Once he had finished opening up all the enclosures, Nick had climbed up onto the roof of the orang-utan exhibit. The zoo now teemed with the dead and the rooftop was one of the only safe places left. Now he just sat peacefully, watching the dead wander about aimlessly while he waited for the end.
Nick could already feel himself changing. A deep exhaustion had fallen over him and his vision had taken on an unnatural orange tint, almost like he was seeing everything through a sepia filter. His internal organs felt heavy, like all movement inside of him had ground to a halt. He felt as though he was dead already, but that his mind was just a little slow in catching on.
Above all else, however, he felt at peace. He could finally stop running, stop fighting, stop surviving. Really, his life had ended the moment his son had died. Now he could finally move on, to whatever fate had lined up for him next.
Thud!
Nick turned around. He did not flinch or even worry. Nothing could frighten him anymore. Fear only existed with the possibility of loss. He had already lost all he could
Sitting on the roof behind him was Lily. She had leapt from a nearby tree. She hooted at him as she shuffled nearer. Nick saw that she held a carrot in her hand. It looked suspiciously like the ones he had seen at the greenhouse.
Lily reached out and offered the vegetable. Nick laughed but shook his head. “No, thanks. It would just be wasted on me. You eat it, Lily.”
As if understanding, Lily sat down beside him and took a hefty bite out of the carrot. Nick reached over and patted her fur.
“You can’t stay here for long, Lily. I’m sick, and eventually I’ll become dangerous. I think you understand that. For now, though, I’m glad you’re here. I hope you make it out of this mess better than me.”
There was silence for a while and Nick stared of into the distance. The sun was beginning to rise above the horizon like a ball on a string. It was his last morning on Earth and he was feeling pretty damn good. The very notion was absurd, but it was true.
“You think they’ll be okay out there?” he asked Lily. He was thinking about Eve and the others. Their chance of finding safety seemed pretty slim, but at least there was a chance. He could still hope for them. “You think they’ll keep on surviving?”
Lily hooted.
“Yeah.” Nick nodded and smile. “That’s what I think, too.”
With a smile on his face, Nick lay back and watched the sun rise. A few minutes later, he rose with it.
The End
Path of Infection
SEA SICK
Daniel Houser staggered into Southampton General hospital and found his way to reception. A weary-looking nurse peered back at him from behind an ancient CRT monitor. Her spectacles were lopsided, which may have been because her ears were not level.
“Can I help you?” she asked, quite obviously forcing a smile.
Houser cleared the fiery gravel from the back of his throat and nodded. “Something’s wrong with me. I think I have the flu or something…but worse.”
The nurse gave him a curious look, as if silently pitying him for assuming he could possibly make a correct diagnosis of himself. “Okay,” she said. “Fill out this form and I will have someone come see you shortly.”
Houser took the form and selected a seat in the waiting area. He was glad to see that the form was only a single page long, but even the thought of filling that out felt like too much. He was so…weak.
What on earth did I catch?
He plucked the stubby pencil from the top of the clipboard and began filling out the questionnaire. His hand was frustratingly unsteady.
NAME: Daniel Houser
DOB: 05/12/198
RACE: White British
Houser filled out the rest of his details, including his parent’s address where he could be reached, and then got down to a box marked: SYMPTOMS. With blunt pencil marks, he wrote: headache, blocked nose, sneezing, itchy eyes, aching joints, stomach pain, throbbing ears, dizziness…
Before Houser had chance to write down more of his symptoms, a slender woman in a doctor’s coat entered the waiting room. He struggled to his feet to catch up to her before she left. She turned and smiled when she spotted him approaching. The name on her badge read: Clark.