Page 32 of Dating After the End of the World
I let on a smile as I bounce on the balls of my feet, moving back and forth to throw off his eyes, which are following the center of my mass, waiting for a hint as to what I will do. I step in, then out, faking a left jab and following with a right. My father catches my fist in his hand and pulls me forward, sending me tumbling into the dirt.
“Dad!” I yell.
“I told you to fight me, not play around and dance. Come on!”
I’m fuming now, annoyed my skills have softened so much that I can’t even engage in proper combat with a man in his fifties. I stand and start to circle him, waiting to see whether he’ll make the first move, but after a minute or so, I realize he’s not going to.
“Whoop his ass, Casey!” my uncle shouts. Aunt Julie claps and hoots and hollers.
I feint inside, fake a jab, and go for a swift kick, connecting the toe of my shoe with his shin.
“Ow, ow, ow.” He hobbles on one leg, and I take the opportunity to rush in, dropping my shoulder at his waist and tackling him to the ground. I try to pin him, but he’s too large and surprisingly fast. As we’re crashing to the ground, he continues rotating while holding my waist tightly. He flips me onto my back just as he hits the dirt, ending the fight in an instant.
“A shin kick followed by tackling someone twice your size. What’s going on?” Dad asks, only slightly out of breath as he gets to his feet, brushing himself off.
I peel myself from the grass and stand. “What? It worked, didn’t it? I threw you off guard and got you down,” I say, knowing full well I’m full of shit.
If he had been a burner, I’d be dead. The burners who broke into Nate’s townhome were caught off guard because they didn’t expect me to fight. I had a baseball bat, I poked someone’s eyes out, I threw boiling rice water at a man’s face, all because it was all I had. I was fighting from behind and out of desperation, but I need to learn how to control the fight.
He shakes his head, not buying what I’m trying to sell. And I know he won’t accept it either, because he needs me to be strong and capable. “You’ve lost it, Casey. Everything but the muscle memory of your throwing stars is just that, a memory. You need a hell of a lot more work than I thought you did,” Dad says matter-of-factly.
“Come on, I’m not that bad.”
“But you’re not good either, so let’s start with the basics. We’ll pretend you know nothing, although that won’t be a stretch at this point.”
“Dad!”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. All right, let’s just—”
Gunshots ring out in the distance, followed by a bell clanging violently. Screams echo among the ringing. We freeze, looking to one another.
“Let’s go!” my father yells, turning and running toward the front of the property.
“What is it!?” I call out, but there’s no time to ask questions. My aunt and uncle take off, and I sprint after them, darting between trees as I block branches with my arms, many still working their way past my makeshift shield, whipping and cutting my face. I’m faster than all three of them and I quickly break through the woods, entering the clearing first.
The two young boys from earlier race past me, screaming in terror. Their father is up at the front fence line, firing rounds into an onslaught of biters. There are dozens of them, climbing up over the fence, using the biters already tangled up in the barbed wire to successfully cross it. Chris’s shots are wild and uncontrolled, firing at whatever movement he sees. Bullets rip through limbs and torsos but do nothing to slow the creatures. He can’t keep all of them in his sight, and one biter approaches from his side, bearing down on him with increased speed, its hunger propelling it forward at an alarming rate.
I sprint toward him, trying to get a clear shot so as not to shoot him by accident, but the biter’s too close. Lunging forward, it sinks its teeth into the muscle between his shoulder and neck, tearing away flesh. Blood sprays wildly, like an overshaken soda can. He shrieks and rips himself free from the creature’s bite, stumbling back a few steps. I raise my gun and fire a round into the biter’s head, dropping it instantly.
Chris stares in horror as black slime pours out of the hole I put in the creature’s head. He turns, looking for the origin of the shot, andfinds me racing toward him. Chris doesn’t move. Instead, he stands there frozen in a state of shock.
The horde of biters is rapidly approaching. Their moans and tooth gnashing fill the air like a choir of dying animals pleading to be put out of their misery. I fire rounds into several of them, dropping them like flies as bullets pierce their brains.
“Get back!” I yell as I provide cover for Chris.
But he just stands there. He looks down at his wound, the blood still flowing where the skin’s been ripped away, and then he meets my gaze again. Tears pour from his eyes, which seem to be looking beyond me.
“Tell my family I love them,” he says.
Before I can act or respond, he puts the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Red mist sprays up into the air, and the explosion turns to a ringing in my ears.
It feels like time stands still. I scream, or at least I think I do. I can’t hear anything. I can’t feel anything. Grass rises up to meet my face as my legs give out from beneath me. Unable to move, I watch the biters close in, one step at a time.
Chapter 15
“Pu ... t ... Pear ...” The voice is muffled and comes in small chunks, only letters and sounds falling around me in broken fragments. The ringing in my ears hasn’t dissipated, and all I see is grass and decrepit feet staggering in my direction. I feel like I’ve been dropped onto the beaches of Normandy, the enemy moving in to finish me off as screams and gunfire barely register.
“Push ... it ... Pearson.” The letters pull together, forming words, but they sound miles off, far beyond the biters, who are now mere yards away. If I’m supposed to end with the world, now seems as good a day as any. I always told my dad that if it did happen, I wouldn’t want to be around for it anyway.
