Collecting Wives In The Apocalypse

The Last Day At Work

Kael Draven hated his job.

Not in the passing, half-hearted way most people complained about work—no, he despised it with the kind of venom that curdled in his stomach every morning when he put on his cheap button-up shirt and dragged himself into the gray, suffocating walls of "Velux Media Solutions".

He sat hunched over his desk in a shirt that had once been white but now carried the faint yellow of too many cheap laundromat washes. His tie was loosened, as if he’d given up on pretending to care halfway through the morning.

Dark stubble shadowed his jaw, not stylish—just the result of skipping shaves. His black hair was overgrown at the edges, brushing against his collar like it couldn’t decide between messy and deliberate.

To his coworkers, he was invisible—a tall, wiry figure with tired blue eyes and an expression that rarely shifted from bored contempt.

He looked like every other office drone stuck under fluorescent lights… except for the faint curl of a smile that sometimes tugged at his lips when things went wrong, as if deep down, he was waiting for the world to crack.

Monitors glowed like tiny cages, each one showing the endless scroll of meaningless articles: Top 10 Celebrity Breakups, You Won’t Believe What This Politician Said, Shocking Transformation After This One Diet Trick.

Every headline Kael typed felt like another nail hammered into the coffin of his sanity. He sat at a desk littered with crumpled notes and cold takeout boxes, his back aching, fingers stiff from pounding out garbage copy that nobody cared about.

His boss, Mr. Renfield—a balding man with a permanent sneer—hovered like a carrion bird over the desks, barking reminders about deadlines and productivity quotas. He treated his staff less like people and more like soulless drones to fuel the company’s daily quota of empty noise.

Kael leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. The screen glared back at him with the unfinished headline: 5 Ways Your Cat Secretly Judges You.

"Kill me now," Kael muttered under his breath.

Across the row, Clara, a fellow copywriter with messy auburn hair, shot him a glance and smirked. "Another masterpiece?" she teased.

"Yeah," Kael said flatly. "This one’s going to change the world."

She snorted softly and went back to typing.

But even as his coworkers clicked away, Kael noticed something strange outside the glass window of the fifteenth-floor office. The city streets below weren’t moving like they usually did. Cars were backed up. People weren’t strolling; they were *running.* And faintly, so faintly, there was the echo of distant sirens.

Kael squinted at the window. A chill spread through him, not of fear—but anticipation.

He leaned back, folding his arms, a crooked grin twitching on his lips. 'If this is what I think it is… I’ll finally get out of this hellhole.'

The news had been hinting at it all week. "Strange flu." "Unrest in the hospitals." "Quarantine zones being prepared." The anchors had all delivered the words with forced calmness, the kind that tried too hard to keep people from panicking. But Kael knew better. He *wanted* it to be true.

"Kael!"

Renfield’s bark shattered his thoughts. The boss slammed a pudgy hand against his desk. "Why is that headline still unfinished? Do you think the internet waits for you to have inspiration? Get it done!"

Kael met his boss’s glare with the kind of tired indifference only years of abuse could build.

"You ever think, Renfield," Kael said slowly, "that maybe the world doesn’t need another article about cats?"

The room went silent. A few coworkers glanced up from their screens, holding back smirks. Renfield’s face reddened like a balloon about to burst.

"You don’t get paid to think, Draven," Renfield snapped. "You get paid to produce. Do. Your. Job."

Kael opened his mouth to retort—but then it happened.

Crash!

The glass doors at the end of the office lobby exploded inward. Screams erupted. A man—no, not a man anymore—lurched through, his clothes torn and his face slick with blood. His eyes were cloudy white, his jaw snapping hungrily as he lunged at the nearest intern.

Chaos detonated instantly. People shrieked, chairs toppled, papers fluttered into the air like frantic birds.

The zombie tore into the intern’s neck with a wet crunch. Blood sprayed across the cubicles. Coworkers scrambled, knocking over monitors and trampling each other in their rush to the emergency exit.

Kael… laughed.

It wasn’t hysteria. It wasn’t madness. It was relief. Pure, unfiltered relief.

Finally.

"Get back to your desks!" Renfield roared, spittle flying from his lips as if sheer authority could stop death itself. "This is a building! It’s safe! Security will handle it! Everyone—sit back down!"

No one listened. People shoved past him, slamming into the stairwell door.

Kael stood, slow and deliberate, his chair rolling back. The zombie staggered into the office, dragging entrails across the carpet, groaning hungrily as more infected poured through the shattered entrance.

For the first time in years, Kael felt alive.

"Looks like your quota just got eaten, boss," Kael muttered.

Renfield spun on him, enraged. "You think this is funny? You think—"

Before he could finish, one of the infected lunged. Renfield’s words dissolved into a strangled scream as teeth sank into his shoulder. He flailed helplessly, his expensive tie darkening with blood, his pleas cut short by a gurgling crunch.

Kael didn’t spare him another glance. He grabbed the nearest weapon—a broken chair leg from where Clara had knocked her chair over in her panic. The wood felt solid in his grip, rough edges biting into his palm.

He strode past the chaos, swinging the makeshift weapon down hard into the skull of the nearest zombie. Bone cracked. The corpse crumpled.

Kael’s breath came sharp and fast, but not from fear. Adrenaline surged through him like electricity.

"Finally," he muttered, stepping over the body. "Finally free."

He stormed through the blood-slick floor, weaving between overturned desks and fallen coworkers. Clara screamed somewhere behind him, but he didn’t turn back. Not yet. Freedom was ahead. The door. The world.

Then he felt it.

A sharp sting.

His shoulder.

Kael whirled, eyes wide. One of the infected had managed to grab him in the chaos, its teeth sinking into his flesh just before he’d smashed its head in. Blood trickled down his arm, warm and sticky.

For a moment, time froze.

He stared at the bite mark, his pulse pounding.

"What the f**k?!!"

*****

Author’s Note:

Thank you so much for reading and being part of this journey!

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