121st Day

Over the shortwave radio we were told, we would have to wait. They are creatures, we were told. They need to eat. Without nothing to sustain them, they will fall. We did our best to observe, and it was true. They wasted away. By the 63rd day, they were attacking each other. I went outside and shot all those that I knew. The boys that laughed at me from the schoolground, the girls who made fun of me behind my back, the teachers that flunked me. The school principal I trapped down a well and burnt with fuel oil. He smelled like burning pork. As their movements became lethargic they became easier to pick off, and soon we were finding some that died. There were only four of us in our 'outpost', as they were called, and at times I wanted to kill the others, but I kept away. Winter came, and they were dying. It was estimated the virus had claimed about 99.9%, which meant it still left about 10 million of us. My mother thought actually that would be all right, as long as it spared her friends and the actor she liked on a TV soap.

When we reemerged, we wondered if we had been spared. We burnt whatever corpses we came across, and started our journey to rejoin the others. But I knew we would always be looking over our shoulder, waiting for the screaming mouth, the chattering teeth, the ones that just wanted to tear us, and eat us.