The Last Match

The orange sphere hung suspended against the sky — sunset bleeding into twilight at the Palm Beach Padel Club. Elena adjusted her visor, sweat dripping down her spine, watching Carlos stretch his calf against the wire fence.

"You're not even trying," she said, not meeting his eyes.

"I'm tired, El. Twelve-hour shifts at the hospital will do that."

"You're always tired lately." She bounced the ball on the court's artificial turf, a hollow sound that echoed between them. "Even when you're here, you're not really here. You're like a fucking zombie."

Carlos laughed, bitter and short. "You want to know what's funny? I saw an actual patient today. Dead on the table, came back after three minutes flatline. Looked more alive than I feel most mornings."

Elena didn't respond. She served instead — a hard, angry shot that clipped the net. The ball rolled to a stop near the glass wall.

Beyond the court, palm fronds rustled in the evening breeze. A siren wailed in the distance, another one, closer this time. Carlos's phone lit up on the bench — emergency alert, they both knew the pattern by now.

"We should go," he said quietly.

"One more point."

"Elena —"

"One. More. Point."

They played. Her movements were sharp, precise. He was stumbling, half-hearted. The orange ball arced between them — back, forth, back — like a conversation they didn't know how to have anymore. She remembered their first match here, three years ago. The way he'd looked at her across the net, like she was the only thing worth watching. Now he wouldn't even hold her gaze.

The screams started before they'd finished the game. Not far — parking lot, maybe the clubhouse.

Carlos froze. "That's not —"

"Run." Elena grabbed his wrist, her grip crushing. "The service gate, behind the courts. Go."

They were running past the pro shop, past the neat rows of palm trees, past the orange blossoms that scented the warm night air. She could hear the thing — the things — behind them, that wet shuffling sound, that hunger. Carlos stumbled and she yanked him up, adrenaline flooding her veins, and in that moment she realized she'd been running from this for months. From the way they'd stopped touching. From the silences. From the slow, terrible transformation of love into habit, habit into resentment, resentment into something that just needed to be put down.

They reached the service gate. His hand shook as he fumbled with the latch. Behind them, a voice called out — familiar, wrong.

Elena looked back.

Across the padel court, under the orange glow of the floodlights, their club pro stood swaying. His skin was wrong. His eyes were wrong. But the way he moved toward them, arms out, desperate and grasping —

She remembered Carlos saying dead is easier than some ways of living.

"Open it," she said, and her voice didn't sound like her own anymore. "Open the fucking gate."

They drove north, windows up, AC humming, not speaking. The radio was all static and emergency broadcasts. Elena watched her reflection in the glass — tired eyes, mouth set in a line she couldn't remember forming. Carlos gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles were white.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly.

"For what?"

"For the last six months. For being the zombie."

She thought about the thing behind them. About what it had become. About what they'd become.

"We're running out of gas," she said, which was true and also wasn't.

He nodded once, eyes on the dark road ahead. "I know."