Sunscorched

by Jen Crane

Nori gave a crooked smile at the thought of her beloved father. “My dad used to say, ‘here’s to a long life, and a happy one. A quick death, and an easy one. A good girl, and an honest one. A cold pint…and another one.”

  “That’s good,” he said, then groaned. “My God. It even hurts to smile.”

  “I imagine so,” she said, suddenly serious. “You let far too many jabs through. We really need to work on keeping your hands up.”

  “We do, do we?” Kade mocked her and she nodded. “When I recover, I’ll let you show me how it’s done.”

  “Oh, I’m not built for the Pit. Look at these arms!” Nori squeezed a fist and made a muscle. The flat line of flesh from the inside of her elbow to her shoulder illustrated the point.

  “I dunno,” Kade said. “You’re quick. You’re working to bulk up. With time and practice, maybe…”

  “Are there really female fighters? I bet they all look like Peg.”

  Kade laughed. Groaned. Nodded. Groaned. “They do. What would your name be?”

  “My fighter name?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Oh, wait. I know. White Lightning. Cause you’re fast. And pale.”

  She laughed and threw something at him.

  “Okay, okay, okay. How about…Javelin?”

  “Javelin? Javelin. That’s a good one.” Nori said it a few times, trying it on.

  “Wait,” Kade breathed, and she could almost see the light bulb above his head. “I’ve got it.

  “What?”

  “Noir,” he said with a dark flourish.

  “Noir? French is not tough,” Nori said. “And I’ve watched a lot of TV.”

  “It’s a play on your name.” Kade narrowed his eyes and announced theatrically. “Dark. Dangerous. Deadly. Noir.” He intoned the last, his voice so deep the word reverberated within the solid, underground room.

  “You know me too well.” Nori laughed again then raised her clenched fists to the sky and scowled. “A girl on a mission to make it in a deadly world. Noir: mean as a snake, and just as bulky.”

  “I said don’t make me laugh!” Kade said as he held his brutalized stomach. “You gonna drink that or what?” He nodded to her glass.

  “I thought you’d forgotten.”

  “Nope.” He sat up and leaned toward her, raising his own glass. “To nights we’ll never remember with friends we’ll never forget.”

  Nori met his gaze, their connection suddenly intense, and raised the glass to her mouth. She threw her head back, and the liquor into her mouth. As soon as it hit her tongue, her eyes flew wide, panicked. After a noisy swallow, she opened her mouth, fanning it with her hands. “Jesus! Why would you drink lighter fluid?”

  Kade turned helplessly onto his side in the chair, laughing as Nori scraped her tongue with her sleeve, gagging and gasping for air.

  “Makes you all warm inside, doesn’t it?” he said when he finally stopped laughing.

  “Oh, yeah. Super cozy.” She shivered. “Seriously, though. Do you actually like that?”

  “It’s a precious commodity. All you need to make moonshine is sugar, water, and yeast, but still, it’s a very nice gift. From whom, by the way?”

  “I don’t know. Hank sent it.”

  “Another round?” Kade raised the bottle in her direction.

  “I’ll pass, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” He poured himself another.

  Though her mouth still tasted of chemical warfare, Nori’s shoulders pressed delightfully to the floor. She rolled her neck, which had relaxed considerably. Her brain, too, seemed at ease. She began to see the appeal.

  “So,” Kade said, bringing her back online. “You wanted to know about Grant?”

  Nori didn’t recall asking about Grant specifically, but if he was in the mood to talk, she was all ears.

  Kade gripped the arm of his chair with his free hand until his knuckles whitened. His big chest raised as, slowly, he took a breath. Held it. He closed his good eye and released the breath so wearily it seemed he’d changed his mind.

  “Grant and I had been fighting. A lot. He wanted to leave Trogtown. Wanted me to leave the Pit—fighting in general. Said he wouldn’t watch me fight again—couldn’t, actually. Said he couldn’t watch me get beaten to a pulp again.”

  Kade’s hand shook as he raised the glass to his mouth. “Fighting is all I know. It’s what I’m good at. And anyway, where would we go? I had a little money saved up, but not enough to quit fighting altogether. He had the idea Hank was going to trade him, send him away. Said he’d overheard Hank negotiating with someone about it. I didn’t believe him. I mean, Hank didn’t necessarily approve of us, but he never said anything. He’s a very live-and-let-live kinda guy.”

  Nori nodded. “Go on.”

  “Anyway, Hank is shrewd. Very practical. He wouldn’t do something to risk me leaving and taking a huge chunk of his business. I told Grant all of this.” Kade swirled the liquid in his glass, lost in his thoughts.

  “What did he say?” Nori scooted to the edge of the bed, toward her friend.

  “He said I never put him first. That if I didn’t believe him over Hank then I didn’t trust him. And if I didn’t trust him, that’s all he needed to know. He said he refused to stay here one minute longer, with or without me. I told him he was being ridiculous and dramatic.” Kade threw back what remained in his glass. “Because he was. I never thought—” He choked back a sob and cleared his throat. “I never thought he would do something so desperate. So stupid.”

  Kade’s head fell between his shoulders, and he covered his eyes with his free hand. His shoulders shook, and Nori debated what to do. Hug him? Ignore it and look away?

  When he finally lifted his head, his eye was rimmed with red. “I chose Hank over Grant. I chose to stay in this filthy place and abuse my body—to brutalize others. I chose this,” Kade sneered and spread his arms wide, “over the man I loved. So if I didn’t win, then what the hell is the point of it? Of anything?”

  24

  Imminent Danger

  A sunscorch warning has been issued by the Global Weather Service. All persons are advised to take cover immediately. I repeat: sensors indicate a sunscorch is imminent within the next 24 hours. Take cover in a designated shelter area, or if one isn’t available, go now to a basement or storm cellar.

  The metallic clang echoed through every corner of Ana and Norman’s small house.

  “Ana?” Norman raced into the kitchen. “You okay?”

  “Did you hear it?” she asked, her eyes wild as she bent to pick up the bowl she’d been washing when the alert sounded on the emergency radio. The tremor that started in her hands spread to her entire body.

  Norman crushed his wife to him, absorbing her terror-stricken shakes. “Let’s go. It’s all right. We prepared for this.”

  Ana clung to him, fingers digging into the back of his cotton shirt. “D-do you think she’ll be okay?”

  Of course her first thought was of Nori. So was his. “I do. She’s safer than we are.” Norman leaned back to find his wife’s flushed face. “We got her underground. She’ll make it through the sunscorch and then we’ll find her.”

  “But th-that man. I don’t trust him.”

  “Who, Barker?” he asked. “Nate said it would be fine, and we have to believe that. At least she’s not alone. Nori’s smart. She’s quick. If anybody can make it, it’s her.”

  Ana nodded, still pressed to his chest.

  “Grab your bug-out bag, hon, and go on down. I’ll get mine and meet you in the basement.”

  Norman opened the front door and squinted up at the afternoon sky. Ralston was a ghost town. After living through the last sunscorch, no one took the warning lightly. Cautious, well-prepared people were the ones who stayed alive.

  The experts were right, he thought, taking one last look around. There was no tangible difference, nothing he could reach out and touch, but the air felt strange. Oppressive, like the eerie quiet and choking atmospheric pressure of an impending li
ghtning storm. The afternoon sun filtered through a thick haze, giving it a soft, soothing glow. Like a poisonous flower, the muted sun was beautifully deceptive. Deadly deceptive.

  “I’m here, Ana,” Norman said, backing down the basement stairs and closing the door behind him. His wife sat on the thin bunkbed they’d prepared for Nori. She stared at the concrete wall, lost in thought.

  He didn’t sit beside his wife. Not with the nervous energy searing through him. He tested lanterns and flashlights. He sloshed barrels of water to ensure they were full. He inspected the cans of food lining the sides of the basement in tall metal racks. After two tense rounds of their temporary home, he stood beside his wife, the outside of his flexed thigh touching her shoulder. “I’m sure she’s okay, Ana. I’m sure of it.”

  25

  The Sunscorch

  When Norman dropped the glass jar, Ana bolted from bed, frantically scanning the room for him. A mess of broken glass, green beans, and tomatoes lay at his feet.

  His breaths came in pants, but were close to sobs. His fists were balled at his sides, and his body was hunched and rigid with fury. He worked to calm himself, gripping a nearby workbench, whose wooden surface groaned under the pressure.

  Ana didn’t say a word.

  “You might as well try to rest, Norm,” she finally said. “We might be here a while.”

  “Can’t sleep.” His voice was strained. “It’s been eight hours. You think it’s not coming?”

  Ana cleared her throat and slid her legs to the side of the bed. “They said within a day, but I suppose we could be down here a few days. We’re lucky to have had any warning at all.”

  “I know. Of course you’re right.” He turned to her. “You think she’s okay?”

  “Oh, Norm,” his wife whispered and held out her arms. He ran to her side, kneeling by the bed, and diving into her embrace. “We’ll find her,” she said. “Just a few more days. We’ll find her.”

  Electricity surged, causing the basement lights to buzz and brighten before going out completely. Neither of them spoke as Norman reached to switch on a nearby lantern. The light flickered on, sending the basement into an eerie fabricated twilight as they awaited what they both knew was coming.

  Norman had experienced several tornadoes growing up, and recognized the too-full feeling in his ears of changing air pressure. His forearms sprouted chill bumps as his body sensed, too, something sinister on the way. Holding Ana close, Norman kissed her head and murmured into her hair as much for himself as his wife. “It’s going to be fine,” he said. “We’ll be all right. She’ll be all right. When this is over, we can find her. She’ll be back with us, and we’ll never be separated again.” He was babbling, but talking helped him, and maybe it helped Ana. At any rate, he couldn’t stop.

  The heat on his face when the sunscorch struck was like a whisper of death, even buried as they were in the protective basement. It was as if Earth were a giant gas oven, everything on its surface a slice of pizza. Houses and large structures were meat toppings, their fat popping when the temperature rose high enough. Any plant life or plastic was cheese, losing shape and melting into nothing as it cooked. Basements, and bunkers, and structures below the surface were the crust, warming, crisping, but suffering no real change to their makeup.

  It lasted only moments, but the damage would be irreparable. The world had already lost so much. During a sunscorch, anything green that had dared to grow was cremated. Electrical fires and gas explosions obliterated entire blocks. Any utility line not buried was incinerated, leaving no lines of communication besides the few battery-operated walkie-talkies and ham radios saved or scavenged.

  “Is it over?” Ana whispered.

  Norman let out the breath he’d been holding. “I think so. I think that was it.”

  “What now?” Her lip wobbled, and she swiped a hand at the tear creeping down her cheek.

  “Now,” he said, “we wait.”

  “Ana?” Norman looked wildly around the room at the sound of earth shifting and falling apart. Their house creaked and shuddered, and the walls of the basement began to crumble sending chunks of concrete crashing to the floor. The low groan of metal pipes as they bent and broke was a grinding chorus, an accompaniment to certain destruction.

  “We need to get out of here,” he said, shooting from the bed. He lost his balance and fell back onto it when the floor buckled. Scrabbling onto his knees, he pulled his wife behind him, placing himself between her and the newly-gaping crevice in the basement floor.

  Norman’s brain couldn’t reconcile what was in front of him, what had happened to the floor, to their house, to the world outside. A canyon had cleaved their home in two in a matter of seconds. He and Ana knelt together on a bed on one side of the chasm as the other side stretched farther and farther away. The roof caved as they watched, flattening the living room beneath it. Dust and shards of splintered wood plunged into half of the basement.

  “Where’s your bag?” Norm was already standing, toeing between flat spots in the warped floor.

  “What?” Ana stared blankly at the other half of their home.

  “We have to get out of here now!”

  26

  Devastation in Ralston

  Cooper closed his eyes against the gory scene of destruction in Ralston. The town had suffered a massive earthquake, no doubt triggered by the sunscorch. It had taken him four days to get there once his business in Chicago was finished. Destroyed and impassable roads had forced him to backtrack three separate times. If he wasn’t afraid of being found by Sarge, or worse, he’d have just travelled Subterranean.

  The Surface was his secret passage, the way he was able to conduct his business. Most of the people living Subterranean believed the Surface uninhabitable. Long-believed lore held that the scorch had rendered the air poisonous. Deadly. Cooper certainly wasn’t spreading the truth. It was just a matter of time, anyway, now that Stealth had figured it out. Stealth. Cooper hadn’t seen him since that night in the alley. The night he’d met Nori. He had no doubt the bounty hunter would resurface. He didn’t earn his deadly reputation by letting his marks go free.

  There was nothing to stop Cooper from parking his motorcycle in what was once a main road through Ralston. Traffic was a thing of the distant past, at least there.

  He ran a hand through the hair at the top of his head and formulated his next steps. Where was Skyler Court? Had anyone lived through the earthquake? He hoped to God Nori’s parents had somehow survived. How could he return to her with any other news?

  A rumbling tractor engine drew his attention to the east. Thankful for the clue, he straddled his motorcycle and sped toward the sound, the only indicator of any life left in the destroyed little town.

  “Hello.” Cooper raised a hand to the man on the tractor, who was too intent on his work to notice. The sound of the engine and crash of rubble as the man lifted debris from an old gas station was deafening. Cooper leaned against his bike and waited, watching the man work. There was something satisfying about it, maybe it was simply the instant results of a job well done.

  When the tractor operator finally turned his way, Cooper caught the man’s eye and raised his head in greeting.

  The man hopped down from the machine and waddled toward him, nearly as wide as he was tall. “Haven’t seen anybody new in a few days,” the man said. “He stuck his arm in Cooper’s direction as he walked, clasping his hand when they met and gripping hard. “Name’s Durant.”

  “Cooper. You, ah, you live around here?”

  “Yep. This is my station.” He removed his cap and rubbed the top of his balding head. “Such as it is.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cooper said, and meant it. He’d seen so much destruction it tended to run together, the whole world morphing into one big disaster. But seeing the haunted eyes of someone who’d lost everything—again—put a very personal face back on the devastation.

  The man nodded but didn’t say anything else.

  “You know a
nybody named Chisholm?” Cooper asked.

  Durant cocked his head. “I did. They lived over on Skyler, I think.”

  “That’s right.” Cooper nodded, hope daring to rear its head. “Have you seen them since the scorch?”

  The man’s mouth pursed, and he shook his head. “I’m sorry, son. No. And there isn’t much of that part of town left.”

  Cooper nodded, his eyes darkening. He’d suspected as much. “I need to go by there.”

  “Just follow this road as far as you can and turn right at the old park. You’ll see the slide and things—bent and idle now—but that’s where you turn. Skyler is just around the corner.”

  Cooper twisted his foot in the dirt, hating to leave the man, who seemed so isolated. “What’s next for you?” he asked.

  “Aw, we’ll start over again, I guess. We’ve had practice.”

  Cooper smiled despite his sadness. After all they’d lived through, people still had hope. The human spirit was a wonderfully resilient thing.

  “Good luck,” Cooper said and mounted the bike.

  “Same to ya.” Durant waved his cap in salute before donning it again.

  There was hardly anything left of Nori’s neighborhood, and her street had been hit especially hard. Cooper waded through pile after pile of ash and climbed over heaps of bricks in search of number twelve. He found eight, or what was left of it. The burned-out house looked as if it had simply abandoned hope and lain down to die.

  Farther up the street, he rifled through the ash and rubble, through blackened piles of stone and metal mixed with the skeletal remains of the things that make a home. Cookware, melted and misshapen, appliances and file cabinets—all useless now. Finally, beneath a warped picture frame, Cooper found a thin piece of metal. He wiped the ash away with his hand. Twelve.

  Shielding his eyes from the sunlight, Cooper looked up to find that a single wall remained erect, as if standing watch over its fallen comrades. The wall and a four-foot pile of rubble were all that remained of Nori’s childhood home. Beyond those remains, the menacing mouth of a crevice as wide as a basketball court.