This Is the End: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (7 Book Collection)

by Craig DiLouie

  He flew from the path, dashed around a fallen limb and turned straight for his prey. The alpha male’s eyes lit, his snout pulsing with the chemicals of the predominant human scent, no longer uncertain of their numbers. He made one final lunge to the right of the fire and skidded to a halt in the dry dirt at the base of the tree. His head twitched back and forth at the shirt and shorts tacked there. He did not need to communicate his disgust and disappointment to the pack. His belly growled in protest of the ruse.

  Chapter 2

  The leader approached his prey and looked up. The rest of the pack filled in behind the alpha male but kept their distance from the unnatural fire. The creature paced around the flames, sniffing the objects on the ground, and then craned its neck upward at the feet of the human.

  It must come down. That is the command given and the one I must follow.

  The rest of the pack whined and shuffled about. Several of the cubs lay on the ground, enjoying the meager warmth provided by the man’s fire, while the male wolves stood behind the leader and looked up into the tree.

  “Leave me alone,” Samuel shouted.

  He thought he could hear the alpha male chuckle. The sound escaped the wolf’s muzzle like a short guffaw.

  “Get out of here.”

  The wolves stood at attention, staring up at him. One would break off, circle its tail, and then come back to attention at the base of the tree.

  Samuel looked up into the pine. Branches sprouted from the trunk like a pinwheel extending up into the blackness. Tendrils of smoke raced between them as the fire burned down to yellow coals, releasing the hiss of water inside the damp wood. Samuel reached for the next closest branch and climbed higher, until he sat on a wider branch, taking a deep breath and looking down at the pack twenty feet below.

  We wait.

  The alpha male sat and his ears came up. The other hunters did the same, while the female wolves remained on the outer edge of the camp. The pack formed a circle around the base of the tree.

  Samuel felt a rumble in his stomach and a pain gripped his side. He could not remember the last time he ate. He rubbed the blooming bruises on his neck, a painful reminder of his time inside the noose. Samuel looked out from the trees, convinced he had found temporary refuge from the pack. A sliver of moon appeared above the canopy of pines, blossoming like spilt milk into the night sky.

  Are wolves nocturnal? They’ll go back to the den once the sun comes up, Samuel thought.

  Samuel watched as a new light crested off the horizon. He did not see the blazing orb of his sun. He did not feel the warmth of the day. Hours passed, and yet the light failed to chase back the darkness, seeping upward until a dull grey blanket of mist descended on the forest. A quick pulse of memory shot through his head, a late-afternoon thunderstorm at the shore. The feeling lingered, but the specifics of the memory did not. He looked down at the pack. The females and cubs slept in bundles of fur, and the hunters rested their heads in their paws, all except one. The alpha male remained sitting, his eyes focused on Samuel.

  ***

  As the light faded yet again, Samuel felt the first cramps clutching his muscles, threatening to eject him from his safe perch. His stomach threatened to turn in on itself. He closed his eyes, unsure whether the hunger pangs could keep his mind off the muscle cramps or whether it was better to focus on the cramps to take his mind off of his hunger. Samuel’s tongue felt as though it were wrapped in cotton. Mucous dripped from his nose, while his feet felt cold and dead.

  It weakens.

  The wolves pushed up onto all fours and began circling the base of the trunk. The alpha male reared back and howled. The cubs awakened with new fervor, hunger and bloodlust. Two hunters leapt onto the base of the tree as if threatening to climb it. They jumped back and forth, growling and snapping at each other’s tails.

  Samuel closed his eyes and the world swam beneath him. He lost his sense of direction and fell from the branch, lunging out and grasping another to stop his plummet. The branch slid beneath his fingers as he looked at the ground below, feeling dizzy. He expected the ground to rush up and snatch him from the precipice. Samuel reminded himself not to look down, wondering why that seemed to be the best advice for his fear of heights. The hunters saw the movement and the other wolves sensed it. The entire pack ran around the base, barking and growling in a frenzy. Samuel hung by one arm, his left foot five feet from the ground. He felt the sting as a pine branch opened a gash in his side, and blood dripped into the open maw of the alpha male.

  Not this way, he thought, wincing.

  He drew a deep breath and forced the pain from his mind. He considered giving up until the thought of the pack’s teeth tearing at his flesh cleared his head. His mind raced through questions, reasons for the wolves’ unending pursuit. But in that moment, he realized it did not matter. He would have to survive before he could have the luxury of reflection.

  Samuel shook his head, fighting the haze and scrambling to reach a higher position. The alpha male lunged, clamping his jaws on the heel of Samuel’s sneaker, shaking it left to right, rear paws digging into the dirt with every backpedal. Samuel kicked with his opposite foot but lacked power behind the motion. His toe bounced off the skull of the alpha male, agitating him more.

  The other wolves crowded the alpha male, snapping at Samuel’s foot in support of the leader. Samuel felt his grip loosening and his pants being tugged downward by another wolf that had a hold. He looked up at the branch, the tree about to fulfill his destiny of death in a way the noose could not. As his right hand released and another wolf climbed to his knee, a crack echoed through the valley. Samuel crashed to the ground as the wolves froze. They spun to face the sound as another shot whistled through the air and a slug lodged in the pine tree mere inches from Samuel’s head.

  We will come back.

  The alpha male turned to snarl at Samuel before bounding over the remains of the fire and through the trunks of the pine trees. The hunters, the females and the cubs followed with their tails tucked.

  Samuel looked over the fire with blurry vision. His breathing slowed and he sensed motion. A dark swath moved over the reemerging fire. It stopped and hesitated. The flames jumped back to life, and Samuel squinted in the light. Again the fire burned with a paltry, green hue, but compared to the blackness preceding it, Samuel shielded his eyes from the glare.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Close your eyes. We’ll talk when your body has recovered.”

  Samuel rolled onto his back and laughed. Floating ash danced overhead against the black velvet sky. Bare tree branches reached for it like bony fingers.

  “The wolves, they’re coming back,” he said.

  “They will. They always do,” the stranger said.

  Samuel smiled again and closed his eyes. He would sleep, or he would die. Either would rest his weary mind.

  Chapter 3

  “I hope Major finds him before the wolves tear him apart,” Mara said.

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about Major, newbies or the wolves,” Kole said.

  Mara tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and shook her head. “Of course you do, Kole. You know Major can’t get out of this one by himself.”

  Major’s fate, his redemption, hinged on his ability to save them all from the reversion. Kole and Mara didn’t have the knowledge or the ability to escape on their own. Each new visitor had the potential to manipulate this place without knowing it, but Major had seen it a number of times. It was up to him to mold the raw talent Deva sent his way. He bounced from one universe to another, but he was unable to do so in this one. Major needed Samuel alive long enough to figure out why.

  “He’s only out to save his own ass. I don’t trust Major and neither should you.”

  Mara shrugged. “You have to trust somebody. As long as you know Major will sell you out to get what he wants, what’s the big deal?”

  Kole shrugged off Mara’s question. “I’m not the one making a big deal about M
ajor, am I?” He rubbed a hand across the tattoo that sleeved his right arm, trying hard to remain focused on the conversation he had with Mara dozens of times already. “Maybe you have a good reason to get back to whatever life you had, but I don’t. I’m just as happy to stay here and let the cloud eat me.”

  Mara gave up, tired of the posturing Kole used to end all of their conversations. “Major is looking for someone or something. It’s his only hope, and I feel like it’s mine as well.”

  Kole looked at her and wondered how they were connected to the new visitor, and ultimately, to Major. He grew tired of the disappointment in Mara’s eyes. Kole could feel a connection to the new arrival and yet he could not understand why.

  He knew more about Mara’s journey than Mara. He was with Major when she came through the forest, mumbling and disoriented like all of the troubled souls that fell from the noose. They took care of her and nursed her back to health in hopes she could find whatever it was they needed to flee the dying worlds. Major never said it, but Kole knew she wasn’t the one, but she was the key to finding the one who would. Major told him she would draw that power like a magnet and that was why Kole pretended to tolerate her in Major’s presence.

  Kole and Major committed heinous, immoral acts in their lives and landed here. As far as Kole could tell, Mara had not and so he felt sympathetic towards her. He knew his own suicide brought him into the reversion, although he could not decide if he was alive or dead. Most days Kole struggled to tell the difference. When Samuel arrived, he felt the blood connection in his veins and knew this reversion would not end like the countless others that tossed him out and back into the cursed forest.

  Mara convinced Major and Kole she couldn’t remember crossing over. She kept that secret hidden away, fearful they would somehow use it against her. But she’d overheard Major and Kole talking at night about their old lives and she knew why they were here. The men were violent, greedy and selfish. But they helped her navigate the forest and so she felt a thin and cautious connection to both. The collective energy of Major, Kole and Mara could release them all from the cycle, but only with Samuel’s help.

  ***

  Samuel felt the nudge of the boot in his ribs and rolled over onto his back. A grey, gauzy haze still hung in the sky. He put a hand to his throbbing forehead and wondered how long it would take to feel normal again, if ever. Samuel detected movement across the remains of the night’s fire, and a pulse of fear raced through his chest. The tree, the wolves and the howling—especially the howling—resurfaced in his head. He gulped the air and recognized the movement of a fellow human. Samuel squinted as he sat up on his elbows.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  He shrugged. “I guess not.”

  He watched the stranger from behind. The man sat on a felled trunk, wearing a tattered, black overcoat mingled with dried leaves. He wore a black cloth headband tied at the back of his head above a ponytail streaked with shooting bursts of grey.

  “Who are you?”

  The stranger turned and faced Samuel. His eyes sat deep in his skull, surrounded by dark blooms of age and fatigue. The headband crouched low over his eyebrows, and the stranger’s nose sat crooked, in between two red cheeks and lips melded together into a thin line. A bruise ran from his left ear, down across his throat, and then up underneath his right ear.

  “Call me Major,” he said.

  “Is that a name or a rank?”

  Major smiled and shook his head. “You ask too many questions.”

  Major placed his knife and sharpening stone on a rock, and the glint of the blade sparkled when it caught the dull glare of the daylight.

  “You saved my life,” Samuel said.

  Major shrugged.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome . . . er?”

  “Samuel.”

  “You’re welcome, Samuel.”

  Major stood and walked over to Samuel, sitting on a rock facing him.

  “What do you remember?” he asked.

  “The noose.”

  Major’s eyebrows pushed the headband up slightly.

  “It didn’t work. I know it was tight on my neck. I don’t remember that, I just know it. Then it was at my feet, and the bruises on my neck turned red.”

  “Before that?” Major asked.

  Samuel shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Family, friends, work, women?”

  Again, Samuel shook his head.

  Major whistled and stood. “Haven’t seen many that close who don’t end up with rigor mortis.”

  “Close to what?” Samuel asked.

  Major waved his hand in the air and bent down to rummage through a rucksack a few feet from the fire pit. He pulled out a plastic jewel case. The cover had four symbols on it, and the spine read “Threefold Law—Revenant.” He tossed the CD to Samuel.

  “Know what that is?”

  Samuel smiled. “I’m not an idiot. It’s a CD.”

  Major snatched it from his hands and tossed it back into the sack. “Personal, not cultural,” he said, more to himself than Samuel.

  Samuel stood and stretched his back. His stomach moaned, and he stepped toward Major. “I can’t remember the last time I ate anything.”

  That shook Major from a momentary daydream. He pulled the rucksack closed and reached into the blue, plastic shopping bag behind it, grabbing cheese on wheat crackers wrapped in cellophane. He tossed them to Samuel.

  “One of the few of those I have left. Might be one of the last ever.”

  Samuel tore into the snack crackers. The overpowering sting of salt flooded his mouth and his senses. And then, as quickly as it came, the taste disappeared. He chewed what now tasted like dried cardboard. Samuel finished the crackers and immediately recognized how thirsty he had become.

  Major walked to the nearest pine, lifted a twelve gauge shotgun, and laid the barrel over his left shoulder. He loaded a lead pumpkin ball into the chamber and clicked it shut. Major grabbed the rucksack and swung it over his head.

  “I’ve gotta go.”

  Samuel stared at him.

  “I left you a water.”

  “Hold on. Where are you going?”

  Major ignored the question and strode past Samuel toward the enveloping darkness of the forest. The filtered light retreated downward from the sky, leading Samuel to believe it was nearing dusk.

  “What if the wolves return?”

  “They will,” Major said. “But not for two or three nights. I wouldn’t linger here for too long, if I were you.”

  ***

  Samuel sat at the base of the tree that had become his refuge from the pack. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. What he recognized as night returned, smothering what remained of the reflected light in the sky. He decided against following Major into the woods. The man must have been here much longer than he had, and it would not be difficult for Major to lose him. And then Samuel remembered the wolves and thought better of venturing into the wilderness on his own.

  He reached over to the water bottle Major left and noticed a scrap of paper underneath it. Placing the bottle to the side, he unfolded the note.

  Most of the bodies have nothing of value. Scavengers cleaned them out. The trinkets lying in piles are worthless or don’t work, neither of which will help you. I can’t tell, but I think it’s accelerating. Not at an even pace like a clock, but more like the tides. It moves faster the closer it gets. I’ve seen it before. I’m moving to higher ground. So should you.

  Samuel read the note again. It was not addressed to him, and it was not signed. He had to assume Major left it and decided another confrontation with the pack would not be in his best interest. He shoved his personal items into a pocket, drained the last of the water, and climbed the tree. When the morning glow crested over the horizon, he would follow Major’s trail as far as he could and hope it would lead to higher ground.

  ***

  Samuel awoke. He had d
ozed on the branch, but would not go so far as to call it sleep. He felt pain in his hips, and his muscles ached from the slight tension needed to keep him balanced and in the tree. A thin beam of light appeared on the same horizon after what felt like more than a single night of darkness.

  It’s accelerating.

  Samuel thought about the phrase in Major’s note, and that the night felt longer. He shook his head and turned one ear toward the unending forest. Samuel had not heard them baying, nor seen so much as a falling leaf since Major left. The silence of the forest again felt suffocating, dead. He slid off the branch and climbed backward down the trunk until his feet landed on the pine needles.

  Samuel made the decision to find higher ground before Major’s note, and he walked into the forest in the same direction Major had, following the man’s first few footsteps. Samuel laughed and remembered tracking a deer in his youth. He smelled the fresh blood and felt the crisp snap of the frigid winter air of days gone by. He stopped, frantic yet exhilarated. That memory had returned. If it did, others might as well.

  ***

  He spent the next few hours trudging through the ancient forest, unsure as to whether he was making progress or simply walking in a huge arc. Samuel had not come across his campsite again, so he considered his time as progress. He approached a narrow creek running across the path. The water moved over the low rocks and passed by without so much as a gurgle. The entire stream was silent. Samuel reached into his back pocket and removed the cap from the plastic water bottle Major left him. He dipped the bottle into the water and filled it to the top. Samuel sniffed the water, could not detect an odor, and poured a drop into his mouth. He swallowed and waited. His stomach did not cramp, and he could not detect a bitter or chemical taste. He threw the bottle back and drained it, refilling it three more times.

  Samuel continued past the creek until the forest felt as though it tipped upward toward the sky. He knew he was moving to higher ground, even though Major’s trail had disappeared. As he made the ascent, the trees thinned and the air felt colder. Samuel kept moving to keep warm, exhaling plumes of breath into the forest. He struggled to determine whether it was day or night. He trudged forward on an ever-increasing slope headed skyward. He leaned on the north side of a tree trunk, resting his legs and lungs. Samuel rubbed his eyes, certain the cabin he just spotted in the distance was a figment of his imagination.