In the End
As I woke up my eyelids were heavy, my head was bruised and my heart was pounding.  I tried to remember why I was in this hospital.  But who was “I”, what was my name, and how long had I been out?  I sat up to see who was around but when I looked around all I saw were mangled bodies that looked like they had been stacked up in a pile and ran over by a truck.  I stumbled out of the hospital like I was a drunk.  When I got out in the street it was the hospital multiplied by ten.
I looked around not a soul in sight.  I fell to my knees and put my head in my hands and cried.  I was isolated, alone and afraid. I kept along Main Street walking one foot in front of the other.  I had quick one-second flashbacks of my past life it was like seconds of a movie trailer.  After one flashback had ended I was upset why could I not remember?  Then I looked up and saw a wall and I was too late to react and I ran into it.  I looked up to see “Decontamination Station 3.”  It all made sense now I was the last man alive and I would be dead within days.  I sat there helplessly just like the other bodies around me I had hope that I’d make it through the night.  When I fell asleep I had a dream where I went into the woods where there was a storage unit made of wood but I couldn’t get in because it was locked.  When I broke open the door I woke up.  I woke up in the same empty darkness that had filled my dream I walked down the hill of yellow grass onto the highway swarmed with trucks, cars and vans it was a traffic jam with all dead drivers.  I had seen nothing move in two days when a dying bird flew overhead and it dropped right in front of me I knew then that I would not be able to eat any animals.  I was starving and my throat was drier than the Sahara desert.  Then my luck had either betrayed me or saved me.  A truck in the distance coming towards me slowly but surely.  It’s exhaust pipes flaring smoke I didn’t know whether to hide or to put myself out of my misery so I stood frozen. The truck had men with beards who looked ready to kill.  One, in particular, looked meaner than the others he had a scar running diagonally across his face, meat cleaver in hand and a leather jacket blood stained and black.  I knew which option I had picked, death.  

I had another flashback I saw a woman smiling and two kids, a boy and a girl.  Immediately I fell to the ground and crawled under a car.  The oil was dripping from the bottom of the car and this proved to be a mistake.  The oil dripped on my forehead like Chinese water torture but worse.  I sealed my eyes hoping it would change the fact of my imminent death.  I was frightened by the sound of the truck moving closer and closer every second but, the thing that scared me the most was why could I not remember my mother?  The very woman who brought me into this world was a distant memory.  All I know is that she would have done anything to save me from these murders.  I began to cry, but I was dehydrated so no tears came out.  I hugged the muffler which gave me comfort. 
I was hoping the vehicle would pass by that is when I heard it stop I began to pray in my head “Our father who art in Heaven…”
A man looked under the car to see me holding the exhaust pipe, with my eyes closed bellyaching he said “Get out from under there son.”  He was nothing more than a harmless old man.
I listened to his command and came out from under he had a rag and a cup he put the cup where the oil had leaked to get as much as he could he gave the rag to me and said “Get that cleaned off.” As he pointed at my head.” 
I wiped the oil from my head and gave him the rag.  He was at least in his seventies and he walked me to the truck that had intimidated me so much.  He sat me down and gave me a can of food it was a miracle I was starving so without hesitation I opened the can and began to fill my empty stomach the old man went over to the car where I had been hiding.  Everyone surrounding me had a blank face they all had to be teenagers or not a day over twenty.  I looked down to see the man had returned with the oil then he walked around to where the hood would have been.  Then he put the oil in the valve of where it needed to be and started driving the rig. 
We sat in silence for a while until the old man said “Let's play the name game, what’s your name son? 
I knew he was talking to me, but I did not have an answer. 
I said softly “I don’t know.” 
He said, “You don’t know!?”
I nodded my head in agreement.  The man thought for a second.
“Well alright, we’ll call you Spike,” he said  I had no choice but to agree with him.  Then he introduced me to the rest of the guys. 
He said “The tall one is Matt, the blonde one is Jacob, the one next to you is Thomas he is deaf and dumb, the one with black hair is Luke he played NFL football, and my name is Jim.  We are one of the few groups of survivors left on this planet.” 
“Spike can you remember anything?” asked Matt.  \
I responded “I think I was a mechanic before everything went black.  And when I woke up I was in a hospital surrounded by piles of bodies of civilians and surgeons.” 
Matt seemed like a nice guy and he always kept a conversation going we would laugh and talk.  I was glad I had been found by Jim. 
One time while we were talking and Matt said “Skull crushers are large in numbers.” 
Immediately I asked, “What are the skull crushers?” 
There was a long period of time and then Matt said “They are the band of survivors that killed Mason, and that is what we are going up against.” 
Although I had no intention to fight I agreed because they all seemed very upset about Mason. 
So, I said, “I swear to you I will do anything in my power to make sure nobody else dies.” The rest of that day was silence not a word just the roar of the engine.   The next day I woke up and the silence was no more there was a lot of talking.
I asked stupidly “What is this place anyway?”
Jacob responded angrily,” Spike this is the most dangerous place in the world and worst of all there is no guarantee that you will live another day in this wasteland they used to call America.  The red white and blue is no more, there’s no more land of the free and home of the brave... just cowards.” 
I was in shock at what he had said.  When I was about to apologize he climbed through  hatch to the front seat and locked it. 
Luke said, “Don’t worry about him he’s dealing with PTSD, we honored him at one of our salute to service games.  He won a purple heart for his bravery.” 
I noticed that what I had said had set off a bad memory. 
All of us had real occupations before the disease came Matt was a fitness trainer, Jacob was a Navy SEAL, Thomas was a scientist, Luke had the job that the most money by far as an NFL player, I was an auto mechanic and Jim was a college professor at the University of Alabama.  We talked a lot about our past life and we all joked about how Luke is the richest man on the planet right now.  One day when we ran out of food we went to a supermarket we grabbed all the canned food, chips, water and soda.  We also grabbed two tanks of propane.    We saw cow meat and we wanted to take it but we knew that the cow meat would carry the disease.  When we got back to the truck it was already dark so we lit a candle and talked a while. 
When the conversation went dead I asked Luke “What was your career like were you a back up? Were you a starter?”
“Oh I was a starter” replied Luke. “He’s going to be a Hall of Famer, they all said”  Added Luke.  “I was going to be a Hall of Famer, but I guess that doesn’t matter anymore does it?” said Luke.
When he said that we went silent. 
“Well does it?” Luke asked.  Again no response then he turned over and mumbled a few words that I could not hear.  After that we all went to bed.
I fell into a deep sleep and when I did I had a dream about that same storage unit in the woods.  This time there was no lock on the door.  So, I went in I saw the same woman and two kids from the flashback.  The woman opened her mouth and said something. 
I couldn’t hear her until she said “SPIKE!,SPIKE!”
I knew this was not her voice because it sounded male. 
Again she said “SPIKE! SPIKE!”
This time it wasn’t part of my dream it was Matt standing over me and shaking me.  When he saw that I had woken he yelled “WERE UNDER ATTACK!” 
I sat up quickly and grabbed a firearm.  A man ran after us with grenade in hand he was a suicide bomber.  The man looked afraid running I wondered if he had chosen this end of if he had been forced to do so he had made it across almost all of No Man’s Land when his head exploded.  The scared face turned into brain matter and broken bones.  I felt bad for the man he was probably a year or two younger than me.  I had no idea what had killed him.  Then I looked up to see Jacob had picked him off. 
He yelled “get me the Big Boy!”
That was the nickname for the sniper rifle that we had. 
I handed him the rifle and he said “I’m taking out their leader for good.” 
There was a man driving he had a scar running diagonally across his face, meat cleaver in hand and a leather jacket blood stained and black.   At that moment I knew that it was the man I saw when I decided to hide.  This meant that the group I was in was not far behind the Skull Crushers when I first found them.  I heard the shot of a gun and in an instant the windshield of the opposite truck broke and the driver went limp his hands no longer gripping or the meat cleaver the week and there was a hole in the center of his chest.  He spit up a little blood and died. 
Matt yelled up to Jacob “You get him?”
He yelled back down “I got him.”  This was a moment of relief for everyone the man that killed Mason was dead.  They all cheered for Jacob but this battle was far from over.  They had sent someone to blow up our truck the man got on board of our truck with a knife he stabbed at Matt but I blocked the attack and shot him.  They were running low in numbers but there was one of them on our side he was under the truck and then an explosion went off blowing into the woods that paralleled the highway. 

I woke up and my head was throbbing I had blacked out again.  Ironically I woke up at the perfect time.
I heard a man yell “Get on the hogs!” a couple seconds later I saw five motorcycles fly over me they were racing down the hill.  I thought that I was safe when one man without a motorcycle spotted me and he started to chase me.  He called for the riders but there was no response.  So I just kept running he was close behind me so I bent over and he toppled over me I stepped on his face and ran this gave me a good lead on him.  I hid in the top in a tree when the man finally got a rider to accompany him.   In the night while they were both fell asleep I went from to tree to tree.  By dawn I was exhausted.  I grabbed a branch and swung to a branch I could stand on but, because I had not slept I lost my footing and fell.  I landed hard on the ground in excruciating pain.  I tried to sit up but my back would not cooperate.  I was sure I had broken it when I heard the roar of a motorcycle getting louder and louder.  I crawled behind a tree and covered myself in leafs. 
They were close when one of them shouted “There he is!”  When I heard this I grabbed a branch on the tree and stood up, then I ran.

I found myself in tears trying to sprint through the forest.  Something whizzed by my ear like a fly.  But it hit a tree and I knew that it was a bullet.  I was hoping that someone would help me but, I knew I was alone.  I was frightened,dodging bullets, crying and sprinting.  It was only a matter of time before I went crazy or died.  There was no escape from death, I had cheated it, beated it and now I reeked of it.  I tried to remember the good times the laughing and the joking.  All my life I had hoped to die of old age but I knew that was impossible now.  I imagined what they would do to my body after I died.  Bullets were flying through the air missing me each time, until, one hit my ear I but my hand over it to stop the bleeding and there was a ringing in it.  The sound was high pitched and was more painful than my ear bursting.  This took the pain away from my back.  I back to see where they were.  They were gaining on me so I turned back and saw that I was falling off a cliff when I hit it was lights out.  
I had the same dream of the wooden storage unit in the middle of the woods and again.  And when I opened the door there was a woman watching her two children in a meadow of flowers. 
She turned to face me and said “Spike… Spike!”
I woke up to see that Matt was standing over me and he said “Spike you're alive.” 
I responded saying “I remember.”

Matt look puzzled at what I said. 
So asked “Remember what exactly?” 
“My past life my name is not Spike it is, Nick Johnson and I was a security guard at Milford high school.  I have a wife named Kate a boy named James and a little girl named Abby.  I hid them away in a wooden storage unit away from all people s they would not catch the Mortem Flu.” 
“Well Nick are you going to find your family?” Asked Matt devastated. 
“Yes,” I responded,  “but what town are we in?”  Matt said We are in Milford.”  “Then we should be near the storage unit, follow me,”  I said.  We walked and talked for a while until we found it.  A wooden storage that I had built.  We approached it and knocked on the front a voice said, “Who is it?” I began to tear up and I said “it’s me, it’s dad.”  The locks got undone and I saw my two kids and they simultaneously yelled “Daddy!”  I gave them kisses and hugged for a while.  When we finally stopped I asked “Where is mom?” They looked at each other and said “she went to look for you”  I fell to my knees and put my head in my hands and cried.  I knew she would not return without finding me.  I looked at my kid who had already been traumatized by being on their own so I stopped crying and sat with them “How long ago did mom leave?  I asked.  Abby said “Maybe ten minutes ago.  She does this every day she is always back before dark.”  I was overcome with joy to hear this.  She asked “Dad do you want to play go fish James and I always play it when mom is gone.”  “Of course!” I said.  Later Kate returned and I got my long-awaited hug and kiss.  After that she asked “Who is your friend?”  I responded that is Matt, Matt, Kate, Kate, Matt.”  Nice to meet you said Matt.  “Nice to meet you too.” said Kate. “Now what?” I said and Kate exclaimed “Now we rebuild.”