The Last Day, Page 2
Joseph Sweet
away, but Naomi couldn't do anything but watch the scene play out before her for the time being.
The man in the black shirt, having only sustained a bad bite to his right arm and a few scratches in other places, fell upon an elderly man – probably because he was closest – and bit into his face, pulling back and tearing his nose off with a wet meaty rip.
The old man's scream bled into gurgles and then died moments later as the zombie graduated to a bite to the throat. The Jogger had moved on to another victim also. Moments later they were all swarmed. More zombies had joined the chaos from somewhere else; wherever the dog had come from, most likely.
"Max," Naomi screamed, turning to tell him that they had to get out of there, but he was gone.
She looked frantically for him and found him finally, running. He'd gotten halfway to the car.
He's going to leave me. She thought, and then thought better of that. We're going to be together forever. She told herself. He can't leave me. He’s my forever. She pulled his leather jacket, which he had given her to wear earlier, tight and began to run toward him. He promised she assured herself. Someone ran into her at full speed and nearly knocked her to the ground just then. Some severely pale skinned guy with freckles and an amazingly bright red, almost fluorescent red crop of hair. He turned quickly in an attempt to get back to his feet, not bothering to say he was sorry. And then, right in front of her, the elderly woman she'd just seen moments before jumped on top of him and bit into his cheek. She pulled back, tearing half of his face off right in front of her and Naomi was sprayed with a tiny bit of blood.
She scrambled back, turned and somehow managed to get back onto feet she couldn't even feel, using arms that didn't even feel like her own. Nothing felt real. She knew that she was in shock. How was all of this happening? How had the day gone from perfect to this?
She stumbled into the street and looked up in time to see Max fumbling with the keys. "Max." she cried, but it didn't come out as much more than a whisper.
She began to pick up speed, forcing herself to brush off the shock. She thought, just maybe if she didn't, Max might think she was a one of the zombies and leave her here.
He wouldn't do that. She thought. He couldn't. I'm his everything. We're forever.
He was starting the car.
"Max!" she screamed louder this time.
He looked back once. There was only a pitiful coward's sorrow in those eyes. They said, I'm sorry, I'm an asshole, I don't love you, I'm scared, and goodbye, all at once.
And then he was driving away, tires screeching on pavement, and she was running after him, hand outstretched, screaming for him to stop, tears pouring from her eyes, ruining the makeup she had put on for him this morning when he had been her everything; when they had been about to spend eternity together.
She started to lose speed. He wasn't going to stop. She was wrong about everything. She was wrong about him. She was wrong to think that there would be someone for her. She had no knight in shining armor. She only had herself. And she was weak enough to need someone to save her. She stopped. She could hear the footfalls of the zombies closing in behind her. She didn't fool herself into thinking they were a bunch of crazy people. She knew what they were. Max had loved his zombie flicks. Whether they were the product of escaped laboratory animals infected with an experimental virus or an apocalyptic plague or whatever else Hollywood had been able to cook up over the years, they were closing in behind her and she was about to die.
In perfect complement to the day she was having it started pouring right then and Naomi dropped to her knees in it, crying, not caring if she was eaten alive.
Hands fell upon her and teeth bit into her right shoulder and left arm simultaneously. The stinging pain was enough to wake her up and send a surge of adrenaline coursing through her body. A sudden dark rage flooded her and she decided that she didn't want to die. She wanted to live; if only to show that bastard that he couldn't do this to her.
She thrust her body to the side, tearing loose, punched and kicked her way to the side, only actually hitting one of the zombies. Then her hits actually started hitting home. One lunged in at her, teeth snapping just inches from her face and she kicked it square in the nuts.
Apparently zombies still felt pain because it went down.
She jumped back as it fell in case it was still in the biting mood and dodged to the side as another tried for her throat. She had to get moving. They'd have her surrounded in seconds.
"Bastard!" she screamed. She was going to kill him. She let her rage keep her moving.
After a few moments, she found herself near a big green power box of some kind on a pole. There was a decent sized metal wrench and a rusty metal bar that someone had left lying there and she snatched them up. She slid the wrench down the waist of her pants and swung the bar at the first zombie to get within swinging distance. It turned out to be a pretty effective weapon. There was a wet crack and the zombie went down twitching. It did not get back up. If she could get out of here, she thought she'd be alright. The bites would probably leave bruises, but nothing more. The thick leather of her boyfriend… - Ex-boyfriend's, she reminded herself - riding jacket had kept their teeth from getting through.
She ran for the hill toward town.
They were a short distance behind her the whole way. Her and Max only lived fifteen blocks or so from the edge of the park.
She ran until she thought her heart was going to pound its way right out of her chest and her lungs would catch on fire, and at the bottom of the hill, she thought she saw a miracle.
There was a blue Plymouth Neon parked on the side of the street, in front of a house just about a block from the park entrance. The headlights were on and the driver's side door was open, which meant that the keys were in it.
No one seemed to be around.
She didn't know how she had managed to get so far so fast, but she wasn't about to stop now. She became aware of car alarms and screams and groans and breaking glass and all sorts of sounds that reeked of danger to her now. The zombies were still behind her, but some of them had broken off. There were other dangers all around now though. In the short time since she and Max had gone to the park, the world had gone to hell. And what is it like right now in Panama City Beach? she wondered. She tried to imagine the white sandy beaches and green ocean water with dead bodies and blood and zombies, but she couldn't do it.
She closed in on the car only to find that there was a zombie - just inside an open passenger side door in the back seat - busily groaning, while biting and slurping at the entrails of some victim.
In rage, not really thinking, just knowing that she didn't want to walk the entire way, she threw open the back door and stepped back, raising the metal pipe.
The zombie looked up at her, then seemed to grow disinterested and went back to its meal.
Naomi cried out in rage, reared back with her weapon and thrust it in at the creature, hitting it right in the head and knocking it out the other side of the vehicle. It groaned out there on the sidewalk, but didn't get up right away.
With no time to spare, having gained a bit of distance from the mob, but not a whole lot, she jumped in the car - both back doors still hanging open - and drove off toward home.
Nothing fueled her but rage, sorrow, frustration, the desire for revenge. How could he? Why did he do it? He was the one that loved horror movies. He sat there on the edge of his seat. He practically cheered every time there was a convincing spray of blood. And then, when he woke up in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, he pissed himself and ran like a coward for the horizon.
He better hope he didn't go home, she thought.
Half a block from home, the afternoon zombie snack from the back seat sat up and reached for Naomi. She tried to fight it off and drive but there was no use. Drive safe or get bitten and be a mindless undead freak until you rot. Hard choice there, she thought. Naomi tried for the bar, but there was no swinging room. The woman, who looked like your average middle-aged
brunette school teacher (except for the gash missing where her right cheek had once been and the business of her throat having been torn out), was trying desperately to bite wherever she could. It didn't seem to matter to her where.
Naomi elbowed her in the teeth (lucky as hell that there was thick leather between her skin and whatever germs or virus was swimming in the mess of drool, blood and pus drizzling out of that mouth) and then again in the forehead, then reached back and pulled out the wrench she'd picked up earlier and smacked her in the skull with it.
Meanwhile a corner had come up, and they came to a dead halt when the front end collided with a fire hydrant. Had they been going faster or in a bigger car, perhaps they'd have taken the thing out completely and kept going like in the movies, but it just didn't happen that way.
Naomi's head hit the steering wheel an instant before the air bag kicked in and if that didn't knock her unconscious, the wrench in her hand smacking into the side of her head as the air bag forced it backwards did the rest of the job. Luckily for her, the wrench continued backwards and buried itself in the zombie's skull as it was catapulted toward the front of the vehicle.
There was no way of telling how many hours had passed by the time Naomi awoke in the small blue vehicle, covered in black muck, chunks of brain, her own blood, and in a daze.
She forced the door
The man in the black shirt, having only sustained a bad bite to his right arm and a few scratches in other places, fell upon an elderly man – probably because he was closest – and bit into his face, pulling back and tearing his nose off with a wet meaty rip.
The old man's scream bled into gurgles and then died moments later as the zombie graduated to a bite to the throat. The Jogger had moved on to another victim also. Moments later they were all swarmed. More zombies had joined the chaos from somewhere else; wherever the dog had come from, most likely.
"Max," Naomi screamed, turning to tell him that they had to get out of there, but he was gone.
She looked frantically for him and found him finally, running. He'd gotten halfway to the car.
He's going to leave me. She thought, and then thought better of that. We're going to be together forever. She told herself. He can't leave me. He’s my forever. She pulled his leather jacket, which he had given her to wear earlier, tight and began to run toward him. He promised she assured herself. Someone ran into her at full speed and nearly knocked her to the ground just then. Some severely pale skinned guy with freckles and an amazingly bright red, almost fluorescent red crop of hair. He turned quickly in an attempt to get back to his feet, not bothering to say he was sorry. And then, right in front of her, the elderly woman she'd just seen moments before jumped on top of him and bit into his cheek. She pulled back, tearing half of his face off right in front of her and Naomi was sprayed with a tiny bit of blood.
She scrambled back, turned and somehow managed to get back onto feet she couldn't even feel, using arms that didn't even feel like her own. Nothing felt real. She knew that she was in shock. How was all of this happening? How had the day gone from perfect to this?
She stumbled into the street and looked up in time to see Max fumbling with the keys. "Max." she cried, but it didn't come out as much more than a whisper.
She began to pick up speed, forcing herself to brush off the shock. She thought, just maybe if she didn't, Max might think she was a one of the zombies and leave her here.
He wouldn't do that. She thought. He couldn't. I'm his everything. We're forever.
He was starting the car.
"Max!" she screamed louder this time.
He looked back once. There was only a pitiful coward's sorrow in those eyes. They said, I'm sorry, I'm an asshole, I don't love you, I'm scared, and goodbye, all at once.
And then he was driving away, tires screeching on pavement, and she was running after him, hand outstretched, screaming for him to stop, tears pouring from her eyes, ruining the makeup she had put on for him this morning when he had been her everything; when they had been about to spend eternity together.
She started to lose speed. He wasn't going to stop. She was wrong about everything. She was wrong about him. She was wrong to think that there would be someone for her. She had no knight in shining armor. She only had herself. And she was weak enough to need someone to save her. She stopped. She could hear the footfalls of the zombies closing in behind her. She didn't fool herself into thinking they were a bunch of crazy people. She knew what they were. Max had loved his zombie flicks. Whether they were the product of escaped laboratory animals infected with an experimental virus or an apocalyptic plague or whatever else Hollywood had been able to cook up over the years, they were closing in behind her and she was about to die.
In perfect complement to the day she was having it started pouring right then and Naomi dropped to her knees in it, crying, not caring if she was eaten alive.
Hands fell upon her and teeth bit into her right shoulder and left arm simultaneously. The stinging pain was enough to wake her up and send a surge of adrenaline coursing through her body. A sudden dark rage flooded her and she decided that she didn't want to die. She wanted to live; if only to show that bastard that he couldn't do this to her.
She thrust her body to the side, tearing loose, punched and kicked her way to the side, only actually hitting one of the zombies. Then her hits actually started hitting home. One lunged in at her, teeth snapping just inches from her face and she kicked it square in the nuts.
Apparently zombies still felt pain because it went down.
She jumped back as it fell in case it was still in the biting mood and dodged to the side as another tried for her throat. She had to get moving. They'd have her surrounded in seconds.
"Bastard!" she screamed. She was going to kill him. She let her rage keep her moving.
After a few moments, she found herself near a big green power box of some kind on a pole. There was a decent sized metal wrench and a rusty metal bar that someone had left lying there and she snatched them up. She slid the wrench down the waist of her pants and swung the bar at the first zombie to get within swinging distance. It turned out to be a pretty effective weapon. There was a wet crack and the zombie went down twitching. It did not get back up. If she could get out of here, she thought she'd be alright. The bites would probably leave bruises, but nothing more. The thick leather of her boyfriend… - Ex-boyfriend's, she reminded herself - riding jacket had kept their teeth from getting through.
She ran for the hill toward town.
They were a short distance behind her the whole way. Her and Max only lived fifteen blocks or so from the edge of the park.
She ran until she thought her heart was going to pound its way right out of her chest and her lungs would catch on fire, and at the bottom of the hill, she thought she saw a miracle.
There was a blue Plymouth Neon parked on the side of the street, in front of a house just about a block from the park entrance. The headlights were on and the driver's side door was open, which meant that the keys were in it.
No one seemed to be around.
She didn't know how she had managed to get so far so fast, but she wasn't about to stop now. She became aware of car alarms and screams and groans and breaking glass and all sorts of sounds that reeked of danger to her now. The zombies were still behind her, but some of them had broken off. There were other dangers all around now though. In the short time since she and Max had gone to the park, the world had gone to hell. And what is it like right now in Panama City Beach? she wondered. She tried to imagine the white sandy beaches and green ocean water with dead bodies and blood and zombies, but she couldn't do it.
She closed in on the car only to find that there was a zombie - just inside an open passenger side door in the back seat - busily groaning, while biting and slurping at the entrails of some victim.
In rage, not really thinking, just knowing that she didn't want to walk the entire way, she threw open the back door and stepped back, raising the metal pipe.
The zombie looked up at her, then seemed to grow disinterested and went back to its meal.
Naomi cried out in rage, reared back with her weapon and thrust it in at the creature, hitting it right in the head and knocking it out the other side of the vehicle. It groaned out there on the sidewalk, but didn't get up right away.
With no time to spare, having gained a bit of distance from the mob, but not a whole lot, she jumped in the car - both back doors still hanging open - and drove off toward home.
Nothing fueled her but rage, sorrow, frustration, the desire for revenge. How could he? Why did he do it? He was the one that loved horror movies. He sat there on the edge of his seat. He practically cheered every time there was a convincing spray of blood. And then, when he woke up in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, he pissed himself and ran like a coward for the horizon.
He better hope he didn't go home, she thought.
Half a block from home, the afternoon zombie snack from the back seat sat up and reached for Naomi. She tried to fight it off and drive but there was no use. Drive safe or get bitten and be a mindless undead freak until you rot. Hard choice there, she thought. Naomi tried for the bar, but there was no swinging room. The woman, who looked like your average middle-aged
brunette school teacher (except for the gash missing where her right cheek had once been and the business of her throat having been torn out), was trying desperately to bite wherever she could. It didn't seem to matter to her where.
Naomi elbowed her in the teeth (lucky as hell that there was thick leather between her skin and whatever germs or virus was swimming in the mess of drool, blood and pus drizzling out of that mouth) and then again in the forehead, then reached back and pulled out the wrench she'd picked up earlier and smacked her in the skull with it.
Meanwhile a corner had come up, and they came to a dead halt when the front end collided with a fire hydrant. Had they been going faster or in a bigger car, perhaps they'd have taken the thing out completely and kept going like in the movies, but it just didn't happen that way.
Naomi's head hit the steering wheel an instant before the air bag kicked in and if that didn't knock her unconscious, the wrench in her hand smacking into the side of her head as the air bag forced it backwards did the rest of the job. Luckily for her, the wrench continued backwards and buried itself in the zombie's skull as it was catapulted toward the front of the vehicle.
There was no way of telling how many hours had passed by the time Naomi awoke in the small blue vehicle, covered in black muck, chunks of brain, her own blood, and in a daze.
She forced the door
