Page 7 of Dating After the End of the World
The security guard finally fires a shot, piercing the man in the shoulder. It does nothing to slow him down. Another shot rings out. This time it strikes him in the other shoulder, but he continuesstaggering toward him. Two more shots. One in the upper arm, the other in the thigh. Those don’t stop him either.
“What’s going on? Where am I?” Ms. Klein says, rising from her bed.
Several more shots ring out before the gun clicks over and over, signaling that it’s out of ammunition. Panicked, he scrambles to reload. But it’s too late. The man riddled with bullets lurches at the security guard, puncturing his neck. Blood squirts everywhere, having clearly ruptured the carotid artery. The guard screams as he’s yanked to the ground.
“What do we do?” Nate looks to me with wide eyes full of fear.
“We have to get out of here.”
“What about our patients?” he asks. It’s a silly question, given the scene before us. Maybe Nate just needs a second opinion that fleeing is the right thing to do. We took an oath to do everything in our power to save them, but that’s not happening tonight.
“Those aren’t our patients anymore,” I say, reaching for his hand.
Nate leads the way, pulling me with him through the doors behind us that lead to the emergency waiting room. I press my wounded arm against my chest to ensure the hospital gown stays tightly wrapped around it. It’s full-on panic—most likely from the gunshots, because the horror we just witnessed hasn’t made its way out here yet. They have no idea what’s coming. But even so, people shove and trample one another, fight or flight taking over.
“Dr. Warner,” the front desk receptionist calls out. “Police are on their way.”
It’s too late for that. Whatever’s happening is just the beginning. A thought creeps into the back of my mind, one that I try to suppress immediately, but it won’t stop clawing at me, scratching and scratching relentlessly.He was right about everything.
“Get out of the hospital!” I yell.
Her face crumples with confusion like she can’t believe what she’s hearing. “What?” she says just as the doors behind us burst open with those things that used to be our patients spilling out, like hell just threwup. Their arms are stretched out in front of them, already clawing the air, mouths agape, snarling and snapping. They’re caked in gore, with bits of human tissue stuck to their clothes and skin, some even wedged between their teeth. The hallway behind them is a bloodbath. People who were walking and talking just a few minutes ago lie still on the floor, torn and ripped to shreds, crimson liquid pooling around them. They’re not people anymore, though. They’re bodies.
“Let’s go,” Nate says, leading us toward the exit doors.
Normally, the hospital is a place you go when you need help, but not today. We weave through the clusterfuck of fleeing people, a blur of screams and carnage. I’m nearly knocked over by a woman slamming into my side, but Nate keeps me upright, keeps me going, and never lets go of my hand. Unfortunately for the woman, there’s no one holding hers, so she crashes to the ground face-first. A heavyset man tramples over her, his boot stomping her head. I look away, focusing on the exit sign up ahead. The glowing red letters blur together as I fight to push through the crowd. We just have to make it through those doors. Because I know if we do, we can survive this.
Chapter 3
Six weeks later
Roaring sirens, beeping horns, and the rumble of traffic are no longer the sounds of the city. It’s mostly quiet these days, and when it’s not, you know something’s amiss—like right now.
I push the drapes aside only a sliver or so and peer out the living room window. Across the street, a woman stumbles along the sidewalk, yelling, “Hello? Is anyone there? I need help. Where am I? What’s going on?”
Her cries of confusion echo, bouncing off the rows of townhomes lined up one right after another. In a different life, I would have helped her. But in this one, I know she’s merely being used as bait to draw out someone like me, someone who hasn’t been affected by the virus—or whatever it is.
I look down at the raised skin on my forearm—a pale purplish scar shaped like a set of human teeth. After I was bitten by an infected, I thought for sure I was a goner, but somehow, I was one of the lucky ones. I started getting really sick twelve hours after I was bitten. It felt like my brain was on fire. I was sweating buckets. My vision blurred. My head felt like it was in a vise, ready to pop. But at the twenty-four-hour mark, my fever broke, and I felt fine again.
I’ve learned the virus affects each person differently. I’m not sure why, but I know it does. Some, like the woman roaming the street or Ms. Klein, my patient at the hospital that night, lose all their memories,a total brain wipe. About twelve hours after infection, they become a shell of a person, a body with no sense of purpose or belonging. I call themNomes—stands forno memories. I don’t know what other people call them, because it’s just been Nate and me since it all started. Actually, he calls themLosersbecause they lost their memories, but we’re not on the same page with that name.
“What’s going on out there?” Nate whispers from the kitchen.
“It’s a Nome,” I say, briefly looking at him. He stands in front of the stove watching a pot of water, waiting for it to boil. His shaggy hair is slicked back, and he sports a beard that he somehow manages to keep trimmed despite the world having ended—the one we knew, at least. As soon as the water begins to gurgle, bubbles bursting into plumes of steam, he pours two cups of rice into the pot and covers it with a lid.
My gaze returns to the poor, confused soul roaming outside our building. She stops suddenly, staggering in place as a pack of biters emerges from a courtyard through a broken gate. Their skin is covered in rashes and lesions, making them appear almost like burn victims. Their clothing is frayed and dirty, covered in blood and human remains. They don’t speak. The only sounds they make are a mix of labored breaths, raspy grunts, growls, and snarls.
“Hello?!” she says, unsure of who or what is approaching her.
The creatures plod toward her, some faster than others. If this woman had the foresight, she could run, but she doesn’t know who she is, what they are, or what’s happened to this world. As soon as they reach her, they claw and bite at her flesh, shredding it with ease. She barely gets out a scream as she’s dragged to the asphalt. Four of them dive headfirst into her stomach, like it’s a trough set out especially for them, unraveling her intestines from her center. A deep-crimson pool seeps into the cracked pavement. I carefully slip my hand from the curtain, letting it close and settle back into place.
“This area is getting worse,” Nate says, watching the pot on the stove. He doesn’t have to see what just happened to know whathappened. It’s a common occurrence these days. “We can’t stay here,” he adds.
Hereis Nate’s apartment, nestled in a four-story building in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. Even before everything happened, I hadn’t lived with him long enough to feel like it was mine too. The top two floors are his, and so far, we’ve been able to go undetected. The skylights in the living room and kitchen provide light during the day, so we keep the shades drawn, further concealing our existence. It’s better that no one knows we’re here, because the only ones we can trust are ourselves. At night, we’re careful, sticking to the rooms without windows and only using a single flashlight or a candle. We keep quiet too. Nate’s downstairs neighbor fled, so between her food supply and the one I kept stocked (just in case), we’ve been able to survive thus far without venturing outside. But we won’t be able to keep that up for much longer. The flat-screen TV hung above the fireplace and all the lamps and fixtures around the living room and kitchen are just that, lifeless fixtures. The power stopped working about a week after everything happened. I was surprised it lasted that long. The smell of rot from the refrigerator and freezer took days to get used to, but we did—because apparently, you can get used to anything.
“Casey! Did you hear me? We have to go.” Nate is now right in front of my face, gripping both of my shoulders, his eyes darting back and forth, searching mine for a response.
“I know we do. But where?”
