Jake walked out from the river, trying to make the least amount of noisy splashing as possible. Don’t be silly. You’re a full grown man. They’re fucking coyotes. But he was a full grown man that hadn’t eaten in days. He was burned, irradiated, and weak. A pack of starving coyotes wouldn’t have much of a struggle bringing him down. Jake moved softly along the river bank, his eyes attempting to pierce the grey, dry mist all around. He strained his ears, commanding his sense of hearing to pick up the sound of approaching paws in the dirt. The further along he went, the more hopeful Jake became. Maybe he would come across one of the bastards all on its own. How hard would it be to kill a solitary coyote with his bare hands? Easy-peasy. I’ll snap its neck and eat the whole goddamn thing down… meat, bones, and fur.
The coyotes had gone silent. Jake crept along, tip-toeing through the mud, his arms extended out in front, his fingers set like claws. He wasn’t going to be lucky enough to stumble along a single coyote, he knew that. Animals survived in packs for a reason. They’d been doing it for thousands of years before mankind arrived on the scene. Civilization was through, and Jake’s luck—if you could call his managing to live through the obliteration of his species luck—was about to run out. Jake pictured them getting closer, surrounding him in a circle and gathering courage. It would come any moment. I hope they make it quick. I hope one of them goes for my throat.
A black smudge appeared in front of him. It was getting bigger, coming towards him. Jake realized a few seconds later the thing wasn’t moving. Jake was still walking, creeping along on legs too stubborn to stop.
The black smudge started to take form. The size was about right for a coyote, but something was definitely wrong. It’s standing on its hind legs… what kind of prairie dog stands on its hind fucking legs?
“Daddy?”
The form burst forward and slammed into Jake. Small arms wrapped around his legs almost knocking him from his feet. Jake’s fingers were still clutching at the air three feet in front of him. He lowered his hands and felt the small boy’s dusty hair. Nicholas looked up at him and smiled. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, leaving trails of wet black. Jake collapsed to his knees and stared into his son’s face. It was dirty and streaked with mud and ash. Jake kissed his forehead and held him out at arm’s length. He was in far better shape than his father. His skin hadn’t been fried, and the clothes he wore were relatively clean and unburned. But they weren’t his son’s clothes. They were a couple of sizes too big and completely unfamiliar to Jake. Where had the boy been, and how did he get this far from home on his own?
Jake hugged him and started to cry. “How?” he rasped. “How did you get here?”
Cold metal touched the back of Jake’s neck before Nicholas could answer. Jake heard the distinctive click of a rifle being cocked.
“Get your hands off of him,” a voice commanded. “Get your hands off my boy.”
Chapter 5
She had waited under her desk for the destruction to end. When the office she had been working in flipped over onto its side, Angela had shifted with it, settling up against the desk’s underside which had come to rest against a wall. A ton of rubble pressed up at her feet, leaving the smallest cube of stale air for her to breathe in. Forty-eight hours earlier the rubble had meaning. It hadn’t been rubble back then; it had been walls, chairs, printers, filing cabinets, and boxes containing stacks of paper neatly separated and ordered into white folders.
Order was no more. The offices of Bonn Accounting had been pancaked together like an accordion’s bellows being compressed. The three-story building Angela had worked in for the last twenty-seven years had fallen over and been squished sideways into the remains of another office building immediately north. Angela Bennet worked on the bottom floor. Had she been trapped any higher, she would now be dead. If the lot south of Bonn Accounting hadn’t been empty and waiting for construction to begin on a new sushi restaurant, Angela was quite convinced she would be just more of the rubble… squished flat and compacted like everything and everyone around her.
She couldn’t remember the blast taking place. Most of her co-workers had been gathered round the television in the break room watching the news unfold. A few more had stood at the big window in the main lobby and seen the missile trails streak across the sky. All Angela could recall was Trish Saquet’s final high-pitched words. Jesus that hurts. Angela hadn’t seen what Trish was screaming about. She had already taken cover under her desk by that time. She had curled up into a ball, her knees pressed into her cheeks, and she was whispering goodbye to her sorry ass.
She had woken up a few hours later in a cramped, black hole, choking on dust. There was the faintest point of grey light peeking through the debris by her left foot. A piece
