The Final Day: Complete Edition Read online

  SHAWN W. SALZMAN

  Copyright ©2014 Shawn W. Salzman

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be circulated in writing of any publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction and a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, or events is unintended and entirely coincidental.

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  DEDICATION

  To my family and my fans… without you, none of this would have ever happened.

  5:00 PM

  HOUR FOUR

  "They're evacuating the city."

  That was the last thing I heard before the air raid sirens went off. I can't, for the life of me, remember the last time I was truly scared, aside from now, that is. One minute I was sitting in my cozy little cube at my job with local WSNB Channel 13 here in Wisconsin and the next minute, police are busting down the door telling us to evacuate. I thought to myself, "Come on, this is Wisconsin!" The worst thing we'd ever had happen was when Brett Favre jumped ship and went to the New York Jets and then slapped us in the face with his trip to the Vikings.

  All of us kept asking them what was going on. Of course, no details were ever given. The only detail we were told was that, if we didn't shut our mouths and move, we would be arrested. Way to go, panic control. None of us knew what was going on. Hell, our news team didn't even know what was happening. Sure, we're a small local access cable station, but we can't be that far out of the loop. One second, things are normal and then my boss, Bob, gets a phone call saying they're evacuating the city. For all we knew, it could have been the start of World War III, or a terrorist attack. It's much worse than that. Much worse...

  I'm going to tell you what happened. It's your choice if you want to believe it or not. I really don't give a shit. What do I care? Hell, I don't even know how much time I have left and, in the end, am I really going to give a shit about anything?

  He's looking at me like I'm crazy!

  "For Christ's sake, look around," I can't help but be annoyed. "Anyone that was left behind is

  already one of them, or dead."

  He holds up a tape recorder. "Do you mind if I record this, Michael?"

  Like Doctor - what does his nametag say? - Kinnelson? Like he has to ask. What am I going to do? Say no? I have no doubt in my mind that he would record it whether he had my permission or not. Asking is just a necessary technicality.

  "Do what you want. What are you going to do, write a book?"

  That gets a bit of a laugh out of him. At least I know this guy has a sense of humor.

  "Do what you want. It won't matter. I doubt anyone will ever read this shit, anyway."

  2:00 PM

  THE ZERO HOUR

  I pushed my way past an officer in riot gear. They were posted at every exit and every stairwell, each clutching a rifle as tight as a drunk clutches his bottle of booze and they were scaring the hell out of everybody. Was there a riot? Was it the start of a war? None of us knew what was going on and the fact that no one was saying anything only contributed to the panic. Everyone I worked with, with the exception of, maybe two, all had families. We had wives, husbands, and children. Were they okay? Did they know what was happening? The bastards could have said something, but instead they kept everything hush-hush and slung threats at us if we didn't do what they said.

  Once I made my way past that cop, I headed down the stairs from the third floor and tried to call my wife, Kari. I didn't know whether she had received the order or not. As much as I wished I could be with her, I really hoped and prayed she grabbed the kids and got the hell out of town. The signal in the stairwell was horrible, but I heard enough through the hissing and crackling to tell she had her cell phone turned off. I pocketed mine and decided to wait until I got outside.

  I still couldn't imagine why they would want to evacuate the city. What in the world could be so catastrophic that they would want to evacuate this Podunk town? There is absolutely nothing here of any real significance to anybody outside of this place, unless your some anti-alcohol activist trying to preach to the college kids about the dangers of alcohol consumption. The whole evacuation came across to me as asinine. Then I stepped outside.

  Buildings were on fire. People were running down the street in a panicked stupor. There were cars overturned in the middle of the street, some in flames, most just mangled beyond repair. The sky line was dappled with plumes of smoke from burning houses. The streets and sidewalks shimmered with specs of broken glass. I thought I had stepped into the middle of warzone. As I soon found out, I was right.

  I looked to my left at one of the overturned cars. There was a guy hanging half out of the car. He was still moving. I grabbed my cell phone and quickly dialed nine-one-one and slammed the damn thing shut at the first chime of a busy signal. I knew the guy would die if I didn't help him, so I rushed to him as fast as I could. He was face down against the road and bleeding horribly. It took all I could to help him without throwing up. I hate blood.

  Anyway, I grabbed hold of him right under the armpits and dragged him out of the car. I thought for sure I was going to throw my back out. He probably weighed - I don't know - about one-seventy-five, but he might as well have been three hundred. As I pulled him free from the wreck, I heard him grunt, but it was a muffled, wet gurgle. I knew right away that he was fucked, probably choking on his own blood. It was horrible. His legs were all busted up.

  I thought to myself, "Damn. This guy is screwed!"

  I couldn't have been more right. I turned away, fell to my knees and wretched. I can't stand blood. That's no joke. You could have a bloody nose and I would probably throw up or pass out. I don't know what it is. I just can't take the sight or smell of it. I backed away without hesitation, the motion an instinctual reaction for me. I could feel the bile rising in my throat. My stomach was churning something fierce and I fought it back. I had never seen anything like that before, except maybe in a movie, and I definitely never wanted to see it again.

  I didn't take much to figure out that he wasn't moving to get out of the car; he couldn't have gotten out of that car if he were Superman. What I thought was movement was really just his body convulsing as he tried to hang on to the last little thread of life he had left. His throat was torn out, not cut out. It was torn out, just like someone or something bit it out. There were tooth marks all the way around the wound. Every time his body convulsed, blood sprayed from the remaining pieces of his jugular. It was sick, but boy did it pale in comparison to what came after that.

  As if his fate hadn't already been bad enough, I heard a child cry out. Horrific images assaulted my mind. I looked all around me and I couldn't see where the cry was coming from. Then the child cried out one more time and, instantly, I pinpointed it to a mangled Toyota Corolla across the street amidst a sea of debris and wreckage. This one was a hell of a lot worse off than the car I had just pulled the guy out of. This car was mangled to the point where you could barely tell what make or model it was. What was left of the windshield was splattered with blood. There was a woman crushed between her seat and the steering wheel. The only way I knew it was a woman was by her disfigured head sitting wide-eyed on the ground in front of the car.

  I heard the kid's cry again and instantly thought of my kids. I have a nine-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl - really great kids. That really hit home. It was no longer a matter
of "if" I would be able to help her, it was "I am going to help her."

  It took everything I had, but I forced myself through the wreckage. There was so much of it - glass, metal and just pure carnage. It was a clusterfuck of twisted, broken wreckage; scrap yards were more organized than this.

  I had just begun my trek through the wreckage when I noticed the flames. They were faint at first, but they were growing just past the catalytic converter, closer to the gas tank. I saw the kid - a little girl - still strapped in her car seat and screaming for her mother, completely unaware of what was happening. She couldn't have been much more than three or four years old. Despite how badly the car was mangled, all she had was a small cut on her forehead. She was screaming. All she wanted was a little consolation from her mother. The poor little girl didn't even know her mother was dead! I saw the little tears stream down her face and I started to cry, too.

  What would you do if this was your kid? I couldn't just leave her in there.

  The flames were getting bigger. The wreckage was worse than I thought and, in some spots I actually had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl underneath. I couldn't make it more than a few steps without my clothes getting snagged on something. Each and every time it happened, I looked out at that car and watched the flames get bigger and bigger. I was still fifteen to twenty feet away.

  Man, just as I thought I would never make it through, I hit a clearing. I looked at the car and saw that little girl. She finally saw me, too. She held her arms out for me and... I tried to get there. I tried!

  This is too much. "Hold on."

  Alright, Michael, you have got to calm down. There was too much junk in the way. There was nothing you could do. Nothing.

  In that small second that I looked into her eyes, she stopped crying. I started to see a little smile form on her face and I saw a glimmer of hope in her eyes. I saw it and I tried to run to her, but I got tripped up on a twisted bumper lying right in my path. I didn't even see the damn thing. Before I knew it, I was lying face-down on a bed of broken glass strewn all over the road. Just as I hit, the car exploded.

  I can still see her face. I don't think the image of her reaching out for me will ever go away. In hindsight, if I was just a little bit faster I could have made it to her. And that's what eats at me the most.

  That was it. After that, all I wanted to do was find my Kari and the kids. I didn't know what the hell was going on. The more I saw, the more confused I became. The only thing clear was that I had to be with my family.

  I hauled ass down the sidewalk for the parking lot on the corner of Fourth and Main, where I usually park my car every day. When I made it to the parking lot, it was taped off. There were more cops, this time in riot gear, posted at the entrance. I walked up and tried to shove my way through them. Big mistake. One of the officers wrenched my arm around my back and slammed me to the ground. Another jumped in and pressed his foot against the back of my head.

  Christ, I thought I was going to get my ass kicked, or shot! The one that shoved me down was just sitting there, tapping his fingers on his pistol. They wouldn't let me to my car and, once again I was told that if I didn't move along, I would be arrested.

  Fine. I had to walk. Big deal.

  Dutton Park was just a block ahead. I could cut through, go two more blocks and end up right at my doorstep. Piece of cake. So, I started walking. As I walked away, I looked at the parking lot again and this time, at least half a dozen cops surrounded these two guys who just stood there, swinging at them. They looked like they were really pissed off. They both snarled and swung at the cops. But, the thing that got me is the cops didn't do a thing. None of them even tried to stop either one of those guys. Every time one of them would lash out, the cops jumped back and ducked behind their riot shields. Six on two and they were afraid of them. I just wanted to get to my car and they were going to kick my ass. These guys attack them and they don't do a thing. It was unbelievable. Even with their riot gear, their bulletproof vests and their guns, they were afraid.

  I soon found out why. As I got closer to the park, I looked out across the expanse. There were people everywhere. I had never seen that many people in that park ever. Hell, I felt like I was walking up to the gate at Summerfest. It was crazy. I think over half of the city's population was there. What I didn't see, though, was that for every person standing, there were bodies in equal, if not greater, numbers lying at their feet. At that point, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with going through the park.

  I pulled out my cell phone and tried my wife again and still didn't get an answer. I had to go through. What if I would have taken the long way around and something happened to my wife and kids? I couldn't bear it if anything would ever happen to them. I had to get there as fast as I could and the only quick way for me to get home without a car is to go through the park.

  By the time I took my first step on the park grounds, my head was pounding; the sirens were still wailing loud and clear. Adrenaline must have been the only thing keeping me from hearing the damn things before. They were terrible. It was getting harder and harder for me to concentrate. Looking back, if I could have thought clearly about what I was doing, I would be out of this city with my family and not sitting here in front of you. I'd be safe.

  Oh, God, it's happening again! What the hell is happening to me?

  "Do you have the central air on in here, or something? Shit, its freezing!"

  "It's eighty-two degrees in here, Michael," Doctor Kinnelson assures me. "You're shaking. Is everything alright?"

  Does it look like everything's alright? This is what we've been trying to tell you. The chills are getting worse. It could be five-hundred degrees in here and he would still be cold.)

  I should be nice. "I told you, already. It's happening more often, now. They're getting worse."

  Doctor Kinnelson jots something down in his notebook, the looks back at me. "Please, continue, Michael."

  As soon as I set foot in the park, I froze. Not even twenty feet ahead of me, some guy was running away from them. I've seen the guy around before, but I don't know what his name is, he's some high-profile businessman, you could tell by his slick Armani suit and that gold Rolex sticking out from under his shirt sleeve. He was really freaked out and with good reason. Once I laid eyes on them, I knew. At that very moment, I realized what was happening, why they were evacuating the city. As much as I tried not to believe it - I even wiped my eyes, hoping that when I stopped everything would be back to normal - the irrefutable proof was right in front of me.

  I can't get over the color of their skin. The things look like walking cadavers, I've seen twenty-year-old concrete with better color. Some of them have eyes that are cloudy, no color left in them at all, just a slate gray beneath the haze. Others look like every blood vessel in their eyes ruptured. Some don’t have any pupils, either. I don't know how they can even see anything. Don't you need pupils in order to see?

  Some moved at a sloth's speed, all slouched over like old men. Others were fast as hell, but a bit clumsy. One on one, it wouldn't be hard to outrun them, but that was the problem - there were so many of them. One wrong move and an entire mob would be on top of you in a heartbeat. If you get caught in the middle of a group of them, you're screwed. Their vicious, man. They don't just surround you and wait for you to try to escape and accidentally run into one of them, they push and claw their way through their own ranks, just waiting to devour you.

  That's where this guy screwed up, I think. His suit was torn and spotted with blood. He was frantic. His arms flailed more than their arms did. At first, I seriously thought he was going to make it. And, he almost did, though I don't think it would have mattered. There was a deep red blood patch on his chest. He had already been bitten right above his right peck. The guy looked white as hell and I thought for sure he was going to pass out, but he was pulling away. There were only two or three ahead of him. That is when he screwed up. He looked over his shoulder at them and tangled up his feet. He hit th
e ground so hard, you could hear his ribs crack. He pulled himself up onto his knees and just buckled, gasping for breath.

  It took all of five seconds for them to trap him. He couldn't go anywhere. There were ten around him and, within less than a minute, there were twenty others pushing and clawing their way into to get a piece of him. There were some that tried to get him right away, but there were others within the group holding them back. It was almost like they have some sort of collective, primal intelligence within the group. They all still had a maniacal, predatory look in their eyes. Do these things even have any intelligence?

  After that guy finally caught his breath, he was looking for any way possible to escape. Each time he would find an opening and lunge for it, they would close ranks and block him. After a half-dozen ill-fated attempts, he just gave up. He dropped to his knees, lowered his head and awaited death. He knew it was coming. I knew it was coming, too. But I don't think either one of us expected what happened next.

  When they lunged at him, I saw something I never would have expected: the precision of a pack of wolves. They knew exactly what they were doing and they wasted no time doing it. It was absolutely brutal.