Last Man on Earth
E/N: I cannot for the life of me remember what the initial prompt for this was. Your guess is as good as mine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Death knew nothing, if not certainty.
William marched down the barren street, his old Remington in hand, ready for use. It had been too damn long since he’d returned to this part of the country, and no one knew better than he what could come out. He stepped over a broken shopping cart, rusted and dying like everything else in sight. The sun beat down without mercy, a reminder that soon, there’d be no human left to feel it.
How long had it been now? Eighteen years? Twenty? Who could keep track anymore. Once the Reckoning came and civilization crashed with it, there were more important things to worry about than how many times the sun passed over head. Between the Smilers and other Immune, William had learned long ago that the only things to trust in this hellscape were himself and his rifle.
A whisper spilled out from a crumbling shopping center nearby. In a flash, William had his rifle trained on the spot.
“Come out!” he roared. “Don’t think that I won’t come in there if you try’n fuck with me!”
For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Then a pair of grey silhouettes drifted through the broken glass door, one large and the other small.
“I swear,” the large one said, “you put me through this one more time and there’ll be hell to pay. Hell to pay, you hear me…?” The pair wandered another dozen paces before dissipating into smoke.
William let out a breath of relief. Just a ghost, he reminded himself. Just another ghost. He’d been seeing more and more lately, always just at the edge of site, clinging to the remnants of a past long gone. Another warning of what would happen the second he dropped his guard.
He wiped the sweat from his brow and kept moving. So long as there was nothing else, he’d be safe.
* * *
The wind shifted, and the sound of chimes echoed nearby. One of the buildings stood partially collapsed, with a dead tree through a wall, and roof waterlogged beyond repair. A sign sat in front, white paint faded over a tigerwood placard.
William’s heart sank with the recognition. It was the old Miller’s General Store, the one that’d been around since the 1800’s. Where everything else in William’s hometown had adapted to modernity, with their free WiFi stands, and QR codes instead of registers, ‘Ole Miller had insisted on regular bills and honest-to-God conversation, year after year, his business immovable in a world slowly pushing him out. William and his wife used to come here almost daily, back before she’d died, years before the Reckoning.
William checked his pouch. His salt supply was down to the dregs, and wouldn’t go half as far in securing this place.
He knew that he should move on. There’d be nothing here, as this place would’ve been one of the first ones hit when the Reckoning came. But seeing the chimes again… Hearing that familiar sound. How the heck would that have survived, of all things?
William pushed through the door, the barrel of his Remington pointing this way and that. No movement, no life. William took a cautious step forth, and then another, and then another. Nothing met him but an empty shell of a building, with the shelves predictably empty, and ice box smashed into oblivion.
Then his eyes fell to a closet open in the back. Just in view, he could see a 12-pack of Bud Heavy, his favorite brand. William licked his lips and marched toward it without thought. He just needed to get a closer look…
The wind shifted again, and the light dulled around, a shadow moving to William’s flank. The beer transformed in front, dissolving into a pile of rusted ooze. Laughter grew behind, deep and hideous.
Fear was an ever-present emotion in this post-apocalyptic land. That dryness in the throat when you kicked back your canteen and tasted nothing but air. The race of the heart when footsteps were closing in, and you didn’t have enough shelter to hide behind. The hair on the back of the neck rising when you finally make it to another conclave you’d heard about, only to find it was empty and stripped bare. In many ways, fear was natural. Normal, even. To deny the sense was to encourage an early and horrific demise.
William did not feel fear here. He knew terror; that sense of wrongness that could never be articulated, much less compared. That form of fear so extreme the very life seemed to freeze in his veins. Before even turning his head, he knew what he would face.
There the demon stood. Humanoid in shape only, it’s limbs were long and thin beneath a blackened cloak, and the flesh of it’s torso was stretched over exposed ribs. The face was the most sickening. With a mouth that stretched from brow to chin when exposed, and pale, smooth skin, the creature took an androgynous, alien expression as it gleamed, it’s black eyes narrowing on his.
“Hello, William.” the Smiler said.
William screamed. It was a primal, shrill evocation of the sense that now puppeted him. With an instinctive pull on the bolt action, he quickly fired thrice. The shots took the Smiler in the chest, but the bullets did nothing other than force it to withdraw a step.
There were only seconds to survive. William flopped over the nearest aisle, through a pile of trash, and into the back office. With a yank of his satchel, he threw the last of his salt into the rim of the door and thrust it behind. More laughter echoed from the front of the shop, deep and euphoric for the prize it would soon claim.
Run, you idiot! God damn, run! William jumped through the nearest window, his body like a missile as it flew through the air. The glass stung with a dozen crystal shards, but his adrenaline was pumping now, and his legs would not stop.
He had to go. Far, far away.
* * *
Rain pattered against the walls of his family’s old home. William clutched his Remington an inch tighter, his heart racing. Coming straight here was another bad idea. The Smiler would know to hunt here first, and what little salt that William had scrounged from the cellar wouldn’t hold for more than a few days, if it lasted through another stormy night at all.
“–nothing, Bri,” the ghost whispered below. “Go back t–”
“I’m scared.” another ghost said, almost mocking.
“SHUT UP!” William roared, slamming his fist into the wall. The whispers faded with the rain, once again leaving him alone.
God, how had it come to this? Hiding in his dead family’s home. Counting down the seconds before the day. Hoping that he’d be blessed with just a few hours more of life. Of course William was a buffoon for thinking there’d still be some normalcy left behind. The Smiler had set the perfect trap to lure him into the open. He’d been played like a fiddle, just like everyone else.
That’s where it all started: the Reckoning. A day in which more than ninety-nine percent of humanity had been killed off in a single night, lured to their deaths by the inhuman monsters that had invaded their world. Only the Immune remained, and they had only stood a chance because they’d been on the verge of death themselves, incapitated or unconscious by one means or another. That much bought them time. Whatever voodoo that’d been done to turn everyone else into ghosts didn’t work on those left behind. And so the Smilers began hunting the Immune to finish what they’d started.
By some slim miracle, William had gone under for an appendectomy, and was at full strength the day after the Reckoning. Many weren’t so blessed. The elderly and infirm were taken first, then the wounded, then the young. Soon, only the fighters remained, but they couldn’t organize for shit.
William had seen it all drift away from there, person after person after person. Whether it was the Heartland Coalition that’d formed right after, or the New Sons of Liberty after that, or the Pilgrims after that, or the Enlightened after that. All attempts at reconstruction fell apart, with either the Smilers finding a way past their salt barriers, or the people inside doing the killing first. No matter what, death always claimed it’s reward.
And so now only William remained. He hadn’t seen another living soul in years. Something told him that there weren’t any left.
That was why this trip had to happen. There was no Earth yet. No humanity. No hope. But there was still something he could do.
Decide his own fate.
* * *
There was once a time where William had thought himself the lucky one. Everyone else had died, and not him. If there was to be a rebuilding effort, he’d be leading the charge. After all, he’d been chosen to survive this apocalyptic event, so only he could make it right.
But as William stared at his wife’s tombstone, he knew the truth. It was all of them who’d been lucky. He’d been cursed not to die in peace, but to stand as witness and watch their world fade away.
Well, no longer. William put the barrel of his Remington into the roof of his mouth and closed his eyes. He had one command for it left.
Whispers grew around. The ghosts… Always with the god-damned ghosts… Couldn’t they give him this one moment of peace!?
“…I know, we won’t be long,” one side. There was something in its voice… Something familiar.
“You sure, honey?” the other side.
“Yeah. It’s just been a while.”
William’s hands quaked with the revelation. Suddenly, his Remington felt alien in his arms, and the metal didn’t have the taste of a satisfactory end, but a profaned metallic toxin. He’d been running all this time, but now the truth stood right next to him. How had he never thought this before?
William fell to his knees. With a wipe of hand, he scraped back the dead leaves and dust from the tombstone. There his name sat, right below his wife’s.
“I miss you, Mom and Dad,” his son said.
A gust of wind came, blowing his son away. The light dimmed again as a shadow fell over the tombstone.
“Don’t do that, William,” the Smiler said with a chuckle. “If you kill yourself in here, you’ll never move on.”
His heart raced, and his hands shook, but there was no denying what was now true.
“Don’t you understand, William?” the Smiler asked.
“I–” William swallowed the bile in his throat. “I’m the ghost.”
“Yes.”
“But… The Reckoning… The war… How?”
“All lies you humans told yourselves to keep from letting go, I’m afraid. We’re in the In-Between.” The Smiler guffawed, heavy and biting. “Every day, there’s a new Reckoning, and a new In-Between created. My kind’s job is to bring your souls to the other side since we can’t have them mucking up the place. Is that really so hard to believe?”
William stood without words.
It’s thin, bony fingers traced his shoulder. “You can see them again, William. I can take you to your wife right now. Wouldn’t you like that?”
The tears were in his eyes. He’d been fighting for so long, sacrificed so much, and committed all this brutality just to survive… And yet, all this time, had he truly been alive at all? Was this really nothing more than an inconceivable limbo, and not the post-apocalyptic nightmare he’d thought impossible to wake from?
He couldn’t trust a Smiler. Not now, not ever. But if there was any chance to see his family again… Any at all… He had to take it.
“Are you ready, William?” The Smiler snickered.
William closed his eyes. “Yes. I’m r–”
