Among the Fallen
I shuffle aimlessly around a convenience store I'm not familiar with, gazing over all the useless junk and little knick knacks that, in life, I would have passed over without a second thought. However, in death, I long for the enjoyment of even one piece of my past life. Perhaps a candy bar, or a nice book...even the trashy pulp fictions usually sold at a place like this. My whole prior life feels like a distant memory now, even though it's been a mere two weeks since I succumbed to the viral outbreak. The faces that surrounded me when I passed from one existence to the next swim around my mind...Mom, Sarah, Tom...
My body begins wandering to the doors of the store. As much as I want to stay and reminisce about pleasures past, I can't stay. I fight momentarily to keep myself from wandering away, but I know the effort s fruitless. My physical self refuses to acknowledge my commands. For two weeks my actions have not been my own. The survivors who manage to escape from me and the rest of the horde of creatures like me always talk about rumors of what caused this. Most speculate it's an advanced viral parasite, capable of shutting down an organism's life functions and assimilating those functions for itself. As far as I can tell, they're probably right.
As I pass by the window of the store, I manage to catch my reflection. I see faint features of the fox I used to be. Beyond that, I am a disheveled mess. Blood and grime cover my matted red fur, pieces of flesh hang from various parts of my face and body. My right forearm has decayed to the bone, bleaching from the exposure to air and sunlight. I've started to grow accustomed to the sight, steadily worsening every time I see myself, but it still horrifies me to imagine myself as such a disfigured monster.
I try to think back to what life was like before this horrible mess...I remember less and less with every passing day. My name is Stan...Stan...I can't remember my last name anymore. I recall being an accountant for some law firm in downtown Chicago. Work always took up most of my life. Didn't feel the need to cut back and relax once in a while, figured there'd be plenty of time to unwind once I hit retirement. Sarah constantly told me I shouldn't put it off because I didn't know what might lie further down the road. She was a good sister, always looking out for me...
Snap out of it, I think. No sense getting sentimental now. For all I know her and her husband Tom are already dead, or worse. I mentally shudder thinking about it, praying they haven't shared my fate. I already know my mother died. Saw her corpse a few days ago in an alley. From the looks of it, she took her own life, probably after getting surrounded by a mob of these...of us.
A bottle breaks somewhere in the distance. My body turns around, staring at the alley where the sound originated. Several others gaze along with me, some already shambling over to the small space between the buildings. A few seconds pass before my own body begins wandering over. I don't fight back, instead praying it was the wind or some other unfortunate soul like me that caused the sound. I turn the corner just in time to see a cloaked figure crawl into a window on the upper reaches of the fire escape of the building to the left of me. The scent of perfume and living flesh hits my decaying nose. I sigh inside, knowing what would soon follow.
The prospect for a meal drives my body into a frenzy, fueling the rotting husk of fur and tissue with a previously untapped vigor. Several others around me show the same signs of vitality. A service door to the building resides a few dozen feet away. We all clamber toward it and begin pounding and tearing at the barricade, reducing it to a heap of rubble in a matter of seconds. Pouring into the confines of the building, I see the a few others like me, although they were lucky...sprawled out on the floor and riddled with bulletholes, they had already seen the sweet release of true death.
My sensitive nose picks up the scent of the survivor again, and my body rushes after it, several others following behind my lead up a nearby stairwell. After four slights pass me by, my body lunges though a door leading out of the stairwell and into the main building. Less of the property is destroyed up here, and the floor is oddly absent of any sign of death. The upper floors of any building in the city must be relatively unscathed if they fell after the initial panic and chaos, I think. This building, though, will soon taste battle and bloodshed. I know that either the survivor will leave...or we will. I mentally cringe to think of her odds of escaping.
The scent becomes strong enough to reveal her location behind a closed door at the end of the hallway. I can't quite place it, but I feel as if I know it somehow...like I've smelt it before. My tattered memory fails to yield any results, however, as we barrel towards the room at the end of the hall. Our paws pound and tear at the wooden blockade, which is oddly more resilient than the service door downstairs. Probably strengthened by furniture propped up against it on the other side, or by her own weight against the door. It won't matter, because a raccoon next to me manages to rip his claws through the door, leaving an opening for the rest of us to tear at. Mere seconds pass before I catch a glimpse of what lay beyond the wooden barrier. If I could control my eyes, they would have widened in horror.
Sarah stands against the back wall, taking aim at the widening hole with a small pistol. She starts firing off shots at the group around me, taking a few of them down before she spots me. The color drains from her face, her gun lowering slightly. She chokes out "St...Stan? No...no... NO! I can't...I won't..." She raises her gun again, shooting at the others around me while sparing my afterlife. My body hobbles toward her. Bullets fly past me, splattering the once clean walls with entrails, blood, and bulletholes. I try with all my willpower, all my mental strength, to restrain my steps and stop my advance. Her arm falls to her waist as the last gunshot rings through the halls, having dealt with the others who followed me. She starts crying, tucking a black paw to her rust-colored muzzle. "I don't want to, Stan...please...you know me...I'm your sister, remember?"
My progress towards her slows, but doesn't stop. I keep trying to run, or something else that would take her far from me, or get her out of harm's way, but I'm powerless against the urges of my body. I stumble, mere inches from her, and look up to see the barrel of the pistol pointing directly between my eyes. "I'm sorry...I love you, Stan...please forgive me" She whispers, and pulls the trigger.
Hot smoke blasts against my face as a sharp, splitting pain drives its way through my skull. The agony is nearly intolerable as I fall to the ground. I hear a large thud against the floor shortly after I collapse. A pistol bounces gently against the carpet of the room and Sarah stumbles backward against the wall of the room, looking gaunt and tormented. Silent tears run down her vulpine face while my vision begins to blur. I lay on the ground, bleeding out of my forehead, and sign relief inside my mind. She may not know it, but she's freed me from this cursed existence. Sadly, all I can do is lay on the floor while she sobs. I pray for her continued safety in her escape while my eyes grow darker and darker until I feel the peaceful grip of a final death sweep over my now motionless body.