The Last Men on Earth by Adam Francis Smith

ambush by tahra on DeviantArt.com

Three of us remain: he and she and I. I want him, so I lie in wait, crouched in shadow near the only fresh-water source for miles.

The sky is as gray as the land, with a wide ellipse of turbulent crimson, dotted with darker gray — always churning.

She comes, bucket in hand, and I leap from the darkness, slashing with my scythe. Gouts of blood float in seeming slow-motion as she falls to the ground — gray on red on gray again.

I’ve won, securing for myself the second-to-last man on earth by elimination of the last woman.

After the Campers Were Put on the Bus by John King

The scythe of L’Ankou by Boredman on DeviantArt.com

Sarah had seen everyone else decapitated, immolated, or violated until they were yanked inside out and twitching in the shadows of the poplars.

Her Camp Blackburn t-shirt was sweat through, giving her a chill.

The stars were bullets bending in space.

She grabbed the hedge-clippers from the rusty shed and waited.

Her hiking boots would run no more.

The killer lurched forward.

Sarah began to hyperventilate.

The killer whipped the scythe in the air.

The round blade flopped towards the boathouse.

Sarah’s shears snipped again.

His wet wrist-bones were jabbing her flesh, as she kept cutting him down to size.