Day One

His eyes slid open.  Well, mostly open. One was swollen shut, the other was blurry.  He groaned and tried to lift his head up.

 

A unique and merciless pain tore through his left forearm. He didn’t need to look at it to know it was broken.  Very slowly, he turned his head over to focus his one good eye. (Ha! “Good!”) His left wrist was handcuffed to the bedpost. Most of his clothes were still on at least. Only his shirt and shoes were missing.

 

He began to try and take inventory, without moving too much. Try as he might, he couldn’t recall what had happened. He had a brief image of a nurse �" or a doctor? He had told her something. His brain felt mushy, druggy.  The room was dark, with some light coming through the curtains. It sounded like someone next door was talking.  Where the hell were his cuff keys?

 

S**t. Or his badge and gun, for that matter. This was very, very bad.  He fumbled with his right hand in the right pocket of his slacks. He still had his keys. He let out a sharp breath.

 

Rolling over and gritting his teeth, he unlocked his ruined left arm. He could see it better now. His wrist was scored and bloody. Bruises ran along his arm. He followed them down visually and saw some very large bruises on his right side.

 

Well, that would explain the difficulty breathing. He decided they were probably cracked.

 

Trying to stay as straight as possible, he stood up. Dizzy, he wandered the room. No one else was here. There were no furnishings or pictures on the wall and the towels were a boring, cheap white.

 

He was in a short-stay apartment.  Where? He walked out to the window and pulled the curtains aside, blinking at the bright light. And almost passed out.

 

The scene below looked like something out of Hollywood.  Cars piled up all over the road. Bodies, blood everywhere. Fires off in the distance.  And something even more horrifying:  silence. No sirens, voices. No one moving. It was as if the apocalypse had happened, not as a wave or an event, but as an instant, all at once, everywhere.

 

He felt sick, suddenly. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he held his arm close to his side and tried to think! What had happened? Who was the doctor? She was asking him something… someone to call… he told her something she didn’t understand.

 

But before? Concentrating and rubbing his eyebrow he brought forth an image of a man. In a restaurant maybe? They had drinks but no food. The man seemed scared, frightened. He had given him his business card. Police detective. Cell phone number.

 

And that was all. The rest was just gone. He couldn’t even remember which precinct he worked at. He felt in his pockets. The phone was gone. At least his shirt was still here.

 

Something told him that man in the restaurant was the last person on earth he should have given his cell number too.

 

He found his shoes and fashioned a sling out of the hotel towels. It still hurt like hell, but it was better than nothing. Someone besides him had to be alive.

He remembered the voice he heard next door.

 

Gingerly he opened the door to the corridor. Not a soul in sight. He saw a body, slumped down at the end of the hallway, obviously dead.

 

He walked to the next room and knocked. No answer. He waited, listening. He heard the sound this time, but it didn’t really sound like talking anymore… more like mumbling.

 

Something triggered in his mind. He walked down a bit further towards the body at the end of the hall and found a utility closet. It was locked, but very old. He took a step back and kicked it in with his left leg, trying to spare his right ribs. They hurt anyway and the effort knocked the wind out of him, but the door burst open. He switched on the light. Buckets, mops, brooms… and yes. A large, rusty, red pipe wrench. He picked it up and walked back to his neighbor. He tested the knob. It was unlocked.

 

He opened the door and looked inside. A older man, with white, wild-flying hair, was hunched over a woman’s body. Rocking back and forth, mumbling.

 

“Sir?  … Sir? Are you alright?”  The man didn’t move. He hefted the pipe wrench and took a couple steps closer. Nothing.  He stepped closer, still asking the man if he was alright, what was his name?

 

The floorboard squeaked.

 

With a heart-stopping hiss, the man on the floor turned. The man’s eyes were glazed, lifeless. His face, especially the mouth, was covered in blood. It dripped from his teeth. In that nanosecond, he knew he had been very, very wrong.

 

The cannibal lunged for him, moving surprisingly quickly. He swung the wrench with a deadly force. It connected. The old man crumpled in a heap, by his feet, truly dead now. Just in case, he looked at the woman on the floor. She had long passed into another life. The sight of her brought tears to his eyes and he staggered to the hallway and wretched, sobbing, for a time.

 

He needed to keep moving. He needed his arm set. And he needed something better than a melee weapon if there were people this depraved about.  He set his jaw and went out into the street. No living soul was around.  He couldn’t remember his name, or his home… but the doctor in the hospital �" that seemed accessible.  Which way?

 

He couldn’t have given directions to another, but somehow, he knew which way was the right way. He headed off down the large boulevard, walking around cars and various wreckage, north.

 

Someone else would be there. He just knew it.

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Celtic Cat]

I love it. Totally gripping from go. Very good writing, (and I've just been interrupted at home, gah.)
Let me just say this: perfect title and supreme follow up. Was on the edge of my seat which is very rare for me. A delicious treat, lets have lots more!! Love it!

[TL Boehm]

Oh wow. A nice bit of fiction. Tense writing. Graphic, suspensful and solid description. I was definitely in the moment, on the edge of my seat. Well done.