Chapter 495

The small boy, no older than seven, moved through the ruined city. His name was Leo, though it barely felt like his anymore, his family now a faded picture.

The world around him was gray, a canvas of concrete and broken things, all under a sky perpetually bruised. He had learned the language of survival quickly, it was an education written in fear and loss.

The moans of the dead, the shuffling steps, the sudden, sickening tearing – each sound a lesson. He avoided the streets, they were too exposed.

Instead, he preferred the alleyways, the forgotten paths between buildings. It was where the debris piled, where a child could easily disappear.

It was his sanctuary, though hardly a safe haven. He was a rat, always just a step ahead of the jaws.

He carried a small, dented metal pot that held a few scraps and water. He didn't remember the last time he had felt full or warm.

But the need to exist drove him onwards and downwards. He slept mostly during the daylight hours, curled tight behind upturned dumpsters, using blankets stolen from empty cars.

The sun, he'd noticed, turned the streets into feeding grounds for the infected. So, like all vermin, he waited for darkness.

Nights were better, or so they seemed. Fewer of them stalked in the low light and shadow.

Even then, every noise sent spikes of ice through him. But that's just the world that he found himself in now, alone in the dark with only death.

He ate sparingly. Some days he didn't eat at all, other times, a cold, spoiled piece of meat pulled from the trash was a feast.

His senses, sharp with hunger, also seemed to hold back on him. Everything tasted bitter, everything tasted of death.

His small hands were calloused, his clothes torn, always caked in the dust. They hung off him, too big for a body still too little.

Everything about him screamed that he was someone out of time. The infected. That's what people called them.

They never stopped. Their moans reached the places that never see light.

Leo tried not to let them touch him; he saw the terrible things that came when someone got hurt. He saw the quickness that came next, as they pulled apart their next victim.

Once he saw a pack tearing apart what was left of a family, there was screaming, cries that tore at him. So many sounds and all he could do was hide deeper in a dark doorway.

It reminded him of his own. He stayed there, curled up and sick from what he saw.

Leo didn't think that death could get worse; now he was so unsure. If there was a place, he hoped it was a place better than what the infected have.

There was nothing here, not anymore. One day, his scavenging led him to an old store.

He found it after many streets. It still looked somewhat ok.

Windows shattered and shelves knocked over, and with no power the doors swung slightly as they always did. It gave Leo chills, even though this is normal for him now.

There were rusted cans still on some of the shelves, and dried packets of things he couldn't identify, but something was better than nothing. They're too dry and so brittle now.

He tries anyway and bites on one, even it tasting awful. It was sustenance at least.

He had to get enough now because he was sure that someone might find it at this point, but also, he wasn't so sure at how long his little frame could stand anymore of nothing. As he pocketed what little bit he found, a sound turned his small frame to face where the doors used to be, but not only was that broken now, he heard it coming from somewhere else.

It was a wet sort of sound. There was a clacking coming as well from down in one of the old aisles, like a branch or two hitting an abandoned shopping cart or trash cans.

It wasn't one, but several it sounded. He freezes, unsure how to act now, because something different was in front of him.

Leo stood very still, he waited for them to move, then he would move away, that's how the world moved these days. He felt a deep pressure in the middle of his small frame, something so unknown and it didn't feel very good.

The clacking increased, it felt like a gathering as each sound hit harder and harder on his tiny ear drums. Then they appeared.

It wasn't the infected, it wasn't any type he ever saw. He saw the bone-white faces.

Their eyes were empty sockets, yet seemed to focus right on him. Each move had this dreadful dragging of body and joints, their bones a clattering soundtrack.

He stared in horror. This isn't right; this shouldn't exist. But then, very little does for him.

These things moved unlike anything he had seen before; a spider like walk, so low to the ground that they all moved under and around debris like they could see each tiny spot they're going, but what set him off more were those dead eyes locked on him. There was a malevolence that was palpable.

Leo, though so small, understood fear in its purest form now. He tried to backtrack away from the area, only for the clattering of what looked like two dozen to surround him at the door and through the side entrance.

Leo could see there wasn't an exit, and he could only back away farther inside the small grocery store, deeper. They edged in closer, all these horrible creatures in this forgotten, silent place.

Each creature with such horrible design. He wanted to curl up and fade, he did, so badly.

He turned and tried running. Leo kicked a cart on his way out; this bought him a brief respite of loud clanging, enough so he had a head start.

He stumbled around shelves with half empty things still lining them. He went past a spot, a corner with nothing there and tried going somewhere.

But nothing was around here, but he made his turn and stumbled towards something in a different aisle and to a different area altogether now. The creatures were quick, somehow impossibly faster, and moved past his obstacles quickly like it never even existed.

He squeezed between tight rows of cans and tried hiding under one. These weren't the mindless zombies, these had something much worse, there was thought in the way they moved.

These were monsters of a type all to their own. His tiny legs burned, but he kept trying to escape the ones behind him.

Leo had the strangest urge, he almost didn't stop because these moments meant the difference, but his instincts won. There was a small shelf with children's toys and he needed to see.

It had no reason to stop here and not at the food, but he was right on the way there and there weren't even zombies nearby, only what followed him now, but even still he wanted it. Leo reached it quickly and pulled one of them from the very front; he never even felt that one moment of hesitation, just went forward to it.

A stuffed animal, a toy bear, small and dusty and something that almost looks welcoming to him in this world now. He hugged it and then made for the back of the building.

If nothing else, this one toy meant something now in his life, this awful place, a silent scream. Leo wanted the best end for this, even with so little left for him in it, if it didn't help anything in any manner it did just one, a flicker of hope.

Leo smashed through a rotted wall at the back, using the very metal pot he was using to survive. He made it out into the daylight and into yet another back alleyway.

It felt better to at least move; this horrible building is starting to feel as heavy as a death in him now. This might be the end if they catch him now but running is a thing that brings relief to his muscles at least.

They poured out after him, this horde, these silent clattering monstrosities. His breath became ragged.

There wasn't much of it that he could do before he would fall from exhaustion, the tiny boy barely got a good night's sleep before needing to find shelter once more in a cold, damp place somewhere. They had followed and were now all around him, they could only wait before attacking now.

There weren't any sounds besides the ones the new monsters created. Leo turned to face his fate, small, brave and afraid at the same time, hugging the little teddy bear as close as he could, the closest thing he's had since that last day.

He was not about to let that last piece be ruined like everything else, no matter what now. He would die but not without one final companion.

The first one reached him. Its long, spindly fingers touched him first.

Then a sharp sting, then more sharp things tearing at his tiny flesh, tearing him, peeling away bits and pieces now. He didn't make any sounds, he let it just do its deed now.

There was nothing else left to say anymore. The others crowded, the clattering of their bony parts mixed with his cries, barely audible, in the ruined world, he barely lasted so long, but that moment of peace felt so far away now as his skin was slowly pealed away.

Leo looked to his friend in those last moments of his and they could feel as his small body finally broke now, the soft cotton now being stained in his very own blood as his vision started fading out. Then the cold started sinking in, even through the sharp teeth sinking deeper inside him, they pulled and ripped in silence, there was nothing now, but the silence felt almost normal, everything, everything feels that way now.

This empty and hollow world. Even death had its place, as it was doing the last parts.

They carried the small remains of the boy back into the old grocery store and laid him on one of the counters. It was a strange tribute, in the middle of the awful place they went back to when Leo had no escape from.

They pulled at the seams of his bear and spilled its cotton out around his broken little frame. Then they clambered up to stand beside his corpse.

They all looked down with those hollowed out holes, something dark looking from the pit of their void sockets as they surrounded him. He lay there in their little dark circle, in a quiet kind of mourning, this place finally had its peace again, at last, in this terrible place, under a gray and forever lonely world now.

The dead will rise, as everything, no matter the small bit of peace one had hoped for, had fallen just like everything, under a veil.