Day's End

I should be dead. That breezy autumnal afternoon, eating a chicken roll for lunch in the park opposite work, seemed as banal and boring as any of the preceding days. Just another day. Until the screaming started. There was confusion at first. People staggered out of the office. Some were running. Some falling. I saw the receptionist, Jane, trip and fall. I started to roll my wheelchair to go help her - until she lifted her bloodstained jaw, and looked through me with cloudy, soulless eyes. She hissed. And then - she came for me. Just when this cranky, weatherbeaten old biker in a chair was seconds from carking it - my young apprentice Justin dragged her off me. He tried to restrain her, speak to her - but midsentence his words became a howl. I saw the moment he knew. He dragged her to the ground, held tight - and yelled. "Gooooooo..." I should have died that day. This is the story of how I lived.