Sixty-Four Days

Cassandra Wylie writes Sixty-Four Days, a tragic romance set in the apocalypse.

Can love bloom at the end of the world? (Image: Wix)

Thirty-six days after the apocalypse.

It was ugly. A mess of splattered flesh and bone that had peeled onto the mud. A wet stench of pus drooled out with whatever life it had been clinging to, if you could call it life.

Mila stood over a creature that was not quite a zombie, not quite a human. 

When she was young, her father would take her on camping trips to Prairie Creek. The first time she nipped her finger stringing the bait, and by the end of the day, her hands smelled of dead fish and blood. She didn’t cry, and her father patted her on the back and told her she was strong. 

Her parents never ended up having a son. Leaving them with four daughters and crippling debt. So, her father taught her to be tough and self-sufficient, then later blamed himself for putting the wrong ideas in her head. 

She took these skills with her when the first attack happened. It’s the last thing of her father she has. That, and his Blackhawk revolver.

She wondered if it was too high and mighty to continue calling themselves prey? Mila was the one who lured it into the forest, spilling the rotting blood of a human for the crime of dying. 

Predator and prey. The gap was slowly closing between them. 

She hears Annie’s stumbling approach from deeper in the clearing. She would recognise Annie anywhere.

“It went quiet so suddenly.” Annie’s panting interrupted her words, “I thought… Is that-”

Mila dug her foot out of the mud to push against the decaying creature. “It’s what they look like now, I suppose.” The ones they had fought last month had been fat and putrid-smelling. These just looked sad.

When she looked away from the corpse, she found Annie’s eyes on her, wide and afraid. She takes a step forward, then another, before the gentle fabric of her skirt meets the edge of the deflated body, and she is on her knees. “They’re so small.” 

She still remembered the first time Annie looked up at her like that. Fresh tears. Looking for… forgiveness? Redemption? Mila wasn’t sure. 

She just knew the only other time she’d seen Annie with that vulnerable gaze was when she whispered her prayers into the open sky. Praying for the spirits of the creatures they’d killed to find their way to the gates of heaven. 

Please. Don’t look at me like that, Mila wanted to say. I can’t be your God; Your forgiver; Your Redeemer. I can’t save you. I can’t even save myself. Don’t put this on me, I can’t take it. 

But she would. She’d do anything for Annie. And sweet Annie wouldn’t even know she’d asked for it. 

Mila would watch Annie sometimes, when she was knee deep in carcass and prayer. When the pity, and joy, and following guilt would pool in Mila’s stomach so intensely that it could satiate the hunger better than any meal.

It kept her sane to know she would never pray like Annie. It drove her crazy to know she would never pray like Annie.

And even as she watched Annie realise that there could be nothing else, she still believed in the life she was promised. A suburban family with a homely wife. A son and daughter, and Sunday church. A life up in the clouds, a long drop to earth when it inevitably fell through.

Mila waited for her to be done with her prayers before she spoke again. “Did you find anything?”

Annie tucked her hair behind her ears. They’d run out of hair bands last week, and while Mila had quickly gotten sick of the hassle – snipping away the last of the colour that she’d dyed into it years ago in an act of rebellion – Annie was too sentimental for such things.

Annie fussed with her skirt as she stood, rubbing away the dirt and grass. “There’s nothing out there but trees and mud. I couldn’t even hear any birds.”

Again, Mila let her bitterness get the better of her. “Yeah? What does your God have to say about that?”

Annie took a moment of pause, “I was never taught about anything like this.” 

---

Thirty-nine days after the apocalypse.

In the end, they chose to keep following the highway. Any hope of finding fresh meat on the farms was squandered by the time they stumbled across an old homestead. And by the end of the week, they had nothing to show for their efforts but rotting cattle and another string of murders to add to the count.

It’s easy to ignore all that and think about the after.

After they made it to wherever they were headed. They never talked about the end destination. They’d left their small town, walked to the next. And the next. It was more of the same. More nothing.

They kept walking to keep going. Staying where they were meant they’d have to face it. They’d have to face each other. Mila couldn’t look away from Annie if she tried. She could never completely look in her eyes either.

When it got too easy to notice the silence, they’d talk about it: the after.

“I’d like to go to the beach,” Annie says, slightly out of breath from the hill. They’d had to walk up seven in the past day, only to walk back down and up the next one.

“What’s so good about the beach?”

“Well, mostly I’d like to go to the beach with you.”

Mila laughs. She can’t imagine Annie in a swimsuit or sunglasses. She can’t imagine her jumping in the waves or reading on the sand, or really doing anything so normal.

“I thought you'd be too prudish to bounce around in a bathing suit.”

“Well— yes. But it'd just be around you. Not them.”

“Them?”

Annie keeps her pace ahead of Mila, looking ahead. By now, she’s caught on that Mila watches her. “You know. The rest of the world. They’re them and then we’re… us.”

Mila blinked, and the sliver of hope crawled back up her chest.  

It warms her like the first light that would beam into her room on a summer morning. Before she got older and it never occurred to her to rise before the sun again. 

Did it still creep over the horizon? And spread warmth to the earth? Mother nature's kisses against the surface of her child.

She hadn’t really noticed the sun again. Not until she met Annie. 

During the nights, they’d resigned themselves to sleeping on the side of the road. With only themselves and their backpacks, instinctively looking over the next hill, expecting the lights of a car.

This particular night, they could see their breath in the air, and Mila vaguely regretted cutting away her hair as her neck was bitten by the night breeze. 

Annie was faring no better. “It’s cold.”

“Maybe ask your God for some fire,” Mila said. “He seems so keen to help us out.”

Annie kept her eyes up; the sound of their fights had replaced the air for them. It was as natural and common as breathing. Besides, they had no way to start a fire between them. Last week's rain had soaked any usable wood, and even then, they’d have no means to ignite it.

Without words, they leaned into one another. As they’d found out just under a month ago, body warmth worked better than any fire. Mila knew where to hold Annie around her chest to be comfortable, and she rested her head against the nape of Annie’s neck.

It was peaceful, and Annie looked so calm in the sunset. But Mila never let herself have too much of a good thing.

'You’re a sinner now. What makes you think your God would help you anyways?'

'Because I pray for my sins, and I believe in his forgiveness.' Annie turns her head to meet Mila’s eyes, with the reflection of the sun in them. Or maybe, Annie is the reflection in the sun, 'You will rot in your own self-hatred. That’s your real tragedy.'

'...I wish I could understand you.' Mila talks into Annie’s neck, as if the words were meant to pass through her skin rather than the air.

'I think you do,' Annie replies. 'I think that’s why you're so hurt by it.'

The dead thing where Mila’s heart should be curls and snarls, 'And what about me?' 

'What about you?' 

'I’ve sinned. Do you forgive me?' 

There are countless corpses left behind in their wake. Bullets from Mila’s Blackhawk stuck in the remains of skulls. It’s far less vulgar than Mila’s greatest sin, and they both know it. 

'Do you regret it?' 

'No.' 

Annie pauses, 'Then it is not my forgiveness that you need.' 

'Can you give it to me anyway?' Mila asks. Begs. Something deep in her chest is desperate for something Annie will never give.

Annie shifts, guiding Mila’s hand over her own racing heart. ‘Mila, I forgive you.’ The words pass through Mila’s blood, rushing to the tips of her fingers. With Annie’s words, Mila is finally warm.

'...Thank you.'

---

Forty-seven days after the apocalypse.

Mila couldn’t lose track of the days if she tried. She’s heard once in her biology class that it took sixty-four days for a human body to completely decompose. It made it easy to think about the after. The one they’d be in not soon enough.

They no longer used the rifle for anything more than rabbits and deer. The creatures they’d come across had gotten weaker by the day. Soon they’d just be… bodies in the ground. In the end there'd be no difference between a zombie and a human.

Maybe there never was?

Sixty-four days. It gave her a clock. 

Just one more day. And then one more.

They’d found their way to a line of abandoned stores off the roadside. Ransacked and desecrated. Starve the human race long enough and you’ll find places like this.

It was strange to see remnants of humanity. How long could vandals’ graffiti last after they’d run out of paint? How long could humans survive after they’d run out of purpose?

Glass crunched under Mila’s boot while she walked. “Well, this is nice.”

“Are you never satisfied?” Mila watches Annie lick her lips plump, and tuck golden hair behind her ears. 

Satisfaction is something Mila could never have in rural Missouri. Any satisfaction she got was soured in the aftermath of her indulgence.

Mila clears her throat. “No, I’m not. What’s so wrong with that?”

“You could try to be a bit more grateful.” 

“For what? Sorry, I ain't brainwashed like you to believe this is all for some greater good. I at least think for myself.”

Annie frowns, “I chose to believe. That is what faith is. If there were no doubts, then you're not trusting in anything.”

“You trust that your all-mighty God will protect you?”

“Maybe not. But I trust he would send me someone who would do it for him.”

And there it is again, that sliver of hope that had Mila crawling back every time.

“And how do you know I wouldn’t take that trust and stab it in your back?”

“Because you’re a good person, Mila. That’s why I like you.”

Annie turns her back, looking at an abandoned mannequin on the ground from one of the pillaged lingerie stores. “We haven’t seen anyone in months.” She kneels to re-buckle the red bra and dresses it with her own torn sweater to return whatever modesty can be given to the plastic form. “Do you think…”

She looks up at Mila, waiting for an answer that would set her mind at ease.

Get off your knees, Mila wants to say.

I cannot be your God. I hate when you pray, but I would rather that than be responsible for your heartache.

“Would it be so bad?” Mila asks, “If it was just us. No people. No god. No expectations.”

Annie watches her carefully. 

Mila didn’t need her to say anything; she would be content with understanding. So long as it existed within the silence.

She didn’t need confidence or even pride. Just Annie. Kind, thoughtful, beautiful Annie.

Who would know? Who was left to judge?

Somewhere deep in the American countryside, they sat in isolation. There was nothing around for miles, maybe more. Nobody was out there. Nobody was watching them.

It still wasn’t enough. 

Annie licked her lips, “I can’t give up who I am.”

“...Neither can I.”