Dating After the End of the World - 4

There’s a tightness in my chest as my heart sprints and panic sets in. Nate’s unmoving, and his face has paled to the color of snow.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

This time the pounding is louder and harder, showing their patience is wearing thin. They’re coming in here whether we let them in or not, and that’s a fact we both have to process in the next few seconds. A surge of adrenaline starts to course through my body, my brain preparing me for what’s next.

“Put that out!” I mouth to Nate as animatedly as I can without making any noise. He removes the smaller pot from the larger one and then slowly places a lid on it, snuffing out the fire within. Out in the halls, floorboards creak and moan, the weight of several large people shifting back and forth.

“Hello? Is anyone in there?” a deep voice calls from the other side of the door. “I have my wife and child with me. Please, let us in. We need help.” The man’s words come out robotic, like he’s reading them from a script. It’s a trap. Most everything in this world is a trap now.

Nate mouths, Should we?

I shake my head and point to the heavy cast-iron pan on the counter, signaling him to grab it. He picks it up and holds it at his side as I slowly inch toward the front door. A baseball bat is leaned in the corner, and I quietly retrieve it, keeping it at my side, hidden behind my leg.

The element of surprise is out the window. They know we’re in here, and hiding will only make it worse. Our best play is to calmly invite them in, making them think we’re stupid enough to fall for their ruse. I nod to Nate and back away from the door so he can take my spot. We’ve talked about this before, about what we would do when—not if—the burners came knocking. Now we’ve just gotta do it. He steps forward, placing his eye against the peephole. Nate pulls his head back and shakes it. I know that means they’re covering it up so we can’t see how many there are.

“Have any of you been bit?” Nate asks, trying to make his voice sound calm and welcoming.

“No,” the man says gruffly.

“Okay, good. I’ll open the door then.”

Nate’s shoulders rise and fall. He looks at me and whispers, “I love you.”

My lips move, but no sound escapes as I mouth, I love you too.

The chain lock rattles as it slides out of the slot. Nate turns several dead bolts, each one making a clicking sound as it skids back into its latch. On the last click, the door bursts open. Two men grab Nate, pinning his arms behind him and yanking the cast iron from his hand.

“Please! Don’t! I’m a doctor. I can help you,” Nate pleads.

“How were you going to help us with this?” one of the burners asks, holding up the pan. He swings it into Nate’s stomach, causing him to keel over and cough violently while gasping for the air the burner just knocked out of him. A rage blazes through me, but I stop myself from charging at them in a fury because I know it won’t do me any good. I’m outnumbered and outsized. But what I have going for me is something these two big, dumb idiots don’t have at all—a brain.

A third burner walks in, larger than the other two. He trudges toward me, a sneer plastered on his face. The baseball bat is hidden just behind my leg, standing on its end. The tips of my fingers are pressed against the knob to hold it upright. I keep my eyes on the ugly one approaching. A shitty tattoo with blown-out lines is inked across his forehead. It looks like he gave it to himself. It reads Satin in all caps, but I think he intended for it to say Satan . He stands in front of me, looking me up and down while slowly licking his cracked lips. Like the other two, he sports long, greasy hair and a dark, unkempt beard. Whether that’s from dirt and grime or it’s his natural color is a mystery. His clothes are stiff, covered in a mixture of filth and dried blood, and he reeks, which is saying a lot, because no one smells good in an apocalypse. But his odor is beyond nauseating. Really, there’s no excuse for it.

“Aren’t you a pleasant surprise to find in a shithole like this,” he says with a sinister smile.

“You must be Satin.”

The puzzled look on his face tells me it went right over his head, but the burner restraining Nate chuckles at my joke, so I know at least one of them can read.

“What’s so funny?” Satin asks, shooting a glare over his shoulder.

His friend stifles his laugh and says, “Nothing.” They’re clearly not that close.

Just as Satin turns his attention back to me, I raise the baseball bat and swing it as hard as I can into the side of his head. If it weren’t attached to his body, it’d for sure be a home run. The bat cracks against his skull, blood spraying in all directions. People don’t realize the head bleeds like a motherfucker. The force of the hit sends his left eye spewing out of its socket. But it doesn’t go too far, as the optic nerve is still attached, leaving it dangling right in front of his face—a tetherball of sorts.

“What the fuck?” the literate burner bellows as Satin crumples to the floor.

Nate starts to squirm, struggling to free himself from his grasp, while the other burner bolts toward me, swinging the cast iron wildly. There’s no skill in his combat, only strength, which will eventually tire due to how much energy he’s wasting. I avoid being struck once, twice, three times. His attacks become sluggish, just as I knew they would. Skillful fighting takes more than just strength. It requires patience and calculation. I find my opening and swing at him, wielding the baseball bat like a sword. He uses the pan as a shield, but the intensity of the hit causes it to slip from his hands and crash against the wood floor. The burner sucks in air as he charges toward me, driving a shoulder right into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me.

My body slams against the floor, and the baseball bat goes skidding across it. He straddles my waist, forcing the air up and out of my lungs. His rough, grimy hands wrap around my neck, squeezing and crushing my windpipe. I gasp and flail, trying to peel back his fingers and push out his arms.

“You’re gonna pay for that, bitch,” he spits, baring his rotten teeth.

Nate yells something, but I can’t make it out. My only focus is on getting oxygen. I hear a struggle, grunts, and loud bangs, but I don’t know what’s happening. All I can see is this big, dumb idiot sitting on top of me. Tears bleed from the corners of my eyes and trickle down the sides of my face. My vision starts to blur, and my body tires. I think this might be it. This is how it ends, and my last view is this uggo . . . but then I see my dad. He’s crystal clear. There’s the thick beard that hid his smallest smiles, his weathered skin from too much time spent working in the sun, and his tender eyes that looked at me like I was his whole world. I can hear his voice too. The words he said to me many times all those years ago echo through my mind. I thought I had forgotten them, but no, they’ve always been there, waiting for the moment I needed to hear them again. Some dads have tea parties with their little girls—not mine, though. He thought learning self-defense and combat training was a far better use of my time.

“ Never let someone bigger than you pin you to the ground. The longer you’re pinned, the more strength you give up. Act quickly and violently. Strike their most vulnerable places. Eyes. Nose. Throat. Groin. Give ’em hell, girl. ”

I will, Dad.

In a flash, my hand thrusts up toward his face, my index and middle fingers spread two inches apart. He doesn’t see it coming until it’s too late, until my uncut nails pierce his soft orbs. It feels like sticking a finger into a hard-boiled egg. If it weren’t so gross, the thought of a hard-boiled egg would make me hungry. My stomach rumbles. Never mind.

“Ack! Fuck!” he screams, releasing the grip he had on my neck. I pull my fingers back; a clear jelly oozes out of his eyes, and his hands shoot to his face, covering them. I wheeze, trying to catch my breath and conjure the strength I need to take back control.

As he cries out in pain, I drive the palm of my hand up into his nose. It makes a crunchy noise and sends him flying backward, his head cracking against the floor. He kicks and flails, wailing like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

Propping myself up with my elbows, I meet the gaze of the other burner, the one struggling with Nate. In an instant, I’m on my feet, stomping in his direction. He wears fear like I wear a pair of scrubs, and by that, I mean he wears it well, like it was made for him. The burner releases Nate and takes a step back. If he were smart, he would run. Nate seizes the opportunity by raising his elbow and driving it into the man’s stomach. Before I can join in, something grabs hold of my ankle, yanking me down on all fours. My knees and the palms of my hands smash against the floor.

“Gotcha, bitch,” the blind burner spits. His free arm thrashes wildly until his hand locks onto my other ankle. I try to pull away or kick, but he has my ankles bolted in place, so I’m in the position of an awkward mountain climber exercise. I try to call for Nate, but it comes out as a raspy whisper.

Nate turns and kicks the other burner square in the chest, sending him crashing into the granite countertop. He looks to me as I struggle to free myself from the blind burner. Then Nate’s gaze goes to the bloodied body lying next to me, my home run. Satin begins to twitch, coming back to consciousness. Nate’s eyes dart to the screaming burner who still has me in his grip, then to the burner he sent flying into the countertop—who’s now regaining his footing.

I’m sure Nate’s coming up with a plan in his head, one that will end in him rising to the occasion as my knight in shining armor. It looks like he’s about to charge at the burner staggering toward him, but he doesn’t. Instead, Nate runs . . . right out the front door. The man I’ve been with for more than two years, who asked me to marry him two and a half months ago, who told me he loved me just a few minutes ago . . . gone in an instant. Fucking great. I knew he wasn’t cut out for an apocalypse.

Using all the strength I have left, I flip myself over onto my back, twisting an ankle free from the burner’s grasp in the process. I bring my knee up to my chest and kick as hard as I can right into his open, screaming mouth. A half dozen teeth shatter, shooting into the back of his throat, causing him to gag and choke on the yellow-tinted chunks of calcium.

I’m back on my feet just as the other burner changes course from bolting out the door after Nate to now charging toward me. I sprint around the island counter, reaching the stove before he gets to me. My hand grips the handle of the pot filled with boiling water and rice, and I whip it, flinging the contents right into his face. The grains of soft rice cling to his skin, causing the flesh to blister and cook.

His scream blows past his falsetto range, piercing my ears. He frantically tries to flick and scrape the bubbling rice from his skin. This is my chance to run. I pick up my baseball bat from beside the couch and grab my prepacked getaway bag from the front closet, ready to bolt out the door. But I stop suddenly, realizing I’m forgetting something . . . and I can’t leave without it. I sprint down the hall into our bedroom and pull open the top drawer of the dresser. Pushing aside balled-up socks, my hand grasps the object. The memory of my dad giving it to me flashes to the front of my mind.

“ Here, take this. ”

“ No, Dad. I’m not bringing a gun to college. ”

“ It’s for your own protection. ”

“ No, I don’t need it, and it’s not even legal on campus. ”

“ Fine, then at least take this. ”

“ What is it? ”

“ It’s a combat knife, and with your training, it’s deadlier than a gun anyway. ”

“ I don’t want a combat knife either, Dad. ”

“ Please. For my own peace of mind. You can hide it in a drawer for all I care, but I just need to know that if the time ever comes, you have something to protect yourself with. ”

“ Fine . . . I’ll take your stupid knife. ”

“ Thank you. ”

I turn the blade over in my hands a couple of times, studying it like I’m reacquainting myself with an old, reliable friend. A burner groans from the kitchen, so I know it’s time to go. I bolt out of the apartment and down the stairwell, pausing before I exit the building. I can’t be sure there aren’t more of them waiting outside, but my guess is if there were, Nate would have run right into them already. Heavy footsteps descend the stairs, echoing off the cinder block walls. I let out a heavy sigh and push open the door, hoping there’s not an ambush waiting for me on the other side.

In the courtyard, my head is on a swivel, keeping a lookout for burners and searching for any clues as to where Nate could have gone. We had a plan in place for if we ever got separated, and I hope he’s following through with it. We said we’d meet at our garage in the alley, hop in his car, and drive away from whatever trouble we were in. That has to be where he’s at. He wouldn’t just leave me. I creep through the tight walkway between our building and the one next to it and slowly open the gate at the end. Rounding the corner to the alley, I expect to find Nate standing there, leaned up against his car, maybe even jokingly quoting Twilight with a “Where have you been, loca?” But he’s not, and I can’t believe my own eyes. Not only is Nate not here, but the garage door is wide open, and his Porsche is gone too.

“You motherfuc . . .”