One Hour to Live

by Gary M. Chesla

  They soon came to realize that getting bitten by one of these creatures from Hell was the kiss of death.

  By the time people realized what getting bitten by the dead meant, the infection had already been spread throughout humanity beyond the point of no return.

  Yes, Kevin knew what the bite on his leg meant.

  For him, the struggle to survive was over or would be very soon.

  He didn’t have much time left.

  Kevin struggled to his feet and began to hobble down the path through the woods.

  Before his time was up there was something he needed to do.

  Kevin hoped he could make it back home one last time.

  Kevin somehow had always known that he wouldn’t live long enough to see life return to normal.

  He didn’t think it possible that anyone would be able to survive that long, because he didn’t believe that it would ever happen.

  He had seen too much death and unimaginable horror to think he or anyone would be able to live through it all.

  Too many had died, too much of civilization had been destroyed. What mankind had achieved was gone. There was nothing left to survive and rebuild, or at least to ever resemble what it had been. The Human Race, if it did manage to survive, would never be the same again.

  But even with all he had witnessed, the suffering, death and cold heartless destruction of mankind, he never thought he would go out this way.

  He thought he would at least die in a meaningful battle against the dead, or trying to save a beautiful girl that needed his help to escape the dead, not by having a little fucking zombie sneak up on him and bite him in the ass.

  But just like life had been over the last year, nothing ever went as you expected. There was nothing that was predictable or normal any longer.

  There also weren’t any beautiful girls left to save, those that weren’t slaughtered by the dead were captured, abused and killed by the roving gangs of living scum that combed the area for months after the dead appeared.

  He should just be happy that he wasn’t going to die in a more degrading manner than he soon would.

  He had seen people pulled apart, slaughtered in front of their loved ones by the dead.

  He had also seen people beaten, dismembered, tortured and raped by the living. He had seen the living do things to other humans that made him hope that if he was ever to be captured and killed, that it would be by the dead and not the living.

  He should just be happy he was going to die quietly, or as quietly as turning into a zombie could be, but again, he wasn’t dead yet.

  Who knew what the hell the next hour would bring.

  With what the world had become, nothing could be considered normal or for certain, not even dying.

  His thoughts about the deer passed through his mind again.

  Kevin had felt regret that the deer had managed to survive all this time and then about how he was going to kill it.

  Kevin doubted that the deer would now feel sorry for him, after he had managed to survive all this time.

  “If the deer could talk,” Kevin thought, “it would probably tell me that I was a dumbass and got what I deserved.”

  Chapter 2

  Bob McNally shifted his cane from his right hand into his left hand as he hobbled around the table in his small house.

  He was getting up to look out the window to see if he could see Kevin coming down the street.

  Kevin had been gone since early this morning and should be returning before much longer. In fact, Kevin should have been home hours ago.

  The windows to the house had been boarded up for over a year, but they had purposely left small spaces so they could still see outside without exposing themselves.

  Bob leaned against his cane as he pulled back the red curtain he hung over the window to stop the cold air from blowing through the house. He squinted as he tried to look through the crack so he could see outside and down the main street.

  He didn’t see any sign of Kevin yet.

  The streets were deserted, which was a good sign.

  The only traffic on the streets of Bolivar now days was the dead.

  There were a few people left in Bolivar, but they never used the streets. When the living moved around town, they did their best to keep out of sight and not attract attention.

  Not seeing anything moving out on the street was good, but he was starting to worry about Kevin. He had been gone longer than usual today.

  Bob had always been the bread winner and had provided for his family.

  He had made good money working in the mines around Bolivar.

  His family didn’t always have the latest fashions or the biggest car, but they always had what they needed.

  Even after Bob had injured his back in a freak accident in the mine, his disability pension made it possible for him to continue to take care of his family.

  Bob had always taken pride in being able to provide for his family, but a lot had changed over the last year.

  Besides the obvious, the dead that now owned the town, Bob had also changed.

  When civilization ended, Bob was no longer able to get the medicine and treatments that his back injury required.

  Up until that time, he had been able to walk without a limp and without experiencing much pain.

  Now it was all he could do to get around using a cane.

  The pain was tolerable, except in the mornings.

  The living conditions in the cold and damp house certainly didn’t help. He tried to keep moving as much as he could, it was the only thing that seemed to help.

  If not for Kevin, Bob didn’t know if he would have made it this long.

  Kevin was the provider now, Bob did what he could but he didn’t like his new role. It wasn’t the kind of life he had wanted for himself or for Kevin.

  There wasn’t much he could do about it though, just like what had happened to Bolivar, there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do but live with it, or just try to stay alive.

  Bob shivered as a cold wind blew in through the cracks. He was about to let the curtain drop back down over his window when he noticed movement at the window over at his neighbor’s house.

  Old Bill Johnson’s house was only a hundred feet away from Bob’s house. Bob always referred to Bill as Old Bill Johnson, even though Bill was a few years younger than himself.

  Bill’s hair had turned pure white when he was just thirty. He had also been born with one leg shorter than the other, resulting in a noticeable limp when he walked. That and his West Virginia mountain accent made him appear and sound to be much older than he was.

  They had been friends for the last fifteen years, during which time Bob always referred to Bill jokingly as “Old Timer.”

  Bill called Bob, Mac.

  He used to call Bob names like “Klutz”, “Clumsy” and a few other names because Bob wasn’t the most graceful person.

  After Bob’s accident at the mine, Bill just called Bob, Mac.

  Even though they always got off calling each other names, after Bob’s accident, Bill backed off from their usual harmless banter. They were friends and Bill didn’t want to keep reminding Bob about what had caused his accident. Bob had tripped over his own tool box and fell into the conveyor belt and had almost been crushed.

  Calling him Bob just felt unnatural, calling him the other names would have been cruel, so Bill called him the first thing that came to his mind, Mac.

  Bill must have been looking outside and had seen Bob looking between the boards over at his window.

  He opened one of his shutters and was waving to get Bob’s attention.

  When Bob finally saw Bill, he looked around for a moment to be sure the dead weren’t within ear shot, then called out, “What the hell you doing Old Timer? Are you trying to piss off the dead?”

  Bill smiled as he stared at Bob’s window.

  “I have something for you, Mac,” Bill replied. “But if you insist on insulting me, I’ll keep it for myself.”
/>   “What do you have for me other than trouble?” Bob asked.

  “I’m coming over,” Bill replied, “Be ready to open your back door.”

  “Just don’t bring any friends with you, Old Man,” Bob answered.

  “You know I don’t have any friends,” Bill laughed.

  “Just shut the hell up and get over here,” Bob replied, dropped the curtain and shuffled his way towards the back door.

  Bob’s house was on Market Street, the main road, Route 259 that went through Bolivar.

  The house was a solid brick house, as were many of the houses in Bolivar.

  In the town’s early days, the owners of the brick factory thought it would be a good advertisement for their business if most of the buildings in town were made of brick.

  They made the town’s folk a great offer that resulted in many of the buildings on the main street through town being constructed of the locally produced bricks.

  It was only due to the solid brick construction that Bob and Kevin had managed to survive. The brick and the solid oak shutters and boards that Kevin had covered the ground floor windows with were life savers.

  The miners in Bolivar had gone on strike frequently to demand higher wages and safer conditions.

  The strikes often spilled over into the town.

  For their own protection, Bob had Kevin put bars and heavy shutters over the windows.

  The strikes were often violent. In retaliation, many of the miner’s homes were attacked in the middle of the night by anti-union thugs.

  The precautions Bob had taken because of the violence, had also served him well over the last year.

  The dead weren’t as intelligent as the strike breakers, but they made up for their lack of ingenuity with their determination.

  Fortunately, the bars and shutters had been equally effective against both.

  Bob limped through the living room and into the kitchen.

  He heard the door knob rattling as he entered the kitchen.

  “Hold your horses,” Bob called out, “I’m coming as fast as I can.”

  Bob leaned his cane against the wall when he reached the door and used both hands to release the dead bolts, turn the key and pull the door open.

  Bill quickly squeezed into the kitchen past Bob.

  Bob glanced out through the open door for a moment, again hoping to see Kevin, but then slowly closed the door and reengaged all the locks on the heavy wooden door.

  When Bob turned, he saw Bill grinning at him as he held two rabbits by their hind legs out in front of him.

  “Look what I got,” Bill grinned, “Are you hungry for some rabbit?”

  Bob blinked a few times to help his eyes adjust to the low light after closing the kitchen door.

  “Where the hell did you find rabbits?” Bob asked as he stared at the limp bodies of the rabbits dangling from Bill’s hand.

  “They were right outside my back door,” Bill replied. “I was heading out to look for something to eat. I was going to go back over to Annie’s Restaurant to see if there was anything left worth eating in the back room. I got all bundled up, the damn cold winds of winter are starting to blow through town. I grabbed a couple sacks to fill up in case I found anything. I opened my door a crack to look outside before venturing out and I saw these two critters eating grass right outside the door.”

  “How did you kill them?” Bob asked looking over the two brown furry bodies.

  “I broke their necks with a chair,” Bill beamed. “I broke my damn chair too, but it was worth the trade. I thought they were going to run away when they saw me, but they didn’t seem to be afraid of me, they just kept eating grass. So, I grabbed a chair and clobbered them. I broke their damn necks. It almost seemed like they had never seen people before.”

  “Damn,” Bob replied. “I haven’t seen a rabbit in over a year. I thought the dead must have eaten them all.”

  “I thought we could skin them and have Kevin roast them for us on your wood burner,” Bill added. “My damn mouth has been watering ever since I clobbered them. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into them. It will sure beat the hell out of eating maggot infested cereal or tree bark. Not that I’m complaining mind you. Food is food, but this will be like dying and going to heaven.”

  Bob wiped at the saliva that escaped from the corner of his mouth.

  “This will be like eating real food again,” Bob replied. “I think so anyhow, I haven’t had real food in ages.”

  “Where is Kevin,” Bill asked.

  “He left this morning,” Bob replied, “I was just starting to look out the window for him when I saw you.”

  “He is running late,” Bill said. “Where did he go today?”

  “He crossed the sulfur creek and said he was going over to West Bolivar to look through La Mantia’s Beer Distributors. He was hoping to find beef jerky or some snacks up in the attic of the warehouse. He said he hadn’t been over that way for a few months. Since pickings are so slim on this side of town, he wanted to look over that way before the cold weather moved in.”

  “When’s he going to be back?” Bill asked. “It’s starting to get late. It will be dark in an hour or so.”

  “He left early this morning,” Bob replied sounding concerned, “he said he would be back around mid-day. I’m starting to worry.”

  “Kevin can take care of himself, I’m sure he is OK,” Bill said. “It’s not like you or me being out there. If the dead didn’t get us we would probably get our asses lost.”

  Bill chuckled.

  Bob smiled weakly, “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “What do you say while we wait, we skin these two rabbits and have them ready,” Bill said enthusiastically.

  Bob nodded, “Yeah, if nothing else, we can have a hot surprise for Kevin when he gets back. Grab two knives out of that drawer behind you and I’ll fire up the wood burner.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Bill grinned.

  Chapter 3

  Kevin stumbled down the path, trying to retrace his steps from earlier today, the steps that would take him back home.

  He stopped and looked around at the trees, the path and the hillside, hoping to see something that looked familiar.

  He was usually good at finding his way around the outskirts of town.

  Usually he just stayed in town or within sight of the buildings on the edge of town.

  But today he had wandered further away from town than he had expected to go.

  When he saw the deer, it surprised the hell out of him.

  He couldn’t pass up the opportunity and had spent what seemed like hours tracking the deer.

  He hadn’t seen a deer in over a year, he had to follow it if there was even a chance that he could get close enough to it to kill it.

  He, his dad and their neighbor Bill were down to eating cardboard and rancid canned goods that would probably kill them if they ate much more of the stuff.

  They were basically starving.

  Winter would be here in a few months and Kevin didn’t think the three of them would make it through the winter.

  They had eaten just about everything edible in town.

  There weren’t any animals to hunt for food, the animals had mysteriously disappeared when the dead showed up.

  It was dangerous to travel very far from the safety of their home in Bolivar, but he knew they would soon have to at least try to go somewhere else.

  With his dad’s back injury and Bills mobility problems, even without having to avoid the dead, trying to travel to another town would be a near impossible task.

  Besides, Kevin knew that it would be the same where ever they went.

  There just wasn’t anywhere else to go where things would be any different.

  Kevin knew that this winter, if they managed to even last that long, would probably be the end of the line.

  In a way, the idea of laying down in the cold and just closing his eyes and drifting off into oblivion wouldn’t be all that bad. In a way, it woul
d be welcomed.

  Over the last year, he had imagined the end when it came would be a much more terrifying and painful end.

  It was just the idea of seeing his dad die that bothered him more than the idea of his own death.

  His dad had always been there for him when he was growing up.

  He loved his dad.

  After his mother had passed away, his dad had taken on the job of being both his mother and his dad.

  Even after working all day in the mine, his dad would always show up for his ball games and other school activities.

  Kevin admired how his dad took care of him even after his dad had been injured at work.

  Kevin now did his best to take care of his dad after the dead arrived in town.

  His dad was all he had left.

  What little he had, had been ruthlessly taken away.

  Kevin dreaded the day when his dad would die.

  He knew he would miss his dad. On a more selfish note, Kevin also knew that he would be alone in the world of the dead. Alone in Hell. It was a terrifying thought.

  Kevin stood and stared at the path ahead of him.

  Now Kevin felt bad, not for himself but for his dad.

  His dad didn’t know it yet, but it would be his dad that would be alone in what was left of the world.

  For his dad, hell on earth was about to become an even more unbearable place.

  With his dad’s back problems, Kevin knew he wouldn’t last for very long on his own.

  In a way, Kevin wished it would have been his dad who had been bitten by that little zombie.

  It would have been a more humane way to go then starving to death, alone, in their old cold house.

  Kevin leaned against a tree and tried to work up the energy to continue walking.