by D. Laine
“Everything okay?” David whispered to me.
I shook my head as a seed of concern planted in my gut. “They’re not answering.”
“Maybe they’re already in the shelter,” he suggested.
“Maybe,” I muttered, but I wasn’t convinced.
Perhaps it was nothing but paranoia brought on by the string of unlikely events, but I feared my parents had not made it to their bunker. I would know when I got there. For now, I could do nothing but wait.
23
DYLAN
For two hours, I split my attention between the clock on my cell phone and the silent statue in the driver’s seat with four lives in his hands. At the speeds Jake was hitting, a simple mistake on his part would guarantee a quick death for all of us.
A small part of me thought that might not have been so bad. Probably better than the unknown we would face in the coming months. Hell, years. This was only the beginning.
Being vaporized by a supervolcano or meeting hard pavement at a hundred miles per hour seemed like the lesser of two evils. But I had a survival instinct, and it was at full strength for the duration of our drive. Factor in the protective instincts I had developed from being around Thea for the past few weeks, and I had never wanted to survive to see another day—as bleak as the forecast was—more than I did right now.
I still hadn’t gotten my redemption. I still hadn’t explained everything to her. She still looked at me like I was the enemy, and I couldn’t die with that between us. She couldn’t die having that opinion of me.
When she finally leaned forward in her seat to point out the exit that would take us to her home, I relaxed a notch. Then my eyes flicked to the time on my cell phone screen, and the tension in my muscles returned.
If the agency’s timeline was correct, we had less than ten minutes.
As if Mother Nature knew zero-hour was nearly upon us, she opened up the skies to reward us with a curtain of thick white flakes of snow. It was pretty to watch, but surreal in a this-is-the-end kind of way. It felt like a goodbye.
“Take a left at the next intersection,” Thea instructed softly. Her voice snapped me out of the snow-induced trance I had fallen into. “It’s a red light, but I doubt anyone will be there this late.”
She was right. Jake whipped through the empty intersection as fast as the tires on the Hummer permitted. We flew past another dozen streets and sped through three more stop signs before the town limits disappeared behind us. Far into the vast open country now, I searched for signs of life—lights, a mailbox, a car, anything to let us know we were close to our destination.
Finally, Thea said, “Slow down. The turn is coming up on the right.”
Jake eased off the gas when a mailbox appeared in the headlights. He still took the turn onto the dirt road Thea indicated five times faster than normally acceptable. Even with the thin layer of snow on the ground, the tires of the Hummer gripped the dirt and jerked us forward. In the distance, the dark shadow of a two-story house rose out of the wide open field.
“The shelter is near those trees there.” Thea’s arm shot out between Jake and me, pointing toward the edge of the field thirty yards from the house.
His common decency thrown out the window a long time ago, Jake swerved off the driveway and angled across the yard toward the spot Thea indicated. We bounced and rolled across the uneven terrain, finally coming to an abrupt stop at the tree line.
All four doors flew open at once. Jake paused long enough to dart a glance in my direction.
“Time?”
“Now,” I answered swiftly. “I’ll get the weapons. You get the rest.”
We both moved toward the rear of the vehicle. Jake swiped up the two bags that contained most of our clothing and supplies, and I lifted the floorboard to reveal the hiding place for our arsenal of weapons.
“Holy shit!”
I turned with an armful of guns and knives to find David gaping at me.
“Who are you guys?” he asked.
“You really—Thea!” I yelled after the shadow darting across the yard.
I turned to find Jake standing at the open hatch to the below-ground shelter. The panic on his face matched mine as he watched his sister run toward the house.
“She’s going for her parents,” he concluded.
I tossed the weapons into David’s unsuspecting arms. “Go with Jake. I’m going to get Thea.”
Without waiting for a confirmation, I ran after her. She had a sizable lead on me. I watched her bound up the porch steps and disappear inside the house before I made it halfway across the yard. By the time I reached the front door, she was long gone. I heard her voice ringing out from the depths of the house as she called out for her mom and dad.
“Thea!” I moved in the direction of her voice. With no light to assist me, I felt my way along the wall. I found a power switch, but nothing happened when I flipped it. They had lost electricity at some point. The subtle smell of rotten food in the air suggested that they had been without for at least a few days.
The smell worsened as I angled to the right, stepping into what I suspected was the kitchen. I bumped into something pointy, and grunted from the pain that shot down my leg.
“Damn it, Thea! We have to go! Now!”
She appeared in a doorway in front of me. I couldn’t see her face clearly, but I heard the panic in her voice. “They’re not here.”
“Maybe they found somewhere else to take shelter,” I suggested. I reached out to take a hold of her hand. When I pulled, she came without protest. “We have to go.”
She stepped in front of me to take the lead—a move I was grateful for in the unfamiliar and dark interior of the house. Not even the glow from the moon reflecting off the fresh layer of snow outside helped. The smothering darkness made it nearly impossible to detect the movement of something in front of us.
I wasn’t so sure I saw it as much as I heard it. The subtle scraping of shoes over the floor that didn’t come from Thea or me, but from someone—or something—hidden in the shadows.
“Thea.” I tugged on her arm, pulling her against me. At her yelp of protest, I clamped my other hand over mouth. “Shh.”
Of course, she didn’t listen. Perhaps I should have remembered that I had been arrested for murder mere hours ago. Perhaps I should have anticipated the swift elbow to the gut and knee to the groin when she struggled against me.
Hindsight wasn’t going to do shit to help me now, and it certainly wasn’t going to keep Thea from the danger of whatever waited for her in the dark when she ran away from me.
Over the sound of something heavy crashing to the floor, I heard her scream.
I pulled the phone from my pocket and turned the screen toward the kitchen doorway, illuminating the sinister grins on the faces of the two tags that blocked our escape. Thea lay at their feet, crawling backward in her haste to escape the creatures.
The light hit her face just enough to show the disbelief in her eyes. Coupled with the “nononono” she repeated over and over, I suspected that she recognized the tags as her parents.
Now they were fully matured, activated tags. I had paid enough attention in instruction to recognize that much. They were no longer hibernating, and that could only mean one thing: the eruption marked the end of stage one and the beginning of stage two, as I suspected it would. The events of the apocalypse were in full swing.
And Thea and I were caught in the middle of it.
I raced forward to grab her by the shoulders at the same time the two tags charged. I shoved her to the side and out of their path. “Go, Thea! Run!”
I backpedaled into the kitchen as one of the tags stalked toward me. The other turned to growl at Thea—giving her the answer to the question that she was too terrified to ask. These things were no longer her parents. I couldn’t see her face, but I heard her wail of despair.
I picked up a pot I found on the stove and tossed it at the tag closer to her, demanding he turn his attention from Thea to me
. Gross, slimy green liquid flung across both tags and the floor. The stench of it forced bile to rise up my throat. I choked it down and retreated a step. Two steps. One tag slinked toward me, slipping briefly in the mess on the floor.
One hand behind me felt for obstacles in my path, while the other held my phone up. I kept the light trained on the archway, where Thea slowly inched toward the front door.
The hand behind me grazed over a countertop littered with old food—or so I hoped. Everything I touched, I whipped at the head of the male tag, who still stalked Thea. My fingers grazed something pointy and sharp, slicing through the pad of my thumb. I fumbled around to locate the handle.
“Run, Thea!” I launched the knife at the farther tag. It sunk into his back with a soft crunch. He turned away from Thea with a roar, his enraged and hungry eyes reflecting the light in my hand. “Go, Thea!”
Both tags charged me, and I ran. With nothing but the measly light from my cell phone to guide me, I sprinted through the kitchen and passed through another doorway that led deeper into the house. I rounded a large dining room table and came to a stop when the tags followed me into the room. They approached the barrier between us with their mouths open and snarling. Smeared blood stained both their chins.
“Looks like you’ve been eating,” I observed. “How long ago did you mature?”
The man-tag tilted his head like a dog given an unfamiliar command. I glanced quickly between the two of them. “What? No speak human anymore?”
I angled closer to the second doorway, slightly to my right and behind me. I had no idea what lay beyond it, but it was my only option. The tags had the path to the kitchen blocked, but if I could work my way around to the front door . . .
My hands curled around the back of the wooden chair in front of me. “You’ve obviously lost some brain cells, but how’s that speed and strength holding up?”
I hurled the chair across the table, catching the first tag in the head. She reared back, stumbling into the second tag. I didn’t wait to see what they did next. I raced through the doorway and immediately crashed into a rocking chair.
Hearing them behind me, I grabbed the back of the chair and tossed it to the floor at their feet. The coffee table in the center of the room had nothing on my long legs as I leaped over it. I came down on a fluffy set of cushions and vaulted over the back of the couch on my way toward the front of the house.
The dim cell phone light bouncing around in front of me illuminated a pair of eyes watching from the doorway. I nearly skidded to a stop before I recognized who was standing there.
“Jesus, Thea! I told you to run!”
She held her hand out in front of her. The light reflected something shiny in her possession. I didn’t have a guess what it was until I heard the hiss. Behind me, the tags screeched to a stop as Thea blasted them with a blinding cloud of mace.
A little got in my eyes. It stung like a bitch, but I didn’t complain as I nudged her toward the open door. “Go!”
This time, she listened. I followed her, slowing only long enough to knock over a table on my way out the door. That small pause let me know that these tags were just as fast in their activated state as they had been in hibernation—if not faster. Though partially blinded by the mace in their eyes, they were still coming.
And now they were furious.
I made it through the door and down the steps, but both tags were close behind. Thea was several paces ahead of me, but I feared both I and the tags would overtake her before we reached the safety of the shelter.
When the ground shook beneath us and she stumbled, I thought for certain it was over for both of us. Because I knew, in that moment, that I would die trying to protect her.
I hooked her waist with one arm to steady her, but another strong tremble sent us both to the ground. Casting a quick glance over my shoulder, I saw that the tags tolerated the earth moving a little better than we had.
The shaking didn’t let up. It grew stronger, ultimately cracking the ground beneath us. A sudden violent lurch forced Thea and I apart. A glance behind me confirmed the tags had quickly closed the distance between us.
I waved frantically at Thea. “Keep going! Get to the shelter!”
The growls behind me spun me around just in time to witness the blur of arms and legs and gnashing teeth as the tags overcame me. Their teeth tore into my flesh, wherever they could get it. Over the sounds of their bloodlust-induced snarls, I heard a loud, escalating rumble in the distance.
The volcano.
It was inevitable. If I wasn’t eaten alive first, I’d be caught in the open when the ash cloud got here. Neither sounded like a pleasant way to die.
For a brief moment, I wished Jake wasn’t such a good driver. Why couldn’t he have wiped us all out on the freeway tonight? It would have been easier than this. It would have been a hell of a lot quicker.
But then, he’d be dead too. And Thea. And David.
At least, this way, I could die knowing that they were still alive. That they still had a chance. If I could trust anyone to keep Thea safe in my absence, it was Jake. Those were my self-pitying final thoughts as I let the tags finish me.
I jerked at the eardrum-destroying blast that sounded behind me. My eyes squeezed shut as I waited for death to take me. With any luck, the ash cloud would claim me quickly.
A prompt and unexpected second blast scared the hell out of me. My eyes sprang open as one of the tags rolled off of me. I looked down to see that he was missing most of his face.
I glanced back and forth between the two tags, where they lay unmoving beside me, their own blood mixing with mine until I couldn’t tell whose was whose any more. Then a pair of hands grabbed me by the shoulders and hauled me out of the gory mess.
My eyelids grew heavy, nearly impossible to keep open, as pain ripped through me. Cold, wet flakes of snow melted on my face as I stared up into the dark, starless night. I fixed my gaze on the horizon in an effort to stay awake. In that direction, I knew, lay Yellowstone. It was fitting, I thought, that I had the perfect view of the end of the world just before I died. Depressing as hell, but fitting.
A brilliant flash of orange surged in the distance before spreading out quickly in its race toward us. Along with the deafening roar, I heard Jake’s panicked orders to someone else behind me. It was only then that I realized there was more than one pair of hands on me, dragging me across the ground.
I felt every rock and bump along the way, but none of that hurt as much as the realization that the two people I cared about—the only two people I had allowed myself to care about in ten years—would die right along with me.
24
I didn’t die.
Though there were moments I begged for death, no one listened to me. No one gave a damn what I wanted.
“Shut the hell up and take it like a man,” were Jake’s orders to me. Days later, when I could finally speak without whining—Jake’s word of choice, not mine—I told him what I thought he should do with himself.
“He’s going to be fine,” he announced softly.
I rolled my head to find him putting a hand on Thea’s shoulder. I hadn’t even noticed her standing there. My mouth dropped open to say something to her, and I howled at the sharp prick of pain in my arm. “What the—”
“Another shot of antibiotics,” Jake explained quickly.
I watched as he withdrew the needle from my arm and capped it. Another needle quickly followed, but I was ready for it. And because I assumed it was pain meds, I really wanted that one.
When Jake stood, my eyes lifted to find Thea’s. “You okay?”
Her head jerked up and down. Tears rimmed her eyes. I wanted to put my hand out, to offer whatever comfort I could, but a wave of fatigue dragged me under before I could move my arm.
When I finally woke up free of pain and without Jake’s meddling hands all over me, I took a moment to focus on my surroundings. My gaze settled on the smooth sheets of metal directly above the cot I lay on. My h
ead rolled as I followed the perimeter of the sturdy ceiling. Across the small room, a soft light flickered from a source I couldn’t see. Illuminated in the glow was a fully stocked wall of canned foods and bottled waters, as well as another cot. David lay there, snoring softly.
Jake sat nearby, on the bottom rung of a narrow flight of stairs, with a shotgun resting between his knees. His eyes were on me.
“Where’s Thea?” I croaked.
His head nodded, and I dropped my gaze to my side. Thea lay there, curled up next to me. Her head rested on a small corner of the pillow.
“She hasn’t left your side,” Jake volunteered softly.
I brushed aside the curtain of hair partially covering her face. “How long have I been out?”
“Three days,” Jake replied with a shrug. “I think.”
“Any activity out there?”
“Not yet,” he muttered.
I started to nod then froze the moment my gaze landed on the faint mark behind Thea’s ear. My eyes squeezed shut in an involuntary attempt to pretend I hadn’t seen it. It wasn’t a complete mark—not yet—but it was undeniable now. Thea had been tagged. My fear had become a reality, and I couldn’t hide the despair I felt from the one person that knew me better than anyone.
“What’s wrong?” Jake whispered.
“Nothing.” I buried my face in the pillow to hide my guilt ridden eyes from him. “Just tired.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Dylan.” I heard the scrape of his shoes as he pushed to a stand. I knew the moment he saw the mark from the sharp breath that hissed between his teeth.
The silence that followed filled with a thick blanket of tension. My hands clenched beneath the thin sheet that covered me and I slowly rolled my head to peer up at my partner.
“Don’t,” I warned him. I might be hurt right now, but I wouldn’t hesitate to defend her if I had to. Considering Jake was healthy and armed, it wouldn’t end well for me, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make . . . for her.
But I quickly knew it wouldn’t come to that. Jake’s eyes shifted to mine, and I saw his devastation. “When?”