The Apocalypse

by Williams, T. M.

  “As a human?”

  She giggled. Normally the sound of a woman’s laughter would grate on my nerves, but for some reason – hers didn’t. It only delighted me. “We’re all human, silly.”

  I doubted that.

  “You’re living on a type of raw instinct that defies what

  a human is.” “Oh?”

  She took a step closer. Her scent was a mix of copper and

  flowers. “Do you have a different opinion?”

  I wanted to take a step back, but I refused to. I didn’t want her to see that I was afraid of her. Although, by her amused expression, I could guess she already knew.

  “You think you’re so different from us?” Mallory whispered.

  She took yet another step closer. Now, I could feel the heat of her body close to mine. She was a thread’s width away from touching me. It took everything not to run out of the room and I understood then the instinct of the rabbit being hunted by an eagle.

  “You’re not. Humans killed plenty before our kind came along, just as ruthless, even more so. At least we’re acting on primal instinct. What did humans act on? Greed? Revenge? Entertainment?”

  “Entertainment?”

  “Yes. Entertainment. Was hunting not a sport?” “Yes, but those were animals.”

  “Have you seen any Undead kill any animals?” she asked.

  So the Undead didn’t kill animals? Their target was just other humans? “I don’t understand.”

  “Your friend, Alexander Dunayevsky,” she purred my commander’s name, sending chills up my spine.

  “What of him?”

  “He’s on his way to one of our camps to retrieve a very important vial of blood, infected with an advanced infection.”

  “Alex? I thought he was dead.” “No, he’s very much alive.”

  “What do you mean, advanced infection?”

  When she smiled, the creases around her eyes accentuated the blood-filled eyes, making her look more evil than she already did. “Have you not noticed a difference between the first Undead’s infection and us?”

  “I have. I thought you just had more control.” “Oh, we’re controlled alright.”

  Christoph stepped into the Oval Office then, either unnoticing of the close proximity between me and his First Lady or uncaring.

  “They’re in Dallas, Mallory. Then their next stop is the camp.”

  Mallory nodded and continued her conversation, yet never lessened her proximity to me. The way she watched me – the reason I couldn’t figure out if it was lust or a murderous intent was because – well, because it was both. “I think it’s time we show Uri what we’re talking about.”

  She finally stepped away and I instantly relaxed, feeling my muscles ache from standing perfectly still.

  “Are you coming?” Christoph stood in the doorway and Mallory had already left the room. I took a deep breath and followed him down the hall. The White House seemed creepy with its empty halls and darkened rooms. We seemed to walk forever before we reached a nondescript door that seemed more like a broom closet. It led down a dark passageway into what seemed like an underground bunker.

  We didn’t stop there, though. At the other end of the bunker was another concealed door that led us even further down. I was pretty sure we were three or four levels underground at this point and the passageway was only lit by dim, movie-theater running lights.

  After walking for ten minutes we rounded the corner to a series of rooms. “What is this?”

  “It’s the underground clinic.” “What for?”

  Mallory shrugged. “Stuff.”

  I turned to Christoph as he looked forward without any emotion or expression on his face. I half-wondered if he was lost in some permanent daydream. Anytime I thought about striking up a conversation with him I would see his blood-filled eyes and change my mind quickly, reminded of whom I was dealing with.

  In all my years in the Russian military and then politics, I had never been afraid. I felt enraptured by the challenges, the grotesque nature of the business. I was cunning, manipulative, and guilt-free of all of it. I was exactly what Russia needed as a leader. The only thing I cared about was power and that’s all that mattered to my people. Now…I was faced with something that craved power more than I did and it left me at a loss.

  “Right here.” Mallory pointed to the last, and only set of double doors.

  I stepped through into the darkness right behind her and Christoph behind me. It unnerved me to have my back to the Undead but there was nothing I could do about it. The room smelled stale -- like it hadn’t been used in years. It was colder below, but that’s not what made it uncomfortable. The staleness of the air and the lack of circulation made it feel like I was being smothered.

  Mallory switched the lights on, and the fluorescents were blinding after being in dim lighting. This was clearly a lab, but it reminded me of something I had seen in the movies long ago. Flasks, journals, filing cabinets – reminiscent of the mid- to late- twentieth century.

  “What do you see?” Mallory asked. “An old lab.”

  She nodded. “This hasn’t been used since the early part of the century.”

  “I don’t understand why we’re here.”

  Mallory opened up one of the cabinets and pulled out a file and handed it to me. “Look.”

  I stumbled back after reading the first page. “This can’t be.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Christoph

  Washington, D.C.

  December 22nd, 2021

  Uri paced the hallway and it was pissing me off. “I don’t understand. Where are they?”

  His Russian accent became stronger the more frustrated he became. I’d laughed at that once. He responded by slicing off the tip of my tongue. That was ten days ago. But, it might as well have been a lifetime. Everyone else was enjoying being an Undead, it seemed, except for me. I wasn’t having any luck -- not since Eltz Castle when I turned.

  “What the fuck are you doing, asshole?” I ignored him.

  “Just ignore him, Uri.”

  I wasn’t sure if Mallory was protecting me or just bored. We were waiting on Alex to return from the camp with the rest of the vaccines – without it, we had nothing.

  “I just don’t understand why he feels the need to decorate a fucking Christmas tree.”

  “Because it’s Christmas,” I said.

  My tongue had healed, but for some reason the lisp remained. Now, I carried a small knife with me. It wouldn’t do much damage. But it would do enough. I just wanted him to push the right button – to give me an excuse.

  “It’s Christmas?” he asked.

  There was something to be said about being in the middle of an apocalypse, or whatever this was. It was moments like this where time moved slowly that made it all worth it. I felt him approach me and stand directly behind me.

  “How the fuck can it be Christmas? Have you seen what’s going on outside?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  I stuck my hand in my pocket and gently wrapped my fingers around the handle of the blade.

  “So?”

  I turned around. Uri still looked human. Mallory and I had only begun to physically change in the last week and I wondered if my blood-filled eyes scared Uri at all. I doubted it. He was worse than most of us when he was human. What Mallory was thinking, I’ll never know.

  I could see Mallory watching us from the corner of my eye. She was smiling -- the same haunting smile that Olivia had given me when I was in the church. It wasn’t until the church that I realized what was happening and why Olivia was smiling. Turns out I’m one of the many people that wasn’t immune to the virus. It wasn’t until I got to Russia that I found out why. But it was when I got to Dusseldorf that I realized how different things were.

  ~~~

  “Are you infected?”

  The woman was the first person I had seen that wasn’t scared.

  “Excuse me?”

  She tucked her graying blonde hair behind he
r ear.

  “Do you not understand me? I asked you if you were infected. It’s simple. Yes or no?”

  “You’re okay with just asking people that? What happens when they answer?” She baffled me. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  I was afraid of that. Oh, what the hell. “Yes.”

  She tilted her head. “How long have you been infected for?”

  “A week and a half.”

  “So you must be the new strain.” “The new strain?”

  She sighed heavily and looked up at me. “You sound like a broken record. You know that, right?”

  I just shrugged. What did she want me to say? “Where are you going?”

  “My orders are to head to Russia.”

  She laughed, throwing her head back. “Russia,” she scoffed.

  “Are you infected?” I asked.

  She tilted her head and leered at me. Her pupils were completely dilated and her eyes bloodshot.

  “You have the senses. You can tell me if I’m infected.”

  I took a step toward her and felt my heart beating wildly in my chest. How could I sense anything over my own fear and anxiety? I took a deep, steadying breath and squeezed my hands into fists, working to calm my nerves. With each deliberate breath a new sense of clarity came through. I looked around me, realizing just how much my fear had darkened my sight.

  “A market? Now? Here?” The contrast of bright colors against the tense and volatile mood was bleary. I ran my fingers through my blonde curls and felt the dirt caked into them. I looked at my hands and noticed that they were caked with dry blood. When I looked back at the blonde woman I noticed her for the first time. There were deep creases around her mouth and eyes – I would guess her age around fifty but she could be much older. Her energy was young. Everything around me seemed contradictory.

  The world was collapsing, humanity was being obliterated, and yet this woman thought she could have a market in the middle of the fucking chaos.

  “Why not?” she asked. “It’s stupid.”

  I barely had the words out of my mouth when I was suddenly being slammed against a wall, knocking over a cart of boxes precariously balanced. She was fast and exceptionally strong.

  Fortunately, my senses were heightened, as this strange woman pointed out, and I reacted just as quickly. The anger that consumed me was foreign and blinding. I no longer had any restraint as my instincts took over and I slammed her head against the cinderblock wall so many times her skull was a fragmented mess, held together only by the thin veil of her skin. Her eyes bulged from her head in a frozen state of shock and her lips were blue and broken, filled with broken teeth. Had I done all that?

  I waited several seconds for remorse or guilt to overcome me, but it never came. I stood with the obliterated skull of an older woman in my hand and all I felt was instinctual satisfaction. Eventually I realized in the distance were the screams of humans running from the scene. I say humans because – well because what I just did was the furthest thing from being human. All of humanity had been lost in that moment and I realized the doom of society. I was no longer human. I was a savage animal acting on primal instinct.

  Kill or be killed.

  I may be the top of the food chain now, but I share it with other beasts with a primordial need to maim, ravage, and eradicate. I had no doubt I would lose this battle. But I wouldn’t be going out the easy way.

  As I washed my hands of the strange woman’s blood in the Rhine River, I couldn’t help but think of the first day, when I’d seen my first Undead floating in the Moselle River. There was something about that day that teased my mind, something I wasn’t thinking of. I sat frozen, staring at the moving water and wondered just what information I was missing.

  Nearly an hour later I was clean of the blood and any signs of the slaughter. I could, once again, pass for human. The killing left me feeling alive, as if I had awoken some long sleeping ability, hidden behind generations of forced civility.

  The vacant Dusseldorf airport was strangely eerie. I stepped out onto the tarmac and found the hangar I was directed to go to. No one was the wiser of my condition. The entire flight to Russia was non-eventful and I realized when we reached the President just how fucked the situation was. He had no idea his wife was infected. Either he was completely oblivious or my senses were much more alert than I thought.

  ~~~

  I realize now it was the latter. With her staring at me, I knew it was our senses. She may have been amused that I was decorating the Christmas tree, but we were all acutely aware of each other – to a fault. It left us on high alert at all times, to the point of paranoia. She watched me out of curiosity, but I knew she was also assessing the situation.

  “I can cut your tongue out again,” Uri said.

  I pulled the knife out at rapid speed; I knew I would have to be quicker than I’d ever been because he could easily stop me. Fortunately, he didn’t react fast enough and a deep satisfaction welled up in me as I felt the edge of the blade puncture his skin and slide into his wind pipe. He began gasping for breath and I twisted the blade before he could pull away. As he stepped from me I slammed my palm against the hilt and pushed the blade in completely.

  He fell to the ground and began convulsing. I pulled the gun out of my back pocket and shot him twice in the head, finishing him off. I expected Mallory to attack me but she just stood there, her head tilted to the side as if contemplating which perfume to wear for the evening.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” she said as she tapped her mouth with her forefinger.

  “I didn’t like him.”

  “I gather that. I don’t think our visitors are going to be too happy about that; at least his commander won’t be.”

  I shrugged. Right on cue, I heard the sound of whirring helicopter blades overhead.

  Twenty-Eight

  Bridge Marx

  Dallas

  December 30th, 2021

  There was a significant change in the air. Even if I couldn’t see it, I could smell it. I wasn’t sure where I was driving, just that I was. There were several of the Undead on the street, but no humans. I wasn’t sure if the humans were getting really good at hiding or if we really had killed off that many. Dallas was practically a ghost town.

  I pulled into a gas station and saw one of the Undead hiding in a bush, which in and of itself was strange.

  The Undead were hiding?

  I pumped gas into the car, wondering just how long it would be before the gas stations would run dry. No one was inside the convenience store manning the pumps and the locks had been disabled long ago. Most of the Undead just roamed freely through the streets, getting food and shelter wherever they wanted. We didn’t need much of either. We no longer ate for pleasure, just for sustenance. It was rather convenient.

  But, I couldn’t help but be curious about the Undead hiding in the bush. We had no fears, for we were the top of the food chain. We avoided each other. But, that was because, well because we were all pretty savage. Who knew when one would lose their lid on another? Some of us definitely seemed to have way more control over ourselves than others and I was beginning to think there were two classes of us.

  After I pumped the gas I crossed the service road to the bushes and saw the Undead withdraw further into the bush. My instincts were on high alert and I approached carefully. I could see the blood filled eyes peer back at me, but they weren’t normal. At least, not normal for being blood-filled. They lacked the luster that all our eyes possessed once they completely transformed, like looking into a pool of shiny oil. I thought it was pretty cool. But this Undead’s eyes looked like they were pools of oil with a film of dust on top. He looked…sick.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, my voice sounding sharp in the silence of the city. The man withdrew even further into the bushes and now I could barely even make out his shape. “Why are you hiding?”

  There was a strange instinct in me to kill the man. I wasn’t sure why – maybe because I automati
cally took the superior position by instinct.

  “Come out of there!”

  I took a step further toward the bush and knew I had him cornered.

  “Please, leave me alone.”

  I took a quick step back. He sounded sick too and every fiber of me drove me to want run the other way. Avoid the sick animal. “Are you sick?”

  I took a few more steps back. I should have turned around but curiosity was getting the best of me. The war in me raged.

  “I- I think so.”

  This was the first time I had seen any sick Undead, but why not? It made sense – why would we have developed an uncompromised immune system? Yet, this was something else. This wasn’t just one of us with the flu and I needed to know because I knew, for some reason, that this affected my future.

  “Come out of there, I won’t hurt you.” And I wouldn’t – at least not right away. But I needed to know.

  He took a step forward, then another. It was like trying to coax out a frightened kitten and my patience was wearing thin. Finally, he emerged and shielded his eyes from the sun, which had nearly completely set behind the concrete horizon. Yes, our eyes were more sensitive to the sunlight, but not to this extreme and especially not this late in the day. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, keeping my distance.

  “I don’t know. I just started feeling really weak a few days ago.” His shoulders were hunched and his entire body sagged. His dirty blonde hair was caked with blood and grime, partially shielding his sick-looking eyes.

  “Has this happened to anyone else?”

  He looked at me, hesitating, and then nodded tentatively. “Are we dying off?” I took another step back and he took one toward me. The hair on the back of my neck rose in

  warning. Run.

  He growled at me and it was that sound I had heard in so many of the other Undead. But, it was a sound I never made and it was part of my theory that there were two different classes or races of us. They seemed more primal, rawer. Although I lacked the conscience that the humans did, I wasn’t as bad as the other Undead.