by Glen Krisch
"You can't save everyone."
"If I've learned one thing since the Fall, it's that you can only save yourself."
The door to Milton's apartment put up a fight, but Jason eventually popped the dead bolt using his crowbar.
Of course he had knocked before resorting to force. Even after society's demise, the niceties from Before remained. Of course he had paused before knocking, trying to get a feel for the hollow space on the other side. While niceties lingered, rules now existed for entering an unknown space. Luckily, Milton's place felt untended. No one answered his old-fashioned knock, either. The door swung open with some effort. The floorboards had warped, throwing off the lines of the place. Its dimensions were shifting, adjusting to a new master.
Whenever he entered a home untouched by the Fall, he felt he owed it the respect reserved for libraries. In such places, he kept his voice soft, tried to minimize damage, and only gleaned what he needed to survive. He cautiously stepped inside.
Snow flurried through a shattered skylight, collecting on the rotten carpet. Icicles circling the opening dripped methodically, growing longer with each drip. Frost coated everything: the framed environmental posters, the scavenged and reused furniture, the walls themselves, all tainted a hoary gray. He checked for footprints on the frosted carpet, but didn't find any. If Joe Milton had lived here, it had been a long time ago.
The small one bedroom apartment had a narrow pathway threading between the mismatched living room furniture and dining area. It came as no surprise the living room lacked a television. Bookshelves lined the walls instead, housing hundreds of books. He couldn't remember when he'd last seen as many in one place. At the far side of the dining room, he came across two doors, one open, one closed. Since the open door led to the bathroom, he assumed the bedroom was behind the other.
Inside the bathroom's medicine cabinet, he found an aspirin bottle five years out of date. It might poison Collier, but it was the best he could hope to find. Leaving the bathroom, his eyes stalled at the sight of all those books. He had an almost desperate urge to scan the titles, running his fingers over the myriad of spines. It had been so long since he had done anything besides trying to survive. With effort, he resisted the temptation.
After delivering the aspirin, he would feel free of obligation to the old man. He normally wouldn't have gone this far, especially for a stranger, but Collier was anything but normal. But for the skylight, the apartment seemed sound. There could still be supplies to scavenge. He made a mental note to return at some point.
The bottle rattled as he shoved it inside his coat pocket. Reacting to the sound, something slammed against the wall inside the bedroom. He should have realized. Seeking a safer, more defensible position, squatters often left interior doors locked and barricaded, using fire escapes to enter their shelter, retracting them like drawbridges securing a castle. Right now, in his position, between the open apartment door and the potential lurkers in the bedroom, Jason was trapped. He could kick himself for not shutting the door behind him. At least then he would only have to worry about one angle of attack.
He loathed ambushes. When faced with the possibility, he went on the offensive, and so far, it had worked every time. He unsheathed his knife while still holding the crowbar in the other hand. He took a steadying breath then booted down the door.
Lights flickered on inside the room. Electric lights.
The stark light stunned him momentarily, and if anything more than a flustered crow called the bedroom home, he would've been in trouble. A mere blur sweeping by his face, the bird shot through the front door, cawing its discontent the length of the outer hallway.
More surprising than the corpse sprawled across the bed was the artificial lighting. Death had become commonplace. Jason saw human remains on a daily basis. Artificial lights… it had been seven years. A rope had been wound around the corpse's neck. The ceiling fan had done the job, but at some point its wires had pulled free from the ceiling like a heap of spaghetti strands. The fan sat in the corpse's lap like a gift waiting to be opened. He couldn't see the face, for which he was glad.
Entranced by the light, Jason didn't stray a step from where he entered. His mind reeled, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. After a few minutes, the lights flickered and died, leaving the room swathed in impenetrable gloom.
A long-dormant motion sensor and a light fixture powered by either solar or battery power. He didn't know any such technology survived. The worsening storm showered snow through a broken window. Flakes gathered along the leathery, exposed body's skin, the sprung bedsprings poking through the mattress, every other inert mass. This happened long ago. Jason felt, as he had so many times since the Fall, as though he had unwittingly stepped into a tomb.
The pit-bull answered his question for him.
Which should I give it?
Left, if you have a choice, do away with your left arm.
Jason charged with his right arm cocked back, knife poised to strike, anticipating the pit-bull's teeth easily tearing his coat and underlying flesh.
The beast took the bait, clamping onto his left arm. He expected a fierce, biting agony, but it felt how he supposed getting the limb slammed in a car door would, slammed so hard the door latch caught, holding him fast.
Their momentum sent them skidding onto Jason's back across the snowy tarmac. His head slammed the snow-swept concrete, shooting stars across his eyes and dimming his vision. In the murk he had a crazed thought, two silver linings to this mauling: it hadn't gotten his throat, and he still gripped the knife in his right fist. He fought to raise the knife, but he could barely move his arm in the close quarters.
The leaden air enclosed the melee, blocking all other sound. Jason's growl had quieted to a tortured cry, and through his throes, he heard more than fabric tearing, but also his own flesh. It was a sickening sound, a sound he had never imagined hearing.
The dog foolishly tried to reach his throat without first releasing his arm. It lunged, batting Jason's gnarled arm against his own face. Blood mingling with foamy saliva stung his eyes and dribbled into his mouth.
Jason panicked, thrashing around with renewed vengeance. Unable to maneuver the blade in his pinned position, he bashed the knife butt against the animal's skull. When it nearly lost its grip, Jason saw the slightest glimmer of hope.
He fisted the knife butt down as hard as possible with his limited range of motion. Metal cracked against bone and the animal whined. A fresh wound opened on its skull, joining a lifetime of ragged scars, its blood mixing with his own. Jason struck again, connecting with its square jaw. The animal let go, staggered. Before it could resume its attack, he shifted his angle and jabbed the serrated blade down through its shoulder blade. The knife, embedded in bone and slick with blood, slipped his grasp.
Jason shuffled away from the animal, but it matched his pace, wounded but game to continue the fight. Blood bubbled from its nostrils. Darker blood seeped from between its fleshy lips. It lowered its head as if its weight was too much a burden to bear.
Jason's gnawed arm throbbed, but distantly, something to consider at a later time. He was slipping into shock.
Jason pushed up to his feet and nearly passed out as his eyes swam with blackness. His vision resolved on the pattern the scuffle had forged into the fallen snow. It resembled a snow angel. A brutally mauled snow angel smeared across the white canvas of a dying world.
His eyes fixed on the pit-bull's. It growled through clenched teeth. It looked hungry. Emaciated. Tired from its hunt.
It was weak, vulnerable. Like him.
I'll grab the knife when it attacks again.
He knew if his aim was untrue, these were his last seconds of life.
The animal wore a vestment of blood. It strode cautiously, no longer crying in pain, once again a focused hunter, not willing to lose its prey after all it had endured. It went in for the kill, teeth bared, muscles thrumming.
Gathering his energy, trying to ward off the numbing blan
ket of shock, Jason lunged for the knife.
His fingers brushed the handle but slipped away.
Luckily, the animal missed his throat, instead, tearing into the meat of his shoulder. He could see Collier's building, five doors away. It called to him, tauntingly close. He considered shouting, but Collier couldn't help him even if he did hear. His effort would only alert nearby predators to an easy kill.
Jason flailed in the blood-stained snow, his efforts becoming increasingly futile. He was unable to reach the knife buried in the animal's back. The heady stench of blood and desperation rolled off both of them. Jason felt helpless, hopelessly unable to use the only weapon at his disposal. Then he saw his chance. His last chance.
After the pit-bull released its grip on his shoulder, attempting again to reach his neck, Jason shoved its heavy head aside, then lunged, snapping his teeth into the animal's sinewy neck. To his surprise, his bite burrowed deeply. The animal went into a defensive frenzy, thrashing violently to get free.
Blood flooded Jason's mouth, nearly choking him. He bit harder.
He wrapped his arms around the dog's shoulders as if embracing a lover. Its heartbeat, scared and throttling, thrummed against his lips.
The beast fell to its side. Blood continued to pulse over Jason's cheeks and throat, hot and salty.
With one last effort, Jason reached for the knife, but it didn't matter. When his fingers closed on the hilt, the animal was dead.
Collier was dead when Jason returned. Teddy hunkered low by his master's side, growling at the sight of him.
The old man hadn't moved. Maybe scratching an itch dislodged the blood clot. Maybe he sneezed. It didn't matter. He looked like he was sleeping. Jason let one last empathetic thought cross his mind before he moved on: he hoped the old man went peacefully.
Jason's wounds screamed and continued to bleed freely. It soaked his clothes, while his face was a tacky blood mask of his victim's blood. Adrenaline thrummed through his limbs, keeping him on edge.
Teddy continued to growl, but didn't move away. The animal could smell it on him; the mingling blood, the wild endorphin rush that only came from killing.
Jason wondered if he would stay at his master's side, keeping watch over the body until he grew too weak and joined in his fate. Or maybe he would start to feed.
Jason felt dizzy. Exhaustion, starvation, blood loss; any number of factors conspired against him. He needed to pull together before something else tried to strike him down. He needed supplies. The dog carcass in his pack would only last so long. He needed to glean.
"Scoot, Teddy." He tried to switch off the killing rush, but found it impossible to soften the hard edge in his voice. The dog barked, lips pulled back in a vicious sneer.
"Move!"
The dog stood his ground. Jason kicked the animal in the ribs, too hard, sending him into the cinderblock wall. The animal howled in pain, took up his growl, but stayed away.
Jason got to work. With his bloodied knife he cut long strips of fabric from the old man's shirt, using them to bind his wounds. He found dried fruit and canned beets in Collier's pack, which he transferred to his own. After starting a fire in his portable fire pot, he found a comfortable spot, and cooked a hunk of dog flesh into a bland stew. He waited for the sun to rise. Only the desperate traveled at night.
Sudden Sanctuary
Story Notes
Today marked twenty-two days since Claudia's webcam died. The power outage affected her neighborhood, but for all she knew, it could encompass the world. If only it would've waited another ten seconds, twenty, tops. Just long enough for her boyfriend to complete whatever "important question" he was in middle of asking when her computer screen went dark. She believed Brad had been on the verge of professing his love for her. She remembered his exact words, having little to do these last three weeks but ponder what might have been.
"Maybe you should come to my place. It's safer here, more secure. I'd love…"
I'd love…, Claudia thought yet again as she paced the living room. She eyed her half-full backpack sitting open on the couch. I'd love... what?
I'd love…for you to move in with me.
No, that's not right.
I'd love…for you to never leave me. Be my wife.
That's better, she thought, No, that would be the best of all!
While Brad hadn't said I love, as in "I love you," but merely, I'd love..., could there be a more logical conclusion?
She heard a distressing series of noises coming from across the narrow alleyway outside the living room: a crowbar wedging open a door, a startled cry in response, muffled voices, perhaps the dull thuds of fists impacting yielding flesh, then definitely, without a doubt, a chorus of wicked laughter. The looters were getting closer and they would soon force Claudia's hand. Soon they would come for her stuff; her food, her water, her body. She again looked at her backpack, still only half-full; agoraphobia or not, she would soon have to leave the nominal security her apartment afforded her.
Quite unconsciously, Claudia reached out to the window, but her fingers only grazed the gauzy curtain. She pulled back her hand as if bee stung; witnessing the violation of her neighborhood would only hasten her departure. She wasn't ready. Not now. Maybe tomorrow? Her stomach grumbled at the thought of waiting another day.
Does Brad have enough to eat?
For twenty-two days Claudia hadn't stepped foot outside her apartment. She survived on the thin stores of her bachelorette pantry, while occasionally yet obsessively, shaking her computer's mouse as if doing so would rouse it from a deep slumber. She did it yet again, shaking it, clicking the buttons, slamming it against the mousepad. Nothing.
The new strain of swine flu had arrived in the States the previous spring. When it claimed few lives by midsummer, everyone assumed it to be a non-event, just another media-stoked hysteria aimed to increase page hits. By autumn, the virus had mutated into a far more fatal cousin of its predecessor. This wave swarmed the world over and back again, sweeping away swaths of the populace like ants swatted from a picnic blanket.
Being an agoraphobe to begin with, Claudia had stayed clear of both incarnations of the virus. For years she had worked for Viking Travel as a telecommuter, always accompanied by the TV talking heads to entertain her throughout her workday. As the virus spread, people no longer traveled; Claudia had no work to complete, no leads to follow up on. To make matters worse, the newsfeeds no longer entertained. The world's governments fractured one after another, struggling to carry on in a diminished capacity before breaking apart completely. Commerce and industrial production dried up. The highways emptied. People stayed home. Everyone became an agoraphobe, the whole damned flu-ridden world, waiting by the television for the slightest glimmer of hope. There would be no such satisfaction.
Though the news was incomparably grim and dire, Claudia remained glued to the couch, unable to leave for more than ten minutes without aching to hear the latest updates. Luckily, while taking a break from the television by checking the online media, a pop-up ad for a dating service caught her attention. Feeling the unbearable weight of loneliness, she spur-of-the-moment signed up. Brad contacted her right away and they chatted online all night. By the following morning, they were trading cell calls and texts.
What shit timing, she thought somewhat whimsically, recalling Brad's toothy, warm smile. The end of the world certainly didn't help a shut-in's blossoming love life.
So maybe Brad hadn't been on the verge of professing his undying devotion to her. After all, they'd known each other only three months, three months and twenty-two days, she reminded herself. If she was unclear on his eternal feelings for her, he did want her to come to his place. After all, he did say it was safer at his gated building. So what if she'd never had the courage to visit his place before the power went out. The world had changed in these last twenty-two days. For god's sake, there was no power! That meant no cell, no texting, no cable, no curling iron. That also meant that she could entertain the idea of g
oing to Brad's place without risking debilitating vertigo. There was a silver lining to this apocalypse: she could be whoever she wanted to be. She had a clean slate, so to speak. From this moment on, she could choose to hold her head high as she left the apartment. Perhaps she would no longer break out in nervous sweats from a stranger's casual glance.
Her only problem was leaving her apartment. It would take a tremendous act of will for her to simply open the door. While she could imagine opening the door, leaving the building would practically take an act of God. Could she change who she was, the compulsions that shaped her every action?
But Brad…
Is he thinking of me right now, this very second? she wondered. Is Brad okay, is he even alive?
She cursed herself for entertaining such thoughts. Of course Brad was safe. Safe and sound and worried sick over her own plight. He was such a hopeless romantic, her man. She couldn't let him down, not when their possible future together was at stake. Her resolve strengthened. In a mad fury, she gathered the last bit of useful stuff she might need on her journey.
Her backpack heavy on her shoulder, Claudia stood at the front door and looked about the sanctuary she was leaving behind. She might never return. She resigned herself to the possibility.
Claudia took a deep breath and opened the door.
She nearly screamed when she saw an unwashed boy standing on her doormat.
"Hi, we need help! They couldn't get in the building from the front door, so they're climbing the fire escape!"
She recognized him, but didn't know his name. A sweet boy of eight or nine years who would often bring groceries to his grandfather across the hall. She didn't know the man's name, either. After ten years in the building, she couldn't place a name to the man who lived across from her. She didn't know if she should feel embarrassed, sad, or a combination of the two.
"Who's coming? Looters?"
"Yeah. Grandpa, he's getting our bag. We should've left when they ordered the evacuation, but he wouldn't listen."