The Lost Heart!

“WATCH OUT!” came a grizzly shout from my right. Panting, I stole a glance and saw a horde of Immutants screaming down the alley way. There screeches and flailing of arms made my hair stand on ends.

Turning my head I raced down the dark, grungy, alleyway and hopped the fence, sweat and blood drenching everywhere. The screeches getting unmistakably louder.

I stole another glance at the zombified horde behind me. They are stacking up on each other, trying to get over the metal fence now. Shriveled black hands stretching to grab my face and rip my brain out. The rancid putrid smells of decaying flesh, and not a single spark of humanity left in their empty pale eyes. This is the world now.

If it were 2008, I would have given Usain Bolt a run for his money.

“Damn it! They’re breeding!” I notice more than the usual run of the mill Immutants.

I finally caught up to Mason, my roommate and best friend since childhood. Also, the angel on my shoulder keeping the devil at bay. He was the grizzly, warning voice.

“You idiot!”, he lovingly protests. “Do you realize that you were almost eaten by a bunch of Immutants.”

“Oh, no. I thought I was just running with the local New Yorkers in the ‘Death Day Marathon’ going on today,” I sniggered.

“Shut your mouth!” came his reply as he tried to take a swing at me.

He loved showing his affection to others by using them as a punching bag.

Dodging his attacks, “I get attacked by Immutants and now you? Man, this day keeps getting better,” I smiled.

He finally gave up and settled on a demonic stare my way. I just smiled even more!

We looked at the horde again and they were still stuck behind the fence but starting to get close to the top. The stack getting bigger and bigger as more zombies came down the ally.

“We better get out of here”, I advised.

Mason brought the armored bus around and made sure that everything was ready to go. All the ammo, guns, and doomsday tools were stocked and ready. Once we were in, Mason started the bus and headed for home base and the horde sounds slowly die out. We got on the highway, strewn with abandon and rundown cars to the only haven in New York…Ellis Island.

It has been 45 years since this mess started. That is what one, little virus can do to a whole civilization. Many called it The Second Coming. Some, the New Plague! But it was known around the world as Covid-19 Pandemic, a.k.a Corona Virus.

Covid shut everything down from March 2020 to March of 2021. Everyone was locked in doors, wearing face masks, and scrubbing their hands with hand-sanitizer. It wasn’t until months later; a vaccine was created.

Many decided to receive this unknown vaccine. However, there were groups of people who never trusted the government, thinking that the vaccine was a way to spy on the population or infect society with some form of super virus. Well, the later happened to be correct.

A year after Covid lockdown ended, people decided to get vaccinated and not long after that, people started showing symptoms of aggression, skin change, and mutations. It started out gradually. You would not have noticed it. But as time went on, your body would to a deformed version of your old self. The final and most painful symptom is when your brain turned into mush and the individual loses all trace of humanity and turns into a full-fledged zombie.

That is why we call them the Immutants. All who got vaccinated turned into these things at one point or another. They ended up spreading the virus to those who did not get it!

So, we few who did not get the vaccine have been in survival mode ever since. That is why, you never trust ANNYTHING! Even if it is your own government.

“We lost Jake and Chloe today to the Immutant virus,” Mason sadly exclaimed after driving an hour in silence through the ruined city of New York. “That last attack on the army base in New Jersey to resupply on guns and ammo made us lose many people that day.”

There was a slight pause in his voice. I knew what he was ready to say, but it still did not make it any better. I clutched at my chest instinctively. Feeling my heart begin to get heavy.

“We still cannot find Beth either,” he finally let out.

I knew the information, but I never liked hearing it.

I pulled the heart-shaped locket dangling around my neck and opened the heart to see a small picture of the love of my life smiling back at me. Bethany is my high school sweetheart. We new each other ever since 5th grade and we fell in more in love as time went on.

We got married soon after graduating from college, but that was when this who crap fest of the end of the world started.

Bethany and I went on a scavenger trip in Brooklyn for supplies and that was when a horde of Immutants and infected dogs, known as Muttants, raided the area. Many people got separated from each other in the ensuing chaos and that is when Beth and I got split up.

That was 6 months ago. And since, then I have never been able to find her.

But I am not giving up.

“We’ll find her,” I promised Mason, more to myself though.

"I know you will!” Mason replied.

Suddenly, the bus shook violently as we were coming up to the bridge towards Ellis Island.

“What the Hell!” Mason roared.

Coming around the corner of one of the buildings came an ungodly number of Immutants screeching and running at the bus. Apparently the first few hit the right side of our bus and almost flipped it over.

I stuck the locket back in my shirt, grabbed the AK-47 and started shooting out the windows.

“KEEP DRIVING!” I yelled.

“I KNOW. I AM TRYING. THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY OF THEM.”

The horde of Immutants were surrounding the bus and every zombie we killed or ran over started to slow the bus down.

“MASON,” I looked around towards him, “WE NEED TO GET TO THE EDGE OF THE WATER!”

The zombies were going to overrun us. I kept shooting everyway I could. The glass was breaking on all the windows.

“I’LL TRY!”

He veered the bus to the edge of the lake and started to make his way to the edge of the lake. I went to the back of the bus, grabbed the machine gun, opened the exit door in the back and let loose.

“WE’RE ALMOST THERE,” Mason roared.

I kept the gun right on the back door. Bullets pelting zombies like launching roman candle in the sky.

Forty meters… thirty meters… twenty... ten...!

Then…just before the bus splashed into the water…I saw her. The only woman that tied me to this world. She was in the back where the Immutants came out of. She was there, standing still, looking toward my direction…shriveled black skin and bloodshot eyes.

For a second, I thought I saw tears in her eyes. Or was it mines? I forgot to keep my finger on the trigger/ Hands grabbed at me just as the water came rushing in. One found the nape of my neck and pulled the heart-shaped locket off.

As I was being pulled away, I saw Mason looking back under water in hopelessness for me! As the heart-shaped locket drifted down to the bottom of the sea. Just as my heart finally knew, I would be with Beth again!