The last human on Earth sat alone in bleak, bare room. There was a knock on the door.

She sighed and took up her rifle, which held the last round of ammo she possessed, and stood from the tiny table with its single flickering candle. She walked slowly to the door as the floor creaked and the clock ticked. She was weak from confinement, illness, loneliness, and lack of good food and clean water, but she still had all the time there was left in the world. 

She swung the heavy metal bar from the door, unlocked it, and opened it quickly, just as the last zombie on Earth was about to knock again with his thin hand, bone-bare at the knuckles. He swayed awkwardly and almost lost his tenuous balance, staggering back on ankles weakened by dry creaky tendons. He lacked a jaw, but carried a notepad. He seemed to be as weak as she felt.

She stood, rifle at her side, and waited as he scrawled out a message, holding the carpenter’s pencil as if it were a dagger.

[i]more?[/i]

The question mark was a simple slash of desperation.

She shook her head.

He roughly tore the written page away and let it fall without crumpling it. He stabbed his words onto the next page.

[i]then shoot me[/i]

She stared at the parody of life before her, and the yearning expression almost permanently fixed in the leathery skin around its sunken eyes.

She shook her head again.

The creature stood, staring at her. Zombies could show enormous patience. There was only one thing they had to do. It tore at the paper, then wrote again.

[i]lonely[/i]

Her jaw sagged. She read the word over, then raised her eyes again. The yearning look had not changed. Her face hardened, lips forming a grim line. 

[i]please it must be [u]fresh[/u][/i]

It had scribbled a harsh violent underline below [i]fresh.[/i] She took a firm grip on the rifle, ready to use the stock to fend him off, and swung the door shut as swiftly as she could. She heard the clatter of his bony elbows and knees against the door and it shook as she swung the heavy bar back into place with a definite clang.

She swayed, wheezing at the effort, leaning upon the rifle. As she caught her breath, there was a rustle as a piece of paper was shoved under the door.

[i]please do it through the heart[/i]

She turned, using the rifle as a staff, and made her way to the grimy mattress on the floor. 

She’d seen the bits of twitching flesh, the limbs wriggling like wounded snakes, torsos ripping themselves to bits as they wriggled over rocky ground. The ones that seemed to be suffering most were the ones that still had heads.

She curled up on her bed and placed the rifle’s muzzle into her mouth, tasting the oily metal and the sour sulfur residue of old shot. She raised her foot and felt with it along the rifle’s length until her big toe found the trigger.

She heard him knock at the door again, then start to pound on it. The door had held them all off for this long. It should be good for another ten minutes, at least.

On a whim, she waited until the second hand of the clock was vertical.