The End

It's a tapestry of carnage as far as I can see, an experiment that has gone awry, the scourge of science. The rampant growth spreads through the town like cancer. Its colossal wall of vegetation rolls over houses and buildings and is headed toward me. Snarled up in its green thicket are the bloody bodies of townsfolk that have been crushed or speared by it. I can hear their bleating cries as they flail in their feeble attempts to escape. I can hear the yawns and groans of the juggernaut as it sprouts new sprigs and branches that stretch out to pin me and a girl against the door of the bank. At the last moment, I grab the girl’s arm and fling us both inside the building, slamming the door shut on the deafening wail of the slaughter outside.

"We'll be safe here," I tell her as we find refuge in the vacuous silence of the lobby.

"We will?" she scoffs incredulously.

The bank lobby is a huge room, ornately furnished, with a high ceiling crowned by a prism-shaped skylight with translucent etched-glass. The row of teller cages left abandoned now from the evacuation. In the center of the lobby are two bulky pedestal tables. A brightly painted mural depicting pioneers conducting their daily affairs runs along the top of a wainscot wall. I pound my palms against the wall to test its sturdiness. The bank is an old building made of stone blocks. "They don't make them like this anymore," I assure the girl as I survey our temporary quarters.

"This is the craziest thing I've ever seen!" I say to myself in disbelief as I stare at the door. "I remember my uncle brought home a large, sharp machete from his stay in Brazil,” I say louder without addressing the girl directly. “He told me he used it to hack out swaths in the jungle, building shelters, and getting food. He even killed a man or too with it. Funny, the jungle didn't seem that formidable back then or maybe I was just naive to appreciate the enormity of it.” I continue my reconnaissance of the room then stop and scratch my head. “Sure could use that machete now," I add.

I stop at a locked fire cabinet. I shatter its glass front with my elbow and remove the axe that is stored there. I go to the door of the bank and kneel down and chop off the tiny pea-yellow sprouts that are protruding in through the crack of the threshold. I stand and look at the door. "You know," I say as I turn and face the girl, "we’ll make it out okay. Help should be here soon, and this building is solid as a rock." I look up at the glass transom above the door as it darkens by creepy shadows of leafy vines that are crawling out over it.

The girl slides down the wall and squats with her forearms on her knees and her head resting on her forearms as though taking a siesta. She has long, wavy brown hair that is parted in the middle. She is quiet and still. There is a presence to her that makes the rest of the crazy world seem so far removed. She senses me staring at her and looks up.

“What are you looking at?” she asks.

I shrug and go over and slide down next to her. I rest my axe off to the side. "We're bound to be rescued," I reassure her to bolster her spirits, "I'm certain the lab has emergency plans for something like this. There should be helicopters overhead anytime now." The girl is quiet and stares at the door that knocks. She has a clean, fresh scent about her and wears a white smock and tight beige corduroy jeans that have been worn down in spots to a soft sheen. She has a round face with squinting brown eyes, thick lashes, and a small nose. Her complexion is peachy and accented by the ochre tint of her lips. "Don't worry, I'll get you out of here," I promise her. She turns her head and gazes at me with stirring eyes. There’s warmth to her that pushes all the coldness of the room away.

"Gosh you're pretty!" I utter unexpectedly.

"Am I pretty?" she asks in a quizzical and coquettish tone, as she combs her hair back with her fingers and then stares right at me with a dauntless and daring look.

"Yes, you're…you’re quite a…a lovely…lovely looking girl,” I stammer somewhat abash by my assertion. “I’m surprised…surprised I’ve never seen you before," I continue self-consciously, sensing she could somehow read my mind. I divert my eyes and look out at the lobby. "I'm not sure why I never noticed you before,” I continue. Are you new in town? Have we met before? You look familiar.”

The glass in the transom above the door explodes, strewing a shower of shards into the lobby. The sudden and booming thud startles her and she shrinks up close to me as a huge, fibrous vine shoots through the breach and plummet to the floor. We sit there clinging to each other as the intruding greenery furiously expands out in front of us. I pull her closer and begin nervously fingering the flesh of her tummy beneath her smock. I gently kiss her temple to ease her anxiety. She remains quiet with a demure countenance. I begin to kiss the corner of her lips that twitch with each touch. Our clings turn to passionate embraces that overwhelm all the turmoil around us.

The door creaks and whines as it strains and bulges then blows off it hinges and a thick branch bursts into the center of the room and rapidly unfurls. Splintered pieces of the door are embedded and dangle on the growing foliage. The girl withdraws and stands and slowly disrobes in front of me, seemingly oblivious to the urgency all around her. The lustrous shapes and tones of her flesh shimmers and captivate me and the whole damnation of the world is, itself, damned by her mere image. She stands over me as a blossoming woman that possesses all the beauty of the world. I hastily disrobe then recline on my back. I rub my hands along her smooth calves, prodding her to join me.

"We must hurry," she insists as she sits down atop me and begins fondling and kissing my face. She sits up. Her face is like a flower with velvety petals radiating round it. Then she bends back down and rubs her hands out over my chest, digging her fingertips into my shoulders as she flourishes in her intoxication.

The burgeoning vegetation surges across the lobby floor, smashing the two writing tables like flimsy wood crates, rolling them both up into its massive snarl. The reverberating ruckus of the destruction is deafening and its voracious growth is stifling. The skylight dislodges and falls down past the mural and shatters out on the floor. The vegetation creeps and crawls in through every nook and cranny of the lobby, entangling everything in its path as it advances. The painted pioneers are covered by the limbs of the snarling growth that weaves their way about the gawking faces. The ceiling crumbles overhead by the mounting weight and the light in the room is being blocked out and dimness falls over us.

"So, you’re my hero!" she asserts. We roll over with me landing on top. It is as though all the time in the world has come down to these few precious moments that we have somehow stolen from the inexorable doom. She wraps her arms around my neck and locks her legs around my waist. "Hurry!" she urges. Her eyes are shut and her face is complaisant and serene. I feel the tender leafage creep up my ankles, tickling my flesh. There are sprigs growing and winding round my legs. I feel as though I'm the vine growing in her, sprouting a bud that quickly swells and bursts into an unraveling blossom of silky petals. She groans and turns her head off to the side as another flower bursts forth and fades away. The prickly branches whip and thrash against our skin and tentacles begin to entwine our bodies together. “Let the world know our act,” I whisper breathlessly in her ear. “Let it know we loved among this horrid nightmare.”

Our exuberance quickly turns to dismay as we find ourselves being dragged off into the spiny briar. We rail and struggle against being swallowed up by it. I grab the axe and flail it about the bramble, trying to free us. Then, the harried creature-like thicket suddenly lifts us up in its gullet-like hollow and spits us out across the floor of the lobby. We scramble up and dash into the vault anteroom. I swing the iron-bar gate shut and close the door behind it.

We lean against the door, panting and exhausted, listening to our hearts thumping away. We begin to chortle at the madness of the situation and the exhilaration of our escape. Our laughter fills the hollow anteroom that leads to the vault and drowns out the noise from the lobby. We become giddy as we realize that we had survived, but had forsaken our clothes and are left naked.

"I can see the headlines now," I joke, "Survivors Uncovered."

"Dear me!" she says with waggish airs, "I have absolutely nothing to wear for my coming out." She pompously shakes her limp wrist and giggles at her own spoof.

“Survivors Bare All,” I add.

Our whims turn to apprehension as the bangs and thumps outside the door grow louder. We stand by the door and hold each other tight. “You rescued me,” she whispers to me. “You saved me.”

“Maybe we were just kicked out?” I kid half-heartedly.

"I hope they have blankets when they come," she says in a more sober and modest tone as she pulls away and begins snooping about the small room.

"They always have blankets in the choppers," I tell her as I sit imperiously on a metal chair at a desk and beckon her to join me. The chamber is set up as a security station and on the desk is a clipboard with a sign-in sheet nearly full with signatures and next to it a key ring full of keys. The emergency lamps mounted at the corners of the ceiling beam down on us like spotlights of a theatrical stage. She settles on my lap and cuddles up close. She has splendorous skin that is soft as satin with a spicy scent.

"I used to sit on my father's lap like this," she whispers in a low, sultry voice, then lets loose with an impetuous guffaw as she flings her head back and adds more amorously: "of course, with clothes on." She rests her head on my shoulder. "I remember when I was fourteen,” she begins talking in a soothing tone, “and my parents left me at a girl's camp for the summer. It was the most horrible time imaginable. There was nothing to do and I felt like a prisoner. The other girls were all geeks, and the counselor was hitting on me. He was such a leech, with his lewd conversations and obscene touches that made my skin crawl. I just wanted out. And just when I thought I couldn't bear it anymore, just when I was feeling the pits, abandoned, desperate, ready to do anything that was wild and crazy, my father drives up to bring me home. He came to fetch me because he thought I wasn't having a good enough time there. I had never felt more relieved in my life. Father was wonderful that way. He always seemed to know what I wanted, and sometimes I just wanted out. That was such a marvelous feeling back then. I miss it.”

A loud wrenching sound bolts through the anteroom as the iron-grille gate is wrested from its anchors, followed by thumps of uncoiling branches strike the door menacingly.

“I remember a camping trip with my mother," I tell her to allay her concerns and to share a secret with her. "Mom had lost her gold charm bracelet while swimming in the river and I spent the whole afternoon diving for it as she watched from the shore. The charm bracelet was irreplaceable with little trinkets and tokens she had collected throughout her life. I could see her get more and more discouraged as the time passed. But I was persistent and wouldn't stop until I found it for her. I still remember that final plunge into the icy, cold water when, with my lungs aching and ready to burst, I saw the glittering bracelet between some rocks. I snatched the bracelet in hand and shoved off from the bottom with my feet and shot out of the water, waving the bracelet high in the air. My mother was so happy she jumped for joy. I can still see the admiration and love in her eyes when I brought that prized bracelet back to her. I was so proud at that moment, proud to do such a wonderful thing. It made her so happy."

"Shhh!” the girl abruptly interrupts. "Listen! I think I hear a helicopter."

We both listen. A dampened, whirling thud comes through the vent in the wall. We stand and go over to the vent. "You need to crawl through there and get out and let them know we're here," she tells me.

I go and retrieve the axe and slide the chair over to the wall. I stand on the chair and whack the axe into the screen and rip the metal grate from the opening. I measure the opening by running my hands along the edges and then, shimmying carefully up, I slither into the cold tunnel and wriggle myself completely in.

My flesh tugs and squeaks against the dry metal sheets as I crawl forward toward a faint panel of light that glimmers in the distance. I reach a section covered with smooth, tender leaves that brush and titillate my skin as I pass through it. I grab hold of a vine that runs beneath me and I pull my sweat-drenched body along the foliage until I ram head-on to the matted clump of roots and branches that meets me deep in the passageway. I stop and rest and study the menacing and brooding mass in front of me. For a moment, I feel as though I am intruding, an uninvited guest, disturbing a sacred nesting place or secret lair where I don’t belong. Then it gives off a dismissing imperious grumble that riles me and I holler as I thrust myself into its gnarly heap, smashing it with my head and shoulders, butting it again and again, straining to shove the impacted obstacle out of my way. I pull back to rest and catch my breath. I find myself awash in a pulpy mash leaving my hands slick that renders them useless.

"Are you there yet?" I hear the girl's shallow voice echo amid my exhausted pants and the swirling ringing in the darkness.

I feel the sprouting thorns of the stubble pricking my skin and I heave forward again, entangling myself deeper in the fibrous roots of the morass. I withdraw and then thrust back in, ramming my head up into the thicket that rakes and scratches my face and shoulders. I pull back and then lunge forward, straining with all my might to break through to the white flittering daylight just beyond. I withdraw and lie there exhausted and weakened. I stare at the coarse, thick mesh of gleaming intricacies that block my way. It is a tangled, irrational imbroglio, impregnable in its magnitude and incomprehensible in its purpose that no man can unravel or vanquish. “You God damn son of a bitch!” I holler and spit at that ungodly mass. And then with one final assault I immerse myself deep into it. "Fuck you!" I spew and yank myself back from its clutches and slither down the hollow passage to the room, where I plop out of the hole and fall to the floor.

I stand there, stunned by it all. My body is veined like a leaf with scratches and lacerations and smirched by a film of drying perspiration and pulp. I look over at the girl. She is covered in green as though she has sprouted her own foliage. "Do you like it?" she asks, as she spins around like a fashion model. "I made a dress out of money from the vault and some adhesive tape I found." I go to her and put my hands around her waist and tell her how wonderful she looks.

"Well, are they out there? Are they coming to rescue us?" she asks as she anxiously searches my eyes for the answer.

"There's nothing out there", I report matter-of-factly. "No helicopters. No rescue teams. Nothing. We can weather it out in the vault," I throw out as our next move. "That should get us through until someone comes to save us." I watch as her searching stare turns to alarm, then anger.

"You promised me!" she scolds, pulling away, wrapping her arms about her waist as though overcome by a chill. "You told me that a helicopter would be coming and that there would be a rescue team. That we'd be saved," she admonishes scornfully as she stands sullen and unapproachable.

The door to the vestibule blows open and flies off its hinges. The huge, horrifying mass of life that has gone irretrievably beyond its bounds now lies ominously in front of us. Slivers of the door still hang on its tendrils. Little red blossoms shaped like grapnel are splattered through it. Earthly debris and entrails are tangled up in its barbs and dangle like ornaments. It almost resembles a ferocious face, but without the eyes. We quickly gather what we can and go into the vault. I swing the heavy metal door shut and lock it. The clank of its lock unnervingly resounds deep in my chest.

She moves off to the far end of the vault as I settle down on the floor. I'm limp and exhausted and stare at the metallic levers and wheels of the door. I know quite well it was the only way in with no way out. I feel betrayed and resentful. But I am also beginning to concede the inevitable. Had I been stronger, perhaps this would have been avoided.

"Wasn't there anything out there?" she asks subdued and sulky.

"Nothing, just the will o' the wisp," I utter in my weariness.

“Why did you drag me in here?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I just thought it was the right thing to do.”

She leans against the metal wall and morosely stares at her somber reflection in the golden sheen. I can feel her silence scolding me. "At least we'll die with lots of money," she tosses out facetiously.

"We may as well make the most of it. We'll probably be here awhile," I tell her as I stand.

She draws out pull strings from some empty money bags that are stacked on a shelf. She knots them together and ties them around her waist cinching up her crepe-like dress. "Maybe I can make something out of these money bags that will cover me up better," she flouts, "maybe a robe?"

"Maybe a frock," I peevishly retort.

Her look is detached and forbidding. Her damp hair is pulled back off her face, her face cold and pale, her eyes constricted and intense, and her lips drawn in a sneer. She has bony knees and a prominent pointed nose.

"You know," I offer up in an effort to take the edge off, "all this sort of makes me that proverbial last man on earth we've heard so much about. And you," I grin congenially, "that proverbial last woman."

"You're reprehensible, that's what you are,” she snaps. “There's nothing more to talk about. You’re not that wonderful macho man you made yourself out to be, are you? You’re not my hero I’m looking for, are you? Hero, ha! You’re despicable...abominable!”

“What about the lobby? What was that?”

“What about it?” she snaps back petulantly. "I was expecting more than bluster," she adds. "Shit! I’m tired of all thus crazy mumbo-jumbo bullshit." She stares at me with pondering contempt. "Ah, but you’re different," she derides in a low, disarming tone as she tauntingly sashays up just in front of me and stops. "You're the last man on earth,” she says to my face with a snicker. “Well, they were all the last man on earth in their own puny pathetic groveling way. You’re nothing special.”

Her eyes glowers at me and her cutting words fill me with rage. I want to take her right now. Show her what kind of man she is dealing with. Show her the full brunt of my force. I want to pin her frail shoulders to the wall and rip that phony garment off of her and have her flesh. I want to pop her breast open with my hands and ravage her jeering femininity into submission. After all, I had saved her! And she should be grateful! Let her last vision of me be that of the beast. Let her last gasp of air be a whimper. But I stop suddenly in my tracks when I catch sight of my crazed reflection in the shiny metal wall of the vault. I’m not that lecherous boob she makes me out to be. I’m not like that at all. I’m simply a man searching for that glittering bracelet in a shimmering stream. Can’t she see that? How can she trivialize me so? How can I be so misjudged? I’m as much a prisoner to my desires as she is to hers. We’re trapped in this thing together and she should understand that.

“I understand,” I tell her in a conciliatory tone. “We’re both stuck here and should try to make the best of it,” I add as I approach her.

"You understand," she scoffs with an angered glance and coldly pulls away. “You’ll understanding anything if it gets you what you want. Well, do you understand I want to be left alone? Stop looking at me! I’m tired of always being on display. My life has been nothing more than a parade for gawking men. You’re just like them. You’re sickening! I was to be a photographer and live a fascinating life, travel the world, photographing exotic places and people. I was going to be someone other than some man’s prize and subject. Do you know where I was headed,” she emphatically asks, “when you dragged me in here? I was going to a job interview for a travel magazine. You’ll never understand!” she wails. “I thought you had a plan? Ha! Some plan! I thought you were going to save me,” she adds as she stops and stares intently at me with her weary eyes. I'm trapped here” she pleas in despair and looks away. Her lips seem to silently ruminate on those words as she becomes more and more agitated by the consternation swelling up inside her. “I need to get out of here. Get out! I need to feel…feel free again. Don’t you understand? There’s got to be a way out. I’m suffocating. I need to get out of here,” she anxiously implores and begins trembling and gasping.

“There’s nothing we can do and nowhere to go,” I tell her. I wish I had been stronger. I wish I was a better man. Maybe that would have changed things.”

“You're despicable,” she spits at me with a spurned look. “Despicable! Why didn’t you save me?" she scolds as she struggles to free herself from my hold. "You fucking bastard!" she screams. "You're just like all the fucking rest of them. Let go of me! Just go and leave me here alone!" she hollers, flailing her arms against my chest and kicking my shin. “You’re not my father! Her body stiffens and she arches back, turning her face upward, her eyes are closed and her face serene, almost angelic. She moans as though praying in a slow, shallow suffocating breath then she slings herself upright and spits at me again in a despiteful and defiant way before she limply collapses and sobs in my arms.

A baleful tapping resonates through the metal door, and beyond it, the loud clamor like lowing cows. I can hear the clatter of the building blocks being dismantled one by one. Slivers of vegetation have worked their way through the jamb of the door and the battery pack lights on the wall begin to flicker.