• The sun rose, the sun set… the world continued on like it didn’t realize that humans were limited… our impact wasn’t nearly as great as we had thought. I can remember when I was young, around the age of six… My father looking down at me, his great brown eyes drawn away from the scope of that beloved sniper rifle of his for the first time in what could have only been fifteen minutes, if not longer. “Son,” He said, “This land used to be great. Lots of people, lots of animals… Not them wild ones we run from, but real animals. Like pets.”

    I was at great wonders of this. Pets… what did that mean? Those feral cats and dogs once obeyed humans? How fascinating.

    “Things would flourish, businesses were run by everyone, no one had to really fight to survive…” He continued, hands moving from the trigger as he set the weapon against the gravel covered roof top we were currently seeking refuge on.

    “What happened, why did it change, Papa?” I asked, not really sure if I wanted an answer.

    “One man… one stupid, stupid man…” His voice trailed off for a moment as he raised a pack of cigarettes to his mouth. Using his teeth, he grasped one of the white, tobacco stuffed tubes before tossing the cellophane covered rectangle near his feet. Next came the flickering Zippo he had obtained from his own father… a Zippo that would one day be mine. I always wanted that Zippo. Never was it terrible marred from fingerprints, it’s shiny silver cover glinting in the burgundy sunlight still cast across our area.

    “What did that man do, Papa?” I inquired once he had taken a long draw and exhaled his nicotine filled smoke slowly.

    “Never mind, Son… it doesn’t matter anymore. What does matter is that we survive… that you survive…”

    I never understood that… why would my father exclude himself? Why would he make sure that I knew to survive even if he didn’t?

    Eventually I came to understand, that day came all too quickly. I was only sixteen… so very young, I realize now. At the time, I was boisterous, strong, willing and wanting to take on the entire world. My semi-automatic cradled in my arms as we wandered the streets. We were hungry, hadn’t eaten for two days, so with what we had left… we tried to find something, anything, we could eat. Anything that wasn’t infected, anyways.

    We had been in the busted down home for three minutes. Our soft leather boots barely making a sound as we wandered room to room, making sure that nothing was inside… nothing alive, anyways. I always found the dead somewhat amusing. But my father had taught me well. Most of the dead were infected, if any of their blood got into our bodies, we would become infected as well… best let the dead be dead, after all. So I walked through the living room, the smell of sick, rotting flesh infiltrating the area and burning at my nostrils. I could see part of what was left of a woman. Her clothing shredded and tossed hazardously around the room, most of her flesh gone… the infected were good at getting what they needed… picking every bone clean, as it were. I’d gotten used to it by now, but when I was littler… I vomited every time I saw something like this.

    Poking a few of the bodies with the muzzle of my gun, I deduced that they were all gone. The fact that one’s head rolled clear off of it’s body proving that I should move on.

    Meeting with my father in the kitchen, we began to carefully kick open all of the cupboards and other areas where infected could be hiding. We’d had one too many situations when a particularly limber infected had somehow squeezed itself in the spot below the sink and tried to take out my father’s legs… thankfully I had quickly learned the arts of double tapping and took that thing out before my father was taken. Surely, there was nothing there… so we scavenged what we could. Loading our packs with some canned goods, leaving the lima beans because… who likes lima beans in the first place? Gross, right?

    It was on our way out that we heard it… That familiar screech. High pitched, ear splitting, blood curdling screech. I leapt into action, pack balanced carefully on my shoulders, gun ready and loaded. Pressing clean against the wall, I eyed my father before tipping my head down the hall… Nothing. Where was that screech coming from? I still don’t know. I just know that my father shouted the order to run and I wasn’t about to second guess his authority.

    I ran.

    I ran as fast and hard as my well trained legs could take me.

    I ran down the stairs, firing off at anything that got in my way… still that shriek was splitting my ear drums, still the infected came… where was it coming from? If I could only find that damn Siren, I could end the attack! But I didn’t… All I could see was blurs, faces spitting blood hurtling at me before I unloaded a series of lead into their mutilated skulls, keeping my goggles tight against my face, keeping my mouth closed as crimson splattered my face and clothes…

    My sides were burning, my legs felt like Jello… but I’d made it. I was clear of the building. Racing down the street I could hear the barreling footsteps of a legion full of infected chasing after me… fresh meat was all I was. I asked once why they didn’t eat each other, my father simply said that they had better taste than to eat rotting meat.

    I vomited when it connected what he said.

    Left, right, sharp turns down alleyways… Jump over the roots, slide in the puddle under the rotten bridge, dive into a bush, cracking my head on the granite wall cleverly hidden by nature in the vicious grasp of wild moss. Breathing heavily, I closed my eyes and hoped they would pass me… they wouldn’t smell me, that I was covered by enough of their fallen brethren that I would seem dead to them, if not rotten.

    I don’t know how long I stayed like that. I just know that by the time the world around me fell silent, the sun had fallen. A chill breeze whistling through the town as I disentangled myself from the weeds and wandered the overgrown streets. Reaching up at a crossroads, I tore some of the branches off of a green road sign. Figuring out where I was, I knew it would be at least fifteen minutes before I made it back to my father and I’s temporary home.

    Dropping my heavy pack onto the group of cinderblocks we had set up as a sort of table, I very quickly grabbed one of the jugs of clean water we had. Stripping from my ruined clothes, I set them outside the tent so we could burn them in they daylight. Washing myself clean of the infected blood and flesh, I changed into fresh clothing before collapsing onto my pallet. My father hadn’t arrived yet… I’m not even sure if he was still alive at that point… but I hoped for the best. That he was waiting until the coast was clear to return home as well.

    I fell asleep. I was exhausted, when I woke… my father was sitting with his back against the busted street lamp we had thrown the camo blanket over so make our tent. He was pale… and bloody. Why hadn’t he changed, why hadn’t he cleaned up? He was always pressing on my hygiene and how it could save my life from turning into one of those rampant infected…

    Pushing my light blanket off, I rolled into a sitting position, wide eyes staring at what seemed to be my father. I spoke softly, “Papa?” That alone made him shutter and twitch. A slow smile curling his once handsome mouth in the shadows of the morning.

    “Son…” He responded, he sounded like he was pained. That alerted me. “…Remember how I used to tell you… that I was… getting older…?” The question punctuated and broken up by labored breaths. My eyes narrowed and I nodded. “Get… me my… smokes…” He said with a twitch of his fingers towards his own pack sitting next to my own. Once more, I did as he was told… never undermine your elders… another thing he had told me. Giving him the pack, he shook his head and I withdrew one of the cigarettes and lit it for him. The smoke in my mouth felt alien as I took the smoldering cylinder and pushed it between is lips. Pushing the smoke out of the recesses of my mouth with my tongue, I watched as he took a heavy drag before exhaling out the carcinogenic filled smoke. “Well… I’m slower… and they got me…” He finally stated, head lolling back as he stared up at the dark green top of the tent.

    My breath caught and my eyes widened. He motioned with his hand to his thigh… Why hadn’t I noticed it before? My hands instantly went to tend to the wound, but he quickly slapped them away. “Don’t touch me…” He commanded as his eyes slipped closed. “I can… feel it… the change… coming… it’s grabbing me… You need to kill me.”

    “Papa! No!” I gasped out, “We can fix this! We… we… I can suck the venom out! Like when that rattlesnake bit my heel!”

    He only laughed. “It’s too late… I came back… so I could tell you… Go south… I heard… I heard that it was clear down there… the humans… they left the north when nature started taking over… maybe… maybe your mother will be there… maybe…” His voice trailed and the cigarette fell from his lips.

    Backing onto my knees, my heart was shattering. I had to murder my father… he made me promise… not to let him become one of them. Even as I took up my gun, I couldn’t. My eyes failed me, my fingers shook. I couldn’t do it… I couldn’t let him die… not by my hands. Not the man who had raised me, the man who had nurtured me all these years and kept my alive despite the odds… the man who gave me the tools to survive on my own if the need came.

    But as my gun lowered, I saw it. My father’s eyes opening and staring at me… a disturbing hunger in them as I saw them rake across my face… my upper body… locking in on where my heart beat furiously against my ribcage. I was tempted to just let him do it. Let him kill me… it was only fair, right? He brought my into this world, he could take me out of it… natural selection and all that jazz.

    But instinct, it was a powerful thing, as well as the adrenaline that kicked through my veins as he launched at me with a feral growl. My gun rose, I slammed the butt against his head. Wincing at the sickening crack of his skull against the metal. His body fell, but he would be up in a second. Jumping to my feet, I screamed… with all the anguish trapped inside of me… with every bit of love I had… I unloaded into my beloved father. I splattered him over everything, Over my blankets, my clothes…

    …It still haunts me. Even though two decades have passed and I am still hunting and alive… surviving on the world as my father had taught me.

    I had headed South, but he was wrong. There was nothing here. Nothing but more infected.

    Even as I write this, I hear them outside the apartment complex. Leaning with my back against a gnarled root of a great oak tree… They’ve gotten smarter… their smell is sharper. I’m going to them… there is nothing left in this world for us humans. As sad as that is… I’ve come to terms with this.

    In the end, there is only the hunters and the hunted…

    …I am no longer a hunter, none of us are… we are food for the hunters. Our once mighty race, beat down by a simple batch of tainted meat… It sucks, but it’s true… Well… I guess this is the end. If someone finds this… if someone managed to beat this infection and survive through what could quite possibly be the apocalypse…

    …Thank you.