‘Hide, Millie’.
Daddy’s voice sounded in my ear, just like he was
here with me, not dead outside the shelter.
One of the
Others had followed me into the apartment building.
I thought I’d lost
him but when I tripped and fell he heard me.
Boots echo in
the stairwell.
I can’t outrun
him. He is a full grown adult, a big one, faster than me.
And now he knows
I’m here he’ll just keep coming.
The Others always
do.
Closer now. Footsteps
in the hallway. Just outside the rooms I’d ducked into.
I creep out onto
the balcony. The handrail is gone in places and the wind whistles an eerie tune
through its missing teeth.
I squeeze behind
the rusting air conditioner.
The Other shuffles
slowly, cautiously, onto the balcony.
I can smell him.
That’s what
gives them away, Daddy said, even when they try to be quiet.
He turns,
peering over the edge. Yeah, like I’d have hidden there.
I charge him. My
shoulder squishes into his back. He teeters briefly on the edge before toppling
over.
Turning away I
hear a groan. He’s grabbed the railing as he fell and is swinging, one handed, like
a leaf deciding whether to fall.
If he falls from
thirty floors up, his body won’t be a leaf, like all the others, he’ll be
mulch.
What do I do, Daddy?
‘Save him, Millie.’
But he wants to kill me.
‘Remember, Cupcake, there’s value in everyone’.
I move, but not too
near.
‘Always pay attention, Sweetheart, despite their
limitations the Others can be quite dangerous if you’re not careful.’
Daddy said that when
the epidemic started. He was a scientist before the chaos. That’s how we
survived. Daddy knew how the Others would behave.
I lie down, scraping
my belly against the balcony’s concrete floor. I lean out over the edge, reach
down.
In the Other’s
eyes I can see, deep within in whatever passes for his brain, he’s figuring a
way to kill me, even now.
He hates me.
Why do they hate
us? I never understood. Daddy never said.
The Other swings
an arm up sharply, tries to grab me.
I swat it aside
and grab him around the neck.
His eyes bulge
and he scrabbles at my fingers with his free hand.
Finally, desperate,
frightened, he lets go of the balcony.
Too late. I have
a good grip on him now, and, with his falling weight and the twist and claw movement
Daddy taught me, I rip his head clean off.
‘Good Girl, Millie. You need brain food if you want to
grow up to be big and strong’.
I must get out
of here, more Others will come.
The smell is even stronger now, and I’m hungry.
But I must wait until I reach the shelter.
I skip, swinging the head by the hair, splattering fresh blood around the
stairwell, like a finger painting.
Daddy was right.
The Others do have
value.
Nutritional value.
496 words
@nickjohns999
This story was written for the 2014 zombie apocalypse flash fiction contest, hosted by J Whitworth Hazzard, author of the brilliant post apocalyptic 'Dead Sea Games' series and judged by the most excellent short fiction writer Miranda Kate
Read J Whitworth Hazzard's great stories, but also contribute to their publication by joining the Kickstarter here :-Kickstart the zombie apocalypse by publishing Dead Sea Games.
Want help with your writing? Get it here:- Personal coaching and critiquing by Miranda Kate.
