Alec’s eyes went to the small window that normally displayed the lake in the distance. This time it was a sea of zombies and they were making their way towards us. My heart began to beat rapidly as I lowered my gun. My attention switched from the dead zombie on the floor to the living ones outside the window.
“What did you do, Elliot?” He said calmly, but then rose his voice. “What the fuck did you do?” He ran over towards the window, his eyes scanning the hundreds of zombies that no doubt would be our death.
“I couldn’t just let him eat you!”
Alec flipped around to look at me, “You would have been safe, stupid!”
“You don’t know that! Even if I was, I would still get raped everyday by Tim, at least.” My words were more fearful then angry.
I could see the panic that was racing through Alec’s mind. He wasn’t worried about what would happen to him. Instead, he was trying to figure out a way to get me out of here safely. I had just seen the same look on his face when Tim was about to attack him.
There would be no escape for us. I had already come to terms with this, and had known this would be the case when I shot Tim. No way in hell was I going to stand there and watch him devour my brother. No way in hell would I have allowed the killer of my brother to touch me.
With that decision made, we would both die now. I wasn’t sure if that was better then my option before, but I knew I wouldn’t have to live with my brother’s death. I wouldn’t have to continue on knowing that I had stood there with a gun in my hands. Knowing that with the power to save him even for a few minutes, I had instead allowed him to die. It wasn’t a choice that I could have lived with. I had made up my mind in the second it had taken Tim to decide to charge Alec.
I watched Alec put the large wooden table against the door and the window. It wouldn’t keep us safe for long, but it would buy us some time. We were trapped. I knew that there would be only one ending for us, but Alec fought on. He pushed the old refrigerator against the door, the chairs, anything large that he could move, he pushed against the window and door.
I stood with my arms folded, awaiting the inevitable. It was coming for me, and I had already begun to accept it. I think I had already comes to terms with my own death a long time ago. Back when it was just me and Alec in a fast food restaurant. I knew that any day one of us could have died, and I was prepared for it to happen. Especially my own death.
Alec began to pull all the guns from the cabinets out. He gave some to me and some to himself. He wasn’t ready to die. My poor brother hadn’t come to terms with his own death yet. After all that we had been through, death at our backs for months now, he still wanted to live on to see tomorrow.
“Hold this.” He tried to shove some guns into my arms. “We will hide in the basement. We can pick them off one by one as they come down. The hallway is too narrow, they’ll…”
I dropped everything to the ground.
“What the hell?”
“There is no point, Alec. It’s time to accept that this is in the end. We have come this far, it’s an accomplishment.” I swallowed down my tears, “But it’s over now. You know as well as I do that we don’t have five hundred rounds, and even if we did that would mean one bullet per person.”
Alec grabbed my shoulders and shook me as hard as he could. “Don’t you fucking give up on me now, Elliot! Not right god damn now! We have made it this far and it is an accomplishment! I am not going to let these rapist cannibals take our lives now! Not when we have survived them this long!”
I shook my head, my voice calm and collected. “Stop, Alec. Just stop.”
The panic and determination in his eyes began to lift. “Have you no more will to go on? We can live through this, if you just give me a chance to…”
“Stop.” I could hear them pounding at the door.
There was no other way into the house but the front door and perhaps a couple windows. From living in the city, we knew they were smart enough to bash in the windows as they did it with all of them. They hadn’t done so yet, but it was only a matter of time.
“Elliot, I…”
“Stop.”
“Please, don’t…”
I touched my brother’s face. My thumbs rubbed over his eyebrows and eyes, forcing him to close them. “It’s over. No amount of determination is going to get us out of this.”
Alec broke down in tears as he wrapped his arms around me and began to cry into my neck. I placed my arms around his back and held my little brother.
“I don’t want to die, Elly. We have to try. What does it hurt to try?” He tried to talk over the loud bangs of the zombies outside.
“It hurts your acceptance. It’s just our time now.”
Suddenly, I felt my feet lift from the ground.
“I don’t buy it. Don’t be such a coward.” Alec carried me over to the basement.
“What are you doing? Stop it!” I slapped my hands against his back.
The door opened behind me. I felt my feet touch the floor briefly before Alec shoved me and I lost my footing all together.
My head throbbed as I felt my mind coming back to reality. I hadn’t been out long, as Alec came running down the stairs with what appeared to be his second and last load of artillery. I don’t know why he brought so many guns, most of them only had a few bullets left. Our handguns had the most, but not nearly enough to take care of all the zombies out there.
“You asshole!” I yelled as I jumped up near the bathroom. I realized then that he must have dragged me across the room.
Ignoring me, Alec had brought down some of the chairs from the kitchen. The first door at the top of the stairs, he wedged one of the chairs under it’s knob. He then came down to the basement and knocked all of Cole’s research, including his glass vials, onto the ground. Using the table they were on, he blocked the doorway with it and the rest of the chairs. With the broom, he pushed all of the broken glass near the door.
“It won’t work!” I screamed.
Alec sat down near the bathroom and began to load the weapons. “We have ten minutes at most.” He warned me and began to make two separate piles. One for me and one for him, I presumed.
With a sigh, I gave into him. If he wanted to fight it out to the end then who was I to stop him. I was able to accept the reality of our situation, but he wasn’t. If he needed me beside him as he got vengeance on these zombies for the death of not only ourselves, but our sister, then I would fight beside him.
As I helped him load the guns, my mind returned to the days not all that long ago. It was Lesley’s birthday party. Everyone who mattered was there. My mother and father, Alec, Lauren, Olivia, and Drew all sat around the table. Smiles on our faces, there was no death, there was no survival. Mom complained about how we all had such dangerous jobs and if we weren’t careful it would kill us. Drew told her that death was a risk in most professions, even his.
That was the last time we were all together. Mom fell sick shortly after that, followed by my father. Olivia and I were at the hospital as much as we could be, but Alec just couldn’t bring himself to it. I remembered Olivia telling me that if she was ever suffering like our parents were to let her die. She wanted poison anything, and I agreed with her.
Two days later, Drew was in the hospital and the rest of the world was on high alert. The Judgment Day Virus was named by newscasters and not a single person didn’t know multiple people affected by it. It couldn’t have been more then another couple of days before most people were infected.
Olivia, Alec, and I stood there and watched it all happen. It felt so surreal now sitting in that basement. Lauren, Alec’s wife, succumbed first. She died sooner then most, but I think she let herself go. She didn’t fight on, because she saw what would happen. Skin would melt from her body and she would suffer.
Soon the hospital had no staff members as they had all fallen ill. Everyone was left to the medical books and supplies to help their loved ones. I saw several people poison their family members to stop their suffering, and I saw others poison themselves. That’s when I looked at Olivia and told her we had to end it. We had to stop our parent’s suffering. We didn’t tell Alec, but we injected them with anything we could stick in a needle. I didn’t even remember reading the labels. They died within moments.
I was going to do the same for poor Lesley, but that was when the zombies came into the hospital. We knew we had to run away. Alec grabbed his daughter and we returned to his house to arm ourselves. I kept cursing myself for not bringing a loaded needle with me as I sat next to the dying child. I thought about choking her and the thought to set her on fire crossed my mind as well.
They were horrible thoughts, but there was no saving Lesley. She was going to die and she was in such pain. Alec was forced to take his own daughter’s life, and I hated myself for not doing it for him. It was his daughter, but I was his big sister. I should have protected him from having to commit such an act.
My eyes turned to the basement door. It was being pounded upon and I knew the zombies would soon claim our lives. I turned my attention to Alec, he had long ago stopped loading his weapons.
“It’s no good, is it?” He asked. “I am only prolonging my misery. They are going to kill us… rape you first. This is worthless.”
All I could do was nod my head as a tear streamed down my cheek. I was glad that Alec could finally accept it, even if I didn’t understand why.
“Here.” He held out a handgun. “If this is going to happen, then we do to it ourselves.”
I took the gun, “Right, we won’t give them the pleasure.”
He looked down at the gun in his hands and sighed, “Why? Why did we come so far, find hope and safety, only… only to have it all stolen from us?”
“I don’t…” I looked at the door as the pounding began to increase. “I wish I knew.” I scooted next to him and wrapped my arm around his shoulder.
“I hope that the others are alright, where ever they are.” I heard him sniffle.
“Me too.”
He rubbed his eyes with the back of his wrist, “What a fucking cruel joke, you know? Making us think that we survived the worst, and then taking everything away from us all over again.”
I rested my chin on his shoulder. “You and Gina, huh?”
He turned his head towards me, “How did you know?” He shrugged the question away, “You’re my big sister, that never got past you.” He sniffled again, “I don’t know if I loved her or not, but she was helping me heal. I like to think that I was helping her too. I just needed…”
A loud crack of the wood breaking told us that the zombies’ entry would be soon. We weren’t ready to die just yet. There was still some left to say.
“I just needed to feel love and be held, you know?” He chuckled rather pitifully. “In a way that you couldn’t do for me.”
“I know what you mean. I turned to Cole for that.”
“And Tim.”
I nodded, “Unfortunately.”
“You didn’t know.”
I squeezed my brother tightly, “I love you, Alec. There isn’t a moment in my life that I have had with you that I would trade for anything.”
“Same here.” He turned his eyes to the door. “I’m glad that you took this journey with me. I don’t think I would have made it this far without you.”
“Ditto.” Sitting up, I kissed his cheek.
Alec kissed my forehead when I was done. We both knew that it was time. “You have to go first, I…”
“Together.”
His sad eyes told me that he agreed.
“On 3, then.”
We both put the guns to our temples and closed our eyes. Neither of us wanted to see the other die.
“Don’t chicken out on me, Elly.”
I chuckled, “1...2...3...”
A loud thunderous bang entered my ears, and then there was nothing more. Just blackness, no white light at the end of a tunnel, and no loud booming voice of god. It was the end.
Or at least, that is what I thought would happen. Instead, I heard the cracking of wood breaking down the door. My eyes opened just in time to watch Alec fire his gun. His blood splattered all over my face and chest. I was mortified to watch my own brother kill himself, so much so that I didn’t even realize that I was not alone in the basement.
My wide, horrified eyes turned towards the sounds of footsteps. It didn’t register who the people in the room where, and I only reached for my gun. It was grabbed from my hand while someone pulled me back away from Alec’s body. At the time, everyone just seemed to be made of shadows to me. All I could see was Alec’s form pressed up against the bathroom door. His hand had fallen to the side, blood covered the wall, and I knew there was no coming back from that.
A female voice spoke next to Alec, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Behind me a male voice answered her, and immediately after he finished, they began to gather my brother’s body up.
I focused my attention to the people in front of me. They all looked like Vion and Marshmallow to some degree. Pale skin, no hair, and light eyes. All wore jumpsuits with various colors with different insignias on their shoulders and chest.
“Stop!” I screamed, as I watched them wrapping my brother up in what appeared to be a body bag. “Where are you taking him? Stop!” I began to fight the person holding me.
My left hand was stretched out towards my brother’s body and more people came to hold me back. They took my brother up the stairs while I continued to fight my captors. I knew these people weren’t the zombies, but at the time I didn’t question who they were.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman pull some sort of line device out of her pocket. She came at me with it and tried to place it near my neck. This only caused me to fight more, and with several pushes and elbow punches, I managed to escape. I ran for the stairs and locked those in the basement downstairs when I hit the top door. My eyes turned to the kitchen, it was empty so I made my way towards the front door.
Standing on the porch, I stopped moving. All the zombies laid dead around the house. The wind blew over their bodies causing their clothing to dance in the breeze. I couldn’t see any blood or anything that showed me how they could have died. It was just like with Tim’s brothers and the other males left behind.
My heart raced with fear from the unknown and I tried to push the pain of my brother’s death away. I had to escape first then and only then could I grieve for myself. I checked the surrounding areas to decide quickly what would be the best escape for me. Other then the dead bodies, I could not see anyone. Not even the people who had taken my brother’s corpse.
“Elliot.” Someone said as they came around the house.
I looked at a man, who stood in similar uniforms as those that I had locked in the basement. “Vion?”
He approached me slowly, “I know you are scared, but you have to trust me.” He held out his hand to me. “I can take you somewhere safe. I can take you to Cole and the others.”
“What’s going on?” I screamed the question more than asked it.
“The end.” He responded.
“The end?”
With a nod, he took a step towards me. “The end of all your struggling here.”
Tears began to stream down my face, “Alec…Alec…”
“I know. I blame myself. We should have come sooner. The moment that we realized you and the others were missing, we should have come back. I’m sorry, so very sorry.” Finally he touched my hand as he stood even on the porch with me.
I melted into his chest and he wrapped his arms around me. I could hear the others coming from the basement, and I think that Vion waved them away. I didn’t know if I could trust Vion or not, but it seemed like a better idea then running off into the woods. I had no idea what was going on and it seemed that Vion and these people had all the answers.
“I’m going to take you somewhere to get medical treatment.” Vion began to tell me. “After we check to make sure that you are healthy, then we will put you in with the general public. I’ll make sure that you get placed with Cole and Gina.”
I nodded my head against his chest, but I couldn’t speak through the tears and grief.
“We are going to give you a sedative. It’s going to make you calm and sleepy. You’ll wake up in a little while.”
“Will you be there?” I asked.
“I’ll try to be there.”
I felt Vion nod and a sharp, but quick pain was applied to my neck. My body began to feel numb, but it was a familiar feeling. Like the time I had been attacked in the hallway. I could feel Vion trying to hold my weight as I released more and more of myself into his grasps.
I wasn’t entirely asleep, but I couldn’t see and all sound was blurred. I knew that I was being carried, and I was even aware of the several bright lights that we passed under. Finally, I was laid to rest on something soft. With all the movement over, I was able to fall into a deep sleep. Something that I hadn’t done in a very long time.
“Are you waking up?” Vion’s familiar voice rang clearly.
I opened my eyes to find myself in a small room. There was so much white that I was almost blinded by it. The walls, the floors, the ceiling, both of our clothes, and all the bed were that one blank color.
Slowly, I sat up to look at Vion who was kneeled down beside the bed. I immediately remembered my brother and was about to ask about him. That was before the memory of his death played like a slow motion movie in my mind. Tears began to form in my eyes and I placed my face into my hands.
Vion rubbed my shoulder briefly, “I’m sorry, Elliot. Just ten seconds earlier and he would be with you now. I blame myself.”
“Who are you?” I cried.
He nodded and sat on the bed beside me. “I’m Commander Vionalio Requte.”
“You are in the military?” I looked up at him.
“Yes, but not the military that you are thinking of. You see, I’m not from Earth.”
My brows came together, “What? You aren’t human?” I didn’t know if I believed him, but enough strange things had happened that I was willing to give his excuse a chance.
“Oh, I’m human, but I’m not an Earth human. We call ourselves Kigons.” He sighed, “Earth is a Petri dish to us. Hundreds of thousands years ago, we came across the planet. It had long ago gone through a meteor strike that had wiped out it’s inhabitants. It was preparing to begin a new life cycle as most planets do. We input our own life cycle into the world so that evolution could bring humans to this point.”
“What point? Why did you do that?”
He waved his hand as if trying to stop me from speaking. “We have enemies as most species do, and this particular species called Fuqerit releases a gas into the hair. It’s extremely toxic and most people die from it. The Kigons were the only ones known to have any people who were immune to it. We made antidotes using these people, and eventually the Fuqerit died out.” He shook his head with a grin, “Or so we thought.”
With a cough that seemed to relieve either embarrassment or stress, before he continued talking. “We stopped making the antidote and unfortunately we didn’t continue to research it either. Turned out the Fuqerit were just recuperating from the war, and they came back. We had evolved so much that we couldn’t create the antidote for ourselves, let alone our allies.”
“So, you made Earth to get the cure? That would have taken hundreds of thousands of years, how the hell would you guys have that kind of time?” I snapped my questions. He was losing credibility in my eyes.
“When we gave Earth our life cycle, we needed to speed up the process of evolution. So, we cut down the human life span. We Kigons live on average around fifty thousand earth years, it also takes the virus much longer to kill us. Most people survive with it for a couple thousand. It, however, makes them extremely weak and relatively useless to society.”
“And because of this, you killed six billion people?”
“Four percentage of the population on Earth survived. So, there are around two hundred and forty million survivors.”
I snorted, “And that makes it fucking alright?”
“Six billion people are nothing compared to how many people die each earth year in the rest of the universe due to this disease. You humans were created for a single purpose, and you will now begin to fulfill this purpose. I will make no apologizes, as this was the only way we could have possibly been able to find all of those with the antidote.” He stood up.
I didn’t know what to say. I hated him for what had been done to me. My family dying, discovering that we were nothing more than lab rats.
“The galaxy that contained Earth has been under quarantine since we began the life cycle. No ships have been allowed to enter under penalty of death. Earth was too important. We had to wait until the height of the antidote, before we came here.” He coughed again.
“You keep calling it an antidote, but it’s a virus not a poison.”
He nodded, “I don’t speak your language to perfection. I am not sure which one I would be incorrect about.”
I dropped my head, “What happens now?”
“You and the others will begin testing. We will discover what makes you immune and begin to create antidotes with that knowledge. After which, the human populace will be given a moon around Hynome, the Kigon home planet. Our technology and way of life will be available to the humans. We will consider all of you, brethren and invite you into our way of life. We hope…”
“What kind of tests? How will you make the antidote?”
Vion sighed. “Nothing invasive. Blood work and the like. We hope to also create hybrids of Kigons and humans. We want the humans and Kigons to interbreed, and if they chose not too then we plan to ensure that any human offspring is born with the gene that carries the antidote. Nothing is set at this time.”
I remained quit, all I could think of was how much I hated these Kigons and how much I had lost because of them.
“You have no idea how important you humans are. Thousands of species have gone extinct due to the Fuqerit, and finally we will be able to battle them.” He offered out his hand to me. “Come, I will take you to the others.”
“Elliot!” I heard Cole’s voice call out to me.
The large room we entered was filled with what appeared to be bunks. Thousands of people were piled into the large room. I had seen hundreds of ships around Earth’s orbit as we passed through the halls. Vion had told me that the bottom four floors of his ship was for the passengers and that most we be able to live comfortably until they reached the moon.
Cole grabbed my face as tears were already streaming down my cheeks. He placed his forehead to my own and gently kissed my lips. “Are you alright? I was so worried.”
I wrapped my arms around Cole’s neck when he released my face, and cradled my forehead into his neck. I began to cry and didn’t notice when Vion left, nor when Gina came to stand next to us.
“Where is Alec?” She asked me and placed her hand on my back.
I shook my head and that was all that she needed to know. I could barely see her out of my tear filled eyes, but she swallowed deeply before returning to her bed. Cole wrapped his arms around me tighter.
“It’s over now.” He whispered.
“He shot himself.” I mumbled through my tears, “We were going to end it all, but they… they showed up, but it was too late.” My voice was raised to a scream.
Cole walked me away from everyone to a large window where we could see Earth. Everyone else seemed to leave that area of the room alone, obviously terrified of all the memories it would bring.
Placing my hands on the freezing window, I looked over the planet. It seemed almost foreign to me, even though I had seen it so many times in pictures. I swallowed deeply before the tears came again. Cole stood silently beside me, his head lowered.
“It seems as if the price was not worth the outcome.” I mumbled, even though I wasn’t sure if Cole understood why we were here.
“Right now, no it doesn’t. Yet, there are billions more out there that are being devastated by all of this. It’s not fair to us, but this is even less fair for them.” He stepped towards the window, “Besides, without the Kigon none of us would exist. We were made for a purpose, and we have to pay the price now. It’s not fair, but it is the price.”
“I have nothing left.” I said, “Everyone that I have ever loved is now gone. I’m alone.”
Cole’s hand touched mine and he pulled it off the glass to turn me towards the room. My eyes wandered over all the people. Some eating, others talking, some still sleeping or doing chores.
“None of us are alone. We are all here suffering the same as anyone else. Some of us have lost more than others, but we have all experienced it.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “The good news is that we begin anew tomorrow. We can’t repair what has happened to us yesterday. All we can do is make the best of what is to come.” With that he dropped his arm from my shoulder. “I’m in bunk J304 when you want to talk.”
I watched him walk away and I turned my eyes back to Earth. He was right, I suppose. Nothing but pain and emptiness could come from living in the past. Of course, that didn’t mean that I would forget the people that I had loved and that had shaped me. I couldn’t fight the Kigons for what they had done, and logically thinking I didn’t know if there was any fault to be had.
All that I knew was I could always hurt when I thought of the deaths of my loved ones or I could always smile when I thought of their lives and how they affected me. My attitude about my past and how I remembered it, would affect my future. That didn’t mean I would cry tonight for my family… for my brother, but that I would miss them and remember them fondly. The Kigons were not my enemy, even if they were to blame for everything.
A small hand touched mine and I looked down at Mabel, who smiled up at me. I tried to return the gesture, though it was probably meager at best.
“Are you remembering, Elliot?” She asked me.
I nodded my head.
Mabel squeezed my hand tighter, “Mommy says it’s good to remember, but bad to allow memories to live your life for you…or something like that.” She chuckled.
“Mabel, come eat.” Cole called.
“Come on, Elliot.” She pulled my hand, “Families eat dinner together.”
With a smile, I followed the little girl to some familiar faces. Cole had me sit down beside him, and even though this wasn’t my birth family, I felt somewhat at home. I felt accepted, and with that one meal, I knew that I would be alright. I knew that my family would have wanted it that way.
The End.
“What did you do, Elliot?” He said calmly, but then rose his voice. “What the fuck did you do?” He ran over towards the window, his eyes scanning the hundreds of zombies that no doubt would be our death.
“I couldn’t just let him eat you!”
Alec flipped around to look at me, “You would have been safe, stupid!”
“You don’t know that! Even if I was, I would still get raped everyday by Tim, at least.” My words were more fearful then angry.
I could see the panic that was racing through Alec’s mind. He wasn’t worried about what would happen to him. Instead, he was trying to figure out a way to get me out of here safely. I had just seen the same look on his face when Tim was about to attack him.
There would be no escape for us. I had already come to terms with this, and had known this would be the case when I shot Tim. No way in hell was I going to stand there and watch him devour my brother. No way in hell would I have allowed the killer of my brother to touch me.
With that decision made, we would both die now. I wasn’t sure if that was better then my option before, but I knew I wouldn’t have to live with my brother’s death. I wouldn’t have to continue on knowing that I had stood there with a gun in my hands. Knowing that with the power to save him even for a few minutes, I had instead allowed him to die. It wasn’t a choice that I could have lived with. I had made up my mind in the second it had taken Tim to decide to charge Alec.
I watched Alec put the large wooden table against the door and the window. It wouldn’t keep us safe for long, but it would buy us some time. We were trapped. I knew that there would be only one ending for us, but Alec fought on. He pushed the old refrigerator against the door, the chairs, anything large that he could move, he pushed against the window and door.
I stood with my arms folded, awaiting the inevitable. It was coming for me, and I had already begun to accept it. I think I had already comes to terms with my own death a long time ago. Back when it was just me and Alec in a fast food restaurant. I knew that any day one of us could have died, and I was prepared for it to happen. Especially my own death.
Alec began to pull all the guns from the cabinets out. He gave some to me and some to himself. He wasn’t ready to die. My poor brother hadn’t come to terms with his own death yet. After all that we had been through, death at our backs for months now, he still wanted to live on to see tomorrow.
“Hold this.” He tried to shove some guns into my arms. “We will hide in the basement. We can pick them off one by one as they come down. The hallway is too narrow, they’ll…”
I dropped everything to the ground.
“What the hell?”
“There is no point, Alec. It’s time to accept that this is in the end. We have come this far, it’s an accomplishment.” I swallowed down my tears, “But it’s over now. You know as well as I do that we don’t have five hundred rounds, and even if we did that would mean one bullet per person.”
Alec grabbed my shoulders and shook me as hard as he could. “Don’t you fucking give up on me now, Elliot! Not right god damn now! We have made it this far and it is an accomplishment! I am not going to let these rapist cannibals take our lives now! Not when we have survived them this long!”
I shook my head, my voice calm and collected. “Stop, Alec. Just stop.”
The panic and determination in his eyes began to lift. “Have you no more will to go on? We can live through this, if you just give me a chance to…”
“Stop.” I could hear them pounding at the door.
There was no other way into the house but the front door and perhaps a couple windows. From living in the city, we knew they were smart enough to bash in the windows as they did it with all of them. They hadn’t done so yet, but it was only a matter of time.
“Elliot, I…”
“Stop.”
“Please, don’t…”
I touched my brother’s face. My thumbs rubbed over his eyebrows and eyes, forcing him to close them. “It’s over. No amount of determination is going to get us out of this.”
Alec broke down in tears as he wrapped his arms around me and began to cry into my neck. I placed my arms around his back and held my little brother.
“I don’t want to die, Elly. We have to try. What does it hurt to try?” He tried to talk over the loud bangs of the zombies outside.
“It hurts your acceptance. It’s just our time now.”
Suddenly, I felt my feet lift from the ground.
“I don’t buy it. Don’t be such a coward.” Alec carried me over to the basement.
“What are you doing? Stop it!” I slapped my hands against his back.
The door opened behind me. I felt my feet touch the floor briefly before Alec shoved me and I lost my footing all together.
---***---
My head throbbed as I felt my mind coming back to reality. I hadn’t been out long, as Alec came running down the stairs with what appeared to be his second and last load of artillery. I don’t know why he brought so many guns, most of them only had a few bullets left. Our handguns had the most, but not nearly enough to take care of all the zombies out there.
“You asshole!” I yelled as I jumped up near the bathroom. I realized then that he must have dragged me across the room.
Ignoring me, Alec had brought down some of the chairs from the kitchen. The first door at the top of the stairs, he wedged one of the chairs under it’s knob. He then came down to the basement and knocked all of Cole’s research, including his glass vials, onto the ground. Using the table they were on, he blocked the doorway with it and the rest of the chairs. With the broom, he pushed all of the broken glass near the door.
“It won’t work!” I screamed.
Alec sat down near the bathroom and began to load the weapons. “We have ten minutes at most.” He warned me and began to make two separate piles. One for me and one for him, I presumed.
With a sigh, I gave into him. If he wanted to fight it out to the end then who was I to stop him. I was able to accept the reality of our situation, but he wasn’t. If he needed me beside him as he got vengeance on these zombies for the death of not only ourselves, but our sister, then I would fight beside him.
As I helped him load the guns, my mind returned to the days not all that long ago. It was Lesley’s birthday party. Everyone who mattered was there. My mother and father, Alec, Lauren, Olivia, and Drew all sat around the table. Smiles on our faces, there was no death, there was no survival. Mom complained about how we all had such dangerous jobs and if we weren’t careful it would kill us. Drew told her that death was a risk in most professions, even his.
That was the last time we were all together. Mom fell sick shortly after that, followed by my father. Olivia and I were at the hospital as much as we could be, but Alec just couldn’t bring himself to it. I remembered Olivia telling me that if she was ever suffering like our parents were to let her die. She wanted poison anything, and I agreed with her.
Two days later, Drew was in the hospital and the rest of the world was on high alert. The Judgment Day Virus was named by newscasters and not a single person didn’t know multiple people affected by it. It couldn’t have been more then another couple of days before most people were infected.
Olivia, Alec, and I stood there and watched it all happen. It felt so surreal now sitting in that basement. Lauren, Alec’s wife, succumbed first. She died sooner then most, but I think she let herself go. She didn’t fight on, because she saw what would happen. Skin would melt from her body and she would suffer.
Soon the hospital had no staff members as they had all fallen ill. Everyone was left to the medical books and supplies to help their loved ones. I saw several people poison their family members to stop their suffering, and I saw others poison themselves. That’s when I looked at Olivia and told her we had to end it. We had to stop our parent’s suffering. We didn’t tell Alec, but we injected them with anything we could stick in a needle. I didn’t even remember reading the labels. They died within moments.
I was going to do the same for poor Lesley, but that was when the zombies came into the hospital. We knew we had to run away. Alec grabbed his daughter and we returned to his house to arm ourselves. I kept cursing myself for not bringing a loaded needle with me as I sat next to the dying child. I thought about choking her and the thought to set her on fire crossed my mind as well.
They were horrible thoughts, but there was no saving Lesley. She was going to die and she was in such pain. Alec was forced to take his own daughter’s life, and I hated myself for not doing it for him. It was his daughter, but I was his big sister. I should have protected him from having to commit such an act.
My eyes turned to the basement door. It was being pounded upon and I knew the zombies would soon claim our lives. I turned my attention to Alec, he had long ago stopped loading his weapons.
“It’s no good, is it?” He asked. “I am only prolonging my misery. They are going to kill us… rape you first. This is worthless.”
All I could do was nod my head as a tear streamed down my cheek. I was glad that Alec could finally accept it, even if I didn’t understand why.
“Here.” He held out a handgun. “If this is going to happen, then we do to it ourselves.”
I took the gun, “Right, we won’t give them the pleasure.”
He looked down at the gun in his hands and sighed, “Why? Why did we come so far, find hope and safety, only… only to have it all stolen from us?”
“I don’t…” I looked at the door as the pounding began to increase. “I wish I knew.” I scooted next to him and wrapped my arm around his shoulder.
“I hope that the others are alright, where ever they are.” I heard him sniffle.
“Me too.”
He rubbed his eyes with the back of his wrist, “What a fucking cruel joke, you know? Making us think that we survived the worst, and then taking everything away from us all over again.”
I rested my chin on his shoulder. “You and Gina, huh?”
He turned his head towards me, “How did you know?” He shrugged the question away, “You’re my big sister, that never got past you.” He sniffled again, “I don’t know if I loved her or not, but she was helping me heal. I like to think that I was helping her too. I just needed…”
A loud crack of the wood breaking told us that the zombies’ entry would be soon. We weren’t ready to die just yet. There was still some left to say.
“I just needed to feel love and be held, you know?” He chuckled rather pitifully. “In a way that you couldn’t do for me.”
“I know what you mean. I turned to Cole for that.”
“And Tim.”
I nodded, “Unfortunately.”
“You didn’t know.”
I squeezed my brother tightly, “I love you, Alec. There isn’t a moment in my life that I have had with you that I would trade for anything.”
“Same here.” He turned his eyes to the door. “I’m glad that you took this journey with me. I don’t think I would have made it this far without you.”
“Ditto.” Sitting up, I kissed his cheek.
Alec kissed my forehead when I was done. We both knew that it was time. “You have to go first, I…”
“Together.”
His sad eyes told me that he agreed.
“On 3, then.”
We both put the guns to our temples and closed our eyes. Neither of us wanted to see the other die.
“Don’t chicken out on me, Elly.”
I chuckled, “1...2...3...”
A loud thunderous bang entered my ears, and then there was nothing more. Just blackness, no white light at the end of a tunnel, and no loud booming voice of god. It was the end.
---***---
Or at least, that is what I thought would happen. Instead, I heard the cracking of wood breaking down the door. My eyes opened just in time to watch Alec fire his gun. His blood splattered all over my face and chest. I was mortified to watch my own brother kill himself, so much so that I didn’t even realize that I was not alone in the basement.
My wide, horrified eyes turned towards the sounds of footsteps. It didn’t register who the people in the room where, and I only reached for my gun. It was grabbed from my hand while someone pulled me back away from Alec’s body. At the time, everyone just seemed to be made of shadows to me. All I could see was Alec’s form pressed up against the bathroom door. His hand had fallen to the side, blood covered the wall, and I knew there was no coming back from that.
A female voice spoke next to Alec, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Behind me a male voice answered her, and immediately after he finished, they began to gather my brother’s body up.
I focused my attention to the people in front of me. They all looked like Vion and Marshmallow to some degree. Pale skin, no hair, and light eyes. All wore jumpsuits with various colors with different insignias on their shoulders and chest.
“Stop!” I screamed, as I watched them wrapping my brother up in what appeared to be a body bag. “Where are you taking him? Stop!” I began to fight the person holding me.
My left hand was stretched out towards my brother’s body and more people came to hold me back. They took my brother up the stairs while I continued to fight my captors. I knew these people weren’t the zombies, but at the time I didn’t question who they were.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman pull some sort of line device out of her pocket. She came at me with it and tried to place it near my neck. This only caused me to fight more, and with several pushes and elbow punches, I managed to escape. I ran for the stairs and locked those in the basement downstairs when I hit the top door. My eyes turned to the kitchen, it was empty so I made my way towards the front door.
Standing on the porch, I stopped moving. All the zombies laid dead around the house. The wind blew over their bodies causing their clothing to dance in the breeze. I couldn’t see any blood or anything that showed me how they could have died. It was just like with Tim’s brothers and the other males left behind.
My heart raced with fear from the unknown and I tried to push the pain of my brother’s death away. I had to escape first then and only then could I grieve for myself. I checked the surrounding areas to decide quickly what would be the best escape for me. Other then the dead bodies, I could not see anyone. Not even the people who had taken my brother’s corpse.
“Elliot.” Someone said as they came around the house.
I looked at a man, who stood in similar uniforms as those that I had locked in the basement. “Vion?”
He approached me slowly, “I know you are scared, but you have to trust me.” He held out his hand to me. “I can take you somewhere safe. I can take you to Cole and the others.”
“What’s going on?” I screamed the question more than asked it.
“The end.” He responded.
“The end?”
With a nod, he took a step towards me. “The end of all your struggling here.”
Tears began to stream down my face, “Alec…Alec…”
“I know. I blame myself. We should have come sooner. The moment that we realized you and the others were missing, we should have come back. I’m sorry, so very sorry.” Finally he touched my hand as he stood even on the porch with me.
I melted into his chest and he wrapped his arms around me. I could hear the others coming from the basement, and I think that Vion waved them away. I didn’t know if I could trust Vion or not, but it seemed like a better idea then running off into the woods. I had no idea what was going on and it seemed that Vion and these people had all the answers.
“I’m going to take you somewhere to get medical treatment.” Vion began to tell me. “After we check to make sure that you are healthy, then we will put you in with the general public. I’ll make sure that you get placed with Cole and Gina.”
I nodded my head against his chest, but I couldn’t speak through the tears and grief.
“We are going to give you a sedative. It’s going to make you calm and sleepy. You’ll wake up in a little while.”
“Will you be there?” I asked.
“I’ll try to be there.”
I felt Vion nod and a sharp, but quick pain was applied to my neck. My body began to feel numb, but it was a familiar feeling. Like the time I had been attacked in the hallway. I could feel Vion trying to hold my weight as I released more and more of myself into his grasps.
I wasn’t entirely asleep, but I couldn’t see and all sound was blurred. I knew that I was being carried, and I was even aware of the several bright lights that we passed under. Finally, I was laid to rest on something soft. With all the movement over, I was able to fall into a deep sleep. Something that I hadn’t done in a very long time.
---***---
“Are you waking up?” Vion’s familiar voice rang clearly.
I opened my eyes to find myself in a small room. There was so much white that I was almost blinded by it. The walls, the floors, the ceiling, both of our clothes, and all the bed were that one blank color.
Slowly, I sat up to look at Vion who was kneeled down beside the bed. I immediately remembered my brother and was about to ask about him. That was before the memory of his death played like a slow motion movie in my mind. Tears began to form in my eyes and I placed my face into my hands.
Vion rubbed my shoulder briefly, “I’m sorry, Elliot. Just ten seconds earlier and he would be with you now. I blame myself.”
“Who are you?” I cried.
He nodded and sat on the bed beside me. “I’m Commander Vionalio Requte.”
“You are in the military?” I looked up at him.
“Yes, but not the military that you are thinking of. You see, I’m not from Earth.”
My brows came together, “What? You aren’t human?” I didn’t know if I believed him, but enough strange things had happened that I was willing to give his excuse a chance.
“Oh, I’m human, but I’m not an Earth human. We call ourselves Kigons.” He sighed, “Earth is a Petri dish to us. Hundreds of thousands years ago, we came across the planet. It had long ago gone through a meteor strike that had wiped out it’s inhabitants. It was preparing to begin a new life cycle as most planets do. We input our own life cycle into the world so that evolution could bring humans to this point.”
“What point? Why did you do that?”
He waved his hand as if trying to stop me from speaking. “We have enemies as most species do, and this particular species called Fuqerit releases a gas into the hair. It’s extremely toxic and most people die from it. The Kigons were the only ones known to have any people who were immune to it. We made antidotes using these people, and eventually the Fuqerit died out.” He shook his head with a grin, “Or so we thought.”
With a cough that seemed to relieve either embarrassment or stress, before he continued talking. “We stopped making the antidote and unfortunately we didn’t continue to research it either. Turned out the Fuqerit were just recuperating from the war, and they came back. We had evolved so much that we couldn’t create the antidote for ourselves, let alone our allies.”
“So, you made Earth to get the cure? That would have taken hundreds of thousands of years, how the hell would you guys have that kind of time?” I snapped my questions. He was losing credibility in my eyes.
“When we gave Earth our life cycle, we needed to speed up the process of evolution. So, we cut down the human life span. We Kigons live on average around fifty thousand earth years, it also takes the virus much longer to kill us. Most people survive with it for a couple thousand. It, however, makes them extremely weak and relatively useless to society.”
“And because of this, you killed six billion people?”
“Four percentage of the population on Earth survived. So, there are around two hundred and forty million survivors.”
I snorted, “And that makes it fucking alright?”
“Six billion people are nothing compared to how many people die each earth year in the rest of the universe due to this disease. You humans were created for a single purpose, and you will now begin to fulfill this purpose. I will make no apologizes, as this was the only way we could have possibly been able to find all of those with the antidote.” He stood up.
I didn’t know what to say. I hated him for what had been done to me. My family dying, discovering that we were nothing more than lab rats.
“The galaxy that contained Earth has been under quarantine since we began the life cycle. No ships have been allowed to enter under penalty of death. Earth was too important. We had to wait until the height of the antidote, before we came here.” He coughed again.
“You keep calling it an antidote, but it’s a virus not a poison.”
He nodded, “I don’t speak your language to perfection. I am not sure which one I would be incorrect about.”
I dropped my head, “What happens now?”
“You and the others will begin testing. We will discover what makes you immune and begin to create antidotes with that knowledge. After which, the human populace will be given a moon around Hynome, the Kigon home planet. Our technology and way of life will be available to the humans. We will consider all of you, brethren and invite you into our way of life. We hope…”
“What kind of tests? How will you make the antidote?”
Vion sighed. “Nothing invasive. Blood work and the like. We hope to also create hybrids of Kigons and humans. We want the humans and Kigons to interbreed, and if they chose not too then we plan to ensure that any human offspring is born with the gene that carries the antidote. Nothing is set at this time.”
I remained quit, all I could think of was how much I hated these Kigons and how much I had lost because of them.
“You have no idea how important you humans are. Thousands of species have gone extinct due to the Fuqerit, and finally we will be able to battle them.” He offered out his hand to me. “Come, I will take you to the others.”
“Elliot!” I heard Cole’s voice call out to me.
The large room we entered was filled with what appeared to be bunks. Thousands of people were piled into the large room. I had seen hundreds of ships around Earth’s orbit as we passed through the halls. Vion had told me that the bottom four floors of his ship was for the passengers and that most we be able to live comfortably until they reached the moon.
Cole grabbed my face as tears were already streaming down my cheeks. He placed his forehead to my own and gently kissed my lips. “Are you alright? I was so worried.”
I wrapped my arms around Cole’s neck when he released my face, and cradled my forehead into his neck. I began to cry and didn’t notice when Vion left, nor when Gina came to stand next to us.
“Where is Alec?” She asked me and placed her hand on my back.
I shook my head and that was all that she needed to know. I could barely see her out of my tear filled eyes, but she swallowed deeply before returning to her bed. Cole wrapped his arms around me tighter.
“It’s over now.” He whispered.
“He shot himself.” I mumbled through my tears, “We were going to end it all, but they… they showed up, but it was too late.” My voice was raised to a scream.
Cole walked me away from everyone to a large window where we could see Earth. Everyone else seemed to leave that area of the room alone, obviously terrified of all the memories it would bring.
Placing my hands on the freezing window, I looked over the planet. It seemed almost foreign to me, even though I had seen it so many times in pictures. I swallowed deeply before the tears came again. Cole stood silently beside me, his head lowered.
“It seems as if the price was not worth the outcome.” I mumbled, even though I wasn’t sure if Cole understood why we were here.
“Right now, no it doesn’t. Yet, there are billions more out there that are being devastated by all of this. It’s not fair to us, but this is even less fair for them.” He stepped towards the window, “Besides, without the Kigon none of us would exist. We were made for a purpose, and we have to pay the price now. It’s not fair, but it is the price.”
“I have nothing left.” I said, “Everyone that I have ever loved is now gone. I’m alone.”
Cole’s hand touched mine and he pulled it off the glass to turn me towards the room. My eyes wandered over all the people. Some eating, others talking, some still sleeping or doing chores.
“None of us are alone. We are all here suffering the same as anyone else. Some of us have lost more than others, but we have all experienced it.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “The good news is that we begin anew tomorrow. We can’t repair what has happened to us yesterday. All we can do is make the best of what is to come.” With that he dropped his arm from my shoulder. “I’m in bunk J304 when you want to talk.”
I watched him walk away and I turned my eyes back to Earth. He was right, I suppose. Nothing but pain and emptiness could come from living in the past. Of course, that didn’t mean that I would forget the people that I had loved and that had shaped me. I couldn’t fight the Kigons for what they had done, and logically thinking I didn’t know if there was any fault to be had.
All that I knew was I could always hurt when I thought of the deaths of my loved ones or I could always smile when I thought of their lives and how they affected me. My attitude about my past and how I remembered it, would affect my future. That didn’t mean I would cry tonight for my family… for my brother, but that I would miss them and remember them fondly. The Kigons were not my enemy, even if they were to blame for everything.
A small hand touched mine and I looked down at Mabel, who smiled up at me. I tried to return the gesture, though it was probably meager at best.
“Are you remembering, Elliot?” She asked me.
I nodded my head.
Mabel squeezed my hand tighter, “Mommy says it’s good to remember, but bad to allow memories to live your life for you…or something like that.” She chuckled.
“Mabel, come eat.” Cole called.
“Come on, Elliot.” She pulled my hand, “Families eat dinner together.”
With a smile, I followed the little girl to some familiar faces. Cole had me sit down beside him, and even though this wasn’t my birth family, I felt somewhat at home. I felt accepted, and with that one meal, I knew that I would be alright. I knew that my family would have wanted it that way.
The End.