The Last Legends: A Novella

Morgan

Tomorrow, he dies.

I had spent the entirety of the night and much of the morning listening to the countless people who patrolled the streets, always in groups of at least four from the time the sun rose. Either, they were foolish and did not fear the infected, or there was something they feared more.

From what I gathered, that something was a man being held by them. They repeatedly called him a Hunter, almost every group referring to him at some point in their guard shift. They often talked about Deads, which I assumed to mean Infected. But, as the day was closing in on noon, I heard something which caught my interest.

"Hey, some more Re's are here!" A man shouted. 

Excitedly, I glanced out the window. In one direction, a horde fo people were crowding outside the building where the man was being held. In the other direction, I saw twenty people or so shambling forward. While they did not walk like any normal humans, their stride was far more stable than that of the Infected.

A large uproar was caused outside as the two parties joyously merged. The new party was quickly invited into the building and they vanished inside, save for five guards.

 I listened to the guards outside, I noticed three of which were armed with guns. Two heled rifles, one looking rather large and dangerous, while the third held a simple pistol. They were talking, quiet enough that I had to strain my ears to listen.

"I say we let 'im kill off the rest of the Deads," one man said. "Trick 'im, bribe 'im with food or somethin'. If they kill 'im, one less threat to us. If he kill 'em, we kill 'im."

"And what will stop him from killing those like us?" A woman asked. "Besides, we can't follow him. If he catches just a few of us at once, he could easily outrun or kill two or three of us. Besides, would you want to stay out in the sun all day tailing him?"

"Got a point on that," the man said again.

"Besides," came a second man. "What's keeping him from rounding up other survivors should he escape?"

"The fact that 'e's the last human," returned the first man. "With 'im, the legend of humanity will become merely that: a legend. 'Is death will pave the road for the Age of the Resurrected!

After a moment of silence came a second woman's voice. "Our shift is about up. Let's get inside. The sun's horrible today. Makes my skin itch. I don't know if you are different or not, but there's only so much I can take."

I watched them head back inside, being replaced by another group of five several minutes later, carrying the same weapons. As a unit, they paced the road back and forth, pausing at every turn to raise their weapons and survey the area.

After several hours, I had begun to doze when a gunshot forced me awake. I scrambled immediately to the window and peered out. Survivors? 

The dog.

The mass of fur scurried about, darting between buildings so that it was gradually closing the distance between it and the guards. Perhaps it belonged to one of them.

The woman currently holding the pistol fired a round, missing the dog and hitting a nearby window instead. She blindly fired several more shots until running out of bullets. 

By now, others had come rushing out of the building they were holed up in, beginning to shout at the dog which was currently hidden in an alley between two buildings. The three holding the guns, the woman accompanied by two men, approached with their weapons raised.

In a fraction of a second, the dog burst from the alley, its mouth clamping onto the arms of one of the men, tearing the flesh wide open. The man instinctively pulled his arm back, making his wounds even worse.

While I could not be certain due to the distance, the blood which poured from his arm did not appear to be red, but instead the thick black belonging to the Infected. The blood did not dribble in droplets, but instead moved slowly in a gooey mass like molasses or honey.

Infected.

"Damn dog!" I heard him shout as he raised his rifle with one hand and fired a desperate shot which expectedly missed.

The dog made its way to the building the people were hiding in, wriggling through the mass which had gathered outside and into the building. The uninjured man carrying the other rifle went in after it.

For a few minutes, there was silence. Then, a single shot. Within moments, the lifeless body of the dog was tossed from the building, causing the crowd out front to enter once more. The woman with the pistol and the bleeding Infected followed, the man swearing as he wiped his blood off on his clothes.

Even though I watched for the rest of the day, no one came out, even well past nightfall. At the point I realized no one would be coming out, I returned to the top floor and dug into my bag. I took out some old Pop-Tarts and stuffed my face before guzzling a bottle of water.

Once I was fed, I decided to curl up on the floor and drift off to sleep.