The Last Sunrise
By: Thomas LeBeau
Previously published in Night to Dawn – April, 2011
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The sun came over the horizon, turning the early morning sky the color of blood. The light danced off the water’s surface, refracting like diamonds. There was a slight breeze picking up bits of sea foam and tossing them about. I could smell salt on the air. It was going to be a beautiful day.
We had tied the creature to a crude cross made from pieces of the old boardwalk. The wood was slimy and half rotted, but it held together surprisingly well. Not that it really mattered. We only needed it for a little while.
We dug a hole into the sand by the water’s edge, and planted the cross upright. The thing was fastened with various lengths of rope, and it kept struggling against them. The only clothing it had on was a ragged pair of pants. There were jagged scars crisscrossing its chest and sides. It looked like something had clawed the skin to shreds. That’s probably not far off the mark. It was screaming at us, but there were no words; just long, guttural howls. There was no trace of humanity anymore.
The first rays of light caressed its skin, and its entire body tensed and strained at the ropes. It was like watching a convict in the electric chair. Everywhere the light touched it; the skin turned bright red and began to blister. There was a smell similar to cooking pork; it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. I stared as its skin split apart. It parted down its arms and chest the way an overcooked hot dog bursts. I could feel my stomach rumbling. It’s amazing the things that you can get used to.
We gathered around, staring. Watching never seemed to grow old. Each one was different. There was a soft sizzling sound as its eyeballs cooked in their sockets, drying out like raisins. A smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. The son of a bitch deserved every bit of it.
*
We camp out on the beach most nights. It’s a lot safer than anywhere else. All the cities and towns were overrun pretty fast as soon as the infection took hold. Being surrounded by open water and the empty beach makes it a lot harder for something to sneak up on you.
We try to sleep during the day, just like they do. We used to take shifts at night, watching over each other, but one night someone fell asleep and we lost two of our group. After that we changed our sleep cycles to match theirs. More security means less death.
We hadn’t seen any of them in a while, and I guess we let our guard down. Molly and Jason were off in their tent, and Alex was snuggled up to me watching the fire dance in the breeze that was flowing off the water. It was terribly beautiful.
None of us heard the bastard sneaking up. That’s the one problem with the beach. There’s no cover for them to hide behind, but the sand muffles footsteps. The only warning we got was a catlike hiss as it sprang into the air. I twisted around to see what was happening, and I felt its weight slam into me, rolling us towards the fire. Alex was screaming but it was muffled by the roaring of blood in my ears as my heart rate soared.
I managed to get my arm wedged under its throat, pressing hard on its windpipe to keep it from biting my face off. There was a bright flash as someone slammed a burning log from the fire into the things back, and it screeched. It sounded like someone running a power drill over a chalkboard. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it. I shoved it off me and scrabbled backwards like a crab. I could feel sand going down the back of my pants, and I got strangely irritated by it. I heard the thing take a couple more hits from the log, and then the beach was quiet again. I sucked in a deep breath and brushed my hair from eyes trying to see what happened.
Jason was standing there naked, holding a half burnt log in one hand, and a blanket over his crotch with the other. He looked down at me sitting there on the sand, and we started laughing our asses off. Molly scurried over to us in a blanket of her own, and Alex threw her arms around me, sobbing.
After a while I stood up and kicked my attacker in the ribs, rolling it onto its back. In the dying firelight it looked out of place. It was something from a nightmare that had escaped into reality. This thing shouldn’t exist. I found it repulsive because it used to be just like me.
We all looked around at each other again, but this time there was no laughter. We knew what had to be done. Jason found some rope, and Alex and Molly scouted out the timber. We made the cross, and dug the hole. Then we just sat around and waited. We’re all pretty well used to going without sleep. The creature woke up a couple times, but Alex was watching and every time it so much as twitched she gave it a terrific blow upside the head with a piece of driftwood.
Sitting around, waiting for sunrise gives you a lot of time to think. I thought back to how it all started. It’s almost funny how something so simple began the end of the world. It’s kind of like that saying about a butterfly flapping its’ wings. Who could have imagined such a tiny thing could cause so much trouble.
When it first happened everyone was so quick to up and blame the government, and I guess that’s pretty close to being on the money, but you can’t lay all the blame on their shoulders. To them, what they were doing was all standard operating procedure. They’re always doing their experiments, and their tests, and their scientific cover up bullshit. But go deep enough and the blame eventually falls onto one man, one little oversight, and one little accident. For every precaution that you can invent, a million problems that will get around it emerge. It’s impossible to plan for all the details, so we just do our best, and hope nothing bad comes of it. Of course in the end, something bad always comes of it.
There was a lab accident. Some scientist dropped a vial. That’s all. That’s how the world as we knew it ended. Some self important little man wasn’t careful with his toys. The whole world ended over a tiny bit of broken glass.
That little glass vial was the most destructive thing mankind has ever seen. After we all decided that nuclear weapons were far too dangerous to actually use, we got rid of them. Then it seems that the big brass turned its attention onto something a little more subtle. After the world moved on past atomic weapons, the focus fell on viral research. It didn’t matter that every country denied doing it. And it didn’t matter that they all signed treaties and pacts with each other agreeing to never walk that path. All the world leaders talked their talk, and smiled their smiles, and went back to home to pat their pet scientists on the back and encourage them to dream up some new little beauty that would decimate the countries that they just shared drinks with.
And then some lab geek, who had probably watched a few too many movies, got the idea to create a virus that would turn its victims against the healthy population. With just a few small doses, it would be possible to defeat our opponents without ever setting foot on their soil. Seems so brilliant doesn’t it? I’m sure the little prick even got a medal or something for it.
So the scientists did their thing. And then someone dropped a vial, and it all went south pretty quick. They followed their little procedures, and shut down the building tight, but it didn’t matter. They were all infected. And once the infection spread through the building, they got out. And then things really got bad.
I remember watching the new reports. Calm, collected men in glasses and suits talked on and on. They used words like “retrovirus” and “mutation” and they spewed forth assurances and promises, but in their eyes was a deep cold fear that I could see even through a television screen. I could picture t
he cowards, sitting in some airtight room, talking to a camera, quarantined while the rest of us sat in our living rooms, trying to believe what they said, but never quite being able to. You know that feeling when you swallow something you haven’t quite finished chewing? That hard, stuck lump halfway down your chest? That’s what it felt like watching those news reports.
It wasn’t long until the infected starting popping up outside the lab. The major cities first, then it spread like the roots of a tree across the country. They showed diagrams on the news reports. Pictures with red tendrils spreading across the map like a fever. They said things like “spreading faster than anticipated” and “exceeding expectations.” That’s the closest they ever came to an admission of guilt. I remember flipping from news channel to news channel and seeing different faces on each one saying the exact same words. I remember the news when the first infected was found overseas. It killed one of the last bits of hope left in the world. I still wonder how bad it is over there.
What I don’t remember is when we first started killing them. It was only a matter of time before we all realized that it was them or us, but at first the military just collected them and carted them off to places unknown. There were casualties of course. Most of them were victims of the infected. This virus wasn’t like the cold, or the flu. This one changed people. It made them into vampires.
Now, I don’t mean the movie monsters, with the silver and garlic and crosses and shit. They were extremely allergic to light. There’s some medical term for it, but it always slips my mind. They weren’t super-strong or super fast or any of that either. But they became different, primitive. They were feral. They could still think, and work in groups. But other parts of their brain seemed to shut down. They couldn’t talk very well. And they lost any semblance of civility, not that that’s a stretch for most Americans. They were violent, vicious creatures. They were nearly as smart as us. They were always hungry. And they could infect others. Just one bite and it was a matter of time. Their saliva was teeming with the virus. To this day I think that it’s some hybrid strain of rabies, or something, but I’ll never be sure. The lucky ones were killed outright. But more often people were bitten, and then escaped. Then the virus went to work, and soon we were crawling with them.
Eventually the men in suits stopped appearing on the news channels. Instead there were videos of city streets. Of people being slaughtered and eaten. Of piles of rotting bodies. Of buildings on fire. I can still remember one of those videos. It was in Times Square. A group of healthy people had captured one of them. They tied it to a street light, and piled newspapers and chunks of wood at its feet. The thing was flailing its head back and forth, lips pulled back in a snarl that was almost human. I could see the reflection of the Molotov cocktail in its eyes before the bottle exploded. It was just like in the movies. It went up like a torch, head thrown back screaming in agony, until there was nothing left. Then the video feed cut back to an anchorwoman in some newsroom who went through the motions, but you could see the look in her eyes. It was like looking at a trapped animal. By that time the infection had spread everywhere, even here. It’s funny. I always pictured California as being untouchable, as if it were its own little island, safe from the rest of the world. God, I wish that were true.
So here we are, on the edge of the world. The ocean spreads out forever like a promise. I wonder if there’s some place out there that’s still untouched, uninfected. Maybe there’s a little paradise somewhere amongst the waves. It gives me hope to think that there is, and that someday everything will be all right. Oh, the lies we tell ourselves so we can keep going.
My shoulder itches something terrible. I wasn’t quick enough last night. The bite is already starting to heal and scab, but the skin around it is an angry red because the fabric of my shirt keeps rubbing on it. The thing on the cross has stopped screaming now, but somehow that’s worse. It’s still moving. The arms pull feebly at the ropes, and the legs are making tired kicking motions. It reminds me of a drowning victim, about to go under for the last time. There’s smoke rising from its blackened skin. It doesn’t smell as good anymore.
I look back out over the ocean as the sun clears the line of the horizon. I have to squint. The light hurts. This is the last sunrise I will ever see. I can’t tell the others. You can call me selfish, but I want to enjoy my last day.
I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight.
I hope they’re faster than I was.
I hope they’re faster than I am.
Thomas LeBeau was born in 1985 in California, but currently resides in Upstate New York with his fiancée, two cats and a chinchilla. He graduated from the University of Rochester with a bachelor’s degree in English, and currently works there in the financial aid department. He writes fiction and plays guitar and bass. His first novel, The Hive, is available online.
You can visit his website at thomaslebeau.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @TomLeBeau19.