Could this of just all been a bad dream? He couldn’t be sure. The silhouettes traveled slowly closer; groaning and moaning. Something in the distance howled an ungodly noise. He could feel his body moving, but his legs and feet felt numb. The heat of a fire could be felt on his cheeks as he passed a burning house down his own street. Ears heard an unmistakable “squish” noise underneath his shoes.
He didn’t stop to look. In fact, he didn’t want to acknowledge it. It all just seemed surreal. Eyes snapped to the corner store – several bodies lay atop a single one; it writhed and screamed in agony. It sent a shudder down his spine. Quickly shaking his head to get the picture from his mind he stumbled onward. He wasn’t sure of where he was going. He wasn’t sure of what the hell was happening. Obviously terrified; it just didn’t feel real. He didn’t stop but he pinched his arm softly – just to make sure it wasn’t all some exotic nightmare he had dreamed up playing too many video games at night.
Going into thought as his feet carried him beyond the abandoned cars and screaming half-eaten victims; he had often joked with his friends on this typical scenario – often not only playing video games belonging to this topic; but also, many a horror flick with the living dead being the main topic of discussion. Now here he was, twenty five years old and running for his life; in sheer terror -- through the streets that he had grew up on, they now laid in post apocalyptic ruins.
His own thought bubble burst as a city bus barreled down the tallest point of First Avenue, smashing everything in sight and headed in his direction. There was no time for thought; pure adrenaline coursed through his body suddenly; instincts taking over now, as he watched in horror, the bus rolled sideways and careened, catching a car on it's side and flying through the air like a giant metal ball of death. He felt his legs pull his body in the direction of a small area between two houses where some plastic, but heavy duty garbage cans blocked the way. He hit the set of cans so hard he thought he broke his shoulder in sheer terror of the mechanical beast about to crush him like an ant.
All the air knocked out of him, he lay there a moment, regaining his composure, holding his slightly limp shoulder. The rolling ball of steel just inching its way past him now, flinching at the thought of what could have been, it crushed several more cars and bodies in this over-dramatic moment he felt could only be made up from some action movie he’d seen. He took several deep breaths, and slowly pulled himself up, using one of the now smashed garbage cans as a crutch. He felt his stomach grumble, and punched it in anger, cursing it in his head - too afraid to make any noise, for fear of the plague of monsters closing in on his location. Without warning, one of the beasts suddenly grabbed him from behind.
Struggling for a moment, he wrapped his arms and the monsters, bringing it close to his neck. He acted quickly, as he could feel the beast’s putrid breath close to his neck, a groan entered his ear. Using every mustering of strength, the creature was flipped over his back onto the ground – a full size adult one, at that – and his left foot came down to connect with the nightmare, crushing in its skull and grey matter. He swallowed another couple puffs of breath, still unable to swallow the reality that had literally swallowed his entire life. Too out of shape for all this excitement; he was used to sitting on the couch most nights watching TV, and he had led for the most part, an inactive life - working as a “call center jockey” as he referred to it.
The thoughts came crashing in, crushing his very soul, making his stomach ache, and his mind worry for the worst. Where was his wife to be? His friends….he couldn’t seem to find them either. He played the scenario out over again, his most daily routines. Waking up; a quick shower as to get the dew of the evening before out of his mind and then kissing the lips of his love goodbye – he could almost feel those lips now. He felt the warmth of a tear streak down his cheek. Bit his lip as more moments of intimacy played out through his head. "Why did this have to happen?" He asked himself, in his head. He stopped, his body unable to take anymore abuse at the hands of his imagination, he keeled over, almost feeling the urge to vomit.
He balled his fists, his mind playing through the rest of the day – jokes at work, “blah blah blah” emails from upper management. He wished he was at his desk, right now, as much as he loathed that place to the core. This was an ungodly type of punishment. On the way home there was heavy, heavy traffic. He didn’t think much of it. When arriving at his front doorsteps though, the door was literally ripped off the hinges and scratch marks ran up along the vinyl siding of the house and the glass. His mouth was agape as a bloated, giant, bloody-faced creature walked with a slouch to his doorway, moaning and groaning in the direction of its next meal – himself.
Not having any time to actually get any sort of arms together, he ran to a friend’s house – the front door was open, no one inside. They too must have suffered a similar tragedy. The rest was history now, he guessed, and he ended up here, kneeled over a bent stop sign crying silently, like a child who’d just dropped his ice cream cone. Except, this was a ice cream cone you couldn’t re-scoop. There was no reset button. Humanity had just somehow managed to push the power off button; it was done and over with. There is nothing. No one was coming to help. Not the army, the navy, the cops...he'd tried every emergency number on his phone. It was now a $500 paperweight.
Gathering himself, tears were wiped onto his $50 dollar Geoffrey Beene V-neck button down shirt, he cracked his neck and decided that it was time to lose the tie. Unbuttoning that top button, he gently tugged at the tie until it came undone.
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