The Last Call
Maya stood on the fire escape, iPhone pressed to her ear, the screen glowing with Elena's name. Inside the apartment, Elena was something else now.
"Please," Maya whispered, though her friend couldn't hear her anymore. Elena's last voicemail played again—the message she'd left three hours ago, when she'd still been Elena. *"Maya, I'm coming over. I think I was scratched at work. The hospital—there's something wrong with the patients."*
The broadcast had been clear: anyone exposed should isolate immediately. Maya had told her to stay away. Elena had come anyway.
Maya looked at her iPhone screen—photos of them at college graduation, at Maya's wedding, at Elena's promotion last month. Her best friend. Her person.
Inside, something slammed against the door. A guttural sound, not quite human anymore.
"I'm sorry," Maya said to the door, to the iPhone, to the memory of Elena's laugh. She'd locked the fire escape door from the outside. She'd had to.
Below, six stories down, the East River reflected the city's burning skyline—water dark and endless, carrying away what remained of the world they'd known. Maya wondered if Elena had felt pain when she turned. If she'd been scared. If she'd hated Maya for locking her in.
Another scream from inside. Not Elena's voice anymore. The zombies didn't scream like that when they turned—their vocal cords were already wrong, already something else.
"You were my friend," Maya said, and the words were inadequate, small against the scale of everything lost.
She gripped the iPhone until her knuckles turned white. Elena's contacts, her photos, her voice messages—this was all that remained of who she'd been. Soon the network would fail. Soon this digital ghost would vanish too.
Below, the water waited. Maya could jump. It would be quick. The zombies couldn't swim.
The fire escape door groaned under another impact. Maya looked at the iPhone one last time—Elena's smiling face from a happier time—and pressed delete on the voicemail.
Then she climbed over the railing toward the water.