Only Yesterday

Yesterday the world was normal. Yesterday the sun was shining. Its rays licked my skin in the most pleasant way. I felt it.

Today the streets are empty, disrupted only by dragging sounds in the distance. The diseased people are quiet. They shuffle around in and out of homes. They seem disorganized and disoriented, but they are tenacious.

I’m huddling in a corner of an arts room with other people and my two cats. I don’t know where my family is, they were not with me when things dissolved into putrid chaos. It was like watching soft cheese disintegrate in a hot sun.

I remember running home to save my family, but they were not there. I felt the fear of not knowing where they were and if they were still themselves, close around my throat.

The cats yelped at me feet. They knew. Animals always know.

I rushed to the school hoping my family were safe there. It was deserted, except for a few people now trapped in the arts portal with me and my cats. A woman and man in their forties, they are not teachers here, because if they were I would know them.

Is there food in the fridge? The man asks and the woman opens it to take stock.

There are sandwiches and milk.

That will do for now.

I’m glad there is milk.

Then I realize that both of my boys are sitting in the corner, and I sigh with relief. They’re reading a magazine to keep themselves occupied, they are not looking up. I wonder if they’ve eaten. I want to hold them, but I can’t get close enough. There is no time. The boys open the fridge and give some milk to the cats. I’m grateful the other people don’t object to wasting food on animals. The electricity will cut off soon and so whatever food there is, will go off anyway.

The arts room is in a portable building with a main room and smaller spaces for supplies. It’s filled with old furniture. There is a dusty, colourful rug on the floor. We are now cut off from the main building and the hall, maybe for the best, because I can see the diseased roaming in and out of all the other buildings. They move about in random directions, but they must be attracted by the smell of uninfected flash, because they’re becoming denser around the portable with every minute. They agitation sharpened by the smells inside. There are bodies of some of the diseased scattered on the basketball court, being devoured. The others methodically eat the flash clean off the bones.

The carnage outside is agitating the cats. They are darting around the room, trying to orient themselves in the unfamiliar space. They are both yelping. The main door to the portable is locked and barricaded, but there are massive windows to which the diseased are pressing their faces and hands. They’re congregating outside, walking up and down like guard dogs. They are licking the glass with black tongues, the clear sheet the only thing separating us. I can see inside their drooling mouths, where teeth are coming unstuck and flash rotting at an astonishing speed. They are caressing the glass with their rotting fingers. I think I can smell them; they smell like decaying garbage. They were people just yesterday, but now they’re hissing outside, while the cats are yelping inside. There are many and they have time. A couple lash out at the glass and my insides turn to ice.

The boys rush to close to close the horizontal blinds. I’m impressed with their courage because I’m scared. I have never been this scared in my life. I’m scared for them.

And then the cats stop yelping.

They are both sitting quietly on the floor, they seem drowsy.

The milk. It’s the milk!

I only have a few moments before they start rotting.

I have to kill them. I feel myself shake with sobs.

I know what I must do before they infect everyone inside the room. Or should is this the best way to die? Because the food will eventually go off, we can’t hide here forever. Should we just let ourselves be turned, go outside and be shredded by stinking jaws.

The diseased outside are circling the portable. I can hear their bodies pressed against the wall, it’s just a matter of time before they crush the walls in with their sheer numbers. They can smell life.

The cats are not moving. I have no choice but to strangle them with my bare hands. I wish I could just cut their throats with a knife, it would be more humane, but I don’t know how. All I know is how to close my hands around their throats and press hard so that the air no longer can pass through.

I put my hands around the older one first. She looks at me with her bright, yellow eyes, not understanding, as I feel her muscles tense up under my fingers. A heart-shaped locket with her name engraved on it, is bouncing against my fingers, as I squeeze. The letters spell out ‘Daydream’ in rose gold, which shimmer like the ray of sunshine that I felt on my arms yesterday. My fingers tangle with her collar, as I struggle to tighten my grip. She is tense, but not as scared as I am. My boys let out a cry as the heart-shaped locket of rose gold falls to the ground. I try to keep my eyes open, but they keep blinking away from my hands. I’m scared, but I can’t feel my heart thumping. It should be thumping! I should be feeling the sun’s rays on my skin, like I did yesterday. But I don’t. I touch the smooth metal that fell to the ground. I can feel its rose gold with my finger, as my skin rubs off with every stroke and fall to the ground, where my cat now lies.

I try to recall what yesterday was like and the sparkling cold surface of the hear-shaped locket reminds me of the sun that danced on street pavements and on my skin.

Only yesterday.

But I don’t feel it now, as my cat lies still at my feet, I look up and with eyes that no longer see, I ask my boys to forgive me.