I Smiled

“You have to fight!”

My eardrums still ringing, I managed to scrounge up whatever strength I had in me to incorporate myself and get on all fours. My right eye had been hit by something and I couldn’t see out of it. I didn’t want to touch it because I could swear I felt something oozing down my cheek, and I didn’t have the courage to find out whether that ooze was blood or something else. Bits and pieces of sharp, rusty metal cut into my knees and the palms of my hands as I frantically felt around the floor, tossing rubble left and right.

That’s when I heard that faint beep again. One, and one only. That’s why I hated these… never any warning. They would just beep, then boom. I did my best to protect my good eye with my left arm, but it was useless. I flew like a ragdoll.

It had been four years since I last saw anyone from my species alive.

Where was he?

When I woke up, half my face was charred beyond recognition and a good chunk of the flesh on my left arm had vanished. Despite everything, waking up was peaceful. At least the ringing had stopped. Everything hurt like hell, but when didn’t it anymore?

The sound of the chain of explosions I had set off had gone, paving the way for destroyed buildings to settle or topple.

I started to look around. Legs? Both functional, great. Arms? I could do with one… and a half. Stomach? Not impaled, and at least I could still see out of my left eye. I went to grab for the heart-shaped locket hanging from my neck to ensure it was still there. I opened the locket and looked at him for a minute.

What’s that? I saw something shine through the settling dust on the floor, about 10 feet away. Inch by inch, I dragged myself closer. It looked like… YES! My luck was beginning to change. I had to choose: the face or the arm? And while that may have been a dilemma back when there were people around to stare, I knew what I needed to take care of right now. Without any hesitation, I grabbed that syringe and plunged it deep into my arm. Just seconds after injecting myself with it, the flesh that had burned off started growing back. Painfully. It felt like someone was pouring red-hot metal on my arm.

I spent days wandering the ruins of the city where they lived. I was able to scrounge up some clean water and a bit of food among the mountains of cement where some of the tallest buildings in California used to live, but nothing like what I was looking for. And then I found a metal sheet, glistening in the scorching sun. I turned it over with the barrel of my empty shotgun. Under the sheet was an unrecognizable figure laid out like the chalk outline of a dead body that sent shivers down my spine. Another one of those pale, almost hairless creatures that always tried to evade me. The almost translucent white skin was burned to a crisp. Thickened blood dripped down from its ripped off right arm. The creature’s gray pupils shrunk and it began to spasm in a twisted chaos of broken arms and legs.

It tried to speak to me, but all it managed to produce were sounds similar to the static of an old radio that can’t find the channel. I reached in my pocket in search of ammunition. Six shells. I was running low, but I couldn’t keep watching. I loaded the shotgun and rested the barrel on the blackened, bald head of the defenseless victim. I looked around and saw an Uncle Sam poster pointing at me, as if it were expecting something from me. I kept my eyes on him.

Bang.

I held in my vomit while rummaging through the creature’s brain matter but found nothing.

The eyes see me. Their minds are ruined, broken by the series of unfortunate and tragic events of the past five years. Deteriorated to the point where they’re indistinguishable from those of predators in nature. The only thing left in them is the will to survive, and an instinct that tells them “stay away from her – she’s a dangerous being”. This instinct has helped me for now. But they’re becoming more and more confident. They get closer. Last night, I woke up to a wide-eyed, dirt-encrusted face. Staring at me. I grabbed my shotgun and aimed with my good eye, scaring the creature who, surprised, ran from me as fast as his legs would allow. They’re starting to forget the memories of shootouts, constant explosions, and the threat of my empty shotgun no longer scares them.

I crushed a skull under my boot. Its brain had turned to dust, but a small piece of silver glimmered under the red evening sun. I carefully picked it up and observed it, slowly turning it with my fingers. I put it away, smiling when I heard it clink against the other pieces in my pocket.

Once I finally made it back to the base, I made my way to what I’d been working on for the past several years. I crouched down next to the poorly constructed humanoid and, one by one, began to insert the silver pieces into the humanoid cranium’s posterior, throwing whichever ones didn’t work over my shoulder, without paying much attention to where they landed.

I inserted the last chip, and the humanoid’s eyes opened. It let out a sigh and stood up stiffly. For a minute we both just stood there as quiet shadows against the huge sunset.

“We need to revive more,”, I said to my new partner. “and then we need to finish what we’ve been sent here for. We need to eliminate the survivors.”

The creature’s head creaked as it nodded. It looked down at its body, mainly human-looking with metal bits and pieces that remind you that what you’re looking at is a machine. I offered it a basic black T-Shirt with one word on it printed in white Comic Sans: Alex.

We prepared for a fight—grabbing bullets, weapons and makeshift mines—and left together, very much aware of the white unblinking eyes that followed us and the low murmur of the voices that plotted evil schemes.

Two years later, I finally found myself across from him, no more than 30 yards away. The man I loved, surrounded by those things. I would have given anything to go back in time and unfind him.

We entered the mall—a huge, dark expanse of empty stores, broken glass and bodies. My eyes took a bit to adjust. My humanoid friends, each wearing their respective name in white Comic Sans on a basic black T-Shirt, went up the stairs and out of sight, into the darkness.

You could hear the silence in the atmosphere. I slowly made my way to the center of the building when I noticed them. More eyes. I acted like I didn’t notice them and kept walking forward. You could cut the tension with a knife. There, in the center of the mall, with the entrance behind me illuminating the silhouettes of the jagged walls and corners, I saw him.

He stood there, staring into my eyes with his cold, gray pupils, freezing me in place. He started creeping towards me. That creep became a walk which became a run which became a full sprint. I pointed the shotgun at him, and he stopped, inches from my face, breathing heavily. The other creatures watched with anticipation. I looked into his soul for minutes, hoping to see any redeeming quality to convince myself not to do it. I was so lost in his dead gaze that I didn’t notice some of the creatures creeping up behind me.

Alex, Brownie and Charlie fell from the ceiling and snapped their necks. All but one. The commotion made me snap back into the present and turn quickly, to see an angry ghoul flying through the air mid-jump, headed right towards me. I pointed the gun up at it and fired, hitting it but not killing it. In the struggle, I missed the creature two more times, shooting the ceiling and causing some concrete dust to fall on my face. By now, my three friends had made their way to me, ripping the ghoul from on top of me and tearing its body in three, each chunk still twitching for several seconds in their hands.

They looked at me, then at him, then back at me. “Stand down,” I said, “This is not your kill.” They stepped back, standing perfectly still, each one looking a different direction, back-to-back-to-back. The other creatures watched. I stood up and got close. I could smell his disgusting breath. He somehow suppressed his instincts; any other ghoul would have either run away or gone for my jugular by now. He stared, clearly pissed off about his dead comrades, but still, as still as a mosquito stuck in amber. He began to calm down and for a second, I thought I saw a spark of color in his eye.

One of his comrades let out a high-pitched screech that made me bend over with my hands over my ears. On hearing it, he immediately jumped back and ran away from me. They all sprinted towards the exit, which lay immediately behind me.

Before I knew it, I was being trampled by dozens of the things. Some just ran without precaution and others would try to claw or bite at me on the way out. I grabbed one’s leg and waved its body around to open up a small circle, enough for me to get up and join my friends. “Alex, Brownie, Charlie! Engage!” I screamed with all my might and they activated instantly, making quick work of the creatures trying to escape. After all the bodies had been cleared, we began to walk out, in hopes of finding him again someday.

The air outside felt like a smoker’s morning cigarette. It breathed new life into me that I had not had in a while, and I decided to just sit outside the steps and enjoy the silence for once. There I sat, and there I fell asleep. I woke up sweating under the hot midday sun and turned after hearing struggling, screaming and screeching. Maybe he had come out to find me, maybe he was trying to get away, or maybe he just got unlucky. Either way, my friends had captured him and were holding him in place a few feet behind me. “Let him go!” I screamed, surprising even myself. They put him down.

He began to, very slowly, make his way towards me. I met him halfway and we got so close I could count each pore on the tip of his nose. I moved my hand up to hold the back of his head, but he flinched and moved away. After making him realize I wasn’t a threat, I was able to get my hand on the back of his head and held him in place. He opened his mouth slightly and, after several attempts and in a voice that sounded very far from human, he said, “Allison… Please.” I closed my eyes and a tear rolled down my cheek as I took out my knife. It wasn’t the biggest knife in the apocalypse, but it could go through a skull. And that, it did.

Blood came spurting out of his mouth as I held him. His knees buckled and gave way and I gently accompanied him down to the ground as I watched him draw his last breath.

A few seconds after his death, his eyes went from gray to green.

And, for the first time in a long time, I smiled.