Blood Flows- Short Story

Blood Flows

          

Not many people know how long it's been, mostly because every day is like a lifetime. I remember though. How could I not? I was so close to achieving my dream when this happened. So close. It's been 20 years, 20 god-forsaken years. I was studying to be a doctor. I should have been a doctor.

Enough, I tell myself. There's no time to dwell, it's in my best interest to find shelter, and quickly. Night is falling and if I'm out in the open shuffling around with the dead in pitch black confusion I will not live to see another blood filled sunrise.

Checking my surroundings I see a few meat brains mulling about. I'll be safe enough if I'm quick because they're preoccupied with a middle-aged woman who looks to have died only recently. About fifteen metres across from me I spot a small garden shed. It's relatively small in size but, sturdy enough to keep me safe from the slugs for tonight.

Carefully, I jog over to the silver safe haven making sure my steps are soft and quiet. When I reach the front of the now obviously slightly dilapidated shed I tentatively knock on the door making it shake slightly. I'll have to barricade it when I get in there. Just to be safe.

I hear nothing but quiet scrabbling from the other end of the small structure. A slug must be trapped inside. Slightly annoyed I pull my machete from its holster on my belt and prepare for the worst, most disgusting slug I'll ever see.

1...2...3 – I reach out to rip the door open, but before I am able to get a solid grip, something on the other side pulls it open.  In the dim candle light that is emanating from behind the short person I am able to make out facial features. It's a young boy, 12 maybe, he's covered in blood and dirt, like most people now, the child has probably never had a real shower in his life.

The boy had been staring forward and because of my height he'd been looking at my chest, but suddenly he looks up. Even in the low light of the candle and setting sun I am able to see how blue his eyes are. Never in my life have I seen such a piercing blue eye colour. Blue like the ocean before all this death and disaster, blue like the sky once was when I was a child and my parents would chase my giggling self because I had refused to take a bath, blue like my favourite pair of gumboots.

The child looked pained.

"Help me!" A shriek came.

It wasn't the boy for his lips hadn't moved and his face remained still. A woman, it was a woman. Finally tearing my eyes away from his I see her. Her hair matted and slightly covering her crazed face, her hands tied and chained to the ceiling above her. She has to be in pain.

The boy must have done this to her. No-one on this earth is good anymore. Not even the young and the supposedly pure.

It was obvious she was his mother. They had the same eyes, although hers were beginning to dull like the dead.

"No" I say with cold eyes. I cannot afford to get caught up in some family fight, especially at this time of night. I need shelter.

"Please! I can't make him do it!" She screams, phlegm flying from her mouth "I'm bit! Please show some humanity!" It was obvious she'd been bit. It's funny I think without humour - her, telling me, to show some humanity when she herself is losing hers by the second.

It'd only take a second I suppose, thinking while lowering my weapon. I look back down at the boy.

"Out." He looks to the ground and I hand him a dagger. He takes it and he seems to drag his feet towards the door, once he's out he shuts it slowly as if the speed of the door would lengthen his mother's life.

Sighing I ask her calmly "What's your name?" She looks up at me twitching slightly. "Myra Mately – I –I think." She stutters slightly confused. I close my eyes feeling the briefest moment of sympathy for her before shutting it out. Why am I doing this?

"Myra Mately... I am Eugene Miles." I take slow careful steps towards her and because of the size of the shed I'm right in front of her quite quickly. "And I give you mercy" I whisper loud enough for her to hear. She closes her eyes and sighs in almost bliss. She looked relatively human like this and I hesitate slightly. No Eugene, don't, I think to myself before I quickly look to my hand and nod. It's time for her.

I place the cool blade in between her eyes and her brow scrunches slightly. "Goodbye Johnny" she mumbles just before I push my weapon deep into her forehead. Now, she is gone, dead and safe in the arms of those above. I quickly rip the large knife from her head. Blood starts seeping from the wound and I stare at it for a minute. More blood flows into the river of death that is this world.

I walk backwards from her body until my back hits the door. I feel guilt seep into my skin like an evil witch fulfilling her curse on mankind. You're not as strong as you pretend to be. You never are. If anyone knew that, it was himself. I slowly shake myself out of my existential stupor and open the door I had been leaning on.

Outside the young boy stands alone staring at the dagger I had given him earlier. Before he has the chance to look inside the shed to where his mother hangs dead, I violently close the door.

We share eye contact for a minute before I break the silence. "Goodbye Johnny", I say. A tear slowly makes it way down his face; he knew exactly who said the words originally. I nod my head at the boy in goodbye and turn search of new shelter.

Onto another day in Hell...