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

by Craig DiLouie

  The creatures ignored Samuel and his rescue attempt, determined to rip Kole apart.

  A colorful sleeve of tattoos reached out, snapping tight on Samuel’s wrist. He pulled until there was enough for him to grab Kole’s elbow with his other arm. Samuel dug his heels in and yanked again. Kole’s head emerged, his eyes frantic. With his free arm, Kole swatted at his attackers as if they were hornets from a crushed nest. Samuel took another step backward until the resistance dropped, sending him into the railing of the front porch. The impact knocked the air from his lungs. Kole landed on top of him.

  The door swung open, and Major and Mara each grabbed one of Kole’s arms and dragged him inside the cabin. They dropped him in a whimpering pile as Samuel burst through the doorway, slamming the door shut. Major ran to the window. The forms had stopped moving, standing in place as if shut down by a master switch.

  “Are you okay?” Mara asked Kole.

  He brushed her hand aside and grabbed Samuel by the shirt collar. Kole turned his head toward Samuel, trying to force the words over his hitching breath.

  “Thanks for nothing, asshole,” Kole said. He reached back and punched Samuel in the nose. Samuel saw the explosion of color in his field of vision and felt the warm flow of salty blood starting to ooze down his throat. Before he could wince in pain, he lost consciousness.

  Mara slapped Kole in the back of the head. He stood, wobbled to one side, and backhanded her across the face. The sharp slap bounced off the walls of the cramped cabin. She dropped to one knee, her hand massaging the red mark blooming on her cheek. Major stepped up, and Kole met him in the middle of the room.

  “Back off, old man,” he said.

  Major saw the fury on Kole’s face and knew he could not overpower a man half his age and twice as mad. He looked at Samuel and Mara before responding to Kole.

  “Sit and calm down.”

  Kole looked at Major and then at Mara. He snickered and slumped down the wall to the floor.

  “It don’t matter. Death by zombie or by reversion. It’s all the same to me.”

  ***

  Samuel winced as he rolled over and sat up, brushing a lock of hair off his forehead. The heel of his palm glanced off the bridge of his nose and he felt the pain radiate through his entire body. His eyes watered and he bit his lip. When his vision cleared, Samuel struggled to see past the swollen mess of his face. Major, Mara and Kole sat in a circle on the rickety chairs, Major keeping one eye on the window.

  Samuel stood and swayed, reaching out with both hands to grasp the wall and keep the room from spinning. Dried blood caked in the creases of his face and stained his neck with dark, maroon lines. Samuel touched the bridge of his nose until the pain began to blossom. He grabbed a chair and swung it around until it sat between Kole and Mara.

  “Sucker punch,” he mumbled to Kole.

  “Whatever,” Kole said.

  “Are you okay?” Mara asked as she touched his forearm. “I mean from them, not your nose. That looks pretty bad too, though.”

  “Isn’t the first time I broke it. Probably won’t be the last.”

  Major glanced over his shoulder and then turned back to the window.

  “What did I miss while I was bleeding on the floor?”

  “More,” Mara said. “You can barely see anything but the tops of their disgusting heads. Filthy, stringy hair as far as you can see. They sway back and forth like long grass in the wind, but none of them move. It’s like they’re filling in the gaps so we’re packed in here.”

  Samuel stooped and leaned over Mara to look out the window. He saw countless, empty, dead faces staring back in the maddening silence. Samuel thought it wouldn’t be so bad if they made noise, or screamed, or pounded on the door. The silence of this decaying place combined with the ominous approach of the cloud overhead sent a chill up his spine.

  “They won’t move unless one of us tries to leave the cabin. Then their brittle bones shuffle ahead in one mass.”

  “The fuckers wanted a piece of me,” Kole said, never taking his eyes off the window.

  “No,” Major said. He shook his head. “They were holding you down. I don’t think they were trying to harm you.”

  “Nice to know I risked my ass and took a sucker punch to the nose for nothing.”

  Kole looked at Samuel’s nose and then at Mara. “Got your pity pussy all worked up. You should thank me for that.”

  Mara sent a glare of disgust toward him.

  Major pushed back on his chair until the front two legs came off the floor. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to fight through so many of those things, but I do know if we don’t, the cloud will reach this cabin soon, and the reversion will take us with it. If there is any hope of survival, we have to get out of here.”

  Mara reached out again and placed a hand on Samuel’s arm, while Kole shook his head and snickered under his breath.

  ***

  The fire smoldered over the coals, the heat failing to dispel the chill from the cabin as if the flame itself was losing its will to exist. Mara stirred a wooden ladle of broth inside an iron pot with a steady, mindless motion while staring at the wall. Kole and Major sat next to each other on their respective chairs, shoulder to shoulder, casting long gazes across the undead landscape. Samuel walked over and stood next to Mara. He inhaled and recognized the scent of her hair. He thought that when the reversion dulled the rest of his senses, he might lose his mind. A chuckle escaped his lips as the term “cabin fever” rolled around in his head.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “So you laugh at random times about nothing? Are you psychotic?”

  “I remembered a phrase that made me laugh, that’s all,” he said.

  Kole stole a glance over one shoulder and decided the rotten horde was more interesting than Samuel and Mara’s conversation.

  “Do you remember stuff?” Samuel asked.

  Mara stopped stirring and let the ladle rest against the side. “More than I care to,” she said.

  “I get snapshots. I see a picture from my past, and the story fills in around it. One second, my past doesn’t exist, and the next, an image brings back a chunk of it.”

  Mara shrugged. “If this reversion is really the end, and those things aren’t letting us out, I’m not sure it really matters. Not sure anything does.”

  “I agree.”

  “I don’t think this . . .” Mara said, with an arm spinning to unfold the cabin, the Barren, the locality, the entire situation. “I don’t think this matters. It’s not in our control.”

  “Kind of depressing.”

  “Kind of true,” she said.

  Major and Kole remained seated and silent, their eyes following the swaying bodies.

  Samuel felt a desire for privacy, a need to have Mara’s conversation all to himself. He looked about the cabin and its four menacing walls, which seemed to creep in further toward the center. He remembered his dream and the conversation with Kole.

  “I think I need to rest,” he said.

  She nodded. Samuel balled a rucksack for a pillow and curled up in the corner, while the heat from the fire did little to comfort him.

  ***

  He opened his eyes to a bustle of activity. Glowing orbs of glass hung from a silver cable, warming the room with incandescent light. The bitter aroma of roasted coffee filled every crevice. Burlap sacks that once held beans hung from the walls, decorated with stamps from their countries of origin. A behemoth, silver freezer sat in one corner, rumbling as it kept the gourmet ice cream frozen. The machine on the counter whistled, and a barista coaxed the hot air into a frothy mix.

  A man with a black fedora sat in the corner, perched atop a three-legged stool like a pigeon on a skyscraper. He wore a maple-bodied acoustic guitar strapped across his torso, fingers moving across the frets. He spilled blue notes and minor chords into the swirling mix of muted conversation and clanking dishes. Samuel recognized the melody, an old delta blues standard, but
he could not place the song. A microphone jutted from the top of a stand, but the guitarist ignored its existence, his head down and swaying along with the swinging beat created by his right hand above the sound hole.

  Samuel looked down at a white mug on a table. A book and a folded newspaper sat askew, the newspaper dangling from the edge as if trying to escape. He could see the dark swirls in his chai latte as the steam climbed through the air. He noticed a half-dozen other people involved in various solitary acts. One woman bounced her head in rhythm to the song confined to her ear buds, ignoring the guitarist pouring his soul forth from the guitar. One man sat in the corner, a single chair at a small table facing the wall. He thumbed through a crumpled, dog-eared book. A young couple sat at a table across the room. They both wore safety pins for earrings and patches on their black leather jackets, declaring allegiance to long-dead punk bands. The man had his hands on the table face up, while the woman had hers inside of his, facedown. They gazed into each other’s faces, oblivious to everyone else in the room.

  Samuel turned back to the bluesman. He saw the alabaster skin on his hands and chuckled. Purists claimed the white man could never play the blues like the originators, but he wasn’t a purist. Samuel closed his eyes and let the familiar, twelve-bar pattern soothe his nerves.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  The question ripped him from his thoughts. He opened his eyes to find a woman standing before him, holding a steaming mug and a Danish on a plate. The corner of the wax paper beneath the pastry stuck out at Samuel like a preschooler’s tongue.

  “No,” he said.

  Samuel felt an immediate sense of connection with the woman or, more accurately, the girl. But he also felt a deep sadness. She appeared to be on the verge of womanhood, sparkling eyes, slight hips and an optimism about love and life she would share with everyone she knew.

  She wore her jet black hair below the shoulder in wavy patterns that reflected deep, purple hues in the light of the coffee shop. Samuel loved the way it framed her oval face. The woman’s skin shone with a brilliance punctuated by dark eye shadow and glistening, maroon lips. She shed her bulky winter coat to reveal a lithe form beneath. Faded, black jeans clung to her shapely legs and rode low on slender hips. She wore a ragged, gray sweater over a black nylon top that held her breasts upright. Samuel guessed her to be in her early twenties, but with a vulnerability that made her appear even younger. He made eye contact, trying to avoid being hypnotized by her blue eyes.

  “I’m Mara,” she said, extending her hand outward while placing her coffee on the table.

  “Samuel,” he said.

  “I never approach guys. Even at the bar. Sorry if this is a bit awkward.”

  He smiled and waved off the fumbling attempt to break the ice. “It’s fine.”

  Mara paused and took a long look. She gazed at Samuel, and he saw electricity pass through her face.

  “Oh my god,” she whispered.

  Samuel sat still. He lifted his mug to his lips until the coffee singed his bottom lip.

  “What am I doing here?” she asked.

  Without waiting to confirm her revelation, Samuel explained. “I know I’m asleep. Dreaming. Maybe you are, too. Even if you’re not, I think we can communicate this way. I did with Kole.”

  She froze, as if that name slapped her across the face. She looked around at the bluesman, the punk lovers, the bustling barista.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Mara looked at her hands, holding shiny, red nails up to her face. “It feels so real.”

  “Most dreams do, until you wake up.”

  She nodded in agreement. “How can we— What should—”

  Samuel laughed as Mara’s brain struggled to process what was happening. “I don’t know. The dream scenario I had with Kole was, well, not quite as comfortable as this one. Why don’t we enjoy our gourmet coffees and talk?”

  Mara looked over each shoulder as if the authorities were about to break down the door in an FBI raid.

  “I think we’re good until I wake up. Scone?”

  She smiled and leaned back in the chair. “I miss this,” she said, twirling a strand of hair around her slim fingers. “I miss my hair, the fragrance of my body wash, insignificant things.”

  “Funny how life’s little pleasures escape your notice until you lose them all,” Samuel said. “I miss my music.”

  He turned to face the man in the fedora. The melody changed. The key changed. However, the faceless guitar slinger continued to jam those comfortable, familiar chords.

  “Tell me about you,” Samuel said.

  Mara blushed and passed a hand in front of her face.

  “Sorry. That sounded so bad. Didn’t mean to embarrass you.” He shuffled in his seat and moved his mug from one hand to the other.

  “It’s okay. I’m not very good around guys.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, leaning forward. “Guys at your school must be tripping over you.”

  Mara shook her head. “Dropped out second semester sophomore year and never went back. I commuted, anyways. Didn’t really buy into the whole college experience.”

  Samuel left it at that, sensing the scab on that wound never entirely healed. “I get it.”

  “What was college like for you, you know, back in the day?” she asked with a wide smile.

  Samuel leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “It was hard carrying all the clay tablets back and forth to class. We didn’t even have the wheel back then.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way—”

  Samuel took a turn at dispelling the clumsiness. “I know.”

  Mara sipped from her mug. Samuel loved the way she cupped her long, slender fingers around it on both sides. If she had a scarf, she could be on the cover of one of those trendy catalogs for European kitchen gadgets.

  “You’re kinda cute for an older guy.”

  Samuel blushed. The bluesman stopped playing and was shuffling through a handful of papers while holding the guitar on his lap.

  “Tell me your story,” Samuel said.

  “Can’t we just sit here and drink coffee and leave it at that?”

  He sensed reluctance in her voice, but felt a pressure to force the issue.

  “I don’t think that’s why we’re here. I think I’m getting these dream opportunities for a reason. It must have something to do with the reversion.”

  The last word made her shudder. It pulled the curtain back on the coffeehouse façade, which Mara had convinced herself was the new reality.

  “Fine,” she said, a new coldness emanating from her face.

  Samuel waited. He drummed his fingers on the table as the notes spewed forth from the guitar again. The punk rockers brushed past with a mixture of leather, espresso and jasmine incense.

  “We didn’t have much. My dad worked the factory. He turned a nut on rods, or some bullshit like that. We never really knew exactly what he did, but it kept him at sixty to seventy hours a week. He’d work a full eight-hour shift on Sunday and be home by noon.”

  She let the statement hang and gave Samuel time to do the math.

  “Didn’t leave much quality family time. My mom babysat, which made me and my brother feel even less special. On any given day, ten or twelve kids would be running through the house. My dad would come home after a twelve-hour shift and the chaos would eat at him. I swear you could see it in his face.”

  The guitarist shifted into a down-tempo shuffle that reminded Samuel of “Stormy Monday.” He thought of the dark cloud propelling the reversion forward, and the title of the song, before pushing it from his thoughts.

  “I’m telling you this because it had a lot to do with me leaving school. My mom got sick and couldn’t watch kids anymore, and the factory started losing contracts to overseas companies, which meant my dad lost hours and eventually his job. I took over parenting for my younger brother, and I couldn’t do that and keep up with my studies at the same time.”

  “I wonder how many other women
have been in that same situation.”

  Samuel meant the comment as a token of empathy, understanding, but Mara simply shrugged and continued.

  “Tommy, my little brother, was late that night. I was going to pick him up from hockey practice because my dad was already asleep and my mom had taken too many of her ‘little sleep helpers’ to even consider getting behind the wheel. I remember thinking how crazy it was for a twelve-year-old kid to be at hockey practice until eleven o’clock on a Friday night. They don’t call Detroit ‘Hockeytown’ for nothing.”

  Hearing the name of the city ignited a synapse in Samuel’s dream brain. He felt an ache behind his forehead, trapped in a place where it would gnaw and fester. And you let him out there

  “I think it was December. It had already been dark for like seven hours and a heavy, wet snow had been falling for the past two. Detroit was in dire shape. They couldn’t afford to put police officers on the street, let alone rock salt or sand from a plow. If you live there, you accept it.

  “So I was on my way to get Tommy, cranking some killer metal on the car’s CD player.”

  Samuel nodded. Then he held up his hand, flashing Mara the devil horns, an international sign for heavy metal.

  “I don’t think Dio started that, but it’s fine if history thinks so.”

  Samuel raised his eyebrows and smiled. His mind flashed to a Judas Priest concert he attended as a teenager, and he couldn’t remember any fans that even remotely resembled someone like Mara. He would have gone to many more if they had.

  “Yeah. So the car is really warm and the music is really loud, two things that wouldn’t be happening in our house. My time in the car was as much of an escape as I could manage. I guess it’s why I never complained too much about chauffeuring Tommy around. It gave me time alone to think and listen to metal.

  “He was waiting for me on the curb with his stick held like a sword in one of those high-fantasy movies. I remember him being the only kid sitting out there on top of his hockey bag. He came running over to the car toward the trunk. I pulled the latch, and it rose like the opening jaws of a monster. He swung all of his weight around to get the bag to clear the bottom of the bumper. He pushed the rest of it in and then shoved the stick on top. I heard the muffled thump of the trunk shutting. Tommy yanked on the handle of the passenger side door, and I shook my head. He was a skinny kid and not heavy enough to sit in the front, you know, with the airbag laws and stuff.”