"Frankie, wake up."

She wakes quickly, instinctively reaching for the knife under her pillow. Her zombie-killing partner, Jay, smirks at her.

"Knife down; it's time to get up."

"Why?" She groans, getting up anyway. They both know why. They need supplies. She slips on her boots, grabs her jacket and loads her guns. Jay does the same. Together, they slip out of the dingy apartment they call home.

New York used to be the city that never sleeps, but now it's unnervingly quiet. Without anybody monitoring the power stations, they all shut down years ago, which means no electricity and no honking taxies. It's 2032—that's four years of living like this.

They shoot five zombies on the way before they hear a humming sound. They look at each other simultaneously and Jay tilts his head down Seventh Avenue.

"Are you sure?" Frankie asks. They've avoided Times Square since day one. Everyone knew that was where the zombies hoarded. Jay nods.

"Something's going on, I can feel it."

They walk closely to the walls of buildings, tense. They pass Duffy Square and the intersection at W 46th St and W 45th Street. They turn the corner around Minskoff Theatre when they see it.

A huge, towering machine.

It almost looks like a furnace, except it has a huge chimney that constantly spews out grey steam. A man works in front of it. He's wearing a dirty, ragged cloak that could've been white once but certainly isn't anymore.

Frankie's heart clenches. She unconsciously reaches out. Her shoes scuff the ground.

The man whips around. Frankie nearly collapses as her suspicions are proven true. "Dad?"

"Francesca?" The dark-haired man with an overgrown beard looks at his daughter. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought you were dead," she exclaims disbelievingly. "Why else wouldn't you have talked to me?"

Her dad's face is impassive. "I don't have time for this." He turns his back to her. Frankie's face falls. "Do you remember the Haiti zombies in the 60s? The voodoo priests used pufferfish and tetrodotoxin. They put people in a zombie-like trance."

Frankie doesn't respond.

"This is my fault," he admits. "I'm a scientist, after all." A wry smile, then nothing. "While you were at college, I created a zombie but didn't stop there. I experimented with brain parasites, mad cow disease, you name it. Eventually I found it. Self-replicating Nanobots. You inject the subject and they shut down the brain cortex, the thing that makes us human. Completely takes over. When the host dies it moves into a new one."

He stops. His body shakes as he stares into the huge furnace.

Jay steps closer. "What's the machine for?"

"The nanobots… they're controlling me," her dad explains. "I put Jimsons Weed into the burner, spreading datura through the air. It's their energy source. Once you destroy me and this machine, the zombies will perish and the nanobots will die."

Die. The word is spoken with a chilling certainty. It bounces around Frankie's head. Everything's so clear suddenly. Blood floods her tongue. Frankie can smell the dirt in the air—the datura. She whimpers. Jay's calloused hand is on her shoulder. Bloodied zombies gather around.

"I can feel the nanobots starting to panic." Her dad shudders, raising the gun to his cheek. The moment is suspended in air.

Frankie jerks forward, desperate. "No, no, no…" She feels numb. The buzz of the machine fills the air.

He throws his head back. Cool metal digs into his skin. He exhales shallowly. Tremors run through him. His eyes are resigned. Hopeless. In this moment, Frankie knows it would be useless to convince him to stay. His finger tightens on the trigger.

Frankie's breath catches.

Her dad smiles, eyes falling shut.

"My job here is done."

Crack.

Silence. His head explodes in a spectacular spray of blood and brain. Nanobots crawl out of his skin and disappear into nothingness, like a shimmering blanket of silver. Zombies around them slow down, all at once. Eventually they stop moving.

Frankie can't do anything except collapse. Jay barely makes it in time to catch her. 'No!' her mind screams. 'I've wanted you back for so long. Come back. I want—I need you here. Please.'

Nothing happens. No matter how much she begs, his body is still lying on the floor, unmoving.

Long moments pass. The machine swiftly goes up in in a fiery inferno. Jay lowers Frankie and they both sit on the pavement, watching zombies slowly start to fall and Times Square light up in flames.

A sense of finality settles on them.

"It's all over, Frankie. No more fighting."

It takes a while to sink in, but when it does…

They relax.