Catastrophe

She crouched underneath the dilapidated teacher’s desk, her heart thudding in her throat, listening through the silence for the inevitable sound of footsteps.  In front of her, on something that used to resemble a human wrist, a watch’s second hand ticked back and forth, time frozen at ten forty-eight precisely.  Once bright and colorful, the decorations on the walls were faded and dusty.  She wondered what living in the mundane normalcy of school would have been like.  Her parents had grown up before the end of the world, and used to tell her how much they had taken for granted.  Now, at twelve years old, she was about to kill her first zombie, to earn her place in the family clan—the people who had all had a hand in raising her—and prove that she was, indeed, an adult.
 

The second hand on the watch swung like a metronome, and she waited, knowing that it would be soon.  Uncle Jay stalked somewhere in the rundown building, luring her first kill closer.  Her clan had been protecting the town and surrounding area since she was born, and had finally rid it of zombies three years ago.  Every so often, a new one would wander in, looking for undiseased meat, and someone would have to take care of it before others followed in its bloody wake.  This one belonged to her, and she had long since proven her accuracy on moving targets.  Still, her hands trembled on her Remington and she wished that she had someone else to share the silence with.  Oh, they were probably strategically placed outside, making sure this zombie was completely alone, but right now, Allie wanted someone to talk to.  Instead, she stared at the watch, seconds crawling by, trying not to think about whom the hand had belonged to.  It was just another dead carcass, just meat, had never been a real person . . ..

Footsteps sounded by the door, and she jumped with fright, about dropped her gun.  She bent down lower, her face pressed to the cracked tile floor, and recognized Uncle Jay’s combat boots.  He paused at the doorway and sighed.

“Your back’s to the window, Allie,” he said, his boots stepping closer.  “Coulda got you from behind and you’d never known.”

“There’s someone covering my rear,” she replied.

“Won’t always be,” Uncle Jay said, leaning against the desk.  She popped her head above the desk, and looked up at his tall, lean figure.

“Where’s the zombie?” she asked, her hands tensing on the weapon again.  Uncle Jay’s shotgun was resting over one arm, relaxing with him.

“In the cafeteria, feasting on a rat the size of a terrier.”

Allie shuddered.  She’d killed plenty of those in her time—they’d been almost as bad as the zombies a few years ago—used them as target practice to hone her now deadly aim.

“Did you kill it?”

“The zombie?  Hell no, s’yours.”

“No, the rat.”

“Nope.  This’un got it by itself.  Quick bugger too—rat never had a chance.”  He paused, eyes searching the doorway.  “It’ll hear us and come soon.”

She looked away from the fallen door and looked at Uncle Jay, knew that he could go from nonchalant to badass in three point five seconds and would protect her and their clan if she hesitated.  Shifting her gun to wipe her sweaty palms on her jeans, she could not manage to make her heart calm down.

“Are you scared?” she asked, and then wondered why she’d asked it.  He looked down at her, his green eyes soft, a half-smile playing on his lips.

"Every time,” he replied, and she marveled that this man—part father, part trainer, fully indomitable—looked calm, but was shaking in his boots deep down.

Different footsteps sounded in the hall this time, a broken gait, as though this person moved, but not in the right way.  Slowly, it came closer, until Allie could hear the wheezing breath, smell the rotten stink of it.  Petrified, she raised her gun to her shoulder.  Uncle Jay stood, calm as ever, not readying his gun.  Allie’s fingers trembled, but she never lost her sights.

The zombie shambled into view, sniffing at the air like a cat waiting on tuna.  It turned its face toward them, and Allie was frozen, horrified at the red eyes and blood-spattered mouth, the gunk under the blackened nails, the twitching movements as it stopped and looked straight at them.  Allie couldn’t breathe.  HHHHHYHHer mother stared back at her; her ruddy mother, who had gone on a hunt for supplies less than two weeks ago.

“Mom?” Allie said, her voice trembling.  Bile rose in her throat at the stench of decaying gore, but she forced it down, trying to regain composure.  Never, in all her life, had she imagined that this would be her first kill.

“Not your mom anymore, kid,” Uncle Jay said, like he’d known all along.

The zombie hissed, its red mouth opening wide, and Allie choked back tears, trying with all her might to believe him.  This isn’t Mom, Mom is dead.

“If you don’t shoot, I will,” Uncle Jay said, as the zombie growled and lurched across the room toward them.

Allie took a deep breath, the seconds slowing, her thoughts whirling.  No, it would be right for her to do this, to be the one who killed the thing which had infected her mother.  But she knew that for years to come, her mother’s exploding head would haunt her nightmares.  Perhaps that was the price to pay for becoming an adult—but she still wished that she could be a child in her mother’s arms for just one more fleeting moment.

Uncle Jay was sighting his gun, the zombie was stretching out its arms to her, threatening disease and death.  Allie forced the tears away.  She sighted down the barrel, and, drawing in a steady breath, she fired.

994 words.  Also written for a creative writing workshop class in 2010.