A cautionary tale of the last human male

So I'd told Wandi I'd write a short story of a man and a dot ages ago. It's long. It's awful. It's unfinished. But it has pictures. Enjoy.

Steve was the last man on Earth. Everyone else had been wiped out by a highly infectious and fatal disease to which only he was immune. Some might say he was lucky, but then again, he was the last human on Earth and also hence there was no 'some'.

It had happened so quickly - overnight, even. He'd switched the TV on to watch the news. The advert about Babybels came on and that made him happy. "Bop-bop-bop, bop Babybel."

The new virus only affected humans and it was spreading incredibly fast - the news reporter suddenly died while doing his report. One by one, the cameramen dropped dead and shortly afterwards, the TV went blank and the sound of white noise filled the room. Steve had fallen asleep before the news even came on, so he didn't know what had happened.

When he woke up, he choked and found his cat had been sleeping on his face.

He left the house at half past seven to go to work. He looked at his to-do list:

Yes, the cat's name was Cat. Steve had a very limited imagination.

He was half asleep as he reached the tube station and crashed into the barrier. The station had closed as the tube wasn't working.

Steve swore and kicked the gate, stubbing his toe. Having recovered from the pain, he walked to the nearest bus stop. Then he realised it was oddly quiet for a Tuesday morning. He looked around and saw people slumped everywhere.

Puzzled, he scratched his head, like monkeys do in cartoons. Steve was hairy like a monkey.

He paused for a while, having stopped scratching his head. A metaphorical light bulb lit up above his head.

"Oh... I see." He grinned. "OK, guys, I know what's going on," he shouted. "I'm on TV, aren't I? C'mon, prank over."

Silence.

"Guys."

No response.

He walked over to the nearest slumped figure and prodded it. It didn't move. He poked the figure next to it and that one didn't move either.

He shook another and yelled at it and hit it and still it didn't move. He checked for signs of breathing, and realised it was dead.

Steve began to panic. He flapped his arms like a chicken and paced around for a bit.

Although a wholly useless action, humans do tend to do these kinds of things. 

He looked around and saw the whole street was covered in corpses; people had simply died on the spot and lay immobile, frozen.

"Hello? I said, HELLO? IS ANYONE OUT THERE?"

The reader will realise that of course, only those within Steve's vicinity would be able to hear this, and that was also on the condition that they were alive/weren't deaf. He took out his mobile and called his mum. It went straight to voicemail.

"Uh, Mum, hey. I know I never call - sorry - but I wanted to see if you were OK. Right. Bye"

He called his best mate, Martin. It rang for a while, but then went to voicemail.

"MARTIN YOU BASTARD, GIVE ME BACK MY TWENTY POUNDS. Oh wait, are you OK? If so, call me back as soon as you get this. And meet me at the bar round the corner. Preferably with the twenty pounds."

He stood there and rang every number on his phone, but no one picked up.

A front page of the Metro flew about in the wind. Steve chased after it, tripping over dead bodies. He caught it eventually. The headlines read: "DOOMSDAY APPROACHES". Apparently he'd missed Doomsday because he'd fallen asleep, and now it appeared everyone had died.

Steve milled around for a bit and pondered (something he didn't do very often).

His first thought (and later he was ashamed of this) was to raid the Krispy Kreme store, because he'd realised that since everyone was dead, no one could stop him from just helping himself to whatever he wanted.

While eating a doughnut, he had a series of thoughts. He thought about his love for doughnuts. Then he thought about love. Then he thought about the people he loved. Then he realised all of them were probably dead and he was probably the last human on the planet, all alone with no future.

He heaved a heavy sigh.

However, the reader will know that it is very unlikely for there to be just one solitary human immune to a particular disease. Out of a population of 7 billion, the likelihood of at least one other person being immune is highly likely.

Steve ate four more doughnuts, jeered at the dead Krispy Kreme vendor ("HA HA, I got free doughnuts!"), then went home and threw up.

                                                *          *          *

Electricity had stopped. Only batteries could be used. He tried using a radio to find if there was someone else out there, but there was just a perpetual crackling that meant nothing.

This carried on for weeks. He could walk quite casually into any store and help himself to anything he wanted. It was fun. Kind of. He talked to himself, or to the festering dead, to stop himself from going insane. Perhaps he was already going insane. Who knew?

The city was beginning to smell. The millions of corpses littered about were starting to decompose and all Steve (not being of a particularly intelligent nature) could come up with was to stick tissues up his nose to stop from smelling the dead.

He toyed briefly with the idea of killing himself. It was a depressing prospect, this being alone forever. Cat had run off with some other cats and had left him utterly alone. The human population had ditched him and now even his cat had done the same. But he couldn’t bring himself to commit suicide.

However, things changed dramatically one day, while Steve was wandering around the city with a doughnut in his hand. He espied a dot moving about in the distance, and at first, thought it must be a dog or something. A small flicker of hope still existed within him, and he hurriedly neared the dot. What if it were a human? What if it were a beautiful young lady? After all, if it were just he and this young lady, it would be up to them to repopulate the world... He began to run, getting closer and closer to the moving figure.

To be continued...