Chapter 1
Nobody ever thinks they'll be the one to die when calamity strikes. Conversely, those who survive often spend the rest of their lives wondering why they were among the chosen few allowed to make it through. Glen could never make sense of it. He hadn't prepared for the disaster. He just happened to be in his basement at the time. He just happened to be far enough away from ground zero that he didn’t instantly die from heat shock. Glen was lucky to be buried under the timbers of his house, which forced him to stay sheltered for a week or more, while particles of radioactive dust snowed on his neighborhood. He was lucky to have water and dog food trapped with him. Of course, he didn't see it as luck. To him it was a curse. The living called it "survivor's luck", tongue firmly in cheek. Not that Glen had many people to share such dark humor with. Not at first.
It seemed like months before first contact with another living human soul. He had begun to wonder if he'd imagined the society that once existed. "It's funny how a man can gaslight himself," he'd always say--not to anyone else, of course. Just to himself. He'd taken to vocalizing his thoughts a lot. So much so that it became problematic when he started meeting people again.
It was a hazy, smoke filled day when he met the old crone, just like every other day. Thick clouds hung in the air, choking out the sun, which was a faint red ball when it was even visible. What little light came through cast everything in an a dull orange hue. When you could feel the warmth of the sun, it radiated more like a distant heat lamp than a powerful fireball. Mostly, it was just plain cold every day. Down by the sea shore, where he'd been scavenging, it was both cold and wet. Everything there had a slimy dampness to it. Everything looked dreary and dingy. Everything that is, except the bluffs.
When first sight of the rugged bluffs broke through the haze, he was stunned by their vibrant colors. Veins of rock weaved the colors of honey and fire together in an alluring pattern. He was initially drawn to the shore by the majestic sight of the limestone. He kept coming for the bevy of useless treasures. All manner of junk would wash up on the beach in that area. He rummaged through rusty mufflers, jagged airplane wings, deflated tires and broken lawn chairs. Halves of desks, portions of bookcases, pieces of vinyl siding, shattered pallets and busted up file cabinets. None of it was good for anything. The wood was waterlogged, but he grabbed some anyway. It might serve as a leg for one of the broken chairs. Glen tied his spoils together with a frayed rope and slung the bundle over his shoulder behind his back. One of the sticks that had washed ashore looked like a good staff, so he grabbed it. "Makes me feel like a wizard," he said. Then he trudged up the hill in no particular hurry. "That's the one good thing about all this. No need to hurry from one place to the next. Unless nightfall is coming, of course. Or there's a rabid animal chasing you. Not that I've seen any animals." The idle thought spawned a more keen awareness of the bizarre silence around him. No birds chirping, no squirrels shaking bushes, no leaves on the trees to be rustled by the wind. Everything was scorched. Only the lapping of waves and the faint northwesterly breeze spoke to him.
Glen continued down the beach under the imposing shadow of the bluffs. The wind hit the wall of limestone, creating a sharp whistle of whispered secrets which he voiced aloud, "Never go back. Never go back the way you came. That's what I always heard. Or maybe that's just what I keep saying to myself... Who cares anymore?" He came to a point where the bluffs ended and the hill eased down to the rocky beach. He grunted his way up the steep stretch that led to the top of the bluffs. Stiff bone-dry stalks of razor grass sliced at his skin, which was exposed by holes worn into his shabby clothes. "Ow! Just my luck!" He cried out as the salt water soaked into his trousers rubbed into the fresh wound.
He forgot about all of it once he crested the bluffs. That's when he saw the blurred shack, halfway up the hill. "How have I never seen that before?" He thought for a moment longer, "How could I have seen it with all this smoke and fog hanging in the air?" The structure was a slap-dashed shamble of pallets, plywood, and corrugated metal. Smoke billowed out of a makeshift chimney. Glen double-timed up the hill. Excitement eventually gave way to fatigue, but he pushed on, out of breath as he was. "Hello?" He shouted, noticeably exasperated from his excited exertion. "Hello!" He shouted again after receiving no answer. He reached what looked like a door and dropped everything but his staff. Glen knocked energetically, hearing something stirring inside. "I come in peace!" He announced emphatically.
"And you'll leave in pieces!" Came a frail, angered response. His heart stopped as he noticed a dark, weathered eyeball peering through a peephole.
"I mean no harm. I just haven't seen another person in months..."
"And why should you want to? People are the reason for all this mess, after all! I used to have a nice tidy home with a new car and a litter of adorable fur babies! Now look what I'm reduced to!"
"Okay, cat lady, well it's a hole lot better than the ditch I'm living in! Get it? Hole." He made a shoveling motion and she was not amused.
The woman swung open the door furiously. She was petite and lightly wrinkled. Her dark brown hair had greyed heavily and her eyes held sullen bags beneath them.
"Cat lady? Those were my babies, thank you! And just exactly who are you that you can be so proud of? You look like a dried up flake of sea weed!"
Glen was taken aback. Before the world ended, he was a reasonably handsome man. Above average height, solid build, neatly trimmed beard. Now he was a starving, scraggly skeleton.
"I'll have you know I'm a wandering wizard, MADam." He lifted his staff pointedly.
"You are just full of jokes today, huh?"
"Well, one of us has to be entertaining. I don't get many channels on my flat screen TV any more."
"TV clearly just rotted your brain away anyhow."
"That's what they always warned me would happen. Problem is, I never believed them till it was too late. I'm just glad I finished the final season of Happy Days before the bombs dropped. I watched Fonz jump a shark and everything."
"Just what I need in my life! Another binge-watching couch potato! Go away and take your radioactive junk with you."
Glen obliged happily. "Old hag!" He shouted back at her as he grabbed his treasures and shambled off to find shelter. She responded with a menacing hiss and slammed her ramshackle door closed.
"What a nasty old witch!" He bemoaned.
Glen didn't know where he was going, but he was going there fast. He'd wasted too much time checking out the old crone's shack and now the faint sun was dropping fast, threatening to plunge him into the frigid darkness of night. "How naïve of me to think she'd share her shelter. Anyone clinging to life in this forsaken hellscape is bound to be miserable!" He reached the edge of an eerie forest. The trees were twisted, snarled pitchforks, devoid of any leaves. They evoked all the uneasy feelings of a hau
nted wood. Glen stopped there only because broken trees meant plentiful firewood. He gathered wood in a pile and produced a lighter and a tinder box from beneath his burlap shawl. He stacked kindling neatly over some wrinkled paper scraps and ignited his barbecue lighter in the tinder. Shivering and watching nervously as the young flame struggled to take hold, he resisted the urge to blow on the flame too much, or to smother it with too many combustibles. Little by little the fire grew, until he felt it was safe to stack branches around it like a tipi. His campfire blazed with life-giving heat as the sun disappeared from sight.
Wasting little time, Glen pulled out a roll of duct tape and began repairing the legs of his new folding lawn chair with a couple wood splints. He eased into it, unexpectedly sinking slightly to the left before settling to the right to counterbalance the tilt. Soaking in the warmth of the fire, he listened intently to the crackling story it told. "Never give up. Never give in," he repeated. Then his belly begged him for food with a guttural growl. He opened a baggy of trail mix and popped a handful in his mouth to sate his stomach just long enough to fall asleep. Glen didn't worry one bit about his safety while he slept. If he was going to die, he preferred it would happen in the dead of night.