The Last Journey

She had known she had gone through some drastic physical changes. The rate of her infection had seemed particularly rapid compared to those around her, with only a week or two between the appearance of her first scab and a total onslaught of the disease. And her appetite had begun to change as well. Her senses were more acute, different somehow. She had seen others in various stages of their disease, some still recognizable as human, others barely. But reality still had not prepared her for this moment, standing face to reflection with the woman she used to know as Dyanna Max…and barely finding any of her physical self left. Where once smooth skin had lain now crusted sores were beginning to pus, and unhealed layers were hanging in peels. Most of her face was now covered with hideous cankers. The only humanity remaining was in the glint of her light brown eyes. Intelligence, skewered with grief and horror, still shone in them.

"You there!" a booming voice broke into her misery. She looked away from the window to find one of the militia guards standing just a few feet from her. "Come here!" His meaty hand beckoned her, shaking the strap of the Uzi hanging from his shoulder.

She complied willingly, no longer able to look at the woman in the reflection. She moved towards him, at first with head down, shame still gripping her. And then survival instincts forced her head up again. He needed to see the mark on her forehead.

His own sores were oozing as she looked up at him. He put his hand to her forehead and rubbed at it, checking the insignia. When nothing came away on his finger, he allowed himself a smile. She stood rigid as he lowered his ugly face to hers and began sniffing.

"N-i-i-i-i-ce." If she had thought he couldn’t get any uglier, she was wrong. The leer on his face contorted his features into something more lupine than man. She instinctively pulled back from the assault of his breath and the unhealthy smell emanating from the ooze.

"Haven’t had a woman these many weeks…" he said beneath his breath. He had already taken her arm, knowing her resistance was a nonissue. The militia held all of the power, being literally the arm and gun of the one world dominion. They could take what they wanted, as long as they kept order and rid the world of the unspoiled ones.

As he pulled her along, something inside snapped as she realized he was taking her to a vacant alley. She knew he wouldn’t kill her, yet an overwhelming human impulse along with an underlying animal instinct merged together, putting her into a fight mode. She wanted her last memory of intimacy to be of Gerald’s tender caresses, not this, not the repulsive touch of this man-animal whose barbarism had probably preceded the viral onslaught. Evolution had only caught up with him.

She landed her fists against his face, his shoulders, but her struggle only made him smile wider.

"That’s right, fight me, if that’s what you need to do. But know, it only feeds the rage inside. We need the rage… you know it, you feel it."

"No, I’m still human!!" she wanted to yell to him, to this world, this godforsaken world where God no longer showed his face or mercy. But her words screamed inside her head only, unspoken, unheard as he threw her down on the gravelled ground, trash strewn around them.

The act itself lasted less than a few minutes. It was nothing more than a hasty grappling that was even beneath the mating rhythms of barnyard animals…more like the coupling of two rabid dogs. Her initial resistance faltered as a need started rising from within her. It was akin to the abnormal hungers she now suffered from. During her confinement, she had astounded herself when she had scrambled after a cockroach that had been crawling along the wall. She had even punched another woman who had been reaching for it, knocking her to the floor. The sound, the feel of the bug crunching beneath her teeth…the act itself, the killing, the violence of it had been the satisfying of the hunger. She hadn’t wanted the crust of bread passed out to the prisoners by the guards. Bread wouldn’t have sufficed, not then, not now.