Us vs. the Apocalypse
Title: The Number You Are Trying To Reach...
Word Count: 341
Crossposted: HERE at runaway-tales
The boy couldn't have been much more than sixteen, seventeen years old when he first died, and it made that familiar knot settle in my stomach. Senior year of high school, probably. First car, if he was lucky, maybe a girlfriend on his arm. His clothes were soaked through with God-knows-what, blood and bile and all the other disgusting things that the human body secretes as it slowly breaks down, but the careful stitching and obnoxiously large designer labels were still clearly visible.
We stood in the doorway for a few moments, watching him lift the cordless phone from the hallway table, press the buttons, put it to his half-missing ear, then put it back on the cradle, only to repeat the process. Stuck in that loop, trying to phone somebody that would never answer - the same thing millions of the living had done, myself included. The end of the world has a tendency to put things in perspective, to make you realize how long it's been since you talked to your brother, how many weeks have passed since you last listened to your grandmother's stories at a dollar fifteen a minute. And as I watched him pick up the phone for the fourth time, carefully pressing the buttons with broken and mangled fingers, I wondered if the person he was trying to call was still alive or if they were just like him, pressing the buttons on a long-dead phone like a tired robot stuck on a programming glitch.
My melancholy train of thought was abruptly derailed when Dixon leaned behind me and jammed his thumb to the doorbell, the sudden gong of Westminster Chimes near-deafening in the heavy silence. The Ollie jumped as high as I did, the phone slipping from its fingers and crashing to the floor.
"Excuse me, Sir," Dixon said, bringing his gun up to eye level as the Ollie took a wary step back, growling uneasily. "Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?"
Word Count: 341
Crossposted: HERE at runaway-tales
The boy couldn't have been much more than sixteen, seventeen years old when he first died, and it made that familiar knot settle in my stomach. Senior year of high school, probably. First car, if he was lucky, maybe a girlfriend on his arm. His clothes were soaked through with God-knows-what, blood and bile and all the other disgusting things that the human body secretes as it slowly breaks down, but the careful stitching and obnoxiously large designer labels were still clearly visible.
We stood in the doorway for a few moments, watching him lift the cordless phone from the hallway table, press the buttons, put it to his half-missing ear, then put it back on the cradle, only to repeat the process. Stuck in that loop, trying to phone somebody that would never answer - the same thing millions of the living had done, myself included. The end of the world has a tendency to put things in perspective, to make you realize how long it's been since you talked to your brother, how many weeks have passed since you last listened to your grandmother's stories at a dollar fifteen a minute. And as I watched him pick up the phone for the fourth time, carefully pressing the buttons with broken and mangled fingers, I wondered if the person he was trying to call was still alive or if they were just like him, pressing the buttons on a long-dead phone like a tired robot stuck on a programming glitch.
My melancholy train of thought was abruptly derailed when Dixon leaned behind me and jammed his thumb to the doorbell, the sudden gong of Westminster Chimes near-deafening in the heavy silence. The Ollie jumped as high as I did, the phone slipping from its fingers and crashing to the floor.
"Excuse me, Sir," Dixon said, bringing his gun up to eye level as the Ollie took a wary step back, growling uneasily. "Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?"