The Last: A Zombie Novel by Michael John Grist Page A

girl Lara can find, and start clearing the streets around. Make a base and she'll be drawn to you, Amo, if you're offering safety and something worth having. That way you'll find the others too, the ones like us who are lost somewhere across the country and don't have each other like we've had each other. I know you will. You'll make good things out of this."
    I gulp back tears. I can hear the thumping through the phone getting louder.
    "She's almost through the door isn't she?"
    "She is. It's all right. I've got the syringe loaded with my methadone, enough of a dose to knock me right out. I won't feel a thing. It's better this way Amo. I wouldn't stand a chance on the road. I was never good in a wheelchair."
    I sob into the phone. "How long?"
    "I don't know. A minute, maybe five? I've already injected it. Damn it is hard to find a vein. I got one." His voice starts to go woozy. "You'll stay on the line won't you? You'll wait with me."
    "Of course I will. Robert I'm sorry."
    "Don't be sorry. You're here with me. We're in the fulfillment center, running it together. I've got legs again, Amo. We're keeping up with the orders. We're one step ahead."
    The tears are coming freely. I hate this. I want to reach through the phone and save him. I want to save my friend, but I can't.
    "Goodbye, Amo," he says fuzzily. There is a crash through the line, and his mother must have breached the basement.
    "Robert," I say urgently. "Robert."
    "She's coming. I won't feel a thing. The darkness is so close. I'm going to turn the phone off now Amo. I don't want you to hear this. Goodbye."
    The phone clicks dead. The sound from his distant basement fades at once. My last link to Cerulean is severed.
    I lean back against the bed and cry, curled around the phone like it's a dagger thrust though my belly. I have just lost everything and everyone I love.
     

 

    6 – ESCAPE
     
     
    I come back to myself and it's bright still, with early spring light glowing in through the skylight right onto my face. I don't hear the zombies, they're not banging on the downstairs door. I look up at the sky and wonder if it could all truly be a dream.
    I don't have a headache, no twinge at all. That is a wonder I can't help but be glad for. At least Cerulean had that too, in his final hours. At least we got to speak.
    I look at my phone. It's not even mid-day, I guess I slept for only an hour or two. In the corner there are no signal bars, but the Wi-Fi symbol is still there. I click through to the Internet but the pipeline is empty and I get missing server messages. I click through each of my tabs on the phone methodically, social media, email, news, and they all erase themselves away.
    Perhaps I'll never see them again. Pushing the back button in the browser doesn't recapture them. The Internet is gone.
    I double click the button and the phone pings.
    "Hi Io," I tell the screen. Io is the name I've given my phone's generic AI assistant. Io and Amo, it was a kind of lame joke, I suppose.
    "Hello Amo," she says.
    "My friend just died. His name was Cerulean."
    "I'm sorry to hear that."
    "Me too. Now the whole world's gone to shit."
    "That sounds difficult."
    I laugh. "Yeah. But Lara might be alive. I don't know where she's gone though."
    "I hope you find her, Amo."
    I put the phone down. I need to think clearly.
    I get to my feet and go to the window.
    The street is filled with zombies. Seeing this is like an ice water shower. There are hundreds of them, all pale-faced with bright white eyes looking up at me. It chills my blood. They don't groan or rasp, they just stare. I open the window and I can hear them breathing, like a lapping tide. They jostle and sway like bits of wreckage caught on a wave.
    I hold my hand out like the Pope giving benediction. Their ice-white eyes track me. It makes me feel dizzy and I step back. I drop to the bed and the springs crunch comfortingly. Lara's note is still there.
    Good luck with the zombies.
    It's a good joke.
    I sit there