The Last Legends: A Novella

Alec

That night, my home was not assailed. There was no pounding on the door, no moans of hunger. But they were out there the entire night, silently taunting me from across the street.

Before society died, I had never heard of the Infected behaving like this. Nor had I ever encountered it. Surely, if they were to see me, they would rush the house like every other night. 

And so, to test my theory, I threw open my bedroom window and shouted incoherently at the top of my lungs. Though I could see their silhouettes in the darkness, not a single one took a step forward. They remained where they were.

When I woke in the morning, I was on the floor next to the window, evidently having fallen asleep watching them. Not wanting to let a single one of them live, I searched my parents' closet and produced one of my Dad's hunting knives. It wasn't my usual bow, but it was better than waking them with a gunshot.

Without wasting time, I left my house and entered my neighbor's. I dove right into the basement, ready to butcher the Infected. Only, there was a slight problem: it was empty. I searched the rest of the house. Empty. I searched the entire neighborhood. Empty.

On my way back, I had expected to discover my house infested, or to be ambushed. What happened was the last thing I would have expected. A girl was staring into my house, holding a pistol tightly in both hands. She appeared to be in her early twenties, a few years older than me.

"Freeze," I ordered unslinging my rifle, not hesitating to aim for her head. 

"Easy," I could hear the fear in her voice as it trembled slightly. She slowly bent down and dropped her gun. "Please, I'm just trying to survive. You're the first person I've seen in over a month! Do you have any food? I haven't eaten in a week."

From how skinny she was, I chose to believe that she was telling the truth.

"Have you been bitten?" I asked, spitting out the word bitten to emphasize she would be better off running if she had. 

"No," she swallowed hard. "No, I haven't. Please, I'm starving. I'm exhausted. Is this where you live?"

"How can I trust you?" I snarled. I knew I was coming off as hard, and, let me be honest, an ass, and I desperately wanted to speak with someone after so much time talking to nobody but myself and the Infected, but my life was important enough to put that aside.

"I can still speak," she replied, pointing to her mouth. "Have you ever seen an infected do that?"

"Get in," I relinquished. "I'll see what I can scrounge up for food. Just sit down and rest."

The two of us went inside my home together. The girl wasted no time in making herself comfortable on the couch I rarely used, save for as a barricade. After staring at her, probably a bit longer than I should have,  I made my way to the kitchen and began rifling through the mostly empty cabinets.

"What's your name?" I called.

After a pause I felt rather unnecessary, her voice responded. "Cassidy Everson, but my friends call...my friends called me Cassie. What's yours?"

Having a conversation so casually seemed as strange as the idea of the Infected before the disease spread after so long: nothing more than fantasy. Yet, I responded. "My name's Alec, Alec Matheson."

"Alec," she repeated my name. The next thing I knew, she was standing behind me, peering over my shoulder. She was close enough that her scent filled my nose, forcing me to stifle a gag. She smelled little better than the Infected, though I suppose not having the chance to bathe for months would cause a person to stink. 

Trying to seem anything but rude, I stood up and moved to a different cabinet, away from her foul odor. Within a few moments, I produced a bag of beef jerky I had been saving for a special occasion. If this wasn't a special occasion, I'm not quite sure what would qualify as one. 

I tossed the bag to the girl who wasted no time tearing into my precious reserves. As she scarfed the precious meat down with the voracity of a vacuum cleaner, it seemed unlikely she knew there was a taste to it at all as it went immediately down her throat. Once the jerky was gone, she stared at the empty bag in dismay. 

"Before the Infection took hold, I was a vegetarian," She laughed, once again looking into the bag as if hoping some more had magically appeared. "That went right out the window once I started starving!"

"I imagine," I replied, thinking whether or not I should eat a meal tonight to compensate for what Cassie ate. "You should get some rest; there's an extra bed upstairs that you can use. I'm going to get some barricades in place. Tomorrow, you can either leave or start earning your keep."

She gave me a look I was incapable of identifying before heading upstairs. If she thought she was going to stay here for free, she was a fool. While I would have been happy just for the company, food was a valuable resource. Too valuable to waste on someone.

Once I was done with my barricade, I headed upstairs, finding Cassie had claimed my parents' room, the one I had been using, as her own. With an irritated sigh, I made my way over to my old bedroom.

There was a reason I had taken over my parents' bedroom, and it's not just because it was significantly larger. I had claimed their room because it had a few of the street, where I could watch the infected at night. I could still keep an eye out from my room, but very few of them ever came through the back yard, as it was facing away from a populated area.

I sat, watching the window for a short while before I found myself drifting off to the sound of a barking dog in the distance. It was probably the same one I had seen before. It was impressive that that little dog, without the ability to reason, managed to survive. If he could do it, so could I.