Game Over, Man - 1. Chapter 1

I always knew it was going to end like this. People have called me crazy, or just plain morbid, but I always knew in the back of my mind, when it came to the end of my existence, it was going to be gruesome. So now, here I was, in an old and dusty basement, with my back against the wall and a gun in my hand. I could hear the moaning of about a hundred…things near the basement door, some of them clawing at the rotten wood trying to get inside.

I looked down at the gun in my hand. It was a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver. The short barrel, police special version. It’s lightweight, and compact, easy to carry around if you need to. Doesn’t pack quite as much of a punch as the .40 or the .45, but it only takes one round to kill. Speaking of one round, that’s all I had left, I discovered, as I ejected the cartridges in the chamber. Lovely.

I heard a slam at the door above me, at the top of the stairs. Sounded as if the bastards are throwing their weight into it now. Maybe they know what’s coming. The inevitability of it all. I put my remaining round in the chamber and laid the gun on my lap. I lit up another cigarette and tried to enjoy my last moments on earth as peacefully as possible, all things considered.

I took a moment to reflect on all that has happened in the last twenty-four hours. The “battle” has been going on for a few weeks now, but the tide considerably turned for the worst when the barricades fell, and the last of the armed forces fell. That was about six days ago, I think. Hard to gauge time when all you have is a broken watch, and you’ve been stuck in a room with no windows.

I’d been a college student, in my first year when it happened, “Z Day” some people called it. At least those with a sick sense of humor. Most people just called it the end of the fucking world. I closed my eyes, and leaned my head back, taking a long drag of the cigarette. It was stale, but right about now it was the best cigarette I’d ever had. I thought of how much it sucked that I, Daniel Robert Richardson, son of a wealthy businessman, was going to die in a damp basement. Although, if I’m going to speak the truth, I’ve died already.

I started to nod off, nearly burning myself with my cigarette, and thought about the people I’d lost.

The three of us had been on the run for about a day and a half. Martin, Jenna, and I had used up most of our rations while he holed ourselves up in an abandoned farmhouse.

“What are we going to do about food, Danny?” Martin asked me. He and I had been boyfriends at the beginning of the semester, but had taken a break to focus more on school. It was a mutual decision.

“I don’t know, Marty,” I said. “We’ve got like a days worth of food, day and a half max. We’ve got enough water to last a few more days.”

“After that, we may have to find a way to get help,” he said.

“I don’t feel so good,” Jenna complained. Jenna was Marty’s younger sister. She was in town, visiting him on campus. Just before we got inside, one of the things bit her hand.

“You’ll be alright, Jenny, you just need to rest,” Marty told her. Being a fan of the Romero films, I was quite skeptical of that last statement. I’d known her chances of survival were slim the second the thing sunk its teeth into her. But I couldn’t very well just shoot her. She was my sort of boyfriend’s sister. He’d be pissed.

Martin and I put her to rest in a small bedroom on the second floor. Should things get nasty downstairs, at least she would have a small measure of safety upstairs.

We went back down and started boarding up the windows and doors. We used chairs, tables, couches, really anything that could be used as a barrier, we used it.

I was boarding up the back door in the kitchen when Marty came in.

“Hey,” he began. I nodded in greeting, because I had nails in my mouth and my hands were full. “I’ve been thinking about some things for the past hour…”

I finished nailing up the door. I moved on to the windows by the stove. Marty took the one opposite.

“Yea?” I said.

“I was actually thinking about…me and you,” he said.

“Really?” I asked. “What about us?” I was confused, he’d been the one to suggest the break.

“Well, large catastrophic emergencies tend to get you thinking about the past, mistakes you’ve made, and what you wish you’d done,” he said.

“What, so now I was a mistake to you?” I asked, hurt. “If I remember correctly, it was you who said you needed the break, because you were slipping in your classes. I went along with it because I didn’t want to hold you back!”

“No, no, that isn’t what I’m saying at all!” he said, flustered. “You aren’t understanding me right!”

“So now you think I’m stupid?” I accused him.

“Damnit, Danny! You always do this! Twist my words around until it sounds like I’m being an asshole! Stop it!”

“You are being an asshole!” I shouted. “If you haven’t noticed, this is kind of a stress-full situation, and you aren’t helping matters!”

The creatures reached a new height in their symphony of demonic moaning and slamming. I was only out for a few seconds. I know this because my cigarette was still burning. The ash was about an inch long. I haven’t been getting much sleep.

I’d always been one to jump to conclusions. It pissed Martin off every time, but I couldn’t really help it. It was something that just happened, even though I’d been working to control it.

I glanced down at my watch, then realized it was still as broken as it had been the last six times I checked it. You’d think these people would think to put a clock in their basement, sheesh.

I heard another slam, and this time I heard the wood splinter. I picked the gun up out of my lap, rechecked the chamber to make sure the live round was the next to be fired. Didn’t want any surprises. Not long now. I leaned my head back again, but this time I put the cigarette out first.

The blackness creeped back in.

I’d cooled off after about an hour. I could still hear Martin working somewhere in the back of the house. I realized that I, as always, was being stupid. He was trying to tell me something, and I jumped down his throat.

I finished up in the living room, and went off to apologize. I found him in the laundry room, closing off the door with pieces of a kitchen chair.

“Hey Marty,” I said. He didn’t look up.

“What?” he asked irritably.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” I said. “You know how I jump to conclusions…I’m not trying to excuse it, but it’s what happened.”

He looked up at me. “So you realize you were being ridiculous?” he asked skeptically.

“Yeah, as always,” I said with a half grin.

“You finish with the living room?” he asked, switching to ‘business’ mode. I doubt he was going to tell me what was on his mind earlier.

“Yep.”

“Great, that should just about do it then,” he said as he stood up, dusting himself off. “We should probably get some rest then. We need our strength.”

We went upstairs, and after an awkward moment looking at the bed, stripped to our boxers and got in. we lay on opposite sides, facing away from each other, and went to sleep.

The things were damn near wailing now. They could smell me, that much I’m certain of. Nothing else makes sense. How else do they have the ability to know exactly where I’m hiding, when I'm making no sound at all.

Long before I went into hiding down here, they had surrounded the place. They seemed to be coming from everywhere. Some of them were in uniforms, as if they’d been on the job when they…died. There was a fat naked man with balding gray hair and a handlebar mustache that would have looked hysterical in any other circumstance. His flaccid penis jiggled disgustingly.

I checked the chamber in the revolver again. It was becoming a nervous habit. Yep, still one left. As if more would have miraculously appeared. No, we ran fresh out of miracles a while ago. Around the same time I ran out of water.

I sighed, and thought about the last time I saw Martin.

In the morning, we awoke to the sounds of more moaning outside. To my surprise, he had spooned up behind me in the night. He had his strong arms around my chest, and I felt safe and warm. What was more surprising was the fact that even though he was awake, he didn’t move away.

“Mmmm…I’ve missed this,” he said into my hair.

“Yeah, I always loved waking up like this, you holding me,” I said.

He sighed contentedly, and nuzzled his face into the back of my neck. It tickled a little, but I held in the giggles.

The things outside had gotten louder, but I didn’t care. I wanted to enjoy this moment.

“What was it you wanted to tell me?” I asked after a while.

“It’s stupid…I don’t wanna upset you again,” he said. I could tell he was blushing without even seeing him. I could hear it in his voice.

“C’mon, Marty, I really wanna know. I promise I won’t get mad,” I told him. He snorted out a laugh and I swatted his arm. “Okay, I promise I’ll try not to get mad.”

“Well,” he began after a moment. “Like I said, I’ve been thinking about us. You were wrong, I don’t think of you as a mistake, Danny. You and I had some of the best times of my life together. Remember our trip to Niagara Falls on spring break?”

I laughed. Technically, spring break was spent in a car, driving to the falls. We got so turned around we ended up staying in a motel for the rest of the trip. Never even made it there.

“That was a hot weekend,” I said when I gained control of myself.

“What I wanted to say was, I think this break was the mistake, Danny,” he said. “We’ve wasted so much time, and now it seems like we’re almost out of time.”

“I love you,” I said suddenly. It felt like I needed to be clear on that.

“I never stopped,” he said. My heart melted for him all over again. He started kissing my neck, causing me to shiver in delight. He made his way down to my slender shoulders, gently sucking as his lips left my skin.

I turned, facing him now. Our bodies were pressed together, the heat between us rising to a near unbearable level. I looked into his eyes, and saw the love he held for me. We kissed, and I saw stars. It was just as good as the first time.

I rolled over on top of him, making out with a frenzy neither of us knew we possessed. Our tongues battled in a war for dominance, and I think he succeeded. Our hands roamed over our naked chests, his taught with muscle, mine soft and thin. I’d always been dwarfed by him, he being so much larger than I was. I never cared about that though. He was my gentle giant.

We made out for the longest time. He was always so passionate, leaving my head spinning every time we kissed. He’d always been this way, and it threw me every time we made love. Most guys that look like he does, I’ve found, are so straightforward. They usually want just one thing, and one thing only. Stopping at nothing until their desires are sated. My Marty wasn’t like that. He was slow, and he was gentle, he was everything I could ever want him to be in a lover. Always worried about how I felt, if I was in pain, if I wanted more. Everything else to him took a backseat, and I loved him for that.

Although, sometimes it got a bit annoying. Stopping every few seconds to ask if I was alright, when all I wanted was for him to go harder. Sometimes I’d have to take the initiative and would surprise him with my sexual appetite.

Those cold, winter nights on campus, at the beginning of our relationship were the best moments of my life. We would sometimes make love all night long, until the sun came up, and would have to skip class to rest. We never did it on purpose, but it happened quite often. We’d simply lose ourselves in the feeling, in the moment that seemed to last forever, and nothing else in the world existed. Nothing else mattered.

This morning was no different. We lost ourselves. We hadn’t a care in the world, not even the fact that civilization as we knew it was collapsing all around us could spoil our moment. That one moment that lasts forever and is gone before you realize it. In that one moment where you feel the power and majesty of the universe, and feel like you aren’t such a small a part of it. That moment where you feel divine.

As we lay together, in the afterglow, we began to come to our senses. We remembered the world had gone to Hell, and that the end was fast approaching. We really didn’t mind much. We had each other, how bad could the end of the world be?

“I need to go check on Jenna,” Marty said. He stood up, the sun illuminating his glistening body in a way that made him seem to glow.

I glanced at the clock on the nightstand, after checking my watch and realizing it had stopped. It was only eight-thirty.

“Mmm…I’m just gonna lay here for a while,” I said with a yawn.

He giggled. “Tired you out, huh?”

“Like always,” I laughed. It was kind of ironic. We finally decide to give our relationship a new beginning, as the world comes to an end.

He stepped into his boxers, and I drifted off to a peacefull sleep as he left the room.

I must have only been out for a second, when I heard a loud thump from the hallway. Hearing the beasts outside, I got scared, and grabbed the revolver in the nightstand drawer. My heart was beating faster than it ever had before. I moved to the door.

“Marty?” I called in a raspy voice. Need to calm down. “Are you alright?” I called again, this time my voice only shaking a little.

I entered the hall, and looked around. There was a painting of the plantation this house used to sit on, lying on the floor. That must have been the thump I heard.

I breathed a sigh of relief and moved to the room Jenna had been sleeping in.

I opened the door, and said, “Marty, you aren’t going to believe what-”

Marty didn’t hear me. He was dead. He had a large, gaping hole in his throat. Jenna was kneeling over him, blood dripping from her open mouth, down to Marty’s chest, a slight look of question in her eyes. The feeble thing her brain had become could hardly comprehend the fact that I was staring at her in horror. All she understood was that more food was standing in the doorway.

She stumbled to her feet, the way a drunk who’s had a few too many would, and shuffled toward me. He open mouth made a sound I had heard far too often in the past few weeks, a moan of hunger.

With tears in my eyes, I raised the revolver, and fired three shots into her face. She slumped to the ground, dead.

I rushed over to my Marty, crying harder than I ever had before, and held onto him for dear life. They say, before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. It’s true. Mine did now, at least, my life with Marty. It was the only life that mattered to me.

I held him until the last bit of warmth left his body. Like a fire, it’s last embers dying out. In that moment, Danny Richardson died.

I don’t know how much longer I cradled his lifeless body, but eventually I was brought back to reality. I heard a window give way, the boards Marty and I had used to reinforce it clattering to the floor. It was only a matter of time now. I laid Marty down on the bed we shared that night, closed his eyes, and said goodbye to him for the last time. I picked up the revolver, and headed down the stairs.

Two of them were in the kitchen now. Their hands were nothing but broken, bloody lumps of flesh and bone, from beating on the barricades for so long. They couldn’t feel it. There was nothing behind their eyes, no spark of life. No sign of anything but a sickening hunger. I shot them both in the head, extinguishing the “un-life” in their brains.

I grabbed the remaining bottle of water and a pack of cigarettes from the table, cut my bare foot on a piece of glass, and walked down the stairs to the basement, locking the door and barricading it with a few boards and nails. This was to be our last stand. We had prepared it, leaning the boards against the wall ahead of time, in case we were in a hurry. I don’t know why I barricaded myself in, don’t know why I did anything but let myself get eaten by one of the soulless creatures outside. I should have welcomed it.

I guess I didn’t want to give them an easy meal.

So here I am. I’ve been sitting here in this basement for god knows how long, cold and naked. I never got dressed after getting up this morning. It’s kind of funny, I was going to leave the world wearing exactly what I entered it in. well, no, I didn’t have this busted watch when I was born. I took off the watch and threw it at the wall. There, now I’m wearing exactly what I was born in.

The door gave in. I heard the wood crash to the stairs, sliding the rest of the way down. the moans got so much louder. They came into sight now, falling almost comically down the stairs. They had sight of me now, their lifeless faces contorted into that expression of empty hunger. They stumbled over each other, like a pile of disgusting drunks trying to get to the last beer.

I picked the revolver up off my lap, checked the chamber. Still only one round. Almost time. They were getting closer, looking almost frantic in their need for flesh. I imagine there aren’t too many of us live ones left.

Faintly, from outside and off in the distance, I heard what sounded like gunshots. Rapid fire, like some kind of machine gun. And the low rumble of a car engine. It seems there may be more survivors after all. Maybe this isn’t the end of the world after all.

As one of the creatures finally reached its destination, grasping my bare toes in its disfigured hand, I realized there wasn’t time to save me. I could hear them louder now, must be less than a hundred yards away. May as well have been on the moon for all the good it did me. I turn the barrel of the revolver towards me. I taste gun oil as I put it between my lips. I pull the hammer back, and was vaguely aware that the creature was almost within biting distance. As I started to pull the trigger, I heard a man outside the house say something about finding a ‘nest’ of them. He must mean this house. I closed my eyes. This is it.

Game over, man.

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