by Eddie Patin
“I get that feeling too...”
When they checked the yacht at the end of the pier, they started up the swing-out staircase that led from the concrete slab up to the deck, several feet above the dock’s pavement, but stopped when an old man called out to them from behind the barrel of a shotgun!
“Hold it, soldier!” the man said. He was bare-chested with deflated muscled, deeply tan skin, and a stout frame. The old man had a short, white beard, cropped close, and wore an old sailor’s hat, and sat in an open window above the deck, aiming the long-barreled gun at Santos, who paused halfway up the stairs...
The UEA soldier regarded the old man carefully, and slowly lowered his rifle until it was hanging by its sling, raising his gloved hands up into the air to be even with his chest.
Chad watched, just a few steps behind Santos. He realized that he was holding his breath...
“We don’t want any trouble, sir,” Santos said. “Just looking for somewhere to spend the night.”
“Well you’re not spending it here, ya Globalist bastard!” The man spat, then called out over his shoulder back into the boat behind him. “Richard! Richard come up out here and give me backup, damn it!”
“Is this your boat?” Santos asked.
“Damn straight, it’s my boat!” the man replied. “And you’re not gonna be commandeering it as long as I’m around!”
Another man walked up behind the old guy in the window, a little younger perhaps, with a long face and a dark moustache.
Chad finally found his voice.
“Wait, wait!” he said, holding his hands high in the air. “No problem, dude—we’ll just leave!”
“And lead the UEA back here?” the man replied with a sneer. “I don’t think so...”
“We’re not here with the UEA!” Chad stammered. “Just let us go, and—”
“You’re a long way from home, baby blue,” the man growled at Santos. “Now drop that rifle of yours, and no sudden movements!”
“I can’t drop it,” Santos said. “It’s on a two-point—”
“I said drop it, punk!”
8 - Arthur Kline
Colorado Springs, CO
“Here ya go,” Gill said, his face lit up in the darkness by the little plastic LED lantern.
Arthur was standing behind his neighbor in what he might best call his ‘gun room’, an area of the man’s basement dedicated to reloading ammunition, gunsmithing, and organizing all of his weapons and tactical gear.
Gill held a small metal cylinder out to Arthur in the dim light of the room. He could just barely hear the groan of a wandering zombie outside, through the front wall of the house next to him. One of those creatures was meandering in his neighbor’s xeriscaped front lawn...
Arthur took the object. A flashlight. It was cool, black metal—aluminum probably—with a push button on the rear.
“Thanks. It works??”
Pressing the button, the light suddenly flooded the room with white brightness. As soon as Arthur let up, the blackness returned.
“Yeah,” Gill said. “It’s a momentary switch. It’s a good light. I had it on my AR up until a couple of years ago when I got something with a Xenon bulb, so in the box it went...”
It was a tactical light, just like the dead flashlight Arthur left on his nightstand. Easy to use in hand and able to be connected to a gun rail with the proper mount, if desired. Arthur would be able to use it to quickly flash an area with just a little pressure from his thumb to have light for a moment without pressing the button all the way in, or, he could turn the light on for good by pressing the switch it until it clicked.
“Thanks,” Arthur said. “I never thought of how crazy things would be without just basic battery-powered stuff. Why’d everything get fried anyway?”
“I don’t fully know,” Gill said. “An electromagnetic pulse sends a blast through anything conductive, and would obviously overload anything wired into the power grid. I’m frankly surprised it killed all of the phones and flashlights and radios and everything else, too. But that’s why preppers have these...”
He patted one thin hand on the shiny metal top of an old-fashioned trashcan sitting next to his workbench. A variety of flashlights, weapon scopes and red dots, a couple of phones, two wrist watches, car parts and electronics that Arthur didn’t recognize, were all stacked up neatly on the desk above the can.
“I take it that thing was supposed to shield the stuff inside from an EMP?”
“Yep. In so many words.”
Arthur stuffed his new flashlight into a cargo pocket and sidled up on one of the stools Gill had near his workbench.
“Gill,” he said. “I gotta ask—with you intentionally ... isolating yourself from the rest of the neighborhood ... why are you being so nice to me?”
Arthur’s neighbor pulled up the other stool, sat, and started idly stacking and rearranging his gear.
“Well, Arthur, you helped me do a lot of the landscaping here last year, and I remember how good you are on machines. And yesterday, I saw how you handled yourself with those zeds outside. I saw that when the shit went down ... well ... you didn’t hesitate. And your wife is a good cook, and is always making clothes and stuff—I just figured that with everything collapsing, you and me, we might want to stick together. You guys can just move in here...”
Arthur looked down. He glanced over at the ammo press clamped onto the end of the workbench and followed the piston and lever and lines with his eyes.
Gill was a ‘prepper’. And he wanted to team up.
It sure made a lot of sense, assuming that Arthur could trust the man with his family. He didn’t have any reason not to, although from Gill’s staying out of everything in the neighborhood—even watching—it was clear that the man was just out for himself. If things ever turned sour, Gill would be solidly set on self-preservation instead of protecting Sheryl or the kids.
But did he really have any reason to think that?
It’s not like he was hiding these last couple of days with his head in the sand, so to speak. Gill was laboring like a worker bee to get all of his defenses up!
“Well, Jesus, man,” Gill said with a chuckle. “Don’t think too hard about it. You might hurt my feelings!”
“Yeah sure,” Arthur replied, looking up at the slender man’s angular face. “Sorry. Of course! That’s a very nice offer. I bet your house will be holding up a lot better than mine in the days to come.”
“The zombies aren’t the only threat you know,” Gill said.
“Yep. I know. I’ve seen it. People started acting crazy just yesterday!”
“In without rule of law, they’ll freaking eat each other, man.” Gill shifted on his stool and made himself stop restacking boxes.
“But first things first,” Arthur said, standing. “I’ve got to get back out there and find Sheryl and the boys. I’ve been here too long already! Morning’s burning.”
“Arthur,” Gill said, standing slowly. “Have you considered that ... they’re probably dead already? It’s not a good idea to leave right now...”
Arthur felt his face grow hot.
“Are you kidding?!” he snapped back. “They’ve been missing for like ... a day and a half!”
“People are gonna be like gangs of raiders out there! And the cops and government will be attacking everyone to take their stuff, and there are more zombies now than—”
“I don’t care, Gill,” Arthur replied flatly. “They’re out there, trapped somewhere. They need me. I don’t care about trying to hole up and survive if I don’t have them with me.”
“It’s suicide to go out there alone. How far can you get?”
“I went out a few miles yesterday on my bike. I just need to go over a certain spot where I didn’t see the van—they’re there somewhere. They didn’t just disappear...”
“Now is the most dangerous time to be out there. The second and third day is when people start running out of their shit and start attacking each other! The city government is proba
bly mobilized by now too, and they’re out there confiscating guns and food and supplies! You won’t—”
“Then come with me!” Arthur said. “I just have to search between Austin Bluffs and Meadowland, anyway! Let’s take—”
“No way,” Gill said. “Everything is fine here. I’m not going to risk it and—”
“Let’s take your truck. Your Bronco. I take it yours is working, right? That’s what those parts are? Replace the computer controller or something?”
Gill blinked. “Yeah, well ... yeah, I have parts to get the Bronco working, but that’s not a good idea. It’s just for emergencies. The roads are clogged up with dead vehicles!”
Arthur groaned, pressing his face into his hands. He felt his heartbeat growing faster; heavier. There was a feeling rising in his chest that made him want to reach out and throttle his neighbor—to take him by the collar and shake his skinny ass around and demand his help. He could imagine Gill’s shocked face, the wide blue eyes, his limp salt and pepper pony tail wagging back and forth, the cigarette dropping from his lips...
“We could do it a lot faster together, you know?! Didn’t you want to team up??”
Gill’s face went blank in the cold LED light, and the man pressed his thin lips together.
“Arthur, buddy, I know how much this means to you. Obviously—I mean, it’s your family. But I’m not going out there, sorry! I know you feel you have to, even though you shouldn’t...”
“Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do with my family!”
“Sorry,” Gill said, putting up his palms. “You do what you gotta do, then come back, okay? You’ve got a ...” His neighbor glanced at Arthur’s hands, then looked up at the ceiling as if trying to remember. Their weapons were on the kitchen table. “Got a 12 gauge, right? Remington 870?”
“Mossberg. 500.”
“Okay. I’ll give you some extra shells. And you’re on a bike?”
Arthur looked down and pressed his face into his palm.
“Yeah...”
His neighbor walked over to a shelf full of black, green, and tan nylon gear—stacks and stacks of bags, pouches, and other pieces of gear to attach to vests and the like—Arthur could barely make out the subdued colors in the darkness. Gill rifled through a middle shelf until he found what he was looking for, then pulled out a long, thin soft case of some kind with straps attached to it. It was dark green.
“Take this,” his neighbor said, pushing the Cordura nylon shell into Arthur’s hands. “It’s a shotgun scabbard. That way, you can ride with your shotgun on your back. I don’t know how else you’d do it. Put this on, then your backpack on top of that.”
Arthur looked the piece of gear over in the white light. It was a sort of case—kind of like the sheath to a sword, but the sword would be his shotgun...
“Thanks,” he said.
“Stay away from the ghetto places,” Gill said, handing Arthur a faded yellow box of shotgun shells.
“Of course.”
“Do you remember the code for the gate?” Gill asked.
They stood outside in the cool air in Gill’s back yard. A couple of zombies made noise around the house, out by the street.
Arthur shook his head.
“Four, seven, two,” his neighbor said, and handed Arthur a small handheld radio. It was round, plastic, and turned off—not any sort of sophisticated military-style radio; just something from Wal-mart. “When you get back, turn on the radio to let me know that you’re here and I’ll come out to let you guys in.”
“Thanks again,” Arthur said, taking the radio and putting it into a pocket.
“Keep it off to save the batteries until you need it,” Gill said. “And hey, if you get back here and use the gate code to get into the back yard, don’t lead any damned zeds in here! The fence is strong, but I’m sure they’ll overpower it eventually...”
“Okay.”
After a quick goodbye while eyeing the zombies standing idle in the middle of the street in front of the house, Arthur made his way back to his own home to grab a few things for his pack, including a small fleece throw blanket, and some food and water. He consolidated all of his shotgun shells into one place.
Then, Arthur gave some attention to his cat, who purred and pressed his orange head into his hand, unconcerned with the apocalypse. Hell—Samson probably preferred it. He’d have good pickings soon enough with all of the houses broken into. Arthur then grabbed his bicycle from the garage, his helmet, and got everything put together outside the front door. He put the shotgun into its scabbard on his back on the left side, and moved his Glock’s holster to ride at his three o’clock. The pistol would be less concealed there, but that wasn’t really an issue anymore now, was it?
Once he had the backpack on and secure over the scabbard, and cinched his helmet’s straps on around his beard, Arthur locked the deadbolt and hit the street. He closed his eyes as the cool air whipped against his face and tousled his hair.
And then he dodged around the two zombies in the road that snarled at him when they noticed him approach. The creatures’ burning blue fire eyes blazed in their black, melted sockets, and their mouths were caverns of despair...
There was no sense in trying to kill them. Not yet. Hell—maybe he’d draw them out of the neighborhood if he just kept going!
As he passed Delores’s house, though, Arthur saw a ‘zed’ (as Gill put it) that sent a chill running up his spine and delivered into him a mighty jolt of fear...
The old woman’s house was compromised for sure...
All of her front windows were shattered, the main door was cracked open, and large pieces of the house’s yellow siding had been clawed loose and now hung from the wall like a mess someone neglected.
And standing just inside, emerging from the darkness within, was the caretaker, Randy, the man Arthur tried to save yesterday. Arthur saw the bald head and dark swath of moustache, standing out even more now because of a wide smear of filth on the man’s face. The pale blue polo shirt was torn and bloodied, but also darkened by mud, or oil, or god-knows-what. Arthur was certain that the man was a zombie now, because from underneath a bulky clump under Randy’s shirt, he saw several loops of the man’s intestines hanging low, swaying around his fat knees...
Randy the caretaker stood inside the door, seemingly unsure as to whether he wanted to step outside or go back in, and the fat zombie stared at Arthur from the doorway with blackened eye sockets lit up with angry little points of blue light...
When the hand gripping Arthur’s heart let up, he turned back to face the road, and pumped hard at the pedals.
He had to find his family ... before it was too late...
9 - Kayleen Lugo
Portland, OR
As the universe swirled, breathed, and contracted around her, Kayleen found the void a comfort this time...
Her eyes were no longer bleary from the bright glare of a misty, white world where everything was coated in glistening slime.
Instead, she was in warm darkness. Brilliant pin points of colorful stars twinkled and winked at her from all directions, and the subtle, sweeping nebulas—clouds on a sea of black—swaddled her mind and caressed her thoughts.
The void was her home, now.
Where Kayleen could be with her...
The dark lady was everywhere and nowhere—a vast godlike being surrounding the girl like an aura the size of a planet, but also nothing. It was only a feeling. A strength that radiated from Kayleen’s bones and seeped in through her skin.
And the Weave’s golden bands swiped across the canvass of Kayleen’s brain, the heavy ropes of warmth laying down over and across her frail, human body like angelic armor, crisscrossing and enveloping the girl, invisible to her basic human eyes, but definitely there...
Kayleen breathed, long and low, taking in the golden power, letting it flow in through her lungs and spread through her capillaries, sweep through her blood, and stretch out all the way to her fingers and toes.
&nbs
p; She could feel the power extending into her other arms and legs—the new appendages that she knew was there but could not see.
Not with these human eyes...
“Yes,” she said to the void; to the dark lady. “Yes...”
Then I will give you great powers to spread my reach through the realm...
“I will, my lady...”
Have my hands, with which to feel.
Kayleen looked down at her thin, pale hands. She flexed her fingers, which looked so odd in front of the swirling void. She turned her hands over, looking at their backs, and flexed her fingers again. With a comprehension as slow as molasses, Kayleen gasped in awe when her fingers stretched and shrunk as she curled them in and out of fists. Extending one hand, she opened her fingers, and admired how she could stretch them several feet out in front of her with only a thought. Four long, pale jointed spears lashed like flesh lightning out in the void, then pulled back in just as quickly!
When Kayleen looked at the hand again, she saw that the first digits—previously dry and tattered fingertips with chewed-up nails, usually stained by paint from art class—were now solid shapes tapering to precise points.
Like claws...
As she focused her attention on those new talons, her vision focused, and she watched in surprise as the fingertip—claw tip—sharpened and elongated more and more until its point was so fine that she couldn’t even make it out!
Exercise your will...
The dark and motherly voice in her head made Kayleen look up and glance into the cosmos again.
Raising her other hand, Kayleen focused her fingertips into claws as well.
Then she knew what to do...
Raising a hand and extending one finger, she painted...
As if the void in front of her was an endless canvass, Kayleen moved one elongated fingertip over the blackness, casting a horizontal line of milky white slime across the open space before her.
The thin sketch of transparent ooze hung in the void in front of her hand as if she was painting with the slime from the streets onto an invisible canvass! Only she knew what she would create, and how she suddenly manifested alien slime onto the dreamscape, Kayleen had no idea...
