All That Remain

by Travis Tufo

  “You guys aren’t really going to kill me, are you?” Eli was worried and broke into a sweat.

  “I don’t know yet, son. I sure don’t like being lied to.”

  “Lied to? I’m telling you the truth about that family.”

  “Well, the way I see it, shit hits the fan in the real world, people start getting all bitey and shit, so people like you go around looting and a killin’ everyone. I think you’re a dirty liar.”

  “Yeah, a real dirty liar!” Ray squealed from behind.

  “Wait, shit hits the fan? You know what this is all about? Will you please explain to me what in the world is happening out there?” Eli lost his fear of death in exchange for his hunger for an explanation.

  “Oh he’s playing dumb with us now,” Ray angrily added, squeezing Eli’s shoulders hard. One of his hands was directly on his wound.

  “This true boy? You playing us for some fools?”

  “No! Honestly. I...I tried to kill myself...I guess a few days ago. All I managed was a mini-coma. When I woke up in this backwards shit-hole, people tried to eat me. Look.” Eli pushed his restricted shoulder up to show them his wound. Cleetus pulled the shirt back far enough to expose the hole in Eli’s body.

  “Oh shit.” The color drained from his face. Clearly the bite concerned him.

  “We gotta kill him now!” Ray seemed panicked, letting up a bit more on the wounded shoulder.

  “What, what do you mean? What’s wrong?” Eli was more worried now than when the gun was pointed at his face.

  “You been infected, you idiot,” Cleetus said, the same dumb worried look on his obese face. He, too, had sweat breaking out on his forehead. At that moment, Eli heard a familiar voice.

  “Eli?” Sarah came stumbling into the office, a teddy bear in one hand and wiping at her tired eyes with the other. The sunlight really brought out how bad her skin was. She seemed to be just one step above the completely mutated people Eli had encountered. Her skin was so grey and her veins were darkening. Her eyes still seemed alright, though, and he could see no growths.

  “Oh shit! She’s infected too!” Ray yelled out in fear.

  “She’s fine! Can’t you hear her speak?” Eli yelled back, starting to really understand the intensity of the situation.

  “I ain’t gonna let this little shit take me out.” Cleetus raised the revolver and aimed it at Sarah’s head.

  “No!” Eli forced out a powerful roar, but it was too late. A deafening boom filled the small office. The bullet connected with her head; Eli shut his eyes. That finely crafted revolver had now successfully killed everyone in that family. The loud noise mixed with the gruesome sight of the headless child lying on the floor in the doorway caught Ray off guard; he reeled back, stunned. A red faced, livid Eli stood straight up. Eli whipped his head back, cracking Ray in the nose, shattering it on contact. The pain and blood flow kept him busy while Eli directed his attention to the child killer who was still facing the doorway. He cocked his hand back and threw a mighty blow forward across the desk. It connected with the right side of Cleetus’s head, bashing his temple, and he fell to the floor, dropping the gun. Eli quickly dove for it. When he landed, his fingers were on the gun, but before he could grasp it, a hand grabbed his ankle and pulled him away from his goal. Ray was dragging him back. He was gigantic; a linebacker in a black shirt and jeans. His dark sunglasses had slipped down his broken nose, but he still had a death grip on Eli’s ankle. He wrestled the struggling Eli back into a full nelson and held him. Cleetus struggled to his feet, but once there, the anger in his eyes was enough to let Eli know his fate had been sealed. Cleetus grabbed the gun and held it point blank at Eli. From there, the .357 slug would most likely kill Ray as well, but the few brain cells Cleetus had left didn’t figure that far ahead.

  “Sorry about your little girlfriend, boy, but I ain’t letting no little infected mini-bitch bite me. And as for you, you little shit, you’re just as dangerous.” Eli gritted his teeth, accepting his fate. He spit, splattering right in Cleetus’s face. Cleetus pulled the pin on the revolver back, the gun was ready to take another life. A loud crack sounded, but it wasn’t from the office. A mere split second later, the window behind Eli shattered. Eli closed his eyes, thinking he was already shot. When he opened them, he noticed most of Cleetus’s head was missing. A large caliber rifle had just blown clear through his face. Like a leaking hose, little spews of blood shot out from all corners of the gaping hole, which exposed much of his skull and what was left inside. Much to Eli’s surprise, there actually was some brain in there.

  “Cleetus!” Ray threw Eli to the ground, but before he could make his way to the slowly collapsing Cleetus, another explosion went off from outside. A powerful bullet hit Ray in the back and with ease, blew through his right upper chest carrying along with it chunks of bloodied meat. Gore scattered across the once clean office. Viscera splattered all over one of the gun posters that read: “Guns Don’t Kill People.” Eli made eye contact with Ray whose mouth was overflowing with blood. A moment later, he too was on the ground, dead. Crimson liquid dripped from the ceiling and was drizzling down the walls from the two blasts. Eli remained there on the ground, motionless in fear, waiting for a third bullet to strike him. Blood pooled out from the two men on either side of him.

  “I’m not with them!” Eli yelled out trying to tell the gunman he wasn’t a threat.

  “I’m unarmed!” It was the truth, unfortunately, since he was too scared to reach for the revolver.

  “Please, I don’t want any trouble.” Eli’s voice was trembling. He lay there in fear as the blood puddles inched towards him. Seconds seemed like eternity as no one responded. However, five, long, grueling seconds later, a voice finally responded.

  “I know.” The voice was low, and seemed uncaring of what Eli was saying. Eli didn’t know how to take the comment. Did that mean he was safe now? Or maybe the gunman didn’t care whether or not Eli was with them; maybe he was just another blood thirsty killer.

  “Would it be okay if I stood up?” Once again, there was no response; in fact, Eli could hear footsteps from outside, the gunman’s presumably, but they were walking away from the house.

  “Wait, where are you going?” Against caution he had never learned, and against the voice screaming in his head to “stay put,” Eli stood up and stuck his head right out the window searching for his “hero”. To someone who had just very skillfully littered a home with tiny specks of human, this was like handing them another kill, this one was as easy as it gets. Eli might as well have painted his face white with a red bullseye in the middle. He scanned the area, searching for this unknown marksman. It was difficult to see anything other than lush green foliage in the dense woods, but after surveying for long enough, he spotted someone. His eyes locked in, right on the person’s back as they walked away. He could barely make out the person, but he knew something was strange about this man.

  “Hey! Wait a second!” he hollered out to the mysterious person. Eli then looked back to the bloody scene behind him, mostly focusing on the two murdered men who had been mere moments from taking his life. Then he looked at Sarah. He felt a sinking feeling inside. Of course, he was sad that she was taken like that, but at the same time he was relieved that he wasn’t going to have to take care of her after all. Even having that brief thought made him sick at himself. He turned back around to the open window and in one fell swoop jumped through, knocking little bits of glass out with him. This seemed to be the only thing that would get the gunman’s attention, he swung around seemingly faster than Eli had fallen, with his gun raised and pointed at Eli.

  “Whoa, whoa! I don’t mean you any harm,” he said, fear dripping from his trembling voice. Eli put his arms up high to signal he was no threat. The whole time it was dawning on him that this gunman was no gunman. The person who had just saved his life, and who was putting his life right back in danger wasn’t what he had imagined. From his shortened distance he could now see long brunette hair, a slende
r, toned physique, and above all, a pair of breasts. He mouthed: “What the f…” before she interrupted his muted speech.

  “What’s with the dumb look on your face? Never seen a girl slaughter two wastes of space with pin point precision?” One savage, humorous sentence, two perfect shots, the realization that he was in fact a she, oh, and the fact that she was gorgeous, and Eli had fallen in love, just like that. He shook his head and snapped out of his trance. He could feel that he did in fact have a dumb look on his face, almost moronic.

  “And wipe up the drool, shorts-boy,” she finished.

  “How do you know I was…oh.” He realized she could see his face so clearly because she was looking at him through her scope.

  “You’re a quick one.” She lowered her gun and turned to head off once more.

  “Wait, I want to thank you for what you did back there. Oh, and I have so many questions about, like, well, guess I don’t know where to start.” He was met with the typical silence he was familiar with when talking to women, but this was the first he’d seen since the airport. He couldn’t let her off easy.

  “Please,” Eli desperately whispered under his breath, watching her move off into the woods. He looked down and started back towards the house to grab his stuff and continue on.

  “Grab your shit fast enough and I can take you somewhere safer than a house that’s just asking to be assaulted,” her voice echoed back from the woods. The words hit him harder than a truck. He didn’t know what she meant by a house “asking to be assaulted,” but he didn’t really care. Faster than he ever moved before, he darted inside, grabbed his bag, the revolver, and stopped to say goodbye to Sarah. In two minutes he was outside, sprinting towards the woods in the direction he’d last seen her.

  “Where are you?” he yelled while still running. Trees whizzed by him left and right, until he caught the butt of her rifle right in his chest, which sent him to the ground hard.

  “I was right about you.” Her words were short, and left Eli with even more questions.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? And why did you do that?” He had his hand on his chest as he looked up to her from the dirt.

  “I was right when I thought you wouldn’t survive out here, and I did that,” she pointed to his chest, “to shut your loud mouth before you get us killed.”

  “Get us killed? How? And maybe you could have, you know, waited for me. Or at least made yourself more visible.” He tried his hardest to defend himself. All the mysterious girl did was smirk and shake her head at him.

  “What? Why are you smiling?”

  “You’re still flapping your lips loud enough to get us surrounded by those damn infected things.” Her smile was quickly gone.

  “And as for being hard to spot, that’s the only reason I’m still here…saving your ass.” Eli finally got to his feet.

  “I’m sorry—I guess I didn’t know how to handle taking the butt of a rifle to the chest.”

  “You don’t say. Now that we are done shooting the shit, let’s keep moving before it gets late. And you should be happy that I’m the one hitting you and not one of those things. Times have changed.”

  He was confused as to why he had to be hit at all, but he let that slide. They both took off into the woods, Eli struggling to keep up with her fast pace. The entire time Eli kept asking questions, about the disease, about her, just really trying to make small talk, but he was always met with “shh” or “not now”. This went on for about four miles, which they covered in an hour. They kept to the dense woods, never passing a house, or even a road. At the end of the trip they emerged from the forest into an open meadow, a tall hill in the middle with a large house planted right on the top.

  “We’re here.” The skilled gunwoman turned to the sweat-soaked Eli.

  “Oh my god yes!” he managed to spill out in between his heavy breaths.

  “Not much of a hiker are you?”

  “Not much of an anything, really.”

  “That won’t do out here.” Her blunt words were true.

  “So this is your house?” He looked high up at the house.

  “Not exactly, but I guess under the circumstances, you could call me the owner.”

  Eli didn’t know how to take that, much like most things she said, so he just went along with it, probably the better idea. They made their way to the top and she opened the front door allowing him to step in first. It was a beautiful home, fully loaded with expensive furniture, high hanging chandeliers, log cabin style walls, and real paintings to top it off.

  “Wow this is a home, alright.” Eli was mesmerized, only taking his eyes off the beauty of the home to take a look at the girl who’d saved him. She was twenty-something, her skin was smooth. She was as pretty as Eli had originally thought, only seeing her close up he was certain she could beat him up if it came down to it. She caught him staring right at her.

  “Yes?” Eli was caught off guard.

  “I uhh…” He found nothing to say. She just smiled confidently and went off to another room.

  “Good job, Eli. Smooth.” He started to beat himself up about it.

  “What’s that?” she yelled from another room.

  “Uhh, I asked if you’re into leading strange guys back to your house whenever there’s an epidemic or murderous red necks running around outside?”

  “Oh no. I just didn’t see you as enough of a threat to worry about.” Her words cut deep.

  “Ouch.” Eli seemed to keep walking into these jokes. She returned with two bottles of water, handing one to Eli. He twisted it open.

  “Thank you, but now you must let me ask you some things,” Eli said between sips. She seemed hesitant, but eventually nodded. Eli sat down on a couch. She sat in front of him on a chair, never leaving her gun.

  “Well, let’s start with an easy one. What’s your name?”

  “I can’t tell you that.” She kept a straight face the entire time.

  “No, really.”

  “Yes, really. Now move on.” Eli raised his eyebrows, almost impressed.

  “Well then, here’s another question. Why can’t I know your name?”

  “With names comes attachment.” She stayed very stern in her demeanor.

  “Alrighty! Off to a good start. Well, if that’s the case, I’m Eli,” he said with a smirk. She didn’t react.

  “Okay...not a fan of jokes, I get it. Well then I guess I should thank you for saving me back there,” he responded to his own comment.

  “I didn’t do it for you.”

  “What do you mean? Those guys were going to kill me.”

  “I know they were, but I didn’t kill them to save your life. I had my own reasons.”

  “Such as?”

  “Those two were just bad men. I’ve seen them do a lot of terrible things to innocent people like that little girl since this thing went down. I’d been tracking them for a long time when they met you.” Eli felt dumb that he thought she had been trying to save him.

  “Tracking? You mean you were hunting them?”

  “Pretty much. I was just waiting for an opportune time to blow their brains out, and it just so happens that you made pretty good bait.”

  “Fair enough. So why did you bring me here?”

  “Because you were hopeless, helpless, clueless...leaving you behind was as good as putting a bullet in your skull.” Eli looked like a sad puppy.

  “You can’t always be this brutal can you?”

  “I think you can answer that for yourself. You have to be tough to survive this shit storm. That applied to a degree even before this whole infection thing.”

  “I guess that’s as good as any transition into my next question. What the actual hell is going on right now?”

  “As in, those infected people?”

  “Yes. And where the hell is everyone else? And why is there a murder fest between the only living people I’ve come across?”

  “You’re kidding me right?” she asked, frowning. Eli gave a blank stare.
>
  “You haven’t heard about the plague-like sickness that swept over the States?”

  “The states? What states? You don’t mean...” Eli went white in the face and had to choke back whatever was coming up. The girl just looked at Eli as if he was a foreigner.

  “Yes, the whole goddamned United States of America. As far as I know, Europe and Asia probably got a little taste of it too, but that was before the news stations stopped reporting on it and everything went to shit.”

  “Did people try to evacuate?”

  “Yeah, a little, I guess. It all happened so flipping fast. Most people just stayed home and tried to endure it, but people fled to Canada in mass droves.”

  “Wait, so was Colorado hit?” he said in a panic.

  “Well, the whole thing started in Texas, near the Mexican border. So, if it traveled all the way up here, then yes, I’m assuming Colorado got hit pretty hard.” Eli hunched over, holding his head low, staring at the ground. Hundreds of memories of friends’ faces, his life, all he’d done in Colorado flooded his mind.

  “You had family there?”

  “No, my parents were up here in Maine, but they died a few days before all this started. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Why are you so concerned about Colorado, then?”

  “Well, that’s where I’m from. I was living there until I had to fly up here for their funeral, which is obviously never going to happen. All my friends are there and just…ugh. I don’t know.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear about your folks, and your friends for that matter, I really mean that. But you should be happy you’re here now,” she said. Eli gave her a questioning look in response to her comment.

  “What?” She was confused about his look.

  “You’re not sorry about me, you could give a damn about my whole existence. Hell, you won’t even tell me your name.” His whole attitude shifted as he was reminded of his grief.

  “What? Sorry I’m not shedding a tear for someone I’ve never met before because they have half the sad story I do. I saved your ass back at that house, and saved it again by bringing you here, so before you lash out at me, I’d suggest you look around. You weren’t the only one affected by this disaster, Eli.” She stood up.