me and growls. Not so much a growl, it is more of an asthmatic, wheezing grunt - quite pitiful in its own right.

  "Come get me, you motherfucker!"

  Almost on cue with my words, a rod explodes from his throat. I can't cover my face quickly enough. A shower of near-gelatinous blood and gooey spittle rains down on me and soaks my face. Fred's lifeless corpse instantly follows suit.

  I scream like a little girl as I shove his nasty ass off of me. Too quick to fight it, the bile begins to rise in my throat. Every ounce of the scale that tips ever closer t
o me becoming one of those things cannot hide the one true thing that proves my humanity: my weak stomach. As I wretch all over the floor, the mystery of where I am conjuring anything to regurgitate blows my mind. I haven't eaten since this shit started and, to be quite honest, I'm still not very hungry.

  "I do believe your wife is going to be a bit upset with you when she sees this," Kinnelson smirks as he pulls me to my feet.

  "Where the hell were you, Doc?"

  "Analyzing a sample of your blood, as a matter of fact." He motions me to follow him. "Take a look. I have my equipment set up in the other room."

  My conscious mind is very eager to follow. It's just too bad the rest of me isn't as willing. The first step is an uncertain leap of faith. I have a bullet hole in my leg, mind you, a leg that I am quickly losing any and all feeling in. It feels like I haven't walked in a month.

  I make my way to the kitchen. By "equipment," I imagine there would be more substance to that statement. Instead, my countertop looks like a child's science experiment - a small microscope, petri dish and a few glass slides comprise his makeshift laboratory. Nevertheless, he urgently waves me closer.

  "Take a look at this," Doctor Kinnelson turns the microscope over to me.

  I peer in to the eyepiece. Everything is a blur for a moment, then my eyes begin to adjust. Red tinted liquid - my blood, I assume - with cells moving about, consumes my vision, but it’s all Greek to me.

  "What exactly am I supposed to be looking at, Doc?"

  "That, Michael, is what your blood looks like at the moment," he says excitedly.

  I pull back from the microscope as he pulls the slide out and replaces it with another. He urges me in and I press my eye to the eyepiece once again. This slide is red-tinted, but the cells are coarse, speckled in black and very erratic in motion.

  "That is what your blood looked like an hour ago."

  I almost choke on his words as I leap back from the microscope. "It worked?"

  "It appears to be," his voice shows more excitement than his face. "So far, anyway."

  I can't believe it. My body begins to shake. The excitement is surreal. In an instant, I feel the possibility of a future... but not until I find my family. No time to hesitate, I start for the door.

  "Doc," I begin. "I can't thank you enough. If this does work, I will owe you for eternity, but my wife and kids are out there somewhere. Charlie is out there, too. Now, I don't think he would do anything to harm them but, I don't want to take that chance. I want my family back and I want them back now."

  "Of course, Michael."

  It's not hard to see the concern on his face runs a lot deeper than it seems.

  "Please hurry, Michael," Kinnelson urges. "Bring them back safe. Bring yourself back safe. But, do it quickly. This is but the start of the treatment. So far, it's working great - much better and much quicker than I could have ever hoped for, but this is all new. We have no way of knowing what to expect. The future is very unpredictable at this point. The effects could be long term or what we are seeing right now could be nothing more than a just a glimmer of hope with a very quick reversal."

  Unpredictable... the one hang-up that makes so much sense, but never even crossed my mind. This is going to make things a hell of a lot harder. It’s still better than the alternative, though. The alternative is very predictable.

  "What about you, Doc?" I look around at the state of things.

  "I'll secure the doors and windows. No one is getting in unless I let them in. Here, take this."

  Doctor Kinnelson tosses a pistol to me, a .45 with a full clip. I hand it right back to him.

  "Sorry, Doc. I'd rather not," I decline. "You need this more than I do. I don't need anything that would attract those things. I have a crowbar in the garage. Of course, they already think I'm one of them. Must be my musky scent."

  My ill-fated attempt at a joke goes unnoticed. I guess it's better that way.

  I hurry across the living room and reach for the remnants of what was once my front door. I heave the slab of oak off the floor and set it in place.

  "No, Michael," Kinnelson stops me. "Go. I said, I'll block myself in. You worry about making sure your family is safe and getting back here as fast as you can."

  Kinnelson extends a hand which I graciously accept.

  "Godspeed."

  I rush through the garage to my workbench. I snatch my new best friend down from the wall and bolt through the doorway into the world beyond.

  The aura of uncertainty is almost overwhelming. The world around me has changed so much in so little time. So much so, that I have a hard time remembering what it was like before this. All of the things I took for granted before are now what I miss the most: the laughter, traffic, and people going about their business - all the simple things. How much farther from humanity can we go? How much farther can I go?

  We've made it this far, Michael

  Yes, we've made it very far. I was never alone, though. Kari and the kids were always with me. Now, I have to go it alone with only half of me that still works.

  I'm scared.

  The Suburban looks pretty good at the curb, considering the shit storm exploding all around me. Sure, she's got some broken windows - okay, she has absolutely no windows left but, she's a tank, she still runs and she has a ton of spare gas cans in the back. I couldn't ask for more at this point. Correction, I wouldn't ask for more, I wouldn't dare.

  Crowbar at my side, I'm ready to go. It's not much but, at this point any means of protection is better than none at all. I'll have to fight in a little bit closer quarters than I want to, though. Maybe I'll get lucky and I'll never have the opportunity to use it at all. Yeah, and maybe the fucking zombies will grow wings and fly around, singing as they drop rose petals on everyone they see. At least I won't have to worry about gunshots drawing in another herd of them.

  A twist of the key and the engine hums to life. I slip the transmission in gear and get moving. The neighborhood around me looks quiet, almost untouched. Warm light shines out of houses. I paint a picture in my head that families are in there, some sleeping, others may be playing a late night card game or catching a movie on television. I don't know if I will ever see days like that again.

  The street lights flicker over vacant sidewalks, not a cadaver in sight. As thankful as I am that there is still electricity readily available, I can't help but wonder how long it will be before the grid goes out completely. A day? A month? And when it does go out, how long will we last? Without a crew at the power stations to keep things going, I can't imagine they'll last much longer. When everything does go dark, that's when what's left of mankind will be the most vulnerable. We can't see worth shit in the dark. And they won't need to see us, I'm sure our scent will bring them right to us to pick off at their leisure.

  I'm sure, in the end, they'll herd us in. It’s almost like the cows herding the ranchers in to take them to the slaughterhouse. What happens when food becomes scarce, though? Are they going to just die off? The one at the house didn't look too good. Maybe it was starving. So many questions, but there aren't a whole hell of a lot of answers.

  I flick the radio on. The speakers greet me with static and nothing more. I hit the scan button and listen, one by one. The stations change, but the static remains the same. I'm sure every station stopped broadcasting the moment they knew of the outbreak. Hell, I know as soon as we left the building, good ol' Channel 13 met an untimely demise. Oh, I can bet there were a couple dipshits that tried to play hero and hold out to inform the masses. Now, they're probably nothing more than strings of flesh rotting away between the teeth of the undead. Yay for the martyrs.

  I can't help but think that the magnitude of this disaster spans the entire world and, if not the world, at least a hell of a lot more than any of us could comprehend. I bet all of the people who devoted their faith to their church and the Lord above never thought that the apocalypse would come without a reckoning. Evidently, all of us are on a shit list for the evil we've done. N
o amount of repentance is going to save us now. The second coming has been permanently postponed. Our countdown clock hit zero and the messiah won't be coming to rescue us.

  We're on our own...

  4 AM

  HOUR FIFTEEN

  He's taking them to Marty's...

  Both comforting and bothersome at the same time, Marty is Trish's father. I dated Trish back in high school. I wasn't one of the troublemakers, but I wasn't a goodie-two-shoes, either. I had a bit of a wild streak in me, just enough to rub Marty the wrong way. I guess taking his sixteen-year-old daughter on a two-day, three state joyride could prove to lessen one's chances of ever gaining the approval of his girlfriend's or boyfriend's parents. Especially if the parents of said girlfriend knew nothing of the plan. I know if someone did that with Lexi, I would likely be arrested for homicide if not battery at the very least. So, there you have it: Marty's not one of my biggest fans.

  His property lies east of town, about three miles away. There's only two other houses around him within a five mile radius. The back forty butts up against the Kettle Moraine forest. No worries though, that entire area is fenced in with electric fence and barbed wire. I would go there, too.

  I pass the Mobil station and make a left at the old marina. I don't know why on earth they would call it a marina when the closest body of water to it was about two miles away. I guess when people figured out their bass boat didn't work to well on the highway, it didn't take too long before the marina dried up, too.

  After the marina closed down, it took the city all of about three months to condemn the place, though no one thought there was much wrong with it. It was in a prime location for a business, just not a marina. After they condemned the place, they boarded up the windows and padlocked the doors and, I have to admit, the place really became a bit spooky. Now, it looks even worse with all of the walkers ambling about the overgrown parking lot.