2013: The Aftermath

by Shane McKenzie

  The store was mercifully clear of the dead. The body of the shop girl lay slumped behind the counter. In the changing rooms at the back of the store, she could see a pair of feet poking out from beneath the closed curtain.

  Michaela frowned. Something wasn’t quite right, yet she couldn’t put her finger on it. It was the creepy feeling of not feeling alone, even when knowing she was. Quickly she slipped out of her old, filthy jeans and pulled on the new ones. They were tight against her skin, but she knew they would loosen in time.

  From out of nowhere, a hand grabbed her leg.

  Michaela shrieked in shock and stumbled, catching her feet in her old jeans. She crashed to the floor, jarring every bone in her body. Frantic, she tried to scrambled away, but the hand still had hold of her, and she looked to see a half-dead man, trying to pull his way up her body, his putrid breath washing over her.

  The man’s face was pale, his cheeks sunken. Dark eyes that looked too big for his head bulged out at her.

  Still he clung to her leg, pulling himself arm by arm up her body towards her face. There was something about his eyes, as if everything he had seen and experienced had driven him to the point of madness. He looked as if he wanted to devour her, just as his sickness was devouring him.

  “Get the fuck off of me!” she screamed, trying to kick him away, but still he clung on.

  It was as though he wanted to reach her face, as though he intended to drag himself over her and smother her in his rancid, stinking body. He looked like one of the devil’s henchmen, like a demon brought from Hell.

  She grabbed her knife, pulling it from its makeshift holster.

  Then he opened his mouth, a wide, gaping maw, and she didn’t know if he was going to talk, bite, or kiss her. Suddenly she was propelled back to the times her husband had beaten her and oppressed her, and she didn’t see the man anymore, but the rodent-like face of her dead husband.

  Filled with the panic and revulsion, Michaela lashed out, the knife sinking deep beneath the man’s ribs.

  A look of astonishment spread across his face, and suddenly he no longer looked like a demon or her husband, just a sick, old man. She let go of the knife and dragged her self away, shaking in shock.

  Jez burst in the door, Denny close on his heels. He took one look at the old man with the butcher’s knife protruding from his torso.

  “Jesus, Michaela. What the hell happened?”

  She looked at Jez and burst into tears.

  He pulled her into his arms, the top of her head against his lips. “It’s okay,” he said, gently rocking her as if she was a child. “It’s okay.”

  Denny patted her arm awkwardly, not sure how to offer her any comfort.

  “Not for him, its not,” she mumbled. “He was just a sick, old man. I think he just wanted my help and I killed him.” Her voice grew higher in pitch and she had to choke back another sob. “What sort of person am I?”

  “These aren’t normal times,” said Jez. “And I’m sure, considering the fact he was still here, he wasn’t just an innocent, old man.”

  “It’s no excuse. What sort of person have I become? Is this really a world I want to live in?”

  “Don’t think like that,” he said, his voice hard. “If you die, you know where you’ll go.”

  “Do I?” she said, looking up at him. “Do any of us?”

  “Not for sure, but I’d make a pretty good bet that we aren’t going to end up in Heaven.

  “Look,” he said, addressing Denny as well. “We need to get out of here. We’ll walk out of the city, and then when the roads are clearer, we’ll get motorbikes and travel that way. We’ll go somewhere cleaner, we’ll start again.”

  ***

  From the other side of the street, Mason and his two lackeys watched the commotion through the shop window.

  “How many of them are there?” Felix said, keeping his voice low. Between the mannequins and hanging clothes, it was hard to tell.

  Mason narrowed his eyes. “At least three, maybe more. And they might not all be here. They’ve probably got a base somewhere.” He put out his arm, driving both men back into the shadows of the shop doorway behind them. They stepped back, hiding behind the door.

  In front of them, three people stepped out of the shop. Two of the men seemed to be helping a third one along, their arms around his back and waist, obscuring Mason’s view.

  Mason leant out of the doorway. The three people were walking away, so he only saw the backs of their heads. Three men; two of them, by their build, looked young.

  “What the fuck are you waiting for?” hissed Jared. “Let’s get them.”

  Mason kept his arm out. “Not yet. We need to wait and watch. I don’t know what He wants yet and I don’t intend on pissing him off.”

  Keeping a safe distance, Mason and the others followed. They watched the small group head into a department store. That must be their base, he thought. They would wait until dark, until He was stronger and could tell Mason what was expected of him, though Mason suspected he already knew.

  If one of those guys, or even someone he hadn’t seen yet, had hidden inside the store, was planning on starting again, on reforming the chaos that was now the earth, then maybe He wanted Mason to take him out.

  ***

  Back in the department store, Jez and Michaela started packing their stuff. Tomorrow they would leave for the coast, and they wanted to be prepared.

  Denny ate cold beans from a can and then announced he was going to lie down. Apparently he didn’t think he needed to pack, leaving the two adults to do it for him. However much the kid had been through, he was still clearly a teenager at heart.

  Michaela’s hands shook as she folded her few items of clothing and stuffed them into a large sports bag. Her face, drained of blood, still held the shocked look of someone who had suddenly discovered they didn’t know themselves.

  Jez went over to her and placed his hand on top of hers, stopping it en route to pick up a vest-top.

  She looked up at him, her dark eyes wide.

  “Stop blaming yourself,” he said. “Anyone of us would have done exactly the same thing.”

  “You can’t know that,” she said, shaking off his touch, continuing to pack with a ferocity undeserving of the job at hand.

  “Yes, I can. Do you think I haven’t killed? Do you think, since all this has happened, I haven’t needed to defend myself?”

  They looked up and locked eyes. Suddenly his mouth was on hers and he kissed her forcefully trying to drive all of the evil from her heart and her head. She resisted for a moment, but then she kissed him back. There was desperation in their actions, their breath coming heavily as they struggled to rid each other of their clothes.

  “Denny?” Michaela breathed into his mouth.

  He shook his head. “He went into the next section. He’s sleeping.”

  She didn’t need any more encouragement. Jez pushed her back on the bed, his mouth finding hers again, his hands running the length of her body.

  Together they blocked out the horror around them and lost themselves in each other.

  ***

  Afterwards, they lay together, her head pillowed on his arm.

  Her cheek touched the deep scarring, some of it still an angry red, the twists and pits like a perverse map.

  “So are you going to tell me what happened?” she asked.

  He went stiff beside her.

  “It’s not a pretty story,” he said, quietly.

  “It’s not a pretty scar.” Her abruptness somehow softened him. They weren’t in some romantic love story, they had both experienced horrors.

  He sighed, but then started to talk.

  “I was in jail when it happened, under lockdown for fighting. I experienced the same as everyone else—the blinding white light as if an atomic bomb had gone off—even though I was in a room with no windows, with no connection to the outside world.” Michaela nodded, recognizing his story. “The light made me pass out,” he said, “and w
hen I woke up almost everyone else was dead.”

  “But you were in jail? Wouldn’t that mean that most of the people around wouldn’t have made His cut?”

  “It was a low security, because of what I did, but that’s another story. I guess tax fraud, and petty crime wasn’t enough of a sin to keep you here. Anyway, I woke up and I was locked in. That part of the prison wasn’t on the mainframe, so even when the power went out and the back up didn’t come on, my cell could only be opened by lock and key. The guard who had the key was also dead, right outside my cell.

  “I could see the key on his belt and it was about three feet away. I would have been able to reach it, but the bars were narrow, and I couldn’t get my whole arm through. It got up to the elbow and then it got stuck.

  “The panic didn’t hit me at first. I didn’t have a clue what was going on. I was forced to drink water from the toilet, but there was no food. If I had of been in my own cell I would have at least had some stashes of chocolate to keep me going, but I wasn’t. Probably the first twenty-four hours I didn’t freak out too much, but when it started to become more and more obvious that no one was going to help me, I started to panic.

  “I forced my arm through, trying to reach the keys, but it just wouldn’t fit. I pushed and pushed, but it started to rub at the skin. I couldn’t risk the elbow joint swelling.

  “In the end I smashed up the toilet. Ripped it off of the wall, smashed it against the floor—which meant my water supply was gone. I managed to get a couple of sharp shards of porcelain. I had two choices, cut my wrists and just give up, or make my arm thinner.”

  Michaela winced beside him, obviously knowing what was going to come next.

  “I couldn’t do it at first. I held the sharp side against my skin, but the second I pressed down I just pulled away again. I knew I had to be quick, that if I didn’t get it done fast enough, or if I stopped half way, I would just bleed out in the cell. I knew where the medical bay was in the prison, and I figured as long as I didn’t go too deep, just take off the layer of fat and skin, then I could get to the medical bay and bandage myself up again before the blood loss got too bad.”

  “Jesus,” she said. “So you did it then? You cut off your own skin to reach the keys?”

  He nodded against her head. “It was that, or die of hunger and thirst. I was in there for three days and by then the body of the guard was stinking at my feet. I had no other choice.”

  Denny’s yell brought them to their feet. They grabbed their clothes, pulling them on as they went.

  They rushed into the next section to see a big man with heavy eyebrows and salt and pepper hair holding Denny up against the wall, his forearm pinned across the boy’s chest. Two other men stood nearby, a skinny, black man and a young guy with cheap tattoos covering his arms, smirking.

  The big man had a knife to Denny’s throat and none of them seemed surprised to see the new arrivals.

  Jez put his hands up. “Hey! There’s no need for that. We’re not enemies here.”

  The big man narrowed his eyes. “I think that’s for us to judge.” Then he caught sight of Michaela and he slowly lowered the knife.

  “A woman,” he said. “We don’t see many of your kind these days.”

  The black man leered. “It’s about time. I needs me some honey.”

  “Felix,” the bigger man warned.

  “Let him have some fun,” said the white guy. “Maybe I can go next.”

  Michaela’s face paled and Jez stepped in front of her. “No one is going to fucking touch her,” he said. “I’ll kill you first.”

  “I’ll kill you first,” Michaela spat, stepping forward so she was at Jez’s side. In her hand, the big butcher’s knife glinted.

  Denny lashed out at the big man, but his balled fists only reached his captor’s shoulder. The big man laughed.

  “Put him down,” said Jez. “Put him down or you will be making enemies.”

  The man shrugged. “Three grown men against one man, a woman, and a boy. I think I know who would win that fight.”

  “Let me have her, Mason,” begged Felix. “It’s been too long.”

  “Not yet,” said Mason. “I don’t know what He wants with her yet.”

  “I do,” Felix said, grabbing his crotch and shoving it in Michaela’s direction. “Procreation.”

  Jez stepped forward again, the knife brandished between them. He knew the odds were stacked against them, but if they didn’t put up a fight, the men would do whatever the hell they wanted anyway. He wasn’t going to stand by and watch them rape Michaela or hurt Denny.

  “I mean it,” he said. “Put the boy down.”

  All around them the whisper of words, hushed on the wind, breathed their dismay. They all heard it, looking around as if they would be able to see the entity the voice belonged to.

  “Mason?” Jared said, suddenly nervous.

  “He’s coming,” said Mason. “And He wants them dead.”

  As he drew back his arm to slash the knife across Denny’s throat, Jez lunged for him, diverting his attention. Mason dropped Denny and the boy slumped to the ground, groaning, nursing his bruised chest. The two men collided, tumbling to the floor, and the knife clattered out of Mason’s grasp.

  Seeing his window of opportunity, Felix went for Michaela, Jared hot on his heels. Though Michaela saw him coming, she knew she couldn’t take on both of them. She jabbed wildly with the knife, hoping to catch at least one of the men with it, but wiry fingers wrapped around her upper arm, twisting it back around her body, and pain shot up through her shoulder blade. She cried out in agony and fear, and she, too, was forced to drop the knife.

  Behind her, Jez and Mason fought. Mason was bigger, though Jez was younger, and they grappled together, each trying to land a punch and simultaneously reach for the weapon. Denny watched, his eyes wide with fear.

  Jared dragged Michaela to the ground and Felix climbed on top of her. He reached down and squeezed one of her breasts, sparking fresh pain up through her body.

  “I can’t wait to get my mouth on one of those puppies,” he leered down at her. But he didn’t get the chance.

  A low growling came from all around them, as though they were surrounded by a pack of wolves. Immediately their attention was drawn from each other, focused instead on the sound.

  “What the…” Jared said.

  “He’s here,” Mason whispered, paused above Jez, his hand still balled in a fist.

  Suddenly Felix gave a shriek of pain. He held his hands out in front of him, his palms to the sky. A blue ripple of flame danced across his fingers, then across his palms and up his arms. He stared at the approaching fire, as if not believing his own eyes.

  Michaela took the moment and delivered a swift knee to his balls. Felix gasped in pain, doubling over, but the fire still raced up and across him, engulfing his chest. His fear of the fire overtook the pain in his groin and he propelled himself away from Michaela, scooting back across the floor, pushing himself with the heels of his feet.

  Jared stood up and backed away, his eyes wide. And still, all around them, the low growls continued.

  “No!” Felix screamed, as the fire raced over his body. “I’m on your side. I’m on your fucking side.”

  The smell of meat and hair burning filled the air and Michaela ran to Denny, pulling him to his feet.

  Felix was a ball of flames, his words long since morphed into screams of agony. Jared collapsed to his knees, mumbling prayers for forgiveness, and Mason watched with the wonder and fear of someone who had just been proven wrong, but wasn’t displeased with the outcome.

  “The woman,” Mason said. “You shouldn’t have hurt the woman.”

  There was something about her that He wanted; whether it was actually her, or perhaps something she may one day carry inside her. He had not wanted her harmed, and He had made his feelings clear.

  Mason had been wrong, it was not a man who would lead them, but a woman. And it was His will that they do everythin
g within their means to protect her.

  They had believed the wrath of God to be mighty, but he had abandoned them. The remains of humanity had a new boss to please now. The devil had claimed the earth. They only had one God, and His name was Satan.

  About the author:

  Marissa Farrar lives near London, England, with her husband and two young daughters. She is a multi-published author of horror and dark paranormal romance. Her novels, Alone, and, The Dark Road, are available from Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.