The Survivors

March 10th

1

Still alone, and once again in danger, Samantha’s heart pounded as she stood in the dank basement of a farmhouse on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado.

She watched the drunken passage of a large group of armed men rolling down the street as if they owned it. She listened to shouts, glass breaking, and wild gunfire, praying none of them glanced her way. These stragglers were hurrying to catch up to the main group she had already watched go by. The sky behind them warned of another nasty storm coming. Samantha ignored the throbbing leg confirming that forecast. She spotted billowing, black smoke coming from their backtrail. Did these people conquer NORAD?

The small cellar room was cold and stank of mildew. The floor was covered in standing, stagnant water, but she only had eyes for the dangerous group moving through the devastated neighborhood bordering the dark city. Samantha didn’t know who the men were, but it was clear they were trouble.

Not that she would have made contact even if they had appeared civilized. Samantha had been moving cautiously since surviving the battle with the wolves. She hoped to be left alone until she got to Cheyenne. It never crossed her mind this group might be going there too.

Samantha had found more bodies around this town than in other places. The dead had sores that gave her horrible flashes of the bunker where she had killed Pat. There had been a few live people too–brief, distant glimpses of her fellow survivors that made her drop out of sight as fast as she could.

Samantha was now armed, but shame and paranoia were still her constant companions. The pair had settled onto her shoulders, making her prefer lonely solitude to the conversations she would be forced to have. What would she say?

Hi. I’m Samantha. I had a pass to the government bunker, but my chopper crashed. Now, I’m stuck out in this hell with you common folk.

Not a wise idea.

She did want to be around other people again. She longed for some of her old life back, but she could only be with others like herself or she wouldn’t be safe. She understood that now.

Samantha scanned the last of the vehicles driving through the dirty slush, lingering on the distant shadow of purple mountains with dull, white peaks. They would be full of lavender columbine by now, with gigantic ash trees and evergreens providing homes for the rabbits, cranes, and larks she hadn’t seen down here. Up there, it was an entirely different world.

Her leg had healed slowly and painfully, forcing her to spend a week at a farmhouse south of the hunting lodge. She was glad the morphine had only held out for the first six days. Any more than that might have turned her into a junkie. Almost did anyway, she thought, still wanting a buzz even though normal Tylenol was controlling the pain. Traveling was hard, though. She had only been able to keep going because of the cart she’d found in a shed behind a vandalized golf course. She still wasn’t sure if it had been hunger driving the wolves or something else. The way they’d tracked her, surrounded her, and waited for the storm cover, implied organization.

“Almost as if they planned it.” Samantha pulled her trench coat shut as the last of the muddy jeeps fell out of a view distorted by rain on dirty glass and a tier of Hanukkah candles that would stay dark forever. “They were the hunted before. Now, they are the hunters.”

Her words, spoken quietly, disturbed the occupants of the dank basement she hadn’t noticed when she’d quickly limped down the steep wooden stairs. She had been seeking refuge from the large group of dangerous men, but Sam suddenly realized her safe shelter wasn’t. She froze.

Movement came from the corner.

A soft slither echoed around a cobweb covered ceiling beam.

Another ripple of movement came along the floor–a dark, weaving shadow under the inches of water... Sam’s paralysis broke. She swung her sharpened walking stick in front of her as she limped to the stairs, able to feel snakes coming toward her from above. There was no hissing, no noises except hers. It was menacing.

Samantha took the steep stairs two at a time, seeing another, larger snake coming from behind the wooden steps. She lunged up the last three.

Unable to stifle a cry as she rolled, Sam lost her cane, bad leg taking the brunt of her weight.

The air shifted near her arm.

Sam rolled again, hitting the wall. On her feet a second later, she limped to the door, unable to see anything following but sure the angry reptiles were there.

The feeling was gone as soon as she made it through the heavily decorated front door, but she didn’t slow as rain pelted her. The ghost town around her was silent, smoking in places. Sam wondered if the fallout that was changing nature’s routines and habits was also affecting the people mentally. She had seen things since the war that made old horror stories feel tame, and it was everywhere. There were dead corpses full of bullet holes, female bodies still lying with their mouths open in midscream, a family dog impaled on a broken porch rail, blood smears in the shape of a small hand on the stone walk. Her attention landed on these things and flew away each time, but she knew she’d see them in perfect detail even after old age gave her memory loss.