The Last Day:

Or why you don't let your woman down during the zombie apocalypse.

    *

       Life over the past month and a half had been perfect. The trip to Florida after graduation had been near blissful.  Panama City Beach may not quite be the spring break capitol anymore, but for summer vacation it had been a great time. Naomi and Max had gone to see the dolphins at Gulf World, ridden the roller coasters at Six Flags, been on the glass bottom boats, water-skied, scuba-dived,  and ate just about everything which dwelled in the ocean that could be eaten at various seafood restaurants. And then, to top off a perfect vacation, they'd gotten married on the beach, overlooking the gulf.

       After all of that Naomi had not been looking forward to coming back home. Upstate New York had always held nothing more for her than boredom, misery and fear of eternal failure. And let's not forget the fear of forever being trapped there. She'd wanted to stay in Florida. Perhaps all of that was in her head, though. She had started a new life with Max. Maybe she should just let those things go and see how things went. She wanted so much to just believe that things were going to be fine. Didn't it look that way?

       Her cheeks blushed as she looked at Max and thought of how perfect he was. Her exact thought was a memory of him holding her on the bed in their suite in Panama City Beach, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico - post love making - and telling her that they would be together forever.

       He turned to her just in time to catch the color on her cheeks and the look on her face and asked her what she was thinking. He had been looking out at the city, if you could call it that. The sun was about ten or fifteen minutes from setting and he'd been off in his own little world.

"Nothing." She lied. She couldn't verbalize what it was that she was thinking. She was too close to it. He was so perfect, so close to everything that she had ever wanted. He was her prince; her knight in shining armor.

       So long she had dreamed that there would be someone in this God-forsaken place that would be hers. Someone who could make it all seem worth it. And here he was right in front of her. And he was real. It made her feel all giddy inside.

       She was about to just reach out and grab him, squeeze him and kiss him with all of her might just because she could when a scream rang out from somewhere behind her.

       Max jumped to his feet.

       Naomi turned quickly in the direction of his gaze.

       No more than five hundred yards from the hill where they'd made their picnic, both of their eyes were drawn to the rapid movement of a running dog, a big one; a Rottweiler, by the looks of it. Then their eyes were drawn to a woman, directly in the path of the running animal. As they watched on helplessly, the physically fit beauty jogged on, unaware, in a skin tight blue outfit that matched the baby carriage she was pushing along at a dizzying rate, - hips swinging to the beat of whatever music pumped through the headphones of the mp3 player she had strapped to her waist.

       The scream had come from an elderly woman a short distance away who also could see the dog's target. And there were more shouts now, though no one moved to get between the dog and the woman. Not even for the sake of the child. Naomi watched on helplessly as the power walking mom, moved on oblivious, while an elderly man just across the path shouted at her to get out of the way.

       She kept on pushing the stroller, hips swinging, eyes half closed, only half aware of her surroundings.

       Naomi could hear the vicious growling now. She could see how mangy the dog looked. She could see that it was foaming at the mouth. Most likely it was rabid or something. She took a step forward, but realized quickly that there was nothing she could do. Her hand went to her mouth in a helpless gesture to stifle a scream and tears poured from her eyes as she watched the dog leap through the air and take the woman down; probably just because she was the fastest moving thing in the immediate vicinity.

       Two fairly large men, walking different directions on a path which ran adjacent to the sidewalk for a short distance were stopped dead in their tracks as the woman screamed at the top of her lungs. The dog jerked back and forth and the woman went with it – body rag-dolled up and back. And then the carriage tipped and the baby came spilling out onto the pavement, screaming bloody murder.

       Naomi wanted to scream out in horror. She wanted to scream in rage at the men and women who just stood by watching and doing nothing. Didn't they realize that the dog might go for the child next? Even if they cared nothing for the woman, surely they should be thinking of the child. And what of themselves: Did they think they were safe? But, then again, what was she doing?

       The woman wasn't screaming anymore, Naomi realized. The dog had stopped tearing at her. It turned its head and was looking at the screaming child now.

       Finally someone became involved.

       Of the ten or so people in the immediate vicinity, one man had the courage to do something, it seemed.

       One of the men, a rather well built individual in a black t-shirt and blue jeans, hesitated only briefly before running in and leaping on top of the large dog before it could get to the child.

       An old lady – the one whose screams had first drawn Naomi's attention – ran in and snatched up the screaming baby.

       Things seemed to be making a turn for the better.

       Two men from the nearby path, ran in and tried to help in the struggle once it appeared that there might be a chance.

       Naomi suddenly felt a bit disappointed in Max for not trying to get involved, but she also felt ashamed of herself in the same instant. She didn't really want him to get involved either. She didn't want to lose him.

       A crowd was gathering around the three men now. They had succeeded in killing the dog, but the first man had gotten bitten really badly and was lying on the ground.

       Naomi and Max began to head toward the crowd then. It was obvious that the trouble was over. The car was that way, anyway. It was time to go home.

       The crowd was starting to break up a bit when they closed in and some guy was shouting, "Let me through, I'm a nurse."

       There was a big enough opening for Naomi to see all of the blood then and she felt a bit queasy for just a second and then she remembered all of the movies Max had made her watch. He was her Prince, but he definitely didn't share her taste for romantic comedy and drama. For a moment there, she was beginning to think she was in one of his wet dreams for Saturday night movie rental, though.

       She'd hoped that the woman was going to be alright, but it seemed obvious from the look on the nurse's face that there wasn't a chance. He turned his attention then on the man.

       While his back was turned, however, the jogging mommy sat up.

       Half of her face hung down over her neck, of which there was no visible flesh. Her sweat shirt was torn open and where breasts would normally have been was only wet red carnage. Naomi couldn't help but look. The jogger's left eye was hanging slightly out, while the other seemed to be working just fine. And it was looking around calmly as though sizing up the scenery, taking it all in.

'In shock' Naomi thought.

       And then that face filled with rage and her mouth opened and she leaped at the nurse. In a moment she was at his throat. He cried out a couple of times, but she was too strong somehow.

       Then the man in the black shirt - the one who'd attacked the dog - was standing up, staggering slightly, a mildly stoned look in his eyes. Naomi thought she knew what was coming next though.

       "No no no…" Max was mumbling from behind her.

       From a short ways away a familiar, terrifying noise, began to echo out to them. It was an almost buzzing drone, sounding at first like bees, but becoming quickly identifiable as the moans of a large mob.

       "No… Oh shit." Max was cursing and this time he was further away, but Naomi couldn't do anything but watch the scene play out before her for the time being.

       The man in the black shirt, having only sustained a bad bite to his right arm and a few scratches in other places, fell upon an elderly man – probably because he was closest – and bit into his face, pulling back and tearing his nose off with a wet meaty rip.

       The old man's scream bled into gurgles and then died moments later as the zombie graduated to a bite to the throat. The Jogger had moved on to another victim also. Moments later they were all swarmed. More zombies had joined the chaos from somewhere else; wherever the dog had come from, most likely.

       "Max," Naomi screamed, turning to tell him that they had to get out of there, but he was gone.

       She looked frantically for him and found him finally, running. He'd gotten halfway to the car.

'He's going to leave me.' She thought, and then thought better of that. 'We're going to be together forever.' She told herself. 'He can't leave me. We're going to spend forever together.' She pulled his leather jacket, which he had given her to wear earlier, tight and began to run toward him. 'He promised.'Someone ran into her at full speed and nearly knocked her to the ground just then. Some severely pale skinned guy with freckles and an amazingly bright red, almost fluorescent red crop of hair. He turned quickly in an attempt to get back to his feet, not bothering to say he was sorry. And then, right in front of her, the elderly woman she'd just seen moments before jumped on top of him and bit into his cheek. She pulled back, tearing half of his face off right in front of her and Naomi was sprayed with a tiny bit of blood.

       She scrambled back, turned and somehow managed to get back onto feet she couldn't even feel, using arms that didn't even feel like her own. Nothing felt real. She knew that she was in shock. How was all of this happening? How had the day gone from perfect to this?

       She stumbled into the street and looked up in time to see Max fumbling with the keys.  "Max." she cried, but it didn't' come out as much more than a whisper.

       She began to pick up speed, forcing herself to brush off the shock. She thought, just maybe if she didn't, Max might think she was a one of the zombies and leave her here.

'He wouldn't do that.' She thought. 'He couldn't. I'm his everything. We're forever.'

       He was starting the car.

       "Max!" she screamed louder this time.

       He looked back once. There was only a pitiful coward's sorrow in those eyes. They said, I'm sorry, I'm an asshole, I don't love you, I'm scared, and goodbye, all at once.

       And then he was driving away, tires screeching on pavement, and she was running after him, hand outstretched, screaming for him to stop, tears pouring from her eyes, ruining the makeup she had put on for him this morning when he had been her everything. When they had been about to spend eternity together.

       She starts to lose speed. He isn't going to stop. She was wrong about everything. She was wrong about him. She was wrong to think that there would be someone for her. She had no knight in shining armor. She only had herself. And she was weak enough to need someone to save her. She stopped. She could hear the footfalls of the zombies closing in behind her. She didn't fool herself into thinking they were a bunch of crazy people. She knew what they were. Max had loved his zombie flicks. Whether they were the product of escaped laboratory animals infected with an experimental virus or an apocalyptic plague or whatever else Hollywood had been able to cook up over the years, they were closing in behind her and she was about to die.

       In perfect complement to the day she was having it started pouring right then and Naomi dropped to her knees in it, crying, not caring if she was eaten alive.

       Hands fell upon her and teeth bit into her right shoulder and left arm simultaneously. The stinging pain was enough to wake her up and send a surge of adrenaline coursing through her body. A sudden dark rage flooded her and she decided that she didn't want to die. She wanted to live; if only to show that bastard that he couldn't do this to her.

       She thrust her body to the side, tearing loose, punched and kicked her way to the side, only actually hitting one of the zombies. Then her hits actually started hitting home. One lunged in at her teeth snapping just inches from her face and she kicked it square in the nuts. Apparently zombies still felt pain because it went down.

       She jumped back as it fell in case it was still in the biting mood and dodged to the side as another tried for her throat. She had to get moving. They'd have her surrounded in seconds.

       "Bastard!" she screamed. She was going to kill him. She let her rage keep her moving.

       After a few moments, she found herself near a big green power box of some kind on a pole. There was a decent sized metal wrench and a rusty metal bar that someone had left lying there and she snatched them up. She slid the wrench down the waist of her pants and swung the bar at the first zombie to get within swinging distance. It turned out to be a pretty effective weapon. There was a wet crack and the zombie went down twitching. It did not get back up. If she could get out of here, she thought she'd be alright. The bites would probably leave bruises, but nothing more. The thick leather of her boyfriend… Ex-boyfriend's riding jacket had kept their teeth from getting through.

       She ran for the hill toward town.

       They were a short distance behind her the whole way. Her and Max only lived fifteen blocks or so from the edge of the park.

       She ran until she thought her heart was going to pound its way right out of her chest and her lungs would catch on fire, and at the bottom of the hill, she thought she saw a miracle.

       There was a blue Plymouth Neon parked on the side of the street, in front of a house just about a block from the park entrance. The headlights were on and the driver's side door was open, which meant that the keys were in it.

       No one seemed to be around.

       She didn't know how she had managed to get so far so fast, but she wasn't about to stop now. She became aware of car alarms and screams and groans and breaking glass and all sorts of sounds that screamed danger to her now. The zombies were still behind her, but some of them had broken off. There were other dangers all around now though. In the short time since she and Max had gone to the park, the world had gone to hell. 'And what was it like right now in Panama City Beach?' she wondered. She tried to imagine the white sandy beaches and green ocean water with dead bodies and blood and zombies, but she couldn't do it.

       She closed in on the car only to find that there was a zombie - just inside an open passenger side door in the back seat - busily groaning, while biting and slurping at the entrails of some victim.

       In rage, not really thinking, just knowing that she didn't want to walk the entire way, she threw open the back door and stepped back, raising the metal pipe.

       The zombie looked up at her, then seemed to grow disinterested and went back to its meal.

       Naomi cried out in rage, reared back with her weapon and thrust it in at the creature, hitting it right in the head and knocking it out the other side of the vehicle. It groaned out there on the sidewalk, but didn't get up right away.

       With no time to spare, having gained a bit of distance from the mob, but not a whole lot, she jumped in the car, both back doors still hanging open and drove off toward home.

       Nothing fueled her but rage, sorrow, frustration, the desire for revenge. How could he? Why did he do it? He was the one that loved horror movies. He sat there on the edge of his seat. He practically cheered every time there was a convincing spray of blood. And then, when he woke up in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, he pissed himself and ran like a coward for the horizon.

'He better hope he didn't go home.' she thought.

       Half a block from home, the afternoon zombie snack from the back seat sat up and reached for Naomi. She tried to fight it off and drive but there was no use. Drive safe or get bitten and be a mindless undead freak until you rot. 'Hard choice there' she thought. Naomi tried for the bar, but there was no swinging room. The woman, who looked like your average middle-aged brunette school teacher (except for the gash missing where her right cheek had once been and the business of her throat having been torn out), was trying desperately to bite wherever she could. It didn't seem to matter to her where.

       Naomi elbowed her in the teeth (lucky as hell that no skin was broken in the process) and then again in the forehead, then reached back and pulled out the wrench she'd picked up earlier and smacked her in the skull with it.

       Meanwhile a corner had come up, and they came to a dead halt when the front end collided with a fire hydrant. Had they been going faster and in a bigger car, perhaps they'd have taken the thing out completely and kept going like in the movies, but it just didn't happen that way.

       Naomi's head hit the steering wheel an instant before the air bag kicked in and if that didn't knock her unconscious, the wrench in her hand smacking into the side of her head as the air bag forced it backwards did the rest of the job. Luckily for her, the wrench continued backwards and buried itself in the zombie's skull as it was catapulted toward the front of the vehicle.

       There was no way of telling how many hours had passed by the time Naomi awoke in  the small blue vehicle, covered in black muck, her own blood, and in a daze.

       She forced the door open, forgetting the pipe that she had picked up at the park.

       Water from the damaged fire hydrant rained down on her and she looked around, staggering slightly.

       Reality came crashing back when she saw a man stop in the street, looking at her and then come running.

       She ran in the opposite direction as fast as she could.

       She reached back for the wrench only to remember seconds later that it must be back in the car along with the pipe. She was without weapons.

       Then she realized that she was on her street and she smiled.

       Up ahead, only two blocks, was her house.

       There were more of them behind her now. She could hear them. She had escaped one mob only to find herself chased by another. Would this nightmare ever end?

       And then she was home.

       And the front door was unlocked.

       She was quickly inside, locked the door and backed into the house.

       They were banging on the door.

       He had to be here. The car was in the drive way. He was a zombie fanatic. He had a fallout shelter/zombie survival den in the basement for Pete's sake, whoever the fuck Pete was.

       She smiled. "Basement." She also looked over where he kept his hunting rifles. Two of them were missing. That left one. A twelve gauge that his grandfather had left him. He never used it.

       She checked the drawer at the bottom. There was a box with two shells left. He'd taken all of the rest.

'Probably took all he could carry in one trip as he ran for the basement.'

       The front door cracked and then broke inward partially. She knew they'd be through in minutes.

       She walked around the corner towards the basement door.

       There was a key, but he hadn't locked it. She guessed that he didn't think zombies would be smart enough to turn the big handle. It was a pretty secure door after all.

       She started down the stairs as the front door crashed inward.

       She could hear the frenzied footfalls upstairs.

       She gripped the rifle with both hands, cocked it and knocked on the door at the bottom.

       "Who is it?" he asked, and the cowardly tone to his voice made her smile widen further.

       "Who do you think it is, jackass?"

       "Naomi?!" he exclaimed, and she could hear him run frantically across the room, and fumble with the locks, finally throwing them open after a few seconds.

       She readied the rifle.

       He threw open the door.

       She struck him with the butt of the rifle, knocking him to the ground. When he was down, she hit him one more time to make sure he was out.

*

       The zombies were still rooting around in the house when she brought Max up through the back exit from his little secret basement game room/apocalypse survival hangout. There was a manhole in the back. The contractor had laughed at him, but he'd put it in anyway. Naomi had thought it was cute at the time. Now she thought it was perfect.

       They hadn't noticed her yet.

       She'd tied him to a gurney that he'd had in the closet down there for some unknown reason. It had made it a bit easier, but shit he was heavy.

       She finally managed to get him out on the lawn and ducked back down almost all of the way into the manhole. She pulled the cover almost closed, which wasn't really all that heavy, just some steel bars with fake grass attached to the top. Then she started yelling.

       Max woke up immediately.

       "Hey, what the…"

       The back door started shaking, then banging. Seconds later something on the other side was really slamming into it hard. And then it crashed open.

       Naomi wished she could watch, but she could hear just fine.

       "Oh God…. No… Naomi… Oh, Nah AHHHHHAHhhh!"

       It was over pretty quickly. His screams bled into wet gurgles and then silence.

       Later she curled up in a ball in Max's shelter and cried until her whole body hurt. Then she fell asleep. When she woke up she cried some more. This went on for a few days, during which she managed to make herself eat some crackers from Max's emergency food supply. Was there anyone else out there? Should she have forgiven him? Could she forgive herself? Did she even want to live? Only time would tell.