After World-Part 1

My friends had set their gaze on me. The cool wind blew against my face, as if trying to calm me down but I couldn’t. I was trembling. Why wouldn’t I? After all he was the fastest bowler of our colony. 1 ball 2 runs no wickets in hand. We lose the match, we lose the playground. I looked at the runner on the other side of the pitch. He nodded, he knew what he had to do. The bowler looked straight into my eyes, gripping the ball tightly. He looked pretty confident, the fielders were smiling, one ball more and they get to exercise their ‘superiority’ over us. But… the same would be true for us if I did the impossible. The bowler started his run up, his legs moving as fast as a Ferrari. 3 steps to go….2 steps….1 step. The ball was in mid air. I lifted up my bat. I had missed the previous three deliveries. I couldn’t do it again. The ball was coming closer every moment and BAM! I hit it. It beat the covers, but the fielder started chasing like a tiger. I ran with little hope that the ball would cross the boundary. I didn’t even look and turned for a second run and then I bumped into someone…no it wasn’t one person, it was seven. I looked clearly, my teammates were surrounding me. The ball had crossed the boundary. We had won and this was the last happy memory that I shared with them. I don’t know where they are now. I don’t even know whether they are alive. My parents, they were in Europe when this all started, the virus, the undead… We were hiding on the terrace of a single storied. I could hear the dead screaming, walking slowly on the road. I tried my best not to look down. Even if one of them saw me, it would be almost impossible to leave. Anjali was resting. It was dark. We did guarding in shifts. She shuffled a bit and then woke up. She looked weak. We were running low on supplies. Our water would last at most 4 days while we had run out of food that morning.

“Go, rest. I am up, we have to find food tomorrow. ”She gave me a stern look.

I didn’t say anything and laid myself on the grass bed which we made. I slept as soon as my head hit the grass.

The bright rays of the sun woke me up. Anjali was looking down over the railings. Some apples were lying at her side.

“Where did you get those?”

“Does it matter?”She said handing me a neem stick to clean my teeth.

“Yes it does! I think you know how dangerous it is outside!”I was angry “You can’t just wander off like that.”

“Shhh! Speak quietly. And talking about going out alone…, I think you were doing the same until you found me.”

I didn’t try to argue anymore. Over the months I had figured I couldn’t win one against her. After all she had convinced her friends to leave her on the road as she was injured. Yes, that’s right. I had found her lying on the road about two months ago, waiting to be consumed by the rotten walking beings. She was too hurt to walk. She told me that she asked her friends to leave her there as she was slowing them down. Fortunately, she wasn’t bit or hurt, she had crushed her right leg under a pillar. She resisted my help, she wanted me to save the medicines for myself. Well, that was the only argument that I won against her ever. She agreed to stay with me on a condition. We would try to make no emotional connection. That would help us to do the ‘right’ thing in case situations went downhill. She was wonderfully doing her part but my heart had other plans.

I chewed up an apple and so did she. No one said anything. I was standing beside her looking down the railing. A few scattered corpses were walking in circles aimlessly at the far end. The smell was horrible but our noses had adjusted after smelling them  for so many months. I could see crows pecking at their eyeballs. Judging by the position of the sun, it must have been noon. 10 apples would not be sufficient, we had to go out for supplies. We picked up our swords which we had taken from a museum. Dried blood shined on them under the sun. Most of it was from the dead…most. We had some encounters with others who were trying to steal our stuff and it ended the hard way for them… We were no better than the monsters out there. Anjali took her bag on her shoulders, I followed. This was a completely unknown locality. We had already searched the houses around us but most of them were filled with dead families inside. We walked down the road, a few partially eaten corpses screamed at us but their limbs were eaten up. I sliced my sword through their heads to end their misery, if they were feeling it. We walked until we hit the jackpot, the huge ‘FOOD STORE’ sign flashed from a distance. It was almost evening, we had to return by sunset or else we would have to face the hordes of corpses on the way back. We started jogging towards the store, Anjali leading the way. Slicing any dead body in half which came in our way.

As the store approached, the number of the biters started increasing. We could see 1000’s of them piled up over one another, trying to go above the barrier. There could have been more inside the mall.

We passed a crashed truck. It was overturned and two destroyed police cars were also lying smashed into each other. Anjali tried took climb in the cockpit of the truck and there was a note stuck to the door . It was covered in blood, dried up. Anjali squinted her eyes to read what was written and gave me a weak smile. That was the first time I saw her smile and it felt good. At least I was reassured that she wasn’t a humanoid robot.

“What is it?”

She passed me the note, it said ‘FOOD INSIDE, I HOPE YOU LIVE THROUGH THIS’

We rushed towards the back of the truck. The door of the container was unlocked. I put my ear on the door to hear if something was inside. There was no noise. I pulled at the door, It didn’t move, I pulled harder and out came many metallic containers, cookies, chips, ready to eat stuff, water bottles… it was indeed a jackpot.

But our happiness soon turned into dread. The containers had made too much noise. The herd near the store had turned, all of them were slowly walking towards us. We had to take as much as we could and head back. We started filling up our bags but we were so immersed in the process that we didn’t realise that the dead from the nearby houses had come outside. They were too close. I was the first to see them. Anjali was still filling up her bag when suddenly, one of them grabbed her by the shoulder, in the panic, she dropped her sword. It was about to bite her on her arm but I slashed my sword at his head, a fountain of blood flowed out of its skull. My sword got stuck in the skull. I pushed it on the ground and started pulling the sword out of the skull. The corpse started screaming attracting more and more of them in the process. I finally got it out. Anjali was killing all those who were coming too close.

“Fill up the bags, I will handle them!”She screamed.

I looked back, the horde was now only a few moments away.

“We have to leave, we can come back later! There are too many of them”

“NO!”

“YES!! Goddamit Anjali, we go back and you are listening to me this ti-!”I put all my might in the words but it was too late. The herd was here surrounding us from all sides.

We were standing back to back. I started swinging my sword at the monsters. They were going down one by one.

“We can’t do this forever, we need to think of something” I said.

“Those police cars! The one smashed on the tree! That might move”

My blade was losing its sharpness, it was getting stuck regularly. Whatever she was planning, we had to do quickly. Moving towards the cars meant moving towards the higher density of the walking deads. Anjali pulled a bag towards her and picked it up from one hand while killing with the other. She hanged it in front of her, using it as a shield. She sheathed her sword and pushed through the horde towards the cars making a way for me. I followed her. She opened the back door and went inside a car. I went in from the front door. I was almost inside when one of them grabbed my shoe. I jerked my foot but its grip was too tight. Anjali chopped of its hand before it could scratch me. I shut the door behind me and relaxed on the seat. They had surrounded us from all sides. The inside of the car became dark. They had covered all the windows. I went on the back seat and sat beside Anjali.

“That was close. You hungry?” She was sweating heavily, her clothes were soaked in blood. She handed me a packet of Oreos from the bag. “I got the right bag, the other one had uncooked stuff”
“Lucky Us” We both laughed. It was a moment of relief. Though we had no idea how to get back. We could just wait for the herd to pass. The possibility looked bleak looking at the way they were scratching the windows, desperate to tear us apart.

I realised she was holding my hand. I thought of moving it away but I didn’t. It felt good. Maybe she had bent the rule; maybe she was my friend now and not just a survival partner.

We sat there for hours like that, watching the dead scratching the windows, shaking the car occasionally. I realised Anjali was asleep. I took her hand and put in on her lap and that’s when I saw it. My body froze, I felt dizzy, a million thoughts, raced inside my mind. Her other hand had a scratch. I looked at her face. She was pale, paler than a hungry girl should look. I touched her forehead, it was cold, she wasn’t sleeping…she was gone.

“NO! Anjali! Wake up, this can’t be happening. C’mon not now! We are supposed to survive till the end. You can’t GO!”She didn’t move. I just kept staring at her face. I had lost sense of what was real and what was not. Soon she would come back…come back for my blood. I knew what I had to do but I didn’t know if I had the strength to do it. With shaky hands, I brought my sword in front of her eyes. I pulled it back. I remembered her words, “We make no emotional attachments, which would help us to do the right thing when the time comes”. I had to do it…I had to put her to rest permanently. I pulled my sword back, ready to strike. And the very next moment, her hand grabbed my neck, I couldn’t breathe, the sword fell from my hands, and I felt her teeth dig into my arm…