INTRODUCTIONS

One day the world was normal, birds with singing and the crickets chirping outside. Nobody was any the wiser that something was going on deep inside of the realms of the government, machinations and restless fingers, thousands of ears listening to audio tapes from deep inside enemy borders. The world seemed happy to the naked eye. When humanity went to sleep that night, they went to sleep dreaming of work needing to be done, fearing doctor’s appointments, annoyed at boyfriends and worried about children’s grades.

It was all…normal.

It started out simply enough, a press of a button. That button launched a nuclear warhead into Washington, DC, killing millions. Before the world knew what had happened, twenty more cities had been destroyed in five countries. The world went to war within an hour. The world was reduced to less than a billion people in less than a day. Those that were left were left to struggle for survival. There were no governments, there was no electricity or television or radio. For what was left of humanity, all that remained was instinct, the will to live and keep pushing on, even as the world grew colder and colder, the sun having disappeared in a thick haze of nuclear winter.

But life continues on, just barely. It has only been one week and yet humanity is still there despite the odds. This is where we set our tale, in a nameless city in a nameless time. Hundreds have died. Hundreds are sick. Hundreds live on, huddling together for survival, leaving behind morals and justice in the name for preservation.

Once upon a time, humankind thought the apocalypse was just a joke.

Now it is reality.

The air had settled days ago with the dank stench of suffocating death. Truthfully, it'd been a week now since everything she'd known had gone the way of the explosions, the death.. the everything that had settled onto the cities like some unexpected storm ripping through the clear. Anna didn't care about what had happened with the world, what had happened with the government or with anything beyond her small, secluded world at the hospital and her town. Forget green paper scraps and social order- where were the canned foods and guns?

It'd been hell those first days, when they still thought things could work. When everything had simply been a catastrophe, not an apocalypse.But within days it had become that and she'd been left wondering.

Like many, she'd tried to cling to vestiges of normal life. Living in denial despite scrapping through bodies, stepping over what might've been her grocer as if he'd been a discarded towel. Home. Or.. as home as she'd gotten in the past months as an intern. She didn't even care if what had been a 5 minute drive had become half a day of travel. She didn't care that venturing from her home now was as dangerous as anything she'd ever even considered doing. She'd do it regardless.

All she knew was that there was a woman out there- a woman who Anna knew would be scared- no matter what disposition she took towards the world as it'd been. Maybe she was dead. Maybe she was crazy.

But like hell she'd give up on what had been her only task in life for the past few months. Even if it meant entering an entirely unknown neighborhood that lay decrepit before her.

Marie felt as if she was going crazy, unbelieving that this dream-like state she had entered could actually be a reality. It felt unreal that the world could have unraveled around her in just a matter of days. The power had been out since Monday, the phones out since moments after the televisions had quit hours after the first volley of fire between nations. Her parents had been out east on a vacation, right in the middle of ten cities that had been leveled and replaced with nuclear waste. Gunshots outside her window followed by screams scared her, but she forced herself to keep quiet as she kept vigil over the street and over her husband.

They had only been married for ten days when the bombs had struck. Their city might have been spared from a direct hit but the fallout had settled over, and radiation was quickly picking off people left and right. Brian lay there dying and she could do a thing to save him except make him comfortable as he vomited up blood, his skin red and inflamed from where the fallout had hit his skin, hair falling out in clumps. He had been outside mowing the lawn when it had rained, each drop filled with radioactive particles. That was how most of the people had been infected; Marie’s hands were burned from where she had touched him trying to get him clean.

Outside, she saw a person passing down the street, passing feet from the dead body of her neighbor Carl Fink. Her mind went back to the gunshots and the screams moments earlier; the gangs had already begun to form, clumping together for survival. They would be coming this way next, virgin territory ready for the looting. Flinging open the window, Marie leaned out, looking panicked. “You shouldn’t be out! They’re coming this way next. They killed Carl last night, they’ll kill you if they see you. Come in, get in before you get shot!”

It was easy to see just how things like kindness could fall to the wayside so quick in the face of survival. Instinct kicked in, gut idealism was out... and all was left was suspicion. Suspicion and the creeping notion of distrust. Lucky for Marie- Anna was none of these things. A nurse. a bonafied- ok, not quite- nurse. She'd been startled by Marie's sudden declaration, but moved towards the house despite any misgivings as quick as Marie had leaned out in panic. Carl didn't matter, even when the woman spoke about him. She was past the bodies and the smell. For the barest moment she avoided looking any further into the house; half afraid for what was coming before realizing it wasn't.

"I'm Anna." It was a small statement. Meaningless in all the mess. Who cared? Anna, Alexandria- when the world was falling down around humanities' ears... why did names really matter? She swallowed back whatever bitter new found cynicism she had found, and observed the house as she spoke.

"I'm a nurse." There was a shell shocked simplistic quality about the way she'd spoke.. but then- it was expected. The hospital. There'd been no real damage to it in the initial beginnings of the end, but once people started dying and getting hurt, well. The hospital suddenly saw every terrible thing that had even begun to happen in the city. Eventually the gangs had come and even more eventually the better half of the hospital district had become destroyed.

"I used to work for a woman in this neighborhood.. do you know her? Lucy. Lucy Caldwell. I was.. I am." She reminded herself resiliently. "I am her home care nurse."

The moment Marie had leaned out of the upstairs bedroom’s window to yell, she already was recoiling to run downstairs and open the heavily locked and barricaded front door to let the woman in. She had to kick a bookshelf out of the way, but within a minute the door was open and she was trying to rush the woman inside before the gang could realize there were inhabitants of the home. Maybe they would reach the doors, find them barricaded, and give up. It wasn’t as if the house was fancy; an old, tattered antebellum-style house wasn’t attractive to burglars she thought.

“You’re lucky they haven’t gotten this far yet,” Marie muttered, pushing the heavy oak bookshelf back in front of the door. “A few of them came by this way last night, big men, with guns and machetes and whatnot. They didn’t notice we were here thank God.” With the bookshelf back in place, the locks reset and deadbolt secured, she turned back around and sighed, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow before her blonde hair fell back in place.

From upstairs came the sound of coughing. Marie turned to the stairs to regard the noise, closing her eyes and looking sad before she tried to put on a forced smile. “Anna? Nice to meet you, I’m Marie Rod- Sorry, Marie Edwards now I guess.” She kept forgetting she was married, even if the wedding had been less than three weeks ago now. It didn’t seem to matter. “Did you say you were a nurse? My husband is really sick. I don’t think he’s going to make it…”

Marie barely registered Anna’s question about Lucy Caldwell. “I haven’t seen her in days. Her house is about five down, across the street. Not many people are left. I saw Oliver Hendricks yesterday burying one of his kids, but that was about it…” Her mind was back on Brian upstairs, her numb mind unable to comprehend Brian was actually dying. “I haven’t really looked for anyone though. There isn’t a reason to.”

"it's fine.. none of them saw me. I was careful." she forced past any actual fear that might've flanked up her consciousness, fully aware that them not seeing her had nothing to do with it. The surroundings fell to the wayside as she watched Marie's face.

"No reason?" she looked up the stairs to the coughing, eyes adjusting to the darkness in silence. "There's always a reason. The woman.. Lucy. Her house has supplies. Loads of them. There's medicine that could help his pain." She didn't say save him- there was no saving him. But at the very least... they could lessen the pain.

"Besides.. more people will survive if we pool resources." She muttered some random line she'd seen on one of those late night sci fi movies.

Marie desperately wanted her husband to live, but days ago she had given up on that happening. She was just a marketer, but she wasn’t stupid when it came to medicine. Her father was a doctor, and often visits to the hospital had shown her people in various stages of dying, and Brian was nearing the end no matter what people did. “All we can do is make him comfortable now,” Marie whispered, shaking her head and turning back towards the kitchen.

The fridge had long since died out, everything inside going bad, but there were still some perishables and a few bottles of water. Another few days and they would be completely gone. “You want something to drink?” Marie called out to Anna, grabbing a warm bottle and two glasses before she returned to the foyer. She didn’t want to admit that she was afraid, especially not after Brian had almost fallen down the stairs trying to check on her after she started crying two nights ago. Everyone was gone; in days, hours maybe, the last vestige of her family would be a lifeless pile of skin and bones in her bed.

She poured the water and ignored her own glass, instead focusing on making sure her guest was served. “What’s the point anymore?” Marie murmured lifelessly, staring at the floor. “We’re all going to die. Each and every single one of us. My husband, myself, you, the gangs. Why try to pretend it isn’t going to happen?”

There was more coughing from upstairs, followed by a gunshot from outside. Marie flinched and grabbed the bottle of water. “From upstairs you can use our binoculars to see if that woman’s still alive. You can see into her bedroom from ours, through the trees. I saw someone moving in there three, four nights ago now. There’s a chance she’s still there if you care that much about her.”

"Sure. I've got some soup if you'd like.. it's not hot but it certainly is more than rotted fruit." she muttered quietly, watching Marie as she saw the defeat.

"The point?" there was a small rise in the nurses voice... "Maybe we are. But forgive me if I'm not willing to just give up." She sighed. "Sorry. I'm not arguing with what you've choosen... I just figure a quick death by gunshot is a better choice than a slow one... you know? Thank you." she took the glass of water and turned upstairs towards the bedroom- obviously in a hurry despite the world.

The gunshot only served to make her more adamant. No way did Lucy deserve to be alone. Then again... nor did she. Perhaps that was why she cared so much. She wasn't like Marie, who had something to cling to. All she had was this, the last remnants of her job and a need to cling to that normalness.

Marie walked up the creaking and old stairs and turned into her bedroom as Brian coughed again, blood staining his lips. She pulled out a handkerchief, one of her antiques that had been a gift from her grandmother when she was a child, and blotted it way as he fell back into a restless sleep. He was barely coherent anymore. “How can you shoot yourself in the head when you don’t have a gun? Do we look like the type who needed them until a few days ago?”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and pointed to a pair of binoculars that had been left next to the windowsill. “I don’t want your pity, I just want this to be over. I don’t want to have to watch my husband suffer because I don’t have the heart to put him out of his misery. I don’t even have the guts to kill myself, but I don’t have the nerve to keep living on either.” Marie looked ready to throw something, but there was nothing within her grasps. Instead she just growled under her breath.

It was for love that she had given up everything. The man she loved had been poor, not the type her ex-socialite mother wanted her only daughter to marry. Now they were all dead, or almost dead. She picked up Brian’s burned and listless hand and clung to it for dear life, praying that maybe he would get better, praying that he could save her like he had so many times before.

“It’s the bright pink house, by the way, past the oak tree on the right.” It was obvious Marie didn’t care about anyone, including herself. “The gang is coming this way. If you go out and they see you, you’re dead. Just a warning.” She had watched her neighbor die that way, trying to scrape up something to eat. Just one less mouth to feed she guessed. “But I doubt she’s still alive. I doubt anyone in this neighborhood is still alive.”

"You could let them do it for you." She motioned to the gangs silently, her voice quiet as if barely able to admit it herself. She took the binoculars and focused onto Lucy's house. She knew which one it was, where it was and where she'd be if she was there.

She let Marie talk. Anna herself was much of nothing anymore- a shell, really. She did know she didn't want to die. That she wasn't going to give up that easy. "May I stay here till they pass back through, Marie? After that I'll go for her. I see movement."

Anna paced in front of the window, dusty brown hair falling into strands in front of her eyes as she moved thoughtfully. "The gangs are looking for supplies, correct?" She questioned softly, watching as, just as Marie said, they began to near. Still far enough off that she was unseen.

Marie snorted sarcastically. “’Oh, gangs, please, feel free to kill my husband and myself and have free roam of our house’. Trust me, I’m not the type.” Secretly, she didn’t want to die, but she had just ran out of options or hope. She wanted a reason to give up trying and let fate consume her, but so far she still had Brian to live for, keeping a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t die.

With Anna’s question about staying there, Marie just nodded. “It might just be her cat. Or her dog. I dunno, she has pets. She yelled at Brian for trying to pet the cat last week…” She remembered Brian coming home laughing about it, right before he had gone out to the shed to grab the lawnmower, a mere hour before the deadly rains had come. Maybe the cat had died just like the birds and the squirrels and the world around her.

“They’re gangs. There is no rhyme to their reason, but yeah, they’re looking for supplies. They cleaned out the Fink’s house last night after they killed him, beat him to death. His wife was in New York on business.” Marie tightened her grip on Brian’s hand, feeling him squeezing back before she realized it was just her imagination. “If you see them, close the curtains. I don’t want them trying to get in here, not while we’re still alive at least.”

"then you don't really want to die then, do you?" She muttered in quiet matter of factness before closing the curtain, turning to face the woman and her husband without even half of a blink. It was a horrible sight but really... no worse than what she'd seen initially. She sighed softly.

"I know she's there. I feel it. That old woman wouldn't give up like that." She muttered and leaned against a dreaser quietly. "They've already desecrated my neighborhood and the hospital." Barely, she rubbed her temples, allowing her mind a moment of rest before looking back up.

"What've you been using for your husband? Maybe I can help some."

“I don’t want to have to suffer through the end of the world!” Marie snapped, immediately drawing back as Brian tried to open his eyes, coughing and straining himself as his wife grew angry at the visitor she had allowed into their home. She touched his forehead and made soothing sounds, even as he said a few words that were so low that she couldn’t hear him from inches away. Within seconds, he went back to sleep much to her relief.

She released his hand and buried her face in her hands. Marie didn’t care about the old lady, she just cared about herself. “What’s so wrong about not wanting to suffer? We should just all die and get it over with. Those people with the bombs should just finish the job they started.” Picking up Brian’s hand she put it back onto his chest and made sure the blanket was securely in place, giving one last pat to his lips to clear the blood. He looked pitiful, his skin burned but pale, blonde hair missing large patches. Brian had once been handsome, but now looked like a mutant.

“He had some left over pain killers from where he broke his leg a few months ago, but we ran out of those quick. All I’ve got is aspirin and five Tylenols. That’ll last two more days at most, but he’s so far gone it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Marie stood up and walked into the bathroom, grabbing the bottle of pills that were probably out of date; Brian hated taking medication, which was why they had the drugs from before left. Looking over at him, Marie knew that he was suffering with each and every breath he took, but she couldn’t bring herself to end it. She couldn’t kill the man she loved more than she loved herself. “You probably don’t carry around a lethal dose of morphine with you, do you?”

She sighed softly. "Then don't. I'm sorry- I didn't mean to come in here and offend you... I just can't think clearly." She muttered, moving to stand closer to the bed. Marie went through the list of drugs they had and Anna took silent inventory. It certainly wasn't enough for even regular pain... much less what the husband was going through.

"I don't... but Lucy does. Look." She sighed and moved for the window using the faint space between the blinds to look through as best she could. She saw nothing of course- but it gave her comfort to try. "I can go over there... I will be fine alone... and if everything is ok, I'll bring you back some morphine. I don't have any on me but she's got some I'm sure of it."

She settled back again- this time moving for a chair in the room though half realized.. "I'm sorry.. would you like me to leave the room? I can, if you'd prefer." She offered out of politenes, not quite wanting to intrude on whatever last moments this woman wanted with her husband.

“Maybe the radiation has gotten to you, making you unable to think,” Marie muttered sarcastically, burying her head in her hands for just a moment so she could think in the privacy of relative darkness. Brian coughed again and Marie had to strain herself to just leave him be while she took care of her own mental health. They had already used up all those pills or else she would have taken one to kill the splitting headache that was beginning to consume her.

She put her hands on her hips and sighed deeply once again, her one and only relief mechanism anymore, and even that didn’t seem to help. Marie ignored Anna’s request for her to look out the window, instead continuing to pace back and forth, back and forth, clenching her fists and looking lost in thoughts of worry. Her face was taut and absent. “You know, just a few days ago, assisting in killing people could have been construed as murder. I guess there aren’t any cops left to patrol the streets for angels of death like you.”

Marie shook her head with Anna’s question. “Brian needs to rest. If either of us is in here he’s not going to be able to do that.” There was another gunshot from outside, closer than the last one minutes before. A dog yelped in pain before it went silent again, penetrating the house. “If you wait till night fall, with the street lights out you’ll be fine. The moon doesn’t rise until 3 AM according to my almanac.”

Walking out of the room, she waited for Anna to follow before she closed the door. “You’ve got three hours before nightfall. The woman will be fine until then, but I’ve got a spare bedroom if you want to rest. The quieter we can keep the better, or else that gang might wise up to us being here and break in a window.”

Anna snorted, a bare half laugh resonating through her tone and body language. The lack of pain killers was an issue.. but not that big a deal.

"Yea... I know." she sighed silently, half discomforted. Initially, she'd offered the morphine for pain killing- not actual killing.. but either way it didn't matter. If that's what she wanted, she'd do it. Though death by morphine would be far from a comfortable thing.. at least it was an end.

The idea of moving at night was far from unnerving to her- well awre that it would be necessary for the coming survival.

"I'm alright. I slept before. I'll just sit.. think up a plan. That sort of thing." she nodded casually, following after Marie as she exited the room. "Definitely wont make a sound. They're the last thing I want to face."

Marie wanted to smack Anna hard in the face for the half laugh that struck at the soon-to-be-widow’s heart painfully. Instead, she just walked outside and waited for Anna to join her with her fists clenched, keeping them securely at her sides to make sure that she didn’t lash out at the woman for being so inconsiderate, even if her half laugh had had nothing to do with Brian’s untimely demise.

Moments after she had shut the door, a gunshot sounded from outside, extremely close this time, like it was from just down the street. Marie jumped and threw the door back open as screaming pierced the thin walls of the house. “What’s going on?” she whispered, creeping towards the window and peering out to see an old lady in front of the bright pink house wielding a rifle twice as big as her, gun pointed at a pair of men who were running away down the street in the opposite direction.

“Well, I guess that proves she’s alive,” Marie whispered back to Anna, frowning. “She looks angrier than those gang guys did. I hope she knows you or else she is going to shoot you before you get close to her yard.”

“Stay off my lawn!” From that far away the scream was muted, but still audible inside the house. Marie had to stifle a laugh, watching the woman walk back inside and slam her door shut.

She stepped back and allowed the curtains to close. “I’m glad that she didn’t try that with Brian a few days ago. I guess she obviously knows what is going on with the world.” Marie walked back out into the hallway and down the stairs, finally wanting that glass of water. She sat down on the bottom step and closed her eyes, fighting back tears. The world really was being reduced to killing people in fear, and people killing themselves to avoid that fate.