Whatever happened to Ray and Shav?

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Whatever happend to Ray and Shav?



When the world ended, Ray was at the supermarket getting some medicine for Shav, who had been in bed all week with a cold that he'd inadvertently given to her. She'd been nothing but a perfect carer whilst he'd had the bug and he wanted to repay the five star treatment he'd had, by giving her the same if not better.

He'd gotten a basket full of various remedies and was headed towards the checkouts, which for a weekday, was surprisingly full. Ray had wanted to get back to Shav as fast as possible, so weighed up his options. Did he risk going to the self service checkout and get stuck behind a pensioner with no comprehension of how the machine worked or did he risk going to the ten items or less checkout with the sixteen items he had? What's the worst the ten items or less cashier could do when he'd already loaded the conveyor belt with his stuff, refuse to serve him?

Maybe if he got rid of some of the items, then he could use the ten items or less queue with no kind of remorse. Ray studied his basket; did Shav really need a "facial soothing mask" or an "anti-flu body balm"? Half the stuff in there was unnecessary, but Ray didn't want to look like he didn't care by just turning up with a pack of Lemsip and a tub of Vic that he could offer to rub on her chest for her, so he decided to throw caution to the wind and go in the ten items or less queue, even though he was six items over.

Just as he approached the end of the queue, by chance, he noticed a free checkout with a nice looking lady sitting behind it, staring out into space. Now he needn't break the social rules of the supermarket! Ray was over to her in seconds and tipped the contents of his basket onto the belt, which brought the woman back into reality. She smiled at him and greeted him as he went to the end on the conveyor. Then she asked if he needed help packing, to which he usually said no, but for some reason today he decided to ask for help.

She looked at him, without the pleasant smile that had been there moments ago. It had been replaced with a deep sadness and a shocked expression like no one had asked her to before. Ray then happened to glance around him and the woman on the checkout behind was giving him evils, along with a tutting old man who was being served. Ray was really confused until he watched his cashier struggling with the carrier bags and then he realised that in his rush to get back to his ailing wife, he had completely neglected to see that this woman had a really small hand.

That wasn't the worst thing that would happen to Ray, but it was still a low point in his life that he felt really awkward about.

Whilst Ray had been out, Shav was snuggled up on her sofa under a duvet watching re-runs of old television shows. She’d had colds before, but this was unlike anything she’d had before and she knew deep down that it wasn’t what Ray had had last week; it was something much, much worse.

The television was a blur to her, the whole world was spinning and her nose was running like it was sprinting for the gold medal at the Olympics. Her only comfort whilst Ray was out was her cat Lilly, who was keeping her company.

Then The End came and everything suddenly went dark. Shav thought the illness had blinded her till the lights went back on. Then Lilly started talking and Shav thought the illness had made her crazy, so much so that she picked up the phone to call for an ambulance, but all she got was a dead tone.

Ray thought there had been a sudden total eclipse, like most people, until the lights came back on and the cashier in-front of him had been reduced to a skeleton. In-fact, he was one of only a few people left alive. Everyone else had collapsed on the floor in a pool of congealed blood.

Ray’s only thought was for the safety of Shav, so he ran outside, got in his car and sped off to his house. The roads were chaotic, with abandoned cars, people driving the wrong way, and bodies littering the road. But Ray made it back in record time, raced into his house and found Shav.

They were reunited and nothing else mattered as long as they had each other.

The laws of time were no longer in effect, for everyone experienced time differently after The End. For me, it had been a day, for Ray and Shav, by the time I found them, it had been several months... and things had gone from ok to horrific in that time.

Shav wasn’t right after The End. Whatever illness she had, had been amplified, and Ray was desperate to make her better again. Shav had developed a sickening hunger, and her appetite couldn’t be appeased, which was ridiculous as she had such a light frame, in-fact there was nothing of her!

Over the next few weeks, Shav had eaten everything in the house, and everything Ray had brought home for her. He was beginning to despair when who should turn up at his door but the youths he had taught. They’d been affected by The End as well, and had all taken on monstrous features, that they were hiding with their hoodies. Also, any form of independent thought had been wiped clean, and they’d come to Ray to ask what they had to do.

Ray told them to gather food for Shav, which they did without question. They scoured the supermarkets, picked clean people’s pantries and culled the cornershops, bringing back as much food as they could carry. Shav grew from quite thin, to quite fat, and kept growing. During this time Ray had smashed all the mirror’s in the house to stop her from seeing what she was becoming; a bloated monstrosity of her former self.

No matter how much food they brought back, it was never enough. Then one day, Ray came home early from one of his searches to find Shav sitting on the sofa (which had begun to strain under her weight) with a cat’s tail sticking out of her mouth.

She had eaten Lilly, their cat. But Ray wasn’t horrified, he just told her he loved her and that he’d look after her “for better or worse”

As the food around the area began to get sparse, Ray told the youths to bring back animals, and then when the animals eventually became sparse, he told them to bring back anything else, including people. Shav’s humanity had been replaced with an insatiable hunger for everything, but Ray still loved her. He moved her, with the help of the youths, to the basement, and that’s where I had just found her.

For some time I had wondered how my mind would cope with seeing something as monstrous as the site that had befallen my eyes in Ray's basement. With all the horror films I'd seen and video games that I'd played over the years, I had expected to be slightly or majorly desensitized to gore or horrific imagery, however this wasn't the case.

I stood staring at the creature that simply looked back at me with its hungry eyes. I believe I would have fainted if it had not been for the light-switch cord I was hanging onto. A large part of me was screaming for me to turn the light back off and for me to run back out of the basement, but I was rooted to the spot with fear and confusion.

I’d expected something pretty wrong had happened to the world, what with talking cats and the deserted high streets, but I never thought I'd find something quite as wrong as the creature that squelched before me. I of course didn’t realise it was Shav till Ray appeared behind me and told me what had happened to them both since The End.

Ray added.
"Of course, I can't possibly let you leave here alive, after all... you were supposed to come over for dinner, and now's your chance.