World's Ending

Chapter 5 - Quiet

It's quiet...
Too quiet...
All that is around me now is the farm animals in the fields grazing peacefully on grass, trees swaying in the breeze, leaves rolling along the road, and the odd cloud swimming across the ocean blue sky.

No sign of my stalker.

Speaking of signs, I could see one up ahead. I'd been walking for nearly an hour. I'd been past some abandoned cars on my way. They were completely empty, except for a pack of chewing gum and a few pairs of socks. I left the socks, I could smell them from a distance, very cheesy, they had been cooking for a while. But I took the chewing gum, that had been safe from the stench, guarded by the glove compartment.
So now I was happily chewing away and skipping along without a care in the world.

Nice and quiet.

Then I heard a low growl next to me.

Great, I jinxed it.

One of those things was in the field. But there was no way it could get to me.
But I needed to practice killing, and there was no time like the present.
How lucky.

I reached for my sword but hesitated. I'd never killed anything before.
But this isn't murder.
It's already dead.
And it's not like I'm taking away its future.
It has none.
You can't cure a dead person.
There is no cure.
Everyone else is dead.
Because of these creeps.
They brought it among themselves.
They got bit.
They let bacteria mutate by not finishing their antibiotics.
They let dormant diseases appear again that had been frozen for a millennia by melting the ice caps.

This is karma.

I took my sword out and quickly swing at its head in a rage.
The blade got stuck in its skull, but it wasn't dead... Well, it is dead...it just wasn't inanimate yet.
This wasn't as easy as the horror films made out.

Well, it might have been easy if I hadn't been angry and paying attention.

After a few swings of the sword, I almost made a clean swing through its head, it didn't go all the way through, but close enough, it was no longer moving.

My First Kill.

Maybe in future, I should just swing at the neck and get the head off, because that gets the body out the way, and then I just have to worry about the set of teeth rolling along the ground.

I walked on and in a few minutes I got to the sign, I was now in a small town called Fir Tree.
I didn't have much further to go before I reached the train tracks, and the quickest way now was to trek through fields.

I heard a few more growls behind me. There was three of them spread out. I ran at the one closest to me and swung my sword and managed to cut the top of its head of in one clean stroke and it fell to the floor whilst splattering me with blood, but I didn't really care, this was quite satisfying... Fun.

Ew, gross.
Maybe I'm turning insane.
Isn't it this sort of behaviour that starts off serial killers.

Except I'm not killing people, I'm killing corpses.

I killed the other two, whilst keeping a tally in my head of how many I had defeated.

4

I dragged them into a pile to get them out the way.
And leaving the corpses in the road I continued on my merry way.

I got to the point where I needed to cross through the fields, and luckily for me, there was a petrol station right next to me. So I went up to it because I wanted an energy drink, or a few because the last place ran out after I had the last few cans.
I was in need of energy, I've been walking for hours, I'm exhausted.

I pulled on the door to open it, wondering why it wouldn't budge. Then I looked on the handle.
PUSH
Wow... well done stupid.
When I opened it the bell on the door rung.
I waited for a few seconds, but there was no movement inside.

I went in and wandered to the back of the store. The drinks were usually kept cold but because of the power cut and the heat, the cans were warm, which made them weird to drink, but that was fine. I got about 10 and shoved all but one in my suitcase.

I heard a rustling in the corner, I decided to ignore it.
I grabbed a few more bars of chocolate on my way out.
One day there'll be none left, might as well enjoy them whilst I still can.

I went back outside and went to cross the road, still looking both ways out of habit. There were no cars, no nothing, just a pile of corpses nearby.

I strolled across the road and got to the gate. I tried to open it but it was too heavy and it had rusted shut. I had to climb it instead. I threw my suitcase over it and it landed on the grass with a thud. Now I had to get over. I put my foot on a wooden beam and put my full body weight on it. I heard a creaking and then, before I could get off, it snapped under me. When the wood split, part of it sprung up and ripped my trousers, and sliced my skin.
I screamed in pain as blood began gushing out.

I covered my mouth with my hand to stop me screaming.

Did anything hear me?

I hope not.

I heard the sound of a bell behind me.

I heard the door creak then slam shut

I heard the sound of shoes being dragged along the ground.

I heard a snarl.

A growl.

BANG!

THUD

What was that?

A gunshot!?...