Geoff North

HOW THE WORLD ENDS

Chapter 1

The world was minutes away from having its ass kicked. The planet’s most successful and dangerous species was set to eradicate everything, and they were helpless to do anything about it. When ten to twenty thousand nuclear weapons are primed to use on any given day for more than half a century, it’s only a matter of when it will happen, and which crazy fucker presses the first button.

Jacob Heez hadn’t grown up during the Cold War. He was still a dozen or so years from being born around the time Reagan was demanding Gorbachev to tear down The Wall, and the Soviet Union was collapsing like a house of cards. Jake remembered the stories his father had told him of how it had been when he was a little boy growing up into a young man during the late seventies and early eighties. He told Jake of the recurring dreams, of bombs dropping in the wheat fields, and the billowing mushroom clouds that rose into the grey skies of his teenage nightmares. Dwayne Heez would wake in a cold sweat and cry, terrified that one of those times he wouldn’t wake up—that the nightmare would have become a waking reality. Jake’s father told him these stories because he believed those days were long gone, and he wanted to instill in his son a sense of what the world was like in its most frightening times.

But Jake’s old man had gotten it wrong. He forgot to account for the fact that history had a tendency to repeat itself. The Cold War blew back in with a vengeance. It was no longer simply cold; it was frozen, and there was no chance of a thaw. Jake’s twenty-first century Cold War era had become an Ice Age of old paranoia and new mistrust. There were fresh players—North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, and India to name just a dangerous few. Some of these countries had gone to war, and there had been limited nuclear exchanges between the more radical governments. The world had managed to hold on. People continued going to work and going to war. Their relentless pursuit of over-populating the globe and killing their neighbors continued.

Jake was a farmer, like his father before him. He wasn’t all that involved with the world around him. He was more concerned about the five thousand acres of that world he owned. But his father had taught him to keep an eye on current events. Those old talks of how things were had stuck with Jake. He watched the news, and though there was little new about it, he remained aware.

Earlier that morning, Jake had listened to the news on the television while he ate his breakfast and prepared for ten or twelve hours of back-breaking fence repair. Most of it went unheard. It was the same thing day in and night out. People thousands of miles away were threatening to obliterate each other, and after listening to that same bullshit his entire adult life, Jake had developed a way to block most of it out, as he was certain almost everyone else did.

Perhaps that’s the problem, he thought, as another six-foot long pole was pounded into the ground with his sledgehammer. Maybe we have to stop blocking so much out and start doing something about it. He removed his work gloves and wiped the sweat away from his forehead with one of them.

What kind of lesson am I teaching Nicholas by ignoring the problem? He looked north, in the direction of the Heez farm house over three miles away, where his five-year old son was undoubtedly now out of bed and running about in. Mandy would be awake now as well, chasing after him and trying to settle him down long enough to eat a bowl of cereal. He would be asking where his dad was, of course. Mandy would be explaining that Daddy has work to do, and that if he was a good boy, he would see him again in a few short hours for lunch.

Jake grinned, imagining the exchange. He inhaled the crisp morning air deeply and looked up at the sky. One word kept coming back to him from the news. Imminent. It had been plastered in big red letters on the bottom of the television screen. The media loved using words like that: Devastating. Looming. Tragic. Desperate… Imminent. The more frightening the headline, the more apt viewers were to sit up and take notice. They scared the shit out of people and kept their ratings up. The smile dropped as his thoughts darkened once again. What kind of world have we brought him into? All was blue and clear above, but looks were deceiving. It was a dangerous, scary world to raise a kid in. It’s what his father had told Jake’s mother years before, and what Dwayne’s father had likely thought decades earlier during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Same worries, same shit, from one generation to the next. There had never been a good time to raise a kid into this world, and there never would be.

Jake replaced another worn post with a new one and put his tools in the back of his pickup. He jumped into the cab and headed south where another quarter mile away a dozen or so more rotted posts waited. He would head home after that and have an early lunch. The wiring could wait. Jake wanted to see his son. Maybe he would bring the boy back out with him in the afternoon. They could spend a few hours together and talk.

Jake saw a jet contrail through the windshield. He slowed the truck to a crawl and peered up at the cloudless sky. He spotted a second one off to the left. There wasn’t much unusual about jet trails in the sky, dozens of planes travelled overhead above the Canadian prairies. They flew east to west and west to east twenty-four hours a day, picking up and depositing people all over the country from Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and the bigger cities out east.

These white streams were different. They were running north to south, or south to north, Jake wasn’t sure which. Another trail appeared off through the right edge of the windshield. North to south, he thought, with a sickening lurch in his stomach. This third trail was much lower than the others, and Jake was almost certain he could see a bright orange spot at the head of it. The orange spot vanished over the horizon and a fourth and fifth trail suddenly appeared higher above.

This isn’t happening. This can’t be fucking happening.

He brought the pickup to a halt and staggered out, not bothering to put it in park. The truck rolled on for a few more feet, but Jake no longer cared. His eyes were jumping from contrail to contrail. They were appearing magically overhead, streaking across the sky, back and forth, north to south, south to north, as if an invisible child’s hand were painting lines of grey and white on an immense blue canvas.

I need to see Mandy… I want to be with my son.

Jake’s needs and wants would go unfulfilled. He couldn’t operate his legs, both arms hung limp at his sides. All he could do was watch as the missiles continued their terrible arcs in the sky. There was a deep rumble growing from somewhere behind him, he could feel the soil beneath his feet begin to shake. One of the awful trails appeared directly above him, pushing ahead of it a blazing yellow point of light as bright as the sun. The light was moving incredibly fast towards the southeast.

Jake tried to comprehend what city was close enough to obliterate from the weapon’s low trajectory. This is Canadian farm land. There’s nothing here for miles worth destroying. Winnipeg was almost two hundred miles away to the east. This thing was headed almost straight south. It would reach its target in the next few moments. The only other center of notable population was Brandon, a town with less than one-hundred residents. Why would they want to wipe out Brandon?

Perhaps the missile was intended for Minot, North Dakota. Jake remembered his father telling him about the US missile silos located there. Maybe that’s where this thing was headed—to atomize the American weapons before they could even clear their hidden bunkers. It was going to run short of its intended target—much shorter.

I want to hold Nicholas. I want to kiss my wife.

The reasoning of where the missiles were heading, and why—this yearning to be with family—took place in his mind for less than a second. By the time he’d finished thinking how much he wanted to feel Mandy’s warm skin against his lips, the blinding missile light winked out of sight over a distant ridge of trees five miles away. A few seconds later, the blue sky with its growing number of puffy grey contrails, was consumed in white.

Jake raised his hands instinctively to his eyes. The light was like knives, burrowing between his fingers, slicing through his eyelids. He turned away from it and collapsed to his knees. Jake was enveloped in white and almost complete silence. Moments later the truck’s engine sputtered to a halt.

No. I want to see them… I want—I’m only twenty-four and I don’t want to die.

He was on his feet again, or at least he thought he was, lurching forward to where he believed home was. He fell from the small hard trail he’d driven the pickup down and rolled into a ditch. He continued to roll and ended up in water. Jake tried to picture where he was as he gasped for air. His head went under. Ice cold. Sitting water. I’m at the southeast end of the farm. I’m in a low slough of sitting water. Winter snow melted and collected here less than two months ago. So cold.

Jake flailed about in the bottom of it, his hands clawed at the mud, and his knees and boots became mired in it. Like quicksand. Can’t work myself free. He needed to breathe, he needed to get his head out of the water and provide his lungs with fresh air. The water and mud he was trapped in was about to save his life.

Another rumble, this one much louder, rippled around and over top of him. Jake no longer felt so cold. His body was going into shock—or the water was warming up. A sound like a million stampeding elephants being slaughtered by a million screaming monkeys roared somewhere above. The water was becoming hot, boiling hot. With his last bit of remaining strength Jake pushed his body up.

The water and mud in his hair dried away almost instantly. The soaking fabric of his jacket and shirt steamed into his skin, and Jake fell forward. He pressed his burning face into the ground and sucked air between his teeth that scalded the inside of his mouth and the back of his throat.

Dad saw it happen. He saw this in his dreams over thirty years ago. Did he feel the pain?

The rumbling lessened. The charging elephants and screaming monkeys moved on. Jake took another small breath, a gulp of hot air. It didn’t hurt as much. He inhaled slowly through his nostrils and smelled the end of the world; charred vegetation, boiled water, and something else. The air was different. It was something else now… something foreign and unpleasant. It smelled dead.

Jake lay there for another minute, his body and brain adjusting to this new, horrible reality. His body ached. He looked at the fingers of his left hand placed palm down in the cooked mud his cheek was adhered to. He wiggled them and wondered why they looked so fat and pink.

They’ve been burned. They hurt like hell, but they’re still working.

He pulled the fingers towards his face and felt his cheek. It was numb to the touch and rough feeling. Not good. He reached for the top of his skull and felt more dappled flesh. My hair’s gone. It’s all gone.

All gone. All of it. The field, the slough at his feet boiled away. The farm.

Mandy and Nicholas.

A fresh wave of panic flooded through him and Jake tried rising to his hands and knees. His cheek peeled away from the ground and he vomited violently. After a few more dry hacking heaves Jake was standing. He swayed back and forth taking in the devastation all around. There was no more color. Everything and everywhere was grey. The slough he’d fallen into was a basin of steaming, baked mud that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the bottom of Death Valley. The sky above was grey. Most of the missile contrails had puffed away in the shockwave, but a few billowing streaks remained—or they had just appeared. They’re still sending them, he realized. They’re firing more and more and more.

He climbed up out of the ditch and stood on what was a road only minutes ago. Jake’s truck was nowhere to be seen. It was gone with everything else… the trees, the fields, and the fence posts. Gone in a puff. All that remained was Jake and the towering monster before him.

He had seen pictures of mushroom clouds in books and on television. Jake had watched documentaries and movies depicting the power and terror of thermonuclear detonations. But nothing quite compares to the real thing. It filled the entirety of the south, rising into the cold upper atmosphere, seemingly intent to eat up the sun and stars somewhere beyond.

There was color left in the world. The blue had been snuffed out and replaced with awe-inspiring orange and brown. Jake had missed most of it, but there was still enough left to haunt his dreams for the rest of his life—a much shorter life than he’d been led to believe. It would be the final spectacular display of mankind’s power anyone would ever see again. This was the last big bang of human civilization. He didn’t want it to end. He reached out with swollen fingers, grasping at the dying light near its center.

Jake began to cry and the tears stung at the raw flesh of his cheeks. “No.”

The orange faded away and the immense rising brown column was slowly enveloped in the grey and black above.

Jake knew the human race had been living on borrowed time. Mankind had spent the last century industrializing, overpopulating, and polluting. But a part of him had hoped something more natural would play the final hand; a super-volcano, an asteroid from space, the magnetic poles reversing, a new goddamned Age of Ice that would’ve frozen civilization in its tracks under a thousand feet of glacier. It wasn’t as if Jake wanted the world to die, but it would’ve been fitting for Mother Nature to have the last word.

Imminent.

For once the news media had it right. They had warned Jake, and he hadn’t paid attention. He started the long walk back to the farm house—where the farm house had been—certain there would be nothing left. He should’ve stayed home. He should’ve woken his wife and son from their slumbers at 6 a.m. and enjoyed those last few hours with them. He should’ve paid attention. He should’ve known.

Jake had no idea how long it had taken to trudge the two mile distance from his life-saving water hole back to the farm yard he once called home. The mid-afternoon sky was blanketed over with nasty fallout. The stinking air swirled about Jake, buffeting him in cold and warm blasts. Most of the clothes on his body had been burned away, and the skin underneath had grown numb. Perhaps his mind was blocking out most of the pain, helping him cope with the physical agony and mental anguish. He didn’t know which, and he didn’t care all that much. The landscape had been transformed so drastically that Jake wasn’t even sure he was going the right way. He saw the remains of his house a few minutes later—a little further off to the left than he’d guessed.

A bit of it was still standing, a few charred two-by-fours and slabs of cement foundation transformed from grey to black. There had been a shelterbelt of poplar and spruce trees surrounding the yard. They were all gone—like Jake’s truck, blown off and scattered in the wind.

Maybe they had time to make it down into the cellar.

Jake tried running but could only manage something less than a jog. It was killing him to breathe, and his throat was swelling up. Everything felt so dry. He needed water. He needed to find his family even more.

He didn’t call their names. Jake was too afraid of the silence that would answer. He picked his way through the ruin, and there wasn’t much picking to do. The house had been incinerated, and even the main flooring where the living room, kitchen, dining room, and three bedrooms once sat was gone. All that remained was a gaping hole into the cellar, and all that was down there was a swirling pile of ash.

Jake staggered away from the destruction. He covered his burnt lips with his fat, blistering fingers and tried not to retch. Gone. They’re gone. They never had a chance.

The barn was gone, and all the livestock within as well. The only other thing sitting in his yard to prove a farm had been there was his old John Deere tractor. It had blown over onto its side, the thick rubber tires blasted away, and the trademark greens and yellows were now solid black. All the junk that had been accumulated by three generations of Heez farmers had been picked up and moved away in an instant.

Jake called their names now. He stumbled about in a daze, kicking up ashes and dust, and screamed until there was nothing left but screeching rasps. With nowhere to go, and no one to find, Jake settled into a fetal position up against the overturned tractor and wept himself to sleep.

Chapter 2

When he woke up, Jake thought he’d gone blind. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. All was in complete blackness. I’m dead. The world ended and I died. The exposed rim of the tractor wheel dug into his side and Jake knew he wasn’t dead. He was still lying in the dirt of his farm yard, and day had obviously slipped into night. If the nights were going to be this dark, he wished he could just go back to sleep and never wake up. What if the darkness was permanent? How would it be if this all-encompassing blackness became a constant as the sun rose and fell each and every godforsaken day?

Jake fought off a fresh surge of panic. There had been a thermonuclear exchange, and it had been massive. There was all kinds of shit in the upper atmosphere blocking the moon and the stars from view. It would settle eventually—days, months, years—Jake had no idea how long it would take, but he was certain things beyond those black clouds were still out there. He would see the sun rise again.

With the panic attack averted, Jake started to worry about his next—and more immediate—problem. He needed water, and he needed it fast. How long had it been since he’d last drank anything?  Morning… I had a glass of water first thing when I woke up at 6 a.m.. Coffee too, just after that. Jake felt fairly certain he hadn’t slept more than twelve hours against the tractor. That meant he hadn’t had anything to drink for a maximum time of fifteen hours, maybe sixteen. It felt more like sixteen days. I should’ve gulped down that slough water when I fell in. Should’ve slurped that fucker dry before the nuke boiled it away.

The house was no more. He couldn’t pour himself a glass of water from the kitchen sink. There was no bathtub faucet in the washroom to quench his thirst from. Jake couldn’t even drink out of the toilet. Think, Jake… Where does the water come from?

The well.

The underground water supply was located less than fifty feet east of where the house once stood. Jake no longer knew where east was, and even if he did manage to crawl off into the complete darkness and stumble across it, there was no way of accessing the precious fluid from deep within—not in his present burnt and weakened condition. Even if he somehow managed to remove the hundred pound concrete cover, Jake had no means of getting to the two-thousand gallon reservoir tank below. Any ropes that may have been lying around the yard or sitting coiled up inside the house or barns had undoubtedly been fried into nothingness. There were no spools of wire to secure a pail, or piles of chain to—

Chain.

Jake had last used the tractor he was leaning against to pull his truck from a snowbank. That had been over four months ago, halfway through February after a heavy snowstorm. He had used the tractor to pull it free, and he had secured the truck bumper by a forty foot length of chain. Mandy steered the truck while Jake drove the tractor. He parked the tractor and had gone to remove the chain from the hitch but decided against it in the end. Why? I had forgotten my gloves on the ground after securing the chain to the truck bumper. It was cold, and my fingers were wet and freezing. I couldn’t be bothered.

Jake crawled around the tractor, feeling his way along the dry earth. His fingers found the metal frame at the back and finally settled on the rough circular hitching hole. Jake felt around it and discovered a heavy metal hook attached. He made a weak whooping sound as his hands wrapped around metal links. It was still there. The chain was still attached to the tractor, bundled up in a lazy pile like a cold, dead snake.

Jake let it drop into the dirt and started climbing his way up the back of the tractor. The chain would only be of use if he could find some kind of water container to attach it to. There had to be something in the tractor cab—a discarded water bottle, an empty coffee cup—anything he could lower down into the well to hold water. The cab’s glass windows had been blown away, so Jake didn’t have to struggle looking for door handles in the dark. It was disorienting crawling in sideways over the seat. The vinyl seat covering was gone and Jake’s fingers got caught in the metal springs. He rested one knee on the seat frame and tried balancing his other foot on a gear shifter in an attempt to extricate his hand. The hand came free and Jake toppled over, unable to find anything else in the dark to grab onto. His back slammed into the door now resting against the ground and the fingers that had been caught in the seat springs settled on a curved surface near the foot clutch.

What’s this? He ignored the pain flaring up in his lower back. He knew full well what he’d found, and it was a hell of a lot better than an empty water bottle or discarded coffee cup. It was a paint can, complete with wire handle. It had been sitting in the corner of the cab for years, collecting smaller mechanical parts and junk—dead spark plugs, screws, bolts, and a hundred other little pieces of farm life—that Jake had fully intended to someday throw out. Today was the day, he figured, turning the pail upside down and giddily letting the accumulation spill over his gut and down into the door frame. It was an odd, surreal feeling; clutching the now empty can against his chest as if it were the most valuable item left in the world, when only hours before it had no meaning in his life whatsoever.

But it was the most precious thing to him at this very moment. It might very well help extend his miserable life. Jake climbed out and jumped to the ground. He found the back of the tractor once again, unhooked the chain, and started coiling it loosely around his shoulders. He stopped after the third loop, the metal already hanging from his body felt impossibly heavy. There was over a hundred pounds more to go. He would never be able to carry that much weight in his condition. He would have to drag it.

Drag it where? He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, how was he expected to find a concrete well-cover fifty feet from where his house once was? Jake took a few deep wheezing breaths and fought the claustrophobic dread away. Use your head. Rationalize.

He was next to the tractor. The tractor had been parked approximately a hundred yards north of the house. Think, Jake, which way was the tractor parked… which direction? It had been punched over onto its side from the shockwave. The nuclear blast had come from the south. That meant the tractor had either been facing west or east. West… I parked it facing west beside the empty gas tanks bordering the northern shelter belt of trees. I always parked it there.

Jake wrapped one end of the chain around his wrist a couple of times and clutched onto the pail handle with his free hand. He leaned against the tractor and moved slowly to his right, rubbing his rear end against the blasted metal until he was certain he was facing south. He made a forty-five degree turn to the left and started walking out. The well would be somewhere out in that south-easterly direction. Fifty feet from the house, three-hundred feet from the tractor.

Or somewhere thereabouts.

Chapter 3

Jake weaved his way back and forth, heading south, and then coming back to the north. He was lost before he had even set out, but the disorientation and numbing confusion became much worse. The tractor was now lost to him forever. All that remained was the sound of his boots dragging in the dry dirt, and the steady, mournful whistle of air in his nostrils. He’d stopped breathing through his mouth; it hurt his throat too much. If he didn’t find that well soon, he’d drop dead.

After another hour or so, Jake didn’t much care if he found the well or not. His thoughts kept returning to his lost family, to what their final moments must have been like. What had Nicholas been doing? Playing with his video console in the living room? Or had he been sitting in the front yard pushing his toy cars around in the dirt? Did he see the blast take place? Had the flash burned his little eyeballs right out of his beautiful little head? Had Mandy been with him?

Had it ended quickly, or did they suffer?

The arm dragging the chain had gone dead. Jake’s fat fingers were tingling from the pressure of the links wrapped around his wrist. He imagined his arm had probably stretched out, and if he dragged the chain along any further, his knuckles would rub against the ground.

Jake gave up and fell to his knees. Fuck it. Not worth the effort… It’s all over.

He rolled over onto his back and stretched out. His foot hit something. Jake squirmed his dying body towards it more out of curiosity than caring. He felt the cold, pitted surface and thought it was a big, flat stone. The edge was rough but gave way to a curved regularity after a few more inches. Jake was back on his knees feeling the flat surface. It was the concrete well cover, or a good chunk of it, blown clear off the top and resting in the dirt. He reached out, feeling at the air, hoping to find the foot-high platform the cover had rested on. Jake found it a few moments later. The other half was still firmly in place with more than enough room open to pass the paint tin through. The shockwave had been incredibly powerful; strong enough to rip the three-inch thick concrete cover in two.

Jake found a few more chunks of smaller concrete and tossed them into the tin for weight. He wrapped one end of the chain around the handle and slowly started to lower his container. He could hear it bonking dully off the inner side of the well shaft. He slowed down even more, fearful the wire handle might detach from one side of the tin. I’ll dive into the water if that happens. If the fall doesn’t kill me, drowning will do the job. One way or another, Jake was going to drink his fill.

The links squirmed through his fingers one after another. Jake was beginning to think he might run out of chain before finding water, or worse yet, the well’s contents had been boiled dry like the slough that had narrowly saved Jake’s life. It has to be there by now… the reservoir can’t be that far down. He allowed the rest of the chain to slip between his hands. He was too thirsty and exhausted to try a second time. Jake started pulling the chain back up, and two agonizing minutes later his efforts paid off. The water was lukewarm and the first few swallows hurt like hell. It felt as if knives were piercing the back of his throat, and a sock filled with gravel was punching through his chest. The taste was magnificent.

Jake drank a quarter of the pail down and belched loudly. He vomited a few moments later and decided to rest before drinking anymore. Slow down, Jake, it isn’t a race. He scooped some out onto his hands and splashed it into his face. It hurt almost as much on the outside as it did going down inside him. Even in the dark, Jake knew his skin was a mess. The water leaked into open sores and cracks feeling like acid. He washed himself some more and the pain lessened. Jake drank what was left sloshing around in the bottom and started lowering the paint can down into the well for a second helping. He continued drinking and bathing and vomiting until he was too bloated and too tired to lower the pail again. Jake nodded off, sitting in a puddle of mud, grateful to be alive and terrified of living another day longer.

Chapter 4

The complete blackness had lifted. Night had given way to morning, or the heavy clouds of shit had finally started to clear. It was grey again, and even that dreary state was a welcome sight. Big flakes of white were falling all around Jake. They had settled on his shoulders and in his lap as he’d slept against the well. Snow in late April wasn’t all that unusual in this part of the world. Jake had seen some truly violent blizzards in spring with substantial accumulations of snow. But this was late May, and this wasn’t snow.

He brushed the deadfall from his arms and shook it free from the top of his bald head. It was like fragments of burnt newspaper, or thinner yet, like charred toilet paper crisped to a dull grey. The first snowfall of a new season. Jake retrieved one more pail of water and set away from his farm. He headed north—or his best guess at north according to where the greater part of the well cover had blasted free—away from the closest detonation point and towards the zone where the shockwave would have eventually petered out. If Mandy and Nicholas had survived, they would’ve likely gone that direction as well.

They’re dead. Give up on that. Be thankful it ended quickly for them. Go north and find survivors. Find someone to help you with your burns… Find someone to talk to.

Jake couldn’t see the sun, but he could see enough around him to know it was still somewhere up there. It was brightest directly above and behind him. High noon. He kept that dull smudge in mind as he made his way. He would eventually make it to Big Bear Valley; even if he strayed off a little to the east or to the west. The Little Saskatchewan River would be at the bottom of that valley, and if the shockwave had lost enough of its force, Jake figured he could re-fill his paint can. The Little Saskatchewan ran into Cooper’s Lake another twenty miles to the west. There would definitely be water there. Unless a nuke was dropped directly into the center of that big lake, Jake felt confident he could sustain himself for weeks. They didn’t call it the Land of a 100,000 Lakes for nothing.

Jake stumbled into the river a day later without even realizing he’d found Big Bear Valley. The land had become so featureless that distances and even dimensions were hard to judge. The forests and roads, the fields and hills—everything Jake had grown up within, and presumed would be there long after he was gone—were no more.  The river was filthy, but he drank from it anyway. He had no matches or material to start a fire to boil the water clean. Jake could handle the stomach cramps, the vomiting, and violent diarrhoea of drinking tainted water. If that didn’t kill him, the radiation sickness eventually would. He was living his last days, and he would drink and eat whatever the hell he came across.

Jake walked into the stream up to his crotch and washed the ashes from his arms and neck. He bent over and stuck his head in, allowing the current to clean his sore, blistering scalp. It was almost enough to make him feel like a human being again. He scooped some of the water into his hands and drank. His stomach rumbled, and Jake remembered what it was like to eat. I can only survive on dirty water for a week, maybe two. I need to find food.

A coyote wailed off in the distance. It was the first sound of life Jake had heard since the bombs hit. Up until a short while ago he had hoped to find his wife and son, to hear them calling his name, lost and searching like he was. Jake had given up on that fantasy and settled for the wish of hearing anyone.

The coyote continued to yelp. It was joined by a half dozen more. They’re yipping surrounded him, insistent and frantic. Jake wasn’t the only thing left living that needed to eat. They’re just coyotes. You’ve heard them your whole life. Mangy prairie dogs… nothing more. They would never attack a full-grown man. But Jake wasn’t entirely sure anymore what a coyote would or wouldn’t attack, especially in big, starving numbers. He had heard reports in the last few years of coyotes attacking women and children. An eighteen-year old girl was killed by a pack of three somewhere up north while jogging down a back road just the autumn before. Mandy had stopped jogging along the lane after hearing that story. She had even insisted Jake start carrying his rifle in the truck when he was working out in the fields. He remembered her words. You can never be too safe. How would you feel if something happened to Nicholas? The less of those damned things wandering around, the better.

Jake walked out from the river, trying to make the least amount of noisy splashing as possible. Don’t be silly. You’re a full grown man. They’re fucking coyotes. But he was a full grown man that hadn’t eaten in days. He was burned, irradiated, and weak. A pack of starving coyotes wouldn’t have much of a struggle bringing him down. Jake moved softly along the river bank, his eyes attempting to pierce the grey, dry mist all around. He strained his ears, commanding his sense of hearing to pick up the sound of approaching paws in the dirt. The further along he went, the more hopeful Jake became. Maybe he would come across one of the bastards all on its own. How hard would it be to kill a solitary coyote with his bare hands? Easy-peasy. I’ll snap its neck and eat the whole goddamn thing down… meat, bones, and fur.

The coyotes had gone silent. Jake crept along, tip-toeing through the mud, his arms extended out in front, his fingers set like claws. He wasn’t going to be lucky enough to stumble along a single coyote, he knew that. Animals survived in packs for a reason. They’d been doing it for thousands of years before mankind arrived on the scene. Civilization was through, and Jake’s luck—if you could call his managing to live through the obliteration of his species luck—was about to run out. Jake pictured them getting closer, surrounding him in a circle and gathering courage. It would come any moment. I hope they make it quick. I hope one of them goes for my throat.

A black smudge appeared in front of him. It was getting bigger, coming towards him. Jake realized a few seconds later the thing wasn’t moving. Jake was still walking, creeping along on legs too stubborn to stop.

The black smudge started to take form. The size was about right for a coyote, but something was definitely wrong. It’s standing on its hind legs… what kind of prairie dog stands on its hind fucking legs?

“Daddy?”

The form burst forward and slammed into Jake. Small arms wrapped around his legs almost knocking him from his feet. Jake’s fingers were still clutching at the air three feet in front of him. He lowered his hands and felt the small boy’s dusty hair. Nicholas looked up at him and smiled. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, leaving trails of wet black. Jake collapsed to his knees and stared into his son’s face. It was dirty and streaked with mud and ash. Jake kissed his forehead and held him out at arm’s length. He was in far better shape than his father. His skin hadn’t been fried, and the clothes he wore were relatively clean and unburned. But they weren’t his son’s clothes. They were a couple of sizes too big and completely unfamiliar to Jake. Where had the boy been, and how did he get this far from home on his own?

Jake hugged him and started to cry. “How?” he rasped. “How did you get here?”

Cold metal touched the back of Jake’s neck before Nicholas could answer. Jake heard the distinctive click of a rifle being cocked.

“Get your hands off of him,” a voice commanded. “Get your hands off my boy.”

Chapter 5

She had waited under her desk for the destruction to end. When the office she had been working in flipped over onto its side, Angela had shifted with it, settling up against the desk’s underside which had come to rest against a wall. A ton of rubble pressed up at her feet, leaving the smallest cube of stale air for her to breathe in. Forty-eight hours earlier the rubble had meaning. It hadn’t been rubble back then; it had been walls, chairs, printers, filing cabinets, and boxes containing stacks of paper neatly separated and ordered into white folders.

Order was no more. The offices of Bonn Accounting had been pancaked together like an accordion’s bellows being compressed. The three-story building Angela had worked in for the last twenty-seven years had fallen over and been squished sideways into the remains of another office building immediately north. Angela Bennet worked on the bottom floor. Had she been trapped any higher, she would now be dead. If the lot south of Bonn Accounting hadn’t been empty and waiting for construction to begin on a new sushi restaurant, Angela was quite convinced she would be just more of the rubble… squished flat and compacted like everything and everyone around her.

She couldn’t remember the blast taking place. Most of her co-workers had been gathered round the television in the break room watching the news unfold. A few more had stood at the big window in the main lobby and seen the missile trails streak across the sky. All Angela could recall was Trish Saquet’s final high-pitched words. Jesus that hurts. Angela hadn’t seen what Trish was screaming about. She had already taken cover under her desk by that time. She had curled up into a ball, her knees pressed into her cheeks, and she was whispering goodbye to her sorry ass.

She had woken up a few hours later in a cramped, black hole, choking on dust. There was the faintest point of grey light peeking through the debris by her left foot. A piece of drywall had jammed uncomfortably up between her legs, and the top of her head was stuck at an awkward angle in one of the desk’s inner corners. Angela had removed the drywall slab and positioned herself in the tiny area with her face next to the patch of grey light, allowing her just enough room to breathe. She had fished around in the shattered picture frames, shards of glass, fragments of plastic, and endless dust, eventually finding two of the three water bottles she had stashed beneath the desk with her. She had sipped one of them slowly, listened to the rubble settle, and tried to plan a way out of her predicament. Angela had heard someone crying, a woman, she thought. She’d tried putting a face to the sound, but couldn’t. The woman wasn’t speaking; she hadn’t been calling out to anyone, or telling them where she was. She had just wailed her mournful, weak noises, and Angela had sipped away at her water, wandering who it might be. Maybe Trish—Trish the Dish is what the guys in the office called her. Trish the Dish with the big, fake tits.

Jesus, that hurts. What had hurt so much to force Trish to take the Lord’s name in vain? Angela didn’t like it when people did that. She had finished her first bottle of water and decided do something. She had to get out of her little hole and help whoever that was crying. Even foul-mouthed tramps didn’t deserve to suffer. Angela had started to pick at that little trickle of light with her fingers and stopped. I only have one bottle of water left. I need to save it, I can’t share.

But it was more than just the struggle between helping another human being and self-preservation. Angela was terrified. She had lived through the worst of it, and felt content to stay in her little black space a while longer. Once she worked her way out, Angela would have to deal with what was left. She wasn’t ready for that. Not yet, maybe never. She had rested her face next to the opening, closed her eyes, and listened to the agonized cries of her co-worker grow fainter.

I’ll make my way out. I’ll go to her and help… soon.

The bomb had smashed into Winnipeg forty-eight hours ago bringing the end to a half million lives. Angela had woken from beneath her desk twelve hours later, and listened to her co-worker die. She had gulped down the second bottle of water, swallowing her guilt and self-loathing along the way. Now it was time to do something. Angela had to face her new world.

Digging her way out from under the desk turned out to be a lot harder than she thought it would be. She was weak and hungry, and the debris fought back, stabbing into finger tips and slashing at her arms. The worst injuries Angela had ever received in her office environment up to this point were paper cuts. The conglomeration of furniture and files she had worked in all of her adult life had turned deadly.

Angela was stunned when she finally managed to crawl free and stand to her feet. She was outside, and the city was on fire. Walls of flame reached up and reflected muddy yellow light off a roiling blanket of black above. The smoke from the burning buildings had nowhere to go, trapped low beneath an endless cloud of fallout pressing back down on the earth that had spawned it. She went to the corner of the street—where the corner had been—and searched the horizon east for her home. The fifteen story building was gone; or at least the top half was. The single bedroom apartment on the twelfth floor she’d lived in for the last six months no longer existed. She had lived alone, and hadn’t made many friends there—she didn’t even own a cat for company—but Angela would miss the place for its close proximity to work. She loved no longer having to wait for buses or call a cab on the mornings she was running late. Angela could walk to work, and be there in less than five minutes.

There’s no more work to go to, she reminded herself. No more buses to take and cabs to call. Even the street corner she was standing on was gone; the concrete torn up and pulverized into dust. All that remained as proof a busy intersection once existed on the corner of Smith and Delgardo was the mass of a twisted traffic light pole at Angela’s feet.

Dear Lord… where am I supposed to go?

A familiar voice spoke inside her head. This is what damnation looks like, girl… the end of the flipping world. It was Angela’s step-father. He spoke to her almost every day; his booming tone as loud in her mind as it ever was when he was living. How’s a useless thing like you going to survive in a place like this?

Angela chewed at her bottom lip—a nervous habit she’d picked up at the age of fourteen, shortly after Dan Bennet had married her mother—and answered softly into the wind. “I’m afraid, Dad, but I’m not useless. I’ll find a way… I’ll find others to help me.” She still called him Dad, even though the brute was no longer around to smack her into saying it.

I’ll find others, he responded mockingly. Why doesn’t that surprise me? You’ve been relying on others your whole life… why stop now?

Hot wind whipped through Angela’s short, grey hair. It buffeted her body, almost sending her to her knees. She made a feeble squeaking sound and started crawling through the rubble of her work place. She couldn’t face this alone, and she certainly didn’t want to face it alone with only her dear old step-father’s advice to carry her along. Angela had to find someone she knew to help her through. She called their names, and no one answered.

It was Trish. She cried in agony, and I listened to her die.

Maybe Trish wasn’t dead. Perhaps there were more survivors like Angela, trapped under their desks or balled up into washrooms and closets. It would be almost impossible to hear their screams in the thunderous roar of flames surrounding her. It had been a miracle Angela had heard those faint cries in the first place. She started pulling the wreckage away. After ten agonizing minutes she gave up. The heat had grown unbearable, the task lying in front of her beyond impossible. There was nothing substantive enough left—besides the miserable space beneath her overturned desk—to take cover in. Bonn’s Accounting was a pile of ruin. Whoever it was Angela had heard crying was thankfully gone. She didn’t have the strength or time to find anyone else.

Giving up already? Lazy girl. Let those before you suffer for your sins. Lazy, cowardly girl. I wish I’d had more time with you… maybe I could’ve knocked some morals into you.

Something big started to groan behind her. Angela turned and watched the remains of an old brick building come crashing down. Andy’s Delicatessen… I bought lunch there every Friday. It punched the pavement with a rumble, throwing up a cloud of smoke and dust into the even bigger clouds of smoke and dust above. Angela heard the sound of what was like a thousand firecrackers going off at once. She saw the sparks a few seconds later, a sea of orange and yellow sparkles travelling above the column of dusty smoke. A strong gust of wind caught the floating embers and drove them towards where Angela was standing. They rained about her magically, a million points of starlight, floating in the black and grey. They settled in the crumpled mess of paper, wood, and plastic at her feet and continued to smoulder brightly. The sparks rained into her hair and bit her shoulders. She danced about wildly, striking the pain away. Her desk burst into flames, and Angela ran.

There she goes… running away from doing what’s right. Run, girl! Run, you useless thing.

She staggered in the opposite direction from where Andy’s had collapsed, away from where she once worked, and towards that area of city block not already consumed in flames. It was too late for Trish. It was too late for Lisa, Michelle, Sandra, and all the other workers she occasionally went out with for drinks and called her friends. Even the ones she didn’t like; the men that laughed and called her the sexy old Jesus-freak with a nice ass behind her back. Even her boss, John Bonn—the man that once owned the flaming pile of debris at her heels—was beyond rescue. They were all beyond hope. Angela would have to find someone else to save.

Chapter 6

She went west, out of the business district and towards the suburban part of the city. Angela wanted to get away from the collapsing office buildings. She wanted to find the homes where people used to live. Fires were still raging around her, but they were smaller and spaced farther apart. She stepped carefully over fallen power lines, even though they looked as dead and inactive as everything else. Electricity was a thing of the past, but tripping on the tangles of endless charred cables at her feet was a very real possibility.

Angela scavenged what she could from exposed basements and flattened corner stores. If she’d had money to leave for the stolen bottles of water and bags of potato chips, she would have. She had even scrounged around for a pen and paper in the smoking aftermath of a 7-Eleven to leave a note. Sorry I couldn’t pay for the melted chocolate bars and flat soft drink. I don’t have any money. I’ll pay you back when the city’s back on its feet and money means something again. That’s what she would’ve written, or something to that effect, had she managed to find a pen the ink hadn’t boiled out of, or paper that hadn’t been transformed into ash. Angela took what she could and remembered her path. She would make it up to them someday.

She went on like that for hours, searching for food and fresh water, calling weakly into the wind for other poor retches stumbling about in the ruined city. The fires continued, and the smoke blocked the stars above. Angela knew it was night-time; the dainty gold wristwatch her grandmother had given her was still working, still ticking the hours, minutes, and seconds away. It was 10 p.m. and Angela was tired. She had found enough to eat and drink since leaving Bonn Accounting, and had stored more in the pockets of her dress to last another twenty-four hours. Angela wanted to get out of the smoke. She needed to find a cool, dark place to curl up in and sleep the next ten or twelve hours away. Should’ve stayed under your desk.

She found a single story house still standing behind the rubble of a collapsed church. This will do just fine. The glass once sitting inside the window frames had blown in, but the structure of the building seemed solid enough. The front door was locked—or the latch had been damaged in the blast—so she crept in through the open living room window. It was dark and still inside, perfect for her needs. She groped forward and her foot bumped into an overturned coffee table. She blinked her eyes a few times, adjusting her sight to the almost complete blackness, and saw the hulking form of an antique chesterfield beyond the table. She leaned forward and felt the coarse fabric covering the middle pillow with her fingertips.  Angela would’ve squealed in excitement if she wasn’t so tired. She crawled over the table and sat on one end of the couch. She closed her eyes and let her head sink back into the cushions.

Angela had lived through the end of times and was sitting on a comfortable couch in the dark. She pulled her legs up from the floor and stretched out. She could see the pile of stone and brick where the church had stood out through the open window. She shifted onto her side for a more comfortable view. Angela studied the holy black mound outside and mourned for the people that once went there to worship. They were all gone now, burned away and scattered throughout the smoke of the city. But the site where that church had been was still there. The bricks, the stones, and the crushed pews underneath were still there. Those thoughts comforted Angela as she drifted off into sleep.

Chapter 7

Something was making a high-pitched squeal in her dreams. One of those dreams was of Trish the Dish Saquet spread out on the boss’s desk letting the piggish men of Bonn Accounting have their way with her, one after the other. Angela could see Trish’s pretty face hanging off the desk’s edge, upside down, and red with exertion. Her thick red lips were stretched tightly into her cheeks, and she was squealing between her big, too-white teeth. The upside-down frown looked demonic, the woman’s black eyes bore into Angela’s soul. This is what you always wanted, but were too afraid and prudish to ask for, the eyes accused. The men high-fived each other after their turns were done, and some high-fived during the act. Trish continued staring at Angela and squealed even louder when John Bonn went last. His penis was as thick as the 1-litre plastic pop bottle Angela had stolen from the corner store, and twice the length. He leered up at his personal secretary and wagged his tongue at Angela. You’re next, darling.

The grinning accountants with their pants still bundled around their ankles; the rocking desk, Trish’s black eyes and glistening white teeth were too much for Angela to bear. But worst of all was John’s threatening expression. He was so good to me over the years. We had a professional relationship… and I loved him. She tried covering her eyes, but the horrible scene remained with her. It’s a dream, my eyes are already closed. I can’t escape this.

The self-satisfied squeal whistling between Trish’s teeth became louder. The woman’s red makeup-smeared lips and cheeks morphed into something even more terrible. The teeth sharpened, transforming into yellow fangs. The black of her eyes narrowed into vertical strips surrounded in pools of bloodshot green. Whiskers sprouted from the sides of her nose. The noise she made burrowed into Angela’s brain like pins being jammed into her ears.

Angela snapped her head forward and stared into a bleak, grey sky. A cat was howling somewhere off in the distance. It sounded as if were being roasted alive, and chances were it was. She felt her heart hammering inside her chest, and forced herself to breathe easily. The cat’s screeching died off and Angela’s heart rate slowed. She was sitting up on a chesterfield in a stranger’s house. She was alone and afraid, but she was safe.

So why could she still hear that incessant squealing? ellleeeeeeeeeeellleeeeeeeee

Angela looked out through the window at the church ruins. She could make more of it out now. Night had passed and morning was doing its best to show there was still a sun rising somewhere on the eastern horizon. She saw a blackened round surface sitting on a precarious angle near the top of the collapsed church. After letting her eyes adjust through the dull layer of ground smoke, Angela finally recognized the church bell. The weak squealing continued.

elllleeeeeeeeelllleeeeeeee

Angela could see more of the small room she’d snuck into the night before. There was a small, old-styled television—the kind they used to make before flat screens attached to walls took over—sitting on an equally small end table. It was pushed up at an angle into the corner next to the blown in window. Dozens of tiny photographs in cheap gold frames hung crookedly on the walls, and a few more were littered across the brown linoleum flooring. They were old pictures, mostly black and white, of people from generations past—grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts, uncles, sons, daughters, moms and dads. It was a scattered collection of silent memories, gathered along the walls with no one left living in the home to appreciate.

Elllllleeeeeeee… Elllllleeeeeeeeeeee.

The sound was in the room with her. Angela’s head turned slowly, towards the far end of the ancient chesterfield where her dirty shoes had streaked the burgundy-colored cushions filthy grey. There was an armchair in the corner, directly across from the television. Something black was seated in it, something fried into the upholstery. Angela jumped back, curling her legs up away from the thing. At first she thought it was a pile of garbage bags, stuffed full with bits of refuse sticking through the melted walls of plastic. It moved, and Angela screamed.

The thing in the chair was still squealing when Angela had finished. ELLLLEEEE… ELLLEEEEEEEEEEE… ELLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. It was a person, and he or she was stuck there. Angela watched its fingers wiggle grotesquely on the arms of the chair. There was a long white knitting needle stuck between the swollen knuckles of her right hand. Its arms and shoulders squirmed in a hopeless attempt to free itself, and it squealed louder. Angela crawled across the chesterfield for a better look. She could tell it was a woman—had been a woman—from the blackened remains of her dress just below the knees, and the melted pantyhose fused into the skin on her legs. She had taken the brunt of the shockwave; shards of window glass were sticking out from every part of her. Blood had leaked from a hundred entry points over her burned flesh and dried.

Angela knelt in front of her and whispered. “What… what are you trying say?”

The woman’s eyes were gone, melted clean out of her skull. All that remained in the left socket was a three-inch piece of glass. She tried wagging her head in an attempt to speak through her charred lips, but could only manage her pathetic mewling. “Ellleee…. Ellleee… Ellleeeee.”

Help me.

How could Angela help the poor soul? She was melted into an armchair. “Can I… would you like a glass of water?” It was the stupidest thing to ask, but Angela had no other idea how to assist the dying woman. The burned skull wagged its head again, side to side, and then up and down.

“Aaawwwwerrrrr.”

Water.

Angela stood up and went to pat the woman’s arm. She changed her mind, imagining the simple gesture likely to cause even more unimaginable agony. And she didn’t want to touch her. She held her hands up at the woman instead in a ridiculous motion that said stay right where you are, I’ll be right back. Angela backed away from the chair and went to find the kitchen.

The glass in the window frame had been blown in to that room as well. The drapes had burned away but the flames hadn’t taken anything else. It would’ve been a mercy if the house burned to the ground. It would’ve saved her from hours of suffering. A small round table was sitting in the room’s center and two chairs were tucked up beneath it. A bowl had shattered to the floor depositing the last bits of an oatmeal breakfast against the yellow tiles. Dust and ash had settled over every square inch of surface in the modest little kitchen. Angela tried the sink faucet, but it only groaned back at her. She grabbed a plastic cup from the floor, rubbed the ashes off against her equally filthy dress, and went to find the bathroom.

Angela wondered along the way how old the lady sitting in the armchair was. She had obviously been living on her own for some time, subsisting on very little and managing to get by. Old folks liked to display family pictures on the walls; there were at least a dozen more in the short hallway. But she hadn’t been too old to have her family ship her off to a care home. That had to put her somewhere between sixty-five and eighty. Angela would’ve have been just like her in another twenty or twenty-five years if the bombs hadn’t wiped all the houses and care homes away. She would’ve collected an old-age pension and dined alone on oatmeal breakfasts until someone deemed her even to useless to do that.

The washroom taps grumbled back at her and the bathtub moaned its protests as well. The toilet bowl was empty so Angela lifted the tank cover away from the back. Bone dry and stained brown at the bottom. The old lady was going to die in complete and utter agony.

Angela remembered the single bottle of pop she’d stolen the day before. She checked the pockets of her dress and found a few globs of chocolate bar stuck inside their wrappers. The drink must have fallen out while I was sleeping. She moved quickly back to the living room and found a man standing over the old woman.

Chapter 8

“Hey,” the stranger said.

“Hey,” Angela answered back. He wasn’t a man, she realized. He was as big as a grownup, but the voice was young, and his build was slim. He was a teenager, probably fifteen or sixteen. A grey hoody was pulled up over his head, but Angela could see the long strands of greasy black hair poking out around his neck. The boy stared back at Angela with dark, guilty eyes.

“Starting to think I was the only one.”

Angela was gripping the plastic cup too tightly. “Pardon me?”

“The only one left… you know, like the last man on earth.”

What was he doing in this house with Angela and the old woman? “You… You’re the first person I’ve seen since… well, you know… since it happened.”

He moved towards her a half-step. “Yeah, what the fuck was that all about? Did we like get hit by an asteroid or something?”

Angela leaned up against the open doorway leading into the kitchen. Whoever the boy was, he didn’t keep up on the world around him. He had no clue what had happened, or how much the planet’s governments hated each other. She tried to control her breathing, not wanting to reveal to the teen how scared she was. Somewhere in the back of her terrified brain she realized the old woman had finally gone silent. “It was a bomb. Nuclear. They’ve probably dropped them all over the continent.”

He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. He never blinked. “We got nuked. Yeah, I wondered that, too. Fuckin’ shame.” He glanced quickly at the woman in the chair. “Too bad about that old lady. Was she your mom?”

“My mother died years ago.”

“So then you don’t who this is. You came in to like take stuff?”

Angela could feel the hard plastic in her hand starting to squeeze in. Any more pressure and the cup would snap into a dozen sharp pieces. “I used the couch, stayed the night. I just needed somewhere to sleep.”

“You trespassed.” The boy came closer. She could smell liquor on his breath. Now probably wasn’t the time to tell him he was too young to drink. “What’s your name?”

“Angela.”

“We have to stick together, Angela. We have to be a team and take care of each other.” He reached up and rubbed his dirty knuckles gently down her throat. The fingertips settled at the top of her chest. “You don’t got to be scared… I won’t let nothin’ bad happen to you.”

Angela turned her face away from him. She looked down and saw the old woman sitting perfectly still. Something had changed. The knitting needle was no longer melded between her fingers—it had been stuck deep into her throat. The glass finally splintered in Angela’s hand, she pushed the teenager away and made a run for the open window.

He grabbed at her hair and yanked her back towards him. “What’s your fucking problem? I’m trying to save your life.”

He backed into the overturned coffee table and they both tumbled onto the chesterfield. Angela felt one of his arms wrap around her neck. The other hand left her hair and started groping between her legs. He was trying to pull her dress up. Something hard and warm was pressing up against her panties. My God, he’s going to rape me.

She gasped through the choking pressure. “Please… don’t do this…you don’t have to do this.”

“Just you and me,” he whispered back. “There ain’t no one else. I’ll take care of you.”

A part of Angela wanted to stop struggling. Let him do what he came here to do. He’s young. It will only take a few seconds. She could see the charred corpse through her flailing legs, four inches of white knitting needle sticking out from under its chin. This wouldn’t end with just the violation of Angela’s body. He would do more to her. She could feel something warm and wet in her hand—the plastic cup fragments. She worked the pieces in her fingers, settling her bloody palm around the longest shard. The boy’s forearm was crushing Angela’s windpipe, dull yellow stars were swimming before her. She tried pleading with him one last time. “Let me go… I won’t tell… anyone.”

His hand was digging between her legs, his nails cutting the insides of her thighs. “I know.”

Angela swung her arm back and drove the plastic shard somewhere into the side of his head. The bone of his skull was harder than the plastic. She scraped down and it caught in the soft flesh of his ear. The teenager howled and the pressure around Angela’s neck lessened. She planted an elbow into his nose and pushed herself free. She tried for the window one more time, but her foot caught on one of the coffee table legs. Angela fell sideways and the woman’s corpse broke her fall.

“Fucking… bitch.” He was coming at her again, one hand cupped over the ravaged side of his head.

She wouldn’t make it outside in time, and even if she did, there was nowhere to run, no one to call for help. Angela was on her own, and she would need something a lot more effective than a broken cup. If she could make it to the kitchen—find a knife or something else sharp. His hands were in her hair again, dragging her back to the chesterfield. Angela reached out for the last weapon in arm’s length. She pulled the knitting needle out of the woman’s throat and drove it towards the chest of her attacker. There was a moment of resistance, and then a soft popping sensation as the needle’s end punctured skin and sunk between two ribs.

The teenager released her and stood straight up. He stared dumbly at Angela without making a sound. Two seconds later he fell back onto the chesterfield, like a tree falling in the forest. The needle had been far more effective than the plastic shard, and Angela’s best guess at where his heart was had been spot on.

I killed him… Oh dear Lord, I just murdered another human being. She tried reassuring herself that he would’ve done the same to her. He had already proved himself to be a killer. The needle sticking up from his chest had ended two lives; it would’ve been Angela’s body lying there—after being horribly violated—had she not beat him to it. Still, the guilt pushed its way back in, overriding the logic of what she’d done. She had told him her name, but never asked for his. I stabbed a man to death without even allowing him to tell me who he was. Angela looked away from the unmoving form and saw the church bell through the window opening. It sat there on its pile of holy rubble, leaning precariously to the north, like a big, black head tilted to one side, staring back at her. Judging.

You messed up bad, girl. It was her step-father again. She had wondered where he had gone in the last twenty-four hours or so. Not only did you take a life, but you killed a man. Jesus on a stick, girl… what the heck were you thinking?

“He wasn’t a man, and he tried to… he was going to hurt me.” She couldn’t say words like rape or molest to her step-father. Those were ugly, ungodly terms, and they were even worse coming from the mouth of a girl. “He murdered the owner of this house—stuck a knitting needle through her throat.”

It didn’t give you the right to do likewise. You did some awful sinning back when I was around, but this takes the cake, girl. How are you going to explain yourself at the pearly gates? How are you expected to meet your mother and me in the kingdom of God with that sin resting on your shoulders?

She tried to block out the weighty questions and concentrated on the boy’s dead body. She hadn’t asked him his name, but perhaps there was another of finding out. Angela tapped at his dirty sneaker and drew her hand away quickly. When the foot didn’t move, she tried it again, like poking a seemingly dead animal and waiting for it to lunge back to life. She knelt beside the body, finally convinced its lunging days were over, and slowly began searching through the front pockets of his black track pants. He was still warm, but would cool soon. His limbs would stiffen. She was responsible for that. Angela Bennet. For all she knew, he may very well have been the last man on earth. Perhaps he had been sent to repopulate the world, and she had ended his holy mission. No. He killed a helpless woman. He would’ve killed me.

You don’t know that for sure. And even if he did have murderous intent, it still doesn’t make what you did any less forgivable. You killed a man, girl… killed him in cold blood without batting an eye.

There was a bit of loose change in one pocket, a half pack of cigarettes and lighter in the other. Angela had made it this far in life without smoking, she wasn’t about to start now with the world burning all around her. She would have to turn his body over to see if he had any identification in a back pocket. He was surprisingly light, but it didn’t make the grisly task any easier. There was no wallet, no identification. It didn’t much matter anymore; Angela went instead for the revolver handle sticking up from the pants waistband. The gun was dull black and cold to the touch. And it was heavy, much heavier than she expected a revolver would weigh.

Don’t even think it. Put that gun back, it doesn’t belong to you.

“I’m doing what you always wanted me to do, Dad.” Angela dropped the weapon into the pocket of her dress. It pushed down on top of the squished chocolate bars. She could feel the pressure of it pulling at the dress collar around her neck. “I’m not going to rely on others. With this I can protect myself… I can warn bad people away without hurting them.”

Killer.

Angela gnawed at her lip and crawled out through the window without answering. She moved in the opposite direction of the church, her eyes now unwilling to look back upon that bell. Dad’s right. He knows what I did, and he knows what I am. God knows.

You’re darn-tootin’ he knows. You ever stop and think in the last few days why you survived the blast? Don’t go believing for a single second it was some kind of divine intervention… Just the opposite, girl. It was Jesus-justified damnation. The only ones left walking the earth now are the corrupt, the sinful, and the lazy.

Angela let him go on while she made her way further into the suburbs. Surely more people had survived the attack. Most of the houses had been blown off their foundations, but a few were still standing; those nestled behind larger buildings, behind the churches, the shopping centers, and schools. Where had everyone gone? Why were they hiding from her?

Maybe they know what you’re packing in that dress. Maybe they know you’re a murderer.

Far away, a dog started barking. It sounded hungry and afraid. With no owners left to feed them, she wondered how long it would take before the animals turned on the remaining humans. Angela picked her way through back yards where green grass had turned to ash. She knocked softly on doors, but didn’t enter without permission. Trespassing was a sin—she’d learned that lesson the hard way.  Stealing was another matter. Angela had taken what didn’t belong to her, but had justified in her mind that it was alright to do so. It was only borrowing after all; she would pay it all back. She entered the North Kilpatrick Shopping Mall through a blown in display window of a sports wear store. This would be a good place to find something better to eat other than candy and soft drinks. And if there was anyone else to find still living, this was the place for that, too. She remembered the familiar radio ad—fulfill all of your shopping needs at North Kilpatrick Mall, where friends meet and families grow.

Where were all the friends and families now?

People had been there since the bomb had dropped. As she worked her way from the sports store into the main plaza, Angela could see where they’d looted and ran. Most of the damage inside hadn’t been caused by the shockwave. Thieves had been busy smashing display cases, stealing cell phones and jewellery—for all the good it would do them. But where had they gone? She began to think that she’d wasted too much time cowering beneath her desk. The survivors had already found one another and moved on.

There was a bad smell in the air, like spoiled food. It got stronger as Angela made her way past the abandoned and emptied stores. There was a big Hudson’s Bay outlet at the end of the walkway. Maybe she would find someone there. The smell got worse. Angela had to plug her nostrils as she entered the store. And then she found the people she was searching for. Hundreds of them.

Dozens of display bins filled with clothing, cosmetics, shoes, and earrings had been pushed up against the far walls, leaving an immense space for dead bodies. Angela prayed that someone had gathered all the store mannequins and placed them there as some kind of sick joke. But even a shopping mall the size of North Kilpatrick didn’t have that many display mannequins to spare. These were people—men, women, and children—and they had been slaughtered. They had been herded into this open space and shot down. A few had gaping holes in their chests and stomachs, most had taken it square between the eyes. Angela was standing in the outer edge of an immense pool of blood. She stepped back and tried to wipe it away from the bottom of her shoes along some cleaner sections of white tile.

She started to gag and turned away, reaching for the gun in her pocket. She ran back the way she’d come, gasping for cleaner air and finding none. Angela staggered to a bench and vomited into the potted plant sitting next to it.

You don’t have much of a stomach for this kind of thing, do you?

She wiped her lips dry against her sleeve. “Shut up, Dad.”

There was a toy store in front of her. The windows were intact, and the contents on the shelves seemed untouched. Nothing of value to thieves and mass murderers in a toy store. Angela would be safe there. She could hide along the narrow aisles and gather her thoughts amongst the dolls, teddy bears, and video games. She entered, holding the heavy gun in front of her, wagging the dull black barrel from side to side. “If anyone’s in here, don’t get any ideas. I can defend myself. I’ll shoot, swear to God, I’ll pull the freaking trigger and end your life.” Angela had started to cry during the last part of her shaky warning. She had never held a gun in her hand until a few short hours ago, and she wasn’t even sure she had the strength to pull that freaking trigger.

She heard a soft padding sound coming from the back of the store. Moments later a red rubber ball rolled up to her bloodied shoes. Angela wanted to scream and run, but she held her ground. She aimed the gun down the aisle and carried on. “I’m not fooling around here. I killed a man this morning with a knitting needle, and I’ll kill you, too.”

Angela moved further into the shadows. She stopped in the corner, bracing her back up against a display of jigsaw puzzles and pre-kindergarten picture books. The gun was becoming too much in her hands, the barrel end starting to droop down at the floor. She took a deep breath and crept towards the back room door.

EMPLOYEES ONLY the sign read above. Dirty fingers shot out from within and wrapped around her wrist. The gun fell and three more hands scratched at her arm.

Angela was dragged into darkness.

Chapter 9

“I know you’re hurting.” Hayden pressed the rifle barrel into the back of the man’s neck with more force. “But don’t try anything stupid. We have a place just west of here, an area that survived the worst of it. I can help treat those… burns of yours. Get some food and clean water into you.”

The man released the boy’s shoulders. He tried turning his head, but Hayden kept it in place with the rifle. He spoke. “Hayden? Oh my God… Hayden Gooding, is that really you?”

Hayden kept the gun stuck into his neck and reached around for the boy’s hand. “Come back here, Nicholas. He won’t hurt you.”

The boy did as he was told. He went and stood next to the big man. Hayden pulled the rifle away and stepped back, pulling the child along to a safer distance. “Turn around, let me get a better look at you.”

The burnt man shifted sideways on his knees until he was facing them. The hair on his head had been fried away, the skin melted into his skull red and brown. The flesh of his right cheek was gone, leaving behind a gaping hole of gums and teeth. The rest of him wasn’t any easier to look at. Most of his clothes were missing, and every square inch of exposed skin was blistered over and raw. But through it all, Hayden had recognized the man’s voice, as rasping and weak-sounding as it had become, he knew the man kneeling before them. And the man knew him as well.

“Jake?”

Jake nodded. “Been walking for days… heading north, trying to find others.” He reached for Nicholas, and Hayden pulled the boy away. “I never thought I’d see him again. Thank you, Hayden… thank you for saving my son.”

“Maybe it would be best if you didn’t touch him. You’re in rough shape, a real mess, Jake.”

Jake Heez lowered his hand. Hayden was right; when his son had found him, he hadn’t gotten a good enough look. Now he could see full-on what had happened to his father—what he’d become—and the boy looked terrified.

“It’s me, Nicholas, its Dad.”

Hayden lowered the gun and helped Jake to his feet. “Can you walk?”

“I made it this far.”

“Come on then. Let’s get you back to the farm.”

Jake staggered alongside him. Nicholas held Hayden’s hand on the opposite side. “How did he get here? There’s nothing left of my place. Was… was Mandy with him?”

“Easy, Jake. I’ll explain it all back at the hole in the hill.”

Jake knew what the hole in the hill was. He’d been to Hayden Gooding’s farm a few years ago a half dozen times or so. The two men weren’t close, but their wives had been friends since high school. Teresa Gooding—Teresa Philips back then—had been Mandy’s bridesmaid at their wedding. Teresa hitched up with Hayden a year later. Teresa had always been a loud-mouthed, spoiled brat; the isolation of living on a farm hadn’t agreed with her, and after half a year the two split up. It had been during that six month period of marital bliss when both couples got together for the occasional backyard barbeque. Hayden’s farm yard sat on top of a hill, and on the north side, the hill dropped steeply off into the fields and pastures. Sometime in the seventies, Hayden’s father had removed a substantial section of that hill to provide shelter for horses.

That’s where Hayden was taking Jake and Nicholas now. He was taking them there because it was the only place to go. The house was no more. The sheds, garages, and barns had all been levelled. Like Jake’s property, there wasn’t a single structure left standing.

Hayden could see him surveying the devastation. “How bad was it at your place?”

“The same, maybe worse.”

They started down the steep incline; Hayden kicked rubble and dried clumps of baked mud out of their way, revealing steps made of two-by-sixes built into the hill. They had been put there less than four decades earlier, and likely replaced in the years since, but to Jake they looked more like ancient ruins hidden beneath the dust. They came to the bottom and stepped in front of two big wooden doors resting in a foundation of crumbling concrete set into the hillside. Dead, grey grass clung to the dried out soil around the door frame, and hung over the header beam like a dirty toupee. The grass higher up had turned black, and nearer to the top of the hill it had burned away altogether.

“Mandy isn’t here,” Hayden said when Jake started for the doors. Jake turned and gave him a questioning look. “I’ll be straight up with you… she was here, but she isn’t anymore.” He stepped past Jake and lifted a wooden beam from the rusted brackets holding the doors closed. He pulled one of the doors open and the three stepped into blackness.

“Give me a second,” Hayden muttered. There was a flicking sound followed by a light hiss, and then a small orange flame jumped into life. “It’s an old Coleman gas lantern. I think it was my Dad’s. Never thought it would be of any use… but then again, I wasn’t expecting the world to take a nosedive into oblivion any time soon, either.”

Jake stared into the shadows all around him. He had never actually been inside the shelter before. The first six feet of walls above the dirt floor were concrete, above that, thick wooden beams kept the earth in place. More beams ran overhead, sloping down into the heart of the hill. Something snorted in the dark and stepped forward. The horse looked Jake over suspiciously, sniffed at his tattered shirt sleeve, and then backed off into the shadows again.

“Trixie was the only animal that made it,” Jake said. “My other two horses were outside when it happened. So were over a hundred head of cattle… and my dog.”

“Max.” Jake remembered the big, slobbering black lab from the family barbeques.

“Yeah, Max. He didn’t deserve to go like that. None of them did.” Hayden dug into a cardboard box pushed up against the wall. He pulled out a can of beans along with an opener. “You hungry?” Jake nodded emphatically. “Stupid question.”

Jake shovelled the cool contents into his mouth and swallowed without chewing. Some of it fell out of the opening where his cheek used to be, and he scooped it back in. “You said Mandy was here. Where’s my wife, Hayden? Where is she now?”

Hayden lit a second gas lantern further in. Trixie came back into view, kicking at a pile of loose straw in a corner. “I’m trying to conserve the fuel; God only knows how long we’ll be stuck in here. I don’t know much about nuclear fallout and radiation, but I’m betting we have enough food and water stored in here to last a month, maybe a little less.”

Jake stumbled towards him, pleading with his hands. “Please… just tell me.”

“She didn’t make it. She went out before the big one hit.”

Jake stopped. “Before? That doesn’t make any sense. Mandy was at home with Nicholas. She came here after the blast… didn’t she?”

Hayden dunked a pail into the horse’s water trough. He pulled it back out, half-filled, and sat down on a plastic milk crate. He met Jake’s eye with a grim gaze. “Mandy had come to see me the morning it happened.” He pulled up a second milk crate and motioned Jake to come sit in front of him. “I have half a dozen twenty-four packs of drinking water. We’ll have to go through those sparingly. I’ll clean the worst of your wounds with this. Considering you were drinking from an irradiated river when I found you, that shouldn’t be an issue?”

Jake sat on the crate and watched him wet a piece of cloth into the pail. Hayden wrung it out with his big hands and questioned Jake with raised eyebrows. Jake nodded and Hayden started to dab the cold cloth gently to his skull. “My son found me… not you.”

“Nicholas snuck out while I was sleeping,” Hayden explained. “I warned him how dangerous it was outside, told him the air was all wrong… that it would make him sick. I came across you first, washing up in the river.”

Jake looked over to his son. Nicholas had curled up into the same straw pile Trixie was rooting around in. The boy’s eyes were heavy, beginning to close, but they never left Jake’s form. “Mandy and I were having trouble,” Jake whispered. “We’d been fighting for months. I never really understood why… thought it was all my fault.”

Hayden rinsed the cloth in the pail and pressed it against the less ravaged side of Jake’s face. “It’s no one’s fault… not really.”

“Is that what you told yourself, Hayden? Did it lessen the guilt some?”

“It wasn’t something I was looking for. Mandy was here all the time when I was still married, visiting with Teresa. After we split up, Mandy kept coming over… she said she was just as concerned about me as she was with her best friend.”

“I’ll bet.”

Hayden didn’t argue. He dunked the cloth in for a third rinse, and Jake took it from his hand when he went to raise it back towards his face. “I grabbed as many supplies as possible before we left the house. I didn’t have any medical dressing or bandages, but I do have some clean linen sheets. I could tear some into strips and wrap up the worst of your burns.”

Jake rubbed the cloth down the bridge of his nose. Blackened skin peeled away with it. “Why bother? I’ll be dead in a few days. Save your fucking sheets.” Hayden tried offering him one of the bottled waters. “Save that, too.”

Hayden sighed and stood. If Jake was going to take a swing at him, he probably would’ve tried it by now. Hayden was almost six and a half feet tall, and just shy of two hundred and fifty pounds. Jake was no match for him, before or after the blast. “She left the shelter to go find you.”

“What?”

Hayden covered a small blanket over Nicholas’s sleeping form. “I tried talking her out of it… told her there wasn’t time. She went anyway.”

Jake tried to picture how Mandy’s last minutes had been; speeding down twelve miles of back roads trying to find him—trying to save him. She had been cheating on him with another man, but in the final moments of her life, Mandy had come looking for him. Jake wept into the damp cloth, his tears mixing with the blood and horse’s trough water.

Chapter 10

Hayden pushed one of the shelter doors open a crack. The sky was heavy with clouds. They were swirling about like massive whirlpools in an ocean of radioactive grey and green. Clouds like that brought frightening storms with them, the kind that spawned twisters. The weather patterns were all fucked up, adjusting to the garbage in the atmosphere, and extremely unpredictable. He’d only left the shelter twice, once to chase after Mandy, the other after her son. Both times Hayden had encountered strange weather; hot winds and cold winds, dust devils the color orange, and a spatter of rain that smelled chemical. The old earth didn’t know what to make of the change, so she tried to adjust the best she could.

How long would it be before they could set out? How far would they have to travel to even find another survivor? Hayden pulled the door shut. Judging from the color of the sky, they’d be waiting a long time.

The lanterns had been snuffed out. It was pitch black inside, like a cave deep inside the biggest of mountains, stifling and claustrophobic. He could hear Trixie clomping her hooves restlessly in the straw. She needed to get out worse than the rest of them. She needed room to move, and pastures to run through. Somewhere near his horse, Jake was sleeping next to Nicholas. Jake’s dying. As horrible as it sounds, I hope it happens soon. The boy will be devastated, but the man has suffered enough already.

Hayden crawled to the nearest corner and found the blanket he’d yanked from his bed a few days before. He lay on his side in the dry dirt and pulled the comforter up over his shoulder. He rested his head against a balled up sack that once held oats. Mandy and Nicholas had been with him when he ran throughout his home gathering supplies. It had been her idea to bring the sheets and blankets. Hayden wished she’d thought of grabbing some pillows as well. It would’ve been softer than an empty feed sack.

The doors started to rattle. The wind had picked up. Batten down the hatches, a storm’s blowing in.

It picked up, and the doors shook continuously for the next half hour. Hayden kept one eye trained on the strip of grey light. It had grown darker outside, and nightfall—such as it was since the dust had started to settle—was still hours away. There was nothing Hayden could do about it. They were in the safest place left known to him. He closed his eyes and prayed the noise wouldn’t waken Nicholas. He prayed that Jake was already dead.

Hayden thought more about the pillow that had burned up in his house. If he had it with him now, he could crawl over and smother the last bit of life away from Jake. It would be a mercy. End his misery… end Nicholas’s fear and confusion. Hayden winced in the dark. Mandy had sacrificed her life in a hopeless attempt to save her husband, and here Hayden was now, planning to kill him anyway. What would she think of that? What kind of monster was he?

He listened as the wind roared down the hill and pulled at the doors.

* * *

Hayden could hear something hissing. He opened his eyes to a bright yellow light, and shielded them with the back of his hand. The gas lantern… it was off when I went to sleep, I’m sure of it. Something cold and hard jammed up under his chin. Hayden pulled his hand away and saw the barrel end of his hunting rifle. Jake was on his knees, holding the gun in both hands. Hayden tried to speak and Jake pushed harder.

“Doesn’t feel that nice, hey—having a fucking gun stuck into your head?” Jake was whispering, still mindful not to wake the boy sleeping less than twenty feet away. It was a dry, painful sounding rasp. “What did you think, Hayden? How’d you think I would act once I found out you’d been banging my wife? But it didn’t end there, did it? The two of you made it worse… dragged Nicholas into it.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Hayden gasped, and tried swallowing against the pressure on his Adam’s apple. Jake pulled the gun back a half inch. “We weren’t… we weren’t messing around the morning it happened. We never did anything like that when Nicholas was around.”

“So what was it then? Why the hell was Mandy with you, and why did she bring my son to your fucking farm?”

“Goddamn it, Jake. It wasn’t just sex. We were friends… she came over for coffee, that was all. She came over a lot to visit. Your wife was lonely… I was lonely. Nicholas was always welcome. I love that kid.” Hayden saw something in his glistening, sick eyes—a twinkle of pure hatred. He had said the wrong words. Screwing a man’s wife wasn’t a good thing to do; being her friend and loving his son was unforgivable.

Jake rammed the gun forward again, hard enough for Hayden to feel it pushing up against the underside of his mouth. “Don’t say another word about him, not another fucking word.” He leaned in close and whispered. “You couldn’t keep your own wife happy, so you stole someone else’s. You’re a piece of shit, Gooding… a worthless, cheating piece of shit.”

Saliva had pooled into a little pocket between Jake’s gums and the remaining flap of cheek flesh. It spilled over as he leaned closer and leaked onto Hayden’s chest. “Don’t do this, Jake. You need me to survive. You need someone to look after him.”

“Yeah, I can’t do it on my own for much longer… But I’m not leaving him with you.” Jake pulled the rifle away from Hayden’s throat and struck the side of his head with the handle.

Chapter 11

Hayden woke up and discovered all hell had broken loose. One of the shelter doors was smashing up against the side of the hill, the other had been torn away from its hinges altogether. Dirt and straw were swirling around him in ferocious eddies, and he could see through the dust that the sky had turned a deadly shade of bruised purple and black. He called out for Nicholas, but the boy didn’t answer. The gas lantern was next to him, lying on its side, the glass cover broken into a hundred pieces. The wind had snuffed out the flames within, sparing Hayden a painful, burning end. He crawled to the opening and pulled himself up along the jagged remains of the door frame. He screamed the boy’s name again, and pleaded for Jake to bring him back.

Green lightening forked down from the clouds, and thunder pounded into Hayden’s ears a second later. A sheet of sand whipped into his face and it wasn’t until Hayden went to wipe his eyes that he saw it was rain. It was burning his skin, irradiating him. They wouldn’t last long out in that, he thought. Even at his healthiest, Jake was no match for these new, perverted elements.

Nothing could survive in that. They’re dead already.

He stumbled out into it anyway. Where would they have gone, where do I start to look?

Something clomped up beside him. Trixie stuck her wet nose into the side of his neck and snorted her fear.

* * *

“You don’t have to be afraid. I’m here now, and everything’s going to be okay.”

Nicholas backed away further from the man that sounded like his dad. There wasn’t much room, and only one way to go, but he moved anyway.

Jake held his hand up in a gesture that said:  I understand, you’re frightened, but don’t go any further. Crawling into the drainage pipe had only staved off the inevitable. If the burning rain didn’t kill them, suffocating in the four foot high, thirty foot long steel tube would. The wind had buried the far end in with rubble and soil, and the small opening they’d crawled through was acting like a reverse vacuum, sucking out all the breathable air left.

“I know. I screwed up… big time. We should’ve stayed in the shelter.”

Nicholas pressed up against the metal and pulled his knees into his chest. He muttered something, but Jake couldn’t hear it over the howl of the wind. Jake crawled towards him again. “What did you say, son?”

Nicholas cringed away from the raw-looking fingers. “I want my Mom! I don’t want to be here with you! You’re not my Dad!”

“I know I’ve changed… I know I don’t look like Dad, but you’ve got to trust me… it’s just the two of us now. Mom’s not coming back.” He rested his hand on Nicholas’s arm and felt the boy flinch away even further. “We’re going to get through this together.”

Nicholas screamed and dove under his arm. He scrambled for the opening, kicking his way forward against Jake’s ribs. Jake grabbed at one of his ankles, and the boy’s other foot kicked dirt up into his face. Dry grit stung into Jake’s eyes, and he let go.

Nicholas made it out of the drainage ditch and fled into an open field. Jake yelled after him, spitting dirt up from the back of his mouth, and blinking it out of his eyes. He climbed out from the pipe and watched his son run into the storm. Lightening forked throughout the clouds, and thunder shook the ground. Nicholas was a speck in the midst of it.

Jake started running after him, and the wind knocked him to all fours. He tried standing again, but the wind kept pushing at his back, as if the hand of an enraged God was forcing him to his knees. Jake fought back, he pushed harder, and the wind won. He collapsed forward into the dirt; his face pushed into grey soil. It isn’t just the wind, he thought. My legs are dead. All of me is done. Only his mind had the strength to fight back, and his mind was useless to him. He couldn’t will his son to return. All he could do was watch the small form shrink further away. “Come back,” he croaked. There was another flash of blinding green lightening, a boom of thunder rattled though his bones, and Nicholas was gone.

Jake rolled onto his back, resigned to the fact he would never see his son again. He would never see his wife again. His family, his world… all lost. He shouldn’t have fought it for so long. There had been dozens of opportunities to end his life before now. I could’ve let myself drown in that slough runoff. I could’ve let my body drop into the well. I could’ve stopped walking and starved to death… I could’ve just stopped.

The clouds above were a maelstrom—a gigantic swirling vortex so thick it looked almost liquid in formation, like a pot of melted grey plastic being stirred counter clockwise. Jake stared into the dull green eye of it, now directly above him. There was a moment of calm; the wind stopped howling in his ears, and the dust settled. It was a beautiful sight to behold—almost as beautiful as the awe-inspiring yellow and orange mushroom cloud that helped spawn it days earlier. Jake would be pulled up into it, and become part of the sky. This would be a good way to die, to be carried up into the heavens and reunited with wife and son.

I forgive you, Mandy. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend… I’m sorry I lost Nicholas.

The center of it passed on, and the wind resumed screaming in his ears. Jake sat up, and gravel pelted his face. The pieces became larger, hitting his battered body with greater speed and force. Something black erupted from the earth less than a hundred yards away. It reached up, twisting into the clouds, puncturing the great green eye half a mile over Jake’s head.

The massive tornado shaft began its slow dance, shifting to the left, and churning to the right. A second column appeared next to it, a partner to share the floor of clouds with. Jake had seen far too much in the last few days. He closed his eyes, blinding himself from the unimaginable power, and waited for his limbs to be torn apart.

The sound was too much to bear; he clamped his hands over his ears, and the noise worked its way in, scraping at his brain, shaking his body. Something smacked into his arm with enough force to throw him back over onto his hands and knees. Jake opened his eyes a crack and saw a black foot scratching the ground. Not a foot… a hoof.

Hayden was yelling something up on Trixie’s back, but Jake couldn’t hear what it was over the roar. Against all better judgement, Jake reached up and took the man’s hand. Hayden was strong; he pulled Jake up in one fast motion, and the horse was away.

A third twister had materialized behind them; Jake was lying on his stomach across Trixie’s neck, bouncing uncomfortably and wheezing for breath, but his sight hadn’t been impaired. The tornadoes were spreading out, picking up more debris, and thickening at their bases. They were whipping up the remains of an already destroyed world, rearranging the ruin into an even more unrecognizable nightmare. Jake saw the thirty-foot drainage pipe they’d taken cover in rip up from the ground. It twisted in the main column like a piece of liquorice, and then it was spat out into the churning wall of another. I made Nicholas crawl into that thing with me… I thought he would be safe in there.

The boy’s face appeared at that moment from behind Hayden’s body. His blue eyes were terror-filled, his blonde hair whipped in the dust-filled air and struck his cheeks. Jake could see his arms wrapped around Hayden’s waist, the little fingers burrowed into the shirt of his rescuer.

“Thank you,” Jake gasped into the horse’s sweaty hide. “Thank you.”

* * *

The tornadoes were gone, headed southeast to merge with other monster twisters and blacker storm cells. This storm had passed, but Hayden knew there would be more; the grey sky was streaked with odd pinkish colors, as if the underside of the heavens had been scratched open and left to bleed. Hayden was lost. He couldn’t find his farm in the aftermath. The landscape had changed too much for him to recognize a single thing. There were no more forests, not a single tree left standing. The roads running between fields and towns had been torn up and flattened over. All that remained was ground… lifeless, grey earth.

Hayden let the reins droop in his hands. The horse moved off to the left on her own accord. There hadn’t even been time to put a saddle on Trixie. Jake was still slumped over on his stomach in front of him, unconscious, and possibly dead. Hayden hadn’t checked for at least a quarter of an hour. Nicholas’s grip on his shirt had weakened, but Hayden knew he was still awake. The boy was whimpering softly into his back. They carried on that way for another half hour until Hayden saw a dark rise off in the distance. A hill.

He should’ve let Trixie find the shelter without his assistance; she was far more capable of smelling her way home than he was. Home was an even a bigger disaster than when he’d left it. Both shelter doors were missing, the frame had torn away as well, taking great chunks of concrete foundation along with it. Smoke was trickling out from the yawning darkness inside.

Hayden wrapped a steadying arm around Nicholas and the two slipped silently off of Trixie’s back. Jake made a groaning noise, and Hayden pulled him down gently to the ground. He was mumbling something between his swollen, cracked lips. Hayden leaned in closer to hear. “You… You saved him. You saved my son.”

Hayden shook his head. “Saved him for what? There’s nothing left. The shelter’s been destroyed.”

Jake craned his head towards the opening. “Looks like… like a fucking tornado tore the place up.” He tried to laugh, and coughed something black up over his lips. A bit more leaked from the hole in his cheek and soaked the dirt. It must have hurt like hell to laugh like that, Hayden thought, but Jake continued snorting through his nostrils anyway.

His mind’s finally caught up with the rest of him… totally wrecked.

Hayden left him there and went towards the shelter. Nicholas grabbed his hand along the way and the two walked in together, waving away the smoke still clinging to the dirt ceiling. The fuel for the gas lanterns must have upset. It wouldn’t have taken much to create a spark—possibly a lightning strike— in all that wind and flying debris. Most of the supplies he’d gathered were gone or burned to a crisp. The boxes of food had been picked up and sucked out into the fields. Hayden found half of his comforter stuck underneath Trixie’s overturned water trough, the other half had burned away. He spread it out on the ground and started tossing what little left there was. Thirteen unbroken bottles of water, four tins of beans, two tins of Chef Boyardee’s Mini Ravioli, and a big can of Campbell’s mushroom soup. That was it for food and water—enough for five or six days, maybe a full week if the cackling idiot outside died during the night.

Nicholas presented him with one half of the can opener. The plastic turning dial had melted away. “Thanks, bud.” Hayden took the metal piece and shoved it into his back pocket; at least it was the half with the can puncture part on the end.

“Are we gonna sleep in here again tonight?”

Hayden looked around them. There was no straw for them to curl up in, no water for his horse to drink. The doors were gone, and nothing stood between them and the radioactive elements. “Just one more night, Nicholas. We’ll stay one more night.”

“And then what? You gonna take me home tomorrow?”

Hayden listened as Jake’s snorts turned to mournful cries. “No, I won’t be taking you home. That place is gone. We’re going to try and find a new place to live.”

“Will my Mom and Dad be there?”

Hayden ran his big hand through the boy’s hair without answering. He smiled at him, kissed his forehead, and then went about the rest of his work; gathering up the meagre remains of their supplies for what would likely be a very long journey.

Chapter 12

“I want to have a fire.”

Hayden looked over at Jake as if the man had lost his mind, and then remembered that he already had. “There’s been enough fires.”

They were sitting outside the shelter remains, both propped up against the dirt edges of hill where the door frames used to be. The sky was growing dark, not from storm clouds, but the natural progression of day into night. If there wasn’t so much dirt and ash in the sky, they might’ve been able to watch the sun set.

Jake leaned forward and started pulling the shirt off of his back. What was left, peeled away sickeningly from his flesh. Jake didn’t seem discomforted by it; he was far removed from physical pain anymore. He balled the cloth up and threw it between them. “I want to have a fire… nothing huge, just a few little flames to watch. You know, just like when we were growing up as kids, sitting around a little campfire with our friends.”

“We didn’t grow up together, Jake. I graduated from school before you entered junior high.” He wanted to add that they had never been friends either, but decided against it.

“So you’re seven or eight years older than me. Doesn’t mean you never sat around a campfire.”

Hayden looked over his shoulder to see if Nicholas was still sleeping. The little form was only a few feet away, silent and unmoving, but it was impossible to tell in the gathering shadows if he was sleeping or not. Trixie wasn’t in there with him. Hayden had let her wander off into dusk. If she was going to die from radiation sickness, there was no stopping it now. Better to let her go off on her own. Maybe that nose of hers would sniff out the river; the poor animal deserved a drink of water as much as any of them, possibly more.

“Fire’s a bad idea, Jake. We have to save what’s left.”

“What, like this?” He threw a chunk of torn two-by-four onto his shirt. “I found about six more pieces just like it while you and my son were eating beans. Come on, Hayden… quit being such an asshole, and start a fire. I got nothing left, no fight in me… you won. Give me this.”

“This isn’t some kind of competition. And even if it was, there sure as hell weren’t any winners. We all lost.”

“Mandy,” Jake rasped. “We lost Mandy. Both of us. Light the fucking fire.”

Ready flame was one supply Hayden always carried on him. He pulled a lighter from his front pocket, shoving the other two deeper down with his fingers so they wouldn’t fall out. Hayden hadn’t smoked a cigarette since the bomb hit; he had forgotten the open pack on his kitchen table and the full carton in his garage. Like his pillow, cigarettes were a comfort he’d have to do without for the time being. Jake was trying to strip smaller slivers away from the larger pieces of wood with his nails. His fingers cracked open and started to bleed.

“Let me,” Hayden offered. The wood was jagged on one end, and it didn’t require much strength to pull some smaller pieces away for kindling. Jake crawled off into the dark while Hayden arranged the shavings into a pyramid shape over the shirt. Jake returned a few moments later dragging eight feet of splintered two-by-six under one arm.

Hayden took it from him. “This was the faceplate on the upper part of the door frame. Where did you find it?”

“Tried to take a leak a few minutes ago and tripped over the corner of it. The rest was buried under dirt.”

“Good thing you’re clumsy.” It was easy for Hayden to break the board into smaller pieces. Those left too thick to break over his knee were set one end on the ground, the other end against a rock. His heel slamming in the middle did the rest. Hayden lit his little pile and within minutes it was crackling and sparking with flames.

“Aaahhhh… that’s nice,” Jake said, pulling himself in and crossing his legs. He raised his hands and spread his bloodied fingers close to the fire. “Smells just like the fires my Dad used to build in the back yard.”

“Can you even feel the heat?” Hayden asked with concern. “You’re sitting awfully close.”

“Nah, can’t feel a goddamn thing anymore.”

Hayden took a piece of splintered wood from their small supply and stirred the fire down until the flames weren’t jumping so high. “Better if we burn it slowly, make it last.”

“So now you think the fire was a good idea?”

“I never said it was a bad idea.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“It might get cold sitting outside like this. We have to make it last.”

Jake started laughing again. Hayden could see the side of his tongue wiggling against his teeth. The dim orange light flickered off his mottled forehead and blackened nose. “What’s so funny?”

“I’m pretty sure… you wanted me… dead a few hours ago,” Jake said between hitching gasps. “Now here you are… wanting to spend the night together.”

Hayden had to look away from the ruined face, but he started giggling as well. “This is crazy. The bomb, losing everything and everyone. And then the last man on earth shows up, and it’s the man whose wife I was having an affair with.”

“I think it’s called karma.”

They both burst out at the same time. Hayden laughed so hard he started to cry. After they’d settled down, he threw more wood into the fire, and they shuffled back on their rear ends until they were resting against the shelter opening walls again. “I’m sorry, Jake… I’m really sorry about Mandy.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think we’re going to get any crops planted this spring.”

Jake was too tired and weak to laugh. “Good. I never liked… farming all that much anyway.”

“So why’d you do it?”

His shoulders hitched up half an inch. Hayden took it for a shrug. “My Dad was a farmer… so was my Grampa… it’s one of those… things you’re born into.”

“Well I’ll miss it,” Hayden answered after a long pause. “I’ll miss getting up early and watching the sun rise. I’ll miss walking along the edge of a healthy crop of wheat, and I’ll miss the smell of cow shit. I’ll miss it all.”

There was a longer pause. Much longer. The flames winked out and the embers left smouldered a comforting orange. Hayden went to throw another piece on, and Jake stopped him.

“No more… looks nice like it is.” Jake settled down further into the ground. “You’ll take good care of him? You promise?”

“Yes. I promise.” Jake’s breathing sounded more laboured than it did before the fire. “Can I get you some water now?”

“Maybe just a bit.”

When Hayden returned with the bottle, Jake was dead.

* * *

“Are you ready?”

“I guess so,” Nicholas answered. Hayden lifted him onto the horse’s back. “Where we going?”

He climbed up after him, settling in behind the boy. “Trixie knows where the river is. She’ll take us there now, and we’ll follow it southeast. There should be cities that way… or whatever’s left of them. We’ll find somebody to help us, I’m sure of it.”

There had been no sunrise to speak of, but it wasn’t quite as dark as the morning before. The air didn’t seem so dirty. Maybe the wind and twisters had sucked most of the ash and crud along with them. It wasn’t a beautiful morning, and it wasn’t the worst Hayden had seen. The truly ugly mornings were yet to come. They set out away from the hole in the hill.

“What happened to the scary man that sounded like my Dad? Isn’t he coming with us?”

Trixie trotted by a mound of loosely packed dirt and rocks. Hayden looked down at it and grimaced. He should have told Jake the entire truth—that the affair had resulted in so much more. A part of Hayden figured Jake already knew. Maybe it wasn’t worth mentioning at the end. He kissed Nicholas’s head and whispered. “No, he isn’t. And I’ll be your dad… now.”

Chapter 13

“I had a dream about the dead babies again.”

“All the babies are dead now. They can’t hurt you. They’re inside your head.”

Amanda crawled out of the cardboard box so she could hear her brother better. “What did you say?”

“I said all the babies are dead, and even if there are any left, they’ll be dead soon enough.” Michael didn’t take any pleasure frightening his twin sister, but he knew the days of pampering her were over. “You should start having dreams about how to get out of this place.”

Amanda reached back into the overturned box and pulled her stuffed animals out. “I’m not leaving this room, no way, not for a kajillion dollars.”

“What would you need money for? We can just take whatever we want now.”

“You know what I mean. I’m not leaving this room until he’s gone.” Amanda Fulger stared at her brother with intense brown eyes until the boy looked away.”

“I don’t think he’s going anywhere for awhile.” Michael went to the refrigerator and took a half loaf of white bread out. He paused while shutting the door and decided the dry bread would need some margarine to soften it up some. “I’m going to have a piece of bread. You want one?”

“I’m not hungry. I want you to call Dad.”

“Phone’s don’t work.”

“Can’t you get that computer to work? Can’t we email him?”

Michael glanced over at the big black box on the desk. The fifteen-inch monitor sitting next to it was just as black, the screen coated over with a fine layer of dust. “There isn’t any power in the building, it won’t turn on.” He doubted the office computer would work even if the power hadn’t been cut. By the looks of it, nobody had used the thing for months.

“There’s power,” Amanda argued. “That music hasn’t stopped playing for days.”

She was right. The music was still playing—that one terrifying instrumental piece without any singing was starting over again for about the thousandth time. They didn’t know what it was called; ten-year olds knew practically nothing about classical violin. If their father was there, he might be able to tell them it was Canon in D. But he wasn’t with them, and he never would be again.

“He’s using something with batteries, wired it into the main speaker system. That’s probably running on batteries, too. There’s no electricity anywhere.”

Amanda placed the big teddy-bear and stuffed lion on the floor. She took the candle her brother had used and poked it inside the dark fridge. There was a tub of sealed yogurt, warm to the touch, and swollen almost to the point of bursting. She should’ve opened it on day one; it might not have made her sick then. She pushed it off to the side and rummaged through the rest of the food—as they had both done dozens of times in the last forty-eight hours—looking for something sweet. There wasn’t much to choose from; the bloated yogurt container, a milk carton one-quarter filled with chunky stuff, the dry bread and margarine Michael was now using, a cardboard box containing four doughnuts as hard as rocks, and a jar of raspberry jam with maybe a teaspoon’s worth of goo stuck up along the inside of the glass. She settled for the jam, scraping out what she could with her finger.

“You should put that on some of this bread,” Michael said, offering the plastic bag out to her. “It’ll taste better.”

She scowled and sucked the jam dry from her finger. “I want chocolate.”

“You can’t have chocolate.”

“Yes I can. There’s a coffee store right around the corner from here. I saw tons of chocolates in there. You could tip-toe all the way there and all the way back. He’ll never hear you.”

Michael shook his head. “We agreed. We can’t leave. You saw what he did to all them people… what he did to Mom.”

Amanda picked the lion back up and squeezed it against her chest. The teddy-bear was for comfort, the lion protected her. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about that anymore.”

Michael swallowed down the last of his crust and margarine. “Then don’t go thinking stupid things. He’ll shoot us dead, too, if we leave this place.”

She leaned up against the wall, her shoulder rubbing against the side of the refrigerator. Amanda slid down until she was sitting on the cold floor. That horrible morning came back to her. It hadn’t started horribly—it began like most other Saturday mornings. Their mom wanted to go to the mall. Dad wanted to stay home. The three went without him. Amanda and Michael fought, but it wasn’t about anything serious, it never was.

Things didn’t get serious until they heard Roy speak for the first time.

His voice had interrupted the soft music playing throughout the shopping center, warning all patrons to take cover. A war has started, he’d stated. All shoppers please remain calm, and stay out of confined areas. Helen Fulger had laughed it off—she told her kids that some jackass had found an intercom station and was shooting his dumb mouth off. When the floor started shaking and people started screaming, Amanda’s mother didn’t find it funny. When the big glass windows at the front of the Hudson’s Bay store they were shopping in blew inside all over the display mannequins, everybody started screaming and running. And over all that yelling and rumbling, Amanda heard Roy talking through the speakers—directing people to safety, telling them how to behave, trying to calm them.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said. He sat next to her against the wall and offered her his hand. Amanda took it, and squeezed her lion tighter in the other arm. “Maybe he’s already gone. Maybe he took what he wanted and left the mall.”

“He’s still here,” Amanda whispered. “That song’s still playing.”

Most of the shoppers had disregarded Roy’s soft pleading. They had fled through the broken windows, and climbed over the collapsed sliding door frames, desperate to leave the stores behind, and to discover what was left outside. Helen hadn’t been one of them. She kept her children close and sided with Roy.

Listen to the man on the speakers, guys. Stay calm, and do as he says.

Michael and Amanda had heard the distant popping sounds before their mother. People were still screaming even though the worst of it was over. The popping got louder, and their mom said there was a reasonable explanation. Probably just the power trying to turn back on.

Michael had tugged at his mother’s arm. I think we should get out of here.

People were running from the mall plaza and heading fast for the Bay exits. A big woman knocked Amanda down in her rush to escape. Amanda had seen the woman stop in her tracks twenty feet ahead; a red spot appeared in the center of her fat back. It spread out over the white fabric of her sweater, like a rose blossoming in fast motion. She fell to floor, and her face made a cracking noise as it bounced off the tiles.

Helen pulled her daughter back up. Your brother’s right, we have to get out… now.

Amanda had been certain she was going to say more; she had seen her lips opening. That’s when the loudest pop of them all went off. That’s when something warm splattered across Amanda’s forehead and cheek. The top third of her mother’s head had disappeared. Amanda wiped bits of brain and skull from her face as Helen Fulger dropped to her knees. The hand holding Amanda’s arm loosened, then fell away. The rest of the dead woman flopped over the girl’s running shoes.

“Well we can’t stay here forever,” her brother was saying. “Sooner or later we’ll have to go somewhere else.”

“Where can we go, Michael? Maybe it’s even worse outside the mall.”

“I doubt that.”

They sat in silence, and watched as the small flame in the candle glass started to flicker and sputter. Michael leaned forward and poured the melted wax onto the floor. He righted the glass carefully, not wanting to drown the remaining bit of light left.

Amanda squeezed his hand. “Maybe they got some candles in that coffee store, too.”

“We can’t go… You said it yourself. That dumb song is still playing.”

“Well maybe he’s got a cell phone hooked up to the speakers and maybe he’s got it set on repeat. Maybe he left a long time ago… just like you said.”

Michael was shaking his head. That music has been playing for days. Any old cell phone battery would’ve died by now. No, that fat fucker is still here.”

“Don’t swear.”

“Sorry.”

The song played through and started up again. The candle burned itself out, and the twins were left cowering in complete blackness.

Chapter 14

They’d started running after their mother was killed. Or Michael was running—Amanda was being pulled along. They hid behind a big square bin of men’s socks, and listened to the gunfire. Pop. Pop. Pop. There had been clicking sounds between the shots; reloading. Pop. Pop. Pop. Michael and Amanda lifted their heads slowly up over the bin and saw him. It was a security guard. He was wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt and black tie. His thick forearms were covered with hair as black as his tie, and his head was shiny bald.

He hadn’t said a word since entering the big store. He just kept shooting people—all kinds of people. He shot store employees and shoppers alike. An old man stuck in his overturned wheelchair begged for mercy. The fat guard shot him in the temple. A teenager was running up the steps of a stilled escalator—he shot her in the back, butt, and both legs. Both big fists were gripping revolvers. The fat mass of single jowl under his chin shook with the ferocity of each shot. Massive dark circles had stained the underarms of his shirt. The sweat glistened off his scalp and leaked into his bushy eyebrows. He was breathing in and out hard, huffing like a big animal. Amanda thought he was running out of steam—that he might drop dead from a heart attack—but then she realized it was adrenaline pushing him on. He was grinning sadistically. He was enjoying it.

And then he’d turned quickly and spotted them.

In that brief moment, Amanda had seen two things. Number one: she saw the guns being pointed directly at them. Number two: The plastic identification badge clipped to his damp chest had been covered over with a wide piece of masking tape. The name ROY was scrawled there in big, red felt-marker letters.

Pop. Pop.

Michael had pulled her back down as an explosion of wood chips and socks rained over their backs. They scurried on their hands and knees into racks of men’s trousers and work pants, and didn’t stop moving until they were in the women’s’ department.

Roy’s attention had been diverted. He was busy shooting other people.

Why aren’t they screaming anymore? Why are they dying so quietly?

“What?”

“When he was shooting them… why didn’t they scream?” She asked in a whisper. They had spoken softly in the backroom office up until then. Now with the candle out, and sitting in darkness, they whispered softly to one another. It’s what people did in pitch blackness.

“I dunno. Maybe they were too busy just trying to get away.”

“I guess not everyone died quietly. I can still hear the babies crying. Roy didn’t shoot the babies. He just let them cry until they stopped all on their own.”

Michael swatted at his sister’s knee. “What did Dad always tell you? You dwell on stuff too much. You have to stop thinking about it… about what we saw and heard. Besides, it was only one baby crying, and we don’t know if it died. Maybe it just went to sleep or something.”

“It didn’t fall asleep, dummy. It starved to death, and there was more than just the one where we were. I heard others crying… down in the other end of the mall, maybe in the food court.”

“Quit dwelling, Amanda… it’s why you’re having those nightmares.”

“I can see them now, in the dark like this… Please, Michael, will you go to the coffee store and see if they got any candles?”

He chewed on the knuckles of his hand. Perhaps there would be something better than candles. Maybe he could find a flashlight or two. Maybe they would be shot dead. “I don’t know… he doesn’t know we’re here.”

“Please.”

“Alright, but we go together or we don’t go at all.” Her silence was answer enough for him. They stood up and crept forward into the dark. Michael’s leg struck the desk, causing it to shift noisily a few inches on the floor. Amanda’s fingers tightened around his hand. Quiet! They found the deadbolt latch beneath the door handle. Michael pushed the door up into the frame with all of his strength so the metal bolt wouldn’t scrape, and turned it slowly. He pulled the door in a crack, and dull yellow light from the single emergency bulb somewhere overhead flooded in. They moved from the private office into the toy store’s storage room. Amanda hung back, half through the doorway. Michael saw that his sister was still clutching her lion. “Leave that thing sitting in the door so it doesn’t lock behind us.”

“But I need him.”

“You’re almost eleven, you don’t need toys anymore.”

She placed the lion gently into the frame and let the door rest up against it. Michael pulled her after him, past the grey metal shelving filled with boxes. The enormous pink doll house was still sitting up against the swinging door leading into the main part of the store. Amanda was now using the box it had been packaged in as a house of her own. Leaving the plastic structure in front of the door had been her idea; if Roy had entered the storeroom, they would’ve heard it scraping along the floor. They picked it up and moved it away from the door.

Canon in D ended. They waited a few seconds until it started all over again, and then crept into the back of the store. They moved slowly and held their breath all the way to the front. Michael poked his head out and looked both ways along the wide corridor. There was light coming in over a hundred feet away from the broken windows in the sportswear store. Michael squinted against the distant brightness, and thought he saw someone moving outside—a woman? He blinked, and the movement was gone. She wasn’t there… Nobody’s out there. The bookstore directly across from them was dark and shadow-filled. Surely they could find some kind of light in there; one of those clip-on LEDs for night reading. Maybe later, he decided. I’ll explore the bookstore once Amanda’s safely back in that office with all of her chocolates. He looked down the right side of the plaza way again—the way they had to go. It wasn’t as well lit, lined with dozens of empty, dark stores. Michael paused. “I’ll go back and get the butter knife… just in case.”

“What’re you going to do with a butter knife? He’s got guns—lots of them.”

“Okay, no knife. But we have to move fast. No more holding hands. We get to that store and take what we need. I’ll look for candles and flashlights, you grab the chocolate. See if you can find something to drink, too. I’m sick of drinking from the back of the toilet.”

She nodded quickly. “I’m ready.”

He mouthed the word go and they sprinted forward on the toes of their shoes. They skirted around the bench and potted plant sitting in the middle of the corridor, and headed deeper into the mall, their small bodies casting monstrously long shadows ahead.

Amanda bumped into her brother’s back at the corridor’s spacious intersection. They could see the entrance to the Bay store down to their left. There were dead people in there, she thought, lying in a pool of blood. Helen Fulger was one of them. Michael looked back at his sister and motioned her to follow. She had the collar of her stained tee-shirt pulled up over her mouth and nose to block out the stench. They pressed their backs up to the glass window of an electronics store and slid their way along. The coffee store was beside it, they were almost there.

The static warble of violins playing through the speakers stopped. He knew they were there. Roy had found them. Michael tried moving back the way they’d come, but Amanda pushed him forward. “Fast! Fast! Fast! Grab stuff and run!” She was still whispering, but it sounded like the loudest of screams in the sudden silence.

Everything after that was a slow-motion blur in Michael’s eyes. He was snatching boxes of truffles from displays, and shoving individually wrapped mints into his pockets. Candles and flashlights. Find candles and flashlights! He found the candles sitting on the two small tables where customers once sat to enjoy specialty coffee. Michael ended up behind the cash register a few seconds later, pulling out the drawers set into the employee cabinets below. Tape. Wrapping paper. Loose change. Pens and pencil nubs. More tape. No flashlights.

The candles would have to do. He looked up over the counter and saw the front of Amanda’s tee-shirt now filled with an impossible amount of chocolates. The red cloth had stretched out so far, Michael could see the gold and silver glitter of wrap through the threads. It looked like Santa’s toy sack strapped to her belly.

She met his stunned gaze for a moment, and then bolted. Michael stopped at the drink cooler on his way out; he shoved two bottles of water under the arm not already crammed with truffles, and exited the coffee store after his sister.

They made it back from the toy store without being shot. Michael lit one of the candles and set it on the desk in front of the dead computer. “That was stupid. That was the stupidest, dumbest thing we’ve ever done.”

Amanda was chewing one of her stolen chocolates. “We made it, that’s all that matters. And now we got stuff to eat, too.” She offered him one of the truffles he’d taken.

Michael ate the chocolate-coated ball, wishing he’d grabbed something without burnt almonds mixed in. “I hate almonds.”

His sister pointed to the pile of loot she’d carried in her shirt, now spread out over the floor. “There’s caramel center ones in there, a whole bunch of them.”

He found them and devoured six straight away. Amanda kept up with him—treat for treat—tossing the wrappers down into what remained. She drank from one of the waters and burped into her arm. It left a lip-smeared impression made of chocolate on the skin. “Slow down,” he said, “try and save some for later.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Seriously, we might get sick. You want him to hear us puking our guts out?”

Amanda slowed down. “I think the music stopped playing because he left. I think maybe he went to another mall to kill more people.”

Michael didn’t like the idea of that, but he hoped it might be true. He sipped his water and prayed the monster had moved on.

“Did you hear that?” The candle light danced in her terror-filled eyes.

Michael wiped chocolate from his mouth with his shirt. He shook his head.

Amanda crawled on her hands and knees towards the office door. She pressed one ear up against the cool metal and whispered. “Thought I heard someone coughing.”

Michael was beside her seconds later, straining to hear beyond the suffocating silence of their hiding place. “I can’t hea—”

A woman’s voice called out. The children jumped back from the door as if it had suddenly become electrified.

“What… what did she say?” Amanda asked.

Michael shook his head. “I didn’t hear it all… something about God and pulling the freaking trigger.” Amanda’s brown lips started to quiver. Michael rubbed her arm, tried calming her. “We can’t just sit here. We gotta take her by surprise—if she has a gun, we have to stop her before she even sees us.”

He didn’t wait for a debate. Michael unlocked the door and started back through the storage room. Amanda blew out the candle sitting on the desk, and followed after him. He started pushing the swinging door into the store outward, and she yanked at the back of his shirt. “Don’t! She’s with him… she’s with Roy.”

“We don’t know that.”  He kept going, wishing once again he’d taken something from the office to use as a weapon. The butter knife was essentially useless against a gun, but it would’ve been better than nothing. Even the empty raspberry jam jar might have made a difference. There was a box of rubber balls on a shelf in front of him. He plucked a red one out, and peeked around the aisle. A black shadow was moving towards them.

“I’ll lead her further back into the dark,” he whispered. “We’ll get that gun out of her hand before she can get a good look at us.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she pleaded. “It’ll never work.”

Michael ignored her and tossed the ball into the advancing shadow. He watched it roll away.

“I’m not fooling around here,” the woman’s voice called out. “I killed a man this morning with a knitting needle, and I’ll kill you, too.”

Amanda squeaked and pulled her brother back. They pushed through the storage room door as quietly as possible and waited. Michael saw her mouth the words, she’s going to kill us. He whispered back to her. “No… I won’t let her.”

There was a small rectangular window set in the door five feet from the bottom. The twins were too short to see through it, so Michael watched, and waited for any change in the dull stream of light. He would make his move then; he would kick at the door as hard as he could, and he would grab his sister and run. We’ll go left—through the sportswear store… we’ll get out of this place and run all the way home.

He didn’t get the chance. Amanda lunged at the door and reached through. There was a clatter—something made of metal hitting the floor. Michael reached with his sister and grabbed at the arm she was scratching. They pulled the woman through together.

“Don’t hurt us,” Amanda screamed. “We have chocolates and water! We can share!”

The three bodies tangled in a twist of fighting limbs. The woman grunted. “Let go of me.” They crashed over the big pink dollhouse and fell to the floor in a thrashing tumble.

Michael found his sister in the gloom and pulled her away. “Back to the room! We gotta get back to the room and lock ourselves in!”

They made it halfway back and the woman yelled. “Wait! Don’t run away, I won’t hurt you!”

Amanda hesitated, and Michael kept pulling her. “Don’t listen to her, she had a gun.” They made it to the office door, and in his panic Michael forgot it pushed out instead of in. The momentary struggle was enough to let the woman catch up to them.

“You don’t have to hide from me. I meant what I said. I won’t hurt you.” Her short hair stood up in spots like grey, spiky nails. She was covered with soot and ash, and her dress was in tatters. She looked like a crazed homeless person, but her eyes were sane enough. She approached them carefully, and held her hands up. “See? I didn’t even know how to use that gun. I took it… I was carrying it for protection, that’s all.”

“You said you killed someone with a knitting needle,” Amanda countered. “Said you’d kill us, too.”

Her head tilted to one side, and she offered them a weak smile. “I didn’t mean it. I was just scared… like the two of you are scared.

“Did you see Roy?” Michael asked.

“Who’s Roy?”

“He killed our Mom and all them other people. He had a gun, too.”

Amanda’s fear was giving way. “She doesn’t know him. She’s just like us.”

The woman looked back towards the front of the storage room. “One man did all of that?”

Michael got the door into the office opened. “This is where we’ve been hiding since it happened. You better get inside before he finds us.”

Chapter 15

“My name’s Angela.” She bit into one of the truffles and sat in the chair behind the desk. “What are your names?”

“I’m Amanda, and that’s my twin brother, Michael.”

“Your mother… was she the only one you were with? Was your father in the mall?” They nodded and then shook their heads in unison. “Do you kids have any idea what happened? Do you realize what took place outside of here?”

Michael answered. “Our Dad was always watching CNN. It was terrorists. They probably came inside the mall with bombs strapped to their chests.”

“It wasn’t terrorists, Michael, at least not like all that awful footage you saw on television. I’m afraid this was much worse. The bombs were much bigger… they went everywhere, hit all the cities. Everything’s gone.” Angela didn’t want to scare the children any more than they already had been, but she needed to let them know the entire scope of their problem. They wouldn’t be able to simply leave the mall and start over. They no longer had a home to return to.

They didn’t seem overly surprised. Michael spilled the accumulated wax from his second candle onto the floor. The scent it let off had made the office smell nicer, like fudge baking in an oven. But even that pleasant aroma didn’t fool the children to what waited beyond the confines of the four walls around them. “I kinda figured it was worse outside. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want my sister to get any more scared.”

Amanda looked at both of them. “Just ‘cause I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t handle what’s happened out there. Quit treating me like a dummy, dummy.”

“Quit calling me that.”

“Both of you stop,” Angela said. The children listened, and she felt relieved. The three of them would have to stay together, and paying attention to the only adult would make things easier. “Tell me more about Roy.”

“He shot Mom,” Michael started. “He shot all those people, and we saw him start dragging them into a pile. He was a security guard… he was supposed to help shoppers.”

Amanda continued for him. “And then he started playing that music, that song with no singing. Over and over again.”

“I didn’t hear any music.”

“It stopped just awhile ago,” Michael said. “Right when we went to get the chocolate.”

Angela considered this. The music had stopped just before she’d entered the mall. Perhaps this Roy had seen her coming, and didn’t want her to discover what he’d been up to. Or he was luring her in. “We have to get out this mall. I have to get you kids somewhere, anywhere else.”

Canon in D started up as soon she went quiet.

“He’s back,” Amanda moaned.

Michael blew the candle out. “He never left.”

Angela made her way in the dark for the door and opened it. “Come on, you can’t hide in here anymore.” They wanted to argue, but brother and sister remained quiet as they followed her out through the store. Hiding in shadows had only kept them alive up to this point. If they wanted to keep on living, they would have to follow the dishevelled looking woman outside.

Michael poked something into Angela’s back when they were out in the plaza way. She stared down at the revolver handle. “You dropped it back in the store. We might need it.”

She wanted to remind him that she didn’t know how to use it, that it was too heavy to carry, and too terrible-feeling in her hands. Angela took the gun from him, considering the alternative of one of them waving it about even more frightening. She pointed it down the long corridor towards the intersection where she’d run from all those dead bodies. If this Roy was still in the building, it wasn’t any guarantee that he was still in that store. He could be anywhere, tracking their movement on camera. There’s no power. The cameras are all down. So how was the music playing?

“Don’t run, kids.” She stood straighter, tried to look bigger and more imposing. “Don’t let him see how scared you are. We’re going to keep an eye on that corner and walk slowly back towards the sportswear store.”

Put that gun down before you kill one of those children.

Her father’s voice was loud in her head, but it didn’t startle Angela. She’d been listening to him for years; interfering when she least expected it, offering his advice and cutting down her decisions, usually at the same time. “I don’t have time to argue with you, there’s a mad man in here with us.”

Amanda had taken hold of her free hand and was looking up at her. “What?”

“Nothing, just talking to myself… I do that sometimes.”

They backed along the corridor. Angela kept the gun pointed out at arm’s length, sweeping it from side to side across the shadows. “We’re there,” Michael whispered. Angela peered over her shoulder and saw the blasted in remains of the window frame she’d entered through. Fifty more feet.

May as well be fifty miles. You’ll never make it.

“Run to the window,” she ordered the children. “Get outside and hide somewhere.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” Amanda asked.

“In a minute. I want to take some clothes while we’re here. It might start getting really cold at night.” She pushed Amanda towards her brother before either could argue. “Go!”

The children vanished around a display of running shoes towards the bleak grey opening. Angela ran in the opposite direction, to the youth section of the store, and started snatching once-expensive brand-name shirts off the walls. Nothing short-sleeved, she told herself. They needed to keep warm. Her fingers hovered over a grey hoody—she remembered the teenager in the house across from the collapsed church—and then decided on the white one next to it.

“Just because the world’s come to an end doesn’t mean you get to take that stuff without paying.”

Angela told the voice in her head to be quiet as she grabbed more.

“Hey! Quit stealing that shit.”

A fresh wave of fear crawled up Angela’s back. The music had stopped, and that wasn’t her father’s voice in her head.

“Put it all back where you found it, and wait right where you are. I’m on my way.”

She wasn’t about to wait for the man the kids called Roy to show up. Angela started back towards the window, spinning about in half circles, waving her gun around and dropping clothes. He’s watching me… he’s been watching us the entire time since we left the toy store. How? There isn’t any power. How can he see me?

Now isn’t the time to act stupid, girl. Places like this have all kinds of back-up power in case of an emergency. And this is about as big as emergencies get, wouldn’t you say?

Just for once I wish you could say something helpful, Dad. Just this one time.

Okay, I can do that. Remember when you first came through this way… on your way down to that store at the other end with all them poor saps piled up cold and stiff? Angela ran into a golf bag set up in the middle of the walkway. The stand collapsed under it and the bag fell to the floor. Big-headed drivers and irons rattled half way out along the tiles. Easy, girl, watch where you’re going… What was I saying? Oh yeah, on the way to that Bay store… don’t you recall seeing that little hallway just to the left of this place? You couldn’t have missed it… the little hallway with the public washrooms sign above?

Angela nodded. She remembered. Well I’m betting there’s more than toilets and sinks down there. Could be that there’s some offices beyond… maybe a security station. Maybe this Roy character is a lot closer than you think.

There was a loud bang from somewhere behind her. Part of one the floor tiles next to the upset golf bag erupted up into the air. Angela heard something whiz by her ear at the same moment. Another bang and the golf bag jumped forward a few inches. I’m being shot at.

She could see him now, a hulking figure moving out from the shadows of stores behind, with two guns gripped in either hand. He fired two more times, each fat hand kicking up from the recoil. “Fucking thief! I told you to stay put. You fucking deaf?”

Angela pointed her gun at him.

Don’t do it. DO NOT kill another man.

But he’s going to kill me, Dad. Don’t I have the right to protect myself?

Thou shalt not kill! What part of that can’t you understand? Put the gun down, girl. You can repent for the life you’ve already taken. God can be merciful. He can forgive one tremendous sin… maybe… but he sure as hell won’t forgive a second.

The man was still advancing. He was pulling on the triggers of his guns, but they were only making clicking sounds. He’d run out of ammunition.

Pull the trigger. Stop him.

Put that goddamned thing down!

She could see the name tag on his sweaty chest. ROY. He had taken the guns and repositioned them in his big hands. He was clutching at the barrels and preparing to bludgeon Angela to death with the handles.

For the love of Jesus… lower the gun, Angie. It’ll all be over soon enough.

Her step-father had rarely been kind to her when he was living. But there had been times when he wasn’t hitting her mother or yelling at Angela. He had even tried being soft-spoken and gentle. It had been during those rare occasions when he hadn’t called her girl. He had called her Angie… and those were the times Angela knew he loved her deep down. She yearned to hear that voice. She listened to it.

Angela lowered the gun and Roy ran the last ten feet towards her. The gun in his right hand rose up over his glistening head. His eyes clamped shut, as if in sudden agony, and the gun dropped from his fingers. He fell to his knees, howling, and Angela saw Michael standing behind him, clutching the grip of a driving wood like a baseball bat.

Amanda lunged out from the clothing racks and grabbed up the gun Roy had dropped. Her eyes met Angela’s and pleaded for the woman to run. Angela dropped the gun she was holding in her sweaty fingers back into the pocket of her dress. Roy was roaring like a bull having its testicles squeezed; he crawled towards Angela on his knees, raking his big hairy arms through the air. His fingers grabbed at her dress and tore the bottom half away.  “Not so fast,” he gasped between wails. “You have to pay for those clothes… then I’m going to kill you. I’m gonna bash your fucking head in with my—”

Michael hit him with the 1-wood a second time. The big yellow head made a wet smacking sound into the fat between his shoulder blades as loud as the gunshots. He fell forward onto his face and howled.

Good job, girl. You just turned those children into homicidal maniacs.

They haven’t murdered anyone.

Not yet.

They ran for the window, Amanda holding one of Roy’s guns in both hands, pointed to the floor, her brother still gripping his driver, and Angela between them, clutching the stolen jackets, hoodys, and track pants. Michael went ahead and smashed more of the jagged plate glass out of the frame, hastening their escape faster.

They staggered out into the grey parking lot, its white-painted stripes still half-filled with cars, trucks, and vans that would likely never be driven again. Amanda tugged at the remains of Angela’s dress. “Where’s your car?”

“I… I walked here. I don’t have a car. I don’t even know how to drive.” The three moved between rows of vehicles, testing door handles here and there, not actually considering what they would do if they found one unlocked.

Roy crashed out through the last bit of window glass Michael hadn’t managed to clear. “Get the fuck back here and pay for all that shit!”

They watched from fifty yards away as he stumbled about in circles, crunching glass shards into dust under his black shoes. “He can’t hurt you now,” Angela whispered. She had led them further away and hidden behind a minivan. “We’re safe here. I don’t think he could run all that fast after the hits Michael gave him, anyway.”

Amanda grinned up at her for the first time. “And he’s outta bullets, right?” A shot rang out, and the rear-view mirror on the driver’s side of the minivan exploded, spraying the girl with crystallized glass dust and bits of plastic.

A man doesn’t pack that much fire power and not carry extra ammunition. Angela could hear the condescension in her dead step-father’s voice. She could feel his contempt.

They moved further back, slipping between the rows of cars. “Over here,” Michael insisted. Angela and Amanda followed him to a three-foot high cement barrier and climbed over. They were now in a ditch strewn with garbage and dead grass. “He won’t look for us here. We’re not even in the parking lot anymore.”

Angela could see traffic lights off to the left. A semi-trailer had tipped over, and the backend of a Volkswagen Beetle was sticking out from beneath it. More vehicles were parked up behind the crash, the doors left open on most, the owners long gone. Behind them was a highway; its four lanes lined with abandoned cars and buses. She lifted her head slowly over the barrier and risked a peek back into the mall parking lot. She spotted Roy a few seconds later, wandering among the rows, moving farther and farther away. “I think you’re right. I think we’ll be safe here for a little while.”

Amanda and Michael poked their heads up and watched the big monster weave his way among the vehicles. They watched as he tried door handles; most were locked, but some opened up. He would stick his big sweaty scalp in, and pull it back out again, like a foraging bear. Eventually he worked his way back to the broken windows of the sportswear store. He stood there for five more minutes, staring out over the quiet rows of metal and rubber. He started shooting his gun all around him. Bullets flew into parked cars, blowing out windows, ricocheting off fenders, and flattening tires. Roy re-loaded the gun and did it again. “Don’t think this is over! I’ll find you thieving fuckers! You’ll pay for the stuff you took, and then I’ll fucking tear out your throats with my goddamned bare hands!”

He tucked the empty revolver into the waist of his pants and vanished back into the mall.

Amanda had started to cry. “He’s gonna kill us. He’s gonna hunt us down and kill us… just like he did to Mom.”

Angela hugged the girl. “No he won’t. Roy can’t find us out here.”

Michael was sitting up against the concrete wall. “What are we supposed to do now? Where are we going to go?” He stared out at the ominous bank of black and green clouds moving in from the west.

Angela couldn’t answer him. They remained silent and watched the clouds build over the ruined skyline of their city. Even Angela’s step-father had nothing to say.

Chapter 16

“I am a scientist.” The more he said it, the realer it became. “I am a scientist.”

Louie Finkbiner walked along the underground corridor repeating the words over and over. The florescent lights above flickered, and Louie quickened his pace. They said this place was built to last. They said it could withstand anything. That was the third time this morning the lights had done that.

Louie had wondered the first time if it was just coincidence, that a single bulb or perhaps the ballast he was sitting under simply needed replacing. That had happened in the washroom while he was on the toilet. He could see it happening there; washrooms weren’t considered essential areas. It happened again when he went to the cafeteria for an early lunch. There had been no one working there at the time—kitchen employees had been evacuated to the lower levels four days before—and Louie had to make his own sandwich and heat his own bowl of soup. The lights had flickered there, too, but not just the ones above his head—they had flickered throughout the entire cafeteria.

“It’s not important,” he said to himself. “They dropped a fricking thermonuclear warhead on the city. Of course things aren’t going to run perfectly after that… It’s to be expected.” He was half-jogging by the time he made it to the elevator. He inserted the security card into the slot next to the door and waited for the little green light to grant him access. It did, and the door slid open noiselessly. Louie stepped in and inserted the card into another slot on an inside panel. It made a satisfied buzzing sound and the touch screen menu appeared directly above. There were ten subterranean levels in the Winnipeg Disease Study Center; level 1—the floor immediately below the surface—was inaccessible. It likely no longer existed, blasted into oblivion along with everything above it. Louie was on level 2, where workers took their breaks and ate their lunch. He needed to travel further down, past levels 3, 4, and 5—to the extra-secured floors where all the nasty stuff was stored.

Louie had stolen the security card from Tom Braden when news arrived the bombs were on their way. It wasn’t actually stealing; Tom’s card had dropped to the cafeteria floor during the big rush. Louie had planned on returning it to him once they were all safely tucked away in the emergency living quarters of level 10. But Louie had hung back. He hadn’t gotten into the elevator with Tom and the others. Someone with a security level as high as Tom’s had obviously gone with them because Tom hadn’t returned to search for his card.

That same card now granted Louie total access to the entire facility. All ten levels were lit up in cold blue on the touch screen. He pressed 8, and felt the slight lift in his body as the elevator started its descent. Tom Braden was one of the top DSC research scientists; he could go anywhere above ground and below. Louie Finkbiner was a security software technician, and his access throughout the facility up until three days ago had been extremely limited… until wonderful fate presented him with an opportunity. He had never fully understood why the DSC hadn’t granted him higher access; he was after all, the guy that coded all the security cards and made the doors lock. Why couldn’t they have trusted him with a level 4 security card instead of a level 1? If it wasn’t for guys like me, this place would hardly run at all.

The door slid open and Louie stepped out into level 8. “Fuck you, Tom.” He pocketed the card and headed down the hallway. Louie Finkbiner was a technician no longer. “I’m a scientist. I’m a scientist.” He had on multiple occasions met with Human Resources and expressed an interest in disease research. The HR reps had laughed at Louie, told him he was more suited for software than science. Concentrate your efforts on fixing computer viruses, they’d said, not human ones.

No one was laughing at him now. Louie had deactivated all the security cards except Tom’s. The scientists and their assistants, the kitchen workers, the janitors, the office workers, and the goddamned HR reps were all trapped on level 10, and they weren’t going anywhere without Louie’s say so. He punched the card into a slot with a little more force than necessary next to a door marked COMMUNICABLE LEVEL 5 STORAGE. This was where the really bad stuff was kept. Samples of the nastiest diseases known to man were stored here; Ebola, smallpox, bubonic plague, and a hundred more Louie had never heard of.

Louie made his way past the security stations where workers once checked in and checked out to make sure they had followed proper decontamination protocols, and that nothing entered that didn’t belong, and nothing left. He went past the showers and locker rooms, and through three more security check points using Tom’s card before arriving to the actual storage area. Louie found a storage transport gurney and started opening vacuum-sealed doors. He started removing metal canisters from their rubberized resting trays and placed them into the fitted openings of the gurney. He didn’t bother with a hazmat suit—he didn’t even put on gloves. The sample containers were made of tough stuff, and Louie felt quite confident he wouldn’t be contracting any horrible diseases all that soon. Besides, he didn’t have the time to follow the rules. The facility was shutting down, and he had to complete his experiment before the power cut off altogether.

He exited Communicable Level 5 Storage, picking up a fully-charged Taser from one of the security stops along the way, and pushed his loaded gurney back to the elevator. Louie travelled down to the tenth level and entered out into a spacious reception area. There was no one to greet him, and even if there had been, he was positive the greeting wouldn’t have been friendly. The thirty-eight DSC employees remaining in the facility were trapped beyond the area Louie was in, locked behind a final vacuum-sealed door leading off to cramped living quarters. They had enough food and water to last half a year, but wouldn’t need even a week’s supply. They would all be dead within the next two or three days—perhaps sooner. It all depended on how quickly Louie’s explosive mixture of a dozen different diseases took to spread.

He pushed the gurney up in front of a wide set of double doors. Louie had the locked the doors from eight levels above when he felt fairly certain that everyone would be stowed safely on the other side. That had been four and a half days ago. Louie hadn’t communicated with any of them since. His walkie-talkie had squawked a few times after the first few hours, but eventually went silent. That would’ve been his boss, Richard Sheffield—in charge of all security—trying desperately to raise one of his staff. Richard never should’ve left his office, Louie thought. He never should’ve sealed himself away with all those other poor suckers and left the control room unattended.

Louie had taken Tom Braden’s card and headed straight for the main security control center. There he had disabled all the keys and sealed off the emergency living quarters. Richard, of course, would’ve tried exiting with his key, but he would’ve been as helpless as all the others. Louie snickered. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Richard; he was a good boss, but picturing the so-called security chief trying to explain to everyone that his key wouldn’t work must have been hilarious.

“Not funny, Louie,” he scolded himself. “Those people have been cooped up long enough. They’re probably worried sick not knowing what happened to all their loved ones.” He chuckled again. “Worried sick… they ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

He pulled the walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it. “Hello? Richard? Anybody there?”

It took almost half a minute for Richard to respond. “Who is this? Oh my God, are there people really out there? Please respond, we’ve been stuck in here for days.” He sounded out of breath, as if he’d set the transceiver down somewhere days ago and forgotten where he’d put it.

“Calm down, Richard. It’s Louie, and everything’s going to be okay.”

“Jesus… Louie? What’s happened out there? Why the hell won’t my key work?”

“Easy. One thing at a time.” Louie released the talk button and breathed in deeply. He had been waiting for something like this to happen for years. He was in control. There was no one to answer to for what he was about to do, no consequences. His heart was pounding with exhilaration, and Louie wanted the feeling to last forever. It was the main reason he’d waited this long to put his plan into action. He had spent the last four days planning, anticipating, and building his courage. Louie pressed the button back down and continued in a slow, sure voice. “I have a gun, Richard. It’s very big and very powerful. I want everyone to step back from the door. I want at least twenty feet between me and you when these doors open in about one minute. I’ll shoot the first person that moves. Do you understand?” He looked at the Taser resting on the canisters. It wasn’t big, and it wasn’t all that powerful, but the folks on the other side of the doors didn’t know that.

There was a long pause. “Louie? Are you okay? Are you feeling ill?”

He thinks I’m deranged, that the bomb did something to me… probably figures I’m suffering from radiation sickness. “No, I’m not ill. Get back away from the doors. I’ll explain everything when we’re face to face.” Louie turned the power off on his hand-held and shoved it back in his pocket. He reached into the pocket of his shirt and pulled out a thumb drive. He inserted it into the receiving port on top of the closest canister and watched the little green light blink. Louie had worried that the miniaturized computer chips might not work at all after the bomb. He didn’t know much about EMPs, but there was a concern the circuitry had been fried. Something inside the canister lid clicked, and Louie removed the lid carefully. He set the canister back upright in its gurney slot and repeated the process with all the other canisters.

Louie realized there was a chance the diseases stewing about within could infect him. He held his breath the entire time and prayed for the best. He unlocked the doors and pulled one open. He saw Richard first, standing next to Tom Braden. Others were clustered behind them, anxious and unmoving. They looked confused and worried, but not at all scared. What was there to fear? Their savior had arrived. They were free.

Louie pushed the gurney with all of his strength into a wall less than ten feet from the stunned DSC employees. Canisters toppled over and clanged against the floor. Somebody started screaming, but the noise was cut off as Louie stepped back and slammed the door shut. His fingers shook as he tried inserting the security key into the wall control panel. It finally slid in, and Louie punched the five digit lock code in. He leaned up against the doors and exhaled the breath he forgot he was still holding. “Okay,” he whispered, “I’m no fucking scientist.”

Louie took the elevator back up to level 2. He grabbed two hard bran muffins from the cafeteria and headed for the security control room. He sat into a chair facing multiple surveillance monitors. Maybe HR was right. I should’ve kept my mouth shut and stuck with what I was good at… Security software. Monitoring… watching people. Louie typed on a keyboard and the monitor directly in front of him lit up. It showed a view from behind the reception desk on level 10. He typed some more, and the monitor next to it flickered into life.

“What the fuck?” He leaned forward and made sure the video feed was set on live mode. Louie tossed a half-eaten muffin aside and slammed his fist against the desk. “Why aren’t they dying?” The gurney had been set back up on its wheels. Tom Braden was placing the last canister back in its slot. He was moving carefully, but didn’t appear all that terrified. Others were gathered around him, shaking their heads and talking amongst themselves. Louie couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they definitely weren’t suffering. They weren’t choking and frothing at the mouth. “What’s wrong with you morons?” He yelled at the screen. “That’s frickin’ Ebola and smallpox floating in the air around you!”

Tom finished his task, looked up into the camera, and gave it the finger.

Louie grabbed the microphone headset and slipped it over his ears. He toggled an audio switch and swore. “You pompous asshole! Think you’re so much better than everyone else. I could’ve done what you did. I could’ve been a research scientist instead of a software technician if I’d really applied myself.”

Braden’s eyebrows furrowed together and he pursed his lips. “I don’t think so, Louie. You lack the most basic understanding of the work being done here.”

“I understand enough to know you’re all going to be dead in a few hours.”

Tom shook his head. He stared into the camera with pity, as if looking into the eye of a child. “We’re not going to die any time soon. The canister samples don’t pose much of a threat with the outer seals removed. If you were aware of proper disease control procedures, you would’ve known there was a second seal inside each of those containers. Those secondary seals can only be reached and released with one of these.” He produced a pen-shaped object from the pocket of his lab coat and held it up to the camera. “Don’t go getting any more stupid ideas, Louie. There’s only half a dozen of these in the entire facility, and even with full security clearance, I guarantee you’ll never gain access to them.”

Louie stared at the screen with his mouth open. A piece of muffin fell from his lips and bounced onto the keyboard. “You were supposed to die. I was going to sit here and watch it happen.”

Richard came into view beside Tom. “Give it up, Louie. Open these doors up and let us out.”

“No way, Jose… not a fricking chance.”

“It’s not too late. We can forget all about this. For Christ’s sake, we’re trapped in here like animals.”

Louie leaned back into the chair. “You don’t want out, Richard. There’s nothing left above. There isn’t even a way out to the top. We’re all caged animals, I’m afraid. Why don’t you get Tom there to unlock the canisters all the way and speed up your end?”

“You little bastard.”

Louie squirmed back even further. He was safe where he was, but seeing the big man’s leering face in the screen brought back memories of being tormented by all the bigger guys in his past. Louie had been five and a half feet tall since he was sixteen, and not much heavier than a starving dog. He’d been bullied his entire adult life, and he wasn’t going to take it anymore. A greasy clump of black hair had worked free from his ponytail. He brushed it back over his head and stared at the face on the screen. “Call me what you want, it doesn’t change how things are. You and all the rest are going to starve to death down there, and I’m going to watch.”

Tom pushed Richard out of view. “Please, don’t do anything rash. Let’s talk this over.”

“I’m done talking. I’m done being pushed around. I’m through with taking orders from assholes and being made fun of behind my back.” Louie tore the headset away and threw it against a far wall. “So maybe I would’ve sucked as a research scientist… fuck it. I’ll find something else for them to chew on.”

He ran from the control room and headed back for the elevator. There were other levels with more secrets he didn’t know shit about. Louie was no scientist, but he had plenty of drive, and total clearance throughout the facility.

Chapter 17

Louie discovered a hundred more canisters on level 5. They were useless to him without the pen key in Braden’s pocket. Level 6 consisted mainly of offices and about a million boxes of filed papers. Louie hadn’t been there often; security passes were minimal, and the only service calls he’d made were to replace faulty keyboards and frozen desktops. Level 5 was where all the lethal stuff was stored. The entire staff used to joke how dangerous 5 was by holding their breath in the elevator as it passed between 4 and 6. The joke was on us, he thought, kicking a box of reports out of his path on the way back to the elevator. You couldn’t be in a safer place on earth just feet away from the most horrendous diseases known to man.

That’s why Winnipeg was the perfect location for such a dangerous goods facility. It was in the middle of nowhere—literally smack-dab in the center of Canada—nestled into the ground with miles of solid rock beneath. There were no earthquakes in this part of the world, no volcanoes erupting, no hurricanes blowing. It was prairie land with little or no chance of geological upheaval—besides having a nuclear bomb dropped on its doorstep. And even that hadn’t proved disastrous; the canisters were still safe, even with Louie’s suicidal tampering.

He needed to find something else—something fast-acting and lethal—so Louie took the lift down to level 7. It was a level he’d always tried to avoid. This was where they’d conducted experiments on living specimens; mice, rats, cats and dogs, all sizes and all ranges. There were creatures on 7 as small as mites and as  big as sheep. They all shared one thing in common—eventual extermination. Louie liked animals, and he detested the way they were treated here.

He made his way past the outer offices and medicinal storage rooms. With a swipe of his key Louie pushed through a final heavy door and stepped into what the DSC employees had lovingly nicknamed the zoo. It was dark inside, with only the dimmest of red emergency lighting. A chimpanzee jumped forward to Louie’s right and screamed, bashing its fists against the thick wire mesh of its cage. Louie jerked away from it and bumped into the cage opposite. Something big and hulking started growling from within. It lunged at Louie and smashed its wet nose into the metal. Teeth scraped along the mesh, and the animal started to bark, drowning out the monkey’s wails. A dog, he thought. It’s only a dog, and he can’t hurt me behind there. It was a Rottweiler, or had been one once. The thing frothing against its cage was built more like a Greyhound, emaciated to the point where all that showed was ribs and teeth. Most of its brown coat was missing, fallen out in chunks and clumped up against the bars.

Cats started howling. They scratched at the wired walls of their tiny cages, and hissed at Louie as he worked his way along the narrow aisles. He covered his nose and mouth with one hand to block out the stench of feces and urine, and started to run. There was nothing in here he could use against his tormenters. Louie could see a door in the shadows up ahead. It wasn’t the way he’d come in, but Louie didn’t care. He needed to get out, and he needed to get out fast. The security card fell from his shaking fingers as he tried inserting it into the key slot. He started to whimper on his hands and knees searching for it in the red and black gloom. He found it seconds later, resting in a pool of dried blood and drool, inches away from a dead animal carcass. It had been a goat, or possibly a sheep—Louie could never tell the difference—and its pointed nose was jammed into the black wire of its cage. It had died there like that, stuck, starving, and thrashing. The black lifeless eyes stared at Louie as he scooped the key back up. He inserted it into the slot and escaped into the next room.

It was much quieter, and the smell was tolerable. Louie pushed the strands of hair back hanging over his eyes, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. There was no way he was going back through that screaming hell and stench. He would have to find another way to the elevator. The lighting was better in here, and there was a calm order to the glass containers lining the walls on either side of him. Louie peered into one and saw a bug as thick and long as his thumb crawling about in a layer of black soil. Another one poked its way out of the dirt and started climbing up the glass. There were a thousand flies in the next one, feeding on a mat of squirming white maggots.

Louie walked slowly, running his finger tips along the glass surfaces. I could load up a gurney with a whole bunch of these insect aquariums… toss them through the doors and let those assholes deal with a bug infestation. He decided against it. With his clumsy luck, one of the containers would undoubtedly break open before he ever got back down to level 10. There was another door down at the end of the aisle. Louie rushed towards it, hoping to find a corridor that would lead him back to the elevator.

He found a small lab instead. A stool had been knocked over at an island counter in the room’s center. Papers had fallen to the floor. Someone had been in a hurry to get out when word arrived that the nukes were flying. They had left their work strewn all over the counter. Louie saw a small glass container on the counter. It was rectangular in shape, like the bug boxes in the room before, but a quarter the size. It was empty but looked dirty inside, the inner walls coated with blackish grime.

Louie picked some of the papers up from the floor and started reading. Most of it was gibberish—charts, time tables and pie graphs, formulas and equations—proving he didn’t have what it took to become a research scientist, and never would. But some of it was easy enough to understand. They had been studying Lyme disease—a bacteria carried by deer ticks. Everyone knew about Lyme disease in Manitoba. The prairies were infested with ticks in the spring months. Though hardly life threatening, the disease could cause years of discomfort if not treated in its early stages. Louie’s mother had warned him as a child to never stand too long in high grass, and to always pull up his socks and wear long pants. Kids always came home with wood ticks stuck in their legs and bellies. Some even managed to crawl all the way up into their hair, and could go undiscovered for days.

But wood ticks weren’t deer ticks. Deer ticks were much smaller, and harder to spot. The little fuckers would fill up on blood and eventually fall away, leaving their bacterial infection behind as a way of saying thank you.

So where were the ticks? Louie looked about the lab, trying to spot jars on the shelves filled with the little brown arachnids. He spotted a vault door left open in the wall. He looked inside and discovered it empty. The area was small, smaller than a bread box, and there was a tiny socket receptor built into the back wall. It’s a cooling unit. Louie clicked the door shut and read the label attached to it. TICK LDV3. There were two more cooling vaults next to it labelled TICK LDV1 and TICK LDV2. He pulled the handle open on one of them and discovered a frosted-over glass container fitted inside. Louie looked back at the island work station where the dirty container was sitting.

So that’s TICK LDV3.

He went back to the counter and lifted the glass box up for a better look. Louie could see where it attached inside its cooling unit. There was a tiny docking socket in the upper corner, and a second one in the opposite corner that must have acted as an air circulator. The grime stuck up inside the glass walls started to move. Louie placed the container back down hurriedly and stepped back. The dirt—what he had thought was dirt—was swirling about inside like a thin layer of dark grey smoke. It coalesced up against the wall facing Louie and stopped.

“What the hell is that?” He moved back towards it and placed a single finger up against the glass. The grey cloud clustered in towards the warmth, swarming into a thick black circle. Louie pulled his finger away, and the circle slowly started to spread back out, breaking up and becoming grey once again. “My God, what were they working on down here?”

If Louie could’ve studied the creeping grey mist on a microscopic level, he would’ve discovered over a billion crawling ticks. He had to find that out by reading more of the scattered papers. TICK LDV3 stood for TICK Lyme Disease Variant 3. Louie pulled the stool as far from the container as possible and continued reading at the corner of the work counter. When he’d finished deciphering what he could, Louie pushed the papers away. He stared at the container and watched the grey cloud sway back and forth.

“I don’t know if you little frickers are dangerous or not, but I’m betting you could really get under the skin of some friends of mine.”

Louie decided to wear a hazmat suit for his second trip down to level 10. He held the container out at arm’s length the entire way, watching in revulsion as the dark mist broke into two groups, and clung up to the sides where his gloved hands were. This is bad. I think this might be really bad.  He carried on anyway.

There was a computer on the desk in the reception area of level 10. Louie placed his package down carefully and went behind the counter. He sat in the chair and brought up the video image on the other side of the doors leading into the emergency evacuation living quarters. The gurney was still up against the wall, and the containers filled with disease Louie had tried to kill his co-workers with were nestled on top. There was no one in sight.

Do it fast, Louie. Open the doors, throw it against the floor, and get the hell out.

He picked the container back up and went to the doors. He hesitated putting the key card into the slot. Maybe I shouldn’t do this. Maybe I should think things over… sleep on it. He remembered Tom Braden’s condescending face on the surveillance monitor. “He’s not better than me. None of them are.” The card went in and the light turned green. The three deadbolts snapped back into the wall, and Louie opened the doors.  He tossed the glass box into the air like a grenade ready to explode, and watched. It hit the floor on one corner and clunked over three times. It didn’t shatter into pieces.

“God-fucking-damn it!” Louie ran in and grabbed one of the disease sample canisters. He gripped one end in both gloved hands and swung down like a caveman wielding a club. It smashed into the glass and a spider web of cracks blossomed out. The grey mist inside merged towards it in a frenetic rush.

Richard appeared at the far end of the corridor. “Louie? What the hell are you trying now?”

Louie struck the container again as the security chief ran towards him. The glass didn’t shatter, but the ticks had found enough space in the cracks to get out. They crawled up the canister’s surface in a dozen strings of black for Louie’s hands. He released it and backed up for the open doors. Richard was less than twenty feet away. Louie slammed the doors shut and removed the key from the wall. The locks clicked back into place.

What have I done?

Louie thought he was going to vomit inside the sealed helmet of his suit. He worked it off and sucked at the air outside until the nausea passed. He looked at the gloves on his hands and wiggled the fingers. He tore the Velcro straps open and shook the gloves off. They’re on me. They’re crawling up under my finger nails and biting in… biting, burrowing deep. Louie studied his finger tips. He turned his hands over and stared at the palms, looking for black lines moving along the wrinkles. He saw nothing. They hadn’t gotten to him.

Louie removed the rest of the suit and let it fall to the floor with the gloves and helmet. There would’ve been no escape for Richard. He was running straight into them when the doors closed. What did they do to him? What must it have been like?

There was only one way to find out. Louie left level 10 for the last time, and headed back up for the security control room.

Chapter 18

Richard was lying face down on the floor with one bloated hand rested up against the door. Louie adjusted the controls and zoomed in on his former boss. He wasn’t moving. Richard Sheffield was dead. That nauseating feeling crept back up into Louie’s throat. He had totally intended to kill them all, but seeing this one dead man—the first of many—finally hit Louie like a punch in the gut. I killed him. I did that.

Louie adjusted the camera’s angle, zoomed in closer on the corpse’s hand. He thought he’d seen something. Perhaps Richard wasn’t quite done yet. Why were his fingers so swollen? Louie brought the image into focus and gasped. The fingers were vibrating. Something was inside of him. One of the fingers suddenly jerked. The hand snapped back at the wrist. Louie watched in terror as Richard’s arm slid away from the door and his entire body began to spasm. He flopped over onto his back, and Louie cried out.

The man’s neck had swollen out like a balloon ready to burst. The skin was grey and mottled over with moving black patches. The ticks were inside him, moving about, feeding on his cooling blood and growing. Richard lurched up into a sitting position. His head twisted from side to side until the skin could take no more. It burst open at the center of his throat, like a giant pustule popping. Brown gunk erupted out in a stream and splattered across the floor. The liquid started creeping along the tiles; it climbed up the walls, and it slithered over the gurney wheels. The gorged ticks had multiplied a million fold in the last few minutes, and their babies were searching for food. They moved down the corridor, like a terrible black wave, towards the living quarters beyond.

Louie snapped the monitor off and puked all over the keyboard. He stood on legs that barely worked, and swayed back and forth. “What have I done? I never meant… I never suspected… Oh dear God… what have I done?”

He had to get out, and not just out of the control room. Louie had to escape from this underground hell. The thirty-seven people left on level 10 would be dead in minutes at the rate those things were multiplying and spreading out. Louie didn’t plan on becoming one of them. He went to the stairwell next to the elevator and tested the door for the first time. He’d lied to Richard; he didn’t know for sure whether or not the outside world was completely cut off.  Louie only knew the main elevator couldn’t travel up any further than level 2.

The door opened and Louie craned his head up. Part of the stairwell had collapsed, but he knew he could get out. He could see dim, grey light poking through the battered chunks of concrete and flattened drywall. Louie climbed up into the rubble, wondering to himself why he’d waited so long to try and leave this place. Because I was too afraid to find out what was really out there. He yanked on a twisted piece of stair railing and pulled. Plaster rained over his head, and Louie coughed on dust. The cracks of light had turned into a gaping hole. No, I wasn’t afraid. I wanted to stay down here because I wanted to know how it felt to be in control… of other people… of their lives.

Louie crawled through the rest of it, pulling himself up and out into the depressing grey light of day. As sick as it had made him to watch Richard die, Louie wished he could have seen it happen to the others as well. I should’ve stayed.

Someone spoke from behind him. “Hello there.”

Louie spun around, shocked. “Hello?”

“Saw you climb up out of that mess,” the stranger said. “Surprised anyone could live through that. You okay?”

“Yes, I suppose I’m fine… yes.”

The big bald man looked concerned. “You sure about that, buddy? You seem a little confused to me.”

Louie looked back down through the opening he’d come through. He thought he could see something moving down in the stairwell shaft. He hadn’t seen the ticks overtake the others, but he was sure they had.

They’re dead, all of them.

He could’ve sworn Richard was dead, too. But he’d seen his boss come back with his own eyes. He had seen his limbs move, and he’d watched him sit up. The ticks did that. They took Richard over, and they’ll take the others over as well.

The man spoke again, softly. “You ready to get out of here, pal?” He held his hand out.

Louie took the hand. “Yes, I’m ready to leave.” A piece of masking tape was stuck over a name tag on the man’s chest. Three letters were scrawled there in red marker. “Thank you… Roy.”

Chapter 19

They had spent their first night together sleeping in the ditch. The night after, Angela and the children slept on the seats of an abandoned minivan. They stayed on the highway, taking water and food from cars, avoiding buildings altogether and sticking with what they could find from the openness of vehicles. Angela no longer wanted to sleep in houses, and the Fulger twins didn’t argue. They had all had enough of the terrors of being trapped inside strange houses and shopping malls.

Angela wouldn’t let Michael and Amanda talk to strangers. It wasn’t safe, she’d told them. And the further they traveled out from the city’s center, the more people they found. There were more survivors on the outskirts where the bomb’s effects hadn’t been as devastating. The three hadn’t met anyone dangerous since fleeing the shopping center, no more needle-stabbing teens and fat gun-wielding maniacs, but nor had they encountered people wanting to help them. Everyone was in it for themselves now. There were no more friendly neighbors or concerned strangers. People seemed as scared of Angela and the children as they were of them.

“I don’t think we should go out any farther,” Michael said as Amanda handed them each a bottle of water from a shopping bag of groceries sitting in the backseat of an old Chrysler Intrepid. “There’s not going to be as much stuff farther away from the city.”

Angela shut the car door quietly and nodded. “I know we’re limiting ourselves. There’s lots to eat and drink in the city, but do you kids know what radiation sickness is?”

“It’s when people’s hair falls out and they start throwing up,” Amanda answered. “Me and Michael have seen tons of movies about nuclear war and zombies taking over the world.”

“I’m sure you have.” She ruffled the girl’s dirty hair. “I’m not all that worried about a zombie Apocalypse, but I don’t want you guys getting sick. I want to get out of the city where the air’s cleaner.”

Michael drank a quarter of his water. “I don’t think the air will be any cleaner anywhere we go. That grey snow is everywhere, and when it rains, my skin stings.”

We’re leaving the city because I don’t want anyone to murder you, she thought. We’re getting out as fast as we can because I think that big lunatic is still after us. “Just trust me on this, okay, Michael? Let’s see what things are like in the next town.”

“Next town isn’t for fifty miles, and I bet it’s snowing grey shit there, too.”

“We’ll see about that,” Angela replied, “and please don’t swear.” Angela thought she’d seen Roy the security guard poking his big bald head into cars the night before while the twins had slept in the minivan. She couldn’t swear to it since it had been dark at the time, and he was in the opposite lane—the one heading into Winnipeg, not the one leading out where they were hidden away. Odds were it hadn’t been him, but Angela wasn’t taking any chances. Roy had killed over a hundred people in the North Kilpatrick Shopping Mall—the children’s mother among them—and the crazy bastard had said he would find them. I’ll find you thieving fuckers! You’ll pay for the stuff you took, and then I’ll fucking tear out your throats with my goddamned bare hands! Those had been his exact words, and Angela believed every one of them.

You bet he’s still after you, girl. He’s going to find you, and he’s going to keep his promise. You should just wait where you are and let him get it over with.

Angela’s stepfather wouldn’t shut up inside her head. The more frightened she became, the more hopeless things seemed, the louder he got. “He’s not going to find us.”

“You’re talking to yourself again,” Amanda said.

“Sorry.” She took the girl’s hand and the three continued walking west.

He’s got guns, remember? I’m sure it will be quick and painless. Stay where you are and let him catch up. Let him end your worries with a bullet between the eyes.

“Can I see one of the guns?” Michael asked.

Angela was rubbing the skin between her eyebrows. “Guns? Why do you want to see one of the guns?”

“I just want to hold one… see what it feels like.”

They had two guns. One they had taken from Roy after Michael incapacitated him with an oversized golf driver swing between the shoulder blades. Angela had picked the other from the waistband of a teenager she had murdered with a knitting needle through the heart. “It feels like a gun, cold and heavy. There, now you know.”

“You know what I mean, I want to hold it on my own. One of us should know what we’re doing in case we need to defend ourselves.”

“I’m perfectly capable of defending all three of us, and you’re too young to be handling guns.”

Angela and Michael hadn’t gotten along all that well since the three had been stuck together. He was continually challenging her, testing her ability to look after them. Angela had never had children of her own, and the twins had never been without a mother up until a few days ago. They were both adjusting, Angela realized. She would have to patient; their parents were gone, and she would have to fill the void as best she could.

“Leave her alone,” Amanda said. “She’s kept us safe. She’s kept Roy away.”

Michael didn’t say another word. He trudged on beside his sister as they made their way to the city’s outskirts, silently stealing from cars and trucks along the way. Sometime just before noon the lines of stalled traffic became more backed up. They were getting close to the airport. The drivers and passengers had left their vehicles and headed for the towering ruins of collapsed hotels ahead, or so Angela thought. They had probably believed it would be safer to take cover in the concrete and steel structures, that the bomb’s effects wouldn’t be so devastating this far out from the city’s center. The buildings here looked as destroyed as any Angela had seen further back. She started to wonder if more than one bomb had dropped. Perhaps she was leading the children into an even more lethal zone of radioactive fallout.

A group of four people were heading towards them in the opposite lane. Two adults, a man and woman, and two children—both girls—not much younger than Michael and Amanda. The man called out to them. “They’ve got a shelter set up in the parkade under the Sandman,” the man called out. “Lots of food left and plenty of mattresses to sleep on.”

“Why are you leaving?” Angela called back. “Where are you going?”

The man’s face went blank. His wife answered for him. “We’re going home.”

Angela looked back the way they’d come, towards the smoking grey city center. “Back there? You won’t find anything. Most of it’s gone.”

The two groups stopped walking when they were side by side and faced each other with the road’s concrete barrier separating them less than thirty feet. “Not all of it,” the woman said. “She looked at her daughters and smiled reassuringly. “The girls want to see their grandparents. We’re going to get our car and make sure they’re alright.”

“None of the cars work,” Angela replied. “I think all the onboard computers have been fried.”

The woman gave her a look that said, you think we don’t know that already, you stupid bitch? Can’t you just play along and keep your stupid mouth shut? “Our car will work. Edward here is a whiz with that stuff.” She smiled at her daughters and they smiled back. Edward stood there and remained looking vacant. He didn’t appear like much of a whiz of anything, Angela thought.

They know when it’s time to die, girl. They know when it’s time to give up and let go. You should do the same. Why don’t you go and crawl back into that hole you came out of?

Because I’ve found someone to look after—two someones. I’m going to care for them and keep them safe… more than you ever did for me.

I looked out for you more than you’ll ever know. I’m still looking out for you. There’s a way out of this, Angie… you’re just too dumb and stubborn to take it.

Angela didn’t answer her stepfather, and she didn’t say anything else to the family of four. She waved goodbye instead and the twins followed her along the curving exit road towards the half-collapsed string of hotels to their right.

“You think they’ll find them?” Amanda asked.

“Find who?”

“Their grandparents.”

“Maybe.” They probably wouldn’t, and if they did, Angela figured the little girls would likely be disappointed.

The first hotel had been a Hilton, Angela could tell by the massive collapsed H sitting atop the rubble blocking the front entrance. They went past it; Angela had never stayed at a Hilton in her life—she couldn’t afford it on her secretarial wage, and she had no one to travel with, and nowhere to go. The Sandman, Edward the mechanical whiz had said. Lots of food and plenty of mattresses. The three walked another quarter mile, past two more hotels until they came to the Sandman. The sign was still attached to the building, the trademark green letters looked almost a sick, dull purple against the backdrop of grey sky beyond.

“I don’t want to go there,” Amanda said. “It looks scary.”

“They all look scary,” her brother added, pointing back down the silent street.

“We don’t have to stay long,” Angela said. “We’ll have a few decent meals and see how we feel about it in a couple of days, okay?” The kids didn’t answer. They could see someone standing under the front, pacing slowly back and forth with a rifle in his hands. He was wearing one of those oxygen masks, the kind with the big round reflective eye covers. It was the protective head covering people wore in those post-apocalyptic zombie movies the kids said they’d seen on television, Angela thought. “One meal and one night,” she whispered as they approached the man.

“Hold it right there,” he called out when they were still over forty feet away. “Where are you coming from and what’s your business here?”

Our business? Why we’re travelling sales people and we’ve driven over a thousand miles to attend a shower curtain manufacturing conference. We’re very tired and we would appreciate your quietest room with a view of the planes landing and taking off if possible.

No need to be a smart-ass. The man’s just doing his job.

“A family back down the road said there was a shelter set up here, that there’s food and a place to sleep.”

The man eyed them up and down through those expressionless, flat glass eyes. “Where did the kids get those clothes? We’re they stolen?”

Angela looked at the expensive brand-name jackets and shirts. Michael’s were a good fit, but the hoody Amanda was wearing was a few sizes too big. The bottom of it hung past her bum. There were price tags and materials stickers still attached to most of them. “We’ve been sleeping outdoors and in vehicles for the last few nights. We needed… I wanted the children to stay warm. The clothes came from a shopping center.”

“Meaning you didn’t pay for them.”

The city had been nuked. Ninety per cent of the people living there were already dead. Why were the survivors so obsessed with stolen clothes? “We couldn’t pay for them. There was no one left to attend us, and I left my purse in the crater of what was once my office.”

You be careful, girl. The guy’s holding a rifle and he’s wearing an end-of-the-frigging-world helmet. Keep shooting your mouth off, and he’ll blow your head clean off your shoulders.

Angela didn’t care. She was sick of strange men frightening her, and she was sicker of the one in her brain telling her what to do. “Are you going to let us in or not?”

The man lowered his weapon and removed the oxygen mask. A mop of blond hair fell out and he was grinning widely. “Sorry about that.” He was young, probably not yet twenty, and his eyes were kind. “Marie’s making me ask all the people that come here these stupid questions.” He placed the mask down at his feet and left the rifle laying there as well. “Not even sure why she makes me wear that thing. It’s not like it’s going to keep the radiation from seeping in through my skin.”

Amanda spoke up. “Maybe it’s supposed to make you look scarier, you know, to stop bad people from coming too close.”

“I guess it could be something like that.” He held his hand out and Amanda shook it after a few hesitant moments. “I’m Cory Walker… used to run luggage back and forth from the guest rooms.”

“I’m Angela.” She didn’t see the need to provide last names any more. “This is Amanda and Michael. How many survivors are there inside, and who’s Marie?”

“There’s maybe sixty people down below, and Marie Hodgkin is my boss. She was the hotel manager on duty when it happened. No one’s come to relieve her since, so she’s still in charge. Real hard-ass, too, so the place is in good hands. She told me to watch for folks wearing new clothes and carrying expensive things. Last thing we need is a bunch of looters staying.”

“We’re not looters,” Michael spoke up defensively.

“Nah, of course you aren’t… you know what I mean. We’re not stopping families or kids, or anything like that, just keeping an eye out for gangs and stuff.”

It had been less than a week and already people were preparing for roaming gangs. Angela shouldn’t have been all that surprised. She had already fended off a rape and attempted murder. Civilized society had broken up and vanished at approximately the same rate of speed as the bomb’s destructive wave. “We’re not a gang,” Angela said. “I took the clothes the kids are wearing because we’ve had to keep ahead of a lunatic shooting off handguns, murdering everyone in sight. If I’d had the time I would’ve taken some for myself.” She spread out her arms and showed him the filthy remains of her dress, most of which was missing from the thighs down.

Corey could see something heavy weighing down both front pockets of Angela’s dress. “Speaking of guns…”

She patted the bulge on her right side. “We got away from the guy, took one of his weapons.”

“And the other one?” He pointed at her left side.

“I found that one on my own before I met up with the kids.” She hadn’t told Amanda and Michael about her night spent on a couch with an old woman melted into the fabric of an armchair at her feet. She wasn’t going to share that information with Corey Walker either.

“I see.” The young man held out both hands. “Well I can’t let you in any further unless you hand them both over. Marie’s orders—no weapons past the front doors.”

She glanced at the children. Amanda wanted to go inside. So did Michael, but he didn’t want to surrender the guns any more than Angela did. “I’d feel a lot better if we could hold on to them. I promise to keep them concealed.”

A woman spoke up from the shadows behind the young man. “And I promise I won’t let the three of you in another step if you don’t lay those guns on the ground at your feet right now.”

Corey bent down quickly and picked his rifle up. “Uuhh, this is Marie… my boss.”

Marie Hodgkin gave him a look that said they would be talking more about this later. “Your choice, lady. Give up the guns, or you carry on down to the next hotel.”

Angela had already made her mind up. She didn’t look back at the twins for approval. “We can have them back when we leave?”

“Of course, but I can’t imagine where you’d want to go. We have everything here you could possibly want. The parkade has been secured and is constantly guarded.” She shot Corey another dirty sideways glance. “The hotel has enough food and stored water to last the fifty-seven guests below for two or three months.”

Angela’s hands slowly slipped into her pockets. The woman in front of her stared into her eyes, challenging her to try something stupid. She was small, at least six inches shorter than Angela, but her presence was commandingly large. Her blond hair was pulled back tightly into a bun, and her thin lips were only a slit sitting above her pointy little chin. Her legs were spread apart slightly, and her hands were planted on her hips. The hotel uniform she was wearing—a neatly pressed black suit with white shirt—fit perfectly, and could’ve have probably fit Amanda perfectly as well. Her green tie was pulled up tightly into the collar of the shirt.

Small in stature, but huge in presence. Angela heard Michael groan as she handed the guns to Corey. Marie took Angela by the elbow. “Smart decision.” They went into the hotel lobby and walked through the spacious area. There was a second Armageddon-oxygen-mask-wearing guard stationed behind the front desk. He waved at them with the tip of his rifle. There was a third guard at the back entrance, and a fourth standing at the vehicle ramp leading down into the underground parking lot.

Marie’s little black shoes clicked along the pavement and her voice echoed off the walls. “The hotel was almost at full capacity when the bomb hit… over two-hundred guests.” Angela noted the word guests for a second time. She had referred to the survivors as guests, as if they were still checking in and out on a regular basis. Marie Hodgkin either took her position very seriously, or she was suffering from the biggest case of denial Angela had ever seen. “Three quarters of them up and left. They jumped in their cars and drove away, leaving most of their belongings in the rooms above. Not sure where the hell they thought they were going.”

Michael spoke up. “They drove away? But none of the cars work anymore.”

“Most don’t,” Marie said. They were on the first level. She pointed to a stairwell leading down. “But some of the vehicles farther down still managed to start. Corey seems to think it has something to do with all the concrete underground. Whatever electromagnetic pulse that shot out over the city was shielded by it. Not all the vehicles work, but most on the third level still turn over, even though things like onboard clocks and other computerized controls have been scrambled.”

Get that thought out of your head, and get it out right this second.

I’ve done bad things already, Dad—I’ve taken things without paying, and I’ve murdered. I’m sure adding car theft to the list won’t send me to hell any faster.

You don’t have a driver’s license. You can’t even drive.

You taught me how to drive when I was fifteen, remember? And I don’t think they’re any police left to pull me over and ask for identification.

That was thirty years ago, girl. Cars are different now. It’s not like riding a bicycle.

Marie was still talking, unaware of the conversation going on inside Angela’s brain. “A few of those left tried leaving with their vehicles, but I commandeered the keys.” So much for that idea, Angela thought. “We have to keep things safe and quiet down here. I can’t have people tearing up the underground in cars and running the other guests over.” She wagged a hand through the air. “Don’t worry, I’m not crazy. If any of those left owning vehicles that still work want to leave, they can. Same rules apply for car keys as weapons. Check them in, and check them out.”

Yeah, sure, you’re not crazy at all.

Angie… there’s no need to be condescending. The woman has taken you in.

They went down more stairs, and passed more guards. The ones further down weren’t wearing the frightening oxygen masks, and this made Angela feel a little better. There isn’t some post-apocalyptic chamber of horrors waiting below. It’s just people—survivors doing their best and staying as safe as possible.

The feeling of dread returned when they arrived at their final destination. The survivors had been herded into the deepest, darkest corner on the third subterranean level. Most were clustered around a giant concrete pillar labelled 3-C, like flies clinging to something sweet. Others were sitting on the pavement nearby, and some were curled up and trying to sleep. Angela’s mouth went dry and her heart started to hammer. They were all completely naked.

“Stop right here,” Marie instructed. “Take off all your clothes and drop them to the ground so we can have them cleaned.”

“You’re joking,” Angela said automatically, but knowing full well the woman was serious. People were staring up at them with mournful, embarrassed eyes. An overweight man in his sixties looked away when her eyes met his. A child sitting next to him did the same. Was she his granddaughter, or were they complete strangers to one another? It didn’t much matter either way, it was humiliating for them—for all of them—and Angela wanted no part of it.

“I don’t joke when it comes to the safety and cleanliness of our guests. We have nothing to hide here, and I want to guarantee my staff’s safety as well. Clothes are washed once a day, no exceptions.”

Angela saw something move in the shadows against the wall beyond the concrete pillar. More people were watching from mattresses. They were clothed, Angela was grateful to see, but they didn’t appear any less terrified. A little girl, not much younger than Amanda, crawled out from under a sheet and snuggled up to her mother. Her big eyes stared at Angela and the two children, but they settled back on Marie. She was afraid. They all were.

What have we come into? Where have I brought the children?

I’ll admit it’s awfully unusual, girl. Downright horrifying.

Angela nodded with her stepfather’s assessment.

Marie took it as acceptance. “Good. Empty your pockets and strip down. Your belongings will be returned to you in less than two hours.”

“Two hours?” Angela said. “It looks like these people have been sitting here a lot longer than two hours.”

“Ted from maintenance and Brenda from housekeeping are having some trouble with the washers and driers. Something to do with the generator we have set up in the laundry room. It should all be fixed soon enough.”

“No,” Amanda said.

Marie cocked her head to one side. “What was that, dear?”

“No. I’m not taking my clothes off, and I’m not sleeping over there.” She pointed at the line of mattresses.

Michael stood next to his sister. “Me neither. We won’t do it.”

The woman’s jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed slightly. “You don’t have a choice.” She looked up at Angela. “Are your children always this unruly?”

“They’re not my children. We met in a shopping mall after their mother was murdered.”

Marie Hodgkin stepped back, reaching for a hand held communicator at her side at the same time. “Please send down two additional guards to 3-C. We have a brother and sister without parents, and a woman child abductor.”

“Now just a second.” Angela went towards the woman. “This has gone far enough. I’m with these kids, and I’m not a criminal.”

The next few moments were a blur. Something hit Angela in the mouth and she saw stars. She was falling to her knees and Amanda was screaming. The children’s hands were at her arms, slowing her fall to the ground. Blood was dripping onto the asphalt directly beneath her face. She hit me. That little bitch smacked me in the face with her walkie-fucking-talkie.

Watch that language!

Angela heard Amanda screaming at the top of her lungs. She could see Michael’s feet kicking out at someone from the corner of her eye. The children were picked up and dragged away by more men wearing oxygen masks. Angela was unable to do a thing to stop it; her arms were too busy keeping the rest of her body from sinking down onto the ground in the puddle of her own blood. She tried pushing back up onto her knees and the vicious little Marie approached with a black weapon in her hand. She pressed something cold into her ribs and Angela felt a jolt run through her entire body.

This is what it feels like to get tazed.

Angela was about to tell her stepfather she didn’t like the sensation but blackness claimed her first.

Chapter 20

The first thing Angela realized when she woke up was that the children were with her again. The second thing she noticed was that they were naked. Angela’s nose and upper lip throbbed. She reached up to touch her face and saw she was naked as well.

“I’m sorry I brought us here,” she croaked. “We should’ve kept going west. We should’ve left this fucking city altogether and let these crazies deal with each other.” She waited for her stepfather to scold her for dropping an f-bomb. He didn’t. Perhaps he was finally beginning to agree with her.

Their immediate humiliation came to an end. Corey appeared with their clothes, neatly stacked in his arms. “I’m really sorry you had to strip down like that.” The oxygen mask, Angela noted thankfully, was gone. He handed the clothes to them. “I can appreciate Marie’s concern with keeping everyone clean and healthy, but she goes too far sometimes.” He leaned in and whispered. “To tell you the truth, I think she’s not all right in the head.”

Angela had already put on her bra and panties. Michael and Amanda moved even quicker. They were fully dressed in the hoodies and track pants lifted from the North Kilpatrick Shopping Center. “I noticed… Where’s my dress?”

Corey grinned uncomfortably and handed her a plastic bag that Angela hadn’t noticed hanging halfway up his forearm. “Marie didn’t care much for the amount of leg showing when you showed up here. The dress had to go.”

Inside the bag was a man’s white dress shirt and a pair of blue jeans. Angela put them on without protest. The dress—what was left of it—wouldn’t be missed. The shirt went down to her knees, and she tucked the bottom into the too-tight jeans. At least they were women’s jeans, she thought. “You can thank your boss for her hospitality, but we want to leave.”

“Uuh… that won’t be so easy.”

Angela glared at him and the children moaned. She poked a finger into Corey’s chest. “The city may have been destroyed, but it’s still a free country. You can’t… that goddamn Marie can’t hold us here against our will.”

Corey stepped back and held his hands up in a surrendering gesture. “You’re not being held against your will. You can go whenever you want. The trouble is a big storm’s moving in from the east. Our lookouts that way have spotted some pretty wicked-looking shit… purple lightning, twisters. Weather’s gone to hell since the bombs dropped. We couldn’t let you wander out until it’s passed.”

“We’ll take our chances.”

Amanda was tugging on Angela’s shirt cuff. “I’m scared of tornadoes. I saw a movie once where cows were flying in the air. Can’t we stay here for the night?”

Angela looked around for the first time since recovering consciousness. They were in a different part of the underground parkade. Children were sleeping comfortably in a line of mattresses set up along one wall. They were covered in heavy comforters and their heads were nestled into soft white pillows. Tables were organized under the fluorescent lighting around one of the immense concrete pillars and people were seated there, eating a vast assortment of food presented in large metal serving trays. A young woman appeared from the stairwell carrying another steaming tray. Angela’s mouth watered when she smelled the mashed potatoes and gravy.

Michael was pulling at her other sleeve. “Maybe Amanda’s right. Maybe we should stay the night at least. I’m starving, and it would be nice to sleep in a bed for a change instead of a car or on the ground.”

Angela was starting to give in. She felt her fat lip where Marie had struck her. It wasn’t swollen as bad as before. She started towards the food, and the children followed. Angela was sick of eating squished chocolate bars and drinking flat pop. It would be good to eat real food again. “One night. That’s all. We leave first thing in the morning.”

Amanda looked up at her. “Right after breakfast?”

“We’ll see.” One night. We will stay one night and then we’ll be on our way in the morning.

Just one or two free meals, hey, darling? That’s how you operate, isn’t it? Slowly sponging off the hospitality of others. You did it to me and your mother for years.

I was beginning to wonder where you’d gone.

I’m never that far away. Someone’s got to teach you right from wrong. Too bad you’re such a lousy student.

An elderly couple made room at one of the tables for the three to sit down. Michael and Amanda scooped impossibly large quantities onto their plates and managed to finish it all. Angela was starving, but she took her time, checking out all the other guests seated at the table. A big woman half her age was seated at the end of the table opposite Angela. They stared at each other, silently assessing, chewing their food and drinking their water. Finally the woman placed her fork down and spoke directly to her.

“You need a camera?”

“Pardon me?” Angela asked.

“A camera. Do you need a goddamn camera to take a picture? You never seen a black woman eat before?”

“I… I didn’t mean to be rude. You were staring at me, and I don’t care what color your skin is.”

“Then look at your food instead of me, bitch.”

Angela pushed the half-finished meal away. “I’m not that hungry anymore.” She left the table and headed back towards the shadows where the children were still sleeping on their cozy looking mattresses.

“That wasn’t very nice of her,” Amanda said. The twins had left the table with her. “She had no right to say that.”

Angela sighed and sat on the one empty bed at the end of the line. “I don’t think people give a hoot about rights anymore, sweetie. We’d better start getting used to the way things are going to be.”

It was a queen-sized mattress with plenty of room for the three of them. Michael lay next to his sister and shared the blankets. Angela was on the other side of the Amanda. She smiled at the girl as her eyes grew heavy. Within minutes the twins were fast asleep. Angela tucked the top comforter up over their chests and fluffed her own pillow up against the concrete wall behind. She sat back against it and watched the people living on the third underground level of the Sandman hotel go about their business. The old couple they’d sat next to for supper were still at the table, huddled closely together and whispering. Others were joining the children put to bed earlier. Angela guessed the time to be somewhere between 9 and 11 pm, but she couldn’t be certain. She didn’t have a watch, and there were no clocks on the barren grey walls. It could’ve been 12 noon for all she knew. Her head still felt a bit fuzzy since the Hodgkin woman smacked her in the mouth. She could only go by what everyone else was doing, and how she was feeling, and Angela was feeling very tired.

She forced herself to stay awake. She had seen and experienced too many terrible things over the last week to risk dozing off in such an unnatural and strange environment. Angela watched the old couple shuffle off to their mattress set between two others occupied by snoring teenagers. The woman removed her teeth and plopped them into a glass of water sitting on the floor. The man massaged her narrow shoulders and the couple continued whispering for a time. Angela’s eyelids grew heavy as the elderly couple slipped beneath their sheets. She kissed her husband’s cheek, and the two became silent and still. Dead almost. Like all those others above us.

Angela’s eyes had closed completely when the yelling started.

“I’m not taking my fucking clothes off!”

For a moment Angela thought she’d fallen asleep and entered a nightmare. She knew that voice, and when it started shouting again, she knew she was fully awake.

“We came down here because the assholes up top said you’d feed us and give us a place to sleep. If I’d known you sick fuckers expected us to strip down once we were down here…”

“Keep your voice down, sir. Don’t force me to use this.”

Angela watched and listened as Marie explained the Sandman rules to the fat mall security guard. Her eyes were drawn to that awful name scrawled in red marker on the tag attached to his fat sweaty chest.

ROY

There was a smaller man with a greasy ponytail standing beside him. He looked more like a child next to the bald-headed maniac. The small man held a hand up to Marie. “You don’t have to do that. He gave you his guns already. Please, just give us a bit of food and we’ll go back the way we came.”

Angela felt beneath the blanket until she found Amanda’s shoulder. She shook the girl until she groaned. “I don’t wanna get up… I wanna sleep some more.”

Angela placed her fingers over the girl’s lips, silencing her before she could protest any more. Amanda’s sleepy eyes opened and Angela mouthed the words be quiet. The girl slowly wriggled herself up into a sitting position and saw the new arrivals. Angela clamped her hand fully over her mouth before she could scream. She leaned close to her ear and whispered. “Wake your brother up as quietly as you can. We’re leaving.”

Angela watched as Roy and his companion gave into Marie’s demands. The big man started with his shirt, undoing the buttons and glaring at the small woman standing before him with familiar murderous intent. It was a look Angela had hoped she would never have to see again. Things got much worse when he dropped his pants and stripped out of his underwear.

I should’ve died in my office after the bomb hit… I wish I’d died in my office.

“He hasn’t seen us yet,” Michael whispered.

Angela tore her eyes from the horrible scene and concentrated on the twins. “You go first, Michael. Crawl off to the right and keep up against the wall where the shadows are. Amanda, you go next. I’ll be right behind you.”

It’s like fate brought the two of you back together again so soon, isn’t it, girl? See what you get for breaking the law? Ol’ Roy there might not have much authority, but he does have the right to blow your brains all over the parkade floor for stealing those clothes.

Angela ignored her stepfather and crawled after the children. What were the chances of that bastard finding them down here? It’s a coincidence, she told herself, nothing more. He doesn’t know we’re here, and I’m not going to let him find us.

Michael led them further down into the third level. They crept on their hands and knees around another immense column, and rose to their feet when they were certain they wouldn’t be spotted. Angela could still hear Roy swearing and complaining. Marie’s voice was rising as well. Gunfire erupted seconds later and Angela saw the yellow flashes against a far wall behind them.

“Run!”

They could hear more shouting between shots, the sleeping children had started to cry. Parents were yelling, and Angela was certain the whispering old couple were now screaming at the top of their lungs. Michael was stopping at every vehicle trying to open doors.

“We don’t got time to check for food,” his sister said.

“I’m not looking for food, I’m looking for keys.”

Angela pulled him along. “The cars don’t work anymore, remember?”

“That lady said some of them still started, the ones parked farther under. If we can find keys in one, you can drive us out of here.”

It had been decades since Angela had driven a car, and she hadn’t been very good at it back then. Re-learning now, driving in a claustrophobic underground concrete parkade through a hail of bullets didn’t seem like such a bright idea as it had just hours earlier.

Now you’re beginning to use that head. Finally realizing what you can and what you can’t do… and you can’t do a whole hell of a lot, isn’t that right, girl?

Thanks, Dad. I needed that.

Angela pushed Amanda between two parked vehicles. “Help your brother check these cars. Find one with keys and I’ll try and get it started.”

Stupid. Stubborn. Distrustful.

The gunfire and screaming continued. Angela tested door handles along with the children and lucked out on her third try. It was a dark four-door sedan. It looked very powerful, and very expensive. There was a pleasant chime as the passenger door opened up and Angela slid into the leather seat.

Someone was already sitting in the driver’s seat. “This is my ride, bitch.”

The big woman that had sat across from Angela as they’d eaten was staring at her once again. They were much closer now, only twelve inches of console separating them. She could give Roy a run for his money, Angela thought. “You’re… you’re going to steal it?”

She hammered the padded steering wheel with a big fist. “Is that what you think? The big black girl found herself a nice Audi and she’s going to hotwire the fucking thing and drive away before the cracker-ass mother-fucker owner can say shit?”

Oh dear.

“I… we, that is… we’re just trying to get the hell out of here.”

Michael and Amanda opened the rear doors and sat inside, thumping the doors shut and fastening their seatbelts. Amanda kicked at the back of the driver’s seat. “Will this thing start?”

The woman looked over her shoulder and grinned at the children. “Hell yeah, girl.” She pressed the keyless ignition, and the car rumbled to life. “Quality German engineering will never let you down.” She leaned over towards Angela. “I am the mother-fucking owner of this car. How’s that for a shocker?”

The tires squealed as she pulled the shifter into drive. Angela fumbled for her own seatbelt as the car tore forward. “They’re killing each other above. I don’t care if you own, lease, or rent the damned thing. Just be careful.”

“This is my baby. Don’t you worry, I’ll be careful.”

Angela saw two things when the Audi pulled around the pillar they’d snuck around moments earlier. Marie Hodgkins was lying on the concrete floor in a pool of blood. There were three holes in her chest and stomach. Her final shift as manager and commandant at the Sandman had come to a grisly end. The second thing Angela saw—and prayed she would forget—was Roy the mall security guard standing bare naked over the dead body with a full erection. The little man with the greasy ponytail was hastily pulling his pants up behind him.

“God-damn,” the Audi owner yelled as she slammed on the brakes. “Now that is definitely not a sight for sore eyes.”

“Don’t stop!” Michael pleaded. “He killed our Mom, and he’s gonna kill us, too!”

The woman didn’t need any more convincing. Roy was pointing a rifle at the windshield. “You kids get your heads down and keep ‘em down till we’re out of here.” The car shot forward again and Roy started firing. The first bullet went through the middle of the windshield and punched into the back seats between Michael and Amanda. A second bullet ricocheted off the car hood. Roy didn’t get a chance to fire a third shot. The big woman swerved at the last second, and the rearview mirror on her side struck Roy in the stomach with enough force to tear it clean off the door. Angela looked back and saw him fall to his knees.

Not enough to kill him. A golf club in the back wasn’t enough, and a big German car couldn’t get the job done either. Can’t anything kill that bastard?

“Fucker smucked my car up. Big-ass, small-dick mother fucker.” She continued teaching the Fulger twins colorful words and introduced Angela to a few new ones as she drove up and out of the parkade. Corey—or whatever oxygen-masked clad guard on duty it was—lowered his weapon and stood back. The Audi roared off into the night.

The woman held her hand out to Angela. “My name’s Caitlan. Sorry we got off to such a rough start. I’ve run into a lot of assholes since the world went to shit.”

Angela shook her hand. “I’m Angela. The two back there are Amanda and Michael. And don’t apologize. I’ve met a few undesirables along the way as well.”

Caitlan chuckled. “Undesirables… That’s another way of putting it.”

“You’re going the wrong way,” Michael said.

She looked at him in the rear view mirror. “What way am I supposed to be going?”

Amanda answered. “West. We were going west.”

“What difference does it make? West, east, north, south. It’s all the same.”

Purple lightning forked through the sky ahead of them. The thunder that followed a moment later shook the car. Caitlan slowed down and turned around in the middle of the highway.

“This lane’s one way only,” Michael said. “You should cross over into the other one at the next exit.”

“I don’t think we’ll be running into much traffic tonight.” Caitlin weaved between an abandoned bus and trashed half-ton. She pressed down on the accelerator when the way was clear and the four sped off into the dark, driving west ahead of the storm.

Chapter 21

“Come on, you have to help me out.”

“Give me a fucking break, would you? I just got run over by a car.”

“No, you were sideswiped by the mirror,” Louie said. They’d wasted enough time just getting Roy to stand up. It seemed to take an eternity for him to get back into his underwear. He had helped the giant up through two levels of parkade, but it wasn’t fast enough for Louie’s liking. He had seen the dark mist creeping along the floor towards the hotel manager’s corpse.

How did they escape from the tenth level of the DSC? There aren’t many better sealed off places anywhere on earth.

There was still time, Louie figured. The ticks could travel quickly, but they were microscopic. Louie and his new-found friend could keep ahead of them if they maintained a steady pace.

But it wasn’t just the ticks Louie was worried about. He had seen what they were capable of doing when they’d infested Richard Sheffield’s dead body. Louie had seen it again when the grey swarm crawled over Marie Hodgkin’s corpse as well. Roy hadn’t noticed—he was too busy with his aches and pains to notice the woman’s body when it started to swell. Roy didn’t see her fat fingers start to twitch.

They had to keep ahead of the swarm. They could outrun the ticks, but they would have a difficult time staying clear of the human hosts the ticks inhabited. And there were plenty of hosts to inhabit.

Living and dead.

Chapter 22

The ride east had been hard. Small towns that Hayden had driven through on his way to and back from Winnipeg had been made even smaller. Most of the people had packed up what they had left and moved out, heading east for the city, or heading off in all other directions to find something… anything.

“My bum’s sore.”

Hayden rested the tip of his chin on Nicholas’s head. “Mine too, bud. That’s what happens when you sit on a horse and let it do all the walking for three days. Did you want to hop down and give Trixie a break?”

The little boy shook his head. “Heck, no. I’m too tired to walk on my own. I’m hungry and thirsty, too.”

They gave Trixie a rest a few miles on, dismounting in a farm-yard twenty miles west of the city. There was water in the abandoned house that Hayden drew from a stand-up cooler. It wasn’t all that cool—there was no more power available to make things hot and cold—but Nicholas didn’t seem to mind. Hayden filled a few 2-litre plastic pop bottles with what remained and placed it into the saddlebag they’d found on another farm a hundred or so miles behind them.

Nicholas sat down on the steps of the front porch and drank his water. “How come there aren’t no cars on the highway?”

“Because they won’t start anymore.” That wasn’t entirely true. Hayden and Nicholas had seen vehicles on the roads along their way. There hadn’t been many—perhaps a dozen or so in the last hundred and fifty miles—but they had heard the old things rumbling their way from what seemed like provinces away. Since Jake, Hayden wasn’t taking any chances with anyone. He had taken his horse and rode out into the fields, putting at least a quarter mile between the vehicles travelling down the highways and the three of them. Perhaps he’d seen too many post-apocalyptic movies, but Hayden wasn’t going to risk all he had left to strangers roaring down the roads in vehicles manufactured before he had been born. “All the newer cars have computers to help them start and run. All those onboard computers were fried after the bad morning. The cars we’ve seen are a lot older, built back in the nineteen-seventies and earlier. Even most of those don’t start.”

Nicholas shrugged. He either hadn’t understand a word of it, or he had, and just didn’t really care. “I wish we could get a ride in one of them. We could find a new home a whole lot faster if we were driving in a car.”

Hayden replied after a time. “I think it’s best if we stick with Trixie. Besides, hitchhiking isn’t the safest way to get around. Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk to strangers?” The boy’s head dropped down and Hayden felt terrible. He sat next to him without saying another word. They watched Trixie munch away from a patch of dead grass next to the house.

The porch door creaked open behind them. “You have what you came for, now get the hell out.” An old man was standing over them with a rifle trained at Hayden’s head. “I’m sick of people pulling up here and taking what they please without a please.”

Hayden held his hands up and turned slowly. The man was so small and feeble-looking he could barely keep the gun pointed their way. It snapped up quickly enough when Hayden stood. “Easy there, guy. We thought the place was empty.”

“You didn’t so much as knock, just barged on in and started helping yourself. You’re the third bunch we’ve had since them goddamn Russians dropped their nukes.”

He was right. They had just walked in and taken what they wanted. Hayden had begun to get used to the idea of a world where private property and no trespassing no longer existed. But the old man standing in front of him hadn’t lost as much as Hayden and Nicholas. His farm was still standing. The nuke—Russian, North Korean, Iranian, or from wherever—had destroyed everything and everyone they knew. Hayden wanted to apologize, and he wanted to tear the rifle out of the gnarled hands and beat the old man into a pulp. He did neither. “We’ve ridden a long way. My boy was tired and thirsty. If I had money, I’d pay for what we took.”

“What the hell good is money now?” He was looking at Nicholas. The gun started to drop. “Is he sick?”

“No… well maybe.” Hayden looked towards the sky. “It’s all this shit in the air. I’m not sure what it’s doing to any of us.”

The gun fell all the way and the man ushered them into his home properly. “Don’t just let him sit there then. Get inside and we’ll get him cleaned up.” He held up one of his gnarled hands and stuck the arthritic fingers towards Hayden. “I’m Elton MacDonald by the way.”

Old MacDonald had a farm, Hayden thought grimly. He shook the hand. “Hayden Gooding. The boy… my son’s name is Nicholas.”

Chapter 23

“When the last group came and saw there wasn’t much more to take in the way of food, they started stealing whatever they could lay their hands on.” Elton MacDonald leaned forward in his living room armchair and pointed at a blank wall. “We had a painting hanging there for twenty-eight years. Some awful Japanese piece my wife always loved. They took the thing. A goddamn worthless hunk o’ junk oil in a plastic frame.” He leaned back again, shaking his head back and forth. “What’s the world come to, Hayden… when folks start stealing crap that has no value, no practicality, no meaning… except to the folks they’re stealing from. What’s a painting of a bunch of pink lilies gonna get them?”

“I have no idea,” Hayden replied. He was sitting on the end of a couch with Hayden taking up the rest of the space under an afghan as heavy as him and almost as old as its owner. “At least they left you the furniture.”

Elton snorted and wiped what came out from his big nose against a shirt sleeve. “That was mighty big of them. They left that stupid thing as well.” He nodded at the old dead television set sitting in front of the coffee table. “For all the good it does me now. As much as I hated that idiot box, I have to admit I miss the company. I have a generator hooked up out back still running the essentials. Lights and so forth. First thing I unplugged was that thing.” He pointed an accusing finger at the television. “All it’s broadcasting now is snow.”

Hayden had heard the old farmer say we and we’ve two or three times. “How long have you been on your own, Elton?”

The old man stared at him through hooded eyes. His bottom lip jutted out for the longest time before he answered. “May is still with me… We were sitting together on that very couch watching the news the morning it happened.”

The morning it happened. Less than two weeks ago. “Where’s your wife now?” He asked softly.

More long, lip-hanging silence. “Upstairs… She’s sleeping. Does a lot of that now.”

Hayden nodded. “I see. Well, Mr. Macdonald, I want to thank you for your hospitality, but Nicholas and I have kept you too long. It’s time we were heading on.” He shook the boy awake.

“Heading on?” The old man said. “Where is it you’re heading to?”

“The city, to see what’s left.”

“But there’s a storm coming from that way.”

“We’ve been through plenty of storms the last few days. We’ll take cover.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I have room here. At least wait until this one’s passed over.”

Hayden went to a window and lifted the faded drapes. It was just past noon, but it looked more like full night out to the east. The clouds had that sinister roiling appearance to them that reminded him of the storm Jake had stolen Nicholas out into. “Do you have a cellar?”

“Of course,” Elton said. “But we won’t need to take cover down there. This house is solid, built it myself over forty years ago.”

“They didn’t have this kind of weather forty years ago.” He was about to add they didn’t have this kind of weather forty days ago, but something else caught his eye. Below the wall of advancing grey and green Hayden saw a line of vehicles moving down the highway. Seconds later he heard the low rumble of motors. “It looks like the army is on the move.”

Nicholas pushed up in front of him to see. Elton joined them a few moments later. “There’s a military base not all that far from here. Those boys are probably looking for survivors, helping out those in need. It’s good to see.”

They watched a few more minutes as the line of vehicles made their way west. MacDonald’s farm was less than a quarter mile off the main highway. The six green transport trucks and the solitary tank following would be out of sight in a few more minutes. Nicholas tugged on Hayden’s shirt. “Are they coming to help us? Are the soldiers gonna find us a new home?”

Hayden watched as the vehicles slowed. They stopped a hundred yards short of an abandoned car sitting in the ditch between lanes running east and west. “I’m not sure what they’re doing out there.” The big tank rumbled around the trucks and rolled to a halt facing the car. Seconds later the turret swung thirty degrees to the left and a flash of yellow exploded from the gun barrel. The tank rocked back on its tracks, and the abandoned car was destroyed.

Elton spoke first. “What the hell are those idiots trying to prove?”

Hayden could see the hatch on top of the tank beginning to open. “Do you have binoculars?”

“Well yeah,” the farmer said, shuffling off to a closet next to the front door. He reached up and found them on a top shelf the looters before hadn’t thought to explore. “These things have come in handy the last few days. Don’t you go taking them when you leave.”

Hayden took the binoculars and focused them on the tank. The man climbing out was no soldier, or at least he wasn’t dressed like one. The only thing he was wearing from the waist up was a pair of sunglasses. More men were spilling out from the trucks. They were wearing dirty blue jeans and tee-shirts. They took turns high-fiving the gunner. One of them went to a piece of burning wreckage that had fallen close to the tank and began urinating on it. “Those aren’t soldiers, and I don’t think they’re helping people.”

Elton had taken the binoculars from him and was peering out over the destruction. “Goddamned animals is what they are. If there’s no army left to give aid… then we’re all in a for a heap of hard times…. harder, that is.”

“As long as they stay away from here they can blow up and piss on whatever they want.”

The shirtless gunner returned to his tank as if he’d heard Hayden say the words. The others ran back to their trucks. The big machine lurched forward and back in its tracks. It shot forward again as the inexperienced driver found the proper gear, and the tank rolled into the ditch straight toward Elton MacDonald’s farm.

“It’s that horse you rode in on—they can see it from the highway.”

“I think it’s time we went into that cellar of yours.” Hayden could feel Nicholas pressed up to his side. The window had begun to rattle in its frame from the deep rumble of approaching vehicles.

“We’d be better off upstairs,” Elton said quickly. “The bedroom door locks from the inside.”

“They have a tank—locked bedroom doors won’t stop them. We need to hole up somewhere dark. Maybe they won’t even bother looking down there if they find the rest of the house deserted.”

“Please,” MacDonald pleaded. He’d grabbed onto to Hayden’s wide shoulders. “Not the cellar.”

Hayden took one of the boney wrists and forced it down. “We don’t have time to argue. Where is it?”

The old man wagged his head to one side, indicating a hallway off from the stairs leading up. Hayden pulled him along quickly and Nicholas ran ahead both of them. “First door on the left,” he said resignedly.

Nicholas opened the door and an unpleasant smell greeted them from the darkness below. The boy went for the light switch.

“No,” Hayden said. He reached up towards the ceiling and unscrewed the single light bulb from its socket. “If they can’t see what’s down there, maybe they won’t even bother coming down.”

Elton crept down the steep steps first, leading the other two into blackness. “Watch the third step. It’s starting to give in the middle.”

Hayden straddled the stairway, placing each step to the outside. He could feel Nicholas’s fingers dug into the waistband of his pants, using him as a guide. They heard the vehicles pull into the yard—the tank’s rumble, doors slamming shut, men whooping and laughing. Hayden stopped halfway down the stairs and pointed back up at the door. Nicholas scrambled back up in the gloom and pulled it shut. Hayden held his hands out and waited for the boy to find him again.

Gun shots fired when they reached the dirt floor. Multiple rounds.

“Trixie!”

Hayden started up the stairs, but Elton took hold of one of his big shoulders again and spun him around. He was a lot stronger than Hayden suspected. “Don’t be a fool, man. That horse isn’t worth our lives.”

There were more gunshots. Rapid fire. They were unloading entire machine gun magazines. Hayden stumbled into a corner and held Nicholas tightly to him. He was shaking and crying. “It’s okay,” Hayden whispered into the boy’s ear. “It will stop soon.”

The shooting ended a few moments later. Hayden prayed they’d murdered each other. The laughing started up again. Heavy boots thumped up the porch steps, and the front door slammed open against the inside wall. They were in the house, thudding about from room to room. Hayden slid his hand over Nicholas’s mouth. A heavy crash sounded directly over their heads. There goes Elton’s television set.

Something hard tapped Hayden’s shoulder. He reached out, expected to find Elton’s ancient fingers, but his hand wrapped around the barrel of a rifle instead. The old man spoke softly. “Get ready to duck down. As soon as that cellar door opens I’m blowing some fucker’s leg off.”

“Give me the gun,”  Hayden urged.

MacDonald pulled it away. “I’m old, son, but I’m still a hell of a shot.”

The cellar door swung in and light flooded down the wooden steps. Hayden saw a long shadow stretch along the wall. Should’ve brought my rifle in the house, he thought. He had seen at least a dozen men surrounding the tank and trucks, and there were probably more judging from all the gunfire they’d heard. At least we could’ve taken a few more of the bastards out along the way.

The shadow above them called out.“Fucking light doesn’t work!”

“Forget it,” someone yelled back. “This place is a fucking dump. It’s already been picked over by some other assholes.”

More laughter. They listened as more commands were yelled out. Something about the approaching storm and getting to the next town before it hit. Boots thumped along the living room floor and thudded down the porch steps. The trucks started up and Hayden heard the tank begin to roll once again.

Hayden lowered Nicholas to the floor and discovered he was shaking almost as badly the five-year old. “I thought you said you were going to fire as soon as the door opened.”

“Can’t shoot what you can’t see. I left my glasses upstairs.”

Nicholas cried out. “Someone’s down here! Their leg’s all cold!”

Elton found him in a far corner and started dragging him towards the stairs. “Get away from her, boy.”

Hayden realized he was still clutching onto the light bulb. He ran up the steps and screwed it back into its socket. He threw the light switch up and Nicholas cried out again. “Her face is gone! Her face is gone!”

It was more than just her face. The top half of the woman’s head was missing. This was why Elton had resisted hiding in the cellar. Her crumpled up body was resting next to a shallow hole in the dirt floor. Elton shoved Nicholas away and knelt before the corpse. “We were supposed to go together… We’d agreed… I end May’s life, and then take my own.”

Hayden picked Nicholas up and placed him back down on the stairs. “Go on to the top and wait at the door.” The boy scrambled up the steps on all fours, whimpering. Hayden went to the farmer. There was a shovel resting on a pile of excavated dirt next to the corpse. “You were going to bury her.”

Elton nodded. “I couldn’t even get that done proper. The ground’s so hard, and I’m old. I figure I’ll get the job done in a few more days.”

“And then what?”

“Then I’ll find some balls and join her.”

“What good is that going to do? We’ve all lost family, people we love.”

“May was the last for me, son. There’s no one else in the world to care for.”

Hayden went back to the stairs and joined Nicholas waiting at the door. His eyes were big and round with big patches of pink on the cheeks below. “It’s started to rain again.”

They went through the living room—stepping around the smashed television set—and peered around the drapes through the window. It was raining hard. A bolt of lightning flashed directly ahead lighting the front yard. Trixie was laying on her side in a growing puddle of water and blood. Her body had been riddled with bullet holes.

“They killed her,” Nicholas moaned. “They shot her dead like Mr. MacDonald shot his wife.”

Hayden couldn’t answer him.

The rain intensified, smashing against the glass. It turned to hail, and the window exploded inwards. Thunder exploded and the house shook. Hayden could smell the electricity in the air. “We have to go back down into the cellar. We can’t stay up here.”

“I don’t wanna go back down there! I don’t wanna see her dead face again!”

“You won’t have to for long.”

Chapter 24

The storm raged on, and Hayden dug. He made the hole wider and longer to accommodate the dead woman’s body. Wind howled in the rooms above them, through the broken windows and open front door. What remained of Elton’s forty-year old home was being thoroughly devastated.

“I could’ve done it myself,” the old man said from the bottom step of the cellar. “I would’ve eventually got the job done.”

Hayden took a rest and wiped the sweat from his brow. “I know you would’ve.” He was three feet down, and the ground was hard. May MacDonald wouldn’t be laid to rest six feet under. She would have to settle for four. “But seeing as we’re staying until the storm passes, I figured I could keep busy.”

Hayden picked the shovel back up and resumed digging. Elton spoke again after a few more minutes. “I’m not going with you.”

“I know.”

“I’m too old to start anything again. I’m too old and I’m too tired.”

“I know.”

They wrapped her body in a plain white bed sheet and lowered it into the hole. The generator died in the storm and Hayden shoveled the dirt back into the grave in the dark. No words were spoken, no prayers whispered. There was a moment when Hayden thought all of his hard work would be for nothing. Something sounding like a freight train leaving its tracks roared above their heads. Another of those monstrous tornadoes was twisting its way through the property, tearing up what remained. It eventually passed, leaving the house and May MacDonald’s final resting place intact.

The wind died down and the rain stopped falling. Elton led them up and out of the cellar to survey the damage. Most of what the old man and his wife had accumulated over the decades had been picked over and stolen in the last week. What was left was strewn about the wet floor, smashed and useless.

Hayden went outside and stood over his dead horse. He prayed she hadn’t suffered. How could she have, he thought? Every square inch of her had been torn to shreds with gunfire. The bastards. He closed his eyes and pictured the one that had exited out from the tank turret. Young, twenty-five, maybe twenty-six. Black hair shaved close to his scalp. No shirt. Dirty blue jeans and big black boots with the laces untied. Sunglasses.

“Are we walking now?”

Hayden opened his eyes and saw Nicholas. “Yeah, I suppose we are.” He searched around Trixie’s corpse for his rifle. It was gone. So was the saddlebag with their few remaining supplies. They couldn’t even leave us that.

“How far are we from the city?”

It was still grey towards the east, as if the sky was threatening to unleash another storm. Or perhaps it was smoke; a low-hanging cloud of ruin settled over what was left of Winnipeg. “Not far. We can reach the outskirts before nightfall on foot.”

Elton MacDonald was leaned up against a cracked porch beam. “You’re welcome to stay.”

Hayden could see that hooded look again in the old man’s eyes—the bottom lip jutting out. They could stay if they wanted, but they wouldn’t be all that welcome. Elton had a job to finish, and he needed to be alone.

“Thanks, but no. We’ll be leaving now. Can I have that rifle of yours?”

“Nope.”

Hayden and Nicholas reached the highway less than five minutes later. They heard a single gunshot behind them. Nicholas spun around and stared at the farmhouse. “Did those bad men in the trucks come back?”

“Nope.” Hayden tightened his hand around the boy’s and started for the city.

Chapter 25

Four hours and ten miles later they came upon the town of Eustache. It was the last small town before the city. It had been more of a rest stop for truckers and travelers heading to and from Winnipeg, a last minute stop for gas and junk food. Now it was a ghost town, just another abandoned settlement. The ruin of the city beyond was obvious. Hayden could no longer see the skyline of larger buildings that the city’s center once consisted of. In its place was a smoking crater. Above it was one big heavy cloud. The occasional bolt of lightning cracked down from the dull, mustard-colored mass, striking whatever there was left still standing.

“That’s the city?” Nicholas asked.

“It was.”

“What kind of home are we gonna find there?”

Hayden couldn’t answer him. They had traveled almost two hundred miles for nothing. He continued on anyway, too heartbroken and too tired to care. He missed his horse terribly.

“Can we stop at a rest-ront for something to eat? I gotta pee, too.”

There were plenty of restaurants and diners to choose from in Eustache. Either side of the highway was lined with gas stations and convenience stores. Hayden worried there wouldn’t be much left in any of them worth taking. Most of the plate glass windows had been smashed in. Fuel dispensers were left laying on pavement next to their bowsers like dead snakes.  Gas—for the vehicles that still ran—and water would’ve been the first things people took and exhausted on their journeys to wherever it was they were going.

“Pee on the ground, Nicholas. There’s no one left that cares.” The boy did his business in front of Hayden without turning around. Hayden squeezed his shoulder. “Stay outside where I can see you. I’m going to check in that gas station to see if there’s any food.”

The boy tucked himself in and shoved his hands patiently into his pants pockets. Hayden crossed the parking lot of a Shell station and stepped over the last bit of jagged glass in one of the window frames. The drink coolers were dark and completely empty. Hayden went behind the cash-register counter and helped himself to the three remaining rolls of breath mints inside the display case. The chocolate bar boxes were bare. The potato chip racks had been knocked over, the chewing gum containers thrown to the floor. He peered through the plastic window set in the swinging door that led to the kitchen. What wasn’t draped in shadows didn’t look promising. A refrigerator had been left open, and the bit of stainless steel preparation counter Hayden could see was covered in something dark. There was another dried puddle of it on the floor with bits of grey matter throughout. The kitchen’s smell reminded him of Elton MacDonald’s cellar.

He peered back over his shoulder and spotted Nicholas sitting up against a black garbage container fitted between fuel terminals. There was nothing more for them here. Hayden handed the candy rolls to him. “Cherry flavor! My favorite.”

“Lucky you.”

They crossed the highway and explored another gas station restaurant, exiting with even less than they had from the Shell. The two fared better at their third stop—a small diner called Rick’s Good Food. There was a case of stale soup crackers in the back storage room, and enough out-dated energy drinks to last them a month. Nicholas winced as he swallowed a small bit of it. “Gross.”

“Good. I don’t need you drinking that much caffeine.”

“But the crackers are dry.” He washed a second mouthful down with the saltines.

“Come on, kid, let’s see what else the fine town of Eustache has to offer. We’ll need to find a place to sleep before it gets dark.”

There was little else to be found in Eustache. Three miles east they came across a trucker’s weigh station located on the perimeter of the city. The station itself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. The building set back off from the trucking lane was like any other checkpoint structure Hayden had seen; small, one window, and featureless. What was unusual was the single vehicle parked in front of it—a black four-door Audi. The car was a newer model, no older than two or three years, and besides the missing driver’s side mirror, it looked well kept, and very costly.

Hayden ran his fingers along the door. He spotted some dark streaks on the rear fender that may have been rust. Too new to be rust. He squatted down and inspected the marks more closely. Blood. The driver had hit something recently, a deer perhaps. Hayden hoped it had been a deer. He looked back down the side where the mirror had been. That might explain what happened there. He went around the back and walked along the passenger side. Mud was caked into the tire spokes and wheel wells. A piece of it fell to the ground. Hasn’t even had time to dry.

He placed his hand on the hood. It was still warm. Hayden leaned against the front passenger window to see if the keys were still in the ignition. It triggered a blaring alarm, and Hayden jumped back. He fell into something and turned. A big black woman sneered at him and threw a punch into his nose that drove him back over the Audi’s hood.

“You can look all you want, pretty boy, but you can’t touch.”

Nicholas appeared out of nowhere and kicked behind one of the woman’s knees. She fell forward, face-first into Hayden’s crotch. Hayden went to push her off before she could take a bite out of him, but another woman with grey hair wearing a man’s dress shirt got in between them first.

“Enough! They weren’t doing anything wrong!” The second woman shouted.

“Pretty boy was looking inside, he was going to steal my fucking car!”

The grey-haired woman saw Nicholas for the first time. “He’s got a child with him. Can’t you quit swearing for one minute?”

“Child my ass.” She was massaging the flesh behind her knee. “Little bastard almost broke my leg.”

Hayden soaked blood up from his nose with the front of his shirt. “His name’s Nicholas… he’s my son.”

The smaller woman helped him down off the car’s hood. “I’m Angela. The car belongs to my friend, Caitlan. You might want to watch yourself around it.”

He held his hand out. “Hayden, and thanks for the advice. I’ll take it.”

Caitlan shrugged. “A girl’s got to watch out for her things. No offence?” Hayden shook his head as if getting punched in the face by women was an everyday occurrence. “Good. Now what’s this little Kung-Fu master’s name?”

“My name’s Nicholas, and my real Dad is dead.”

Caitlan looked back at Hayden. It was his turn to shrug. “Long story.”

Angela eyed Hayden even longer before kneeling in front of Nicholas. “A lot of people have died in the last little while, haven’t they, Nicholas.” Nicholas nodded. “Has this man taken care of you? Has he been good to you?”

Nicholas nodded again, more emphatically. “He’s Hayden, and I love him.”

That was good enough for Angela.

And Caitlan. “Well let’s just not stand out here in the cold. We’ve got hot coffee inside.”

They crowded into the small weigh station office, and Hayden and Nicholas were introduced to Amanda and Michael Fulger. “We found each other in a shopping mall,” Angela explained. “These two were holed up in the back of a toy store trying to outlast a homicidal security guard.”

Nicholas had already cozied up against Amanda. Michael and his sister were leering at Hayden suspiciously. He held his bloody palms up in front of them and tried wiping more from his face onto his forearm. “I know. I look like crap, but I’m not all that scary.”

“Can’t take a punch, either,” Caitlan mumbled. She smiled and presented him with a Styrofoam cup filled with steaming black coffee. “Here you are, sweetie. The hotplate has a battery backup, and there’s plenty of water in the cooler for the boy to drink.”

“There’s food here as well,” Angela said. “Mostly canned stuff, but it’ll fill you up.”

Caitlan reached down in front of the children and dug around inside the bottom desk drawer. She pulled a glass bottle out. “Don’t mind me. I’ve had enough of instant coffee and spaghetti in a tin.” She poured a generous amount of vodka into her own cup and tossed it back in one quick swallow. “Now that hits the spot.”

Hayden looked at the women incredulously. “How? Where did you find this stuff?”

Angela laughed. “Everyone’s been heading for the obvious choices… looting grocery stores, malls, restaurants and houses. No one’s even thought of checking inside places like this.”

“Trucking weigh stations,” Hayden said.

Caitlan poured another shot. “Dentist’s offices, tire shops, roofing supply outlets and police stations. There’s hundreds of other businesses and institutions out there to hit that most people haven’t even thought of exploring yet. Funny thing is—all those folks that used to work in these places had daily needs. They needed water and food, and weigh stations like this have more than enough to keep us going.”

“For now,” Hayden added. “They’ll empty out soon enough.”

Caitlan took the vodka bottle and leaned her big arms down onto the counter of the window. She slid it open and smelled the air. “It’s going to rain again soon. Them clouds south of the city look like shit.” She swigged from the bottle. “We should get moving, keep heading east.”

“You’re not driving,” Angela said.

“Yeah, yeah… I’ve been drinking. You gonna take the wheel instead?”

“Not me,” she answered. Angela looked to Hayden. “Will you come with us?”

“We were headed for the city… I was going to find a home for Nicholas.”

Angela shook her head grimly. Caitlan replied for all of them. “You won’t find a home there. The city’s still burning, and what’s left is being run by fucking lunatics.”

“Hayden,” Nicholas called out softly. “I don’t wanna go there no more.”

“Where?” Hayden looked at all of them in turn. “Where are you going?”

Caitlan screwed the cap back onto her bottle. She pointed the end of it towards the dull mustard glow off on the eastern horizon. “Away from that. Away from the worst of the fallout and the sick-minded fuckers.”

“We came from the northwest. One of the bombs fell not that far from my farm. You won’t find anything there, either.”

“Then we’ll continue headed west, maybe even swing down south into the States.”

“More people in the States,” Caitlin said. “More people, more lunatics, more guns.”

Amanda pushed Nicholas away gently. “We have to go somewhere. We barely have room to all stand in here. I want to find some place with a bed.”

“Amen to that, girl.” Caitlan handed the Audi key to Hayden. “Treat her good, pretty boy. Not one more scratch, or I’ll blacken both those eyes to match your fat nose.”

Chapter 26

Roy and Louie ate their late supper in silence. It consisted of eight pounds of stewing beef they’d found in a basement freezer that no longer worked. Roy had started a fire in the ditch next to the highway, and Louie had roasted the meat over the flames until it was black.

“It will make us sick,” Louie muttered between bites. He looked over his shoulder back towards the city. “We’ll probably be puking our guts out all night long.”

“It still felt cool. It won’t kill us. Better than not eating at all.”

Louie drank the rest of his warm beer down to wash the burned taste from his mouth. They had discovered two 15-packs of Rainier Mountain Fresh next to the freezer. It didn’t taste all that fresh, but it was doing a good enough job of dulling Louie’s senses. Roy had finished one of the boxes already. Louie cracked the tab open on another and sipped. “If we’re sleeping outdoors, I suggest you find some more wood to burn. We’re going to need a bigger fire.”

“I was cooped up in a shopping mall for days. I like it outside. If you want wood, go get it yourself.” He caught Louie glancing over his shoulder at the city east of them. “What the hell do you keep looking back that way for? You miss that shit-hole I found you climbing out of?”

“Miss it? No.”

“Maybe you want to go back to that fucking hotel?”

“Not a chance.”

“Then what’s got you spooked?”

Louie took a long swallow and belched. “I’m worried about the people I left behind. I don’t think it went well for them in the end.”

“I thought you said they were all dead.”

“They are.” Louie hadn’t told him about the microscopic ticks he’d unleashed on level 10 of the DSC. He hadn’t shared the story with Roy of how he’d watched his old boss come back to life with a billion of the tiny arachnids controlling his every move. “I’m just concerned with some of the stuff they were working on when everything ended. It was some pretty freaky shit.”

“No sense worrying about it now. That freaky shit is behind us now.” Roy hadn’t told Louie he’d murdered a hundred and twelve people in cold blood. Some secrets were better kept to yourself. “Let’s have some more beers and forget about everything for the next ten hours or so. Eustache is only a couple miles away. Maybe we’ll find something to eat for breakfast there.”

Louie passed him another beer and the two drank in silence. Roy watched the flames. Louie kept an eye on the darkened city behind them.

* * *

The thing once called Tom Braden lurched along the destroyed sidewalk. The man that once held an important research position at the Winnipeg DSC was no longer human. He had died days earlier when the Tick LDV3 swarm had entered his body and clogged every artery and vein inside him. The ticks—feeding and growing on his cooling blood—had brought Tom back. He could no longer think. His brain was controlled by the swarm. They controlled his movements, they dictated where he went, and what he needed to do.

And the ticks needed Tom to find others to feed on. They needed new hosts to multiply their numbers. Tom stumbled along on swollen feet the color of mold. His fat toes burst open further with each step, releasing fat ticks onto the ground. The ticks scrambled away into the shadows, giving birth to thousands and millions more. These babies joined the growing swarm in search of fresh blood.

Behind Tom, thirty-seven previous employees of the DSC followed. Their arms and legs, their fingers and toes, all swollen and ready to burst.

They marched awkwardly through the smoldering destruction of what was, spreading what would be.

Chapter 27

“Where was it you used to work?” Roy asked as Louie vomited for the third time into the remains of their fire. “I know we were both pretty tanked last night, but I remember you saying something about them working on freaky shit. What was it exactly?”

Louie Finkbiner wiped his chin and rolled over onto the dead grass. “I knew we shouldn’t have eaten that spoiled meat. Christ… I’ve never been so sick in my life.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have washed it down with a dozen warm beers.”

Louie pictured the beer in his mind. He could hear the tabs cracking open, and he could see the foam spilling up over the lids. The thought made his stomach rumble again. “Quit talking about it… please.”

“Then tell me about your workplace. Tell me about the freaky shit.”

“I worked at the DSC—that stands for Disease Study Center.”

“I’m not a fucking rube, I know what it stands for.”

Louie continued. “There was containment breach the day the bomb hit. A box holding some ticks broke open, released a swarm of the microscopic things… we evacuated the lower levels, but the damn things found a way out. I—that is we, spent the following days moving up level by level, attempting to secure the outbreak… a lot of good people were lost. I tried saving the last few, but the swarm moved too quickly. I was lucky to get out with my life.”

Roy was standing behind him, urinating. “Microscopic ticks… big deal. What’s so dangerous about that?” He turned, spraying yellow into the smouldering remains of the fire, dribbling across one of Louie’s feet along the way. “I had a dog once that used to get covered with wood ticks.”

Louie sat up. “These weren’t your ordinary variety of wood ticks. They were genetically enhanced. They operate through a hive-collective, they move as one… they feed as one.”

“And these ticks will spread out?”

“They’ll consume everything in their path.” Louie couldn’t prove the LDV3 ticks had moved beyond the destroyed confines of the DSC. He could only go with what he had seen. He had lied to Roy about how they had been set loose, but he’d seen what they had done to Richard Sheffield. That part of it was true. “We’re not safe in the city. We have to keep moving.”

Roy pushed the last bit of piss free from his bladder. It steamed over the coals, sending a cloud of stink into Louie’s face. “They would need living things to feed on. There isn’t much of anything to feed on back in the city.”

“I watched them take over a dead body. My boss rose back up.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Roy zipped his pants and lifted Louie up from the ground. “Come on, buddy. We’ll keep heading west, see what we can find.” What was who, and who was a grey-haired, shop-lifting dyke travelling with a couple of kids.

Louie started to feel better after a quarter mile of walking. His stomach, though emptied and once again in need of food, was no longer turning over. “So you know I worked at the DSC… You haven’t told me much about working in the shopping mall.”

“What the fuck else do you need to know? I was a security guard. I caught kids stealing and phoned their parents. I wasn’t some big-shot disease research asshole.”

They walked past a trucker’s weigh station a few miles ahead. Louie had wanted to explore the small building, but Roy had talked him out of it. Roy wanted to see what was in the gas stations and C-stores up ahead. They found very little.

“Maybe we should get off the main highway,” Louie offered. He pointed south, towards a distant forest. “There’s a care home that way, not far that far down 43. I had an uncle once that was sent there after his brains were kicked in by a horse.”

“A place for retards?”

“Convalescence,” Louie sighed. “A home for the elderly and disabled.”

“Did your uncle recover?”

“He died there about three years ago.”

“Doesn’t sound like a place I’d want to send a loved one.” Roy started south anyway, down highway 43. They weren’t going to find anything else in the looted town of Eustache.

Green Forest Haven was right where Louie said it would be, three miles south of the Trans-Canada Highway, nestled in a forest that wasn’t all that green anymore. It hadn’t always been a care home, Roy figured. It looked more like a hulking three-story prison built sometime in the first half of the twentieth century. It was a red brick monstrosity with high narrow windows. Roy could see bars set behind the glass. “Some place to send your uncle. I would’ve died here, too… probably hung myself.”

“Don’t let the appearance fool you. They took good care of their clients.”

“It looks like a goddamned house of horrors.”

“It used to be a residential school for First Nations children, so it may well have been many years ago.”

“Fucking Indians?”

“You’re a class act, Roy.”

Roy shrugged and walked up the wide concrete steps to the front doors. “They should’ve dropped one of those bombs here and cleaned up this eyesore.” He tried the handle. Locked. “Fucking figures. World goes to hell and everyone becomes a paranoid asshole.” The doors were old, but well kept. Each consisted more of glass set into six individual panes with a single dead bolt lock joining them together. Roy stepped back and then kicked at the frames in the middle. They gave way on his first attempt, banging inwards. Some of the glass insets shattered, depositing shards across the dull green linoleum inside.

“You could’ve rung the buzzer,” a woman said. “Or at least knocked.”

She was standing behind a desk at the reception counter. Louie groaned inwardly when he saw the rifle in her hands. She was tiny, smaller than the crazy woman that had ordered them to strip down in the underground parkade of the Sandman hotel. Marie Hodgkin would’ve shot them down like dogs if Roy hadn’t wrestled a gun from one of her security goons first and ended her life before she could give the order. “Sorry about that,” he said in a soothing tone. He offered up his empty hands. “Everything’s locked up these days, and we haven’t come across a single soul willing to help out. My friend and I are starving… we haven’t eaten in days.”

She lowered the rifle, but kept it aimed in Roy’s general direction.

The big ex-mall-security-guard studied the weapon while his companion continued speaking to the woman. It was a single-shot .22 calibre rifle. Thing looks older than the building we’re in. Roy had seen hundreds of them growing up, usually sitting in barns, or stored in the front porch closets of farm houses for easy access. They were good for killing gophers and scaring off skunks, but not much else. If the thing’s even loaded, she’ll only have time to take one of us down.

Louie was still talking. “Yeah, the city’s a mess. We’ve been slowly moving out for over a week, helping out those we can along the way.” He introduced himself and Roy.

She set the rifle down on the desk and shook her head. “Forgive me. My name’s Tracy Klausburg… I’ve been under so much stress since it happened. All the administrators and other nurses just up and left. Most of the residents—at least those capable enough—wandered off later. There’s only a few left.”

They stepped forward. Louie went to shake the small hand, and Roy punched her in the face. She fell back into the chair behind the desk, her nose shattered and spilling blood. Louie hooked onto his thick wrist and tried pulling him back. “Why did you do that? She put the gun down!”

Roy pushed him away. “You’re an idiot sometimes, Finkbiner… too damn trusting.” He went behind the counter and inspected the rifle. “Fucking empty. It figures. This bitch wouldn’t have had the nerve to shoot us even if it was loaded.”

Tracy Klausburg groaned in her chair. Blood was leaking out between the small fingers covering her face. A tooth was sitting on her lap.

“Did you have to hit her so hard?”

“No.” Roy placed the rifle back down on the desk. “I’m going to check this place out… see what we can take. You stay with her.” There were two winding stairways behind the reception counter. Roy started up one of them.

Louie called after him. “I thought you said stealing was wrong. You told me the only thing that would keep civilization going was if we obeyed the laws.”

“I said shop-lifting was wrong. And that shit about civilization and laws doesn’t apply anymore. I lost my fucking job.” He vanished up onto the second floor, leaving Louie alone with the last staff member on duty at Green Forest Haven.

Chapter 28

The first few rooms he entered were empty. Roy continued down the narrow hallway. The third door to the left was open. He found the first of the six remaining residents lying in a bed, staring up at the ceiling with a comatose expression on his sunken face. Roy went and stood over the frail-looking man. He could see white patches at the corners of his mouth where saliva had dried. More of it had soaked into the pillow beneath his head.

Roy nudged the man’s boney shoulder. “What’s your fucking problem? You just going to lay there and let that bitch downstairs take care of you?”

The man didn’t answer. Roy slapped the side of his face. “The world’s ended, pal. There was a big war and everybody lost. Get up and start taking care of yourself. No one’s going to wipe your ass anymore.”

He remained unresponsive. Roy slapped him again, harder. He didn’t even blink. Roy felt a tingling sensation in the bottom of his gut; it was the same sensation he’d felt after being forced to strip down in front of Marie Hodgkin. He wrapped his fingers around the man’s throat and shook him.  Roy squeezed harder and the tingle at the bottom of his stomach travelled down into his genitals. His scrotum tightened, his cock hardened. I’m not gay, he told himself. This had nothing to do with touching another man—that was sick. This was something entirely different. He had felt it the very first time when he was eleven years old, and had a cat pinned to the ground with his knee. He had wrapped his hand around its neck and squeezed and twisted until it was dead. Young Roy had then bludgeoned three of its new-born kittens with the side of his fist into the floor, and thrown the other three against a wall with all of his might.  His cock and balls responded when he did it again a year later to a stray mother dog and its single pup. He had a raging hard-on when he’d murdered over a hundred people at the shopping mall, and he had another erection now.

It wasn’t a gay thing. Roy wasn’t even convinced it was a sexual thing. It was what it was, and it felt wonderful. Both hands were around the man’s neck now, throttling, shaking. Feeble fucker. Helpless, defenceless, stupid retard. The man remained completely silent as his life was choked away. Roy made lots of sounds. He moaned as he breathed in and whistled as he exhaled.

Finally, when there was nothing of the man left to kill, Roy released him. His fingers were stiff and sore, as if rigor had set in. He staggered back and saw the wet spot on the crotch of his pants. Goddamn, that’s never happened before. It’s not supposed to do that. How am I going to explain this to Louie? Fuck. I’m not gay.

He continued stepping back until he bumped into the window ledge. Moments later, the room grew dark. Roy turned and looked at the narrow pane of glass set behind the bars. Light had been shining through there seconds earlier, he was sure. Roy had seen the forest beyond the front parking lot, and the clouds in the sky. Now the glass was covered over in grey. It looked as if someone had thrown a can of paint over it, coloring the window a dismal shade of light black. It grew darker.

“What the fuck?”

He looked back at the man he’d murdered. The erection in his pants had started to subside. Roy remembered the woman downstairs saying there were a few of them left. Two, three, five, twenty—it didn’t matter how many. Just imagining them laying in their beds, useless and defenceless, brought his boner back.

I’ll choke them all. I’ll do more than that. I’ll make them suffer.

He left the room, hunched over slightly and limping to accommodate the throbbing bulge in his underwear. The grey mist, turning darker with every passing second, was forgotten. It pressed against the glass, and worked its way under the frame’s bottom edge.

“He’s not such a bad guy,” Louie explained as he dabbed the nurse’s face with a wet face cloth. “If it wasn’t for Roy, I’m not sure I’d still be alive. He’s helped me out of a few scrapes since I resurfaced.”

“Hees a reah angull.” Tracy Klausburg was still sitting in the chair behind the reception counter. Her head was resting back against the black leather upholstery to stop the bleeding.

“What’s that?”

She sat forward, winced, and repeated herself more clearly through her shattered mouth. “He’s… a real… angel.”

“I know what he is, but he’s kept me safe. Most of my life guys like him have been teasing and hurting me. It feels good to have one of them on your side for a change.”

Tracy stared back at him with wet, terror-filled eyes.

Louie chuckled uncomfortably. “Sorry about your nose and teeth. He gets carried away sometimes.”

“Wha… wha iv he doee now?”

Louie stared at her swollen lips uncomprehendingly for a moment until he caught on. “What is he doing now? I imagine he’s going through the building, finding supplies for us to take. We have to get as far away from the city as possible.” He leaned forward and whispered. “I think something really bad is spreading out from there. If you were smart, you’d leave whoever’s left here and join us.”

Roy covered the next man’s face with a pillow and pressed down. He watched the simpleton’s legs thrash, and listened to the pathetic muffled moans until he thrashed no more. He found a woman in the next room. She was old, and she asked him if he was there to feed her. Roy hammered her in the chest with both fists and crushed her ribcage.

He started up for the third floor, unzipping his fly and letting his penis out to breathe. It wasn’t like this back in the mall. It feels so good standing over them… doing it with my bare hands. He massaged his aching balls with one hand and dragged himself along the banister with the other. I’m going to jerk off on the next one. Let all this stress go.

Roy entered the first room on his right and found a fat woman propped up in a chair facing the window. He walked up to her. “I’m going to hurt you, and you’re going to make me feel good.” He kicked at her thick calf. “I’m fucking talking to you. Look at me!”

The room was dark. The window was covered with the same dark slime as he’d seen below. Roy bent over and studied the woman’s bloated face. He was too late—the bitch was already dead. Lines of black were running from both of her nostrils and from the corners of her mouth. They disappeared into the folds of her neck. Roy reached forward to touch one of the thin strips with his finger, thinking it was blood. His hand shot back when another line appeared from her ear and crept across her cheek. It burrowed into the woman’s right eye.

Roy stood away from the corpse. She had been obese in life, and the transformation her body was undergoing now was making her even larger. It was like watching a human balloon being filled before his eyes. He tried rationalizing it; bodies swell up after death—and he’d seen plenty of dead bodies in the last few days to know—fluids and gases collect. Not like that, they don’t. Not that fast.

Roy reached down and tucked his now flaccid penis into his pants. The urge to murder had passed. One of the woman’s cheeks started to bubble. The white skin turned a bruised purple and popped open. Black liquid sprayed out and splattered across the far wall ten feet away. The gooey deposit started spreading out in every direction, like a crack in a sheet of glass, blossoming and growing.

The dead woman’s body made a farting sound in the chair and a flood of black gushed out from between her legs, dropping to the floor in clumps and streams. It collected in a puddle and started moving towards him.

Roy had seen enough. Green Forest Haven had lost all of its appeal.

Louie looked up at the staircase. He could hear Roy’s thunderous feet thumping down the steps. “Sounds like he’s done up there. Are you sure you’re going to stay here?”

Tracy nodded. She wasn’t going anywhere with the two mad men.

Roy started screaming at Louie from the second floor. “We gotta get the fuck out of here! There’s black shit coming out of people! It’s coming after me!”

His rambling would’ve made no sense to Tracy Klausburg, or almost any other person left on the planet, but Louie Finkbiner knew full well what he was screaming about. A hot fist punched into his chest, causing his heart to hammer. The fear spread down into his gut and up into his throat. He pushed the chair Tracy was in against a filing cabinet with enough force to snap her head back, and fled around the desk. Roy was only a few steps behind him when he reached the front doors.

This was impossible, Louie thought as they ran down the steps and into the parking lot. They’re microscopic, they can’t move that fast. We’ve kept ahead of them. How did the swarm get this far out of the city?

He found the answers to his questions lying in a ditch less than a hundred yards up the road.

“Jesus Christ,” Roy panted. “Is that a deer?”

“It was,” Louie whispered back.

There was nothing left of the animal’s back end. It clawed away at the grass in front of it, trying to stand, unaware its back legs were gone. It slipped and collapsed in a puddle of its own blood and entrails. The blood was black, and it was moving.

“The fucking things can take over anything,” Louie said. “I thought it was just people… but they can take animals, too.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“LDV3! Ticks! Goddamned microscopic wood ticks! It’s what they were working on back in the disease center.”

A woman started screaming from the building behind them. Roy looked towards the entrance. “The nurse I punched.”

“She’s dead, or she will be soon.”

The fat dead corpse from the third floor lurched out onto the steps. Moments later the old lady Roy had murdered with his hammering fists followed. The upper part of her body was hanging forward, flopping from side to side, with only skin and a bit of spine left to support it.

“I killed her,” Roy whimpered. “I fucking smashed her chest in. She can’t be alive… she just can’t be.”

“She isn’t.” The comatose man stumbled out after them. His face was black from the throttling Roy had given him, but he was back on his feet nevertheless. “None of them are alive anymore. Only the things inside are keeping them going now.”

“Don’t you have some kind of spray to use? Didn’t your scientist buddies develop a repellent for the little fuckers?”

The question was so ridiculous it actually made sense. The DSC would have undoubtedly been working on a way to kill the spread of something so vile. If they were weaponizing the swarm, surely they would have developed a counteragent—or as Roy had put it, a spray—to neutralize them with. HR was right. I would’ve made a shitty disease research scientist.

The puddle of black fluid from the deer was headed for them. The dead residents of Green Forest Haven were headed for them. Louie ran out into an open field, and Roy followed. “We have to keep out of the forests,” he gasped. “These things can travel faster than us now. Open ground… we have to stay in the open so we can see them coming.”

Roy had caught up to him. “Monsters. You and all the assholes you worked with. No better than the fuckers that dropped the bombs.”

Louie wanted to point out that Roy had a monstrous streak of his own, but there wasn’t time to argue. They had to keep ahead of the swarm, and that was going to be a difficult thing to do.

Tracy hid in the small space under the desk and waited. She had dove under there when the remains of Mrs. Brown rolled down the stairs from the second floor. The woman had always been large, but the thing she had become was a tank—a bloated, purple mass of dripping flesh. Mr. Combes, the comatose resident in room 207, had also put on an extraordinary amount of weight. He hadn’t moved from his bed in three years. Tracy watched from around the desk leg as Maureen Whitaker descended the steps behind Mr. Combes. The ancient spinster was Green Forest’s oldest resident. She had been a kind old woman, and she had been in her room on the second floor for at least a decade.

None of them were alive anymore, but there they were, lurching and jerking and stumbling for the front doors. They left a trail of blood and black goo. Tracy turned in the tight space and saw their bloated ankles and feet. They left the building.

Tracy started to cry. She was alone. All alone now.

Through the tears she saw a line of black creeping over the back of her hand. It travelled to her thumb and entered under the nail. Tracy jumped back and hit her aching head on the underside of the desk. It felt as if someone was jabbing spikes under all of her finger nails. The agony spread into her hand and intensified up her arm.

Twelve seconds later the swarm found her heart and put Tracy out of her misery.

Chapter 29

This wasn’t possible. Caitlan slammed the steering wheel, hoping that rage alone would start the car again. Maybe the vehicle would sense this anger—like all those travelling in the Audi with her—and listen to her demands. The car remained quiet, and so did the five passengers.

“Fucking piece of shit. Goddamned German piece of fucking shit.” She turned her head slowly and saw Angela staring at her. The woman’s face was ashen grey. The boy sitting on her lap looked even more shocked. Caitlan rested a hand on his knee. “I’m sorry for the swearing, sweetie. It’s nothing to do with you.”

Angela opened her door and the boy slid outside. “Well then maybe you could control that temper a bit better before you fly off the handle like that. For God’s sake, Caitlan, the car ran out of gas.”

Caitlan nodded. The doors in the back opened and Hayden, Amanda, and Michael stepped out. “I can’t help myself. I see red, and I let the expletives rip.” She rubbed her palms along the wheel, as if trying to soothe to the car after her outburst. “So many people are dead now. All the millions of cars no longer running… I never imagined finding gas would be so hard. There’s oceans of it sitting in the underground tanks of every gas station in North America, and we can’t get to a single drop of it.”

“That’s what happens when the power shuts off. No sense beating your car up over it… or anyone else.”

Hayden knocked softly on Caitlan’s window. She opened the door instead of lowering the window; the battery had to remain charged as long as possible. They were in the middle of nowhere, the night would grow cold, and the car was the only shelter they had. “Yeah, I know,” she told him, “I’m sorry I swore again in front of the kids.”

Hayden shook his head. “It’s not that. There’s a town maybe six miles west of here called Brayburne. With any luck we might be able to find a vehicle with fuel inside.”

The leather car seat squeaked as Caitlan pulled her big body out of the car. “I ain’t built for walking, handsome. Take Angela and see how you make out.”

Hayden shook his head again. “I’ll be honest… Nicholas hasn’t exactly warmed up to you yet. I’m not leaving him here with you as the only adult.”

Caitlan got that look in her eye—it seldom left—and her big shoulders hunched up. She started towards Hayden and he held his hand up. “Don’t try and break my nose again. I won’t let you.”

“You gonna hit a woman?”

“It wouldn’t be my first choice.”

Angela was out of the car now. “The two of you stop it!”

“I’m not going to get into it with him again,” Caitlan told her. “I was going to start walking to this town he’s talking about. Hopefully find a container and some gas.”

Nicholas ran to Hayden. Hayden steered him back to the car. “You’re going to stay with Angela, okay, buddy? We’ll be back before it gets dark.” He protested, but settled down once he was standing next to Angela. The woman had a way with kids, Hayden had seen it with the Fulger twins. They gravitated towards her. Fighting with Caitlan wouldn’t have been his first choice, and leaving his son with an almost complete stranger wouldn’t have been his second, but Hayden had very few choices left. He looked at Angela, and then looked at the passenger window towards the glove box.

She nodded. Caitlan had a gun stored in there the guards back at the Sandman had missed. “Nicholas will be fine.”

Hayden nodded back. “Maybe we’ll luck out and find a few cars along the way. Hopefully one of them will have something to carry gas in. We could be back in half an hour.”

“Sure.” Angela watched the two head west. Luck wasn’t something she put much faith in.

You’re alive, girl. Wouldn’t you call that lucky?

She ignored the voice in her head and took Nicholas’s hand in hers. “It’s just you, me, and the twins for the next little while, sport. What should we do for fun?”

Michael and Amanda were sitting on the Audi’s hood. “I used to play video games for fun.”

“That isn’t an option anymore,” Angela said.

“I spy with my little eye?” His sister offered.

“Something grey,” Michael countered. “The sky, the ground, and the frigging road.”

“I was gonna say yellow… that’s the color of Nicholas’s shoelaces.”

Michael leaned back on the car and covered his face with both hands. “I should’ve taken a handheld console from the toy store. And a million batteries.”

* * *

“You sure there’s a town up ahead?”

“Positive. Brayburne’s the first town across the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border, been through it hundreds of times.”

Caitlan side-stepped around a dead skunk in the middle of the highway that had been mowed down weeks before. The smell was bad, but it had probably been worse a few days earlier. “I thought you were a farmer. Sounds to me like you spent most of your time driving from one hick town to the next.”

“Farming doesn’t simply involve sitting on a tractor twenty-four hours a day… I used to get out. What do you do for a living… I mean what did you do?”

“I suppose you’re just itching to know what a fat black chick is doing driving around in an eighty-thousand dollar car. Is that what you’re asking me?”

Hayden shrugged. “I could care less how you got the Audi. It was a simple question. I told you I was a farmer.”

“I’m a writer. And don’t go waiting for me to say I was a writer, because I still am.” She pointed to her forehead. “I’m storing it all away up here.”

“You wrote about end of the world stuff?”

Caitlan laughed. “As a matter of fact, I did. Good market for that shit, but I made most of my money in erotic romance. Enough to buy a different Audi for each day of the week.”

“I didn’t think people even read anymore. There aren’t as many bookstores around.”

“It’s all on-line these days. You can have an e-book in your hands in less than ten seconds. Erotic, science-fiction, end-of-the-freaking-world. All it takes is a credit card.”

“I’m afraid your publishing days have hit a snag.”

“Tell me about it. Farming’s gone to shit as well.”

They continued down the highway. A mile further they came across the first abandoned car sitting on the gravel shoulder. The doors were locked. Caitlan smacked one of its windows. “Why did so many people lock their damned cars? Did they wander off expecting to find a mechanic to fix the things?”

“I didn’t get the chance to lock any of my vehicles.” Hayden was staring south, out across a desolate field. “They were incinerated in my yard.”

“Didn’t you say you came from up north?” Hayden nodded. “I can see them wiping out the bigger cities, but what was so important that way?”

Everything, Hayden almost responded. My farm, my animals, the woman I loved. My life. “I think it was a dud. Probably meant for something further south. There were missile silos just south of the Canada/US border.”

“Hell of a fuck-up.”

Hayden didn’t respond. He was digging his fingers into the abandoned car’s gas cap cover, trying to swing the metal door open.

“Not like that.” She pushed down on it and it clicked back open. “Farm boys should know how to open a gas tank.”

He unscrewed the black plastic cover within, and peered into the small hole. “We need some kind of tube to feed in there.”

“Oh, I’ve got about ten feet of it in my back pocket. I also have a jerry can shoved up my ass in case of emergencies.”

They found another locked vehicle half a mile on. Hayden took a rock from the ditch and smashed his way in through the passenger side. He rummaged through the glove box and console finding nothing of value. He tried the trunk button, but it did nothing. Caitlan was already a hundred yards down the highway.

“You can break into a hundred of these things along the way,” she said once he’d caught up. “It ain’t going to help without something to carry the gas in. Hopefully we’ll find what we need in that town of yours. How much further?”

“Two miles… maybe three.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and slowed his pace, allowing the shorter woman to keep up. “Did you have family, Caitlan?”

“Everyone’s got family.”

“You know what I mean. Were you with anyone when it happened?”

“I was with my partner, Megan.” She looked up at Hayden. “You gonna give me flack for being a lesbian, too?”

“I could care less that you’re gay, or that you’re black… Or that you’re a bad-tempered, paranoid bitch. I’m just trying to make conversation.”

Caitlan studied her worn sneakers as they walked, and remained quiet for a full minute. When she spoke again, her voice was much softer. “We were thirty miles east of Winnipeg when it happened. We pulled over onto the side of the road like all the other folks were doing and got out to watch. My God, Hayden… I never thought I would see a real mushroom cloud. I wrote about stuff like that, you know? Pictured it in my mind dozens of times. But to see it actually happening before your eyes?” She started to weep. “It was… beautiful. I hated myself for thinking it, but it was true. I still think it’s true. Watching something that destructive, that powerful… all the people it wiped out.”

Hayden hadn’t seen it happen. He had been nestled inside a hole in a hill with his son and horse. He thought about Jake Heez. Jake had seen it happen. It had boiled skin off his body, and burned the sanity from his mind at the same time. As bad as it had been for Hayden, there were others who’d suffered far worse.

“What happened to Megan? Why isn’t she with you now?”

“Some asshole driving a semi came along, gawking along with all the rest of us. Megan wasn’t standing far enough off the shoulder… he ran her over doing fifty miles an hour.”

Hayden stopped and watched her walk along another half dozen steps. “I shouldn’t have called you a bitch.”

Caitlan turned to him. “You calling me that stuff is probably the nicest thing you’ve said since we met, and I deserved every word of it. Yeah, I lost the woman I loved… but you lost loved ones, too. So did your boy, so did Angela, and those twins… Jesus Christ, those poor kids.”

“Those poor kids,” Hayden repeated. He walked up to her and held his hand out. “Let’s try this again… Hayden Gooding.”

She shook his hand. “Caitlan Turner.”

Chapter 30

There were more vehicles further on. These ones hadn’t been simply abandoned; they had been smashed and burned. All that remained were the smoking metal frames and the charred husks of tires. Hayden counted a dozen in total, some of which were difficult to distinguish from one twisted mess to the next.

Caitlan commented on the scene first. “You think there was like a big pile up when the bombs hit… more people staring out the side windows instead of watching the road?”

“Not this many vehicles… not on this stretch of the Number 1. Looks like it happened recently, maybe in the last day or so.” Two of the cars had been flattened, as if a giant hand had pressed down from the grey sky and pushed until all the tires popped out to the sides.

“Then what the hell happened?”

Hayden could make a guess, but decided to keep it to himself. Brayburne was less than a mile ahead. As they approached, a question that had nagged in the back of his brain for the last two weeks resurfaced—where had all the people gone? He’d spoken to Angela about the small amount of survivors they’d come across since the bombs hit. Most of the population had been wiped out in the city—and probably every other major city in North America, Hayden was certain—but it didn’t explain the almost total desolation of the rural areas. They’re keeping themselves hidden away, Angela had offered. They’re scared of radiation sickness and disease outbreak. They’re in basements and dirt cellars. They’re storing up, and waiting it out in sewage tunnels. Anyplace underground where the air is still clean and the water hasn’t been poisoned.

It had started to make sense to Hayden; a vast majority of the cars no longer worked, so there were very few people driving between the destroyed cities. But still, there should’ve been more people—people like them—wandering out in the open, searching for others.

Many of those questions were answered at the outskirts of Brayburne. It had once been a small farming community with a population that never exceeded a thousand. There had to be at least triple that number now. Giant tents had been set up in the streets, making it look as though the circus had arrived in town, but the tents were dark green, and this circus was run by the army.

“I don’t like soldiers,” Caitlan mumbled as they made their way through the first cluster of survivors. “It’s guys like this that got us into this mess.”

“They’re just doing the job they were trained to do… helping people, offering food and shelter. They didn’t drop the bombs. The dimwit world leaders were responsible for that.”

They spoke to a few people as they worked their way towards the town center. Many had been on the Trans Canada Highway when the attack took place. Their vehicles—those that had been within fifty miles of an impact site—had stopped running, and they’d either walked to Brayburne from whatever direction they were headed, or they had been picked up by the military convoys days after. Brayburne, it seemed, was that one town furthest away from most of the immediate fallout. It was approximately a hundred miles west of Winnipeg, and a hundred miles east of the next major Canadian city, Regina. No one spoke of the “dud” missile that had missed its southern target and wiped out so many of the northern farms where Hayden had come from.

They learned from a haggard-looking man that the silos in North Dakota had launched all of their weapons before finally being destroyed. He was from Fargo, and he’d been heading to some northern lake with his son for a week of fishing. “My wife was killed with everyone else there. I told her she should’ve come with us… told her for years we had to do more things together.” He looked down at his son who was sitting cross-legged in the dirt. He was chewing on something that looked like a hamburger without a bun. “But we made it, didn’t we, Todd? And we hit them assholes right back. The US showed those Russians and North Koreans what was what.”

Caitlan wanted to punch his teeth out. His wife was dead because of ideological differences and ignorant racism, and here he was, passing along the same line of bullshit to his son. She pulled Hayden along.

A soldier approached them. “You guys look new here. Have you been assigned a sleeping area? Any injuries or illness to report?”

“We’re not sick,” Hayden answered. “And I’m not sure if we’ll be staying. We have friends east of here, waiting for us to get back with fuel. Do you have any to spare?”

The young man shook his head. “That’s difficult, buddy. There aren’t many vehicles left running, and what fuel there is available has been confiscated by the military… I mean us.” He grinned and patted his chest.

Caitlan studied the young soldier. She realized they started them out at an early age, but the skinny kid standing in front of them with the AK-47 strapped to his back was probably too young to drive. The uniform was too large on his narrow frame, and his hair was poking out from under his helmet. Soldier boys didn’t go around looking this unkempt, nuclear Armageddon or not.

She could see that Hayden was suspicious as well. “Come on… we have children waiting. What’s a few gallons going to hurt?”

“Talk to Sergeant Jeffrey in Supply.” He pointed to one of the many tents lining main street. “It’s the one with the flaps closed. I can’t guarantee he’ll say yes, but if you tell him you’re bringing those kids and that vehicle into town anyway…”

They went to the supply tent. Hayden walked backwards most of the way, staring at the soldier that had given them directions.

“The boy probably hasn’t had to shave a day in his life yet,” Caitlan said.

“He seems familiar.”

Jeffrey didn’t appear much older than the soldier outside. He was seated behind two picnic tables pushed together at the ends, covered with white banquet paper. There were stacks of files in plastic trays on either side of him, and every other square inch of table surface was cluttered with boxes containing essential survival supplies; first-aid kits, flashlights, batteries, and cases of drinking water. Almost everything people needed to live on that didn’t require being plugged in were on those tables or piled up behind him. “Sorry, guys. I can’t spare any fuel to civilians. What kind of vehicle did you say it was you’re driving?”

“I didn’t,” Caitlan replied. “It’s an Audi A8, bought it new less than five months ago.”

He whistled. “Wow, that’s one hell of a car. We’re used to seeing old clunkers still running. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give you a litre or two, you know, just enough to get it here.” He started to laugh. “I can think of a couple higher ups that’ll fight over it.”

What kind of army is this? Hayden wondered. They offer food and cover, but expect people to willingly hand over everything they have left?”

Caitlan glowered at him. “We weren’t planning on staying.”

“Suit yourself. Feel free to walk back there and starve to death. No gas.”

Caitlan placed her fists on the table’s edge and leaned forward. It creaked under the added weight. “Are you fucking serious? You’d let kids die six miles out rather than give us a little bit of gasoline?”

“It’s a hard world out there, lady. It’s going to get a lot harder. Now please back your fat ass away from the table.”

Hayden pulled her away and spoke before she could release her temper any further. “Listen, you don’t have to be like that. We’ll bring the car to Brayburne… we’ll stay here and help out however we can.”

Caitlan turned to him and he squeezed her arm. It was a simple signal, one she caught onto immediately. Go along with it, I have an idea.

Jeffrey’s eyes narrowed, and he grinned. His teeth were too small for his mouth, and the effect made him look more rodent than human. “You think I was born yesterday? I’m just going to give you a few litres, and you’re going to walk out of here?” He pushed away from the table and stood. “We go together… and I’m driving that Audi back here.”

A replacement was found to take his station in the supply tent and he led them into a field behind Brayburne’s single grocery store. He waved an arm through the air in front of him, taking the wide expanse completely in. “I heard from some of the locals they’d planned on building a bigger grocery store. This whole area was bought up for the expansion. Over ten acres dedicated to the new building and parking lot.”

Almost all ten acres was covered with cars. Row after row after row of parked vehicles. Caitlan counted less than half of the first line directly in front of them and gave up at forty. The rows behind seemed to go on forever.

“We’ve confiscated thirty-one hundred and ten,” Jeffrey said. “Your car will make it thirty-one hundred and eleven.”

It looked like a used car salesman’s wet dream. Most of the vehicles were old, produced in the nineteen-seventies and earlier, but there were a few newer models. Caitlan walked up to the front end of a cream-colored Volkswagen Beetle and touched the hood. It was an ’09, maybe even a 2010. Caitlan loved cars, but she couldn’t be sure. There were two rusty Pontiacs sitting next to it, and a Mercedes-Benz CLS beyond those. She went to it and looked in through the driver’s window. A 2018, Caitlan was sure because she’d almost bought one. The fact her Audi had been available in black at the time was the main reason she hadn’t gone with CLS.

Sergeant Jeffrey was standing behind her. “A few of the newer German models weren’t affected by the EMPs. I’d say almost a quarter of them are still running, yours included.”

She turned to him. “Why have you confiscated them? What right do you have to take people’s cars away?”

“We can’t have the survivors roaming around wasting gas. It’s for their own safety as well. We treat everyone for radiation sickness, and keep them fed. They’re safe here… you’ll be safe here.”

“We’ll be controlled here.”

Jeffrey shrugged and pulled some keys out of a pocket. “Follow me.” He took them down the first row and met up with a hulking guard leaning against the hood of an ancient Buick. “You want to go for a ride, Fred? These two have an Audi on empty just a little ways east, got kids waiting to be picked up.”

Hayden wasn’t listening; his attention had been diverted by a by a big green tank sitting on the other side of a chain link fence next to the Buick. He had seen less than a handful of the military machines in his life, so he was no expert, but this one looked familiar. His fingers wrapped around the metal links and squeezed. “Where did this come from?”

“Why?” Sergeant Jeffrey asked. “You like tanks?”

“No. I just want to know.”

The big guard watching over the northwest corner of the compound answered. “Showed up yesterday, driven by a bunch of civvies. They said they came across it and a few other army vehicles in Ontario just a few miles from the Manitoba border.”

“But where did the tank come from originally… what about the soldiers in charge of it?”

Fred shrugged. “They said it had been abandoned. Found it in a ditch still running. Not a bad bunch of guys… young and stupid, but at least they turned the vehicles in when they reached Brayburne.”

Hayden pictured the soldier they’d spoken to in town—the one that had given them directions to the supply tent. Then he remembered the idiot that had urinated onto the burning debris of a blown up car. He saw his horse, riddled with bullet holes, lying in the muddy front yard of Elton MacDonald’s farm.

“These guys… most of them are still in Brayburne?”

“Well, yeah. Where the hell else would they go? Like I said, they’re not a bad bunch. They even offered to help out, so command put them uniforms and they got field commissions.”

“You ask a lot of stupid questions,” Jeffrey said. “Are we going for that car of yours or not?”

Caitlan climbed into the backseat with Hayden. She could see by the sunken look on his face that his plans had been drastically altered—or perhaps it was something else? She leaned close to him, pretending to search for a seatbelt, and whispered in his ear. “This is still on. You take the big one when we get the chance, I’ll handle rat-face.”

They set away from Brayburne, checking in and getting clearance with two more guards on the eastern end of town. Fred turned in his seat, planted his thick forearm on the bench seat’s cracked upholstery, and started talking to the new arrivals. “An Audi, hey? I had an ’03 once, the fenders were rusted right through, but that thing never broke down. Good mileage.”

Caitlan stared out her window. “What happened to it?”

“My nagging wife made me trade it in on a mini-van.”

“Yeah… women. We’re all bitches, aren’t we?”

“I never said that.” Fred looked away from Caitlan and stared at Sergeant Jeffrey. He was laughing. “You think that’s funny? At least I had a wife. What was your excuse, Sparky?”

Jeffrey glared at him. “Do not call me that. I’m ranking officer here.”

“Why do you call him Sparky?” Hayden asked.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to say.” Fred held his hands up in mock fear. “Take my advice, though… Do not piss Sparky—I mean Sergeant Fartel Jeffrey off.”

The sergeant slammed on the car’s brakes. “How many fucking times have I told you to never use my first name? How many fucking times?” Jeffrey put the Buick into park and thrust his finger inches from the bigger man’s face. “All you fucking assholes think you’re so goddamned fucking funny!” A pulsing vein had appeared at the center of his forehead and a line of spit was stuck to his chin.

Fred grinned into the backseat. “See what I mean? We call him Sparky for that temper of his—one little spark is all it takes.”

“I’m reporting this when we get back.” The sergeant started driving again. “I’m sick of this shit… the disrespect… the total disregard of rank. Just because a bunch of bombs wiped out almost everything, doesn’t give you or any of those other assholes the right to talk to me like that. I’m fucking telling as soon as we get back. You’ll see.”

No one else said a word for the next five minutes as Fartel drove and threatened. Fred grinned at Caitlan and Hayden with raised eyebrows the entire way. The Audi was still parked on the shoulder of the highway. Michael and Amanda were sitting on the hood with Nicholas squeezed between them.

Hayden saw Angela appear from around the back end. She made her way to the front passenger side and started opening the door. Hayden shook his head as they exited the Buick. No, don’t go for the gun, not yet.

“Three rug rats,” Fartel observed as he went to look the Audi over. “Glad to see they’re good and healthy. They’ll be plenty to keep them busy in Brayburne.”

Hayden introduced them to the two soldiers and explained the situation. The twins nodded glumly, slid off the car, planted their hands in the pockets of their track pants, and stared at the ground. Nicholas remained on the hood, pushing an empty water back and forth between his legs. He looked at Jeffrey expectantly. “You got hotdogs and ice cream there?”

The sergeant was running his fingers along the car, walking slowly around it. “No hotdogs, kid. And all the ice cream was eaten in the first week. You’ll have to settle for whatever rations are provided.” The little boy looked disappointed, and went back to his bottle game. Jeffrey ended his walk-around inspection of the Audi with a kick to the front tire. Caitlan made a grunting sound. It was how most ignorant people judged a car’s merit. He glared at her. “This vehicle is actually yours? You paid with real money?”

Hayden braced for the inevitable attack. She would break his nose for that, and maybe worse. Caitlan simply nodded. “The money seemed real enough to the dealer… Sergeant.”

She’d almost called him Sparky. Or Fartel. Either one would have sent him into a rage.

Jeffrey nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, Fred, let’s get her fuelled up.”

The big guard went to the back of the Buick. Jeffrey threw him the keys and he opened the trunk. He leaned in to grab one of the four full gas containers, and Hayden nodded to Caitlan and Angela simultaneously.

Caitlan smiled the biggest smile Hayden had ever seen. “Hey, Sparky… you buck-toothed little cocksucker. Get your greasy fingers off my car.”

“What… did… you… say to me?”

Hayden went and stood behind Fred who was still bent over inside the trunk. “You need a hand?”

“Damned cap’s stuck on the underside. I can manage.” He yanked at the container and it came free. Just before his head was clear, Hayden slammed the trunk lid down. The edge of it caught the back of the man’s neck. The lid bounced back up, and the guard spilled down onto the ground, gasping for air and clutching at his partially crushed windpipe.

Caitlan could move fast considering her size. She didn’t go for the sergeant’s nose—she went for his balls. Her big leg shot up and her foot disappeared into the baggy crumple of pants collected around his crotch. He dropped to his knees making a wheezing noise that sounded like air being forced through hole-ridden newspaper. She slapped the side of his face with enough force to knock him down onto his back. Caitlan wasn’t finished. She sat on his stomach, pushing the last little bit of air from his lungs. “Is this car actually mine?” She broke his nose with the first punch. “Did I use real money to pay for it?” She knocked out four of his teeth with the second.

Angela pulled her off before she could bust the rest out. “Okay… you made your point.” Michael and Amanda were back up on the car hood, huddled against Nicholas. The boy was crying.

“Fucking weasely little bitch,” Caitlan said, glaring at the unconscious soldier. “You okay back there, Hayden?”

“I… I think he’s dying.”

Fred the car-compound security guard was on his elbows and knees, crawling around on the pavement and coughing up blood. Caitlan squatted down beside him and rubbed his back. “Can you breathe, sweetie?”

Fred nodded and rasped. “Hurs real bah… Cank swallow…”

“You’ll live.” She grabbed the back of his skull and pounded his forehead into the highway. The rest of him collapsed down into unconsciousness. Caitlan stood back up. Angela and Hayden had horrified expressions on their faces. “Don’t go looking at me like that. These two have to sleep for a few hours if we’re going to try and make a clean getaway.”

“A clean getaway?” Angela stumbled from one sleeping soldier to the next. “What did the two of you do in that town, rob a bank?”

“You saw how they were,” Hayden protested. “Brayburne’s locked down tight with guys like this running the place. They would’ve taken the car and forced us to stay.”

“And that would’ve been worse than driving aimlessly across the country?”

Caitlan and Hayden stared at each other guiltily. Caitlan shook her head. “You weren’t there, you didn’t see the condition people were in. They were staying in dirty tents… being forced to work for water and food. It was goddamned pathetic.”

Angela threw her hands into the air. “What do you expect the army to do in conditions like this?” Nicholas was crying harder, and the twins were squeezing him tighter. “The world we knew is gone! I think we should give Brayburne a chance.”

Caitlan pushed at Sergeant Jeffrey’s shoulder with the tip of her shoe. “I don’t think Brayburne’s going to give us a second chance.”

Angela ran her fingers through her short grey hair. “We can’t keep running like this… We have to find a home for these kids.”

Hayden had finished dragging Fred into the ditch. “There’s bad people staying there. A lot of the men in uniform aren’t really soldiers. Trust me, I know.” Caitlan helped him do the same with Fartel. “Get that gas put in the car and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Chapter 31

Nicholas wanted to drive with Hayden in the Buick, but Hayden forced him to ride in the Audi with all the others. Caitlan fired her car back up and lowered the window to talk with Hayden one last time before setting off. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Hayden adjusted his shirt. It was a good fit. “Take the first gravel road ahead and turn north. Go ten miles or so, and turn west onto Highway 16. About six miles after that you’re going to turn onto Highway 83 and start driving north again. There’s a big gravel pit on the east side of the highway not much further. Wait for me there. If I’m not back with you guys by midnight, keep heading north. Find something… somewhere. Take care of the children.”

“Don’t do this, you big fool,” Caitlan said. “That boy in the back seat needs you more than he needs the rest of us.”

Hayden leaned down and smiled at his son. He gave him the thumbs up. “I have to see this through. I can’t just let it be.”

“She’s right,” Angela said. “We really should stick together.”

And you really should mind your own business. You’ve never lost a horse before, so what would you know about it?

Angela slid back into her seat and shut her eyes. Caitlan drove away.

Hayden went and sat in the dead grass next to the laid out soldiers. One of them would hopefully regain consciousness in the next few hours. He would need more information before setting out on his own.

It was Fartel that woke first, for which Hayden was grateful. He didn’t think Fred would be all that cooperative after almost decapitating the man. Hayden pressed his knee into the sergeant’s throat. “The men that brought the tank into town… where are they staying?”

He tried spitting into Hayden’s face, but it was impossible with so many missing teeth. Hayden jammed the knee in harder. “Tell me.”

“Last… tent. Last tent on the… west end of Main Street… it’s where all the… aack.” Hayden lifted his knee. “Where all the… new recruits stay. Now help me up, you fucking—”

He punched him in the center of the forehead. Jeffrey’s bloodshot eyes crossed inwards and shut again. Hayden no longer cared if he lived or died. He took the keys from the trunk lock and started the Buick. He sprayed the men with flying gravel and headed back for Brayburne.

* * *

Fred Walleyes woke up three hours later. The sky above was a blistering shade of pink and orange. The sky had been doing all kinds of crazy shit since the attack. Some days it was grey, others it was brown. He never saw blue anymore. Sunsets were even crazier—not that he’d seen the sun for weeks, but the erratic evening colors it still produced, like the one overhead now, were nightmarish. His throat ached. His forehead was throbbing. He finally managed to sit up, and discovered he was only wearing his boxer shorts and socks.

“What the fuck?”

Sparky was lying next to him, his face a bloody dried mess. Fred shook him. “Get up! Get up, Fartel! Those bastards took my uniform.”

The sergeant groaned, rolled onto his side and retched. “Brayburne,” he finally gasped. “He’s gone back into town. We have to warn the others.”

* * *

“I gotta give that farm boy credit,” Caitlan said as she drove her car off of Highway 83 and onto the dirt approach leading into the gravel pit. “He knows these roads like the back of his hand.”

Nicholas spoke up from the backseat. “Is this where one of the bombs dropped?”

Angela laughed. “No, it isn’t, but I can see why you might think so.”

The Audi descended down a steep trail of dried mud built into a side wall of the quarry. The headlights cast long shadows against the wide ruts where bigger vehicles had travelled in the not so distant past. Rain had carved them out deeper. Caitlan leaned forward in the driver’s seat and tried to peer past the car’s hood at the road immediately ahead. She winced as the steel wheels scraped against hardened dirt. “I take back what I said… that damn hick is going to wreck my car. What does he know?”

The trail eventually got better as the grade levelled out. Caitlan drove the Audi out onto the flat, wide bottom of the excavated area. She turned slowly around in one wide circle to get a better look of where it was Hayden had sent them to wait. The pit resembled a massive crater, three hundred yards across and a hundred feet deep. Giant piles of road-worthy gravel were gathered haphazardly all around them with just enough roadway between most for larger working machines to manoeuvre around. They looked like dark grey pyramids in the gathering gloom.

Michael pounded the back of Angela’s seat. “Can we get out and climb to the top of one of those?”

Caitlan parked the car. “God only knows how long we’ll be waiting for Hayden to show up.” She gave Angela a look that said if he shows up. “What could it hurt? Let the kids burn off some steam.”

They all climbed out and the three children ran for the nearest pile. Angela called after them. “Slow down, and be careful! Don’t go all the way to the top!”

“Let them be. Didn’t you ever climb up a big pile of dirt and play King of the Castle as a kid?” Caitlan opened the trunk and started sifting through the things she’d collected there.

“As a matter of fact, no… I didn’t.”

“Oh, I see. You were a good girl. All prim and proper.”

Ha! If only she knew the truth. I wish I could set her straight on some facts.

Caitlan stopped what she was doing when Angela didn’t reply. “There you go again, staring off into nothingness. Are you alright?”

Angela nodded. “I’m fine. I was just thinking about the past.”

“That’s about all any of us have to do these days… Aaah! There you are.” She closed the trunk and opened a pack of cigarettes. “Gave this up months ago, but I didn’t have the guts to throw out these last few.” She removed a tiny disposable lighter from one side of the package and lit up. She exhaled a cloud of blue smoke and leaned against her car. “Whoa. That first drag after so long hits you like a ton of bricks.”

“So you’re going to start smoking again?”

“Why not? I’m sure there’s still plenty of cartons left to smoke, and I’m sure as hell not worried about my health anymore.”

“Well you shouldn’t let the kids catch you doing it.”

The women watched the children scramble up the gravel. They would only get so far along the forty-five degree angle, and they would slide back down. Michael made it all the way to the top on his third attempt. He set a small wave of the loose stones free with his shoe, and watched as it met his sister. Amanda plopped onto her butt and rode the wave back down to the bottom. Nicholas was contentedly sitting ten feet from the ground, tossing pebbles into the air and laughing at the other two.

Caitlan crushed the half-smoked cigarette into the dirt. “It’s getting cold. Let’s build a small fire before it’s too dark.”

There was dead brush and brown grass hanging out from the soil along some of the pit wall. They gathered a few armloads and deposited it into a pile not far from the car. The grass was dry, and the small branches lit quickly. The children left their loose-stone pyramid and joined the women seated around the fire.

“Now I really want a hotdog,” Nicholas said.

Amanda moaned. “And marshmallows. It isn’t a real camp fire unless you have marshmallows to roast.”

Caitlan smiled at Angela, and Angela smiled back. The world had turned dark and ugly, and moments like this—moments when children could laugh, and play, and imagine—had become a rare thing.

The moment was about to end.

Chapter 32

Hayden had taken the car off the highway two miles from town and driven through a field to the west end. He waited until most of the color had vanished from the sky, and then set off into Brayburne on foot. There were half a dozen controlled fires along the perimeter that he could see. He headed for the largest—the one directly behind the closest green tent.

Last tent on the west end of Main Street. Where all the new recruits stay.

There were a dozen of them seated or standing around the steel barrel fire. None of them gave him a second look as he stood amongst them and warmed his hands. I’m just another soldier none of them have had time to meet. The kid that had given them directions to the supply tent—the skinny fucker that liked pissing on burning debris—was directly across from him. Hayden lowered his face a little. To Hayden’s right—three volunteer army assholes away—was the biggest asshole of them all. He hadn’t been wearing a shirt the day he’d driven a tank into MacDonald’s farm, and he wasn’t wearing one now. The kid was maybe twenty years old, and he was built like a brick shit house. He wasn’t impressing the girls with those massive pectorals and six-pack abs anymore, Hayden thought. But then again, maybe he wasn’t trying to attract women. Perhaps it was a show of dominance—a warning to all the other post-Apocalyptic jerk-off macho wannabes. He was still wearing the shades as well, even though it was almost completely dark.

Not all the men gathered there were responsible for Trixie’s death. Perhaps the two Hayden had recognized were the only members of that horse-murdering squad standing around the fire. Hayden didn’t care. He would take down all of them if it came to that—so long as he got his hands around the shirtless wonder’s throat.

I’m going to kill that fucker.

“Hey! When did you sign up?” The skinny kid was staring at Hayden. “And how the fuck does a guy that wandered into town less than eight hours ago get promoted ahead of the rest of us?”

Hayden had been openly glaring at the one in sunglasses too long. He thought about his son one last time, and prayed he would be safe with the women he’d left him with. He kicked out, spilling the barrel’s burning contents over the kid that had recognized him. The front of his pants and the chest of his olive-green tee-shirt were covered in sparking embers. He howled and stumbled back, smacking stupidly at his clothes with his bare palms instead of diving into the dirt all around him.

Hayden pushed the first soldier to his right away, and lunged at the kid without a shirt. He slammed his forearm into the big chest, and both men fell to the ground in a tangle. He was almost half Hayden’s age, and within seconds he wrestled himself on top of the older man.

He’s younger than me. He’s faster than me. The kid punched him, and Hayden felt his nose break for a second time that week. He might even be stronger than me. He saw the next hit coming in through a layer of stars. Hayden moved his head to the left, and the fist connected with his cheek bone and scraped off his ear. But I’m madder… By God, I’m a whole lot fucking madder.

He blocked the third swing with his arm, and bit the kid’s knuckle. He tasted blood in his mouth, some of it his own, some of it not. He bit down harder and the kid screamed. Hayden punched him in the chest, forcing him back. He pulled a leg up and wrapped it around his throat. He pushed the leg back down, pounding the young man’s head into the ground at the same time.

Hayden was on top now, and he wasn’t going down again. He hammered the sunglasses, shattering hard plastic into both eyes. He broke the kid’s nose, he shattered his jaw, and he emptied his mouth of most of its teeth. He was still swinging wildly as the others dragged him off.

“Easy, guy,” one of them said. “He’s done. What the fuck did he do to you?”

“My horse,” Hayden gasped. “He killed my horse.”

Some of the other men gathered around the spilled remains of the fire looked at one another.

“Yeah,” Hayden shouted. “You’re the ones that did it! Useless cowards. I’ll kill you all.”

“You’re not gonna get the chance.” The kid that had been sprayed with embers walked out of the smoke towards Hayden. A pistol was gripped in his hand. “I’m gonna fill you with fucking holes, just like we did to your horse… you crazy bastard.”

The other men held Hayden’s arms as the kid stepped in and rested the gun’s end between his eyes. There was a blinding flash of white light, and the gun fell away. Hayden felt the arms restraining him let go. The light started to fade and Hayden looked to the east.

A mushroom cloud sprouted on the horizon, It billowed upwards, pushing the night sky away in a brilliant display of orange and red.

Caitlan had said it was beautiful. How could she have thought that? It’s an abomination.

A second flash of white followed, and a second mushroom cloud was born next to the first one.

“No,” Someone said. “Not again.”

By the time the third bomb hit a minute later, no one had seen Hayden slip away.

* * *

“This is it,” Caitlan said as the second white glow that had burst above their heads and lit the entirety of the gravel pit started to fade away. “They dropped more bombs.” She scrambled away from the fire and climbed up a steep grade of loose shale and crumbling dirt.

Angela shouted at the children to stay below. She started after Caitlan, and moments later all three children followed. Michael and Amanda helped Nicholas up the last bit, and they joined the women on top, sitting at the quarry’s edge, staring east at the monstrous columns of orange rising out of the earth.

Nicholas leaned against Caitlan’s back and rested his small arms on her shoulders. “What is that?”

“Round two,” she replied sadly.

Another blast of white light forced them to cover their eyes. Angela looked again first and saw a third cloud join the others. “My God… why?”

“Because some of us are still living,” Amanda answered. “They won’t stop doing it until we’re all dead.”

Michael shook his head. “Then why aren’t they dropping them all over the place? Why are they just exploding in the east?”

The twins were both right, Caitlan supposed, but Michael’s questions troubled her even more. “We’re a hundred miles from what was left of Winnipeg. Those nukes are atomizing anything and everything left… Why?”

A fourth white flash lit the sky, and a fourth mushroom cloud was born.

Nicholas whimpered into Caitlan’s ear. “I want my Daddy.”

* * *

“Mother… Fucker!” Roy exclaimed as the mushroom cloud rose above them. The sky surrounding the immense yellow tower glowed red. Seconds later an explosive crack ripped through the air. It almost knocked the big man to his knees. Louie was already on his knees somewhere behind him, crying into the dirt of the field they were crossing.

There was a second flash of light—a second detonation. It made another awful sound deep inside Roy’s brain, like a single string on a base guitar being plucked too hard. A horrible, reverberating twang.

A wall of dust and smoke was charging their way. “We’re going to die,” Louie blubbered.

Roy figured they were less than thirty miles from the city’s perimeter. The bombs were big, but he figured they still might have a chance. He grabbed his companion and dragged him to a low spot in the field. “Lay on your gut, and keep your face planted in the ground.”

The first shockwave hit. They were blasted with small bits of debris and dirt. The second wave rolled over them, hot and screaming. It too passed, leaving the men breathless, but relatively unscathed. They sat up and stared at one another.

Roy picked a clump of soil from his nostril. “Why? Why the hell are they hitting Winnipeg again?”

“The ticks,” Louie wailed. “This isn’t about the war, it isn’t country versus fucking country anymore! They know what’s been unleashed. They know about LDV3!”

He was going to say more, but a third bomb dropped. And then a forth. And then a fifth.

* * *

“Look at it, Sergeant… just look at it.”

Fartel couldn’t recall the last time any of the other soldiers had addressed him by rank without the slightest hint of condescension. Perhaps they never had.

They stared in awe, side by side, as the six mushrooms continued their ascent into the dark heavens. The first three weren’t as defined; the following blasts had knocked them askew, like massive trees in a forest, dying, and making way for new arrivals.

“It is a forest,”  Fartel spoke his thoughts aloud. “A cancerous grove of power, light, and death.”

“Huh? When did you become a poet?”

Fartel looked at the man wearing only underwear and socks. “I wouldn’t say I was being poetic, but you have to admit a sight like that can leave you kind of… inspired.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.” Fred pointed to the south. “I do know those missile contrails originated from that direction. It wasn’t the Russians or North Koreans this time. Why would our own allies attack us? Why would they waste half a dozen nukes on Winnipeg?”

The sergeant shrugged. “No idea.”

A dozen black dots appeared at the center of the cloud closest to them. They grew in size and developed wings. “Look there,” Fartel said. “Birds!”

Fred had to block away the majority of yellow clouds with the palms of his hands, it was still that bright, but he saw the crows flying in a few seconds later. They swooped down and started circling the men less than twenty feet overhead. The birds didn’t caw. The only sound they made came from the flapping of their black wings. “That is fucking weird.”

Their flight paths were erratic, flying right side up and upside down. They crashed into one another, and feathers spun lazily down to the ground. One of the birds stopped flapping its wings all together and plummeted like a rock. It thumped onto the pavement at Fred’s feet.

He squatted down for a closer look. “It’s dead.” He poked at it with his finger. “Look how fat the thing is.”

“Don’t touch it. The things could be irradiated.”

“Aren’t we all?” Fred picked it up in one hand. “It’s as heavy as a brick.” He threw it down suddenly and jumped back up. He shook his hand frantically.

“What is it? Did it peck you?”

“No! I said it was dead… Goddamn, that hurts!” He wiped his fingers along the only part of cloth available—the front of his underwear. Fartel thought he saw something gray disappear into the seams, but it was hard to tell with all the jumping and screaming.

Fred clutched at his crotch with both hands. “No! No! No! It Stings! Oh God, it hurts so bad!”

Another crow thumped down into the ditch. A third one fell next to Sergeant Jeffrey and erupted a gush of black across the highway. He backed away from it and instinctively covered his mouth and nose. Something in the air was killing these crows, and it had infected Fred Walleyes. Fartel wasn’t going to let any of the dying birds near him. The rest dropped down, like fat, black raindrops. He danced between the corpses, stepping around puddles of moving grey innards.

Fred was on his back now, convulsing and twitching on the ground. A mound was growing in his underwear, pressing up and out to the sides. “Fred?” Fartel asked quietly. “Fred, are you getting a hard-on?”

There was a popping sound and the bulge started to deflate. Fred’s white underwear turned dark red. Slime leaked out and settled on the ground in a puddle under the dead man’s buttocks. It began to spread out and move towards Fartel. The sergeant backed away. He stepped on one of the crows and it exploded under his heel. He made it three more steps before falling on his ass.

Fred was rising up.

He isn’t dead. He’s just sick… Really, really sick.

He was on the sergeant seconds later. Fartel was too stunned and horrified to fight back. Fred’s skin was grey and moving. Veins were bulging across his stomach, chest, throat, and face. He raked his finger nails down Jeffrey’s ribcage and the sergeant cried out. Fred went in and bit his tongue out.

Fartel stopped struggling moments later. A dozen puddles of grey swarmed over his body and began entering the inside of him. Fred took a hold of Fartel’s lower jaw and ripped it away from the rest of his face. He stuck his lips against the opening it left and sucked the gushing blood as it rushed out.

Fartel came back to life thirty seconds later. He pushed Fred away and stood back up. They were standing side by side once again, but the dying mushroom clouds at their backs no longer held their interest. They lurched westward.

Somewhere in the back of brains they no longer possessed were memories. The ticks clustered there and fed on the stored information. There was food that way. Fresh hosts.

Thousands of them.

Chapter 33

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t possibly be happening. Hayden considered slamming the steering wheel with both fists as Caitlan had done less than twelve hours earlier. He didn’t bother. Hayden didn’t swear at the old Buick either. It hadn’t done Caitlan any good with the Audi, and it certainly wouldn’t help him out of the jam he was in now.

He was half a mile from Brayburne, and the car he’d stolen from the two soldiers wouldn’t start. Hayden had physically assaulted both of those soldiers, an attack that may have even left one of them dead. He had then marched into Brayburne and picked a fight with one of the volunteer recruits—a cock-sucking horse murderer—and broken every bone in his face.

He hadn’t regretted his actions, and he would do it all over again given the chance. The only thing Hayden wished he’d planned better was his escape. But there had been no escape plan; Hayden had sent his son off with the others fully expecting to never see them again. The bombs going off for a second time had made escape possible—the same kind of bombs that had taken almost everything away from him weeks before, had saved his life. It was ironic as hell, but Hayden saw no humor in it. Another car had died in the post-apocalyptic nightmare of his life, and when night turned back to day in a few more short hours, Hayden would likely be discovered and taken into custody.

Half a dozen nuclear detonations had lit the evening sky. When the sixth one’s terrible flame had finally extinguished, evening gave way instantly to full night. The only light Hayden could see now was coming from the fires in Brayburne. They’ll be searching for me now. Surprised they haven’t found me yet. He grabbed the military binoculars he’d found in the glove box and trained it on the closest fire. He clicked a button on top and the unit made a faint electric whistling sound. Everything lit up green. Night vision. Non-obtrusive digital displays targeted objects and told him distances. He settled in on the iron barrel that he’d kicked over hours earlier. It had been set back up, and the fire burning inside was a shimmering white ball surrounded in green wisps. A few more whitish-green blobs surrounded it—people huddled around the flames, warming themselves in the cold night. Hayden moved the binoculars slowly left, and then slowly right. No one was approaching his way from town. If he set out now, if he started walking north, he could likely put five or six miles between him and Brayburne before it started getting light.

But then what? The gravel pit he’d instructed Caitlan to drive to was thirty miles away. It would take the better part of a full day to walk that distance, and even if he could make it without being picked up by the military first, what did he expect to find? Caitlan and Angela would no longer be at the gravel pit. Hayden had been very specific about that. If I’m not back with you guys by midnight, keep heading north. Find something… somewhere. Take care of the children. Hayden wasn’t sure of the exact time, but he knew midnight had already come and passed. They would’ve already started heading north by now.

Hayden wasn’t going to walk. He was either going to get the piece of shit Buick he was sitting in running again, or he was going to find another vehicle. And the only other working vehicles around were in Brayburne. Hayden would have to sneak back into town and steal one of the commandeered cars parked in the outdoor lot.

He threw the binoculars back on the seat and started to get out. He paused and picked them up again. Hayden would need every advantage at his disposable, and there were very few of those. The vehicle impound was further east. He tucked the binoculars into the back of his pants and set out.

Tommy had never known pain like this. His entire face was in agony. He touched a cheek with his fingers, and winced. That created even more pain. The old fucker did this. He got me down and beat the snot out of me. The old fucker was in his mid-thirties, but anyone over the age of twenty-five in Tommy Boyd’s eyes was ancient. That wasn’t right. It was a goddamned travesty that someone as fit and young as Tommy had had the shit kicked out of him by someone so fucking old. The beating had been bad enough, but having all the others witness it had hurt much more.

Tommy groaned and lifted his aching body up from the bed he’d been placed into.

“Easy, son. Go slow. Your face is a mess, but I’m more worried about those ribs.”

Tommy slowly swung his feet to the dirt floor and saw the white cloth wrapped around his chest and stomach. It was too tight. He tried a body stretch to the right and stopped. It felt like someone had planted a knife in his lung.

“What did I just tell you?”

Tommy looked at the man sitting on the end of a bed next to his. He was older than the asshole that had made mush of his face, a lot older. “Do I know you?”

The man pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose and rubbed a few strands of grey hair back over his mostly bald skull. “I’m Fred Gill. I was Brayburne’s only practicing physician up until about three weeks ago.”

“You’re… like a doctor?”

“Yes, I’m like a doctor.” He didn’t look at Tommy as he spoke. There was a woman sleeping in the bed he was sitting on. Most of her hair had fallen out, and it looked as though someone had taken a blowtorch to her face, neck, and upper chest. “I’ve worked in Brayburne for the last forty-two years. I’ve treated what seems like a million cases of flu in the very young and the very old, I’ve set thousands of broken bones straight, and I’ve delivered over five hundred babies.” He patted the woman’s leg gently and stood. “Never dreamed I would have to treat a thirty-year old kindergarten teacher for radiation sickness.”

“It looks… it looks painful.” Her skin had a shiny, stretched look. It reminded Tommy of wax.

“I’m sure it is. Thank heavens she’s too far gone to feel much of anything anymore.” He finally looked at Tommy with bloodshot old eyes under bushy white eyebrows. “I’m too old to be looking after people a third of my age. I’ve seen dozens like her in the last few days… folks wandering into town, suffering terribly. I’ve watched entire families slip away… fathers, mothers, sons and daughters… people supposedly blessed to have survived the attack. Some have recovered, sort of. Maybe they wandered off out of this tent and died somewhere else, I don’t have a clue. I tend to anyone that comes in here, no matter how much my old bones ache, and how tired my old brain gets. That’s my job, still, and I’ll do it until I drop dead. But you know what really pisses me off, son?”

Tommy was listening and feeling the bandages on his face. “Can I have a mirror?”

“No, you can’t have a fucking mirror. What really pisses me off is guys like you… guys like all the other soldier boys outside, marching up and down the streets like they own the place. It’s bad enough I have to try and treat people for something they didn’t deserve. Now I’ve got a bunch of goddamned macho idiots strutting about, getting into fist fights and having their ribs cracked. I don’t have the time to patch up idiots. I’m too busy looking after people that genuinely need my help. Do you know what I’m saying?”

Tommy’s fingers had settled on his nose. “How bad was it? I’ve heard people say that it’s almost impossible to straighten out a nose once it’s been bust. Will it have one of those stupid looking bends in it?”

Fred Gill wanted to break the nose again. A young soldier entered the medical relief tent before the doctor could do it. “There’s two more coming in from the east. The guards spotted them a few minutes ago maybe a quarter mile out on the highway.”

“They’re driving?” The doctor asked.

“Nope, walking, and sounds like they’re in pretty rough shape.”

Fred wanted to smack the soldier’s face almost as much as he wanted to re-fracture Tommy Boyd’s nose. Half a dozen nuclear warheads had evaporated what remained of Winnipeg and the surrounding area. If survivors were coming in from the east, chances were the injuries would be severe. “And you morons are just watching them? Don’t any of you have any sense of compassion?”

“Our commanding officer has set the rules of engagement clearly, sir; help those in need, but keep the base secure. When they’re close enough, we will bring them to you.”

“Rules of engagement? We’re not at war with the poor souls out there, and the last time I checked, this was still a town, not a goddamned base.”

Gill followed the soldier outside leaving Boyd in his bed to deal with his pains and to ponder over the state of his future appearance. Tommy glanced at the kindergarten teacher again, and looked away quickly. He feared she might wake up and call for help. What the fuck would he do then? What could he do for her, or for any of the other patients lying in their beds? He counted sixteen beds in total. Eight—including his own—were occupied. It must be late, he thought. Everyone was sleeping. This was a good thing. Tommy hated sick people. They were weak, and the longer you hung around them, the better chances were they’d give you whatever it was they were carrying. Is radiation sickness contagious? He wasn’t sure, and he didn’t want to find out. With considerable effort Tommy stood up. He remained stationary, swaying back and forth. There were no tables or chairs to lean on for support, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to rest against the teacher’s cot. The last thing he wanted to see was that shiny red face opening its eyes. She’d probably start screaming, or crying, or both.

The stabbing pain in his side dulled to a throbbing ache and Tommy moved towards the tent-flap door Dr. Gill had exited through.

The screaming started, but it wasn’t coming from the pink-faced kindergarten teacher.

Hayden was halfway between the broken-down Buick and the east end of town. He stopped dead in his tracks when a scream cut through the night. The binoculars didn’t pick up anything out of the ordinary. The white blobs standing around the barrel fires looked about, but no one seemed overly concerned or motivated to investigate. A few seconds later the repeating crackle of gunfire erupted, and the blobs started moving.

Hayden started to walk backwards. He knew he had been lucky slipping out of the town earlier. He didn’t want to push that luck under a hail of bullets. I don’t need a car… I can head northwest on my feet, make it to that gravel pit by noon tomorrow if I move fast.

He continued watching through the binoculars as he made his retreat. The gunfire stopped, but someone was still screaming. No, it’s more than just one person now. People were shouting to be heard over the wail of others. Orders were being given, and mass panic seemed to be answering. The shooting resumed, and Hayden could see the white blobs merging together, heading for the east end of town.

What the hell’s happening there?

The sensible side of him said to run. Turn around right now and start heading for that gravel pit. The brave side—the lazy part of him that wanted to drive instead of walk—insisted he press on. Keep going. Slip into that vehicle compound and steal a car while everyone’s preoccupied killing each other.

He stopped moving altogether.

What are they shooting at? Why is everyone yelling and crying?

He gripped the binoculars tightly, one of his fingers triggered a button he didn’t realize was there. The white blobs disappeared, and the shapes of human bodies became more defined. He’d inadvertently shut off the binoculars’ heat-seeking feature. Soldiers were gathering together in greater numbers, drawing weapons, and moving east. Bright flashes of white appeared in the moving throng of green and black, and the sound of their weapons firing met Hayden’s ears a few seconds later.

He saw a body torn to shreds. Bullets punched through cloth and flesh, and a black mist of blood trailed out from behind. Another person standing next to it was mowed down in a second hail of fire. My God. They’re killing the survivors… They’re murdering the residents of Brayburne in cold blood.

He had to do something. He needed to help those people. Hayden started stumbling forward, and then he saw the impossible. The first victim started to rise back up, the second one joined it moments later. The soldiers cut them down again. Hayden lowered the binoculars away from his face and stared at them dumbly. His hands were shaking terribly. He closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. I didn’t see that. No one can rise back up after being shot so many times. Shots continued firing. People kept screaming.

Hayden looked through the lenses again. The green and black shapes of the soldiers came back into view. They were backing up, continuing to fire at the corpses lying on the ground.

The corpses rose again.

Chapter 34

“Why are you turning around?” Fred Gill asked. He pressed his left hand against the Jeep’s passenger dashboard and held on to the door with his right as the vehicle turned in the middle of Main Street.

The soldier driving muttered something into the small microphone extending from his helmet and glanced over at Fred quickly. “There’s an incident occurring. I’ve been ordered to take you back to HQ until things have settled.”

“An incident? You mean all that shooting? It sounds like World War III breaking out.”

“That war started weeks ago, sir. This is something entirely different.”

“Then turn this thing back around and take me there. Can’t you hear those people screaming?”

“You’re the only civilian doctor we have on the base. We can’t afford to lose you.” They passed more armed soldiers running towards the east end of town. Most were men and women that had never picked up an assault rifle or saluted a superior officer in their lives. They were volunteers—survivors fitted into military uniforms with the sole purpose of helping other survivors.

“At least take me back to the medical tent. Those people lying in their beds we’ll be terrified listening to all this.”

“Not until the perimeter is secure.”

Fred had lived most of his adult life in Brayburne. He had never once heard the term perimeter applied to its outer edges. The Jeep screeched to a halt in front of the Town Hall. It was the oldest building in Brayburne, constructed decades before Fred Gill had been born. It was shaped like a giant cube with only a few small windows set on each of the four floors. It had always reminded Fred of Uncle Scrooge McDuck’s money bin—a monstrous block of a thing, a fortress made of faded red brick. And it had been just that when it was built in the nineteen-twenties; Brayburne’s town hall had originally been a bank. Now that the world no longer needed money or small-town government, the Bin—as Fred and a few other Brayburne old-timers called it—was the military’s headquarters.

“This way, sir.” The soldier had already run around the front of the vehicle and was pulling Fred out of his seat. “There’s a secure area inside where you’ll be safe until this is over.”

“You’re throwing me in the clink?”

“Sir?”

“The only secure area inside there is the jail cell. It’s where we used to let the drunks sleep it off.”

The soldier pulled insistently at the old doctor’s arm. “It’s for your own safety, sir.”

He wanted to argue some more, but the screams and gunfire coming from the east end of town were getting louder, much closer. Let the army handle that, he thought. There would be time after to help patch up the wounded. “Lead the way, young man.”

They were met at the main doors by a rush of men charging out carrying heavy artillery. One soldier had what appeared to be a rocket launcher nestled in his big arms. Fred stepped aside before they could trample over him.

“Sorry about that, sir.”

The kid was nice, Fred thought—a whole lot nicer than many of the other soldiers occupying his town. “What’s your name, son?”

“Corporal Stevens, sir.” They rushed by the main reception area.

“Do you have a first name, Corporal?”

“Adam, sir.”

If any of them got out of this alive, Fred promised himself he’d put in a good word to the youth’s superiors. “How long have you served in the army, Adam?”

“Three months, sir. I just finished training.” He looked embarrassed.

“Hell of an initiation, hey?”

They rushed past offices and came upon the jail cell at the back of the building. To Fred’s surprise, there was somebody already inside, sitting on the single cot. “Joanna Hensky?” He asked incredulously. “What is Brayburne’s mayor doing locked up in jail?”

The middle-aged woman had a pinched look on her pudgy face. Her body appeared tense, her back ramrod straight. “I came here… it was suggested I wait here until whatever it is happening out there gets worked out.”

Fred wasn’t entirely convinced of that. He had a feeling she had come on her own; the local politician wasn’t known for her bravery, or for being a particularly good mayor either. The corporal opened the cell door and Fred went inside. He sat beside Joanna and looked at the soldier questioningly through the bars as he clanked the door shut again. “You’re locking us in?”

Joanna produced a ring of keys from the head of the mattress. “We can get out whenever we want. Whoever’s outside won’t be able to get in.”

“Why would they need to get in when they can just shoot us from outside?” He stared at the woman. “Joanna… what the hell’s going on?”

She placed the keys back on top of the flat pillow and set her shaking hands onto her lap. “They don’t have guns. I don’t think they have any weapons at all.”

Corporal Stevens had slipped back out of the holding area without Fred noticing. “No weapons? Then why is there so much shooting? Are those soldiers just shooting down innocents?”

Joanna shook her head, and when she spoke again her voice was shaking almost as badly as her hands. “It was two soldiers returning from the east. They’d changed. They were different.”

“I’m not following you… Are you saying they came back sick? Is it some kind of radiation concern?”

“I don’t know what it is. They came back different. They attacked a guard, one of them bit his throat out and the other tore into his stomach. My God, Fred… they’d eaten half his intestines before additional guards were even on the scene.”

Fred stood and moved in front of her. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Radiation sickness doesn’t do that to people, it doesn’t turn them into cannibalistic animals.”

“They aren’t people anymore. I saw them through the camera feed they have set up in my office. They were monsters… covered in gore and black slime. One of them didn’t even have a lower jaw, but he kept shoving guts down the opening in his throat anyway. It was… It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.”

Fred Gill didn’t know of anything in the medical world that could cause such a thing. It just wasn’t possible. When he spoke again his voice was lower, calmer—as if the reality of what she was saying—or at least what she’d thought she’d seen on a video display—had actually begun to sink in. “If there were only two soldiers in this condition, what’s happened since? Why are they continuing to fight outside? I passed a man carrying a rocket launcher. What’s happening out there now?”

The mayor shrugged. “I don’t want to know. We’re safe in here. We’re safe in here.”

She continued repeating the words, over and over. The shooting continued outside. As the minutes passed it became louder. “We’re not safe in here, Joanna. We have to get out of this town.”

Joanna started nodding her head quickly, as if she were waiting for someone else to make the hard decision of abandoning Brayburne. She grabbed the keys back up again and went to the door. She tried unlocking it from the other side but her hands were still shaking too bad. The keys fell to the floor. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I’m too scared.”

Fred got on his hands and knees and reached for the keys that had landed two feet away from the bars. The old doctor had to lower himself even further, onto his stomach. He stretched his arm towards the keys and one finger caught the ring. He dragged it back towards him, grunting with effort. He finally got back to his feet with the keys in one hand and unlocked the cell door.

“We can’t go out onto the streets,” she warned. “Those things will tear us apart.”

“You know of a better place to hide?”

The woman was still terrified, but her eyes had started to clear a little. The terror was still there, but Fred could see something else there—purpose. She had a plan.

“Back in the thirties,” she started to say as they moved out of the cell and back towards the offices, “the bankers had built an underground escape tunnel… in case of armed robbery. There was a tunnel hidden in the main vault.”

“A tunnel? Where did it go?”

She had made it to her office. The officer that had commandeered it weeks earlier wasn’t there. No doubt he was outside, leading the charge against whatever the hell had invaded Brayburne. Joanna went to her desk and started rifling through one of the drawers. “The plans are here somewhere. Blueprints of the bank before it was built and additional plans made for the tunnel. They’ve been saved this entire time for history’s sake. We were going to have them put in the museum. I just never got around to it.”

A window blew in from the office next to them. Men were screaming, no longer issuing orders, but wailing for their lives. “Find those plans, Joanna. Find them fast.”

“Here!” She cried out, pulling the yellowed sheets of paper from a bottom drawer. She spread them across the desk, and the two studied the plans. Fred saw a long line leading away from a top-down view of the building. It was heading west, and according to the map’s scale, was over half a mile in length.

Fred pulled the top sheet away and studied the one underneath. It was in greater detail, zoomed in to the original building layout floor by floor, room by room. “Where was the goddamned bank vault?” He muttered.

The mayor’s hands weren’t shaking as badly now. She pointed a once perfectly manicured nail to a third separate image near the bottom corner of the plan sheet. “There, in the basement. The original bank vault was built into the ground in a foundation of concrete and inner brick wall.” Someone had scrawled a crude set of lines into the original plans using a pencil. The grey lines had almost faded into nothingness, but both doctor and mayor could see the lines leading west. “That’s where the tunnel was located.”

“Was? It isn’t there anymore?”

“I’ve never seen the actual tunnel. I’ve only heard stories, you know, like old town myths that it was ever there. Hell, I’ve never even been in the basement.”

Someone was screaming retreat and fall back outside. “Well there’s only one way to find out.” Fred led them to the stairs and started winding his way down. The area that had once served as Brayburne’s money vault was now used as a storage area. He thought of Scrooge’s money bin again. There was clutter everywhere, boxes upon boxes of decades-old files, dusty office chairs with broken wheels and worn upholstery, fans with rusted blades that no longer spun, and every other piece of worn out, dated office equipment imaginable from the last sixty or seventy years.

“I really should’ve had someone come down here and clean this place out,” Joanna said.

“You and about a dozen mayors before you.”

They went to the west side and started moving garbage away from the wall. There was no inner brick wall that Fred could see. Once they’d cleared most of the clutter away, all that remained was a dingy-looking wall of old gyp-rock, painted a few times over. The old doctor thumped on the plaster with the side of his fist, listening and feeling for any change from behind. After a few seconds a hollow sound bounced back. “Here… I think I’ve found something.”

“What good does that do us? How are we going tear down that wall?”

It was a good question. Fred looked about the room, searching for something he could smash into the plaster. His eyes settled on an ancient fire alarm box on the north wall. It was one of those long glass enclosures with an emergency axe and bulky red extinguisher tank inside. He’d seen them a thousand times in a thousand different buildings when he was a younger man. “This place is already a museum,” he muttered heading towards it. He picked up a defunct fax machine from a pile of dead printers and computer monitors. Fred drove a corner into the glass and stepped back as the shards fell to the ground. He grabbed the axe and went back to the section of wall they’d cleared away.

“Are you sure you can—” Joanna started to say as Fred swung the axe back in both hands like a baseball bat. The sharp end sunk into the wall at a depth of less than an inch. Fred grunted, pulled it free, and swung again. Cracks appeared in the dry paint running a foot either way from the axe blade. He let it drop to the floor, his arms already aching, and his lungs on fire.

“I thought I could… used to split wood when I was younger.” He was panting heavily and leaning against the wall where the cracks had formed. “I can’t do this anymore. I’ll have a goddamned heart attack if I swing this thing again.”

He held the handle out towards the mayor and she took it grudgingly. “I’ve never swung an axe in my life. I’ve never even picked up a hammer.”

“Just do what I did… what I tried to do. Swing that fucker with all your might and keep going until that shit is out of the way.”

Joanna Hensky may have been a non-remarkable mayor, but she was a big woman with plenty of strength in her arms and back. The axe blade sunk all the way through the wall on her first try. Fred helped her pull it back out, tearing big chunks of plaster along the way. “Good girl,” he gasped. “Now hit it again.”

Joanna swung and missed the wall altogether. The blade struck against the concrete floor in a shower of sparks. She tried again, found the mark, and another two feet of ancient gyp-rock collapsed away.

“That’s enough,” Fred said as she prepared for another strike. “We can pull the rest away with our hands.”

They went at it, each pulling larger sections away on either side. A minute later they had cleared enough away to see well enough what was behind. There was a second wall, the one Joanna had spoken of upstairs in her office. It was made of dull brown bricks and crumbling mortar. Fred made an exasperated gasp, but Joanna saw something in the shadows between the plaster on the edges they’d torn away. “There’s a wooden sheet or door a bit further over.” She picked the axe back up and wedged the handle in, tearing away more of the plaster. It made a creaking noise as ancient nails pulled free from two-by-four joists separating the walls.

A larger section of wall fell away revealing a sheet of rough, warped plywood set into the bricks. Fred saw a piece of rope tied to a nail in the wood, it was tied on the other end to a ring worked into the brick. There were rusted hinges on the other side. Fred untied the rope and tried swinging the five-foot high, three-foot wide sheet of wood back towards them. It didn’t budge.

Joanna pushed him aside and kicked at a bottom edge. The sheet popped open at the top corner, and a dank rush of cool, mouldy-smelling air rushed out. Fred bent over and peered into the black door crack. “This is it! This is the tunnel.” He pulled at the top edge and the small door scraped open along the concrete floor.

Joanna shook her head and stepped back. “No… this wasn’t a good idea. I won’t… I can’t go in there.”

“Claustrophobia?”

The woman’s big head started bobbing up and down instead of wagging side to side. “Yes, since I was a little girl. It’s terrible.”

Fred reached for her hand. It felt cold and clammy. He could see the fear in her eyes focused in on that black slit, and he could only imagine at what terrible things she thought might be waiting inside the tunnel. “We have to go. There’s no other choice.”

“I won’t.”

Fred started in. “I’ll go a little ways. You’ll see there isn’t anything to fear. You can hold my hand the entire way. But we have to go , Joanna.”

She was shaking her head again. “I won’t.”

The door at the top of the basement landing slammed open. Fred craned his head back through the escape tunnel opening and saw black boots descending the stairs. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the military uniform. Whatever siege had befallen the town had passed. The military had defeated, or at least held back, whatever it was trying to enter Brayburne.

He saw the soldier’s face a moment later and realized it was Corporal Stevens. And then he saw that the corporal’s eyes had been plucked out of their sockets. Blood and syrupy black liquid were oozing down his grey cheeks, and dripping onto his shirt and pants.

“Corporal Stevens?” The doctor asked quietly. “Adam… are you okay?”

The thing that had once been a living person opened its mouth and made a low, guttural sound. Its bottom jaw continued dropping open—farther than the bone could allow—and its neck swelled up. A gusher of thick black pushed its way out and plopped down on the remaining steps before it like great piles of cow shit. The mayor backed into the plaster remains of the inner wall and placed her hands over her mouth. Fred grabbed one of her thick wrists and started yanking her into the tunnel. “No more time, dear. You’re going to have to get over your phobia a lot faster than you would’ve liked.”

She didn’t argue. Her stiff body loosened in jerks, and moments later she was in the tunnel behind the old doctor, holding his hand and moving her feet without realizing where she was, or what she was doing. One crippling old fear had run smack-dab into a new impossible horror. They had cancelled each other out, putting an end to whatever reasoning bits remained in her brain.

“You’ll be alright, Joanna,” Fred spoke softly.

Mayor Hensky kept moving her feet in the dark. She didn’t make a sound as one of her shoes caught in a dry rift of dirt and pulled free of her foot. She didn’t yell as her meaty shoulder scraped along sections of rough stone and cut her skin open. She didn’t cry out when the bloated corpse of Corporal Adam Stevens moved into the tunnel behind them. She just kept holding the old doctor’s hand, and she kept moving her feet one in front of the other.

Fred continued whispering soft mumblings of comfort to the woman as he led her down the dark tunnel. He looked over his shoulder and saw the dead soldier pursuing them . And he was dead, Fred realized. No human body could release that much fluid and waste—and still remain so terribly bloated—without being dead. Something else was in control of him now. He had no eyes to see with, but this something was still guiding his movement, and he was moving remarkably fast for a swollen corpse. Fred couldn’t see a thing in front of them. All he had to go on was Joanna’s word and the faded pencil scrawls of an eighty-year old map that the tunnel they were in would lead them to safety. It seemed like a short distance on paper, but travelling through the pitch black, hunched over as they were, and breathing in stale old air, made the half-mile span seem much longer. His already strained heart  would likely give out long before they arrived at the tunnel’s end—if there even was one. It hadn’t been used in decades.

Corporal Stevens howled out behind them. It was an eerie, inhuman sound that seemed to be right on their backs. Fred glanced back one more time over Joanna’s shoulder and saw the soldier gaining quickly. Jets of black were spewing forward out of his eye sockets. It began spraying out of both nostrils. The sound coming out of his distended mouth was like something drowning.

We won’t make it. I’m going to have a heart attack. We’ll die of asphyxiation. Adam’s going to eat us.

Joanna’s fingers slipped out of his. Fred stumbled forward onto his knees and looked back. She was still holding the fire escape axe in her other hand. Adam was closing the gap between them. There wasn’t enough room to get a decent swing going, but the mayor of Brayburne charged towards him anyway.

Good for you, Joanna. I wish I’d voted for you.

Chapter 35

Tommy stuck to the shadows and stayed away from the light of the raging fires that were bringing the small town down all around him. The things the dead soldiers and survivors were transforming into were rising faster than the diminishing soldiers left living. The raging corpses seemed drawn to the flames, as if something inside their bloating bodies was making them stay close to the heat. Tommy avoided the clusters of fighting. He kept moving west. Eventually he made it to the outskirts of Brayburne, collapsing into a ditch and clutching at his broken ribs. He could barely breathe. The screams from town were quietening, the gunfire less constant. Whatever had taken those people and turned them into freaks was winning. Good. Fuck them. Let the whole goddamn town burn.

He staggered back to his feet after a few minutes and started walking out into the dark. He left the highway and stumbled out into a dusty, dry field. Stay off the roads. Can’t let those things find me on the highway… Can’t let anyone see how fucked up I am.

He went another hundred yards and thought he saw something off in the gloom. Is that a car in the field? He stumbled on a little further and saw a someone standing next to it. Jesus Christ… he’s watching the town burn through fucking binoculars.

The binoculars swung Tommy’s way.

Hayden saw the man staggering along in the dirt. He focused in on the lone figure and calculated the distance. Four-hundred metres. He looks pretty fucked up. Maybe I should go help him.

A massive explosion ripped through the center of Brayburne. Hayden trained the binoculars back that way and saw an orange cloud bursting up into the sky. Must have been a gas station… maybe a big propane tank.

He hoped the flames would spread and burn all the creatures with it. They had been people minutes before, he thought grimly; soldiers, volunteers, citizens of Brayburne, and a few other thousand survivors that had found refuge in the small town. It was an awful thing to wish them all dead, but after seeing what they’d become—after seeing them stand back up and start feeding on the others being shot down—Hayden figured it would be a mercy.

Had he kept moving towards the vehicle compound, had he attempted to sneak back into Brayburne to steal a car, Hayden could very well be one of those un-dead things now.

The man in the field started yelling. Hayden swung the binoculars back his way. He knows I’m watching. He wants me to help. Hayden dropped the binoculars into the front seat of the Buick and started towards him. The man continued shouting at the top of his lungs. “Easy, guy,” Hayden muttered. “I’m coming.”

The shouting continued, and Hayden started to worry the things left in Brayburne would hear him if he didn’t shut his mouth. He looked towards town. Most of Brayburne was on fire now, and Hayden thought he could see something else as well. A black line was moving outwards from under the orange canopy of flames.

Hayden shouted back at the man still three hundred meters distant. “Keep quiet! They’ll hear you!” He waved his arms above his head, trying to signal the idiot into silence. It only made him yell louder.

Hayden hesitated fifty feet away from the car. The black line from town was growing, moving. He ran back to the Buick for the binoculars. “No. Shit, no.” The creatures in Brayburne were headed his way. They’d heard the man’s screams, and they were moving out into the field. There were hundreds of them, and they were moving fast.

Hayden tried starting the car again, but knew it wouldn’t work. The piece of junk was dead. He’d been under the hood and gone through the entire thing. He couldn’t see a thing wrong with it. The battery had plenty of juice, it turned over, but just wouldn’t catch. There was half a tank of gas inside, but it wasn’t doing him any good. At least that’s what the gauge read when he tried turning the engine over. Could the thing be out of gas? No, I couldn’t have been stupid enough to miss something as simple as that.

Hayden remembered the old Ford half-ton his father had given him for his sixteenth birthday. He always had to keep the gas tank half full, because once it hit an eighth of a tank, it would be bone dry empty. He’d been caught more than once learning that trick. Perhaps he’d been caught once again.

There were still three full canisters of gasoline sitting in the trunk. Hayden ran to the car’s back end and pulled one out. The things in the field were getting closer. His hands shook as he tried unscrewing the car’s fuel lid. He got it off and went to work on the cap of the 18-litre fuel container. Gas sloshed over his hands, stinging the cuts and abrasions on his knuckles. He screwed the attached spout in place and jammed its end into the car’s fuel tank. More gasoline leaked down the rusted fender. “Hurry! Hurry up and get inside the goddamned thing!”

The corpses were closing in. Some had split away from the main group and were running for the lone man in the field now less than a hundred meters from the Buick.

More gasoline was sloshing down the side of the car than was going inside the tank. The container was only half-emptied. Hayden looked up—they were less than fifty feet away. Fuck it. He dropped what was left and it splashed over his shoes and spilled into the dirt. As long as there was enough fuel in the tank to get him a few miles from here… if that was even the problem. He got behind the wheel and tried starting the car. The engine turned over, but wouldn’t ignite. He cranked it again and again to no effect.

The first bloated body flopped onto the hood and started raking at the windshield with its grey finger nails. Another slammed into the passenger door with enough force to rock the Buick back and forth. A third body jumped onto the trunk and scrambled up onto the roof.

Hayden continued turning the engine over, but it was draining the battery quickly. It was beginning to slow-churn. If he kept cranking it at this rate much longer, the entire thing would be dead. It’s an older car, he told himself. Like my old Ford pick-up. You have to tromp on the accelerator—pump the fucking thing up and down to work the gas through.

Hayden did just that. He pushed the accelerator pedal down and released it. Fat fingers were working their way in through the slit of open driver’s side window next to his face. Hayden ignored them. He pumped on the accelerator repeatedly and kept the key cranked over in the ignition. The engine was still making that mournful dying sound, like a helicopter rotor whirring down. Three bodies were now on the hood of the car. Their faces were pressed up against the windshield. Fat grey tongues were licking at the glass.

Hayden pressed the pedal down and kept it there. The old Buick roared to life three seconds later. It continued to scream until Hayden remembered to lift his foot off the pedal.

Drive. I have to put it in drive.

He had driven his first car at the age of eleven. It was like learning all over again. The windshield cracked. Hayden dropped the car into drive and punched down on the accelerator again. The Buick leapt forward and one of the bodies on the hood slipped away before its weight could push through the windshield altogether. He cleared the cluster of bodies around him, running over half a dozen more along the way. He drove north, towards the man he’d seen stumbling across the field. They hadn’t gotten to him yet, he was running west, keeping ahead of the things, but just barely.

The corpse on top of the car slid down onto the hood and Hayden slammed the brakes. It spun the body around, but the thing’s fingers dug into the hood’s edge where the windshield wipers met. It started pulling its grotesquely swollen form up towards him. Hayden recognized it as the young soldier from town that had given him and Caitlan directions to the supply tent. He wasn’t old enough yet to shave, Caitlan had said.

Hayden sped up, swerving hard to the left and then to the right, attempting to dislodge it from the hood. Its throat swelled out, like a giant bull frog taking in air. Hayden heard the skin pop over the roar of the car’s engine, and black liquid splattered all over the cracked glass in front of his face. It was how they spread whatever it was inside them, he realized. That crap would work its way through the cracks in the windshield and enter into his body. Hayden slammed on the brakes again and the thing finally fell away. He turned on the wipers to clear the black shit away, and slammed into two more bodies standing in the field. An arm detached and smacked into the side mirror of his door tearing it clean off. Hayden swerved and the car bounced up, crushing one of the bodies up into the wheel well. He could no longer see where the man in the field was. Hayden’s sense of direction was lost.

It’s too late for him, he thought. He’s dead already. He’s become one of them.

It’s too late for him, Tommy thought as he veered away from the Buick and started running to the west. Those things are going to tear him to pieces and eat his fucking brains. Fuck him. Fuck his car. I can make it on my own. I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone.

Pain shot through his chest and Tommy dropped to his knees, gasping. The ribs. Those goddamned ribs. He could hear the creatures gaining on him. “No! I’m not going to let you fuckers get me! No fucking way!” He continued on his hands and knees, but the cracked ribs only made crawling even more painful. He couldn’t get a full breath.

One of the things pounced on his back, another started biting into one of his legs. Tommy tried rolling over, but they had him pinned on his stomach against the ground. He cried out as he felt the flesh being torn from his back. They’re eating me! They’re fucking eating me alive!

A bloated grey face appeared in front of him, snapping its teeth and salivating black slime onto the earth. It started flowing along the dirt towards Tommy. It crawled up onto his cheek and slithered into his mouth. He tried spitting it out, but more flowed in. It plugged up his nostrils and crawled into his eyes. Tommy could feel it entering in through both ears.

Make it stop. Make the pain stop.

The pain didn’t end. It only got worse. The black stuff worked its way down his throat, like a monstrous fist, spreading into his lungs and collecting around his heart. Something was biting into the top of his head. It was tearing hair and skin away from his skull, but Tommy could hardly feel it. The vision in his right eye cleared just enough to see his arm being torn out of its socket. He watched the thing as it began eating the muscle of his bicep away. I know him, Tommy thought dully. We were in the tank together. We laughed like hell when we shot that fucking horse.

Chapter 36

Joanna had made a promise to herself at the age of twelve that she would one be the Prime Minister of Canada one day. She would’ve preferred being president of the United States, but she hadn’t been born in any of the fifty states, so Canada would have to do. She had made this promise because of her shitty up-bringing. Her father had beaten her mom regularly, and the bastard had molested Joanna every night from the time she was old enough to remember. The beatings and molestations stopped shortly after Joanna’s tenth birthday when a tramp he’d been screwing around with at work planted a pair of scissors into the side of his neck. Joanna had always regretted not having the guts to do it herself.

She had hated men for a long time after that, but eventually Joanna learned to live and work with them again. She never became Prime Minister, but she did become the first female mayor of Brayburne at the age of forty-four. Not too bad considering the crap she had gone through. A lot of people in Brayburne said she had done a terrible job running the town, and when elections were held again, she would be booted out after only one four year term. That didn’t happen either—a few hundred nuclear bombs dropping across the surface of the earth had kept her in office.

And now it was time for Joanna Hensky to release that old hatred for men once again. She wasn’t the weak-willed, overweight dunder-head all the men in town accused her of being. She didn’t appreciate having her office overrun by the military, and seeing her position diminished. Men had been responsible for that, and the single man rushing at her in the tunnel was going to pay for it.

The corpse of Corporal Adam Stevens charged, and Joanna swung the axe upward in a vertical arc. It caught in his distended throat and sliced his lower jaw into two pieces. It split his tongue down the middle, and finally lodged up into the roof of his mouth. She tugged the axe out and a spray of black blood followed, coating her face and splashing across her heavy bosom. She took the axe blade in her hands and drove the sharp end between Adam’s empty eye sockets. He made a wet grunting noise as she pushed it in deep.

They said I was a coward—said I was afraid to get my hands dirty. How’s this for dirty?

She pushed the axe harder and Adam fell back into the tunnel wall. His skull cracked against rock and dirt. Joanna twisted the axe’s blunt end and she heard the cartilage in his nose begin to break. The corporal’s hands found her throat and started to squeeze. His shattered, wet face leaned forward and he tried biting her nose off. Joanna stepped back and Adam pushed her against the other side of the tunnel. Something fell from the belt of his uniform and rolled off into the dark.

Joanna started to feel light-headed. The soldier’s cold, fat fingers were filled with incredible strength, and she was close to passing out. She thought she could feel something else as well—an itching sensation crawling behind her eyeballs and reaching down her throat. Fortunately, Joanna passed out before the ticks could reach her internal organs. It was the last lucky break of her life.

Fred could hear the two struggling less than twenty feet away, but he couldn’t see a thing in the pitch blackness. A rock, or something similarly round in shape, rolled up against the doctor’s ankle. He reached down and felt for it. My God, is this what I think it is? His fingers touched the cool, pitted surface, and his thumb found the release pin. A grenade. He didn’t waste any more time. Joanna would be dead in a few more seconds, and Fred would be right behind her. May as well put Adam out of his misery at the same time. Maybe if Fred and Joanna were blown to bits, they would be spared the awful transformation that had claimed the humanity of so many others.

Fred tried pulling the safety pin, but the thing wouldn’t budge. It remained firmly attached to the grenade. He explored the grenade’s parts with the fingers of his left hand while his right hand kept the lever pressed down against the body of the explosive device. How can it be so complicated? I’ve seen them go off a million times in the movies! He discovered a safety clip holding the safety pin in place. Fred removed the clip and pulled the pin. How much of a delay do these things have? It didn’t much matter, he supposed. Three seconds or thirty, they would all be shredded meat and bone soon enough. Fred threw the grenade down the tunnel shaft. He turned away, fell onto his stomach, and covered his head with his arms.

* * *

Hayden’s sense of direction had returned. He was heading north, and the Trans Canada highway was dead ahead, slicing its way west. There was less than a hundred yards of dirt field left to cross before he would be on the black asphalt, speeding away from Brayburne for the last time. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw the horde of swollen bodies falling away. He was going to make it.

And then the earth in front of him blew up.

He saw a flash of orange, and then a hail of dirt and rocks rained down on the Buick.  The cracked windshield collapsed in, coating him with glass and soil. Hayden slammed on the brake and swerved hard to the left. The car’s back end rocked to a complete halt narrowly avoiding a fall into a six-foot deep hole. Hayden exited the car wondering if the army had set land mines around the town.

He looked down into the smoking crater and saw something moving. A shaking hand coated with blood and dust reached up. A feeble voice called out. “Are you… are you one of them? Have you changed?”

The man in the hole started to hack and cough. Hayden waited until he was done before answering. “I’m still human if that’s what you mean. My name’s Hayden Gooding, and I’m trying to get the hell out of Brayburne.” He held out his hand.

The old man took it. “I’m Fred Gill. I just blew the town’s mayor to smithereens, and I may be having a heart attack.”

* * *

“We must have worked our way up near the tunnel’s original exit. There was only a foot of dirt above my head when that grenade went off.” Fred Gill massaged his chest and stared out into the night through the passenger window as he recounted his story. “If I’d pulled the pin fifty feet earlier, I would likely still be buried under there… Probably been best if I had.”

“Don’t say that,” Hayden replied. “It sounds like you did the mayor a favor. Whatever it is that took those people over isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy.” He pictured the shirtless asshole that had murdered his horse. “Well, maybe with one exception.”

They pulled off of the gravel road and started west again down Highway 16. Brayburne—or what remained of it—was twelve miles behind them. “It’s a plague, Hayden. That black guck that came out of Corporal Stevens, the same shit you saw coming out of all the others… it’s a disease that spreads almost instantaneously from one host to the next. As if bombs destroying civilization wasn’t enough, now those that are left have this to struggle through.”

They drove along in silence for another two minutes before Hayden spoke again. “How’s the chest?”

“Down to a manageable ache. I can take a full breath again. Thought I was a goner for a while there. So much for doctoring myself.”

“Well I’m glad your diagnosis was wrong.”

“Where are we going?”

“I have friends waiting a few miles away. My son’s with them.”

“I meant after that… Where are we going to go? How can we keep ahead of what happened in Brayburne?”

Hayden didn’t know how to keep ahead of a disease that transformed humans into un-dead cannibals, but he did have a good idea where he wanted to go. Convincing Fred Gill and the others would be the tricky part.

Chapter 37

“I need another roll of duct tape.”

“Just gave you the last one.”

Louie leaned back on the third rung of the step ladder and surveyed his work. There was a two-foot long strip at the top of the window frame that hadn’t been sealed over. Every other part of the small shed was secure—or at least enough to his liking—to ensure the smallest of potentially infected insects couldn’t squeeze through. Two rolls alone had been used on the door. “We’ll need more to make this space safe. Every square inch of join has to be covered.”

Roy looked about the four by eight foot storage shed they had trapped themselves inside. Duct tape was running down all four wall corners, and a rectangle above their heads was in place where the walls met the ceiling. “It’s good enough.” He tested the door handle, pushing lightly to show the smaller man how well the door was stuck in place. “No bugs are getting in. I wouldn’t worry about a few inches above the stupid window.”

“All it would take is a couple of mosquitoes working their way in—a single fricking house fly carrying the ticks… and then we’re infected.”

“It’s enough,” Roy insisted. “Bad enough I didn’t get a chance to have a shit outside before you sealed us in.” He kicked the bottom of the door.

“Don’t do that. Don’t tear the seal.”

“We don’t have anything to eat… no water. How long do you think we can stay holed up in here like this for?” Louie didn’t answer, so Roy explained it to him. “Seventy-two fucking hours. We can last three days without water, maybe four if we drink our own piss.”

“It won’t get to that.”

Roy thumped his big back against the metal wall and slid down onto his big fat ass. “Why won’t it get to that? Is the disease that’s making birds and animals fucking crazy going to magically cure itself in the next couple of days?”

“I think the ticks are attracted to heat and movement. If we keep hidden away for the next day or two… if we keep quiet and still… maybe they’ll move on.”

Roy threw one of the empty cardboard tape rolls at him. It bounced off Louie’s forehead. “We wouldn’t be in here at all if you fucking disease control morons hadn’t been messing around with something so dangerous in the first place. Goddamn it, can’t we stay hidden in the house at least?”

Louie rubbed his forehead and peered out through the window. The farm house was less than a hundred feet away. “No way we could seal that place off. Too many windows and doors, not to mention an open chimney, a back deck with two huge sliding doors, and an attached garage.”

“You’re really fucking brilliant, aren’t you?”

Louie looked down at him. “Huh?”

“So maybe your tick-infected birds and insects won’t make it in here—how are we expected to breathe in here with the door and window sealed off?

Louie closed his eyes and thumped the side of his head against the door. “Well… shit. I never thought about that.”

Eight hours earlier—or somewhere thereabouts—Louie and Roy were lying face down in the middle of a dirt field, choking on dust, and listening to the sky around them being torn apart by half a dozen nuclear detonations over the already ruined city of Winnipeg. They had struggled through the remainder of that bleak plain and come across the farm. The house, barely standing after the latest round of explosions, had been abandoned days before. Louie had insisted they find someplace smaller—a manageable area they could seal off. They had seen animals become infected with the ticks, and Louie suspected even smaller, more mobile creatures, would be able to spread the infection.

Roy had said it was all a bunch of bullshit. You can’t defend yourself against the insect kingdom. If the bugs wanna get you, the fucking bugs are gonna get you. Louie suspected Tick-LDV3 couldn’t be carried by living organisms much smaller than a bumblebee—the microscopic arachnids would require larger, more complex organisms to control—but what did he know? He was no scientist.

They found a bulk six-pack of duct tape left behind in a drawer in the farmhouse kitchen. There wasn’t much else; no food, water, nothing of real value to a couple of men trying to survive in a nuclear wasteland now becoming inhabited with tick-infested hosts—living and dead.

Louie finally won the argument and convinced Roy to help him clear out the small storage shed. He truly believed whatever animals there were left roaming the blasted countryside would soon starve to death, or die from drinking the irradiated water sitting in the lakes and running in the rivers. Even Tick-LDV3 couldn’t survive long in an environment like that. Or so he had hoped.

Louie opened his eyes, slid down, and sat on the small shed’s plywood floor across from Louie. The area was small, their feet almost touched. There was nothing left in the shed except the two men. All the milk crates, every stinking bag of garbage, and every box filled with empty liquor bottles, had been removed to allow them room. “Okay, so maybe sealing ourselves in here wasn’t the brightest idea, but it was safer than staying out in the open.”

“At least we could breathe out in the open. It still fucking reeks in here. Goddamn… I’m already feeling lightheaded.”

Louie ran his fingers along the narrow panelling set over where the walls met the floor. The tape—if they’d had anymore to spare—wouldn’t have held. There was too much dirt and crud on the floor for the adhesive to stick to. If any insects were going to get in, they would crawl through there. “Okay, we’ll open the door every few minutes and let some fresh air in. But you have to promise me to only open it an inch or so, and not leave it open any longer than a few seconds. We can’t risk those ticks getting a lock on us.”

“Can I at least step out and take a leak?”

“I wouldn’t advise it.”

Roy clambered back up to his feet and started tearing tape away from the door. “Then I’ll stick my dick out and let it flow.” Seconds later he was urinating out onto the ground through a six-inch crack of open door. “Christ, that feels good.”

Louie listened to the muddy splattering sound for another half minute. “Can’t you go any faster? We have to shut that door and keep quiet.”

“Going as fast as I can.” Roy could see a bit of grey field to the south side of the house through the door crack. He thought he saw something moving out there in the pre-dawn light. He pushed out the last bit of urine and leaned forward for a better look. “You aren’t going to believe this… I think our food shortage problem is about to become a thing of the past.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Cows, Louie. I can see three or four cows grazing out in the field.”

“Shut the door,” Louie said. “Quietly.” There was nothing left for the cattle to graze on out in the fields, he realized. Whatever it was that Roy had seen out there was no longer chewing grass.

“Why are you freaking? Let’s get out there and kill one of the fuckers. We could be eating rib eyes for the next month!”

“You’re an idiot.”

A full ten seconds passed as the two men glared at each other in the early morning light.

“What did you say to me?”

Louie had spent the majority of his life being pushed around by assholes. It was the number one reason he’d trapped his co-workers deep underground and unleashed TICK-LDV3 into the world. And now here he was, confined inside a small space with the biggest asshole of them all. Roy may have kept him safe up to this point, but Louie was getting awfully sick of his mouth.

“Read my lips. You… are… a… fucking… idiot.”

There was no time for Louie to react, and nowhere to move. Roy’s shoulder squished into his face, and he felt the back of his skull grind into the metal wall. He heard the bigger man’s grunts and smelled the sour stink of his breath as he worked Louie’s neck beneath one thick arm.

“Gonna fucking kill you for that, man. Gonna squeeze that greasy fuckin’ head right off your skinny fuckin’ shoulders.”

Louie bit down into his wrist hard enough to draw blood. Roy squealed and released him. He slammed back into the far wall and stared down at the bite marks on his skin. “You… You bit me. Fuck… You got the sickness. You’re one of them. Goddamn… I’m gonna turn now, too!”

Louie was wiping the man’s sweat away from his neck. “That’s why you’re an idiot—thinking you’re infected because I bit you.”

“So why’d you do it? Who bites someone in a fight?”

“You said you were going to kill me. What was I supposed to do? You outweigh me by at least a hundred and eighty pounds.”

“You saying I’m fat?”

“No, I’m saying I’m a hundred and thirty pounds. Little shits like me have to gouge eyeballs, kick nut-sacks, and bite.”

There was a look in the man’s eyes that worried Louie. It was a quiet, predatory stare. He had seen it seconds before Roy had murdered the woman running the Sandman hotel. It was the same look he’d seen before he punched Tracy Klausburg, breaking her nose and shattering her teeth. “You think I’m over three-hundred? Is that what you’re saying to me? You think Roy Rodger is a three-hundred-plus fatty? You slimy little cocksucker.”

“Your last name is Rogers?” Louie started to giggle. He couldn’t help himself. “Roy Rogers—like the singing cowboy?”

“It’s Rodger. With a ‘d’ in the middle and no fucking ‘s’ on the end.”

Louie laughed out loud. “Still… that’s hilarious. Roy Rogers. Seriously, your parents were real dicks naming you Roy.”

Roy was on him again in a flash. He smashed into the smaller man with enough force to crumple the wall outwards and tip the entire shed up off the ground. Louie bit into his arm again, but Roy Rodger was oblivious to the pain. He picked Louie up and threw him into the opposite wall. The shed rocked the other way. He charged again and the shed crashed down onto its side.

The infected cattle feeding on the remains of the farm’s owner and his daughter two-hundred feet away lifted their bloated heads. One of them snorted black fluid out of its nostrils and kicked at the dirt with its back hooves. It started towards the noise, and the others followed.

Chapter 38

Morning had cast its dull grey light across the plains, but the pit was still drenched in shadows as Hayden pulled the battered Buick off the highway and onto the gravel road. He saw a wisp of white smoke rising above a pile of loose rocks and realized they were still there before Caitlan’s Audi came into view a few seconds later.

“I thought you said they wouldn’t be here,” Fred Gill said seated next to him.

“I told them not to wait past midnight. Obviously they didn’t listen.” Hayden’s tone was hard, but a big grin had broken out across his face.

Angela was sitting in front of the remains of a small fire. A heavy green comforter—one of two that Caitlan had snuck into the trunk of her car while staying at the Sandman hotel—was drawn loosely around her shoulders. Under the same blanket, something started to move by her feet. Nicholas’s head poked out as Hayden pulled up and parked across from them. The boy scurried out and rushed into his arms before he could remove himself from the driver’s seat.

Hayden kissed the mess of hair on top of his head. “Hey, squirt. Miss me?”

“I thought maybe you got lost,” the boy said in a rush. “Then I thought maybe them big bombs got you. Then I thought them dumb soldiers beat you up. Then—

“Easy, Nicholas, go slow!” Hayden nodded at Angela. “Why are you still here?”

“Where were we supposed to go?”

“North. I told you to take the kids and head north.”

The woman shrugged and found a piece of wood to throw into the almost dead fire. She stirred it into the coals with another stick until it burst into flames. “Caitlan and I decided to give you another twenty-four hours after the bombs went off. We figured something that big and unexpected might’ve altered your plans.”

Hayden didn’t know Angela all that well, but it was easy enough to hear the sarcasm in her words—the anger behind them. “I know it was dumb staying behind like that, but I couldn’t let it go… you never saw what they did to my horse.”

“Was your horse all you could think about when you sent us off?” She was looking directly at the boy in Hayden’s arms.

“It wasn’t the smartest decision I’ve ever made.” He hugged Nicholas a little harder. “I won’t do something like that again.”

Angela shrugged again, as if she wasn’t sure she could believe that, or perhaps that she no longer cared. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Fred Gill, a doctor from Brayburne.”

Angela shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Fred. I’m Angela. So why did you leave Brayburne?”

“There’s no Brayburne left,” he answered softly.

“The bombs were that close? We thought they went off towards Winnipeg.”

“Not bombs.” He exchanged a dark glance with Hayden. “I don’t think we should discuss it around the boy.”

The back door of the Audi opened up and Amanda spilled out onto the ground from within the folds of the second Sandman comforter. Her brother followed seconds after. “You came back,” the girl said.

Michael sneered up at him and wiped sleep from his eyes. “Good. I was getting sick of all these girls ordering me around.”

Hayden thought the look was approving, but he couldn’t be sure. The twins, Angela, Caitlan, and perhaps even the doctor, were now the most important people in his life—they were the only people in his life. And then there was Nicholas… his son. The boy still believed Jake had been his father, but there was no denying the fact he had grown close to Hayden in the last few weeks. Perhaps a part of him did see the truth. Maybe that’s why Nicholas was holding him so tightly this very moment. He placed him back on the ground with some effort.

“Yeah, I came back, and I won’t let us get separated again.” It was a promise Hayden intended to keep. “Where’s Caitlan?”

He heard the leather upholstery squeak from the front seat of the Audi. “Trying to get some goddamn sleep but failing miserably.” She climbed out and gave him an even more disapproving glare than Michael. “Took your sweet time joining back up with us.”

“I was… detained.”

“Who’s the old fart?”

“My name is Dr. Fred Gill.” The old physician didn’t offer his hand out to her.

Angela cut in before things could escalate—and they usually did when Caitlan was being introduced to strangers. “Let’s build this fire up and get warm.” She looked over at the Buick’s smashed in windshield and bloody fenders. “You can tell us all about what happened back in Brayburne.”

Hayden and Fred exchanged another ominous look. “I don’t think there will be enough time to get into the specifics,” the doctor said.

“We really should get moving,” Hayden added. He was looking out over the gravel pit’s southern wall, back the way they had just traveled.

Amanda took Nicholas by the hand and led him away from the adults. Smart kid, Hayden thought. Michael looked at the others in turn and finally shrugged. “I get it… Grown-up shit.” He buried his hands in his pants pockets and kicked a stone out of his path on the way to join the other kids.

Hayden whistled at them ten minutes later to join them again. The children slid down from their gravel pile perch and ran towards the cars. Angela and Caitlan were moving fast, folding up blankets and packing their meagre collection of supplies back into the cars. Hayden was refueling the Buick, the old doctor was draining another container into the Audi. Michael had seen his parents act this way when they were still alive. It usually meant something bad was coming—a big thunderstorm maybe, or perhaps a blizzard. It’s how Angela had acted when they were trying to get out of the shopping mall without that murdering psychopath ending their lives like he had their mother’s. Calm but anxious. Quick but not rushed.

Quiet fear.

“You guys are scaring me,” Amanda said. “Why do we have to leave so fast? This place is fun.”

“You kids ever go to Disney World?” Caitlan asked.

The twins shook their heads in unison and the girl answered. “Mom and Dad said they were gonna take us there in a year or two. Guess that ain’t gonna happen now.”

“Nope, I don’t imagine it will any time soon.” She lit a cigarette and inhaled a few quick drags before continuing. “Well, children… we’re readying to travel about as far away from that magical kingdom as you can go.” She hiked a thumb behind her in the direction of the two men. “According to those yahoos, we’re heading somewhere nice and freaking cold… cold enough to freeze the life out of anything that might decide to try and follow us.”

Again the twins responded together. “Huh?”

She flicked her butt into the smoldering fire. “I’ll explain what I can in the car, but right now we have to start hauling ass.”

Chapter 39

The sound of the walls buckling in on all sides was like metallic thunder crashing around them. “Goddamn it.” Louie wheezed somewhere beneath the behemoth crushing him. “Get the hell off me! The shed’s gonna tear apart and leave us exposed.”

Roy was no longer trying to kill Louie—or at least the energy he was now expending wasn’t going to get the job done on its own. The big man was exhausted, laboring for breath on top of the smaller man. “Where’s all the… where’s that fuckin’ crashing sound coming from? Why’s the… why’s the shed still rocking?”

A giant bovine head smashed through the window and lodged in the frame. The raging beast thrashed, and the shed moved with it.

“Fuck me!” Roy screamed. The cow’s black nose poked at his leg and enveloped an entire boot in its mouth. Roy could feel the intense heat of it, the pressure of its teeth closed in around his ankle. “Its gonna eat my foot! Jesus Christ, Louie, make it stop!” He stared into the animal’s wet, dead eyes and struggled to pull free. A grey mist was clustered to the thing’s snout—crawling, swimming, moving up in snaking lines to the corners of its eyes, and down into the maw of its dripping mouth.  Roy kicked with his free foot and felt something pop under his boot heel as it stuck inside one of the eye sockets. The creature made an enraged snorting noise, and black snot shot out of its nostrils, spraying across Roy’s pants.

“Get those pants off,” Louie wheezed. “The ticks are all over you!”

“I can’t! The thing’s going to tear my fucking leg off!”

Louie managed to work his hands up under Roy’s armpits. He braced his feet against one buckled wall and started to push. Roy sensed in his fear what he was trying to do and kicked at the cow’s face again. The heel jammed into its other eye, and Roy pushed back with all of his remaining strength. He heard the laces on his boot begin to snap against the teeth as his trapped foot started to pull free. The black slime on his pants was working its way towards his crotch.

The boot remained in the animal’s mouth, and Roy’s foot slid out. He unbuckled his belt and pushed down on the waistband of his pants with quivering hands. Both Roy and Louie squeezed up into a corner of the overturned shed. The cow coughed the boot out; its grey, swollen tongue whipped against the metal wall like a grounded fish. The wooden window frame began to splinter apart as more of the beast’s body pushed through the opening.

“We’re fucking dead,” Roy cried. He had pushed the tick-covered pants away, but it would only buy them a few more seconds. Something outside smashed up against the wall they were cowering against. Another enraged cow was pushing them towards the snapping jaws of the one jammed in the window frame.

Multiple gunshots fired from somewhere outside. Part of the cow’s head disappeared in a red spray and splattered against the metal wall inches from Roy and Louie. The snorting and snapping ceased. The cow went limp, its body settled onto the ground. Its head went still at an awkward angle still lodged in the window frame.

There were more gun shots, and the smashing behind them stopped. Whatever was ramming into their backs was as dead as the thing hanging in front of them. Louie continued counting the number of shots outside. Three, four, five… six. It was a heavy, thumping sound—more cannon than gun barrel. It had to be a powerful weapon indeed to tear open the thick skull of the dead cow in front of them. Finally the shooting ended, and Louie’s ears rang.

A woman’s muffled voice called out. “Is anybody in there?”

Another female voice responded. “Well something alive is definitely in there. Those infected cattle wouldn’t have tried tearing it apart if there wasn’t.”

Roy’s fat face was stuck up against Louie’s cheek. He whispered. “Should we answer?”

Louie shook his head adamantly. “Not yet. Listen.”

The voices continued mumbling for a few more moments, and then one of the women laughed. “It’s probably a stray cat, or maybe a racoon crawled in through the window. We wasted a lot of good ammunition on a critter. Let’s go.”

The black slime covering Roy’s discarded pants had crawled back up into the animal’s opened brains. It started winding its way back down the side of the wall in a half dozen separate trails. It would be on the men in seconds if they didn’t act.

Roy cried out. “Help us! We’re still alive! Don’t leave us in here!”

The door started tearing open a few seconds later. A sharp piece of metal jutted through the crack and settled on the door’s edge. It was a garden hoe, Louie realized. The cattle killers were reefing back on the door, using the tool for leverage. Roy kicked at it, dislodging more duct tape and bent metal. The shed was on its side, and the door was stuck on a horizontal level four feet off the ground. It finally gave way with a squeal and dropped downwards.

The men saw their rescuers for the first time. They were clad in baggy one-piece yellow suits that looked like plastic. Bright red strips ran down the arms, and thicker bands of the same color were sown into the chest and back areas. They reminded Louie of the hazmat suits the scientists wore back in the DSC. These ones didn’t look as thoroughly sealed, however. Judging by the heavy appearance of the material, he guessed they were meant to be more fire retardant than disease resistant. Louie’s view was cut off suddenly as Roy planted an elbow in his face and pushed himself up and out of the mangled tool shed. Louie crawled out seconds after, mindful to keep as much distance possible between him and the snaking trails of microscopic ticks.

Roy stood on his feet and waved his arms above his head. “We’re unarmed. Please… don’t shoot us.”

The woman holding the impossibly large rifle in her hands pointed the weapon at his chest. “Back up, big boy. Nice and slow.”

Roy took a step back, the other woman pushed him a few more feet with the end of the hoe. “You heard the lady. Back the fuck up. Let’s get a good look at you.” He did as he was told. The back of his foot caught on the hoof of another dead cow, and Roy ended up on his rear end in the dirt.

“What the hell were you two doing in there?” The one with the hoe asked.

Her friend pointed the rifle towards the general vicinity of Roy’s dirty underwear. “I think it’s pretty obvious what they were about to do.”

“It isn’t like that,” Louie said.

“Fuck no!” Roy added.

The taller woman tossed the hoe down and removed her gas mask. Dirty blond hair fell to her shoulders. She was pretty—even through all the sweat and strands of hair stuck to her patchy red forehead. Light freckles covered her cheeks and her eyes were the palest shade of grey Louie had ever seen. “It really doesn’t matter to us how you guys get your kicks. There’s not that many people left to judge what any of us do anymore.”

“Grace! Get your mask back on.”

“Relax. The air won’t kill us that fast. Damn thing’s too hot, anyway. Go on—take yours off and we’ll introduce ourselves to the fellas.”

“Not here… away from the cattle.”

The black mists were crawling about the dead animals, spreading out, and moving towards the sound of their voices. Louie and Roy didn’t need any more prodding. They followed the one called Grace at a quick jog as the other kept the gun trained on their backs. They moved to the front of the farm house where an ATV with a small open trailer hitched to the back sat waiting. The woman with the rifle placed her weapon onto the pile of junk accumulated in the trailer and started to remove her mask. Roy took his opportunity when the bulky mouth filter was covering her eyes and kicked out towards her stomach. The bare heel of his other foot sank in the soft ground, and he slipped, missing the woman by inches. Grace yelled out a warning, but the other woman was already reacting. She threw the mask at Roy as he continued stumbling back, trying to keep his balance. The metal filter struck his chin with a crack, Roy fell to the ground again on his side.

The woman went for her gun, but Roy’s enraged speed didn’t allow her enough time to grab it. He was on his feet and lunging. Roy swung a giant arm through the air that would’ve snapped her neck if she hadn’t been quick enough. Unfortunately for Roy, she was. A knee landed in the soft pillow of his gut, knocking out whatever air was left in him. He fell to his knees, gagging, and struggling for breath, but the woman wasn’t finished with him yet. She drove an elbow into the center of his back, flattening him completely into the dirt. A knife almost as long as her forearm appeared in one hand, and she had the blade pressed up to Roy’s throat before he could even think of trying to get back on his feet.

The fight—if it could be called that—had lasted less than five seconds.

“Don’t do it, Fiona. Let’s just leave the assholes here and head back.”

Louie didn’t say a word. A part of him hoped she would slit the fat man’s throat wide open. God knows he deserved no better.

“Nah, I’m not going to kill the pig. We’re taking them with us to Odessa.”

“You can’t be serious—there’s no room.”

“There’s all kinds of room.”

Fiona was the direct opposite of Grace in almost every respect; she was small and darker skinned. Her black hair was shaved closely to her skull, and her eyes were deep brown. They were both damned attractive, though, Louie realized. There was no missing that.

“Why are you staring at me?” Fiona shoved Roy’s face into the ground and wagged the knife at Louie. “You never seen a girl before?”

His hands were still above his head. He sank to his knees. “I’ve seen plenty… not too many recently though.”

“Smart ass, hey? What’s your name?”

“Louie. Louie Finkbiner. The guy you’re holding on the ground is Roy.”

“Does Roy have a last name?” The tall blonde asked. She had retrieved the other woman’s rifle and was waving it back and forth between the two men.

Roy grunted into the dirt. “Don’t… fucking… say it.”

Louie shrugged. Fiona stood up, but left a boot planted in the small of Roy’s back. “My last name is Benitez—Grace’s is Sutter. And it doesn’t really matter what this fucker’s name was… I’m going to call him Piggy from here on in.”

He squirmed under her boot. “Bitch.”

“No. My name is Fiona. Call me anything else and I’ll carve you open like the porker you so strongly resemble.” She ground her heel into his spine. “We clear on that, Piggy?”

Roy ceased his struggles and nodded his head.

“Where’s Odessa?” Louie asked.

“Forget you heard it,” Grace warned. “We’re not taking you there.”

Fiona held a gloved hand up. “Yeah, we are. Having a couple more working bodies could help us keep things running more smoothly.”

“This is bullshit, they can’t be trusted. We’d have to keep an eye on them all the time, and I don’t want to babysit twenty-four-seven for the next ten months.”

“Ten months?” Louie asked. “Where… what is this Odessa?”

They ignored him and Fiona whispered something in Grace’s ear. A look of terror spread over the blonde woman’s face. “You promised we wouldn’t have to do that again.” Fiona mumbled a few more words and Grace nodded resignedly.

“Answer him for fuck’s sake!” Roy yelled from the ground. “What the fuck is Odessa? Where are you taking us?”

Fiona opened a tool box at the front of the trailer and pulled a coil of rope out. She tied Roy’s wrists together behind his back. “Okay, Piggy, let’s go for a ride.” Grace had already started rearranging the collection of junk in the trailer to allow the men room. It looked as though the women had been traveling from one garage sale to the next, acquiring crap at every stop. There were toaster ovens, coffee makers, folding chairs, boxes of plates and cutlery, and stacks of magazines and books. The women conferred privately for another minute and tossed most of it out onto the ground. Louie and Roy climbed in and sat in the small space amongst what was considered the more essential items—water containers and fuel canisters, cases of light bulbs and batteries, canned food, scented candles, and stack after stack of toilet paper.

“I can come back for the rest once we have them settled in,” Grace offered.

“No way,” Fiona said. “We agreed. This was our last supply run. It’s getting too dangerous. Whatever it is out here turning people into mindless cannibals has started to spread. If all the animals can get this sickness as well—” she paused and looked back towards the mangled tool shed and the dead carcasses surrounding it, “—it’s only a matter of time before we get sick, or something like that takes us out first.” She strapped the oxygen mask back over her face.

Grace shuddered and did the same. She climbed onto the ATV and started it up. Fiona sat behind her, turned the other way with the big rifle trained on their passengers, and spoke one last time before they set off. “Besides, it might be nice having someone else to talk to during the winter. Maybe once they’re cleaned up and looking more presentable, we’ll have ourselves a couple of fuck-buddies.”

Louie and Roy perked their heads up at that as the ATV sped away.

Chapter 40

“North?” Amanda asked. “Like where it’s all polar bears and Eskimos?”

“Hopefully not that far north,” Angela replied. “But far enough where the cold will kill any kind of… sickness we could possibly catch further south.”

Caitlan followed the Buick through the abandoned Saskatchewan town of Langenburg and turned right onto a highway marked 10 North. “We’d have to go all the way to Santa’s fricking workshop to be sure,” she mumbled. Angela gave her a stern look. “I’m not trying to scare the kids, but let’s be realistic—what does Hayden expect to accomplish by driving six or seven hundred miles straight north? Yeah, it’ll be colder, but there’s still people there, and wildlife… all kinds of wild life. If this disease travels as fast as they say it can, we won’t be safe anywhere.”

“Do you mean radiation sickness?” Michael asked. “Going north won’t help that if you’ve already been exposed, anybody knows that. Besides, once all that gunk rises up into the atmosphere, it spreads all over. Pretty soon it’ll be nuclear winter all over the planet.”

Caitlan peered into the rear-view mirror at him. “You’re a real Einstein, aren’t you?”

The boy shrugged, leaned back into the seat, and stared at the grey clouds outside his window. Angela turned up the stereo, adjusted the volume levels so it was higher in the back, and continued speaking to Caitlan alone in a lowered voice. “We agreed not to bring any of this up to them.”

“Their mother was shot before their eyes. They lost everything, just like you… just like me. The only reason they’re still alive is because they know how to survive. If you ask me, telling them we’re running away from a horde of zombies would give them a better chance to keep on surviving. We can’t keep pampering them forever.”

“We’ll have more than enough time to break it to them when we get there. We’ll have nothing but time.”

I’m looking forward to it. These last few weeks have been crazy—running around, fighting, killing. It will be nice settling in some place where it’s cold and dark. All alone. More Daddy-Daughter time.

Angela stared out the passenger side window at the same clouds that had diverted Michael’s attention. Beneath the canopy of depressing grey was a carpet of spruce trees. They spread ahead of the Audi on either side of the highway for miles. The bombs that had dropped in the cities had laid waste to everything in their murdering perimeter. Farther out, and further north, things seemed more normal—more like they used to be. The forests were still standing, the lakes still and peaceful. If the sun had the ability to shine through, there might be color in the world again, Angela thought. And then again, there might not. Michael was right. The gunk in the upper atmosphere was beginning to settle back down. Even in the gloom, Angela suspected the endless vista of trees before them was different somehow—not quite as green. The lakes not as clean.

“Hayden was right,” Caitlan said.

Angela looked at her. “What?”

“About heading north. Not only are we putting distance between us and whatever it is that happened in Brayburne, but we’re finding more we can use. It seems all the folks that lived in more populated areas are tending to stay down there… poor bastards. The further north we travel, the more things seem unchanged. All the abandoned cars we’ve found in the last few hours still have gas in the tanks. Looting hasn’t spread this far yet. As much as I detest the cold and being isolated, it was the smartest move we could make.”

“What’s the name of that fishing lodge he’s taking us to again?”

“Odin Lake.” Caitlan took her hands off the steering wheel and shook her fists at the sky. “All powerful god of the north,” She thumped them down lightly on the wheel. “He’s the white-bearded asshole that makes it snow and calls lightning from the clouds.”

Michael leaned forward. “Thor’s the god of thunder. Odin’s his dad.”

“How much of our conversation did you hear?” Angela asked.

“The whole thing,” Amanda answered. “Zombies aren’t all that scary. They move all stiff and jerky, and they’re really slow.”

A shiver ran up Angela’s spine. Not the ones Hayden and Dr. Gill saw.

Fred was driving the Buick. They had just refuelled both vehicles from a farmer’s outdoor tanks on the outskirts of a small town called Baskerville. They’d explored a shed next to the tanks and found a wide roll of clear plastic. Its original purpose was likely meant to protect flowers and vine-growing vegetables during frosty nights, but Fred figured it could serve well enough as a replacement windshield. They sealed it along the edges with a roll of packing tape. The view was a little warped, but it was better than sucking air at speeds over fifty miles an hour.

“My Dad took me to Odin Lake when I was fourteen,” Hayden said as they headed further along Highway 10. “It’s about as far north as you can go on four wheels. Any further than that and you pretty much have to charter a plane.”

“Never heard of it,” the old doctor replied. He looked in the rear view mirror to see if the Audi was still following. It was. “I visited Churchill back in the late eighties. That’s when there were still plenty of polar bears in the area to make it a decent tourist attraction. Swore to myself I’d never travel a single mile north of Brayburne after that. The bears were okay, but goddamn it, I can’t stand the cold.”

“And here you are breaking your promise. Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. Odin Lake isn’t as far north as Churchill, but I’m betting it will get plenty cold in the next few months… cold enough to keep those things away, hopefully.” Fred sighed. “What was the fishing like?”

“I don’t remember. We never went hungry the week we were there, so I guess it can’t be all that bad. A couple of retired school teachers ran the lodge located on an island out on the lake. The place is big, and they had it stocked with enough firewood to get through the coldest of winters. Nice people. I hope they’re still there.”

“I just hope they take us in.”

Hayden went quiet. They had been nice people two decades ago—to paying customers. God only knew how they’d react when seven strangers showed up at their front door expecting accommodations for months instead of days. He pulled a road map of northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba out of the glove box. He spread it out across his lap and traced along their twisting highway with a finger. “I miss having a phone that can tell you routes and distances. If I had to guess, I’d say it’ll take another ten or twelve hours before we arrive—and that’s only if we can find another town or farm to re-fill the cars.”

“We’ll find gas, I’m not worried about that.”

Hayden folded the map back up. They travelled in silence for another twenty minutes along the twisting highway surrounded by forests. The farther they went, the more rugged and wild the terrain became. They slipped by silent lakes enclosed within ancient mountain ranges so old they were now only considered rolling hills. We can live off this land, Hayden thought. So long as the poison in the air doesn’t destroy it first.

Nicholas stirred in the back seat. He’d been sleeping for the last four hours, and two hundred miles. Hayden turned and reached back to adjust the blanket over his legs. The boy woke up and smiled. “We there yet?”

Hayden returned the smile. “Not yet, pal. We’ll make a few stops along the way, get out and stretch our legs, and before you know it, we’ll be there.”

“Are we really going to camp on an island?”

“You bet. We’ll have to park the cars and row a couple of canoes just to get there.”

“No motor boats at Odin Lake?” Fred asked.

“None that I can recall.”

“Don’t go putting a damn paddle in my hands when we get there.”

Nicholas scolded him. “Don’t swear, Mr. Gill. I hear enough bad words from Caitlan.”

“Sorry, son.” Fred looked back into the rear view mirror and grinned at the boy. The smile faded quickly from his face when he saw the Audi was no longer following.

Chapter 41

They had arrived at a potash mine—one of the biggest in the world—sitting half a dozen miles north of the Canada-US border. The industrialized mill topside was the size of a small town all on its own. It was a metal conglomeration of refining buildings, processing plants, storage bins, and heavy machinery garages.

“Welcome to Odessa, boys.” Fiona jumped off of the ATV and pointed her rifle straight into Roy’s face. “No more stupid shit, okay, Piggy?” Roy remained silent and still. She glanced at Louie, but kept the weapon on the other man. “What about you, skinny? You’ve behaved up to this point… you going to try something heroic while I unlock the gate?”

“No, ma’am.”

Grace turned and levelled a hand gun in their direction anyway as Fiona went to the ten-foot high chain-link fence barring their way. She produced a key from inside one of her heavy gloves and slipped it inside a padlock the size of Roy’s fist. Fiona swung the gate open and Grace drove the ATV through.

“What is that?” Louie asked as they proceeded down a service road towards the mill’s main building. He was pointing to the gigantic mountain of dull orange directly behind the facility.

“That’s the leftovers you get after fifty years of drilling like worms a mile underground,” Fiona said.

It had to be over a two miles wide and more than five-hundred feet high. Louie could see dozens of diagonal trails winding up the sides of the man-made mountain where more recent dumps had been deposited. He had always thought the earth removed from the ground to plant Winnipeg’s Disease Study Center was a staggering amount, but it paled in comparison to this monstrosity. “My God, I bet they can see this thing from space.” Nobody answered him.

They went past an empty security booth, drove across an almost empty staff parking lot the size of a football field, and finally came to a stop in front of a large storage building. Fiona cut the rope behind Roy’s back. “Make yourself useful. Grab an armload of supplies and head on in.”

Grace slid a giant door open and stood off to one side as Fiona made the men carry everything from the back of the ATV into the dark building. When they had finished she pulled an empty pallet on a hand-jack out from the shadows and instructed them to reload everything neatly onto it.

Roy grumbled. “You could’ve had us put this shit directly onto the pallet without making us lift everything twice.”

“You can use the exercise.”

They did as they were told as the women removed their cumbersome protective suits. Fiona locked the big door from the inside and flipped a switch up on a panel set into the wall. A dozen red emergency lights flickered on thirty feet above their heads. She instructed Roy to pull the jack after them towards the far end of the cavernous room. Louie had to help Roy push the jack up a slight incline the last ten feet. They parked their load in front of a large rectangular iron grate built into the wall.

Louie stuck his fingers through the holes and leaned forward. A rush of cool air from below washed over his face.

“Careful,” one of the women warned as the iron door started to slide open. Fiona jammed the gun barrel into Roy’s back, forcing him to push the jack onto a metal platform. Louie followed him into a cage.

Louie felt a familiar dread begin to gnaw at his guts. “Where… where are we going?”

Fiona and Grace stepped into the cage and the iron door rattled back into place with an echoing clang. Fiona opened a control box welded onto one of the interior bars and pressed a big red button. A klaxon blared out, and Louie felt the metal plate under his feet drop away momentarily. The cage started moving down.

“We’re going into the heart of Odessa Shaft 168. A mile underground where there’s no radioactive fallout and blood-thirsty cattle.”

“That’s great.” Louie sat on the pile of stacked toilet paper and hung his head. “Just wonderful.”

Chapter 42

They found the Audi half a mile back in the ditch, lying on its roof in a cloud of dust. Smoke was pouring out from the completely crumpled-in front end. Hayden yelled at Nicholas to stay in the back seat of the Buick while he rushed out.

Fred, a few seconds slower than the younger man, called out behind him. “Be careful! They hit something on the road. The doctor crept towards the twitching creature. A big hoofed foot struck against the bloody pavement repeatedly. Fred kept his distance and walked slowly in front of it. A massive antler scraped along the highway, dragging the remains of the Audi’s windshield wrapped within it. Black liquid oozed out of the moose’s nostrils and mouth.

“My God… it has the disease.” He felt his chest start to tighten as he ran for the destroyed vehicle. A scream tore through the heavy, stinking air. Fred stopped. “Hayden?” He pictured the reanimated Fulger twins crawling out from the back—their bodies burned, their arms and legs bloated grey, their fingernails black, scratching in the dirt.

Another scream. It was Caitlan. “Goddamn it! Quit pulling so hard! My leg’s stuck in the console!”

Michael and Amanda appeared out of the smoke. They headed towards Fred, shaken and scared, but definitely not bloated and grey. The doctor ignored the pain in his chest and went to them, checking for broken bones and any sign of head injury. “Are you two okay?”

“My ears are ringing,” Amanda said.

Michael coughed and spit on the ground. “Uuck… that smoke tastes like ass.”

Fred steered them away from the thrashing moose. “Looks like you two are going to be alright. Go wait by the other car and I’ll check you over more thoroughly in a minute.”

Hayden and Angela emerged from the smoking car wreck, supporting Caitlan between them. “Told you not to pull so hard,” the big woman complained. “I think you broke my fucking hip.”

“Would you rather I left you there to asphyxiate?”

Fred helped them back to the Buick. Caitlan leaned against the hood with a noisy grunt. “Is it broken, Doc?”

“Not now, Caitlan,” he said. Fred grabbed Hayden and started pulling him back to the moose. “The sickness has spread,” he whispered. “We can’t outrun it.”

The big animal was no longer moving. Its hooves and antlers were completely still.

“It’s dead,” Hayden announced.

The blood pooled around its gargantuan head was deep red, not black. Fred ran his fingers through his thinning, white hair. “I thought… I could’ve sworn…”

“After everything we’ve seen, I’m not surprised what you thought you saw.”

Fred actually laughed. “I’ve never been so happy to see something so dead in my life.”

A low whumping noise sounded from the car wreckage. Orange flames lit up through the smoke. “Come on,” Hayden said. “Nothing more to see here.”

A minute later the Audi’s gas tank blew. Caitlan’s treasured ride was no more. She sat dejectedly on the Buick’s hood as Fred checked her over. Her hip wasn’t broken, but he suspected her spirit had been. The seven crammed into the remaining vehicle and turned back north.

An obese black bear lurched out of the trees a minute later and started feasting on the moose’s spilled steaming intestines. Black liquid ran from its dead eyes and dripped from its red snout. Birds swooped in and pecked at the remains as well.

The moose’s broken body jerked back to life.

Chapter 43

Louie watched the roughly hewn rock slip by as they descended into the earth. There was a six-inch space between the bars of their cage and the mine shaft wall. Sometimes that wall sank back even further, allowing a foot to a foot and a half between jagged rock and dropping cage. The bars surrounding them were spaced approximately eight inches apart—not wide enough to actually fit through, but definitely enough room to push a human head into and inflict major damage. Louie considered briefly doing just that to Fiona. It would rip her head off. Worse yet, it could drag her body through and damage the lift. And then we’d be stuck here, a quarter mile beneath the surface.

“How long does this fucking drop last?” Roy asked.

“Fourteen minutes,” Fiona replied. “It could be worse. Shaft 292 is a twenty plus minute descent. Why, you afraid of deep holes in the ground, Piggy?”

“I’m going to bury you in one.”

She jabbed his forehead with the barrel end of the rifle. Roy cried out and a trickle of blood ran down the bridge of his nose. “Don’t even think of pushing me between the bars. I’ll hold this trigger down and tear you all to pieces if you try.”

Even with the warning, Louie figured Roy might be psychotic enough to try it anyway. He tried to change the subject. “292… Are there really that many shafts going down?”

Grace answered from behind him. “There are only two main shafts in Odessa. Shaft 168 was the first, drilling began in 1968. Shaft 2 was dug out in—”

“1992,” Roy interrupted. “We get it. We’re not stupid.”

Fiona stabbed with the rifle again and broke out one of his front teeth.

“Fucking cunfff!”

“Keep it up,” she warned. “Shoot your mouth off a few more times and you’ll likely bleed to death before we reach bottom.”

The four traveled the last nine minutes without speaking another word. The only sounds were those of Roy repeatedly spitting blood and tooth fragments onto the pallet’s edge, and the mournful twang of the heavy steel cable carrying them down. Finally they heard the blare of a second klaxon beneath, and the cage started to slow. It thumped softly at the bottom and the door opened automatically before them.

Fiona backed out first into an immense dimly lit cavern, her rifle aimed at Roy’s face. “Bring the pallet out and park it by the others.”

Louie pushed from the other side as Roy pulled on the jack handle. His eyes wandered up along the curved rock walls, up into the dark shadows fifty feet above where hundreds of stalactites hung down like monstrous fangs. They pushed their load into place next to a pallet stacked with drinking water bottles. The other pallets were similarly loaded with more emergency living supplies and dry foods; enough to last the four of them a year, if not longer.

Louie spun around in a slow circle, taking it all in. “How did you two find this place?” He looked at them apologetically. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying two women are any less capable of looking after themselves than two men are… but to find a working mine shaft, and then figure out a way to transport all this stuff underneath? It’s just… well it’s incredible.”

Grace raised her eyebrows. “This coming from a couple of resourceful men that locked themselves in a tool shed with duct tape?”

“Don’t forget, one of them had his pants off,” Fiona added.

Louie chuckled. “It was turning out to be one of our better days, actually. We’ve been sleeping in open fields and ditches most nights.”

“I can’t believe you,” Roy said. “Look what she’s done to my face! And now you’re trying to suck up to them. You spineless little shit.”

It was true. Louie was sucking up to them. He had been practicing the fine art of sucking up to pretty women and bigger men his entire life. Louie had never become true friends with any of them, but he had a quiet way of being tolerated. He found ways to make himself useful. And when Louie no longer needed someone to fit in with, or to protect his interests, he was pretty good at finding a way of disposing of them. His co-workers at the DSC had learned that the hard way.

Louie figured Roy’s usefulness had come to an end. “See what I’ve had to put up with the last few weeks? The man’s an animal. He’s been threatening to kill me the whole time we’ve been together.”

Roy’s jaw dropped open. “What? I’ve kept you alive.”

“Alive to torment me.” He looked at Fiona and Grace and then pointed at him, his hand shaking for effect. “He was going to rape me in that shed, you saw it for yourselves.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “You were right, we should’ve left them there.”

“It’s too late now. They’ve seen where we are… how to get down here. They might bring others—others carrying the sickness.”

“Then let’s kill them now and dump their bodies down one of the tunnels.”

Louie held both hands out, and they were genuinely shaking. “No! Not me! I know what the sickness is, I know how to fight it. You’ll need me!”

“You’re dead,” Roy whispered. “So fucking dead.”

“The man’s a cold-blooded killer,” Louie said. “I’ve heard him talk in his sleep about how he murdered all these people after the bombs dropped. I saw him bash in a defenceless woman’s face. He would’ve killed her too if I hadn’t talked him out of it.”

Fiona’s rifle swung towards Roy’s face again. “Is this all true, Piggy?”

Roy started to stammer. “He couldn’t know… I never said a goddamn thing… never hurt a fucking soul my entire life.” Fiona took aim at his crotch. Urine started trickling down Roy’s leg. “Oh please, don’t listen to him… none of it’s true.” Roy started to cry. “It was self-defence. People were looting and hurting each other… It was my job to try and keep control. I didn’t want to kill anyone. Please… believe me.”

Fiona pulled the trigger.

Chapter 44

Their luck had improved after totaling the Audi. They found an abandoned but un-looted grocery store in a small town called Slug Lake about four-hundred miles north of the gravel pit they’d originally set out from. They filled the Buick’s big trunk with enough food and basic supplies to last half a year. The road began to deteriorate about another hundred miles on, and gave way to gravel. The gravel became a narrow mud trail with tall spruce trees choking in from either side.

“Are we still on Highway 10?” Angela asked.

A rusted sign a hundred yards ahead confirmed they were. “Almost glad my Audi didn’t make it this far,” Caitlan said from the back seat, squeezed in between Fred and the twins. “I wouldn’t want to drive it in this shit.”

“Language,” Hayden warned. Nicholas crawled up onto his knees and turned in the front seat to face her. He made a zipping motion with his fingers across his lips.

They continued on. The tarnished green forests deepened to smoky grey, and the clouds darkened a dirty mustard color. A cold mist settled on the Buick’s plastic windshield, forcing Hayden to pull over for the night. None of them slept well, and Amanda woke up at one point screaming about dead babies.

Morning wasn’t much of an improvement. The sky looked sick.

“How much further?” Michael asked.

“Another hour,” Hayden answered. “Maybe two.”

It ended up being four. The town of Odin Lake—sitting on the edge of the black body of water with the same name—was nestled in a small valley lined with forest as far the eye could see. There were half a dozen small houses built up into the hill with a single road that led down to a single gas station-general store. The old man running the place filled the Buick’s tank for free, explaining money had about as much use as dried dog turds these days.

Hayden asked if the retired teachers were still staying out at the island lodge.

“Paul and Joyce Baxter? You know them?”

“My Dad and I spent a week there years ago.”

“Yeah, I suppose they’re still there. Most everyone else in town left.” He nodded up to the desolate homes in the hill. “Some of them said they needed to see for themselves what happened down south… Stupid reasoning, if you want my opinion. The whole world’s gone to hell in hand basket. Why do you need to see that? We may not have much up here, but it’s peaceful and quiet.” He replaced the gas cap and patted the Buick’s dented roof. “You might want to get that windshield replaced. The one you got now doesn’t look all that efficient.”

Hayden thanked him for the free fuel and got back into the car. The old man reached in through the open driver’s side window and rested a hand on his shoulder. “So what is it like down there? What’s left?”

“You made the right choice staying put.”

The lodge on the lake was another mile north of town. Hayden spotted it first through a break in the trees. The big single story log cabin sitting on a grassy slab of rock was just as he remembered it, perhaps a little more worn and moss-covered, but seeing it again brought back good memories, and re-calling pleasant things was a gift in itself. The two canoes sitting on the shore’s sandy edge twenty years ago had been upgraded to four sturdy row boats. Business must have been booming near the end, Hayden thought sadly.

The three kids ran for the closest one and Hayden called them back. “Let me go out there alone and speak with them first.”

“I’ll go with you,” Angela said.

It was a short trip—only two hundred yards out—but it felt like miles to Hayden. Something didn’t seem right. The lake was too dark and still. The lodge that had seemed warm and inviting to him as a young teenager now appeared brooding and resistant.

They pulled the boat up along the short wooden dock and climbed out. Hayden knocked lightly on the front door. Angela gave him a look and knocked harder. “Hello?” She called out. “Anybody home?”

Hayden tried the handle and the door pushed in with a loud squeak.

Remember what happened the last time you broke into someone’s house?

“Shut up,” Angela said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I was talking about the door… it needs oil.”

They stepped inside and were greeted with stench.

Angela plugged her nostrils. “Smells like something died in here.”

They found the owners’ decomposing bodies a minute later in one of the four bedrooms. They were nestled in bed with blankets pulled neatly up to their shoulders. Two empty pill bottles lay on the floor.

Hayden and Angela hurried outside for fresh air. “We can’t stay here,” she said. “I can’t stay here after seeing that.”

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

“We can’t go back, Angela. There’s nowhere left to go.”

They discussed it for a few more minutes and finally rowed back to land. Fred and Caitlan agreed to help Hayden bury the bodies while Angela kept the children occupied unloading the car. They left all the lodge windows and doors open as they went about their grisly task. They remained open for the rest of the day and all through the night. They slept in the car one last time.

Chapter 45

“Where’s she taking him?” Louie asked.

“There’s over three hundred miles of tunnels down here,” Grace said. “Who knows where she’ll eventually dump him?”

They were sitting at a fold-out table next to the pallet Louie and Roy had dragged out of the elevator. Louie’s insidious magic had appeared to have worked on the women—at least Grace. They hadn’t killed him. They had kept him. And that’s all Louie needed for the time being. “So are you going to tell me how you guys found this place?”

Grace had boiled them two cups of instant coffee over a hotplate. She handed him one. “We didn’t find it… we worked here.”

“You’re miners?” Louie asked. “Seriously?”

“I worked topside in transport. Made sure the trains picked up the potash in a timely manner. Twice a day, four in the afternoon, four in the morning, three-hundred and sixty-five days a year.”

“What did Fiona do?”

“She did everything. Fiona owns Odessa.”

Roy opened his eyes to darkness. He could feel his body vibrating, bouncing up and down. Moving. I’m in a vehicle. The pain in his left leg hit him next like a sledge hammer. He cried out.

“Good morning, Piggy,” Fiona’s voice called from somewhere ahead. “I didn’t think you were going to make it, but Grace did a great job wrapping up that knee—what’s left of it.”

The vehicle started to slow. Roy struggled to sit up. They were in some kind of open transport.

“Watch your head, Piggy. There’s maybe half a foot of clearance.”

Roy looked up and saw rock passing by in the shadows. If he’d straightened up any further, his skull would’ve ripped open like cheddar against a cheese grater. Bright headlights shone ahead illuminating the sparkling pink tunnel they were traveling down.

Fiona brought the six-seat work buggy to a halt. “There’s three-hundred and twenty miles of tunnel down here.” She tossed a plastic bottle filled with water out onto the ground, and started moving again. Half a mile on she stopped again. “You like pork and beans, Piggy?”

Roy didn’t answer.

She threw the food can out, and they sped away once again. The tunnel curved left, and the tunnel turned right. Roy saw other tunnels joining up with the one they were in slip by. There were dozens of them. Fiona stopped every mile or so along the way, tossing out water bottles and tins of food. “I’m taking you to the furthest point away from Shaft 168. That’s about twenty-four miles. I’m leaving you a trail of food and water to live on. Don’t go thinking it’s a sure trail back to where we started. I’m going to drop a whole shit-load off on the way back through a bunch of other tunnels.”

Roy’s hands were tied to bars attached to the doors. He started to cry and beg again.

Fiona ignored him for the next half hour, dropping bottles and tins along the way. They finally came to a solid rock dead-end. She turned the vehicle around and shut it off. The headlights died out and Roy was suddenly in the blackest black he’d ever experienced. The sudden silence was overwhelming. He jumped when Fiona spoke again a minute later. “Scary as hell, hey? It can drive you frigging crazy… this all-encompassing dark. It presses in on you real fast.”

“Please… I’m so sorry for the things I said.”

“Did you really kill a bunch of defenceless people, or did your buddy make that up?”

Roy paused. “It’s bullshit, all of it. He’s a dirty little fucking liar.”

“That’s what I thought.” She fired the buggy up again and the tunnel ahead lit up. “I would give you a flashlight and some extra batteries if we could spare them, but you know how it is… times are tough.”

Fiona exited the vehicle, the big rifle in one hand, the knife in the other. She cut the ropes. “Get the fuck out.”

Roy tried to stand, but fell onto his side in the dirt when his knee gave out.

“Have a nice winter, Piggy.”

The buggy sped away and Roy coughed on the dust. The headlights started to dim. Seconds later they disappeared altogether.

The blackness pressed back in.

All-encompassing.

Chapter 46

Two weeks later

Fred cast out again and watched the hook plop into the still water. He hadn’t caught a fish in days, but it didn’t much matter. They had enough food to last for months without his contributions. He sat at the end of the dock and fished because it made him happy. Soon the lake would freeze over, and Fred’s casting days would come to a close. He wouldn’t bother fishing during the winter. Sitting on the ice, dangling a line into a three-foot deep hole didn’t appeal to the old doctor. Besides, he hated the cold.

Caitlan sat down beside him. “Hey, Doc. You gonna catch me a big pickerel for supper?”

“It doesn’t look all that promising.” He reeled his line in. “How’s the book coming?”

“It isn’t. You’d think living in a spooky cabin where a couple of folks offed themselves would be inspiring.”

“Does it have to be a horror novel?”

“It’s what I write.”

“Maybe you should be keeping a journal… a record so to speak of everything we’ve been through and what’s to come.”

“Real life horror? Nah, that’s too depressing.” The sun poked out under a heavy orange cloud in the west. “Look, doc! A sunset. I haven’t seen once since before Brayburne.”

“Brayburne. Don’t remind me of that place.” He cast out again. Plop.

“You think that disease will be wiped out when we leave this place?”

Fred shrugged. “We can hope.”

“Yeah… Hope. It’s all we got left.”

* * *

Roy pulled himself along in the darkness. His hand fell on something cold. A can! The third one in two days. He giggled and crawled towards the tunnel wall. He smashed it repeatedly against the rock until he felt the mealy juice inside spill over his fingers. He sucked at the rip in the metal. Tomato paste. Again. Hopefully he would stumble upon another bottle of water in the next few hours to wash the acidity down.

Roy would survive. It’s what he did. He would crawl and claw his way back to Shaft 168 and meet up with Louie Finkbiner again. And the women. The woman. Oh, what he would do to them all. He sucked on the tin again and cut his tongue.

Fucking bitch. She could’ve at least left me a can opener.

End of Book 1

Other Books by Geoff North:

Live Again (Out of Time Book 1)

Last Contact (Out of Time Book 2)

Lost Playground (Out of Time Book 3)

All Inclusive (Out of Time Book 4)

Ambition (The Long Haul Book 1)

Retribution (The Long Haul Book 2)

Annihilation (The Long Haul Book 3)

Thaw (CRYERS Book 1)

Burn (CRYERS Book 2)

Twisted Tales

Copyright

Copyright © 2019 by Geoff North

www.geoffnorth.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Content

Geoff North
HOW THE WORLD ENDS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Other Books by Geoff North:

Copyright