I love you

John removed the arm he had been using as a sun shield and shifted his aching head back onto his backpack. He took in a long shuddering breath; his eyes stung from tears. The faint sound of footsteps pacing below echoed in the silence. The fact that he had made it through another night didn’t fill John with appreciation anymore. One more day alive was one less with Holly.

The pair had been inseparable since high school, they married at 19, there had never been anyone else that could match up to her so there was no point in waiting. 6 years later they were still going strong. John knew this separation was temporary.

When the virus hit, Holly had been in Newcastle visiting her parents. The new government had learned from the previous leaders’ mistakes and issued martial law immediately. She had to stay with them, and John was forced to live alone about 20 miles away. They talked daily, multiple times a day in fact. It was lonely but they both knew it would be over quickly.

The government were on it, and by week 12 they had a vaccine. Of course, you had the conspiracy theorists crying out about how it couldn't have possibly been tested that quickly but, in Johns eyes, the quicker the better!

The vaccination list was pretty much the same as COVID. but this time essential workers were first, this virus killed faster than it spread so it made sense to prioritise NHS staff and people who could help if things went wrong. If they lost them, they would lose everything anyway.

Mass vaccination was rolled out fast. By week 16 everyone over the age of 30 including anyone with a disability, was vaccinated. The people that refused were... Euthanised, for the greater good.

John shuddered, remembering the sound of pounding on his neighbour’s door at 6am. Greg Watson was a 45-year-old, civil engineer, he had a wife, Mary and 2 young daughters. Armed military personal covered, head to toe in specialised PPE dragged him outside in his boxers and ordered him to vaccinate on week 15. He refused. One loud pop later and his sobbing wife was rolling up her sleeve.

They didn't remove Greggs body for 2 days. Word on social media was they were using the "euthanised" people as an incentive to comply and comply they did.

John would have complied not through fear of being shot in the head in front of his family and friends but because it would have been the right thing to do.

It wasn’t the right thing to do.

He first noticed a problem when the internet and phones stopped working. John was alone, he had no way to contact the outside world and just assumed a temporary blackout. Then the sound of distant gun fire echoed from the centre of town, slowly creeping its way ever closer to his location.

He knew something was wrong, smoke drifted to the little cul de sac where Holly and him called home, he could see flames licking the night sky in the distance. He was too afraid to leave. Under the rules of martial law, being spotted outside would have meant a hole in the head.

He spent his days with the curtains closed, periodically picking up his phone hoping for a dial tone.

It was week 18 when he heard the screaming. Terror filled and high pitched, they could be heard, muffled by the wall separating his and Marys house. It was the children, bangs and clashes vibrated his wall as he felt, what he could only assume was furniture being thrown.

He peeked out of his closed curtains inspecting the street for any military vehicles. The street was clear. Something was happening in that house and the children were in trouble. If it wasn’t due to the belligerence of the soldiers, he needed to help.

He unlocked his back door and scaled the fence between the two houses as quietly as possible. The screaming had stopped but he still made his way to the kitchen window silently, carefully avoiding long played with garden toys in the process.

The window was a little too high for him to see in clearly, he picked up an overturned tricycle and used it as a stepping stool.

The open plan design they had, made it easy for John to see the carnage in the living room. Mary, the woman who lived for her children, was hunched over her youngest biting down ferociously into her neck. The 6-year-olds glazed over eyes locked with his as he stood frozen in horror. John remembered the feeling of burning bile rising in his throat as he fought the urge to vomit.

There was no sign of the 12-year-old, but John didn’t hold out much hope from the screams he had heard. He placed one foot on the handlebars of the kids bike to get a better view when a shrill “ding” broke the silence. His blood ran cold as the gore drenched head of Mary shot up to his direction. She scrambled over her daughters’ lifeless body and slammed herself into the glass of the kitchen window, clawing and snarling, her eyes filled with mindless hate.

John flew back from the thin pane of glass in a panic and crashed to the concrete below. He picked himself up as fast as he fell and sprinted down the side of the property, pain replaced by pure adrenaline as he crashed out of the former Watson’s Garden gate and collapsed in the street. His legs taken from underneath him by sheer terror.

He sat there in a puddle of his own fear and trepidation, struggling to catch his breath. He gazed around his street in disbelief as his neighbours stared back at him through their blood smeared windows like trapped wild animals destined for the zoo.

Growls and grunts behind him broke the silence, scrambling to his feet, John whirled around to find the oldest Watson child halfway through the doggy door, one side of her face was almost completely caved in but her remaining side, snarled with a primal hunger.

He didn’t wait for her to exit fully, he had seen what had happened the rest of her family and knew, if he stayed still, his fate would be the same. John sped to his house, fumbling with his side gate and securing the latch behind him. Once back inside his kitchen he secured his back door and slid his flimsy dining table against it, if only for perceived extra safety. He packed only what he could carry and prepared to walk to Holly. Some way, some how he would be with her again.

It had been 2 weeks since Johns first encounter with the poisoned. He wasn’t a doctor and wouldn’t ever fully understand what had happened, all he knew was, the vaccine had altered the brain chemistry of everyone who took it. Everyone vaccinated had died, and once their brain switched off something else switched on. Something hungry, angry and feral. The poison was transmitted through saliva and the cycle started again.

There wasn’t a great deal of people left alive, everyone over the age of 30 had almost certainly perished because of the forced vaccine and anyone unable to protect themselves or hide had been infected by them. The streets were filled with the old and the young.

Anyone who could have helped was gone, now part of the problem and not the solution. Life as John knew it was over. He didn’t care.

He held the heart shaped locket up to the attic skylight, it twirled around producing beams of scattered light on the walls. It was the first gift he had ever given Holly and she had worn it every day. He had found it inside an envelop with his name on it, clearly dropped from the open upstairs window, landing in the bush next to the door. He hadn’t opened before he entered the property.

He was rushed by three mutilated figures the second the door locked behind him. They were unidentifiable and he prayed as he fought his way through them, that none of them were Holly.

He was aiming for Holly’s room but once he noticed the door had been completely smashed in, he had detoured, racing towards the half pulled down attic ladders on the second floor, managing to climb up and shut them out with only minor scrapes. His blood ran cold as the locket slid out into his hand, inside, was a folded piece of paper that simply read “I love you”.

He got to his feet and fastened the locket around his neck. John knew she was down there. He had never left her before, and he was not about to do it now. He pulled the hatch open and sat by the edge, looking down, the shells of Jean, Simon and Holly clumsily grabbed for him.

Loosely rubbing the heart shaped locket between his fingers, he looked into Holly’s eyes, hoping to catch even the smallest glimpse of the real her. With one intentional lurch forward, he whispered “I love you too” as he fell into his families cold embrace.