Arthur's Last Stand

“Fuck” The bite mark was already turning yellow. “Fuck, Fuck, FUCK!!” Not now... Oh god, not now. Tears mingled with the blood. He closed his eyes. He had been through so much. He opened his eyes again, wiping away the tears. His eyes lost their watery appearance. In its place was a sense of conviction. Calmly, he stood up, hatchet in hand. He could hear them now. His screams attracted them, his blood excited them.

Arthur wasn’t going to be the only one to die.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seven miles north of Atlanta. That’s what the radio said. Seven miles, Arthur thought. The war had taken its toll on Arthur. He was once a fat jolly man, with a short brown beard. If someone were to look at him, the first thought they would have would be, Holy crap that’s the guy from Home Improvement, Al. In reality, Arthur was far less glamorous. He grew up in Georgia and worked as a plumber straight out of high school. He married the daughter of a restaurant owner, and eventually had his own daughter whom he named Kathy. In the few short weeks that the war had lasted, Arthur was a changed man. He was lean, muscles were beginning to show. His once white shirt was stained yellow with sweat and splattered with brown goop. His beard had lost all of its jolliness. It had become ragged and peppered with gray. At his side he wore a hatchet holster he had made out of a leather belt. Oh how that hatchet had helped him. He patted the hatchet as he walked along.

The sky was gray. It had been gray every day for the past month. The grass was beginning to turn brown, shrivel up and die. Arthur walked along the edge of the highway, the grass crunching beneath his boots. Crunch....Crunch....Crunch....He found the sound to be hypnotic, even melodic. Crunch...Crunch...THUD. Arthur stopped and stood still. Thud...Thud...THUD!

“Ourgh”

The first one he had spotted in days. He had made it a habit to stop and kill any that he happened across. It was a hitcher. Some poor sap must have picked up a hitch hiker before he turned. Arthur circled the car, slipping the hatchet out from his belt. It was a Honda Odyssey, obviously built for a family. The back window was covered in stickers that had stick figures of family members; a mother, a father, a daughter... even a dog. He could see the streaks of blood smeared across the windows, he saw hand prints from where they had tried to escape, and he saw the yellow crust of bile. He could still see the outline of a small skeleton in the back seat.

“Ugrough”

It was still in the car, still hungry even after its dinner of three. Four if you include the dog. Its skin hung loose on its bones, hanging like wax. Pale and gray. One eye was fixed on Arthur, following his every move. The other eye was gone, gouged out. What was left seeped this brown bubbly fluid that dripped down its face like molasses. It scratched at the window with bloody nubs leaving even more streaks on the window. Arthur pitied the man. What was left of the man. He tried not to think about it, put a face to the evil. Who was he, what he did before; he tried not to dwell on the past. He tightened his grip on the hatchet and reached for the handle.

“Rouagm...”

He opened the door.

It leaped out like a feral dog to a bone and within seconds it was upon him. It scratched madly as his face, grunting and moaning with what was left of its lungs. Arthur held it by the throat, its jaws snapping madly, trying to taste his sweet flesh. Its one eye glared into Arthur’s as he brought up the hatchet. He looked right into it, right into the yellow bloodshot eye. And he faltered. This was a person... Then he gave himself a mental kick. It WAS a person, not anymore.

The clean metal of the hatchet crushed what was left of the mans head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Mommy said we’re leaving in the morning.” Kathy said, holding a small stuffed animal in her arms.

“Yes honey, we’re leaving tomorrow. Try to put all of your clothes into your Dora the explorer backpack.” Arthur said, messing with Auburn hair. Kathy ducked out of Arthur’s reach.

“Daaad, you know how I hate when you do that.” Kathy said, straitening her hair with her hands. “Can I bring Cuddles?” She asked, looking up at Arthur with her clear blue eyes.

“That won’t work this time.” He said chuckling, “Kathy, honey, please. We can only bring the things we need...”

“And I neeeeeeeeeeed Cuddles.” She said, pulling the stuffed elephant closer to her white nightie.

“Honey we can-‘” He started before he was cut off by a scream from downstairs. He heard the splintering of wood and that incessant moan. He ran out of the room to the top of the stairs just as the front door broke open. They began to pour in, one after another.

“Arthur!” he heard a scream. There. Across the room, on the couch. His wife. He saw them rush towards her, saw them pull at her, saw them...

Arthur screamed sitting up straight, hitting his head on the roof of the car. It was still dark out. Just a dream, he thought.

“Fucking Nightmares.”

The sun didn’t rise in the morning; the sky just turned a lighter shade of gray. He opened the door of the abandoned car that he had slept in, his hatchet already in his hand. Another day, he thought. The last one if he made it four more miles. Arthur had been living on his own for three weeks. He stuck mostly to the side roads, slept in the cars that people left behind. The night before he had thought he struck gold. A camper fully equipped with a stove, a refrigerator, and a radio. He quickly learned, however, that he needed a key to get into and use practically everything. Arthur was about to settle down to sleep when he heard a burst of static from the radio. He fiddled with the knobs, until he heard a voice, loud and clear.

“I repeat this is Thomas Hawkins of Atlanta, Georgia. I’ve made camp about seven miles north of Atlanta with a few survivors. We are well stocked and secured. Any and all survivors are welcome.” Before Arthur could respond, the transmission cut off, and no amount of fiddling would bring back the southern drawl of the other man.

“Four more miles” he said out loud, as if saying made it a reality. He opened his backpack and took out a small can of baked beans and a can opener. After filling himself with the pitiful and cold meal, and washing it down with water, he set off. He occupied his time with trying to remember every word to his favorite book, Robinson Crusoe. It was long and hard, but it filled the time. He was on the fifth chapter. It was better than what he used to do.

In the beginning of his nomadic existence he spent his time remembering his life. He thought of the dead end job he spent seventeen years in, going nowhere. He thought of his seven year old daughter, who still believed in Santa Claus. He mostly thought of his wife, who stuck with him and his mistakes... This of course, led to many breakdowns, many mistakes, many close encounters, and many thoughts of suicide. It still marveled him that he kept going. He had nothing. No home, No family or friends. Not even a damn dog. Why keep going? It questioned him, every few hours as he tried to remember what came after a certain word, why not just sit down here... and wait for the damn things. Join the ranks of mindless.

Instinct taught him to move, even when his own mind had given up.

Arthur stopped around noon, or what he figured was noon. The sun was still hidden behind dark gray clouds. He took out another can of beans and did a quick inventory. Enough for another day, maybe two. He ate the beans silently, thinking, I should nearly be there. He chewed methodically, savoring each bean, each dollop of gravy. He listened to the buzzing of the insects, the chirping of the birds. He found them soothing. He found them useful. If the birds stopped chirping or the insects stopped buzzing, he was ready. He thought of them as Nature’s early warning system. If he couldn’t hear anything, his hatchet would be ready. Silence rarely meant nothing.

It began to snow. Big flakes of gray began to drift down onto the trees, carpeting the already dead grass, landing on the windshields of cars. Snow. At least, that’s what it looked like. Arthur caught a flake with his hand, rubbing it, leaving a smudge of gray. He looked up at the sky, watching it fall, when it hit him.

“Fuuuuuuuccckkk”

It was coming from Atlanta. He could see in the distance the city outlined in red. The city in ashes. Gone. He had known it was bad there, that most were dead...or worse. He didn’t expect the city to go up in flames. He figured the government would save it, for when it was safe again. Then again, he hadn’t heard of any sort of government since the beginning. It was bad news regardless. No city meant no people. No people meant no food for them. No food for them...was a problem. They’d be on the move. He packed up and started on, moving faster than he was moving before. He kept his hatchet out and ready. He passed a car with one of them in it but he kept going. He needed a greater distance between him and them.

He moved so quickly he nearly missed it. A wooden sign, freshly painted, hanging off of the speed limit sign.

PEOPLE THIS WAY à

The sign said, pointing towards the woods next to the highway.

“Thank god,” he said with a sigh, brushing the ash flakes out of his hair. People, he thought, living people. He hadn’t seen any one since...since...no, he couldn’t think about it. He ran into the woods, the camp the only thing on his mind.

He ran straight, following the direction the arrow pointed. He moved so fast through the woods that he missed several things. He missed the log that looked oddly like a decaying body. He missed the insects and birds drift off into silence. He didn’t see the ground that was scrapped and scuffed up, as if something had been dragged through. His mind was only on the possibility of seeing other people.

He could make out the outline of several tents in the distance, bright blue against the background of the forest. He ran faster, ignoring the stitch in his side. He was almost there, almost...

He broke into the clearing. The tents stood in a circle, a fire pit in the center. He looked around, looked for the faces of the people that he would be with, expecting any moment for them to come out of the tents laughing and carrying on as if this war wasn’t going on, as if those damn things didn’t exist. As he waited, he started to notice things. Like the fact the fire pit hadn’t been used, the empty shoe that had some red stain on it, and the large streak of red on one of the tents. His excitement faltered. He finally noticed one of them stumbling in.

His hatchet felt alive, it strained against his hand, wanting to be used. It was a young one, a kid. A girl. A girl with auburn hair...and clear blue eyes. The fight within Arthur faded quickly. He felt a knot in his throat, he tasted bile creeping up.

“Kathy...” he whispered, the hatchet dropping to the floor. She stumbled forward. In the three weeks since Arthur had seen her, she too had changed. Her skin was gray, her mouth hung open. The front of her nightie was rotting away, covered with blood and god only knows what else. Chunks of flesh were missing from her arms. Brown fluid was dripping out, running down her arm, and wrapping itself around her fingers before finally dropping to the ground. She opened her mouth and took in a long breath, a long rattling noise, like wind blowing delicate curtains against sandpaper. Then came he exhale, an inhuman moan that drowned out the silence, drowned out every thought. She lurched forward.

No, he thought, not like this. She couldn’t live...like this. He picked up the hatchet, already blind with tears and stepped forward. This slight movement seemed to flick a switch in his daughter’s brain. Her eyes latched onto Arthur, her upper lip drawn back into a snarl. She rushed forward, teeth gnashing together, swiping with her hands. He tightened his grip on the hatchet. He had a split second to make the decision to raise the hatchet and leave the metal in her head. In that split second, he remembered her face. How she used to climb up onto his lap for stories. How she had to use a stool for the first five years of her life to reach the sink. He thought of the first book she read, green eggs and ham. He thought all of this in that split second. And it was enough to make him hesitate. This was his daughter. In that one moment of weakness the thing that his daughter had become attacked. Instinctively he brought up his arm to defend himself. He felt a brief sense of euphoria, and then blind and utter pain radiated from his arm. He felt needles plunge into his skull, he felt as if salt was being poured into his blood stream. With the little strength he had left, he pushed her back, and swung the hatchet, leaving it embedded in her head. She fell down slowly, to lie still once more.

His arm burned, he could feel his strength ebb away. He took in a deep breath, and then looked. He saw something he had never been able to see before that moment. He could see his bone, gleaming white amidst the torn muscles and ragged flesh.

“Fuck” The bite mark was already turning yellow. “Fuck, Fuck, FUCK!!” Not now... Oh god not now. Tears mingled with the blood. He closed his eyes. He had been through so much. He opened his eyes again, wiping away the tears. His eyes lost their watery appearance. In its place was a sense of conviction. Calmly, he stood up, hatchet in hand. He could hear them now. His screams attracted them, his blood excited them.

Arthur wasn’t going to be the only one to die.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arthur slumped over, tired and damaged. He was so pale. So pale. He couldn’t feel his arm anymore, let alone use it. This feeling of nothingness spread to his shoulders, his chest, legs, feet, neck, and finally his head. He knew he existed, he just didn’t know how. He felt free, tied down only by body.

Arthur laid in the center of the clearing, the dead spread all around him. He shivered. It wasn’t cold. But he was cold. Why was it so cold? He wondered, holding himself as he watched mist cover the ground. So cold....so cold...so...hungry.