Friday, August 29, 2008

EW! WHAT IF WE HAVE TO REPOPULATE THE EARTH?

“It’s been three months,” she said, “I’m sure it’s safe to come down now.”

“It’s been three and a half months,” he corrected her, “and I’m sure it’s not safe to come down. Ever.”

They sat in their cobbled together tree fort, emaciated, collecting condensed water, one on either side, as it had been for three months and one week, actually.

The fort started as a do-it-yourselfer nightmare, and it had been some time before the effort resembled any kind of shelter. They built it with whatever branches they could find or break off and large stones for hammers. They had found a bucket of rusted nails when it all started and originally meant to use them for self defense.

“We’ve been through this a thousand times,” he said.

“But they must be all gone, now,” she said, “decayed, unable to move. How long can they really last, like that?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “I don’t know. A thousand times, I don’t know.”

“Well, we haven’t heard any of them go by in the last couple weeks. I think they’re all gone now.”

“They haven’t been by, because we’ve done such a good job of hiding. If we climb back down, we’d just be giving ourselves up.”

He leaned his weary head back against the makeshift wall behind him.

“I wonder what summer was like this year,” he said.

“I wonder what winter will be like,” she responded, with some purpose.

“Well,” he said, all energy drained from his voice, “the only way we’re going to find out is if we stay up here.”

“We’re going to die if we stay up here,” she said.

“We’ll die if we go down there,” he responded, “which way do you think is better, freezing? Or getting clawed and chewed on by those disgusting people?”

Twenty minutes of silence passed. Twenty minutes that seemed like hours. Hours usually felt like days, but the days all ran together. It felt like they‘d been up there for years, or days. There was nothing to contrast the experience of day-to-day life in the tree fort. There wasn’t much to do in the tree fort, except for survive. Which made her think out loud,

“Do you think anybody survived?”

He thought about it for a minute. A smile crept slowly up his face as he said,

“Only if they were smart enough to build a totally fabulous tree fort to survive in.”

They couldn’t figure it out. Those … things. Those dead things would run at you, punch through car windshields and walk up and down stairs but for some reason, they hadn’t yet mastered the difficult concept of climbing trees. Even cats could climb trees. But no cat climbed their tree, which was a real shame. A cat would have been a welcome addition to the ‘family.’ Might even have brought home a bird or two.

“I wonder if they ate them, too,” he said, delirious.

“Who,” she asked.

“The Zombies,” he said.

“No,” she said, “ate who?”

“The cats.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, sadly.

She thought about it for a minute. If felt like a mean thing to say, but she said it anyway,

“I would love to eat a cat right now.”

She put a long emphasis on the ‘o’ in love, “I would loooooove…”

“You’re sick,” he said, trying hard to laugh, but only ending up coughing.

She closed her eyes and smiled wryly, then another long silence ensued. There were so many of those.

“But seriously,” she said, “do you think they’re all gone? The people. The regular people I mean.”

“I don’t know,” he said, despite not wanting to talk anymore.

“What if,” she said, timidly, “what if we have to repopulate the earth?”

“Ew,” he said with newfound energy, “you’re sick.”

They tried to find the energy to laugh some more, but just coughed. If they hadn’t, they might have heard the sound of a siren just barely within earshot. One of the many sounds of society, which had recovered from the strange attacks a couple months before, while they were shacked up in the trees, and continued on without them, just a few miles away.

4 comments:

benzo369 said...

No matter how bad it gets, you can rely on this: incest is not best.

Crabmonster said...

It's not about incest, the dude is gay.

benzo369 said...

oh. i just thought it was about incest.
why would he not want to plug her socket for the good of mankind? he is so gay.

Crabmonster said...

Puh- leez!