Wake Me After the Apocalypse

by Jordan Rivet

  Joanna ran as fast as she could, not daring to look back. It wouldn’t take Levi and his men long to recover. The explosion had been too deep underground to hurt any of them, but it bought her some time. Hopefully it was enough.

  Shouts chased her through the woods. Leaves crunched and branches cracked under her racing feet. She considered leading her pursuers away from the settlement, but they would come back—possibly in greater numbers. The villagers had to make a stand now, and she was the only one who could warn them.

  Her lungs ached as she pushed herself to run faster. She couldn’t take the time to hide her trail. All that mattered now was speed.

  “Don’t. Panic. Don’t. Panic. Don’t. Panic.”

  She breathed in time to the words, pumped her legs, forced her heart to get her a little bit farther, a little bit faster.

  The shadows lengthened around her. She spotted a familiar landmark, an especially thick grove of trees, blazing with the colors of autumn. She could hide there. Wait for Levi and his men to go past. Abandon the settlement as they had abandoned her for so long. But it was no use. They were still her family.

  She blew past the grove, pushing herself to run faster still. Her muscles were finally healed, her skin too. She could do this.

  Her pursuers’ shouts came less frequently. She could no longer hear their footfalls. She was losing them. They didn’t know the way. They’d have to slow down to figure out where she had gone.

  Joanna ran on. She couldn’t keep up this pace the whole way. Her rough-spun trousers chafed against her scars, and her lungs burned. But she had to warn the village, give them a chance to survive. Even a crude ambush was better than nothing.

  “I thought we had a deal, Joanna.”

  She stumbled at the sound of Levi’s voice, far closer than she expected. He had caught up.

  She cast about for somewhere to hide, wishing she’d leapt into that thick grove after all. He was going to see her, and it would all be over. But if he passed her, he wouldn’t know where to go next.

  She spotted a low branch on a gnarled but sturdy-looking tree. She took a running leap to catch it and hauled her legs up and out of sight. She scrambled up a few branches and froze, pressing her face against the rough bark.

  Levi crashed through the trees a second later. He ran directly beneath her, close enough for her to see the blood on his cheek from her knife. Then he rushed on into the woods.

  “Come on, Joanna,” he called. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  She waited for his footsteps to fade away.

  But instead of continuing on, Levi slowed and began to circle back toward her, perhaps realizing she was no longer ahead of him. He stalked through the woods, scanning the shadows, occasionally stopping to listen.

  The smell of dry leaves tickled Joanna’s nose. She held her breath to keep from sneezing, praying enough leaves still clung to the branches of her tree to conceal her. Why did this have to happen in the autumn?

  Her heartbeat was as likely to betray her as the gaps in her cover. It thundered wildly as she caught a glimpse of Levi moving closer still.

  Please don’t look up. Please. Please. Please don’t look up.

  Levi paused, almost as if he could sense her presence. He peered into a shallow ravine nearby, calling softly.

  “Joanna? That was an impressive move with the gas pocket, but it’s not going to matter.” He walked slowly, pausing often to listen for movement. “Don’t protect these people. They betrayed BRP. They left you behind. Why don’t you come back with us? You can join our cohort, be with people your own age.”

  Levi was breathing heavily, and sweat coated the back of his neck. Perhaps he hadn’t completely recovered from cryosleep yet. Joanna might be able to outrun him after all. Darkness was falling. She could slip past him if he would just move a little farther.

  She shifted her position, and the rustling leaves sounded as loud as a freight train. She halted, heart clenching like a fist. She couldn’t see Levi any more. Couldn’t hear him, either. Was he far enough away for her to risk climbing down?

  Nothing moved below.

  After a few minutes, she eased the knife back out of her pocket and stuck it in her teeth like a pirate. Then, as slowly and carefully as possible, she began to climb down the tree. Every shudder of the branches made her heart leap into her throat, but she had to take the risk. Levi and his men might find the village on their own. She was running out of time to warn her friends.

  There was still no sign of him. Dusk cast eerie shadows through the trees. She waited for a breath then swung her legs down from the lowest branch and dropped softly to the ground.

  The crunch of footsteps on dry leaves was her only warning. Then a hand shot out of the shadows and closed over her mouth.

  Or at least, it tried to close over her mouth. She still held the knife in her teeth, and the blade sliced into Levi’s hand when he tried to grab her.

  “What the—Ow!”

  He hissed a curse, and she wriggled out of his grasp and dashed into the darkness, no longer caring about the noise. Her teeth ached, but fear lent her speed as she fled through the trees.

  A moment later, she heard Levi calling to his men.

  Joanna’s lungs and limbs screamed for relief as she barreled onward. She passed a familiar boulder, and the ground began to slope downward. She was almost to the river. Then it was only a little bit farther to the village.

  Her family had worked so hard and built so much. She wasn’t going to let anyone take that away from them. She had spent a long time worrying about whether she deserved her spot in the bunker, whether she was worthy of a future, whether she had anything to offer the team. Well, Ruby had told her she was brave. Blake was certain she could stand alone. It was time to prove it.

  She burst through the tree line outside the village, vaulted an irrigation ditch, and ran straight through Ruby’s garden, trampling the carrots. Then she sucked in all the breath her lungs could hold and hollered a warning.

  “Incoming! The village is in danger. Get out here and defend your families. Let’s move, people!”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The villagers flooded out of their houses, hoisting farm tools and handmade furniture. Chloe carried Blake’s rifle in one arm and her daughter in the other. Her sons led Vincent by the hand, or maybe he was leading them. Priya brandished a bedpan, and Vashti and her sisters followed with pots and pans made of salvaged steel. They met Joanna on the green, where the Thanksgiving bonfire still smoldered, and she explained the situation through gasps for air.

  “They have guns,” she said, “but we have numbers. We have to show them it’s not worth a fight. They’re just kids. They don’t really want to kill anyone.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” Vincent said.

  Joanna squeezed his arm. “Trust me. I think we can reason with them.”

  Vincent’s mouth tightened. “You’re in a better position to understand the kids these days.”

  Joanna had to believe it was possible to avoid violence. Otherwise, she’d made it back just in time to see the rest of her cohort gunned down. She looked at the others, who’d had years to become disillusioned, who’d endured enough hardship they might not believe people could choose a different path. Something Levi said came back to her. I heard your bunker was the worst of the bunch.

  “Whatever you do, don’t attack first.”

  “I have a better idea,” Chloe said briskly. “I’ve been thinking about it since we heard Blake’s news. Let’s hope we have time to pull everything together.”

  At Chloe’s instruction, the villagers formed two groups: one to herd the children into the school building and one to gather what they needed to confront the strangers. Vincent took charge of the group guarding the children. As Joanna started to rush off to help Chloe, he caught her arm. “Ruby?”

  “She’s okay,” Joanna said. “She’s tied up and as mad as a wet cat.”

  Vincent nodded. �
�That’s my girl.”

  As soon as the last child was inside the school, Vincent took up a position in front of the door, cane raised like a light saber. Joanna remembered a long-ago wrestling match, when Vincent had held his own despite his limitations, impressing even the most skeptical among them. She prayed he wouldn’t need his fighting skills tonight.

  Joanna sprinted out to join the defenders at the village border. Even in the dark, the group didn’t look big enough to stand against Levi’s well-armed force. The guns changed everything.

  She skidded to a halt beside Chloe, who still had Blake’s rifle slung over her shoulder. “Remember,” she said breathlessly. “We can’t shoot first.”

  “No need to panic, Jo.” Chloe patted her cheek then turned to the men and women lining up to defend their town. “Do you all know what to do?”

  The villagers murmured their assent. Only a few minutes had passed since Joanna arrived. They had assembled more makeshift weapons, and they carried other objects too, difficult to identify in the darkness.

  Joanna looked toward the looming trees. Their visitors would arrive soon, even if it had taken them a while to find her trail after she lost Levi. She waited for them to show themselves.

  But the forest was quiet, nothing stirring in its depths.

  “Where are they?” she muttered.

  The night grew colder. The villagers shifted nervously. Still, no one emerged from the trees. Had they gotten lost? Were they sneaking around to attack from the other side? Joanna was about to dispatch a group to check when a flicker of movement caught her eye.

  She touched Chloe’s arm.

  “I see him,” she whispered. “Stand by.”

  The darkness stirred, taking on shape and flesh.

  Levi was the first to advance through the trees. Joanna recognized his confident stance. Moonlight shimmered on his dark hair and the gun in his hand. One by one, his companions exited the woods, their features indistinct in the gloom. They spread out, facing the villagers head on as they stalked toward them.

  Levi faltered at the sight of the horde waiting at the edge of the village. They must look like a single, threatening mass in the dark.

  He took another step forward.

  “Now!” Chloe shouted. Suddenly lights flickered on along the line of villagers. Flashlights, floodlights, spotlights, a hundred forms of illumination burst forth, pinning the advancing strangers as if they were caught in a giant bug zapper. Chloe had emptied her electronics shop and ordered the lights brought from every cabin in the village.

  The strangers shaded their eyes, peering into the flood of radiance. The lights were spread out as much as possible, and many people held several, all pointing straight at their erstwhile attackers. The solid wall of brightness must make it look as if far more people gathered here to meet the strangers than there actually were.

  “Brilliant,” Joanna whispered to Chloe.

  “I have my moments.”

  Chloe had Blake’s rifle in her hands now, and Winnie stood beside her, shining a refurbished headlight directly on it. A glance along the line revealed more villagers holding the guns taken from Joanna’s room back at the mine. Each had a companion with a spotlight. In the overwhelming brightness, they made five rifles look like a hundred.

  Levi had paused fifty feet from the villagers. He appeared to be assessing the situation, recalculating his people’s odds. Joanna got the sense that he was a sharp guy. She was counting on him being a good guy too. She thought of the small grunt of dismay he’d made when Garrett gave him permission to shoot her and how relieved he’d looked when she gave him a way out. And there was that strange statement about what he’d heard about their bunker. It wasn’t much to go on, but she believed he didn’t want this fight.

  Joanna pocketed her butter knife and walked forward into the space between the two groups, hands raised.

  “Hey there,” she said brightly. “Not to gloat or anything, but I won the race.”

  Levi looked her up and down. She must be little more than a silhouette with the blast of light behind her.

  “So you did.”

  “I’ve come to ask you to rethink your plan,” Joanna said. “We won’t let you waltz in here and take over without a fight.” She gestured behind her, noting how the multitude of lights really did make it look as though they’d rallied a huge host in their defense. For all the strangers knew, they could have a thousand bunker folk ready to defend their cohort. Thank you, Chloe. She turned back to Levi. “But I don’t think you want that, do you?”

  Levi didn’t respond at first. Joanna could see those calculations ticking away behind his light-flooded eyes. Blood smeared his cheek and neck from her knife, highlighting his strong cheekbones. He was quite handsome, she realized with a start. Or maybe it had just been too long since she had seen a man even close to her own age. She needed to get out more.

  “I don’t want violence,” Levi said at length. “But that doesn’t change the danger you pose to our cohort.”

  “What danger? We’ve been minding our own business here.”

  Levi snorted, hands tightening reflexively on his weapon. “Your people attacked us in our first vulnerable moments on the surface.”

  “And you killed them for it,” Joanna said. “We acknowledge that it was a horrible event all around. That doesn’t mean we have to go on being enemies. BRP was never supposed to be like this.”

  “I can’t believe you came out of the Idaho bunker, and you have the nerve to talk about BRP’s ideals.”

  Joana blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “We were warned about you and your leader. Colonel Waters, right?” Levi jerked his gun toward the village. “Brave of him to send you out here to talk instead of coming himself.”

  Joanna felt as though the world had tipped beneath her feet, and she wasn’t sure which way to fall. “How do you know about Waters?”

  “A BRP scientist came to our bunker the day before we entered cryosleep, driving an old school bus like a madman. He told us about the weapons Colonel Waters stockpiled in his bunker and how he planned to take command of the other cohorts in the future.” Levi tapped his rifle. “We’d squirrelled away a few guns ourselves by then, but it was nothing compared to the arsenal the doctor described.”

  “The doctor?”

  “He wanted to join us, said Waters had corrupted the program but there was still a chance to uphold BRP’s ideals. He offered an ungodly amount of money to anyone who’d give up their cryo tank for him. None of us believed this Waters fellow could be so bad until he sent your friends to attack us.”

  Joanna couldn’t believe it. All this time, she’d been thinking of the other bunkers as the threats. The big, bad BRP cohorts that went rogue. Instead, it was their own leaders who had abandoned the program, their own leaders who had planned to assert control over the other bunkers and capture their resources in the future. They were the evil bunker—and they had been punished for it.

  “Colonel Waters is dead,” she said flatly. “He died in the bunker, when his own freaking arsenal exploded.”

  For the first time, Levi looked uncertain. “Then your weapons—”

  “They’re not ours. You have to believe me. Most of us didn’t know what Colonel Waters was up to—and those who did are either dead or not interested in continuing his legacy. We still have a chance to start fresh. Can we make peace?”

  Levi didn’t answer. Joanna sensed movement along both lines. They had been talking for too long. Someone was going to break the standoff if they didn’t act soon. All it would take was one gunshot, and any chance of an accord would be gone forever.

  Then Levi shook his head. “It won’t last. It’s only a matter of time before another bunker tries to take our resources. This is just how the world is going to be for a while.”

  “Stop talking like it’s inevitable,” Joanna said. Colonel Waters had thought strife between the bunker tribes was so inevitable that he fulfilled his own prophecy. Well, Waters was
dead, and so were the architects of BRP. It was up to them to make it in the new world. “Look at the comet,” she said, desperation cracking her voice now. “They were sure Brandon would destroy humanity until BRP figured out the bunker program. We’ve already beaten impossible odds. We lived through two hundred years of cryosleep. I’m not willing to accept anything as inevitable ever again. Are you?”

  Levi glanced around at the men awaiting his orders, his face giving away nothing. He shaded his eyes against the floodlights’ glare, scanning the numberless mass. Whether or not he believed Joanna, the village would not be an easy prize. But he hadn’t seen it as a prize at first, had he? He’d come here expecting to face down worse odds than this to protect his cohort. He had to see it was better not to fight at all. She prayed the others would hold off a little longer, give him time to come around.

  At last, he looked back at her.

  “So you propose a peace agreement?”

  “It’s the only option.” She clenched her fist to keep from shaking as hope exploded in her chest. “Your people were wronged, and I’m truly sorry. But we have to step past that, or this is never going to end.”

  “What about the other bunkers?”

  “I say we make contact,” Joanna said. “Both of our cohorts can reach out to the other bunkers together. We tell people what happened here and urge them to keep their weapons buried. We call on them to work together to rebuild trust among us. We commit to peaceful trade and exchanges of information between our communities. We get back to the program as it was supposed to be.”

  “And if the others have already started fighting?”

  Joanna spread her hands wide, no longer shaking. “We have to try, or no one else will.”

  Levi rubbed a hand across his cheek, wincing when it came away red. He looked younger then, perhaps only a few years older than her.

  “How could we possibly trust you? And what makes you think I won’t return with greater numbers?”

  “You might,” Joanna said. “Maybe you won’t have a choice. I don’t know who’s in charge at your bunker.” Suddenly, a detail clicked into place in her mind, one she should have seen sooner. “But this doctor of yours, the one who warned you about Waters. His name was Huntington, right?”