The Last of the Living (11 page)

Chapter 15

Amy jumped up and turned around and found herself face-to-face with someone wearing a full wrap around his face complete with aviator goggles as well as heavy gloves on his hands. She quickly pushed him down, took out her gun and pointed it at him.

              "Who are you?!" she shouted she kept her gun trained on him.

              The man put his hands up. "Don't shoot, I'm human." She could only vaguely make him out because all of the wrapping around his face.

              "Prove it, show me your face."

              "I don't like to take my wrappings off."

              "Why not?"

              "The germs."

              "What germs?"

              "The space germs!"

              "You mean from the bombardment? Are the germs still in the atmosphere?"

              "I don't know, but I am not taking any chances. But can you put the gun down; I'm not going to hurt you."

              Amy reluctantly lowered her gun. "I'm sorry, I was just being cautious as I thought you might have been one of the creatures, one of the Zampires."

              "Zampires?"

              "It's what I've been calling them; it is short for zombie vampires."

              The man laughed. "I've been calling them Vombies for the same reason."

              "Vombies!"

              "Hey it's not that much different from Zampires."

              "Why don't we just call them the creatures to make it easier?"

              "I can live with that."

              Amy put her gun in its holster and extended her hand. "I'm Amy Takahashi."

              "I'm David, David Washington Smith; I am the President of the United States, the second black man to hold that office." He did not extend his hand. "Sorry if I didn't take your hand, I'm a little bit paranoid about germs."

              "It's okay," Amy said as she put her hand down. "I guess you must be the Dave who put up that banner on the Lincoln Memorial. Last I remembered you weren't the president."

              "Everyone else in the world is dead, so I figure that I am next in the line of succession. Not that there is much of a country left to rule over. You're the first person I have seen since the creatures appeared. How did you manage to survive all that time?"

              "I could well ask you the same question."

              "Ladies first."

              "I'm an astronaut. I survived on the international space station for two years until just a couple of days ago when my supplies were running low and the station started breaking down and I decided that I had no choice but to take my chances back on the Earth. You're the first living person I have seen who wasn't one of those creatures as well."

              David scratched his head before snapping his fingers. "You're the astronaut. I used to follow you on twitter. I knew your name sounded familiar from somewhere."

              "It's a small world I guess."

              "A very small world, far as I know we are probably the only two people left on earth. But weren't there other astronauts with you on the space station?"

              "Yes, that was true. I was with astronauts Anatoly and Maria, but unfortunately they both died in space."

              "My condolences, it must have been pretty lonely up there."

              "Indeed it was. But I imagine it was just as lonely down here, and probably a lot more dangerous. Which again brings up the question, how did you manage to survive?"

              "Have you ever heard the expression only the paranoid survive?" Amy nodded. "Well I was always sort of a paranoid type. Truth is I am a major germophobe, always was and always have been. Ironically enough I was a White House janitor."

              "A janitor doesn't seem like a very good job for a germophobe."

              "I can see how you would think that way, but it's actually the perfect job for a germophobe. You see as a janitor I am constantly cleaning everything. The entire day I am wearing gloves and spraying disinfectant on everything. I have my hands constantly in soap and cleaning fluid and I go around making sure everything is sparkling clean and uncontaminated. And if you have obsessive-compulsive disorder and can't stop cleaning being a janitor is actually a pretty good job to harness what would otherwise be a bothersome mental disorder."

              Amy nodded again. "I understand. But again it doesn't explain how you managed to survive when everyone else in the world didn't. I mean there are millions upon millions of people with a phobia about germs and who are obsessed with order and cleanliness, but they are all dead, you are not. There must be something special that allowed you to survive."

              David nodded. "As soon as the bombardment began and I heard of all these contaminants entering into the atmosphere my paranoia went into overdrive. I became paralyzed with fear and I ended up locking myself deep in a sealed off part of the White House with an air filtration system that made sure nothing came in from outside. No one else was really paranoid about it the way I was and thought it was just a rare astronomical event. But I took to hiding, and I guess my extreme cowardice in this case ended up saving my life. When I came out three days later everyone else was dead. I ended up burying the president's body myself."

              "I'm sorry you had to perform such a gruesome task."

              "Don't be, I didn't vote for that bastard and my pay at the White House was pretty terrible. I was glad to bury that guy, and now I own all of his stuff, and he had some pretty nice stuff!"

              "What about the creatures? How did you manage to survive them?"

              "The creatures didn't manifest right away. Apparently whatever killed the human race killed them off in a pretty much immediate span of time, but then the bodies began to putrefy and didn't decompose. One day they just started waking up as these creatures. The bodies sort of covered themselves in a cocoon like material after they died and then when they reemerged they were these bloodthirsty flesh eating creatures. As soon as I realized that I sealed myself off in the White House. I made sure to dispose of as many bodies as possible, which was a pretty big task. When they started coming to life I fled for a while to elsewhere in the city but eventually I came back well-armed and took back the White House. It was pretty epic."

              "You must have been the one who was responsible for all of the bullet holes in the movie theater and the pizza place and all of the burning."

              "That's right. After securing the White House I would go around during the day looking for enclaves of these creatures and burning down their sleeping spaces. It was a big task but they always keep coming back. I try to keep the population down as much as possible, but I am only one man, and these creatures keep descending upon the city again and again. Luckily it's a very heavily armed city. Speaking of which, do you have any place to stay? I would love for you to join me at the White House. It will be dark soon and then the creatures will descend, so we should get back to the White House as quickly as possible."

              "I would love to. I always wanted to see the inside of the White House. I went to go there on a tour in Washington DC when I was a kid but the inside was closed at the time and I was really disappointed that I didn't get to see it, as that was the major part of the tour that I was looking forward to."

              "It's a pretty nice house, I do have to say, it sure beats my old apartment by a long stretch. And it is stocked with enough supplies to last us a good long time. It has electricity, running water and plenty of entertainment. The only thing is I will have to spray you down before I let you inside, germs and all that."

              "That's fine. And I could use a good shower and bath as I haven't had a proper one since returning to a normal gravity field. The closest thing I have had was skinny dipping in the ocean."

              David laughed. "There is a happy image. Shall we go?"

              "Let me just get my things and we can drive there."

              Amy wasn't sure what to make of David just yet, but it seemed like she could trust him, and if she couldn't there wasn't exactly anyone else left in the world that she could trust, so she would take her chances.

Chapter 16

Amy felt herself to be in Paradise when she felt the hot water against her skin. As the water from the shower hit every inch of her body she felt as though she were shedding her entire skin, and once the tub was full she sat down and began to soak luxuriously as she reflected on the fact that she was now bathing in a bathtub that presidents and first ladies had bathed in throughout the entire nation's history. JFK might very well have been soaking in the same tub while planning the Bay of Pigs invasion.

              "How is everything in there?" David asked as he knocked on the door.

              "Everything is very relaxing, thank you."

              As she continued soaking she felt a little self-conscious knowing that a man she barely knew was not that far away and she was putting a lot of trust in him. But again, she figured if he couldn't trust him who could she trust? For better or worse David might be the last man on earth, so if he wasn't perfect she could live with that. It was just good to know that there were other survivors out there, and that where there was one there could very well be others, almost had to be.

              While she was soaking she could still feel a lot of weakness in her bones. A person she really would have loved to have found would be some kind of a doctor. Under normal circumstances after coming back from such a prolonged amount of time in zero gravity she would have had a full medical workup by now. And she was still feeling bouts of weakness, vertigo and lots of dreams where she was floating or falling. She was hoping that this would all wear off over time, but she was in uncharted territory. Although people had spent large amounts of time in space without any immediately deadly results, the fact that she was the record holder and that she might be the one to find a limit to how much humans can endure as far as extended human spaceflight goes, did not put her mind at ease.

              Eventually she fell asleep and woke up to the sound of a pounding on her door. "Amy!" David's voice shouted before he came running into the bathroom just as Amy was standing up.

              "A little privacy please!" Amy shouted as she pulled the shower curtain in front of her.

              "Sorry," David said as he turned his back to her. "But I hadn't heard from you in a while and I was worried that something had happened to you."

              "It's okay; it's nice to know that you were concerned. I just became so relaxed that I must have dozed off a bit there. It has been happening to me more and more lately. I think it's just fatigue from being back in a gravity field. After being in zero gravity for over two years the human body can permanently change in a detrimental way. Life in space is not good for the human body."

              "I had read about something like that. It makes your bones brittle or something like that?"

              "It's more than just bone loss. It also involves muscle loss and lots of physiological changes to my body, and I don't know to what extent. I am actually now the current record holder for the longest time spent by a human being in space and nobody knows what the effects of that are."

              "Well there are medical supplies in the building, but unfortunately I am not a doctor and I don't know where exactly you could find one. But I should let you get dressed. Dinner is nearly ready."

              Amy decided to get dressed up in style and put on one of the first lady's nicest outfits. The first lady had been known to be extravagant, and as much of a tomboy as she was she really felt pretty damn attractive wearing yet another outfit that probably cost more than what the average person would make in a year. And wearing the first lady's jewelry also made her feel rather elegant.

              "Well look at you pretty lady," said David as he walked into the room.

              "Thank you," said Amy as she blushed a little bit while she pulled out her chair and sat down. "This looks like quite a smorgasbord."

              "It's a White House dinner; the president sure knew how to eat. Believe me I know, having to haul his fat ass out of the White House after that the Apocalypse was a pretty exhausting task. I mean I never thought we would have another president as fat as Taft. They probably had to put a new bathtub in for that lard ass as well."