8 Minutes Till Monday

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  Dustin woke to faint grumbles in the distance. He quickly sprang up from the floor and peeked out from an almost impossibly small tear in the tarp that sheltered him. His eyes widened a little. A swarm of putrid green pestilence was slowly coming out from the cityscape debris.

  'Shit,' he inwardly hissed as he grabbed a loose piece of pipe from the ground of his hut, about a couple feet long or so. From the back end of his hut, he opened a small flap and stuck his arm out. With all of his strength, he summoned his arm as far back as it could go, and threw it with everything he had within him. He then quickly returned to the little hole in the tarp to watch where it would land. Luckily, it landed just a little off from where he wnated it. It crashed with an echoing clang, and almost immediately, the mob of rotted flesh and muscle and sickness rushed and rampaged over to it's source like the ferral demons they are.

  Dustin let out a quiet, shaky, relieved breath. They come around every couple weeks. That being said, it doesn't mean you get desensitized to it. He felt a sweat drop run down his head, making it itch. He wiped it away mechanically, keeping his eyes locked on the horde, making sure they all leave.

  Once they all did, he started to pack for the day's travels. He grabbed his feed tube, and quickly made to eat the day's meal. One of the bummers about having to constantly wear a gas mask is not being able to take it off to burp. Dustin shuddered and winced at the trapped odor.

  He made quick work of scurrying out from his hut and into the outskirts of the perished city.

  'Now would probably be a good time to make a joke about this being New Jersey.' Dustin mused in thought as he avoided a crushed and rotted ribcage. He made note of what appeared to be a decomposed rodent carcass within the bone structure.

  For about half an hour, he walked and walked and walked, finding nothing of much importance. He then heard a faint shuffling behind him, and he immediately whipped around and presented his machete. He nearly threw up at what he saw. In front of him lay a little boy, dead eyed but alive. His skull was impaled by a metal rod that entered through his temple that Dustin assumed came from the above crumbled building. The shuffling was from his little hand mechanically pawing at a nearby chunk of concrete that lay just in front of him. It was more than clear that he was slowly dying. The part of his brain that must've been damaged by the pole must have been the part that controlled pain, because his legs have been almost completely stripped and ravaged of flesh. He was minutes away from the merciful release of death. He could feel himself tear up, but he choked it back. He looked around them at all sides. Nothing - all clear.. for now.. better make this quick.

  He slowly approached the little boy. Oh God, he couldn't've been any more than six. He had short blonde hair that was almost bleached with illness, along with dried and fresh blood staining it a brick red. His green eyes were hollow and already dead. The blood vessels in his eyes had long burst, his scleras almost completely red.

  "H-Hey!" Dustin whispered, quick like a prick of a sewing needle on someone's finger pad. His voice was somewhat blocked by the mask. He sighed inwardly, a bit frustrated that his attempt of helping this impossibly broken child was being muffled by this stupid mask. He made tight fists of his hands. He neared closer to he kid. He was now about two feet away from him, at least.

  He waved his hand in front of the boy's face slowly. The boy's eyes hardly even reflected Dustin's hand. Some drool came from the corner of his mouth, stained red and overtaken by a horrid green colour. It looked like an oily green puddle, deep red spit bubbles arounf the perimeter. He felt the bile rise up in his throat. He can't throw up - it's absolutely out of the whole damn question. He saw the deflection of light coming from his machete blade on the ground near his shoe where he was crouching. He looked at it, and saw his dingy reflection in its metal.

  'N-No way.. I can't - I can't kill a kid!' he thought in protest. 'But.. I mean.. look at 'em.. he's already dead....'

  He gripped the handle of his weapon harder. He felt another irritatingly itchy bead of sweat run down the side of his face. He moved closer to the boy, and, with a solemn sigh, gently shut the boy's eyes. He then gripped the machete with both hands, and closed his eyes and swung downwards. He made contact. Human bone is much thicker than a cat's.

  After several swings, the head was seperated from the body. Blood mixed with green slugde oozed from the wound. He had to get away from the scene quickly before he actually does something worse than just burp in his mask.

  He made fast work of cleaning off the machete blade, almost retching at the sight. Something else in the distace made him freeze all over.

  "He - o? C - me in? An - y - ne th - re?"

  That was a walkie talkie. His pupils dialated until they were no bigger than needlepoints. His hair stood on end - this was an adrenal overload - a primal crisis of security and breach of safety.

  He rushed over to it and shoved it haphazardly into one of his many parka pockets. He sheathed his machete and ran like Hell to his hut. He could hear the faint charge of trambling footsteps far behind him. He ran faster than he ever thought he could. He couldn't feel his legs as he booked it to his shelter.

  This radio was either going to kill him, or save him.