The End by Ed Dempster
	Soldiers patrolled the streets in HAZMAT suits, working their way from door to door, trying to raise a response from anybody who might still be alive. After their third day of finding nothing but death, all sense of purpose had gone, and now they just went through the motions for the sake of thoroughness and the hygienic disposal of the remains- piling the dead into garbage trucks and dumping them in landfills. At 26 Laburnum Drive, they forced the front door and shot a snarling Alsatian before it could defend the property. They found the man of the house still sitting in an armchair, eyes white, stale bloody tears still streaked, cracked and flaking down his pallid face, lips black, with a beard of dry blood below them, like all the other corpses they found. Even the flies knew better than to feast on this flesh. The bodies didn't rot or swell like normal cadavers, but the sweet sickly stench they gave off pervaded the nth-micron filters of the suits, making the men gag and retch. It wasn't an odor anybody got used to smelling. The woman of the house lay sprawled on the tiled floor in the kitchen, her hair matted and her face contorted in a dry scream, resting in a congealed pool of her own blood and vomit. A small boy, perhaps four years old, lay huddled beside her, his face buried in the folds of her Arran sweater. The soldiers placed a gurney on the floor next to her, picked her up by her arms and legs and, as they peeled the woman's face off the tiles, the child screamed out. One of the soldiers shouted into his mic, "We've got a live one!" The kid scrambled across the floor and took refuge in a corner, his face covered in angry red lumps, his crimson cheeks streaked with bloody tears. A medic bustled in and, holding his arms out in front of himself, hands open, he crept towards the boy. "It's alright kid, we're here to help you- we're just men in funny suits. Don't be afraid. Can you tell me your name? Mine's Rosco..." "Henry." The boy sniffed back tears. "I don't feel very well." "You're going to be okay now; don't worry, we'll take good care of you." Rosco knelt down in front of the boy. "Mummy." "We'll take care of mummy too, Henry, just leave it to us." The sound of automatic gunfire reverberated around the streets outside, all around and off in the distance. Screaming came over the radio, mixed commands, confusion, panic. A soldier tapped the medic on the shoulder. "You okay here, Rosco? We'd better go check that out." "It's all right, man, I've got this covered." The soldiers hurried out. Rosco opened his case and took out a thermometer. "Mummy!" "We'll take care of mummy, don't worry." Rosco, still rummaging around in his medical kit, didn't see the kid looking upwards, over his shoulder. "No, look! Mummy's awake!" Henry's smile turned to a look of puzzlement as Mummy bit through the hood of Rosco's HAZMAT suit, and through the bone of his skull, into his brain, making his eyeballs roll up in their sockets and his eyelids flutter. THE BEGINNING
	Copyright © 2006 Ed Dempster