The Last Legends: A Novella

Alec

Again, the usual. Breakfast of stale cereal, repairs, hunting. I returned around five in the afternoon and sat down for dinner. I had combined some shredded chicken from a can with some seasonings and added some breadcrumbs to make it thicker. Rather depressingly, it was the best meal I had eaten in a long time.

As I was sitting down to read a book, as I had finished my daily chores early, I heard an odd sound coming from outside. It sounded rather familiar...a scratching, followed by a dog-like yelp. But dogs couldn't become Infected, according to the last reports, and what were the chances of one having survived by itself? Unless...it was with its owner!

Not thinking, I rose from my chair, opened the front door, and rushed out without bothering to close it. Greeting me, was a scrawny dog, staring up at me. Having startled it, however, it ran out into the road, eyeing me warily as it turned again to face me.

The dog was definitely a mutt, a lab mixed with something I couldn't identify, I thought. But it was undeniably a dog. A living dog. 

Living. That was the important part. 

I looked down the road in both directions, taking in every detail of the cracked payment and the houses bordering it. There wasn't anything abnormal; in fact, if it weren't for the broken and boarded up windows, it would look like there had never been a plague that had wiped out nearly all of humanity.

"Where's your owner?" I asked the dog. I looked down the road again. "Don't tell me you're by yourself. Come on in; I've got some food I can spare."

The dog cocked its head to the side, as if it were in deep contemplation as to whether to trust me or not. I stepped to the side of the door and motioned for the dog to approach. At last, it made up its mind and let out a single, non-threatening bark, and ran off to the West, where a former college town now sat in ruin. 

With a disappointed sigh, I entered my home, still alone. I picked up my book, struggling to read it for a long while before it became dark. At that point, I sat in my own isolated silence while a horde of Infected assailed my house. I was normally upstairs by this point, trying to drift off to sleep.

It was loud. I didn't realize it was possible for there to be such a difference just from traversing a flight of stairs. Or had their numbers grown?

That was impossible. It was still too early for so many to have shown up. The fast and brave ones would be the only ones here, the ones who left before the sun was fully set. There was no way their numbers were already greater than any other night. 

I picked up Dad's rifle from its place between the wall and my chair, my fingers tightening around it like a vice. There were ten bullets in the magazine, enough to get me out of any situation during the day, so long as my aim was true. However, the night was different.

I paced around the room, keeping as vast a distance as I could between the door and windows. Upon hearing the Infected in full force, it seemed a miracle my feeble barricades could hold up against their storm. How long would they last?

Grabbing my bow, arrows, gun, and bullets, I headed up to my room. I barricaded myself in with my dresser, nightstand, a few heavy items from my closet, and even my bed; I would be sleeping on the floor tonight, assuming I slept.

In what I later realized was a foolish act, I opened my window, took out the screen, and peered out into the darkness. Just vaguely, I could see a moving mass within the dim light of the moon. I left the window and returned a few moments later with my bow in hand.

I knocked an arrow and fired almost straight down into the writhing mass beneath me. I didn't hear anything, save for a dull thud which was barely audible. Without a sound, save for the barely audible noise of my bowstring being drawn taut, I fired a second arrow, then a third, until a dozen arrows were gone. 

Stupid! I cursed myself as I closed the window and sat down beneath it. I had shot all of my arrows, even the ones I kept in reserve in case the others were damaged. Now, I only had a gun, which would draw in Infected from even farther, making it even more likely they would destroy my barriers.

Were miracles to exist, it would have been one that I found any semblance of sleep that night. Even with a night plagued by nightmares of both reality and the mind, for my eyes to have been closed when the sun rose was unimaginable. Yet that was the reality.

It took me quite some tie to remove my barricade, much longer than it had taken to place it. Had it taken much longer, it may have been better for me to just spend another night trapped in my room. But, of course, I recognized the stupidity in such. 

I made my way downstairs, ate my usual breakfast, and traveled outside. My first objective was to find my missing arrows. It was not hard, as most of them were grouped tightly together in the dirt. Two of them were broken, one was embedded in the unmoving body of an Infected, and three were missing entirely, the only signs as to there whereabouts were the trails of dark blood that had been left behind.

I gathered the usable arrows together and partially buried the broken ones in the yard with their tips facing upward; if I couldn't kill with them anymore, hopefully, I could at least injure a foot or two. With my arrows in hand, I returned to my home and locked the front door, moving a couch from the family room in front of it. I didn't feel like making any repairs today, nor going on my usual hunt. Today, I would do nothing.