Empty
Death was thick on the air. It was a cloying stench, burning the nostrils and clinging to the back of the throat. As the red-pink glow of a new dawn began to spill over the horizon, John Miller could make out the rising plumes of jet-black smoke from hundreds of individual fires.
Hundreds of makeshift crematoriums.
There were thousands of bodies. Blackened and smoldering. Every so often, the clap of a gunshot would split the silence, and another cadaver was heaved onto one of the ash and flame spewing piles.
Teams of armed men and women, ragtag with their grubby, mismatched uniforms, combed the streets. Most groups were accompanied by a large dog in the vanguard. Occasionally, one of the animals would break out into a fit of barking and strain at the leash. They were like the sniffer dogs of the Old World, though it wasn't illegal drugs or explosives they were hunting for.
John watched the cleanup crews from the rooftop of an apartment building. He panned the scope of his rifle back and forth across a sprawling urban landscape, otherwise known as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Six years ago, the city would have been bustling with life. Flowing traffic, sidewalks crowded with pedestrians. Beeping car horns, and the combined hum of hundreds of voices. Now, it was just an empty shell, a ghost of the past. Empty buildings. Rusting vehicles. Peeling, faded paintwork. Asphalt split and overgrown with weeds.
The sight was all too familiar to John. Familiar and depressing.
This was the eighteenth day of the cleanup. Pittsburgh was the last infested city left in the entire country. The perimeter had been cordoned off by miles upon miles of heavy-duty chain link fencing. Joint forces from both the North and South, sixteen and a half thousand strong, were sweeping through the entire area. The heads of the operation expected to have the zone ghoul-free within another six weeks, ready to receive the first wave of refugees. Before that could happen, every street, subway, room, dumpster, sewage tunnel, vehicle, closet, crawlspace, needed to be checked. Then double-checked. It would only take one overlooked member of the undead to start the devastating process all over again.
No chances were being taken.
The fact that the fight was virtually over, was hard for John to wrap his head around. After all these years, it was almost surreal to think that the undead plague, once consuming the entire globe, was on the brink of defeat. John had always thought he would feel differently when the end finally did come. Contented. Able to move on. But that was not what he felt now as he looked down over the blazing pyres, and bleak, lifeless streets.
What would happen now?
The man had never really thought about what it would be like after, when that seemingly unattainable goal was reached. The thought of simply arriving there had been enough to keep him going, given him something to live for.
But what now?
When the dead rose, John had lost everything. Family. Friends. Often, John wished he could have died along with them. Since then, he had seen, and done, things that he would never forget, some things he could never forgive himself for. No matter how hard he tried to keep those memories locked away in that difficult-to-reach place in his mind, they would always trickle back to the forefront. Torment him. John Miller had changed. He was far from the man he had been six years ago. The hardship and loss had taken something from him, something he could never get back.
Over the past few weeks, John had come to realize that the salvation he had been hoping for at the end of all this, wasn't waiting for him. The battle had been won, but there was nothing left for him to salvage. Life would never go back to what it once was, and the scars in his mind wouldn't ever heal.
John was empty. Not bitter or angry. Just empty.
By now the upper hemisphere of the sun had crested the building-silhouetted skyline. The darkness was quickly being chased away by the intensifying luminosity. Glass and metal surfaces glinted in the sunlight.
It might have been beautiful, but John didn't see it.
Setting aside his rifle, and reaching into the inner pocket of his brown leather jacket, John carefully slipped out an old, slightly faded photograph. The picture depicted a younger, cleaner version of himself, dressed in a suit and tie. Sharing the same carefree smile as he, and with her arms wrapped tightly around his chest, was a red-headed woman of similar age. She wore an elegant white wedding gown, with a matching rose in her hair.
A genuine smile creased John's lips for the first time in months.
Susan would be waiting for him. He just knew she would.
Closing his calloused fingers around the precious slip of paper, John pressed the muzzle of the pistol firmly against the base of his chin, and squeezed the trigger.