I stared out into the gray of another bleak winter morning and found myself lacking once again. Slamming the door closed, I reluctantly resigned one more day to the coward’s ash pile of which I was a regular contributor. All those fleeting moments, minutes, hours… years… All wasted under the perpetual fear of an unknown evil, all the while knowing that the weight of responsibility fell squarely on my head alone.
The very last one…
I hadn’t left my house in weeks. Months, possibly. The passage of time had slowed to an agonizing crawl, giving the impression of far longer. The isolation had near driven me mad, my hands giving into shakes whenever I’d hear noise from outside. The only comfort I found was within my own reflection, the remaining evidence I had that I was still a human being.
“There’s nothing left for me out there…” I affirmed in the mirror, my daily mantra, as if trying to convince someone other than myself.
“Nothing at all.”
I peeked through the blinds and watched a former neighbor shuffle down the street in a monstrous, shambling gait. The mangled stump of its foot dragged listlessly behind as it sluggishly made its way round the bend into the next street and out of sight. They were everywhere, waiting and ready in the shadows where I couldn’t see. Shrieking. Every night was the same. Their bizarre mating calls blared out into the otherwise dead twilight, rending me from any peaceful sleep I might have possibly enjoyed. It was blood-curdling, like they were being flayed alive… and yet still with something joyous and terrible simmering underneath. Their crying wails are one of ecstatic, starved hunger.
They called me mad when I began fortifying my home, all the locks and shutters. Well, who’s mad now? The shriekers, that’s who. Utterly insane, driven only by their base instincts and a desire to destroy and assimilate. They wish to take me as well. I was so afraid, but I knew what needed to be done from the very start. I had to go back outside.
I had to burn them in their nest.
Summoning up all the spine I could muster, I silently slipped out through the front door and over to the one across the street on that freezing dark night. I could hear them moving around inside, yelping and shrieking as always. A thick sliver of disgust overpowered the terror as my jittering hands fumbled with the lid on the petrol canister. I regained my composure as I focused on my mission, allowing the revulsion to drive me. It spun off, clanking against the cold metal body of its host noisily, I swallowed a lump in my throat, reassuring myself that I was still as of yet unseen.
I attached the plastic hose and the pungent liquid flowed freely through the thin metal letterbox. I made sure to be quick about it, one slip up and it’d all be over. They’d be on me like a pack of wild dogs to a feast. The canister ran dry, and so I pulled out the lighter. I flicked its ignition repeatedly before finally striking flame, and after one last frantic look around, in it went.
The house immediately erupted in flames and I retreated back to safety, desperate to get inside before the swarm arrived to salvage its sickening brood. I observed half in glee and half in a growing dread as the nest was engulfed. Then just as expected, they arrived. Their awful wailing tearing through the night. I shuddered as I closed the blinds, hoping this would at the very least thin out their numbers, if not force them to move on from the area entirely. How I longed for the day when I could venture out without fear of an attack… to rebuild, and to restock my ever dwindling supplies. The start of a whole new world, a better world… like the old one. My eyes began to close as I fell into a deep sleep, the shrieking outside now just a familiar white noise of sorts, lulling me.
I awoke to a loud banging on the front door. They’d found me. I loaded the cartridges into my revolver, rounds spilling to the floor from their box as I panicked. More banging, I couldn’t ignore it this time. They were never going to move on. Not until they had me. I knew it in that moment, I wasn’t going down without a fight.
Through the shuddering sight I stared down the barrel of the revolver as I descended the stairs, growing closer and closer. The rattling pounded its way throughout the house, each knock making me flinch and throwing off my aim. I fired three shots through the door. The knocking stopped, but they weren’t done.
A while later, they returned. I could hear an immense growling emanating from the street outside and I took position, gun trained shakily on the entryway. But it was no use.
A blinding flash filled the room and I dropped my weapon after only one misguided discharge. I was rushed by the horde and was sent tumbling to the floor, screaming ‘till the very last. I felt something sharp prick my neck, and all went dark.
That was some time ago. A long time ago. Many years in fact. I’m still in their cage, but they’ll never get me. I won’t fall for their tricks. They’ve taken the form of human beings, a sick mockery of their former lives as normal people, in their never ceasing attempts to assimilate me along with the pills and potions fuelling their petty illusions.
They tell me that I’m a murderer, that I’m ‘very unwell’. That I’m in a hospital and that the ‘doctors’ are here to help me. They even dressed up one of their own as my brother, my fucking brother, who perished in the initial outbreak. Lies, all lies. They know that when I, the last one, am assimilated that they’ll finally be able to cover the planet entirely.
They underestimate me though. My resolve is strong. And when I escape this place, I’ll burn them as I find them until they are no more. Until not a single shrieking demon remains.
I’m not scared anymore…