The Last Table
Oliver has never been able to confess his feelings to Umar. Maybe now, when they are each the other’s only chance of surviving a zombie uprising, he can finally find the courage to say what he feels.
Fiction—Written June 2022 for NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction Challenge. The prompt was Romance / A delicatessen / A sponge.
Oliver fought against his body’s exhaustion as he nailed the final board across the deli’s shattered front window. The man he had been a few weeks ago would have felt guilty for ripping the hardwood floor out of the fancy restaurant down the street, but he had no emotional energy for guilt these days.
A scream rose in the distance before abruptly cutting off. Another victim, and another undead to join the horde.
In the deli’s kitchen, Umar was singing softly and wordlessly. Oliver unclenched his hands around the hammer and slid it back into his scavenged tool belt. It hung too loosely around his hips, even with the extra hole he’d bored through the canvas with a screwdriver.
The glass display counter, once filled with piled meats and cheeses, had been ransacked, the glass cracked around an impact crater. Oliver moved past it into the kitchen. Umar stood by the sink, scrubbing blood from the walls with a sponge. Even now, his dark hair oily from a lack of showering, his clothes rumpled from wear, and sleep-deprivation bags heavy under his eyes, he was beautiful. Oliver wrenched his gaze away and pulled a splinter out of his palm.
“We don’t know how long we’ll be able to stay here,” he said. “Why bother with the walls?”
Umar plunged the sponge into a plastic bucket at his feet. “I’m not sleeping somewhere with this much blood everywhere.”
Dirty dishes sat in the sink—daily life, daily chores, interrupted and never returned to. Oliver stuck his head under the faucet and washed his hair as best he could with dish soap. Cold water dripped down his back when he stood, making him shiver. The deli had the only running water they’d been able to find in days. That was why, both tired of running, they had decided to try and stay here.
Umar squeezed out the sponge over the bucket, wringing out rust-colored water.
“Leave it be,” Oliver said. “I think our table made it through whatever happened here.”
“I want to get this done,” Umar said.
It was an impossible task, even if Umar were to spend the rest of his life scrubbing. There was even blood on the ceiling, flaking off the beige plaster.
Oliver placed his hand on Umar’s elbow as he lifted the sponge again. “Please,” he said, “we haven’t had a moment to just sit in weeks. This mess will still be here after you rest.”
Umar looked at him, his eyes dark and immeasurably sad, and sighed. “Okay,” he said and dropped the sponge into the bucket with a splash. He stared down at his hands, wet with blood-tinged water.
Towards the back of the delicatessen’s main room, a few small tables were shoved against the wall, each truly only big enough for a single person. Two had been upturned, but the other stood where it always had, a single chair in front of it. Oliver righted another and dragged it over.
They sat across each other; Oliver’s high tops nudged against Umar’s boots. Umar shifted his feet forward until his legs alternated with Oliver’s, their ankles entangled. The two of them had sat at this tiny table so many times, knees knocking together, as Oliver worked up the courage to finally say something about the way he felt. At every one of their lunches, he’d told himself he’d confess next time, or the time after that, in a future of casual meetups that had now been ripped away from them.
The first time he’d seen Umar had been in this delicatessen. Oliver had been cramming a sandwich into his mouth, running late for his shift, when he’d looked up and spotted the most gorgeous man he’d ever seen standing at the counter. He’d nearly choked and died right there. Umar, in his first year of medical school, had run over to see if he needed to administer the Heimlich maneuver.
They’d eaten lunch together at least twice a week since.
After everything, when the streets were full of shambling undead—many with the faces of people Oliver knew—he had turned a corner at a run and been knocked silly by a baseball bat. Still half-stunned, he’d started sobbing with relief when he’d looked up and seen Umar crouching over him, face tense with concern. He hadn’t even minded that Umar had hit him, thinking he was a zombie. Umar was alive; that was all that mattered.
Now, Oliver spent his days protecting Umar’s back and his nights pretending to sleep while Umar took first watch, their sides pressed together as they huddled wherever they could find shelter. Once, Umar had rested a hand on his shoulder, just for a moment, before pulling away. Every night, Oliver hoped he would touch him again.
If they hadn’t found each other again, Oliver would be dead, and not just because Umar had stitched him back together when he’d fallen through a shattered window.
Without Umar, Oliver would have given up.
Umar picked at the peeling surface of the table, the fake wood coming away under his nails. “You know,” he said, paused, then carried on, “the reason I came here so often was the chance I’d see you. I knew it was your favorite lunch spot.”
“It was only my favorite because it was where I had a chance of seeing you,” Oliver said. The city around them was a wasteland. Any moment, a horde of undead could attack the deli. They didn’t know when they would find their next meal. Whatever scraps of a future they had left, they would have to carve out for themselves.
Oliver reached across the table. He rested the back of his hand against the fake wood, his open palm a question he still didn’t have the courage to say out loud.
Without hesitation, Umar curled their fingers together. His grip tightened as he raised Oliver’s hand and pressed it to his lips, warm against Oliver’s knuckles, which were splintered and raw.
“I’m so glad you’re alive,” Umar said, his breath ghosting across Oliver’s skin. He looked up and met Oliver’s gaze, his dark eyes a wonder.
“I’m glad to be alive,” Oliver said, voice choked. Despite everything, he meant it. Oliver would live forever if this boy asked him to. Together, somehow, they would make it through.
Author’s note:
Romance is a challenging genre for me to write, so I’m grateful to NYC Midnight for giving me a prompt that takes me out of my comfort zone (even if I despaired when I first got the assignment). I always find a way to make the genre my own, often by adding in the undead.
If you could pick any shop to be stuck in during the apocalypse, what would you pick? I think Costo; it’s full of supplies and very defensible. Of course, a lot of other people would also head to Costco, which probably wouldn’t end well.
Thank you for reading!
Emily