Leo Cormack had long lost track of time—a week, two, maybe even a month had merged into one endless nightmare of a day. During the day, he sank into heavy sleep, hiding in the bunker beneath the first floor of his cottage. At night, he drank himself into a state where the surrounding horror became only a faint echo.
Repairing the solar panels, checking the cameras, maintaining the filters—he had abandoned all of it, drowning in despair. At night, with a bottle of whiskey in his hand, he sat in the bunker, muttering curses until alcohol clouded his mind. Over time, fear dissolved somewhat, and he began venturing outside at night. He sat on the rusty garden swings in his yard, surrounded by an overgrown lawn and the wreckage of smashed or rain-rotted cars. There, under the weak moonlight, he drank until morning, paying no attention to the surrounding danger—neither the mad ones nor the military drones.
Why he hadn't been spotted yet, he didn't understand. Perhaps luck—he was one lucky bastard. Of the entire City's population, he alone had retained his sanity after the 2030 catastrophe. But more likely, it was because with each military raid, the mad ones grew fewer. Initially, the military hunted both day and night. But after the mad ones learned to sneak up in the dark, grabbing the throats of relaxed soldiers, nighttime operations ceased. The losses forced the military to rely more on drones at night, patrolling the streets, detecting any light—a lamp or a flicker in a house. Upon detection, an armed group was immediately dispatched. During the day, clean-up operations were conducted by large, well-equipped squads methodically sweeping the streets.
Sitting on the swing with a bottle had become a sort of ritual for Leo, the only entertainment in this dead world. He held calm, measured conversations with himself, ignoring the devastation around him—smashed cars, overgrown weeds, rare rustles of wind. It was one of the few activities that brought a semblance of rest. Lazily glancing across the yard and street, he noticed shadows but had grown used to considering them tricks of his imagination or remnants of mad ones.
This continued until one of the warm nights in late July 2030. Drunk, he was again sitting on the swing, swaying and muttering another of his wild speeches while the moon barely pierced the night fog. The whiskey burned pleasantly in his throat, and he almost dozed off when his gaze caught movement on the street.
For several minutes, Leo had been watching a dark figure walking in the dark street when he suddenly realized it was moving with remarkable awareness. Not at all like the mad ones with their chaotic movements, always dragging something along the street. Finally awake, he strained his vision. As if not believing, he slowly began to rise.
A woman.
His jaw dropped. He didn't even try to catch the bottle of whiskey that fell at his feet. Holding his breath, he froze and simply watched. He closed his eyes and opened them again. She hadn't disappeared. Still walking calmly down the street, carefully avoiding the wreckage of smashed cars in her path.
Looking at the woman, Leo felt a growing excitement. She obviously hadn't noticed him yet. She walked along the road, avoiding the wrecked cars, her head bowed, looking at her feet. He saw her light hair, tousled by the warm waves of heated summer air as she moved. Her arms were free; her short-sleeved blouse was wrinkled but intact... After so much forced solitude, it was hard to believe what was happening. His mind couldn't immediately accept what he was seeing. He just stood there, not moving from the spot, hidden from the moonlight in the shadow of the house, silently staring at her and blinking in astonishment.
A woman. Not poisoned by the gas, not driven mad. A rational person walking alone at night along an empty road in a dead city. He stood and looked at her, trying to understand if this vision was alcohol-induced or, after all, an incredible truth.
Judging by her appearance, she was middle-aged. Now that she had come closer, he could see her properly. Around 35, maybe a little older. She wore a wrinkled and stained but intact white sleeveless blouse and a denim miniskirt. Thin, long arms. And long hair almost completely covering her face. Leo could already make out, in the night silence, the crunch of glass scattered on the asphalt under her shoes.
Well, Leo, you've finally drunk yourself to insanity—that was the first thing that came to his astonished head. He probably would have taken that much more calmly than the fact that she might be real. Indeed, he had long been cautiously preparing himself for such an outcome. It would have been logical. People dying of thirst in the desert see mirages—lakes, rivers full of water, seas. And why shouldn't a man who has gone mad from loneliness see a woman strolling on a warm July night along a nighttime road in a city full of corpses and mad people?
Understanding came suddenly: no, this was not a product of his alcohol-fogged imagination. Unless his hearing was deceiving him along with his sight, which would be incredible—now he distinctly heard the sound of her footsteps, the crunch of glass. And the growing realization that this was no mirage—the calm stride, the measured swing of her long, thin arms... She still hadn't seen him and calmly looked at her feet. Where was she from? Where was she headed? Why wasn't she afraid to walk alone?
He understood that this was all real. Suddenly. Instantly. Without having time to think anything through properly, in one moment forgetting all his fears, he waved his arms at her, trying to attract her attention.
"Hey! You're not mad! Stop, I'm coming to you!" he shouted, rushing toward the road.
A pause followed. And absolute silence. She stopped abruptly, petrified, and seemed to shrink from fear.
"Rational! REAL!" Leo shouted on the run. He wanted to shout something else, but he suddenly felt a spasm; his tongue stiffened, and his brain stopped functioning, refusing to acknowledge reality.
"REAL!"—this word kept slipping from his lips...
And then, completely unexpectedly, she sharply turned around and began to run with all her might back down the road. Leo unsteadily stopped, unsure what to do, but a moment later he rushed after her, as if something had exploded inside him. He ran across the asphalt littered with broken glass and sharp pieces from smashed cars, shouting as he went:
"Stop!!! Don't run!!!"
But the woman stubbornly didn't stop. He saw the flicker of her denim skirt; she raced down the road cluttered with debris and wrecked cars, skillfully avoiding obstacles. He realized shouting wouldn't stop her. A thought horrified him: If he didn't catch her now, she would disappear forever! And he would be alone again. And this time, he would go mad for good. No, he couldn't allow that!
With one leap, he vaulted over the fence onto the road and ran after her with all his might.
She's real—this thought occupied his entire consciousness. Not mad. A real woman! She was, of course, weaker and ran slower than him. Almost immediately, Leo noticed that he was quickly catching up to her.
"I won't harm you! Stop, PLEASE!" he shouted on the run, but she didn't react to his pleas.
Suddenly, not noticing an obstacle in the dark, she tripped over a piece of metal lying on the road and fell right onto the sharp glass littering the asphalt. Leo jumped to her, intending to help her up, but she recoiled and, trying to get up, slipped awkwardly and fell again, this time on her stomach. Her denim skirt rode up above her knees; she lay motionless.
"Let me help, give me your hand," panted Leo as he arrived, reaching out to her. With a quiet cry, she knocked his hand away and jumped to her feet. Her hair, disheveled from the fall, covered her face. He grabbed her elbow, but with her free hand she slashed his forehead and cheek with her long nails. He cried out in pain and released her, and she, taking advantage of his confusion, began to run again.
But Leo caught up with her in one leap and grabbed her shoulders.
"Don't be afraid..."
But he didn't get to finish. A burning pain stopped him—a strike with her nails landed right on his face. A fight broke out. Their heavy breathing mixed with the noise of the struggle—they rolled on the asphalt among the trash and remnants of smashed cars.
"Calm down, listen to me," he shouted, but she kept resisting. She lunged again, trying to get up, and under his fingers the fabric of her blouse tore. The clothing couldn't withstand it and came apart, revealing white shoulders and a pale chest. With a fierce scream, she tried to sink her nails into him.
"Calm down already! ENOUGH!" Leo shouted—and not understanding what he was doing, slapped her in response. The blow sent the light hair covering her face flying back.
In the uncertain moonlight, huge, empty, foggy eyes were revealed to him.
Mad.
Leo froze. Staring back at him were those same unblinking, empty eyes, as if veiled in fog.
Taking advantage of his confusion, with the fury of a predator, she instantly sank her sharp teeth into his arm. In a moment, she bit off his finger. Blood flooded his hand and her mouth, from which the bloodied finger protruded. A second later, she prepared to lunge at him again.
Shock paralyzed Leo, but the survival instinct took over. Realizing there was no choice, he drew the revolver and fired.
A single shot rang out, tearing through the dead silence of the City. The woman slowly sank onto the asphalt; her pale face with empty eyes and the finger sticking out of her mouth froze in a nightmarish sight. Leo collapsed beside her, sobbing, clutching his mutilated hand.
Silence returned, but now it was saturated with his grief and the realization—hope had turned into yet another illusion.