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[deleted]

 My food supply left alongside the humans. The world stood frozen in time permanently scarred by the hubris of mankind. I watched it happen slowly. First, the pandemic took millions of people and no one seemed to bat an eye. They all kept arguing amongst themselves. For me this was helpful as I was able to hide in plain sight as long as I looked and acted as neutral as possible. The fighting continued and more diseases started. They would ignore the newest variant or the news contagion because it didn’t effect them directly. The death toll rose from millions to hundreds of millions to a point where it became easier to count who was left instead of who was lost. As each human succumbed to their end more and more animals returned to the land once stolen from them. Within 5 years I found myself outside the door of the final known human on earth as they took their last breath. 

 Existing after the end of mankind was quiet. The internet and power remain to this day as no advancing technology or humans were around to require it continue to change to protect it. The infrastructure in place did not need to grow to accommodate new life and new challenges. I was pleasantly surprised to still have access to the luxuries of the twenty-first century but not unfamiliar with a time long before power so I was prepared. What I wasn’t prepared for was the time capsule the internet would become. For the first few months after the end I could find new content. Scroll social media and look at a new topic and read articles or comments but quickly it all became quiet. It became a reminder of the halt to the progress that they all pushed themselves to reach. No one was making the next best thing, life stood as it was. 

 The world became overgrown. The earth was retaking what was lost in the pursuit of human existence. In the beginning of the After I spent my time traveling to collect the supplies left behind. At each hospital or donation center I found enough to get me to the next one but after a certain amount of time it became obvious that without humans to replenish my energy that I was going to have to face something I had not known in my almost a thousand years of life. What would it mean to be a vampire who could not feed? It was a cool fall day, the leaves fell quietly to the wet morning ground as the sun shined through the trees and warmed my skin when I had the last of my sustenance. It had taken years to get to this point, I realized very early on I would have to ration. I knew the day would come and I tried my best to scour the resources I had to try to find others like me to no avail. 

 I was it. I shared this world with the animals and plants but never another human soul. I was alone. In all the years of my life I was never able to find another like myself. My maker was destroyed very early on and I kept humans as my company until the failure to age became obvious. So there I was no food, no other human or supernatural being, just myself and the leaves about to experience the true unknown. I made my arrangements to see what would happen. After the first few days I could feel my body weakening. I prepped my small cabin to be as secure as possible on the off chance an animal decided I would be their food. In this new world it didn’t seem necessary for animals to come after me as their food supply wasn’t disrupted by the pollution it once was. I locked myself in my home and barricaded the door. I secured the windows but made a point to leave the windows open so I could see out of them. Somehow my body knew what was coming. 

 I laid in my bed and felt my body give in. This was the beginning of the end, change, unknown. I had lived through so many things but never once thought I would learn what it meant to have nothing left of my life as I knew it. I could feel my body start to slow, my muscles began to atrophy and the motion inside my body came to halt. Somehow my mind was able to continue. I told myself to move just a finger or twitch any muscle but my body would not comply. The last movement to go was blinking. I had hoped that when that happened my eyes would shut so that I could fade into darkness but this was not the case. My eyes remained open, my mind awake and my vision crystal clear. I laid there and watched as dust became to grown in thickness around me. The light would change along with the weather and I quickly lost track of time. I was trapped motionless with my thoughts and my sight. I could hear the world around me, the animals coming close to my defenseless body with nothing but a wall between myself and their razor sharp teeth. I would hear the terror of flesh ripping when one of the prey fell victim to the hunt.

 Every crunch of ground under the paw of an animal, every scream in the night, every sniff in the air knowing they were close to something withering away I could feel into my soul. Worse than even that were the demons I could not outrun. The demons in my mind I had to face. I was an immortal alone, powerless, frozen in time but wide awake to face everything I had done in my existence. There was no end for me, no peace, no rest. I hear and see all; until the handle on the door turned.

[deleted]

"Want to go out tonight," Joey asked. "YES, I mean sure, if you want to," Zoey replied. Joey smiled and said, "Alright, see you at 7."

Zoey couldn't believe it. Joey actually asked her out. Her brain was going 1000 miles a minute. What was she going to wear? Should she kiss him? Omg, she had to call her bff. Steph would help her calm down and, bonus, she'd be able to answer those questions running through Zoey's mind. "I've got to call Steph now," said to no one. Or so she thought.

Steph comes busting through Zoey's door, almost as excited as Zoey was. She couldn't believe that Joey had finally asked Zoey out. It was about time. They had been flirting with each other for months. It was enough to make a person sick, ok maybe not sick but at least queasy.

"What was that," Steph asked.

Zoey looked at Steph like she was crazy and said, "what was what?"

"That noise, it was a thump, thump, bump noise. It sounded like it came from under your bed."

It was probably my heart. It's beating so fast I think it's going to jump out of my chest.

I guess. Ok, let's get your makeup on.

As Steph was doing Zoey's makeup, all he could think about was getting her alone, finally. It was all he dreamed about. Zoey alone, with him. Just the two of them. He loved to watch her. Loved to hear her snore while she slept. It was the cutest thing he'd ever heard. He knew tonight had to be the night. Tonight she was going to be his. Zoey just didn't know it yet. Look at her all excited, too bad that date wasn't going to happen.

Steph yells bye as she closes the door. She smiles to herself and thinks about how pretty Zoey looks. All that time spent watching videos on makeup how to's paid off. She's hoping and wishing that things go the way Zoey wants tonight. After all she's been through, with that stalker, she deserves to be happy. Thankfully, they finally caught the guy and he's in prison for a very long time. Who would have thought a complete stranger, was stalking her bff. Steph thinks how lucky Zoey was that the cops caught that guy standing in front of her apartment window. It was pure luck that they saw him and caught him.

Joey walks up the stairs and knocks on the door. He has a huge smile across his face. He keeps thinking how lucky it was that a random guy was standing on the sidewalk that night. Everyone thinks he's the stalker. Now, some stranger is in prison and he gets her all to himself. She's his now.

Zoey answers the door, smiling so big, and about to bounce out of her skin she's so excited. "Hey, you ready to go?", Zoey asks.

Joey responds, "I've been waiting a long time for this night."

"It begins with a small lesion in the midsection, an innocent red dot that most would pass off as an insect bite. Around two days later the fever sets in and the patient will take to bed. Chills, nausea, and vomiting follow for around a week as the itchy rash spreads across the body. After the first week, in about half of all cases, the fever gets worse, delirium and convulsions set in, and the patient inevitably dies. In the other half of Endopox victims, the fever gets better and the patient usually recovers, although pneumonia, endocarditis, and permanent scars are common complications."

The doctor read his notes repeatedly as he sat in his candlelit study, occasionally pulling up his T-shirt to check his stomach. When he wasn't reading, he was browsing his phone to see if he could get enough of a connection off of the cell tower to pull down the latest news. None of it was good. The National Guard was barely keeping the peace in face of total economic collapse and massive power outages.

Knock. Knock.

He almost jumped out of his seat at the unexpected sound. Panting, he looked through the peephole, seeing the gaunt eyes of his mother, her hair wet from the soaking rain, drops dripping down over her N95 mask. Cracking open the door, he whispered "Mom, you can't be here! You might be infected!"

"I have nowhere else to go, what do you expect? Now I'm your mother and you're going to let me in."

"Stay there and pull up your shirt." He grabbed his flashlight from the utility closet and then proceeded to scan his mother's bare abdomen, seeing nothing but skin.

He opened the door, turning to grab his own N95 mask as she came in. She's almost certainly infected, having been among all that riff-raff downtown. "Take a seat in the kitchen Mom. Do you want a cup of tea?"

"Yeah," she said, her rain slicker dripping water in puddles on the hardwood floor as she trudged to the dark kitchen.

He carried a candle in behind her and carefully set it on the table, not wanting to get within more than a few feet. "So how's life?" he asked, not knowing a better way to respond to his mother's sudden appearance on his doorstep.

"You know," she said, her hollow eyes looking inadvertently malicious in the soft candlelight.

"I really don't," he went over to the fridge and pulled out a warm plastic bottle of sweet tea, deciding then that he'd hand her the bottle to avoid having her lips on any of his glassware.

"I'm homeless in another pandemic. Lots of people are dying. I'm lucky I haven't caught it yet. And you haven't even come to check on me. Never mind offer me a place to stay."

He instinctively pulled up his shirt, breathing a sigh of relief that there wasn't a lesion.

"You only care about yourself," she said, her face in judgment.

"Look Mom, nobody wants this. If I go downtown I'm probably good as dead."

"Then what does that leave me?"

He didn't answer. There was no excuse for his selfishness other than wanting to survive. He certainly didn't want his mother living with him, as all she'd do is criticize him all day long when he had been a hundred times more successful than she had been. There was no way he would tolerate that. No, he didn't work hard putting himself through school and then med school to become a doctor only to have to shelter the old hag who had made his childhood miserable.

"Look, I need to stay here. At least for a while, OK? You can't let me die out there."

"Mom, we've talked about this. The answer is no. Now and forever."

"So you're really going to condemn me to death? Is this how you treat your patients?"

"You probably already have it, Mom. You know the incubation period is three weeks. Do you know what kind of risk I took letting you in the door? If there's one crack in that mask you could spread it. Why should both of us die?" He looked at his abdomen again, feeling around several times to make sure the skin was smooth.

"You're such a selfish prick, just like your father." She got up and started walking towards him.

"Mom, back away!" he scanned around, realizing he was pinned into the kitchen with nowhere to run.

"If I'm going to die, then guess what, you're going to die. That's what you get for leaving me out in the cold all these years." She ripped off her mask and dropped it on the floor while slowly inching towards him.

"Mom! What are you doing?!"

He climbed up on the counter, hoping to leap off and quickly scoot around her.

She pulled up her shirt. "I've got a secret, son of mine."

He started to jitter with fear, feeling paralyzed for a moment as she stood with her bare abdomen not more than three feet from him. There was no lesion that he could see.

Putting her index finger above her naval she started rubbing until a flat red lesion became visible. "Makeup got me in the door."

Knowing he had to act immediately. he sprung off the counter and ran around her, heading straight for the front door. As he reached the pouring rain he started running calculations in his head as to how likely it was that he had contracted it, concluding that he was probably safe.

His mother didn't follow. He stood there in the downpour for a few minutes to see if she was going to come out, then peaked inside and saw her sipping her tea at the table. Racing past her, he went upstairs to change his clothes.

As he removed his wet shirt he saw a red dot on his stomach in the candlelight.

[WC:991]

​

​

​

​

.

Here we are in orbit of the moon, the three of us.

The oxygen alarms are going off, something went wrong. Mission control has run us through everything, we did what we can, tried everything. We're short.

We have just more than a days worth of air. Three days to Earth, to a limitless supply of breathable oxygen. The math checks out.

They have donned their suit, and so has their partner. I am suited up as well, but shall remain seated. The capsule is depressurized, they just need to go outside.

Here we are in orbit of the moon, the three of us. Two of us went down and stood upon alien soil. One of us will return.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Here they are in orbit of the moon. They float aimless in space, waiting for the end. The line is open, one has a family on the other end, the other simply placed their last request for music.

A lover tells another just how much they love them, how they will never be forgotten. A child asks when they will come home. The question is deflected. Time goes quickly, the air in the suits gets stale.

One of them nods off, tries to, hoping that maybe they won't see it coming. The other holds on, for their family that they will never see again. Two people reminisce about old times. Its getting harder to think. A child asks when they are coming home. The question is deflected.

One of them has fallen asleep. They will not wake back up. The other is still talking, trying too. It is hard to think with so little air. Each breath takes energy, each breath gives some. One breath takes something, there is less of it given. Each breath is tallied, a debt which is postponed but not indefinitely. A child asks when they are coming home. The question is not answered.

Here are two in orbit of the moon. They float aimlessly in space, ended.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Here I am, returning home.

I am falling through the atmosphere at breakneck speeds. The force of the deceleration is crushing me into my seat. This capsule was not designed for this, I was not designed for this. The G meter shows two, and rising.

I remember my team, my friends. I listened to the songs we played, the conversation between a family soon to be broken apart. I shed tears, partly from bits of me getting crushed, partly from sorrow at live cut short.

The G meter is rising, 3.5, 4. We made compromises. Time was not on our side. We saved hours, did we need them? I don't know. If we did, then I will know. If we did not, then maybe I never will. Maybe soon I will know nothing.

5 gs, 6. It becomes hard to think, to breath. I am crushed into my seat, the weight of my own rips crushing my lungs. The air is getting warmer, or am I simply cold? I don't know. I can't think.

7, 8. Maybe we didn't need those hours, maybe we did? My vision grows dark, my thoughts slow. I owe my self to no god and yet I find myself praying. I do not know if it will work. If it does then so be it. If it does not then I doubt I'll notice.

9, I do not see a 10. I am asleep now, in a way. Perhaps I should be thankful. I shall either be pleasantly surprised, or I will not notice.

Here I am, returning home.

(I got about 600 words)

Beth considered her house her castle. If the HOA hadn't been watching her so closely she might have built a moat to keep riffraff out. The skateboarders and porch thieves and Cindy Harper who lived next door and kept trying to get Beth to join her knitting group, Stich and Pray. She imagined them all drowning in dirty water, nails scraping as they struggled to spit

and breathe.

She eyed the package UPS Dave just dropped off. She'd had to sternly tell the boy to come to the door each time and not just leave it without her being home. Pirates were everywhere, ready to snatch any box that looked unattended. At least now she might be able to do something about it.

She adjusted her thick silver glasses, peering at the instructions. Seemed simple enough to install a video doorbell. Her son Reggie could do it if he weren't so lazy. Or if he ever answered his phone.

A few screws later and she had it affixed to the outside of her door. The directions said to set it up on her cell phone but she never approved of a phone that traveled with you. She used the ancient laptop she'd gotten a few years ago at a garage sale instead.

Her wrinkled face smiled in delight as her front porch lit up on her computer screen.

"Finally I can catch the bastards."

Almost every night for months now one of the neighborhood brats had been leaving an unopened can of tuna at her front door. Her cupboards overflowed. Her trash became too heavy to move.

The police laughed at her, asking if she'd just forgotten she'd bought the cans. As if Beth was so old she kept purchasing cases and cases of tuna fish. In oil no less. So nasty.

What she needed was proof and she'd get it, damn their eyes. If the police wouldn't help her she'd do it herself. Reggie had left a .44 when he'd last visited ages ago. She'd done a bit of bird shooting when she was in high school. She could still hit what she aimed at. Most of the time.

She went to bed a little after eight, unable to wait the whole night.

In the morning, she found another can of tuna. No letter. No footprints. Just a single tin, shining dully in the morning sun.

Beth checked her camera feed.

"I bet it was that pimply Darrel Winthrop. He has shifty eyes."

The boy was fifteen and half black. She'd caught him snipping a rose from one of her pink lady's for mother's day. Rude.

She fast forwarded , squinting at the screen. Around ten, a figure in shadow knelt by her front door, placing a single can on her welcome mat. The figure paused and looked up. Beth leaned in. The figure's eyes glinted mirror-like in the dark. The rest of his face was shadowed behind a dark hoodie.

"Ghost," Beth whispered then shook her head. No such thing. If there were ghosts her beloved Harry would have come back to haunt her for strangling him on the toilet.

It was his fault anyway, he knew how Beth felt about her roses. He'd pissed on them! Brute.

She called Reggie, her gnarled fingers moving on her pink rotary phone.

He answered on the seventeenth ring.

"Ma I don't have time for this, the kids are late for school."

"Why are you watching them for? Rosalee left you again?" Beth said.

Reggie sighed. "What is it again Ma? Did Kathleen leave you a note again? You know you gotta stop harassing that woman. It's not her fault your paint is peeling."

Beth pursed her lips. "It is her fault. She makes that barbeque every Sunday and the propane is eating my siding. I ain't calling about that. I caught the tuna man on my doorbell camera and I'm gonna shoot him."

"Ma you're not shooting anyone. You'll go deaf or shoot yourself in the foot."

"I know how to shoot! Your daddy took me out duck hunting for years," Beth grumbled.

"Just call the police next time. I gotta go."

Beth listened to the dial tone for a long while. Her own son couldn't stand to talk to her for more than a few minutes. Ungrateful.

She loaded her gun. She was reasonably sure she could shoot the tuna miscreant on her porch. Stand your ground and all.

Reggie knocked on her door a few days later, early in the morning. He found her collapsed just inside her front door. Her floral nightgown was down around her fuzzy slippers. She held a .44 in her hand.

"Ma?" He knelt, nudging her cold body. "Shit did you shoot yourself?"

He looked but couldn't find a wound. Her wide open eyes scared him. She'd always scared him but now she seemed to be silently screaming. An unopened can of tuna was left at her feet. It had a single bullet imbedded on the side, spilling foul smelling meat. He gagged, kicking it outside but the smell lingered.

He saw her laptop on the living room coffee table. She had that doorbell camera. Maybe something was on it. He thought about calling the police but she'd been dead for a while. They could wait.

He watched the night before and the night before that. On screen, his mother opened the door, brandishing her weapon at nothing. She shot the tuna can and fell back inside.

A dark figure appeared, pulling the door shut. The porch was so shadowed he couldn't see a face at first. It wasn't until the figure knelt to put another perfect can of tuna on her welcome mat that he saw inside the hoodie. His mother's face looked back at him and hissed, exposing two sharp fangs.