All Our Tomorrows (28 page)

David leaves Jane in the Tesla. He goes to Doyle’s aid, swinging a metal pipe like a baseball bat.

“Hazel,” he yells above the carnage, calling to me. “We have to go.”

He beckons me to join him, but I can’t leave Steve.

Broken, bloodied bodies lie everywhere. Some dead, others mangled and injured but still wrestling with each other.

I run, jumping from the hood of the car to the back of a parked van, landing with my feet on the bumper. I clamber up onto the roof, kicking against zombies trying to drag me into the horde. From there, I run hard again, leaping onto the back of an SUV. Without breaking my stride, I continue on, scrambling quickly onto the roof of a UPS delivery van, staying just out of reach. Rusting, aging sheet metal flexes and groans beneath my weight.

Blood runs in the gutter like rain after a storm.

There’s only one astronaut still standing—Jackson. His golden visor has been ripped off, and his glass faceplate has been smashed open. Blood sprays across his white spacesuit as he brings his chainsaw down on the head of a fat zombie, carving through its skull and into its chest.

Steve?

Where is Steve?

Zombies kneel over a kill, leaning in from all sides as they feed. Jackson fights to reach Steve. His chainsaw swings, severing two heads with a single blow, and bodies collapse on top of each other.

“Steve!” I yell, running and leaping out into the crowd.

I crash into several zombies, knocking them to the road.

Staying low, I push through the horde as zombies tear at each other. A hand grabs my leg, dragging me backwards and I stumble. Another hand seizes a loose strap on my suit, jerking me to one side, but I pull free. Through the blur of arms, I see Steve lying face down on the concrete road.

The chainsaw is just within reach. I grab it and squeeze the handle. The blood-soaked chain roars to life, spraying bits of soggy flesh into the air.

I scream, bringing the chainsaw down on the back of a zombie crouching over Steve. The jagged blade cuts through the zombie’s shoulder and back, biting into his neck and catching briefly on his spine before tearing through the back of his skull. His head drops to the road and rolls to one side, his teeth still snapping at the air. Dark eyes dart back and forth, not comprehending what has happened to the body.

David reaches me. He swings his metal pipe, collecting a zombie approaching from my left. Doyle has his helmet off. Blood drips from a cut to the back of his head. He fires his pneumatic gun again and again, puncturing zombie skulls with a sudden burst of violence. Blood and brains splatter across the road.

Jackson holds his chainsaw at shoulder height, swinging it horizontally, and slices through another two heads, sending them tumbling to the bloody street, but Zee is overwhelming him. There are too many of them, and they get inside his swing, grabbing at him. Several of them try to tear the chainsaw from his fingers, wrestling for the handle.

David drags Steve over a pile of dead bodies, pulling him off the road and clear of the melee.

Zombies fight with each other, tearing and biting, clawing and slashing.

David helps Jackson, brandishing his metal pipe like a battle ax and crushing the skull of a zombie climbing on Jackson’s back.

I drop to my knees, rolling Steve over. His head lies awkwardly to one side, hunched against the collar ring of his spacesuit.

“Oh, Steve,” I say with tears streaming down my cheeks.

His spacesuit is torn and bloodied. The thick material has protected his arms and legs, but he’s bleeding from a deep bite to the side of his neck.

“Haze,” he says softly, his eyelids flickering. “I—I’m sorry.”

“You just hang in there, you hear,” I say. My lips quiver. Tears drip from the end of my nose. “We’re going to get you out of here. You’re going to be fine.”

I’m lying.

We both know that.

Steve just smiles, letting out a slight laugh. Typical Steve.

I fumble with my left hand, pulling the half empty packet of tablets from a pouch pocket on my thigh.

“Take these,” I say, being forced to use my trembling, bloodied right hand to open the packet.

Steve tries to shake his head, but that makes the bleeding worse. I force a few tablets between his lips. He crunches them beneath his molars, grimacing in pain. Flustered, I push the packet of tablets back into the pouch on my trouser leg.

Jackson has the bulk of the zombies swarming around him. His chainsaw splutters, and it’s hard to tell if it’s becoming jammed or if the battery pack is running down, but the engine sounds as though it could fail at any moment.

Zombies clamber over each other, biting and clawing in a mindless orgy of violence. If they fixated on us, we’d be dead. There’s so many of them, we’d never hold them back, but they’re confused and disoriented, snapping at anything in reach. It’s as though they’re drunk. Their strength is in their numbers, but for now their numbers are negated by the turmoil of infighting. Dismembered arms and legs lie scatted on the ground in a bloody mess.

Somehow, Doyle and David hold back the swell of zombies bearing down on us, but only because the zombies are more focused on each other than us. I barely register that they’re there. My eyes are only for Steve. The growling and snarling fades into the background.

“You’ve got to go, Haze,” Steve says softly. Through thick, gloved hands, he squeezes the fingers on my left hand as I cradle my wounded right hand against my chest.

“I need to get you back to the Tesla,” I say, but as I go to move him, the pressure on his suit collar releases and blood squirts from the bite on his neck. Steve grimaces in pain. I grab at the deep wound, trying to stem the flow of blood, but I can’t. Warm, sticky blood oozes between my fingers.

“Please,” he says. “You have to go.”

“I’m not leaving you,” I say. “I can’t.”

Steve doesn’t reply.

“Don’t you leave me,” I say sternly to him, sniffing and trying to hold back more tears. “You can’t leave me like this.”

His eyes flicker for a moment. Furrows form on his brow. It’s as though he’s carrying some heavy load on his back and he’s faltering under the weight. He clenches his teeth, grimacing, and then suddenly, he relaxes.

“Steve?”

Steve doesn’t look at me. His eyes look through me. It’s as though he’s staring up at the clear blue sky. A slight smile rests on his lips, and I know. I understand. In those final few seconds, he found the peace that eludes us in the apocalypse.

The blood that had been pulsating beneath my fingers slows to a trickle.

“I—I,” I stutter, but words no longer hold any meaning.

I reach out and close his eyes.

Steve’s dead.

I’m numb.

I rest his hand on his chest and get to my feet. My head is bowed, but there are no more tears. Perhaps it’s shock. Perhaps the realization hasn’t sunk in, but I can’t cry for Steve. He wouldn’t want that.

“Haze?” David says, grabbing me by the arm.

“We need to go,” I say, finally heeding Steve’s words. At first, David’s confused. Steve looks so peaceful. He could be asleep or unconscious. Maybe that’s what upsets David, but he sees me turn away, and with that simple act, he knows.

“I’m sorry, Haze.”

Doyle yells, “I’m jammed.”

“Follow me,” David cries, pulling me behind him and making for a gap in the zombies sprawled out along the sidewalk. David moves with a sense of urgency I no longer have.

Jackson’s chainsaw splutters to a halt and he hurls the heavy frame at the closest zombie, but he can’t escape. There are too many of them. He sinks beneath the horde, his white gloved hand grasping at the air as Zee drags him down, clawing at his suit.

So many bodies.

So much carnage.

So much sorrow.

Small skirmishes continue around us as we weave our way back to the Tesla. I’m in a daze. Doyle pushes me on ahead of him. I barely notice as David swings his metal pipe, clearing the way for us.

Several zombies ambling down the hill behind the vet clinic see us. They run. Others break away from the melee and charge after us as we reach the Tesla. My body and my mind are two separate entities. My body continues on even though my mind would have me collapse in a heap on the street. My thick boots stumble over rubble strewn on the road.

Jane is in the back of the car. I tumble onto the floor of the Tesla beside her. She’s conscious, sitting up and leaning against a support pillar, reloading a magazine with trembling fingers. David takes a handgun from her lap. It’s only then I see the bodies lying on the far side of the Tesla. Jane’s held her own against Zee.

The floor of the Tesla is littered with tablets still wrapped in their foil packets. David must have emptied his pockets before he came for me. He must have wanted to ensure some good came from this even if none of us survived. He had to know Ajeet and the others would eventually recover the Tesla and find the tablets.

David stands on the open door frame beside Jane, leaning over the roof of the car and firing. The rapport should be deafening, but I barely notice each crack of gunfire as David unloads a full clip into the zombies charging at us.

“Get us out of here,” David yells as Doyle climbs in the front of the car. He’s badly injured. Blood runs from a gash on the side of his head.

We accelerate smoothly but slowly. It’s the weight. The battery is losing charge, and the Tesla is carrying four people this time, not two. I watch as fence palings pass slowly by the open doorway. I could run faster than this.

Jane hands David another clip and he continues firing, and then there’s a dead man’s click.

“I’m out.”

Jane can’t reload fast enough. Her trembling fingers keep dropping bullets on the floor of the Tesla.

Zee runs up to the opening beside me where once a door sat on hinges. Fingers grab at the frame of the car, and suddenly I’m shaken out of my lethargy by necessity. Steve has not died in vain, I tell myself as I lash out with my boots, crushing blackened fingers against the rim of the car, and Zee falls away, rolling on the concrete behind us.

“Come on,” Doyle yells, willing the Tesla to go faster.

Our speed increases and the zombies drop off, staggering behind us, snarling and howling.

David keeps a firm hold on the rim of the car as he lowers himself back inside and tends to Jane. I have my back to Doyle, facing the bloody intersection. I can see them—these inhuman creatures, these dark monsters from our nightmares. For me, they’ll always be Zee—a ravenous horde. And yet the mystique is gone, as has the fear. They’re not the undead. They’re wild animals, vicious predators driven by primal instincts.

There’s so much that went unsaid between Steve and I, so much I wanted to say but never did. And then suddenly, it was too late. I feel angry. Cheated. I never got to tell Steve that I love him. I’m sure he knew, but he never heard those words pass from my lips, and now he’s gone. Dead.

Even in those last few seconds, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I love him. And the reason is stupid. It’s so silly and childish it makes me hate myself. I couldn’t tell him because I was selfish. To have told him then would have been to admit he was dying, and I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t bring myself to accept Steve would die there on a desolate street amidst the massacre of hundreds of zombies.

Steve was supposed to be there for all our tomorrows, that’s what he promised. And I can still picture him as we lay in bed that first night back in the old house on the hill. I can hear the tenderness in his voice. I can feel the soft touch of his fingers, the warmth of his body. I guess, deep down, I wanted that moment again. That’s what kept me from telling him I loved him as his life faded before me.

I left Steve out there, and that realization makes me sick. Steve deserved better than being left on the roadside as carrion. After he died, I should have dragged him out of there, but I couldn’t. My body was so weak it was all I could do to blindly follow Doyle. One step after the other was all I could manage, and yet I cannot help but chastise myself for not being stronger, for not being better.

If only I’d acted quicker. If only I’d realized the extent of his wounds. I should have improvised. I could have made a pressure bandage, but with what? The reality is, I was in shock. I watched him bleed out feeling helpless instead of trying to do something to save him. Deep down, I understand I’m blaming myself for something I could never have stopped. Steve wouldn’t want me to do that to myself, but it doesn’t feel right to accept what happened. Waves of guilt wash over me.

Why is life so harsh? Why must time push on? Why can’t we live through these moments again? Why can’t we make different choices? Heartache endures when hope fails. Reality conspires against me. I feel crushed by the weight of my bloody, torn spacesuit. I feel dejected, defeated.

Doyle focuses on driving.

David tends to Jane.

No one’s paying me any attention, and that’s fine. I need to be alone. There’s something I need to say.

With a heavy heart, I whisper, “I love you.”

No one hears but me. And those words drift on the breeze, floating back toward the intersection where Steve lies dead on the cold, hard concrete.

Tears roll slowly down my cheeks.

As difficult as it is, I know this is the end. Finally, we can win this war. We can protect ourselves from turning. We can target their leaders and turn Zee to fight each other. This is the high water mark, the point at which the tide finally turns. From here, we can push them back. From now on, it is Zee that’s on the run, not us. Steve’s death has not been in vain.

Zee disappears into the distance, growing smaller as the Tesla races on over the rough, concrete road, past weeds growing up through the cracks, and I finally understand. All our tomorrows stem from this one day—the day we learned to defeat Zee.

For me, this is a day of sorrow, but for humanity, it’s a day of victory. Either way, this is a day no one will forget.

The End

Afterword

What We Left Behind
and
All Our Tomorrows
are stories that capture what it means to be human in the midst of chaos and heartache.