Apocalypse

     The sky was veiled behind blackened clouds overtop the western mountains. Brimstone rained down from above, scorching the luscious green grass as it landed, turning it into a crispy dull black. The red sun peaked through the clouds as it began to set behind the mountains’ snowy tops that hung against the sky like ominous sketches. The trees sizzled as each cluster of brimstone struck their branches and bounced off, causing them to burn and wither into ash.

     A man moved up the steep slope of the mountain, hugging the tree line so that he would not become an easy target for the brimstone. His long jagged black coat waved behind him as he moved at the speed of someone half his age. He carried a single backpack and a scoped rifle that slung over his right shoulder. The dead grass crunched under the heel of his boots as he ran towards a wall of stone. Right before he reached the wall, the man ran up the side of one of the few surviving trees and kicked off of it. He flew through the air towards the lip of the cliff and grasped it with his gloved hands. He dangled for a brief second before he mustered all the strength he could and pulled himself up onto the ledge.

     When he was finally over the edge, he took a few small deep breaths as his chest tightened. The man coughed up blood and spitting it onto the rocks. The air of the storm was full of pestilence and was beginning to infect the man, draining every bit of life it could in the process. He continued up the mountain, lifting his scarf high over his face so that he would not breathe as much of the toxic air that he had been. He walked slower up the mountain, watching, as the storm was slowly beginning to pass.

     Human moans came from in front of him, and the man looked up to see a figure shambling ahead of him. He walked towards the figure, its arms hung down at its side swinging back and forth as it walked. The man noticed its movements were obscure as he came closer to it, causing him to become more cautious. He placed his hand on its shoulder.

     “Hey, are you al-“ before he could finish the sentence the figure turned slightly around and the man noticed that what stood before him was no longer a man. It had the shape of a man; it appeared to be a man, but it was no longer one. What stood before him was nothing more than an empty shell that’s only purpose and desire was to feed upon human flesh.

     Its jaw hung low and you could see part of the bone protruding out of its cheek. The zombies’ skin was a pale gray and its eyes held little to no color. In its left hand it held what appeared to be a half eaten appendage that was probably too rotted for the creature to no longer consider it food.

     The man jumped backwards and stood in a defensive form with his right foot in front of him and his knee bent. He reached inside his jacket and gripped the handle of long bladed dagger and pulled it out of its sheath. Its blade, made from pure silver, glistened under the light of the setting sun.

     Before the man could decapitate the zombie, he heard heavy footsteps come from his far left. Filled with fear, he rushed to a tree not too far from him and clung to the side of the trunk. The creature continued up through the decaying forest as the zombie sniffed the air, searching for the man who hid in the shadows. It wasn’t long before the creature caught the scent of the undead. It charged out towards the zombie, each step shaking the ground like light tremors. It broke the tree line, revealing itself to be a large werewolf.

     The brimstone had lightened up and what little did hit the wolfs’ back did nothing more than singe some of its black fur and cause a tiny annoyance to it. The brimstone caused no real pain to the werewolf so it just ignored it. Its teeth were yellowed and still had pieces of meat from the previous meal between them.

     In one clawed hand, the werewolf gripped the zombies’ head and lifted it up. The zombie squirmed, flailing its arms at the giant wolf, but it failed to do anything other than piss off the beast. The zombie attempted to chomp at the wolfs’ hand, but he couldn’t sink his teeth in, for its skin was like thick gray leather. The beast snorted and grabbed the zombies’ legs with his other hand and in one swift movement, it tore the zombie in two. The wolf threw the legs across the forest and dropped the torso in front of him.

     The zombie, even though it was ripped in two, was still reaching for the werewolf, seeming not to let his newfound injury sway him. The wolf looked down at the pathetic starving thing and flattened it under his large foot. Its bones crunched as they snapped into pieces.

     The man watched all this from a safe distance, but he knew it was only a matter of time before the wolf picked up on his scent; he placed the dagger back in its sheath and began to run away at full speed in the opposite direction. He jumped over fallen trees and craters that had been burned into the ground by over-sized chunks of brimstone. Ahead of him was a large boulder and in one leap, the man reached the top of it and quickly turned to see if the wolf had noticed him; and it had. The man whipped the rifle off his shoulder and removed the caps off the scope. He aimed it at the werewolf, putting it in the crosshairs and saw it getting down on all fours, ready to charge at him.

     The man popped the first shot off, the sound echoing through the air, hitting the werewolf in the shoulder. The wound burned and bleed and only angered the werewolf when it realized it was silver the man was shooting at it. The beast charged at the man; its stride was impossibly long. The man took two more shots at the angered beast, barely grazing it. He threw down the rifle and unsheathed the silver dagger again and just as the beast reached him the man leapt towards it, the dagger gripped overhead, planting the blade into the spine of the werewolf as he flipped over top of it. The wolf thudded to the ground like a sack of wet clothes and the man hit the ground rolling. Deep red blood oozed out of the wound as it howled into the sky.

     He walked to the werewolf and ripped the blade out of its back and it howled again, this time even louder. He walked around to the beasts’ head, grabbing a tuft of fur and lifted its head high. In one fluid motion he slit the wolfs’ throat. He dropped the head, and it too thudded to the ground. The hair began to fall off, and the shape of the beast began to shrink and contort once again into the figure of the woman it was before. The man in black bent down over the corpse, reaching into the pocket of his pants, he produced a small silver-colored coin, which had the imprint of an owl on one side and the face of the goddess Athena on the other, and placed it in the mouth of the dead blonde haired woman.

     The world, as it once was, had moved on. 

Author's Note

First draft