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billion people and leave the world to the rich and famous. She though it ludicrous, but what did she know, she studied bats. She was sure there was a joke in there somewhere, but she couldn’t grasp it right now. What she did know is that the Bossier Strain mutated, and if it did it once, it can do it again. She wasn’t convinced the people on the other side of the radio were free and clear of anything, she’d thought so herself once.

  She had learned this was not a local outbreak, it spread across the world like wildfire, destroying life by the billions, and she was the reason it happened. At first, she blamed herself, but soon she realized that nature had this bomb waiting the whole time, hiding out in the jungles, patient, the ultimate killer. If she wouldn’t have unleashed hell on earth, someone else would have. Either way, it was inevitable and the world was destined to wind up in this state. Humans, the poster children for natural selection, who’d have thought?

  The overdose of medicine began to calm her, numbing her senses, giving her the illusion of feeling better. It didn’t matter, illusion or not, if it helped her get through the next few hours, she was happy with it. She looked out the kitchen window, hands braced on either side of the sink. A series of coughs racked her body and she spattered blood on the window, staining her view with crimson spots. She didn’t want to die inside, it was a beautiful day beyond the glass. If she was going to go, she would do it as much on her terms as she could.

  She turned and walked to the front door, noticing it was open and only the screen stood between her and the last few moments of her life. Pain ripped through her abdomen as something gave way inside her and she dropped to her knees. She gasped and gripped her stomach with both hands, her breath coming in short bursts, like a mother performing Lamaze for a grizzly birth. Warmth radiated from her crotch. Hunched over, she saw the blood seep from underneath her night shirt. She reached down, grabbed the hem and pulled it up, revealing her red panties. She didn’t have any red panties, only white cotton, the sensible, comfortable ones. The front of her underwear bulged and she pushed on the puffy fabric. Blood seeped out, and ran down her legs, staining the floor with the remnants of her life. Her vagina and rectum were bleeding, something inside was terribly wrong and she was turning inside out.

  Summoning her courage and will, she stood and stumbled outside. She turned her face to the sun, trying to ignore the intense pain. It seemed to emanate from everywhere in her body at once and she cried out, weak and ineffectual. Eyes closed and sobbing quietly, she raised her hands to the sky, crying bloody tears and letting the sun warm her. Blood left on her hands from touching her soaked panties ran down her arms, into her armpits and came to rest on her nipples, staining the front of her nightshirt. She shuffled towards the back of the house, pure will putting one foot in front of the other. She was death in comfortable clothes, the barely undead, lactating blood, beckoning you to drink from her swollen breasts. There was a bayou behind the house and she wanted to be in it when she passed.

  Alligators lived in the bayou, as they did in almost every body of water in Louisiana, and this had kept her from swimming in the beautiful water for the entire time they lived on its tranquil banks. More pain, this time so intense she could not stay standing. She fell, clutching her abdomen again as vital organs ripped from their moorings, dissolving and flowing towards her body’s orifices. She was a bag of blood, barely alive and not for long. She crawled towards the shore, out of reach but only a few feet away. Somehow she reached it and rolled into the brown stagnant water, dragging a crimson puddle with her.

  Floating seemed to ease the pain, but it was still excruciating, overloading her senses, filling her with the desire to die and to die quickly. Why was it taking so long? She prayed for death to take her and somewhere, where prayers are usually heard and dismissed, never to be answered, this one was heard. A splash to her right drew her attention and she turned her head. Two eyes protruded above the water and a rough, scaly tail moved back and forth, propelling the alligator towards her in eerie silence. She’d never been so close to one and she thought it beautiful, an enduring example of nature’s creation.

  The alligator nosed close and in a flash, sprang into action. It opened its toothy maw and bit her abdomen, puncturing her skin and releasing the pool of blood that so recently had been formed into the shape of kidneys, lungs, a stomach, and many other organs. She didn’t feel it, her pain sensors were already at maximum and could process no more, she was grateful and watched disconnected, as if viewing a film.

  The alligator began its death roll, protective lenses covering its eyes as it twisted its body violently, finishing off its prey. Alicia’s body thrashed and came apart at the seams, limbs flailing until coming free from the body. Other alligators rushed in from the banks to get their share of the diseased corpse, eager to feed on a fresh kill. The blood began to fade, mixing with the bayou water and was gone within a few moments. All traces of Alicia’s existence were erased.

  Weeks later, an alligator crawled up on shore, a dark red trail marking its passage. Blood flowed from its eyes and its body was swollen. It convulsed, throwing up a large swamp rat and some fish as it died. Behind it, several fish floated to the top of the water, shaking, splashing drops of water in small arcs that fell back to the swampy water, staining it red. The new apex predator was here to stay.

  The End

  What Grabs You

  What Grabs You Too

  Arrhythmia

  Pieces

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  Other Links:

  Mark Tompkins Official Author Webpage

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  Mark Tompkins Facebook Author Page

  Mark Tompkins has been a classical pianist, a bartender, and spent 23 years in the United States Air Force working with the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) system. His works include Road Rage, The Fresinnius Chronicles, Pieces, What Grabs You, What Grabs You Too, Arrhythmia and many others.

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