Survival drama

"Who are you?" she asked the boy, as he fumbled with the shotgun chamber.

He jumped, sending the box of shells spinning across the floor. "Oh drat. I mean shit. Can we talk later? I'm worried more of them will show up. Where's your gun?"

"I threw it away when you arrived," she said. "I didn't think I'd need to use it again."

"You can tell that just by looking at things, can you?"

They stared at each other, uncomprehending. "Never mind," he amended, scooping the box of shells into his rucksack. Untidy, that; its disorganisation probably reflected the owner's personality, but perhaps he had a point and now wasn't the best time to stop and order their possessions.

The headless zombie at their feet bubbled and quietly embarked upon the interrupted process of decomposition.

~*~*~

"I'd feel better if I knew a name to call you," she told him as they traversed the deserted street outside the leisure centre.

He half looked over his shoulder. "Stu Tudor. If it really helps."

She considered this. "Well, Stu, I'm June. June G. Summers, no relation."

"To whom?"

"Er, never mind."

Stu led the way past awning-covered rows of deserted storefronts, keeping close to the wall and trying doors as he went. A clothing boutique swung open to his grip.

"Did you want to change your outfit?" he asked.

June looked down at her halter top, leather miniskirt and glittery platform shoes. "Why?" she asked.

After a short discussion she liberated a sweater, which she tied around her waist; in case she got cold, she announced. Stu was already dressed in jeans and a battered brown leather jacket; while June debated cashmere vs wool he stole a pair of gloves and (for some weird motivation she couldn't quite fathom) a first-aid kit. He also rifled underneath the counter, but inexplicably found no ammunition.

With an entire abandoned city to them, there should have been no shortage of ways to get lost. As it happened, burst water mains, electrical fires and wrecked cars (and, occasionally, just huge rifts in the road) contriving to block side streets and strategically vital alleyways had the effect of funneling them towards the uptown police station.

That was handy, June thought blithely. A few nice, burly policemen would know what to do. Stu just looked grimly apprehensive. He would be quite braggable if he would stop glancing over his shoulder and smile a bit more, she decided.

~*~*~

"Will you stop reordering your items and do something important?" June admonished him. Stu looked up from the police station's changing-room bench, but said nothing.

"Like, drop me some hints about your angsty backstory?" she prompted.

"Um. Well," he opined. Seconds passed. "I don't know what to tell you really. I was in the library when the trouble started, so I didn't realise until things were really out of hand. I got hold of one of the polehooks they used to close the high windows and headed out. When that snapped, I found a tyre jack. Halfway home it became obvious that if anyone I knew was still alive, they'd have escaped already. I came across a car dealership, but the autobahn slip roads are blocked and I can't really drive, so that enterprise didn't end well. By that point I'd got into the habit of keeping going, so here I am. Keeping going."

"Oh, Stu," June said.

"What about you?" he asked pointedly, turning his attention back to his inventory-taking as soon as her eyes misted over with remembrance.

"I became orphaned at ten," June recalled, "and was taken in by a secret government agency. They trained me in reconaissance, wilderness survival, counterterrorism measures and all kinds of weapons, but I was always best at martial arts. Once I became good enough to beat the sensei they asked me to teach the class. After my fourth mission I suffered a nervous breakdown when one of my teammates died in an avalanche. Everyone said it wasn't my fault, you see, but I felt as though I could have saved him as well as all the others, as well as recovering the plutonium. If only he'd taken my hand--! Anyway, I was retired from active duty after that, on a reasonably handsome pension, and now I work for an elite organisation of jewel thieves. And I spend a couple of months a year doing volunteer work in Bengal to save the cute tigers."

Stu closed his glasses case with a snap and stood up. "I'm glad we had this chat," he said. "Now let's get on with saving our lives, shall we? For goodness' sake take that police gun," he added, "there's absolutely no call to be snooty, we now know its owner won't be needing it again, and we do keep coming across those nine mil bullets which may as well serve some purpose."

June took and equipped the handgun, secretly wishing it were a katana or bo staff.

~*~*~

Stu shuffled the papers once more.

"What on earth are you doing?" June complained. This was no fun at all.

"I thought I'd bring some of these documents with me," he explained sheepishly. "As evidence. Though I can't think who would leave their confidential reports lying around like this, they do make interesting reading."

"Oh, Stu..."

"All right, I've finished now, okay? Anyway, look, here's the combination to the safe. The supervisor just wrote it down on a post-it, for heaven's sake, who are these people?"

"C'mon Stu, there won't be anything interesting in their climate-controlled weapon locker."

"Can't hurt to look, surely?" He turned the dial, tried the handle.

"Oh, Stu!" June squealed, pushed him aside, pulled out the grenade launcher and hugged it. "You're so clever! There's even ammunition!"

"Urgh!" agreed the zombies who had just begun smashing their way through the lab door. June hammered an acid-tipped explosive into her new toy, her face taking on a Buddha-like serenity.

Stu picked up the handgun, which she had dropped again, and followed the trail of oozing zombie parts... down to the lower labs.

~*~*~

"Raaaaaargh!" declaimed the Soliloquist-1000, the most advanced biological weapon in the world, which happened to wear its main arteries outside its skin as the sort of bold fashion statement only an eight-foot walking death virus can really pull off. It was standing over Stu's motionless form, and either engaged in a dramatic mutation or throwing an eppy.

"Oh, Stu!" wailed June, dropping her grenade launcher and running to his side. It was bad. Very bad. The S-virus was already rampaging through his nervous system; she could tell this by looking.

"June?" Stu murmured through pale lips. "Take my satchel and get out of here. Publish the documents, June. Let... let people know what Parasol's been doing down here."

"No! Stu, we're getting out of here now!"

But Stu had become quiet, and would only say "...".

"No!" June looked around in anguish, but she could only see Stu's rucksack and no sign of the satchel he'd mentioned. This was awful! She turned to leave, empty-handed and heartbroken.

"Raaaargh?" the Soliloquist said, aside. It was ignored.

~*~*~

Frigid gusts whipped at June's fashionably bobbed hair. The wind chill factor on the rooftop was significant. She remembered the sweater, and put it on. This reminded her of Stu again, and she started sobbing. Oh, Stu! He'd been so clever! What was June to do without a man to help her?

"Raaaaaaaaaaaargh!" The concrete beneath her feet vibrated, buckled. June walked backwards very slowly as the Soliloquist enlarged the hole enough to climb through.

Puffy-eyed, June tried for steely, nothing-left-to-lose determination. "This ends here, monster!" Taking another step backwards, she tripped over a cloth-wrapped bundle. What sort of idiot left loaded, primed rocket launchers lying around? Why, she oughtta... Oh, wait. She shouldered the thing.

"This is for Stu! And all those other thousands of people who suffered an agonising living death, but I don't care about them."

The Soliloquist had fortunately paused obligingly while she said this. "Raaaa--" it riposted, then it died.

June let the weapon drop, stole a helicopter and flew away into the dawn above the winter moonlight.



When it was sure she had gone, the Soliloquist raised its head and said "Raaaaargh" by way of epilogue.

"You said it best," Stu told it, folding his newly-grown tentacles. "And now, if you don't mind, I'm leaving before the government carpet-bombs the place." He shouldered his shotgun and slid down the fire escape.

"Raaaaaargh," said the Soliloquist. "Raaaaaaaargh."