Desert Morning

The end of the world was exactly what everyone thought it would be. Zombies. I know, right? Turned out there was this virus, carried in meat, that ate away at your brain until you were basically brain dead but breathing and functional. It turned off the pain receptors and emotional connection parts of the brain.

Zombies.

Go figure.

There were only a select few that were actually prepared for a zombie apocalypse. My aunt was one of them. We’d always written her off as loony, but it turned out that living off the grid and being a vegan saved her life.

When the outbreak first started, my sister and I made our way to her run down shack in the middle of the desert. She spent the first few months in righteous vindication. She taught us how to survive off of what little the sparse landscape had to offer, and showed us how take care of the underground greenhouse she had created.

Eventually, people began to realize that the desert was one of the best places to stay safe from the infected, and they flocked to our little corner of the world. My aunt took in everyone. Started her own little commune, complete with daycare and a weapons stockpile. Everything was as peaceful as it could be, considering the circumstances.

Until Roy showed up.

. . .

“You’ve got to let me in, there’s a hoard of Infected coming and they’re not far behind me!”

Roy was about fifteen. Scraggly, bad acne, braces that we all knew would be on his teeth for the rest of his life.

The two men on gate duty didn’t even question him. They opened the gate just enough to let him slide through, and then locked them up tight. They called in the Guards, our elite group of sharpshooters (mostly deer hunters and amateur marksmen). The only way to guarantee the Infected actually died was to shoot them right between the eyes. There were probably other ways, but that was the quickest.

Sure enough, ten minutes after Roy showed up a group of about fifteen Infected were at our gates. Lockdown commenced, and it took about half and hour to kill them all.

The Disposal Team donned their improvised hazmat suits and began carting the bodies away. We dumped them in a ravine to keep any possibility of the infection spreading to our community.

And suddenly Roy was a part of us.

And suddenly there was conflict.

Kids were getting into fights. Resources were going missing. People seemed to turn on each other at the drop of a hat.

I was on gate duty on the night that everything changed.

. . .

It was a clear night, the stars glittering in the sea of black above me. There was a warm breeze that played with my hair, tickling the back of my neck.

Through the stillness I heard a groan. A small, pained groan.

I looked down the wall and there was nothing outside of the compound. I stilled as I realized it was coming from inside.

Glancing down the stairs, I saw Katelyn. Six years old, bouncing blonde curls. Her eyes were glazed over. She was bleeding from a cut on her arm, but wasn’t in any pain.

My heart raced. I couldn’t touch her.

I raised my rifle, her forehead in my sights.

I couldn’t shoot her.

“Katie, sweetie, can you hear me?”

A small whimper escaped her.

“Come into the room, Katie. I’m going to lock you in here and go get help.”

I rang the bell to wake the council. Groggy eyed and irritated they converged at the bottom of the watch tower. I told them what I’d seen.

“Impossible.”

“It couldn’t be.”

“It can’t happen here.”

“But it is!” I shouted over their protests. “Katelyn is proof. She’s Infected. I don’t know how, but she is. And I’m willing to bet it has to do with the conflicts that have been happening lately.”

“You’re right,” Roy’s voice came from a shadow near the tower.

We all turned to stare at him. Finally, my aunt spoke.

“What have you done?”

“What I needed to do for my clan to survive,” his face darkened. He jumped down and strutted into the middle of our group. “For years there have been small groups of us on the outside of these walls. Clinging desperately to the scraps of safety that they’ve provided. You used to help people like us. But then your gates stopped opening. Food disappeared, and Infected bodies were dumped in the only water source for miles around. Downstream of your compound, of course. It was torture, sitting outside your walls and watching our friends and family succumb to the Infection. And none of you cared. Why would you? You were safe within your little commune. But my people are starving. We’re dying.”

“It’s war, Roy, everyone is dying!” I barked.

His face split into a menacing smile, the steel of his braces glinting in the moonlight.

“Right again. Everyone is dying.”

A litany of groans echoed around the compound.

The children slowly came out of the shadows, legs dragging, eyes unfocused.

I stared at Roy in horror.

Still smiling, he pulled a small golden locket in the shape of a heart from under his shirt. He flipped it open and revealed a vial. I didn’t have to ask to know what was in it.

“The most potent form of the virus known to man. Works within hours,” Roy told me anyway. “All it took was a little bit in tonight’s dinner. Soon, you’ll all be dead.”

At that moment, my stomach flipped and I realized two things. I hadn’t eaten dinner. And I couldn’t save everyone.

Anger churned inside of my chest, bile rose in my throat, black flooded my vision.

I lifted my rifle and in the blink of an eye, Roy was the first to die. Blood pooled on the ground as I stood over his body. I grabbed the locket and ripped it from his neck.

I turned and looked at the council, who were starting to show signs of Infection. My aunt and my sister watched me as their eyes glossed over and they lost all recognition.

I was quickly becoming surrounded. I felt the weight of the rifle in my hands.

I couldn’t save everyone. And I couldn’t risk more Infected going out into the world.

. . .

The gates swung closed behind me as I stepped out into the desert morning. The sun came up on a new day.

I wiped my forehead, and streaks of red painted the back of my hand.

I threw up.

As I was hunched over in the sand, the locket fell out of my pocket. It stared at me, taunting me.

Turns out that the end of the world was exactly what everyone thought it would be.