He smiles.
“I’m still here.”
΅
EPILOGUE
THE SPORE CLOUDS shimmer in the air, likes motes of dust caught in a shaft of sunlight. For four days now the sky has been thick with them, an endless stream carried on the wind and blanketing the ground wherever they fall. In a way they’re almost beautiful, now we know they can’t hurt us.
We tell the kids the spores are fairy dust. Wherever they fall there will be no more monsters. No need to tell them the truth. Their young eyes have already seen far too much of the darkness. The truth can take a number.
It’s been two weeks since Dr. Wyatt cooked up the first batch of vaccine, and it all snowballed from there. Dozens of the survivors volunteered to help make more, and then hundreds. After the first week all the gas pumps in the city ran dry when the final cars departed, carrying with them batches of vaccine and as many syringes as we could scavenge from the local hospitals. They left for LA, San Francisco, Reno. A few left to the north for Portland and Seattle. Warren and Vee left together last week, heading south east for Abilene where we learned of a refugee camp harboring a million survivors from all around Texas. I don’t know for sure, but I saw a few looks pass between them in that last week before they left. I get the feeling there’s a reason they wanted to travel together.
We’re still finding infected in the wild here and there. The Strip is quarantined and the hotels still need to be cleared floor by floor, but in the grand scheme of things Vegas came through well. We lost tens of thousands. Nobody knows exactly how many, but out of two million it could have been much worse.
All around me in the air traffic control tower voices ring out over the radios, directing air traffic to all four runways. Vera, the matronly chief controller, brusquely shoves me aside as she runs to deal with a Qantas pilot demanding the fuel tankers serve him before the Air France 737 waiting to depart.
We’re still learning of what happened to the rest of the world, picking up fragments as the flights arrive to collect their vaccine samples, but nobody sticks around long enough for a real talk. The spore clouds have already begun to head west, drifting out over the Pacific towards Asia. We may be safe here in Vegas but it’s yet to be seen if they can get the vaccine out quickly enough, especially with governments fallen and survivors scattered. It may be a long time before we can finally declare the world safe, but for now, at least, we can breathe easy.
I set down my coffee and leave the control room, heading down the dimly lit staircase until I emerge into the sun at the ground floor. Stacks of supplies sit unguarded by the tower, gifts from foreign visitors to thank us for donating our vaccine. I pull open the plastic covering of a pallet of Coke bottles and help myself to one, popping the cap and downing the warm, sickly sweet liquid in a few gulps. I feel a little guilty that the refugees outside the airport are still on emergency rations, but fuck it. I’ve earned a Coke.
We still don’t know where Cordyceps came from. We don’t know who seeded the infection in New York and D.C., and we don’t know who spread it throughout the rest of the world. Was it the Sons of the Father, the shadowy religious sect who warned us this was coming? Who knows? Since their warning they’ve remained silent, if they ever really existed at all. They – whoever they are – may be out there right now working on other, yet more horrific ways to punish us for our sins, but we have enough to worry about for now without fearing the future.
I look out to the terminal, where a small All Nippon Airways twin prop plane waits to taxi out to the runway, and beyond it to the rising sun. I reach into my pocket and pull out a pack of Lucky Strike – we ran out of Marlboros a week ago – and fumble through my pockets looking for a lighter. My hand closes on something unfamiliar, and I tug out a creased, crumpled sheet of paper.
Dear Jack,
As I write this I don’t know where you are. I don’t even know for sure if you’re still alive, but my heart tells me that you and your mom are safe and sound. Mom was always much smarter than me, as I’m sure she’ll remind you often when you’re old enough to ask her, and I know she has what it takes to keep you safe.
My eyes scan down the page, and it dawns on me that this came from Private Rhodes’ notebook. It must have slipped out from the elastic band before I handed everything over to Dr. Wyatt.
I read on.
I want to tell you, Jack, that I’ve been given a chance to redeem myself. A very brave young lady has given me something that could help save us all. I have a long way to travel and the road ahead is dangerous, but I’ll do my best to make it. I’ll try to make you proud, son.
I miss you both so much.
Forever your loving father,
Lewis Rhodes
I feel tears well in my eyes as I carefully fold the paper and return it to my pocket. They’re not tears of sadness, but of... joy, I guess. Joy that there are many more like Rhodes out there among the survivors.
I’ve seen the worst of humanity. I’ve seen people so poisoned by hate they’d try to destroy us all. Men so obsessed with power that they’d enslave the weak, and others so cowardly they’d follow orders no matter where they led.
And then there are people like Rhodes. Like Warren, and Vee, who found themselves on the wrong side of good and evil and made the choice to fight for good, whatever the cost. People like Bishop, who risked his life to save a stranger. Like Jack Benson, a scared kid who stood and fought when everyone else ran. They didn’t have to be good, but when they were faced with a fork in the road they made the right choice.
Maybe they’ll lose in the end. Maybe we all will, eventually. Maybe one day evil will win out, and we’ll let stupidity and greed and hate and fear get the best of us. Maybe one day the sun will set, and when it rises the next day they’ll be no one left to fight on the side of good.
Maybe one day.
But not today.
THE END
OTHER TITLES FROM KEITH TAYLOR
This Is the Way the World Ends: an Oral History of the Zombie War
***
February, 2031: The global population now stands at an estimated 400 million, and every survivor bears the scars of humanity's decade-long struggle to defeat an enemy few believed could exist. Some nations have emerged from the war stronger than ever. Others still struggle to survive. Some no longer exist at all.
In the aftermath of the zombie pandemic Keith Taylor, noted pre-war author of apocalyptic fiction, traveled the world to gather the first hand accounts of survivors from every walk of life, culture and strata of society, ranging from American political leaders to British journalists to Mongolian miners to members of India's homeless underclass.
Together these chilling interviews describe the course of humanity's most brutal war, leading from the initial emergence of the virus in the Siberian wilderness to the visceral, heart-rending Shibuya footage, through the confusion of the US President's impeachment to the unintended and disastrous consequences of the UN's sweeping refugee amendment, and ending with us battered and broken, diminished but not defeated, in the fragile peace we now enjoy. Together these accounts represent the most illuminating and complete commentary to date of humanity's loss.
From these candid interviews emerges an image of early 21st century civilization as it truly was: imperfect, fragmented and wholly unprepared for a disaster on such a scale. This Is the Way the World Ends takes an unflinching, uncompromising look at the world we had and lost; a look at the pain we suffered due to our inability to accept a single, simple truth:
Zombies are real.
Note: Readers who lived through the pandemic may find the interviews contained within this collection distressing. Discretion is advised.
Read Now
΅
Things Fall Down: Jack Archer Book One
***
Two states from his daughter, and the missiles have been launched...
Jack Archer is a train wreck. Stripped of his medical license, his marriage destroyed, hollowed out by
grief and guilt, and drinking to manage a pain the surgeons insist is all in his head. He’d have to climb for days just to reach the gutter.
And then a call from an old colleague changes everything. Something terrible is about to happen on the west coast. A nuclear blast has sent the nation into a panic. The government has triggered Condition Black, a chilling secret contingency plan intended as the last resort after the last resort has failed, and Jack’s ex-wife and seven year old daughter are standing directly in the line of fire.
If Karen and Emily are to stand any chance of living through this disaster, pursued by enemies unknown and facing a government that has already decided they don't deserve to survive, Jack will have to cast his demons aside and summon a strength he never knew he possessed.
Can he save his family before the missiles hit? Can he fight his way though the chaos and earn one final shot at redemption, or is Jack Archer cursed to lose another child?
Read Now
΅
America Dark: Willow Falls Book One
***
How will you survive when the power goes out?
Jim Shepherd always knew the EMP was coming. For years his prepper father had warned him that it was only a matter of time; that eventually someone would be crazy enough to push the button and plunge the US into the darkness. Shep thought he was prepared for the chaos to come. He thought he knew exactly what to do.
He was wrong.
Abi Ross had no idea when she boarded her train from D.C. to Charlotte that her July 4th was about to go off the rails, literally. She had no clue that she'd soon find herself stranded in rural Virginia, injured and alone, awaiting a rescue that would never come.
Could you survive with nothing but the contents of your pockets?
When the lights flicker out for the last time Jim and Abi will find out if they have what it takes to survive, stripped of the bubble wrap and cotton wool of modern society. How far will they go to keep breathing? Who will they save? Who will they leave behind to die?
And what will they do when they learn that the attack has only just begun?
Read Now
΅
Last Man Standing Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 43
