-3-

 

THE MAN WAS GOOD TO HIS WORD. After nailing an extra board over the hole and cleaning the little entrails from the windowpane, he washed his hands with a bottle of water and led the travelers upstairs. The entire upstairs was wrapped in thick plastic, three layers of which were hung from the ceiling. It was hot. Wretchedly hot, with all the plastic acting as extra insulation. During the night, though, the place would be perfect.

Once inside the first upstairs room, the man bent over and began unlacing his combat boots. It was the first time Hannah noticed them--she felt her fingers itch for the hilt of her weapon. Not yet. Eat first, then get out of here. She hated soldiers. If she wasn’t afraid of starving to death, she’d just take Sable and leave right then and there. She’d come across dangerous ones. People with no brains anymore. No better than animals.

“Shoes off.” He even sounded like a soldier. Hannah kicked off her shoes, removed her coat and mask, and dusted off her clothes. She helped Sable do the same. The man let them come in further. While the first floor of the house was burdened with a layer of dust, the upstairs was almost clean. There were mounds of the damned stuff on the floors around the plastics and scattered here and there, but it wasn’t thick. The second story felt as though someone was in the middle of sweeping a dirt floor, while the first story was like being in a Pompeii a week after the lava ran its course. 
The man led them to a room in the middle of the second story, furthest from any window, where he had a cot, blankets, a workbench, and three wooden cabinets all lined up along one wall like prisoners waiting for execution. The heat made sweat run down Hannah’s face. She almost felt safe. Those Shrikes couldn’t come in here.

“I must have left the door unlocked again,” the man said. Hannah nodded affirmatively. He grunted, then pulled out a can of beans from one of the cabinets. Hannah lifted her head a little. He had an entire cabinet of food. Were the other two full of food as well…? She adjusted her glasses and looked away, not wanting to signal the kinds of thoughts she was having. Would she murder for a can of food? What about for a cabinet full? Or three? The thought made her sick to her stomach. That was, until, the man stabbed the bean can’s lid with a knife and sawed it open. The smell alone was enough to make Hannah drool like one of those big Saint Bernard dogs. It was embarrassing, really. She wiped the corners of her mouth, but it didn’t seem to help. More kept dripping down.

They sat across from each other on the floor; the travelers ate beans and canned chicken while the man lit a cigarette with flint and steel. The man was tall, probably 6’ 3" with big shoulders and scarred hands. The whole place had the lingering stench of body odor and cigarette smoke, as though the room was an extension of the man. Sweat oozed from him the same as it did from Hannah. 

“How long have you traveled the Wastes?” he asked.

“A year and a half," Hannah replied with a full mouth.

"Just the two of you?"

“Mhm.” She swallowed. "Why do you sound surprised?" 

"Grown men die in the wastes every day."

"We're not grown men."

He smiled a little, then put his cigarette back to his cracked lips. She eyed him, weighing her trust in his benevolence. With a full stomach, she was feeling better about him. She wasn't as paranoid. It was hard not to be out here.

"Where did you come from?" he asked.

"I went to high school in Thymeston. That's about ten miles east of Newark."

"You've come so far?" The man seemed genuinely surprised. "Where are you headed?"

"Somewhere where there are no Shrikes,” she said calculatively. “And no dust."

He folded his arms, his cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth. A layer of smoke filled the room, irritating Hannah's lungs. She coughed once but held her tongue. She was the man's guest. She wasn’t about to anger him. Not when he had so much food.

“You don’t know what happened… do you?” he asked. 

The question made Hannah put down her spoon. No… she didn’t. Not fully. On that day, Hannah and her parents were on their way to her high school graduation. She remembered seeing something like a black sandstorm blasting across her town. Her dad drove the other way, their truck leaving the comforts of asphalt for the orchard to their left. He pushed that truck as hard as he could, dodging trees and trying to outrun the monster that chased them. The closer it came, the clearer Hannah could see the red lightning, like flashing veins, within the cloud. Hannah remembered her mother shouting at her, demanding that Hannah put her seat belt on and face forward. Hannah turned around…

The truck hit something--a rock, farm equipment, she didn’t know. One second, she’s in the back seat of the truck, facing her parents who were looking back at her. The next, she was on her face, with a mouthful of dirt. She opened her eyes. Her body was coming to terms with what had happened. She was in a ditch and was now covered in thick, thick dust which made it hard to breathe. There was glass in her arm and blood on the dress her mother bought for Hannah’s graduation. She felt around with a broken hand, trying to find her glasses. I can’t see. I can’t see. I can’t see. But it wasn’t just her bad vision that caused her blindness. There was a heavy layer of dark gray dust that choked out the sun. Red lightning pulsed high, high above. She was inside the storm.

Hannah pulled herself up. Her whole body was in pain and she knew it would only worsen as her body overcame the shock. She limped around, searching the ground. She found her glasses tangled in the roots beside where she’d fallen. One lens was busted. She picked them up but stopped before she placed them on. Something caught her attention. It was like a twisted Picasso in black and white. She didn’t need her glasses to see that it was her parents’ truck wrapped around an apple tree.

The storm aged but remained. The world Hannah knew was buried beneath the dust. 

The man read her face and gave a deep sigh. He put out his cigarette, saving the butt in a dresser drawer to salvage the rest of the tobacco later. 
“You’ve heard of Kharon?” he asked.

“The country we went to war with.”

He nodded. “We almost won. We were deadly close to capturing their prime minister. We didn’t know that a group of insurgents smuggled some kind of weapon to the States. They were responsible for unleashing the plagues.”

“Plagues?” 

“The plague of Dust, which robbed us of water, light, and plants… the plague of Shrikes, which robbed men of their bodies… and the plague of Blood, which robbed men of their minds.”

Hannah chewed on her lower lip. “I don’t understand.”

“Look… it’s…” the man paused and stroked his white-gray beard. “I don’t want to scare you.”

Hannah lifted her chin in defiance. She believed he was hiding something from her. She wanted to know what.

“Tell me.”

The man glanced over to Sable before continuing. 

“There were a lot of stories about exactly what it was that the Kharon insurgents brought over. So, I don’t know this for sure… but I heard that the weapon was an angel.”

“An… angel?”

“Yeah. You know. Wings. Halo. Harp… I don’t know how they did it, but the Kharon insurgents captured one. They brought her over. She was the source of the plagues. My captain believed that the Kharon men had somehow killed the angel and God is punishing humanity for their crime against his servant by sending the plagues. That’s why our world is full of Shrikes and dust and madmen. We’re cursed…” He studied Hannah closely. “Have I frightened you?”

“No,” she answered, uneasily. “Why do you think you’d frighten me?”
The man folded his hands and bowed his head. He looked older than he did before. 

“If God is punishing us, there is nowhere to turn. You need to just give up on the thought of escaping tribulation.” 

His words were like getting splinters under her nails.

“Is that what you believe?” Hannah asked, haughtily. “That we’re being punished?”

“I believe that someone is angry.” 

Hannah scowled and digested his words. “You’re making a point. Just say it.”

He lifted his eyes. “I held onto the hope that the plagues were contained in the States. They’re not. The dust, the birds, the madness disease… it’s all over. What I’m saying is that wherever it is you think you’re going to escape the Shrikes and dust, it--it doesn’t exist. Those birds are all over the world.”

Alarm crept into Hannah’s chest. At first, she frowned and said nothing--the fear of the man’s word overwhelming her. Then she broke out in laughter. She laughed loudly, banishing all the doubts the man had instilled in her. She laughed because she was afraid and because she didn’t have to be. The man was delusional and couldn’t know all the things he was telling her. He was an old man. He probably hadn’t left the house since the Advent. Hannah knew her laughter wasn’t true, honest laughter. It was the laughter of desperation. She trailed off and chortled a little. She stood up.
“You seem to know a lot, old man,” she stated demeaningly. “Do you know the way to the coast?”

The man eyed her. The way he lowered his head made his face darken with shadows. It was a foreboding sight.

“You two are welcome to stay in this house,” he said, his voice low. “If you choose to leave, I’ll show you the road to follow. If you keep true, you’ll arrive at the coast in a day. But I promise you… you won’t like what you find there.”

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