The harbor.
The route was dangerous. Too dangerous. The streets were filled with The Mighty. The ones who controlled the water, and the food. Who led the charge with fists and weapons—and who hunted those like me.
Loners.
And the alone.
Improvise. Adapt and overcome…you can do this. I closed my eyes to the sound of Dad’s voice, even now I could still feel his energy…his strength, his determination—his drive to keep me safe, and protected.
“Sure,” I answered. The words seemed to slip from my lips. “We can take him to the harbor. You strong enough to walk?”
She nodded. Even if she wasn’t, there’d be no stopping her. This was fate.
I glanced at the other platform. The dealer was long gone, hunkered down somewhere fast asleep with his belly full and a warm body next to him.
“I’m ready,” she whispered. “I’m ready to see my baby home.”
I gripped her arm as she knelt and then climbed down from the platform. My boots hit the gavel hard as I followed and stepped across the tracks and over to the other side.
Soft light spilled into the darkness up ahead. Day, if it wasn’t already here, would be soon enough. I climbed and lifted, heaving her up onto the next platform and then headed for the stairs.
The station was quiet now…eerily quiet. No one slept in the trains anymore, not after the first storm, and the rains that followed. The real rains, not the stuff that leaked from the sky. Memories of that night filled my head. The thunder was war in the heavens, lighting so violent it split the sky apart, and then the rains came. The torrent consumed everything. The railways, the parking lots, and the wastewater tunnels that ran underneath.
No one lived here anymore.
Not after the bodies floated to the surface—not after the stench that lingered for months. But this was where the deals were made—this was where you could find peace for a price.
Yellow light spilled down the stairs, until it faded into the gloom. I inhaled the foul taste of the air and glanced over my shoulder. The harsh, patterned grip was a familiar comfort…and at the top of a short list of the ones I had left.
“You ready?” I whispered into the darkness.
Muffled words echoed from behind. But it wasn’t the woman I spoke to, it was that lingering desire, like a tiny flame against the infinite blackness.
You ready? I asked again.
And this time there was a flare of an ember, one that lit up the sky of my soul. I slipped my hand around the grip and climbed the stairs. “Keep together, move fast,” I murmured and took a step. “And stay to the shadows.”
“The Mighty,” she whispered behind me. “They’ll be watching.”
I nodded and took a step. They were always watching, always waiting for the loners…those like us—those who looked weak.
But they can fall…can’t they, my strong girl.
The mighty can always fall.
Even a Marine had faith in me…far beyond the faith I had in myself.
I drove my boot into the stair and climbed into the dappled yellow glare. The city streets were quiet. A bird called out far in the distance, small, panicked, here for a second before it was gone. Not even the crows came anymore. Not the wolves, or the deer—only the rats and the cockroaches to scurry around the remains.
I blinked, waited for my eyes to adjust, and wrenched my gaze right, left, and then scanned the upper windows. It wasn’t those in the open you needed to be wary of, it was the ones in the shadows. The ones watching you from high up in the windows—those wanting to take what you had, with violence.
Keep the water safe. Never tell anyone what we have, okay, Harlow? No one.
Those were the rules I lived by.
I kept the water safe. That meant no bargaining, no trading—no telling anyone. I checked the barriers, and inspected the welds. I locked the gates and grills and greased the hinges to the hatch.
I looked for a way out…because every way out is also a way in.
My home is my tomb. My tomb will keep me safe.
But I wasn’t home, was I? I was out here in the wild, where the crows no longer come…but where there were animals just the same.
Come, that voice in my dream commanded.
I felt the Call like an ache. Tainted clouds overhead turned ashen at the edges, but there was an anger now, a rolling with purpose—a hunger that echoed inside me.
A storm was coming. Don’t ask me how I knew—but I knew it just the same. It was the same storm that brewed inside me…the same one that spoke to me now.
I licked my lips and took a step. “We have to hurry.”
I stepped off the first stair and made for the shadows. Footsteps scuffed the asphalt behind me. She followed, slower than I wanted, as I hit the corner of the building and waited.
“Over there,” I lifted my hand and pointed to the open door of an old diner. “Make it to the open door and we wait.”
Movement came from a window on the third floor to my left. My heartbeat jacked, thundering like a train off the tracks. I clenched my fist around the grip of the gun and shoved forward.
You don’t want me, I sent the thought out wide. I have nothing you need…no water, no food, nothing but another mouth to feed.
I pulled the weapon from my waist and crossed the street with long, purposeful strides.
Another mouth to feed, with a gun, who looks like trouble.
Yellow clouds parted, and the sun’s cruel glare peeked through, bouncing off the steel in my hand. I left the echo of my boots behind, my focus on that busted door.
Most of the shops were destroyed now. Shattered glass, and hanging signs littered the city streets. Three years was a long time when you were hungry. But it was even longer when you were alone.
“Thank you,” the woman behind me muttered. “Thank you for helping my baby.”
I swallowed hard and hit the concrete with heavy steps as the hairs on my arms rose. The longer I stood out here, vulnerable, the more it felt like a bad idea.
Faded quarantine barriers still covered most of the streets. The yellow signs were filthy and torn. Shredded plastic flapped in a panic. They thought they could hide this…that they could stop what was happening.
No one could stop it.
Not the weather and not the plague.
Shards of glass crunched under my boots. I caught her reflection in the busted glass as I scanned the windows.
I turned to stare at the woman. She was younger than I expected, barely older than I was now. The dark bundle so tiny in her arms. Hope, that word welled like a heavy stone in the pit of my stomach. That’s what a child is, hope…a future—a new cycle in this loveless world.
But there was no new cycle, there was only what we had…there was only survival.
“Let’s go,” I whispered. “All the way to the end of the block.”
The faint sound of a scream caught the wind.
A woman, fighting, hurting…
I knew those screams. I heard them when I came to this part of the city. They were the screams of torture, of pain. The Mighty didn’t just take, they hurt—they used.
A frigid touch raced along my spine as the screams ended.