Last Woman Read online

  LAST WOMAN

  By

  Jacqueline Druga

  Last Woman

  By Jacqueline Druga

  Copyright 2014 by Jacqueline Druga

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Thank you Sophia and Sami for all your help on this one.

  1. Waking

  At first there was nothing.

  Nothing kicked in. Being void of all my senses, I was stuck in that momentary confused state. Was it Saturday or did I have to work? The alarm clock didn’t go off, or did it? I lingered in that plane of existence between awake and sleeping, that fine line moment, just after a deep sleep and bizarre dream. But I didn’t dream. My faculties escaped me.

  That was only briefly.

  The moment I came to I opened my eyes and immediately panicked.

  What happened? Where was I?

  My thought process along with my senses kicked in.

  Sight.

  Everything was black.

  I couldn’t see an inch in front of my face. I shifted my eyes, nothing, but dark.

  What was going on? Think, Faye, Think.

  I tensed up, forcing my memory. Why couldn’t I remember?

  My legs were heavy as if weighted down. Something was on them. My left arm wouldn’t budge, my right hand tingled. With every blink, I felt something brush against my eyelashes.

  Think.

  A bit of a memory, a flash more like it.

  Christine. She was laughing. Her face distorted in my mind as if through blurry goggles. She tossed back her blonde hair, laughing.

  “You have to be joking,” she said.

  My laugh. I heard myself laugh.

  Girls’ night out. That was it. The last thing I remembered.

  “Are you kidding me?” Amber reached out, covering my glass. “She doesn’t need any more. She drank enough. You’ve had enough, Faye.”

  “She’s a big girl.” Christine said. “Besides, let her drink. She needs to forget the pain.”

  The pain. That’s right. My heartache, but somehow I couldn’t grasp that because my head pounded like nothing I had ever felt.

  The darkness, the blackout, immediately I wondered if I fell victim somehow.

  Get it together. Get it together.

  I blinked again, it was so hard to breathe, and then I realized something was across my face. Some sort of coarse cloth. Turning my head side to side I could feel it graze against my cheeks. It covered my nostrils, just tilting my head, eased taking in air.

  Wherever I was, whatever happened, I was trapped. But not completely. I moved my right hand.

  I opened my mouth to call for help, but my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, pasted there, swollen. The movement of my lips immediately caused more pain when they cracked. I felt the tension of my skin and the tear, then the warm blood as it rolled across my lips.

  It made its way into my mouth and for as gross as it was, metallic as it tasted, it was moisture. I absorbed it.

  A knot formed in my stomach, like a baseball turning and hurting with each twist. I raised my right arm and pushed on the fabric. It had a give to it.

  If I could move, I could get out. That was my thought process as I assessed my situation.

  My legs were pinned, I was indeed naked. For sure, someone had abducted me. I blacked out from so much drinking and that was what happened. How long was I out? Long enough to be pained with thirst, sick with hunger and my legs glued together by a thin moisture I could only assume was my own bodily functions.

  A move of my head, my neck arched and I cried out a hoarse and emotional, “Help!’

  No one replied.

  Was there even a sound? Yes, there was. A buzzing, a continuous, deep buzzing. Then another sense kicked in.

  Smell. That hunger knot in my gut turned to nausea when all around me was this rotten, sulfur, bad food smell. A stench that I should have noticed right away, but was too consumed with everything else.

  What was it?

  Garbage. That was it. I had been dumped in the garbage.

  If anything, I was not a quitter.

  It was fear that caused an instinctive physical fight right there and then. Scared out of my wits, I push the fabric with my right arm, while struggling with my legs.

  With diligence, I forced down my left hand and it sunk into a soft squishy surface. I had to get a grip, not just emotionally, but physically.

  Rock back and forth, use my hips, repetitive motions, think, think, think …

  “Where is everyone?” I asked. “It’s dead in here tonight.”

  “News is saying stay inside.”

  “Oh my God, please. It’s the flu.”

  “I got my shot.”

  Laughter.

  Have a drink.

  Rock again. Back and forth, back and forth, almost there.

  “Faye, you okay?”

  “Hey, she doesn’t look okay.”

  Left arm free, right leg … kick.

  “She’s not okay. Faye!”

  “Someone call 911!”

  Free!

  No sooner did my body feel relieved from whatever confined it, I felt the air outside hit against the lower part of my nude body as I rolled. Freedom from that prison ejected me on a downward tumble, shoulder over shoulder, banging, bouncing against the steep, soft mound, until I landed.

  I had twisted within that cloth and not only did it cover my face, but tangled around my neck, choking me.

  I coughed and wheezed, fighting to free that cloth. I pulled at it in a panic while feeling something stinging my legs. Tiny dots of burning, danced about my body and the buzzing grew louder.

  No!

  Yanking as hard as I could, my fingernails scratched my neck as I whipped that heavy cloth from my head. The sun was so bright I had to close my eyes. I was blinded. Cloth still in my hand, I brought it to my face as a shield and slowly opened my eyes.

  The pain grew worse in my legs. What was biting me?

  Finally through the blur of the sun, I was able to cast enough shadow over my eyes to see and I looked down.

  Flies. Thousands of flies covered my legs.

  I kicked and squirmed and rolled over to my knees. The second I tried to stand up, my legs weakened, buckled and I fell back down. My hands grabbed onto the mound to gain balance.

  After a moment, my eyes started to adjust. Head down, I filled with horror when I saw my fingers had gripped onto a body.

  I screamed and withdrew my hands quickly. On my knees, my head slowly lifted.

  The final sense kicked in.

  Realization.

  I wasn’t abducted and dumped in the garbage. I was a number. Four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-three. A tag hung from my wrist stating such.

  Someone made a mistake.

  I couldn’t move or breathe. I could only look around. I was in a football stadium. Somewhere near the end zone. The field goal was just to my left but the bottom portion was buried like everything else in that stadium. Buried beneath a never ending mound. A mound as high and as far as I could see of nothing … but dead bodies.

  2. Standing

  It was a nightmare. It had to be.

  To go from being out with friends who were trying to take my mind off of things, to ending up in a football stadium maxed out with bodies was nothing less than a nightmare.

  I was dreaming.

  Wake up.

  I tried to find a spot on that field where my feet didn’t touch rotting flesh. The soft surface of decaying bodies wasn’t firm enough to support my already weakened legs.

&nbs
p; My God, wake up!

  I tried to stand and my legs cramped, sending me buckling back to the mound.

  My knees sunk into a mushy pile. I looked down. It was greenish, red and black, a sticky tar like substance, strands of which followed my knees when I stood again. Even with my eyesight not a hundred percent, I could see the maggots squirming on the flesh.

  A knotted and empty stomach produced no vomit. My body reacted as if it would. Retching, heaving. Releasing dry spasms.

  Get it together. Wake up!

  The longer I fought to gain a stand, the more the sights and smells took over and the more I realized, I was already awake.

  “Hello!” I cried out. “Someone!”

  There were so many bodies that my voice didn’t even carry an echo in that stadium. It did however stir the flies, which swarmed my way.

  I didn’t have the strength to stand there. I had to get out. Someone made a mistake. They dumped me with all those bodies.

  And where did the bodies come from? That was the only thing that truly made me believe I was in some sort of lucid dream. If I was four thousand something or other, how many were there. It was impossible. The pile of corpses was so high, the only way it would reach that height were if bodies were air dumped.

  That many, though?

  Life was normal my last recollection. A week earlier there was a country concert right where I stood.

  Had war broken out? Maybe a chemical or biological attack? That would explain it.

  That was it. That had to be it.

  Mass casualties of war.

  Reaching out, I saw a tag. The hand had perfectly manicured nails, the ‘F’ on the tag meant female, the number was thousands higher than mine.

  The sight of that made me breathless.

  How did I not die? Not get crushed?

  All those thoughts, questions, pummeled me in the few minutes following my awakening and roll from the heap.

  Whatever the cause, I could guess all I wanted, but I knew I had to get out of there. I had been abandoned as a casualty. My body in dire need of water and possibly medical attention. I didn’t know.

  But one thing I was certain of, I was alone. No one was there to help me. At least not in the stadium, outside, maybe in the corridors, yes. But amidst the massive grave, I was just a number.

  I lifted my ‘death covering’ and did a half assed job of wrapping it around my shoulders. It covered some, better than nothing. And with my legs aching and weak, I took the first of many small, unstable steps to getting off that field.

  3. Emergence

  The heat of the sun helped in warming my body. I had two choices on a direction to leave that stadium. Walk to the tunnel that led to the locker room or venture the steps. I wasn’t familiar with the stadium, having only been there once. Something told me, though, taking the tunnel would be a challenge, it would be dark and cold. At least I believed so. Even with the stairs before me, I would get out of the stadium easier.

  My legs were holding up as I tackled the steps. Focusing forward and not looking back at what was behind me.

  I was so thirsty my mouth and throat burned. They felt swollen. There was no way I was forgotten about for more than a few days. No way I could survive that long without water. Step by step, I forged ahead, hoping not to fall, wishing I had been closer to the scoreboard because that would have been an easier route.

  In my mind I envisioned some sort of military set up or at least the body garbage men when I reached the concession level. Looks of utter shock and surprise when they saw me. Someone calling out, “Dear God, where did you come from?”

  Then water, they’d give me water to drink, and swiftly move me to get cleaned and dressed.

  I was pretty certain the only medical attention I needed was nourishment. Nothing felt broken. Then again, my body was still numb with shock.

  No sooner had I reached the first level of the stadium, I realized my thoughts of rescue were mere fantasies. There wasn’t a soul around. My bare feet echoed against the cool concrete. I readied to call out, but stopped.

  What was I thinking?

  I really wasn’t thinking about much except how get out. Immediately my body was riddled with fear and anxiety. I was scared to death someone was going to shoot me, or jump out. There was a reason for all the bodies to accumulate that fast, and for some stupid reason, the bodies were an afterthought as if leaving the stadium I was leaving the reality that thousands of people had died somehow.

  With death comes insanity.

  With that much death people wouldn’t be in their right mind.

  What was the event that I missed?

  All that would come; I’d find my answers after I safely found my way out of the death stadium and got help.

  Inching cautiously forward, I stopped to peek every few feet. Look and listen. The only light seemed to come from the sun that made its way in through the openness of the level. But it was dark, shadowed and cold.

  I stayed close to the wall, as if it afforded me protection.

  The corridors were wide and hollow, the concession stands closed up. But it was quiet, my God was it quiet. There had to be people outside. A body receiving setup or something. Surely they didn’t come in because of the smell and the flies.

  I was rank and my own odor nauseated me. I smelt like the dead and my own excretions. Glancing at my hands I saw the bruising just below the knuckles, the dried blood. There was obviously, at one point, an IV in my hand. One someone just ripped out.

  Using the light as my guide, hoping it was the exit, I then noticed the side door to one of the concession places was ajar.

  Please. Please let there be something there to drink. Even though I knew salvation and help wasn’t that far away, I needed water. The desire was all too consuming, so much so, I could barely think of anything else.

  I peered through the crack of the slightly open door, no one was in there and so I opened it.

  The case with water bottles was inviting and I slid open the door grabbing a bottle. One would think that cap was glued on; it was so hard to open. It was warm but I guzzled it. The entire twenty ounces I guzzled, finding recovery in each sweeping wave of liquid that passed into my mouth. I felt it bulge in my throat, pour down my esophagus and straight into my empty stomach.

  Mistake.

  No sooner had I finished that bottle, my stomach knotted and involuntarily, it erupted out of my mouth faster than I had consumed it.

  I felt foolish, as if someone saw me. Taking a moment, I let my stomach settle and I grabbed another bottle. Through the corner of my eye, I spotted the chip rack. Just in case, just on the chance no one was outside, I grabbed a bag and a second bottle of water. I tucked those within my grip, and forged into my second attempt at hydration.

  This time, I sipped. Bringing it into my mouth, swishing it around and slowly allowing it to pass down my throat.

  Third sip in, I heard the first sound that wasn’t a buzzing or insect.

  It was a short creak then bang. Metal sounding. It repeated. Creak. Bang. Creak. Bang. Immediately, I gushed with enthusiasm. Someone was there and then in a flip flop emotion, I panicked.

  Metal. What if someone was locking the gate to the death trap? Locking it, securing it, and possibly destroying it.

  With renewed vigor brought on by my need for help, I moved as fast as I could toward that sound.

  One hand gripping the open water and my draping cloth, the other holding my chips and extra bottle, I hobbled quickly.

  “Wait! Don’t go!" I cried out. “Wait! I need help. Help!" The entire way there, I called. “Wait! Stop! Help!”

  Turning the bend, the anxiousness and excitement dropped from me.

  Again … no one.

  The sound continued. It was the gate to the stadium. Open, it swung slightly in the wind. Open, closing. Creak. Bang.

  On the verge of feeling defeated, I caught a glimpse of a brown tent just outside. A military tent. Near it a truck.

  I sighed ou
t in relief. Help was just outside. I pushed forward, opening the gate, stepping outside and I froze.

  Stopped.

  Not a soul was there. The only sound was the flapping of the tent in the breeze. It was set up by the water fountain that had just been erected the summer before. The fountain wasn’t running. It was a mere shallow pool of water. The door to the huge military truck was open, but I didn’t see a soldier.

  I screamed out as loud as I could, “Hello!”

  Hollow.

  Desolate.

  My voice echoed back at me.

  I turned clockwise, looking for any signs of people, but there were none.

  A huge emptiness consumed me as I felt overwhelmed by the ambiance of … nothing.

  Where was everyone?

  4. Holding Post

  I lost it.

  Immediately I broke. Any smidgeon of bravery I had within me left and I crumbled. I dropped to the ground and sobbed. The sounds of my own sadness echoing back at me magnified my emotions.

  How long did I kneel there crying? I don’t know. I hadn’t enough liquid in me to produce actual tears, but the emotion was the same. My body shuddered in sadness.

  I was there long enough that my legs tensed and cramped up. Long enough to dwell in my own self-pity and fear, that I eventually came full circle and convinced myself to snap out of it and get it together.

  It was one part of the city. A single part of a city. I just needed to venture further.

  A barricade of road block horses was set up just beyond the concrete walkway to the stadium. Beyond that, I saw a truck and it was clearly filled with bodies. But there was only one tent.

  Certainly it wasn’t a medical setup with one tent.

  I made my way there, preparing for the worst; I caught the aroma as soon as I approached. Death. I smelled death. Leaving my water and chips at the empty table just outside the tent, I held my nose and lifted the flap.

  It was a field office or something. Temporary home, perhaps. Besides a desk, there were four cots in there and two held bodies. Both were men, still in uniform, partially covered. Their weapons were at the foot of their cots along with duffle bags. As if they came to stay for a duration but never made it out of bed. Their faces were swollen, blackened and splotched. There was dried blood around their noses. I wasn’t an expert so it was hard for me to tell if that was the effects of decomposition or effects of what killed them.