The Fall of Man
by Timm Rees
PROLOGUE
He sat in the same spot he had been sitting for the past three hours, deep in thought. He spent a lot of time deep in thought lately. Nothing better to do.
He let his eyes wander around the room, taking in the same scene he had taken in countless times over the past.... How long had it been? He examined the calender hanging on the wall to his left; July 6th. He had come down here on April 23rd. Two and a half months.
He let his eyes continue along the wall. On top of a bookshelf there was a picture. He had turned it face down some time ago, but he didn't need it to be facing him to see it. He could see it perfectly in his mind's eye. His wife stood there, looking beautiful with her long flowing brown hair. Her eyes were the deepest brown he had ever seen. A perfect smile adorned her face. She wore a light blue dress. He stood next to her, wearing a dress shirt of the same light blue, looking sheepish. He remembered the day they took that picture and he knew exactly why he had the silly look on his face. He was preoccupied with the fact that he was so lucky to have married her. He couldn't believe such a wonderful woman would even consider having him as a husband.
Below the picture, the bookshelf was lined with books. He scanned the titles, not expecting to find anything new. War and Peace; read it. Pride and prejudice; read it twice, as it was his wife's favorite book. Five Little House on the Prairie books; he had read all of them. Finally, on the bottom shelf, stood three Bibles, some kind of Bible Dictionary and two Bible Commentaries. He had not brought himself to read those particular books yet. He had convinced himself to crack open the Bible that his wife had given him as a wedding gift. It lay before him, opened to the book of Hebrews. He had read it, been spurned by it.... He hated that book.
He let his eyes wander upwards to the television. The television stations had gone off the air about two months ago. He remembered the last few weeks of their existence well. 24 hour news coverage of the outbreak. At the time that the last station went black, there was still very little known about the virus. No news of the outbreak's origin. No thorough explanation of symptoms. No known cure.
The familiar pains of hunger hit him. His stomach growled a feeble and pointless growl, knowing that food was not forthcoming. The steady diet of water, canned corn, green beans, fruit cocktail and crushed pineapple was not sustaining him well. He looked to the cupboard were he had been keeping the food. He had a dozen or so bottles of water, a can of fruit cocktail and a can of green beans left.
His mind wandered from the food to the outside world. He knew nothing of it anymore. All he knew now was this basement. His only possessions were the turned down picture, the books, the television that doesn't work, the radio that gets no signal, the water, the fruit cocktail and the green beans. He could only imagine what it looked like. He imagined it was desolate. By now, the streets must be filled with infected, incoherently stumbling around.
“No,” he thought. He had to think of something else. The more he thought about what it might look like out there, the crazier he felt. He redirected his thoughts towards his wife. He thought about what a happy life they had been building together. He thought about the pregnant glow that people always talked about and how she truly had that glow.
Then he thought about how she looked the day she died. She actually mustered a smile as she lay in his arms, a gaping wound in her neck. She couldn't speak, but her smile said what her words could not. It told him how much she loved him. She always had. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Now he thought about the next time he had held her in his arms. The neck wound was still there, but now there was a new wound. A bullet wound, directly through the center of her forehead.
With this thought, he shed a tear. It rolled down his cheek, off his chin, and dropped with a deafening splash onto the open page of the Bible before him. He looked down and read were the tear had landed.
“It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”
“Lies,” he said aloud. He wanted so badly to believe the words he read in this book. His wife did, but in the last three months, he had watched his wife die not once, but twice.
..Or perhaps she had only died once. Maybe the virus was God's judgment on mankind. Maybe that wasn't truly her that he held the second time. But she was a good person. She went to church. She
tried every week to drag him along with her. She believed in Jesus Christ. God wouldn't have inflicted this judgment on her. Why her? Why not him?
“No,” he said. “There is no God. If there was a God, He wouldn't have allowed this to happen to her.” He shed another tear. And another. “If there was a God, He wouldn't have taken her from me.” Now he began to sob. “If there were a God, He wouldn't allow zom....” The word came to the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't speak it aloud. He wiped his tears on his blood stained sleeve, swallowed hard and then spat it out.
“...ZOMBIES!”
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