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Water drips slowly from rusty pipes located along the ceiling in a dark, dreary-looking cafeteria. The exposed metal pipes on the ceiling creak uncomfortably as it adjusts to the high temperatures of the dry season. Dusty green plastic tables and chairs are stacked high against various doors and entrances, presumably done after the outbreak to barricade or at least slow down the endless hordes. Occasional shuffling can be heard, and we see two people tossing and turning in their makeshift beds of cardboard on the bare concrete, trying to fall asleep despite the heat.
A frustrated sigh is heard. It was from him.
She looks to her side at her companion. How many days or weeks has it been since the outbreak? She honestly lost count after Day 126. She was with him the day it happened, but their love seems like a distant memory now. Unbridled chaos ruled the streets and she could still hear the screams from that night. It’s funny how an event of this magnitude makes everything else look small and shallow.
Electricity and water were the first to go, then the cell towers were next, leaving no direct way to contact their families. It’s a good thing radio still works somehow and that they had acquired a small radio from one of the old street shops they looted. Suddenly after days of mindless wandering and moving about restlessly, she found a little piece of hope in that cryptic radio message.
-- .- -.- .- - .. .-.-.- / ... - .-. --- -. --. .... --- .-.. -.. .-.-.- / -.. --- -.-. - --- .-. ... .-.-.- / -.-. .- -. / -.-. ..- .-. . .-.-.- / ... .- ..-. . .-.-.-
The beeps and sounds had been repeating themselves for almost a week now at a previous news radio 630kHz. It was only a few days later that they both pieced together it was morse code. From this, they learned about the possibility of a stronghold or even a cure only a few kilometers southeast from where they were.
At the moment, they were camped out in a musty cafeteria in an abandoned school, waiting for the sun to rise before heading to their destination as it was safer to do so. The place was mostly raided, but luckily they got to swipe a few cans of pork and beans for their supplies.
He opens his eyes and turns to look at her. He notices the tiredness behind her eyes and the weariness in her movements lately, making her appear half-dead. It was a godsend the radio message came when it did. He was starting to lose hope any of this will ever end. His hand creeps closer to hold hers, but she flinches and moves her hand away.
Another frustrated sigh. This time from her.
He knows it’s hard to think about matters of the heart when survival is always on their minds. It was always “later” or “not now”, or even worse, utter silence. Small arguments grow larger and simple misunderstandings turn twisted. Time was a luxury nowadays and so was privacy. One couldn’t be away for too long from the other for fear of getting ambushed, yet why does he feel so alone?
There used to be a time where she was all he thought about and he was all she cared for. Did their love disappear the moment their lives had taken a turn? Or was it never strong enough to endure something like this in the first place? There were so many questions he wanted to ask her, but it was never the right time.
Before they knew it, hours had passed and it was time to go.
As the sun rose high in the sky, so did they. They packed their makeshift beds, the little radio from the street shop, and their other supplies, double checking around the room to see if they could get something else to ease their journey.
He carefully opens the gate of the abandoned school and looks outside before stepping out and beckoning her to follow his lead. Despite the obvious tension between them, they had to trust each other when traversing outside where a lot of dangers lurked.
It wasn’t just the undead they had to watch out for.
They walk side-by-side in relative silence. Their eyes and ears on high alert in case of any indication of danger. They finally arrive at a familiar road where multiple monochrome factories and buildings lined up both sides. No building seems different from each other, except maybe the factory at the end of the road with its gigantic self-advertising billboards. The road still strongly smelled of coffee despite the months these factories have been unused and empty.
As they edge closer to the middle of the road, she sees a moving figure at the corner of her vision. She suddenly stops her walk and he notices. He looks to where her attention is drawn and immediately crouches into a defensive position in front of her.
The moving figure goes closer to them. It was an old woman smiling. The old woman looks like she went through hell with a layer of dirt and grease on her and her unkept hair that looked like it hasn’t seen a comb in forever but otherwise, somehow, alive.
He instinctively relaxes after realizing the old woman wasn’t one of them, but still a little tense since this was strange. He doesn’t know who else figured out the code over the radio about the stronghold or settlement. He knows he must be careful dealing with this situation.
She feels sorry for the old woman. She doesn’t look like she’s been with anyone who could take care of her since the outbreak. It was a wonder the old woman was still alive. She smiles back at the old woman and steps in front of him, surprising him at the sudden action. The old woman indicates this as a sign of peace and moves a little closer to them.
The old woman offers them her humble bag of supplies consisting of various canned goods and a first aid kit and regrettably tells them she knows she doesn’t have much time to live and she’d rather help other people than let the supplies rot with her as well.
The old woman bids them farewell. She looks at peace.
Before she leaves, she says, “I’m glad you still have each other’s love in all of this.”
Do we? They both think to themselves as they start walking again to their destination, leaving the smell of coffee and the old woman behind. With both of their minds preoccupied, they didn’t notice they were already going in circles.
They’re lost. That much they knew already. Frustration and fatigue start building up.
She blames him for not reading the street signs correctly and he blames her for getting too distracted and forgetting to double check where they’ve been.
While they were both distracted arguing, they hear groaning noises nearby and come across a horde of zombies that immediately took notice of their arguing. He puts out a hand to grab her arm and yells at her to run the opposite direction, but they were cut off by another hoard that followed them from where they came from. They had no choice, but to fight their way out of this.
He brings out his pistol and begins shooting at the undead, while she gets the machete from her backpack to swing at anything that gets too close. Slowly, they were winning. With a deafening screech, a zombie leaps from the horde and claws at him but he learns later that he shot it a millisecond too late. The final zombie drops dead at his feet as he sighs a breath of relief.
“Finally, it was over,” he thinks as he approaches her to ask if she was okay. She huffs and shoo’s him away, turning away from him with a puff.
His shoulders drop from the cold display as she refuses to look at him, but he shrugs it off already a little used to that kind of behavior from her. In the corner of his eye, he sees movement. He turns quickly at the rustling and points his pistol at the intruder.
A young man, almost a teenager it seems like, puts his hands up. The young man says he came in peace and wandered to where the noise was to see if anyone needed his help.
He glares at this suspicious figure and finds his reason faulty, since this young man only revealed himself when everything was over.
She pats his shoulder and tells him to relax and says he’s just a child, but his senses tell him something is off.
She sends the young man a small smile and tells him they were alright and asks him if he has anyone with him. The young man shifts a little on his feet, averts his eyes, and says he and his group have makeshift camp just a ways off from where they were.
With her insistence and nudging, they follow the young man to his camp. It didn’t take much for him to be convinced, since he felt the weariness in his bones from their already long journey, but it doesn’t mean he trusts the young man yet.
They approach a decrepit-looking building with the initials MCS on the outside. When they carefully stepped inside, it was full of moldy walls, dirty-tiled floors, and multiple staircases and broken escalators, already worn down from age and use.
Inside, there were a number of small stores clumped together that used to sell cell-phone accessories, fake DVDs, and what used to be vibrantly colored clothing that’s now covered in dust and mold. It seems this building was already pulling apart at the seams, but somehow still looks intact enough to protect its inhabitants from outside elements.
The deeper inside they went as they followed the young man, the darker it seemed to go. All of their senses seem to scream at them. This was a trap.
With that realization, the young man sprung at them with a sharp knife, targeting her first. She puts her arms up and tries to duck away, but her arm gets snagged by the knife making her release a piercing scream.
He lunges at the young man, enraged at his betrayal, and quickly knocks the knife out of the young man’s experienced hands.
He quickly realizes the young man has done this before; lure an unsuspecting person into this building, gain their trust by acting innocent, then murders them in cold blood to survive off of their resources.
The sounds of struggle gain the attention of a wandering zombie that somehow quietly followed them from the outside.
She groans as she picks herself up and notices the undead stumbling to where they were. She cradles her heavily bleeding arm to her chest, scrambling for a hard object to bash the zombie with.
She gets a metal water bottle from her bag, puts all her strength into the swing, and forcefully smashes the side of its head with a resounding bang. While falling, the zombie stumbles into her and they both crash to the ground. It snarls half-heartedly at her and as she squirms underneath it, she feels more pain with her injured arm as the zombie swipes at it before it finally dies from another swing to the head.
She collapses from exhaustion on the ground. She turns her head to the right and sees the young man’s lifeless eyes staring at her. She swallows a sob that creeps up her throat, but it doesn’t stop her eyes from tearing up. She will never get used to seeing dead bodies.
She looks away from it as her companion lifts the dead zombie off of her and helps her up. He rubs her back as she cries in his arms. He knows it’s been hard on her and that unless this disease is somehow cured and everything goes back to normal, it will always be hard for her. But it’s in times like these that he feels the most useful to her.
Once they finally catch their breath, they look around to loot as much as possible from the bottom up before continuing their journey starting. In the basement of the abandoned building, they stumble upon an untouched and hidden gun range shop. They quickly break in and see rows of unused guns and bullets; an apocalyptic wonderland. They stocked up as much as they could carry, which wasn’t much since she was injured and he was still a little beaten up from the fight.
After making sure they got their supplies restocked, they emerge from the old building, feeling a little different, and press on. Maybe feeling a little closer to each other this time, a little more serene.
A few hours after walking, they decide to go into a tall building and go up the rooftop to scout their location and see if they’re even close enough to their destination.
With one big push to the metal door that leads to the rooftop, the strong winds swoop in and they are met with a bare, but spacious rooftop.
Stepping out some more, they finally see it in the distance; the stronghold. It bore tall walls of metal and wood with multiple outposts and guards lining it. They can also vaguely hear sounds of human life from within its walls. They didn’t think it was possible to even exist, yet there it is proving their doubts wrong.
His eyes grow wide with renewed purpose, about to head down the stairs and dash towards its gates when she shakily catches his arm and shakes her head.
He asks what’s wrong, but instead of saying anything, she shows him her bloodied arm. The veins had bulged angrily and turned a purplish red hue, surrounding the deep scratch she had endured from the undead she fought off in the abandoned mall from before. It was the telltale signs of infection.
He gently holds her arm in shock as tears sprung from his eyes, blurring his vision. He can’t hear anything, but he knows she’s shushing him, trying to console him. Her other arm holds him, attempting to comfort him and encourage him to finish the journey without her. They have already gone this far. At least one of them should finish it.
He can’t imagine leaving her behind. He feels delirious and feverish. Odd.
Her eyes scan him and she sees a small sliver of dried blood on his hand, the veins turning a purplish red as well. It’s easy to miss.
Speechless, she nudges him, getting his attention, and points to his hand. He chokes out a laugh when he sees it.
Suddenly, every argument seems so dumb when facing death. They both wish they had been more patient, more kind, more loving.
She starts sobbing hysterically, suddenly screaming at the sky it was unfair and cursing at God one last time. Her desperate screams and sobs fall on deaf ears. No one is listening.
He tries to calm her by holding her, not knowing what to say now that they’re possibly minutes away from turning into monsters. His eyes shed tears as he listens to her curses and screams.
When all they can hear is their troubled breathing, they both look at the ledge and share an understanding look. They refuse to turn into them.
So together, they fell. They close their eyes and lean their heads together as they plummet down with their hands clutching tight around each other. Somehow, time feels slow and everything else feels distant. They only know each other.
His face feels wet.
Are the tears from her? No, they were his.
He tries to hold her tighter, but his frame shakes. His body betrays him, he’s scared.
They give each other one last look as their eyes close, wanting the last thing they see is each other. Their final moment together unstained by the reality of their death.
Two resounding cracks are heard then silence.
FIN.