The Last Normal Tuesday

The hat was ridiculous — a fedora, really, perched atop the head of a man who hadn't been cool since 2008. But Sarah had bought it for him two months before she died, back when they still made jokes about growing old together. Back when the world hadn't ended.

David adjusted the fedora in the rearview mirror, checking his reflection one last time. He looked like a ghost haunting his own life. The iphone on the passenger seat lit up with another notification that would never come — everyone he knew was gone now, or worse.

Outside the car, the bear emerged from the treeline.

It had been a black bear once, back when such distinctions mattered. Now it moved with that terrible, lurching gait they all had. Its fur was matted with dark fluids, its eyes clouded with that same milky white emptiness. A zombie bear. The universe had run out of subtlety along with mercy.

David's hand hovered over the ignition. He could drive away, leave this cursed stretch of highway and its undead wildlife behind. But he was tired of running. The tank was empty anyway.

The bear's head snapped toward the car. Even undead, it retained some animal instinct. It began to shamble forward, each step a terrible echo of what nature had intended.

David reached for the glove compartment, where he kept the pistol he'd never quite found the courage to use on himself. Sarah had made him promise to stay alive, to find other survivors, to rebuild. But she hadn't seen what he'd seen. She hadn't watched their daughter tear out her husband's throat with teeth that had just learned to speak full sentences.

The iphone buzzed again. A miracle? No — just an automated system message from three years ago, looping endlessly through the dead networks. Your iCloud storage is almost full.

"Almost," David laughed, a dry, cracked sound. The bear was at his window now, its massive paw leaving a bloody smear across the glass. He could see the dried flesh hanging from its jaw, the exposed bone where fur should have been.

He straightened his hat. Sarah would have wanted him to face this with dignity, whatever dignity meant in a world that had become one long, sick joke.

The window rolled down. The bear's breath — a putrid combination of decay and something impossibly worse — filled the car.

David closed his eyes and thought about Tuesday mornings, coffee, the way Sarah hummed when she made breakfast. The last normal Tuesday. The last time anything made sense.

He put his phone in his pocket and waited.