A Bite of Humanity

         The world had gone to hell, as least as far as he could tell. There wasn’t much communication coming in from around the globe now, that had started to conk out about a month ago. Far as Clint Adams knew, he could be one of the last people on Earth, well, one of the last healthy survivors to be exact.

         Clint sat down against the rough bark of a tree to take a breather setting his sleek compound bow on the springy earth beside him. The young man was very well armed, he had a 9mm in the holster around his waist and a large knife strapped to the one around his long leg but the bow was quiet, efficient and most important, had reusable ammo.  He almost chuckled to himself at the absurdity of it all as he thought back on what had brought him into this situation in the first place. Leaning his back against the tree and allowing himself some deep breaths, though still keeping sharp ear open, he warily let all those images trickle through his mind.

         It was as if the disease had exploded into the world overnight, people started dropping dead as far as the eye could see and each one reportedly presumed dead. The phenomenon was so large-spread that doctors, scientists, the entire CDC even jumped into action and took hundreds and hundreds of tests. That was one thing Clint gave them credit for, they certainly didn’t try and waste any time.

         “Fat lot of good that did though in the end, didn’t it...” He muttered to himself before slipping back into his memories.

         People had panicked of course but the government saw no reason to worry just yet, they had dealt with pandemics like this before, they assured the people of the world that everything would be just fine.

         Until the deceased bodies began to move of their own accord. And not just a simple twitch, they clawed and snarled and snatched at their healthy counterpart’s flesh like a rabid dog digging into a fresh steak.

         It was just then that Clint jolted out of his walk down memory lane, rubbing a grubby hand across his sun burnt forehead. That was enough remembering for the moment, he knew from past experience that if he went too deep too quickly he would certainly break down. And in this new world, any sign of weakness could cost you your life. This world was different and bizarre and completely mental. This world was currently falling to what could, and had been, compared to an actual zombie apocalypse.

         Clint shuddered at his own thought of the word. Zombie. It seemed too comedic for what was really happening, too…unbelievable. He preferred to call them by their preferred activity; Biters. It was a much more gruesome name but Clint was a realistic guy, he didn’t know if they were legitimately dead or not, but he did know that if one got a chomp out of you that was the end. At that point it was simply a decision between denying what had happened and letting yourself become one of them, or opting out and putting a bullet to your head. Either way, it was a death sentence.

         He shook the pessimistic thought from his head and groaned slightly when he lifted his wiry body off the ground, being a mechanic had never been this strenuous and his body still hated him for the exertion he had put on it during the last month. He pushed his weary body on in no particular direction, usually he would keep travelling North as much as possible, the plan he had in his head was to find a nice abandoned cabin high up on a mountain somewhere and pray to whatever powers that be that the Biters would be too mindless to consider climbing. Bur for now he was enjoying the relative peace of the forest he was in. For the past month his ears had been bombarded by the animistic growls the infected created and as he walked along quietly he idly wondered if animals could be infected too, or if this was just mankind’s extinction event. He stopped suddenly when he heard the tell-tale rustle of a rabbit hopping around.

         “Dinner is served, I guess.” He thought to himself and stealthily aimed his bow at the furry creature.

         There was a sharp twang and then the rabbit was down. If there was one thing Clint was thankful for in the world right now, it’s that he was a decent hunter, he didn’t think he would have survived this long without that particular skill. Raw rabbit wasn’t particularly appetizing, especially when you had to skin it with the wrong type of knife and ended up with fur between your teeth, but he would take what he could get. There was no chance for luxuries in this world anymore.

         The light was beginning to fade now but it was as if the sky knew the state of the earth and was commiserating with it, there was no glowing sunset ton day, only a faint pink light across the entire horizon. Clint was making his way back to his truck, sincerely hoping that it was untouched by looters or Biters. As he wound his way through the tall, majestic pines, there was a slight shuffling some yards away behind him. His head whipped around, senses heightening and body tensing immediately, his lean muscles coiling in anticipation. The shuffling stopped a few seconds later as he saw a small, brown squirrel scurry down a wide tree trunk, and his body relaxed.

         “Look at you Clint, getting all worked up over a little bushy-tailed rat.” He muttered to himself darkly, his body burned from the tension that had just locked up his muscles.

         He turned back around and came face to face with the awful, decaying face of a biter. Strangely enough he was surprised he hadn’t smelled him first. The scent of decaying teeth and flesh hit him full force and his eyes watered from it. It was the smell of death and when his eyes flicked up to the red tinged eyes of the thing in front of him, he could see they were dead too. And then his instincts snapped into place and he scrambled for the knife at his thigh, the Biter was clutching at his Clint’s torn flannel driven by nothing more than the desire to taste the living man’s flesh in his bloated stomach.

         The sharp edged knife went through straight into the side of the Biter’s mangled, rotting head causing him - it - to let out a strangled gurgle and promptly drop to the ground.

         Clint let out a long breath. He almost hated that this came so easy to him now, that he could so smoothly jab a knife into a human being’s brain. But deep down he knew they weren’t really human anymore and the fact that he could just as easily become one of them terrified him. Almost as much as the fact that he could still see a glimpse of a sick, dying person behind the wild eyes when he put them down. He stood there a moment longer, chastising himself now for letting his guard down. It didn’t matter how pretty the world looked or how peaceful it seemed, if you let your guard down, you die.

         The light was almost completely gone now when a voice spoke from his left and behind him.

         “Close call, huh?” It was a woman’s voice, not much younger than him by the sounds of it.

         Clint didn’t react for a second; he hadn’t heard a person’s voice for about a week now, especially one that sounded so calm, if a little raspy. Once he decided he wasn’t hallucinating, he responded.

         “Yeah. Guess so.” His guard was back up, he’d seen enough lately to know not to trust anyone right away, even if it was a lady.

         He turned around and took a few steps towards the voice and his eyes saw the dark outline of a tent in the middle of a small clearing.

         “Sure you wanna do that?” The woman asked with something in her voice that he couldn’t quite decipher.

         “Is there some reason I shouldn’t?” He asked gruffly.

         “Well, from what I’ve been seeing lately, other survivors don’t particularly gravitate towards the infected.” She said with a wiry smirk that he couldn’t quite see, but heard.

         “You got bit.” It wasn’t a question, simply a statement more for himself than anything.

         “Yep, but hey thanks for killing the dummy that did it, would’ve done it myself but know, handicapped now and all.”

         “Yeah well, it was about to eat my face off, I had to do something I guess.” He said with a slightly defensive tone in his voice.

         “Yeah, well…anyways listen I’m enjoying our little chat but this long distance thing isn’t my thing and well, if I’m about to bite the bullet so to speak I might as well see a human face before I go right? Closure and all that.”

         His quick mind weighed all the possibilities but he eventually decided he was safely armed, and so he shuffled over to her, his social skills had never been the greatest but now they were just downright terrible.

         “Oh and it’s a handsome face as well, lucky me!” The thin woman teased, giving him a wink.

         Clint merely grunted, grateful that it was too dark for her to see the slight blush on his sharp cheekbones.

         “So I figure I have about another hour or so before I’m gone, and I like stories, so what’s yours stranger?”

         “Clint. I’m Clint Adams.” He corrected her. If he had anything left in this world it was his identity.

         “Nice to meet you Clint, I’d tell you mine but I think it’s better if you don’t know.”

         “Why is that?” He questioned.

         “Well, I may be strong but even I can’t put a pistol to my own brain, and since you’re the only other breathing thing here, I was hoping you’d do it for me. Figured it’s just easier if you don’t know me.” She continued. “But I do want to know about you, if you’re not too busy with something else Chatty Cathy.” She teased again.

         Clint was trying to wrap his mind around her request, when she prodded him weakly with a thin leg, her warm blue eyes meeting his icy ones.

         “So you going to get on with it or am I going to have to start making conversation with our friend over there?” She nodded her head in the direction of the dead Biter.

         Clint sighed, well, what the hell, might as well. Poor girl needs someone to talk to before she goes I guess…we both do, he added as an afterthought to himself.

         He didn’t really want to go into the details of his childhood, and opted instead to tell her how he got to be where he was today. She asked to make a small fire and he did so immediately, her entire body was shivering and her face was paler than it had been a few minutes ago.

         When the pandemic had started he hadn’t been too worried, he called his mom and sister to make sure they were fine, but other than that, he went on with his life, repairing rusty motorcycles and changing leaky oil tanks on cars at the garage he worked at. Once the sickness was discovered to be air-borne and highly dangerous he began to worry slightly. But the real eye-opener was when he saw his neighbour’s arm have a large, bloody chunk bit out of it by his greying, infected, wife. He immediately locked his doors and windows and phoned his mom and sister in Houston, hoping the disease hadn’t travelled from his town of Austin to theirs. When he had received no answer after the tenth call, he packed up whatever provisions, weapons and gas that he could and headed back to his hometown. When he got there, he fell apart. His mother lay dead on the ground, an infected bite across her shoulder, and a gun still in her hand. His sister, his beautiful, successful…infected…baby sister crouching on the floor next to her mother, snarling and devouring her. He’d had no choice; he’d had to put down his own sister. Shoot a bullet straight through her skull. And left. Never looking back. He’d learned that at that moment, standing in his mother’s timeless, blood-streaked kitchen that he had to put walls up. If he didn’t, he would crumble like an ancient ruin.

         When Clint had finished his story, and glanced up at the girl nervously, he saw an expression he hadn’t seen in a very long time. Humanity. Compassion. Empathy.

He looked down again and stroked his defined jaw, realizing that he also saw that she was going, he could almost see the fever burning off of her pale forehead and he considered. Could he put another human being, a still breathing human being, down like the Biter he had just killed. He didn’t know, but when she handed him her pistol, and he saw the pain she was in, and the pleading in her eyes, he knew he had to.

         She was strangely calm when he raised the barrel to her damp forehead, content even. He continued to battle with himself. He didn’t know if he could live with this on his shoulders. Wouldn’t this be giving up what he had fought so hard over the past month to keep? Wouldn’t doing this break any of the humanity and life he still had inside of him.

         The girl obviously could see his inner turmoil and she spoke to him quietly, her soft voice calming him.

         “It’s okay,” she said. “I know it seems like the wrong thing to do but this isn’t what will make you less human, leaving me to become the exact opposite of what you’re trying to fight off will. Humanity isn’t always kind to us, but if it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go. Please don’t deny me that final peace, and don’t blame yourself. The fact that you came and sat with me, opened up to me, even with my insides dissolving in a monster, THAT is what makes you human.” She finished, looking into his damp eyes simply giving him the look he needed.

         Clint wasn’t able to find any words for her, but he also knew she didn’t need them from him. She needed the relief that one bullet would bring, like the relief of a cold glass of water on a hot day.

         He clicked the safety off, and she murmured.

         “Ellie. My name is Ellie.”

         The shot rang through the dense Texas forest and then faded to nothing.

         Clint walked slowly in the direction of his truck, Ellie’s words flowing through him, and he realized he felt peaceful, and alive. He felt human.