First Date During The Apocalypse

Victor hides in an alleyway. The young man peaks his head around the corner to survey the area around his destination. A relatively untouched supermarket sits off in the distance. In his line of sight, he can see dozens of abandoned cars littering the streets between him and his destination. Some are just waiting patiently in parallel parking spots for owners who will never return, some are stopped at intersections with their doors wide open and abandoned, and others are unceremoniously plowed into the sides of buildings, onto sidewalks, and turned over every which way.

“Alright, everything looks all clear so far,” Victor murmured to himself.

The cause of such wreckage was the day the world turned upside down, and the dead began to rise and infect the living. Zombies, the quintessential form of the undead shook the foundation of our daily life to its core. Like most zombie situations, the problem started small and then grew exponentially out of control. Unlike most zombie situations though, this world was safeguarded by heroes. Heroes like Victor Rush who help people in need even at the end of the world.

“I don’t want to tire myself out. I only have a few energy bars left while Ani tries to make more. So let’s take this nice and slow.”

Victor sneaks out from around the corner with a bit of a limp and starts to skulk quietly through the empty city streets. Because Victor has an odd gait to his movements, his metal-plated, green, leather super-suit thumps and clinks lightly against his body as he jogs down the street toward his destination. Light City used to be a vibrant metropolitan area before the outbreak happened. It was so full of life and love, heartache and sorrow, pain, and joy. To see it now as a desolate shell of its former self weighs on Victor. He can still remember all the good and bad times he had while fighting for the people of Light City.

The light taps of Victor’s shoes are the only ambiance to keep him company, which is honestly better than the alternative of the moans and groans of the undead. Victor whips his head left and right as he jogs through the intersection right before the supermarket. More of the same, with cars in various positions of degradation. One vehicle to his right still had someone inside of it, or at least what was left of them. Victor tried not to focus too much on any of the horrors, if only for today. Because today was a special day. Five hundred more feet and he was at the supermarket.

Victor was able to make it to the supermarket parking lot without any trouble. The lot was about half full with cars in various conditions much like the city streets. Grocery carts were scattered about as well with contents ranging from mere crumbs to carts full of rotten food. The outbreak which started several weeks ago had hit the cities the roughest, but the fleeing people brought the hordes of the undead with them clearing a lot of the city space out. There were undoubtedly stragglers to keep an eye out for though, something Victor was a little too familiar with.

The parking lot also seemed fairly abandoned. Victor swears he can hear some groaning off in the distance but if he is in and out quickly then it should be no problem. The man approaches the sliding doors of the grocery store, which of course don’t open. Victor takes a moment to manually pry open the grocery store door. The door makes a loud screeching noise as Victor moves it up its rusted track. Victor turns around to see if that caught the attention of any hidden undead. Other than the distant groaning he had heard before, everything seemed clear. Victor went into the grocery store. He contemplated shutting the door behind him but figured since there were no zombies outside, it was best to have an escape route in case zombies are wandering around inside the store.

Victor moved through the supermarket, limping occasionally. His right leg has been a source of trouble for him the past couple of weeks, but nothing he couldn’t handle as he traversed through the dimly lit store. Aisle after aisle picked clean outside of some odd items here and there. Victor quietly chuckles at the thought of everyone, even at their most desperate, ignoring the same items until they become rancid or rotten. Before long, Victor finally makes it to the area of the store he was searching for.

The wine and liquor section, like the rest of the store, was picked clean. It may be the end of the world as we know it, but that’s no excuse to stop drinking. Some would probably say that’s more of a reason to drink. Victor knew a few people like that. This outbreak took a toll on some of his fellow heroes. Victor didn’t drink much, despite everything, but this was a special request he was trying to fulfill which meant he had to try. He kept searching, but shelf after shelf came up empty.

“I might have to try a different store another day. I probably shouldn’t have sounded so confident that I could do this,” Victor said, scouring past busted bottles of booze.

Victor hops over the counter at the wine and liquor station. Toward the back wall, there is a metal door with no windows, presumably the door to the storeroom where more alcohol waited to be stocked on shelves if it wasn’t already gone. Underneath the counter, there are some cabinets. Victor scoured through the cabinets for the prize he had in mind, but they all came up empty. All save for one.

In one of the cabinets there lay a small brass key. “Don’t mind if I do.”

Victor snatched the key from the cabinet. Victor takes the key he found to the storeroom door, and like a dream, the door unlocks. The door creaks as it is pushed open, but Victor doesn’t mind because on the other side of the storeroom door lay cases upon cases of various wines and liquors. Brands, brews, and concoctions of all kinds adorn the storeroom.

“Here’s hoping someone filled out their order sheet correctly.”

Victor searches through box after box. He looks over bottle after bottle to try and find the requested item. After a few minutes, Victor figured out the basics of how the storeroom was organized and was able to limit his search to a small section. Scanning past the boxes in this now-limited area, Victor finally found what he was looking for, a crate of Merlot wine bottles. The box was a little high up and required Victor to get on his tippy toes. Doing so was a little difficult to do while Victor was still getting used to his right leg. Stretching and reaching, Victor grabbed a hold of the box and began pulling it from the shelf.

A nearby loud groan caught Victor off guard causing him to lose his grip of the box and sending it crashing to the ground. Victor, with super-fast reflexes, caught the box when it was about two feet from crashing down. The box’s bottom dropped out suddenly, and the bottles of Merlot wine inside all started dropping out which creates a cacophony of shattering glass and sloshing wine. Victor’s eyes were closed while the bottles hit the floor. Without looking at the mess that was made he turned to look at the shelf. There were no other boxes of Merlot wine left in the storeroom.

Victor sighed, “Maybe I can vacuum up what I dropped.”

Victor looks down. He was startled to find there was a single bottle that was completely unscathed sitting atop a mound of its broken counterparts. Victor lifts the bottle off the ground to see if there was any hidden damage. No cracks or leaks. Someone or something was looking out for Victor today.

The groan from before sounds off again. Victor hobbles over to the storeroom door and saw a zombie lurching over the counter and reaching toward him. Following this zombie’s groan, Victor could hear a few more asynchronous groans from the direction of the store’s entrance.

“All the noise I made coming in must have attracted them.”

Victor looks at the zombie in front of him, then down at the bottle of wine in his hands, then finally back to where the other groans were coming from. He digs a pouch on his right hip and pulls out what looks like an energy bar.

“Sorry, Ani, I know these are hard to make nowadays, but this is important.”

Victor consumes the bar in his hands and perks up almost instantly. His eyes are practically shining as he grips the bottle tightly and then starts his superspeed sprint. Running at superspeed takes a lot of energy that Victor most easily acquires by eating large amounts. These special energy bars Victor’s sister Ani makes give him enough energy to maintain his speed for a decent amount of time.

Time around Victor appears to slow, Victor effortlessly leaps over the counter, leaving the lurching zombie none the wiser that he even left. Victor zips down and through the aisles the way he came and sure enough, the entrance to the supermarket now had four zombies around. Their already slower movements are made nearly imperceivable by the speed Victor is moving right now. The green blur effortlessly jukes past each of the four zombies on his way out of the supermarket and shuts the door behind him trapping the undead inside.

In no time flat, Victor makes it back to a rendezvous point he agreed to meet up at. It’s an old studio apartment that’s seen better days. There’s a massive hole in the wall and whatever created it left a layer of dust so thick that everything is a shade of dusty gray. Victor comes inside and slows down. The man pulls off his mask, revealing his short, curly, brown hair and dark-brown eyes. He takes in a deep breath before setting the bottle on the dusty counter. He reaches up into one of the cabinets and pulls out two pieces of mismatched drinkware: one traditional-looking wine glass and the other a copper mug.

Victor carefully pours the Merlot into the wine glass and fills it a little under halfway. He fills the copper mug with less care. Right as he finishes pouring the wine, a lion with wings lands in the middle of the apartment. It peers at Victor with its deep indigo eyes. Victor stares back with a faint smile and a blank look before snapping out of it.

“Oh right, sorry, Catherine.”

Victor closes his eyes. The winged lion’s shape twists and contorts until it resembles a human woman. She reaches underneath the couch in the apartment and pulls out a sweatshirt and sweatpants. She puts them on.

“You’re good. Did your leg give you any trouble?”

“Not while I was running, which is all that matters,” Victor said while opening his eyes and smiling. He takes both drinks to meet Catherine at the hole in the wall where she is sitting with her legs dangling over the edge. Victor hands her the glass of Merlot and his mug before unhooking some pieces on his right leg so he can take off his prosthesis before joining her at the ledge.

He sits next to her, taking the mug.

“Thank you,” Catherine says sweetly.

“It’s our first date since the outbreak started. It should be as special as possible.”

Catherine nests her head in the crook of Victor’s neck and intertwines her fingers with Victor's, then sips her wine.

“I love you too.”

Victor kisses her forehead. The Sun lowers in the distance, bathing the couple in brilliant orange-red light.