by Stu Jones
“Heavenly Father,” Jenna began, just above a whisper, “we send you another one of our own, Jim Burrleson. I think he was a heavy-equipment operator from Charleston, back…before.” Jenna took a deep breath and pulled the shovel to her side. “I don’t remember him mentioning any family or anyone else. I’m sorry I didn’t take the time to get to know him better. I don’t know the condition of his soul, and apart from my few moments with him in medical toward the end, I can’t say where he will spend eternity. But I will say this. He was a good man, a hard worker around the station, and he always gave freely of himself to help others. I can only hope that in his heart he knew your grace and the eternal freedom of your forgiveness. We pray that you pour your mercies upon him and make him your own this day. And go with us as we continue on without him. In your holy name, amen.”
“Amen,” Rob echoed, as he pulled his baseball cap back over his balding head. After a moment he looked at Jenna and asked, “Need anything else from me?”
Jenna shook her head as she swung the shovel over her shoulder. “No. Thanks for your help, Rob, and for the cross.”
“I just hate to see this. Like enough of us haven’t died already. Do you know what it was? That did Jim in, I mean.”
“Severe abdominal injury, infection, blood loss, dehydration. Take your pick.”
Rob made a face. “Terrible way to go, being attacked by one of those things.”
“We’ve all got to go someday. So many have gone before us.”
“Then what’s the point, Jenna?” the older man said, a strained look on his worn face. The question seemed to gnaw at his will to go on. “Why do we struggle on like this when everything seems so hopeless?”
“Because it’s never hopeless, my friend.” Jenna smiled and patted him on the back. “God told us it wouldn’t be easy. So we struggle. We struggle with the weight of that responsibility, and we’ll do it for him, just because he chose to love us. In the end, when he welcomes us to glory, and we know it’s because of his goodness and not ours that we stand there, who will be able to say that there was a better cause to have lived and died for?”
Courtland Thompson lumbered through the doorway into the mess hall, turning sideways and ducking to squeeze through the gap. At more than eight feet tall and almost five hundred pounds, Courtland had been a professional athlete in what seemed like a former life. All blood sport and fame, his Crushball career had been short and violent, like most. Those days seemed so distant to him now that they might as well have happened to someone else. As he entered the mess hall, he passed Dagen, who was balancing a bottle of water between his fingers as he maneuvered his crutches.
“Hello, Dagen. How ya doin’?” asked Courtland, his deep voice quiet and sincere.
“I’m fine,” Dagen said in a clipped tone. He lowered his gaze and moved into the hallway.
Turning and watching Dagen go, Courtland pondered the strange man and how he was somewhat of a phantom around the station. He slipped to and fro without so much as a word most of the time. Courtland knew the man had not had an easy time of it and he wondered about the condition of Dagen’s soul. He knew Jenna had made an immense impact on the broken man through her acts of kindness and selflessness.
Courtland made his way to the counter. “Hey, Kris.”
“Courtland. What can I do for you?”
Kris was in charge of rations at the station. Everyone received a daily allowance, which included a liter of water, two canned items, and two handfuls of stale crackers or other starch. People decided when to receive their rations. As they received them, Kris marked them off the list for the day. A decent barter system had been put into effect, and individuals could trade daily rations for other necessary items, meds, or ammo.
“My stomach is growling,” Courtland said, smiling.
“You want one and one?”
“Yes, sir. Please.”
“Here you go, pal. It’s your lucky day today. Cold SpaghettiOs and stale Wheat Thins.”
Courtland’s stomach growled again. “Sounds great.” He paused as he gathered the items. “Kris, is there anything I can pray for on your behalf today?
Kris slowed his writing and looked up from his list. “I’m not really a religious guy.”
Courtland nodded. “I respect that and don’t mean to push. Just so you know, though, some of us meet in the mornings in the courtyard to pray. You’re welcome anytime,” Courtland said, as he smiled and turned toward the tables.
Kris winced. “Hey,” he started, “I have been having nightmares, you know, about my family. Maybe you could pray for some peace for me, or comfort, or something.”
“Absolutely, friend. I can do that.” Courtland smiled as he took a seat at a nearby table.
“Thanks,” Kris said, trying to look busy as Kane entered the room.
“Hey, big man,” Kane called to Courtland. “Hungry?”
“Starving.” Courtland sighed as he pried the metal lid off the canned food with his fingers. “SpaghettiOs today.”
“Perfect.” As Kris crossed him off the list, Kane gathered his items and moved to the table with the gentle giant.
“Can you open mine? I don’t have super strength or stone fingers.”
Courtland smiled, pulling the metal top away from the can as if he were lifting a sheet of plastic wrap.
“What do you miss the most?”
“Huh?” Kane said as he sat down.
“Cold SpaghettiOs are good and all, but what meal do you miss the most?”
“Ah.” Kane rubbed his chin. “A hot cheeseburger and fries with an ice-cold chocolate milkshake. No contest.”
“How American of you.”
“Yeah. What about you?”
“I’d have to say slow-cooked, fall-off-the-bone, barbecued baby backs with baked beans soaked in brown sugar.”
“Okay, stop. You’re killing me.” Kane huffed.
“How are you holding up?” Courtland mumbled through a mouthful of food.
“I’m doing fine, man.”
Courtland gave Kane a penetrating look. “I don’t want your generic answer, brother. You’re the best friend I have, and I want to know the condition of your heart.”
Kane smirked as he stuck his fork into the reddish slop. “Can’t hide much from you, can I?”
“You should stop trying,” Courtland said, smiling back.
“The truth? I’m sleep deprived, dehydrated, and stressed out. How’s that? I also can’t stop thinking about my family…and Molly, however counterproductive all that is.”
Courtland nodded as he chewed. “I get it. There’s nothing wrong with loving and missing the people we’ve lost. It keeps us human.”
The two chewed in silence for a moment.
“I know you’ve been busy and all,” Courtland began, “but I think it would do you a lot of good to come and pray with us in the mornings. Get everything back in perspective.”
Kane seemed to ignore the statement. “What about you?” he asked. “How are things in your world?”
Courtland shrugged. “The visions have been growing stronger, but I’m having a hard time understanding them. I worry that if I can’t figure them out, I might miss what they’re trying to tell me.”
Kane wiped a drip of sauce from his stubbled chin as the giant continued.
“I also think a lot about my daughter Marissa and her mother. Sometimes I wonder if they would’ve made it in this world, even if they had survived to see it.”
“Yeah,” Kane mumbled. “True.”
“We can’t survive here forever, Kane. What happens when we scavenge every available resource? Or meet more opposition to our cause?”
“I know.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know. I think about it all the time. I just don’t know what it is we’re supposed to do next. It’s as clear as mud.”
“Have you had any dreams, any word about your purpose? Anything?”
“No,” Kane said without looking up.
“Courtland, ease up,” Kane blurted out. “God hasn’t revealed anything to me. I’ve got no idea what he wants us to do now, Okay? Take the light into the darkness? What the hell is that supposed to mean anyway, and how does that look in real life? I can’t answer your questions, and my waiting on God doesn’t make decisions that need to be made. These people are looking to us.”
“Maybe, but first you have to listen. Only then will you begin to trust and find the strength to obey,” Courtland said, looking up to catch Kane’s glare.
They sat in silence, neither of them eating, for what seemed like a lifetime.
Courtland finally spoke. “Breathe. I’m not trying to anger you.”
“For not trying, you’re doing a decent job,” Kane said.
“Just pray about it, brother. That’s all I ask. Take it before the Lord.”
“Okay,” Kane said, softening. “I will. I appreciate your support and your counsel, as always.”
“That, my friend, is my purpose.” Courtland raised his water bottle in a toast. “For as long as my heart beats in my chest, I’m your man—until the bitter end.”
“Until the bitter end,” Kane repeated, raising own his bottle with a weathered smile.
On the darkest of nights, by the light of a small fire, a lone mother sat cradling her two children against her thin frame. She’d done what she had to do. It was not a position she would have put herself in had it not been for her two children. In a desperate move to survive and to ensure her children’s safety in a world of fear and uncertainty, she had given herself to another man outside of her husband.
Since the end began, her husband was no longer in the picture. The hope of ever seeing him again had vanished along with every last shred of her pride and virtue. All that now remained was the fear laced certainty of an unknown future.
The events of the past year had shaken her faith in a terrible way. She loathed her new position, living among these strange people, these survivors, as they made their way north along the coast like a band of gypsies. They were well into Georgia, now. She took a moment to recall the arduous journey that had brought them there.
She closed her eyes and once again felt the assault on her senses. The sound of the missiles as they struck the city had driven her in a panic from her hotel room, her children dangling in her arms as she fled. She didn’t know where she was going, but she had to get out, screaming down the smoke-filled stairwell. Her world came crashing down in those fiery, early-morning hours. It was only by chance, by grace, that she and the children had encountered the hotel manager in the lobby who directed them to the underground shelter.
It had been weeks, months, what felt like years since she and her children had emerged, clawing their way from an underground shelter in the basement of the Fenris Tower Hotel in downtown Miami. They did so only to find the ugly ruins of their collective lives strewn about in disarray like the rubble-filled streets before them. She knew then that everyone she had ever loved, save her precious children, had died. It was this realization that changed her, breaking her down to the real parts inside, making her both a little more and a little less the person she was before.
After the initial days of chaos and fear, her group had organized with the other hotel survivors. They headed out of the dangerous, burning city, fighting off the growing number of infected as they went. She couldn’t view the sick as people anymore. A denial that was key to doing what had to be done. They had gone crazy, mad with fever and disease, hungry for anything that moved—even other survivors. Few of their original group had survived, and even fewer had survived unscathed. The surgical mask she wore over her nose and mouth served as a constant reminder of the danger of exposure and the urgent need to get out of the city.
Their movement was slow, but they had managed to stay together, traveling north up the East Coast, following the former hotel manager, the man named Garrett, who wouldn’t let her forget that she owed her life and the lives of her children to him. Like a tribe of nomads or a herd of cattle, they never seemed to settle for long. Garrett said they had to find the truth of what had happened. He said they would not rest until they found out why. That was nine months ago—nine months of fear, hope, and a woman’s desperate need to protect her children.
The young boy made a whimpering sound, and she soothed him by gently running her fingers through his hair. It was for him and his sister that she did this, that she had done any of it. It was the only way to protect them from the animals, human and otherwise, that now prowled the wastes. The fire popped, sending a shower of sparks flying into the cool night air like fireworks that begin so vibrant, before fading to nothing. A man approached the fire from behind her. The light glistened on the blue war paint that covered his face. The paint and his knotted ponytail made him look like a misplaced extra from the set of Braveheart.
“Garrett wants you in his tent.”
“I’m with my children—”
“Garrett wants you in his tent now, sweetheart,” the man named Saxon said, an evil smile cresting the corners of his lips.
She lowered her head. Wherever you are, don’t watch me now.
She wiped a shameful tear from her face and covered her children with the blanket as she stood. Her angels were fast asleep. They had been so resilient, even from the start, enduring every moment of fear and terror this new existence proffered. Trying to explain to them that their daddy was gone had been the worst moment of her life. They would all have to survive, she told them, and move on without him.
With the fierceness of a mother bear, she turned and locked eyes with Saxon. “Nobody touches a hair on their heads, or Garrett will hear about it.”
In a flash, he slapped her across the face and grabbed her under her jaw. His smile cold in the warm light of the fire. “You don’t get to tell me shit. If you’re lucky we’ll leave them alone for a while longer,” he whispered, licking his lips.
She burned with anger as she wrenched her face from his grasp and shoved him back. They stood in a silent showdown for what seemed like forever. Finally, she turned to walk with proud determination toward the tent at the center of the camp. There were men who desired the company of young children—Saxon was one of them.
Filthy bastard. I’ll kill him if he ever touches them.
She had given herself to Garrett to keep her children from the clutches of such men. While she lived and breathed, her children would not suffer that way. Not them. Her life became consumed with their survival, no matter the cost.
As she walked past the ramshackle tents, a symphonic blend of the camp’s noises followed her: low murmurs, the scraping sound of a blade being sharpened, the distant whine of someone crying. Then she heard a different sound. As she walked she slowed her pace to process the noise as she neared Garrett’s tent. Two men were talking in hushed tones.
“Stop it. Stop right there. Did you catch that?”
“Catch what?”
“A broadcast of some sort. Go back.”
“Okay, okay. Hang on.”
A blaze of static could be heard, followed by a fading and fuzzy voice. The voice slowly became clearer. Before the first word was finished, she recognized the voice. Her mouth dropped open as a stroke of lightheadedness consumed her from head to toe, causing her knees to tremble.
“Kane Lorusso…shhhhh…broadcasting from the emergency radio control…shhhh…coast of South Carolina…We have resources…shhhh…There is light in the darkness…shhhhhhhhhhh.”
“You lost it!” the man cried.
“I did not. This radio is junk!”
“Well, keep trying!”
She clutched her hands to her face, trying to suppress the swelling of hope in her chest. The signal came through once again.
“Shhhhhhh…Susan, if you’re out there and you can hear me, I love you…shhhhh…I haven’t lost hope…shhhhhhhhhhh.”
Tears of joy cut paths down Susan Lorusso’s
face. Somehow her husband was alive. He was out there somewhere. But her moment of joy was interrupted. The tent flap flew back with a jerk, and there stood Garrett, the roguish leader of the outfit, half naked in the doorway of the tent.
“What are you doing standing around out here? Get in here and do your thing.”
Susan hardly heard a word the rough man said as she wiped the tears of happiness from her face.
Thank you, Jesus.
She could do this. She could hang on for just a little while longer. There was hope. Kane was alive, and one day, when she saw him again, she and her children would be safe. Susan stepped inside the tent and pulled the flap shut as she let her clothes fall to the ground in a pile at her feet.
Gather our men. Steal their minds and enslave their souls. They will call for their champion, and we will rise to show them the way. All that stands between us and what we must do are the followers of God.
Malak stepped through the narrow doorway and leaned against the balcony railing of his eighth-floor seaside condo. He smirked as he thought of how the former residents might feel knowing he and his gang of savage marauders, the Coyotes, now inhabited the building. Condos at the Reeds at Colonial Pointe had been expensive, exclusive and very hard to come by. Back before the end began, the condos were considered a hot spot along South Carolina’s coast, a destination for wealthy retirees seeking luxury in a resort-like atmosphere. Now it served the needs of Malak and his group. Malak ran his hand over the metal railing and looked out over the darkened sea, an occasional star twinkling through the billowed clouds on the horizon beyond.
He was so close to them, and they didn’t even know it. Less than five miles separated his current base of operations at the Reeds from the emergency radio control station where Kane and the others lived. He was right under their noses, and they didn’t have a clue. His men had even gotten close enough to view the station with binoculars. It was true—he could have attacked by now and retaken the station. He had salvaged some of his men after Kane’s assault during the events of Day Forty and had recruited plenty more, those who had shown the proper drive and skill set for his purpose.