51 Out for Delivery Ethan Kurtz I slung my messenger bag over my shoulder. “No, you can’t come with me.” I opened the bag to check if its contents had been damaged. Thankfully the letter was okay. Minimal blood spots had scattered the envelope but had not breached the paper. I walked over and pulled my machete out of the head I had just slashed it through. The blade was getting dull, and no longer had its brand-new shine. “Why not?” the man asked. “You could use me. It’s not safe to travel alone anymore.” He slowly stood up with the help of a lone chair. The warehouse echoed as the chair wobbled beneath his weight. I wiped the blood from my blade onto the leg of my khaki shorts and hooked it back onto my belt. “You think I don’t know that? I just saved your ass from undead monsters,” I said, gesturing to the room full of mutilated corpses. “These creatures have run the world for months now. I haven’t just been moseying along in blissful ignorance.” “Obviously.” He picked up his baseball bat from the ground. “How have you made it this long without help?” “I have a job to do,” I replied. “And I’m determined to get it done. Same reason you can’t come with me: you’ll slow me down, and I’m in a time crunch.” I started to walk towards the side door I had kicked in. “Then why did you stop to help me? You could’ve just kept driving— moved on,” he pointed out. He was right. I didn’t need to pull over. I could have just kept riding on my way. The alarm blaring should not have distracted me. “I needed supplies. Can’t do the job if I run out of gas,” I brushed off. “And the job is?” I took a deep breath and reached into my bag. In the inside pocket, I kept a letter. It had a few blood stains on it at this point. The image of my friend handing it to me was burned into my brain. His eyes pleading with me to deliver this letter as he struggled to postpone inevitably turning into the very thing that did this to him. The letter had an address and a name. I had been delivering to this house for years. I recognized the name on it immediately. It was his long-distance girlfriend who lived across the country. I pulled the letter out of my bag and showed it to the man. “I was tasked to deliver this letter.” I put it back in the safe pouch in my bag. “That’s your plan? Your job is to deliver a letter?” the man scoffed. “Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. I knew it was stupid. I knew the girl was probably dead just like everyone else. My friend had said that she would be in a safe place, but I had my doubts. “Why are you risking your life for a dumb letter?” he asked me. “It was his dying wish,” I replied.
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