“We aren’t taking it all.”
“I’d hope not.” She steps to the bed and starts pulling shirts off the pile and holds them up.
“You know,” she says. “You actually have good taste.”
“You’re surprised?”
“Well the beaten Army jacket is nice, but what can you tell from one jacket?”
“I clean up nice,” I say and toss three more shirts onto the pile.
I start sorting the shirts, anything that buttons up the front goes into one stack. Anything I can pull over into another. Caroline starts to help.
“Anything with buttons stays here,” I tell her. “I’ll grab a few of the others to wear. We’ll use the rest for emergencies.”
She keeps sorting and I go through the pants still hanging in the closet. I’ve told myself that I’ll reserve half my pack for clothes. That should mean about three pairs of pants. I grab the three best pairs of jeans I can find and grab a fistful of the t-shirts. I carry them to the living room to load them in my pack. I grab a plastic trash bag from under the kitchen sink and Caroline shoves the rest of the shirts inside.
I start to load the camping gear that I’ve thrown onto the couch—mostly cooking gear, travel pots and pans, and silverware. That’s when I hear something I haven’t heard since the attack. Caroline hears it too, and we both look toward each other then move to the window. I pull the blinds, and that’s when we see it. Rain.
FIVE
The fat kind of rain patters against the window sounding like someone tapping the glass with their fingers. The drops get heavier and the rain falls harder as Caroline and I watch. The rain is a light tan because it’s not really rain. It’s mixing with the dust and dirt that’s been hanging in the air. It’s raining a mud puddle. Long brown streaks down the window obscure everything outside. We hear water start to drip through the broken cracks and smack the mirror in what was my bathroom.
Caroline turns from the window and looks back toward the closet.
“You don’t have a couple of umbrellas in there do you?”
The building groans and shifts. It may look solid, but it’s not as stable as we think.
“Unfortunately, no.” I grab the hood on the back of her coat and give it a shake. “But we do have these.”
The building groans again. The suddenly wet soil under the foundation has made the footing unstable. Everything shifts slightly, and I turn to Caroline.
“We should go.”
Her shoulders slump. “Ugh, fine.” She tucks her ponytail into the hood as she pulls it over her head.
“Where’s the stupid stove?” she asks and scans the room. I point to the red box leaning against the wall near the closet. She lets out a sigh.
I swing the now-loaded pack on my back and twist my shoulders to shift it to a spot that’s comfortable.
I open the door and Caroline heads out first, hugging the stove to her chest. The rain is roaring now, coming down in dark brown sheets.
I take one last look inside the apartment and see all of my stuff, my life. This is it. It’s literally closing the door on what life was. This is me saying that we can’t go back. Acknowledgement that life is basically a dystopian wasteland. I hesitate for a moment, taking all of it in, then pull the door tight behind me and lock it.
+++++
Mud rain stings. It’s falling harder and heavier than regular, clear rain, and every drop hitting you is like a tiny little fist. And with the rate this mud rain is falling we are getting pummeled.
Caroline pushes her shoulders up to her ears. She holds the stove above her head and, with the rain, it sounds like an out of tune steel drum.
I pull my pack up higher on my back. It’s bulging top keeps my neck protected, but I can feel the rain pelting my arms. I imagine them polka-dotted with bruises when we get back to camp.
After a block Caroline veers right and finds cover under a bit of wall that has fallen off an older building but hasn’t broken. It’s created a bit of a lean-to, and as long as the wind doesn’t pick up and start the rain blowing sideways, we’ll be covered.
“I’d had enough of that,” Caroline says as she puts the stove on the ground.
“Me too,” I say. “Smart call.”
We look out into the gloom. It’s getting hard to see across the intersection in front of us. Caroline sits down and leans against the bit of building that hasn’t fallen. We might be here a while.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she says.
“No one has.”
“It’s weird, being in a world that’s new to everyone. I’m a kid. I’m supposed to have someone to look to for guidance, someone who has experience with all to this who can say ‘Here …” she pauses to hold out her hand. She looks to her palm, like she can see whatever imaginary object is sitting there. “... this was helpful for me when I was going through that.’ ”
She pulls her hand back and slips it into her jacket pocket. Along with the rain, the wind is starting to pick up. Coming from behind us, thankfully. Our bit of fallen brick should keep us mostly dry. It won’t keep us warm and whatever front that triggered this storm has brought cold air with it. I feel the wind lick at my ankles.
Caroline continues.
“Now …” She pauses again, staring once more at something that I can’t see. I’m sure it’s some mental picture of how her life was supposed to have unfolded. “Now, there’s no one who knows what to do. No one has been through this. We are all just making it up as we go. You, Mac. You I trust. I feel like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, but even you don’t know what to do. You make your best guess. You use your experience …”
Caroline starts to cry. The tough girl is cracking. The rain is wearing away her hard candy shell, and what’s inside isn’t as sweet anymore. Someone who was ripe with confidence just a few minutes ago is starting to turn. I can’t let her core go rotten.
“Don’t say that,” I tell her. “It’s tough, sure. And it’s scary. But we’re smart. We’re adaptable. We’ll figure this out, and probably sooner rather than later.”
It’s not much of a pep talk. I recognize that as I say it. But it’s something. It’s an attempt. I just don’t need her thinking hopeless thoughts and giving up.
“I know you’re right,” she says. “It’s about determination. Are we going to let this beat us or aren’t we? But this rain. The dark skies that are quickly coming. The wailers …”
And as if on cue, one of them cries.
We both freeze. It’s habit. Hear the wailer. Try to figure out where it’s coming from. Triangulate. But, now, just as soon as the first wailer calls, dozens of others respond. Caroline and I both shrink a bit farther back into our little cave. She pulls the machete from her pack, and her knuckles go white around its hilt.
After the responses die off, end their banging around the buildings and rubble of downtown, another wailer calls. Dozens more respond.
Then another calls.
These calls and responses are all coming from different locations. This isn’t a pack or clan or whatever wailers run in. We aren’t talking about a dozen or so staying in place and just making a game out of calling to each other through the rain. There are hundreds out there, and they’re moving.
Maybe they are looking for cover too. They were people once. Being stuck in a downpour like this, that’s your first thought: find shelter. Maybe those base instincts aren’t something that disappear so easily. I repeat that thought over and over, but I know it’s wrong. These aren’t wailers looking for cover.
I pull the gun and let it hang loose in my hand. We haven’t seen any wailers yet, but we haven’t seen much of anything with the rain, and that’s what has me anxious. There could be wailers walking the streets just in front of us, and we wouldn’t be able to tell. I don’t think they are there, but it’s possible.
A wailer calls again, this one close. A block away maybe. It doesn’t wait for the responses to finish before it calls again, even closer
now. A choir of respondents scream into the storm. Thunder rolls overhead and even more wailers cry out. Hundreds now, and they all sound like they are on top of us.
“Wait here,” I tell Caroline.
“Wait? Where are you going? You aren’t leaving me here.”
“Just poking my head out. I’m not leaving.”
I take a cautious step out of our shelter. A wailer cries right into my ear. I drop to the ground and a jagged claw catches my cheek. My hand instinctively moves to cover the fresh wound. The gun in my other hand raises and fires two quick shots at an enemy I can’t see. The rain has blinded us.
I fall onto my back and roll into the shelter. Caroline drops to look at me.
“You’re fine,” she says. “Or will be.” She stands back up.
The wailer that caught me has set off a series of calls from others. Their piercing shrieks are beginning to drown out the rain.
Wherever these wailers had been, they are in front of us now. It’s a horror show stampede.
Their foot falls are creating a low rumble. I hear and feel them bumping and rubbing against our shelter. It’s a fragile space that’s fine for keeping dry, but it’s not going to stand any kind of rough treatment. Wailers are anything but gentle. We have to move.
I grab Caroline’s arm. I turn and look to her. “Are you ready?”
“For what?” Her eyes narrow. She’s not understanding.
“We have to go.”
“Out there?” She gestures with her head to the space in front of us.
“Yes,” I say. “This place isn’t stable. The wailers will knock it down and we’ll be trapped.”
“We aren’t trapped now?”
We don’t have time to debate this. I pull her with me. We’re running. She screams the moment that the stinging rain hits her face. I don’t have any specific destination in mind. I’m just moving.
After a moment Caroline’s screaming stops. She shakes her wrist free from my grip and runs beside me. There are wailers all over, but not as many and I thought there would be. But even one wailer is too many. They all cry out, screaming to each other in a shrieking language that I can’t understand, but can tell that they are communicating. They seem to be converging on us in a slowly tightening circle. They come from behind. They approach from the front. We continue to run.
Caroline points at a pile of rubble a dozen feet high. I can barely see it through the rain, but we make it our target. We each take leaping steps up to the top, not worrying about a misstep or a footfall that will send us tumbling. It’s climbing with confident abandon. We reach the top, have the high ground. From up here we can see that the situation is worse than I imagined it could be. The wailers aren’t stopping. It’s like this rain has caused whatever dormant wailers there were to hatch. They are all out now.
Caroline is turning tight circles as we watch the wailers approach our pile from all directions. The first reach the base of our stack and begin to climb. They aren’t as confident as we were. Or maybe they aren’t as desperate. They climb slowly, carefully. That’s good for us. I pick off those that get halfway up the side I’m watching. Caroline fights off hers off with the machete. I help her if she needs it. She helps me if I need it.
But this tactic won’t be effective forever. This first wave of wailers is scattered, spread out. They are climbing the pile one at a time. But soon they will be coming up in pairs. Then threes and fours and fives. And eventually the pile will be overrun. We can’t hold them off forever, and I start to consider that this is the hill where I die. A pathetic little hill made up of spilled brick and concrete.
I fire a couple of shots into wailers that have just reached the base of our hill. I take aim at another and my gun just clicks.
“That’s it,” I say. “I’m out.”
Caroline swings at a wailer and asks if I still have my gas mask.
“My what?”
“That goofy thing you grabbed from the doctor’s office.”
She grunts through a slash across a wailer’s chest then plants a boot into the thing’s stomach. It tumbles down the rubble, taking two others with it. Other wailers have reached the bottom of the stack on my side. They climb over fallen brothers and begin the ascent up to us.
“It’s in my pack,” I tell Caroline about my mask.
“Put it on,” she says and lays down her machete.
I upend the pack and its content pile up at my feet. I push my hand into the pile and feel around until my fingers brush a cold, brass fitting. I pull the mask out and put it on.
Caroline begins chanting something in fast words that I don’t understand. Her hands begin to glow a bright blue and she speaks louder. Her voice climbs to a shout and at the crescendo she lets out a scream. It triggers some sort of blast from her hands. It’s a shockwave of blue light that runs along our pile of rubble and out to the streets. It cuts down every wailer it touches. They lie silent and still. I can’t tell if they are sleeping or dead, but it doesn’t matter. They are down.
The blast stretches out for a couple of blocks then begins to arch over us, coming together at a point just above Caroline. We are now inside of a blue glowing dome.
Caroline collapses onto the top of the pile. I reach to take off my mask and she grabs my wrist.
“No. Don’t,” she says.
A muffled why comes through the mask.
“It’ll kill you. You aren’t made to breath the air in here.”
“And you are?” Again, muffled.
“Apparently.” Caroline lays back. Her breathing is deep and quick. She’s exhausted, like she’s just run a sprint. And, in a way, I suppose she has.
Her face is flush, all the color drained out of it. Her breath is slowing; she’s obviously spent. I don’t want to bother her, but I don’t have much of a choice. I don’t know how long this little bubble has before it pops.
I push her shoulder and tap at my wrist once she turns her head.
“What?” She’s not picking up on my homemade sign language.
“How long do we have?” I’m shouting inside my mask.
“I don’t know. A couple of hours probably, but that’s not a certainty.”
“Then sleep,” I shout. “I’ll wake you in a bit.”
Caroline rolls her head to the side and closes her eyes. She’s gone fast.
I listen to the rain batter against our little roof. It’s starting to slow, but only slightly. It’s still coming in waves. A torrent, then something less. Then another torrent. It’s those moments of something less that are starting to get longer.
I can’t hear the wailers in here, and with the size of this little bubble -- a couple blocks diameter -- I can’t see them either. My curiosity is getting the better of me, though. I stand and climb down from the pile that Caroline and I ended up on and walk the couple of blocks to where our shelter terminates. It just disappears into the ground in a sizzling blue ring. I can see it before I come to the edge.
I can see the wailers too. They are still stalking out in the rain. They walk sloppy circles around us. One of them spies me as I approach the edge of the dome. It opens its mouth wide and cries a deep and guttural shriek that I can only barely hear.
These things look like something from a twisted cartoon, one of those underground bits of animation that would be part of some creepy cartoon tour that would hit college campuses. Hands and feet that looked human to some degree, but also not. Toes and fingers were now some kind of extended claws. The face had been stretched long, like someone had grabbed a tight hold of the chin and just pulled with everything they had. That made the mouth bigger, making room for jaws filled with sharp and pointed teeth.
The back had become stooped and their walk was awkward and crouched. The only thing that still looked mostly human were the eyes. They’d gone all black, but they still had the almond shape. Human, it’s hard to believe that’s what these things once were or what these people had to go through to become like this. Was it a living torture? Or had th
ey died before turning to these things? Were these cries meant to terrify us, or were they seeing those of us remaining and crying out for help?
I continue to approach, and the thing swings a clawed arm at the dome, and its hand draws back in a violent motion. Whatever this shelter is made of, it isn’t so much as nicked. I move closer and the wailer cries out. Two others also approach, crying out the same. They want to get to me, but I’m safe. Or safe enough for now. I’m the animal in a cage. They are the kids at the zoo taunting me.
We need a plan, though. Once this little dome disappears we will be just as exposed as we were before. I have to wake Caroline. We need to be prepared.
SIX
Everything fell apart on a Tuesday. A late Tuesday to be technical. I was a few months into my life in Dallas, and I was watching a repeat of the 10 p.m. news. I’d had a date with a woman I met through an acquaintance. She was nice enough. The conversation was pleasant. I was thinking back to something she’d said and was considering whether or not I should call it a quirk or a red flag when the first rock hit.
I didn’t know it was a rock at the time. It was just a crushing and crashing sound that drew me to the window. I opened the blinds in time to see two more streaks stream low across the sky and then, a moment later, two more impacts. Then another. Then more until it was raining these things, whatever they were. I ran out the door and into the hall. My neighbor was already there.
“Meteors?” she asked. She was in some sort of loose-fitting pajamas, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
I didn’t know her beyond friendly hellos as we were coming or going, but she began following me out to the street. We could hear more of whatever these were tearing apart anything that got in their way. By the time we got to the ground floor, fires were already burning. The sky was filled with crashing rocks, and she began to cry.
“What’s happening?” She wasn’t asking me, just calling out in confusion. She repeated her questions to no one. I wanted to do the same thing.
“Come on.” I grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her back upstairs with me. She cried the whole time.
Rubble and Ruin (Book 1): Welcome to the End Page 4
