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  That third night the little community reminded Noah of what people were really like.

  Tyrone, the group’s gray-haired leader, called them all together after dinner. He pointed to a map stuck against the side of the bus, an old, frayed thing showing the roads as they had been before all Hell hit. The gathering was too close to the center of camp for Noah to hear what was being said, but it looked like Tyrone had made a decision between two roads.

  Only, not everybody was happy with Tyrone’s choice. One of the motorbike riders—the one Noah thought of as Half-Skull for the symbol on his jacket—stepped forward and gestured angrily towards Tyrone. Some seemed to be trying to shout him down, while others stood behind him, arms folded, glaring at the rest.

  Tyrone argued back. Angry words turned to angry gestures, turned to Half-Skull shoving Tyrone and Tyrone shoving him back. Something glittered in Half-Skull’s hand as he slammed into the older man.

  Tyrone sank to his knees, hands clutching at a knife handle protruding from his chest.

  The whole community fell silent as they watched their leader stare in shock at Half-Skull and then topple over in a pool of blood.

  Someone screamed, then was silenced by a gesture from one of Half-Skull’s friends.

  There was no loud banter around the campfire that night. Sally and Todd huddled together in their blankets, not arguing or fighting, but clinging to each other with fierce protectiveness.

  Noah remembered Jeb and Pete again, remembered the way he’d clung to them when things went bad, and how on the worst off all mornings that had left him soaked through with their blood.

  He smoked a cigarette.

  The next day the group moved on, but the atmosphere was different. Half-Skull stood on top of the bus as it rumbled along, watching the people around him as much as he watched the road ahead. Heads were lowered, shoulders slumped. The group had always seemed like a fragile band, undernourished and riddled with disease, half of them hobbling or blighted by sores and hacking coughs. But Noah had never seen them so downtrodden.

  Watching them no longer lifted his spirits. And yet he could not help following, drawn along by some terrible compulsion. Did he want to keep seeing people, or did he just want to know what would happen next? He asked Bourne, but his holstered companion remained silent.

  Their next stop was a junction where the highway met another road running east to west. An old gas station seemed to be the reason for the stop. Half-Skull set people to work retrieving any dregs of fuel still remaining in its tanks. Noah figured it for a lost cause. They weren’t far enough into the wilds for such a place not to have been thoroughly ransacked, but he watched with the same hollow, edgy feeling he’d watched everything else since Tyrone’s death.

  Tyrone had seemed like a good man, as much as such people still existed. Half-Skull wasn’t. He and his allies prowled the camp, most of them carrying muskets, while the others worked. If they were meant to be guarding against outside dangers, then they were looking the wrong way. It crossed Noah’s mind that was to his advantage, as they might not have viewed him with friendly eyes. The thought didn’t reassure him none.

  He was watching Sally and Todd cook the company’s dinner, their usual arguments reduced to whispers, when a scream echoed through the camp. His hand went straight for Bourne, his eyes and everybody else’s following the sound to the darkness at the edge of the camp.

  Half-Skull had a handful of Mary the wheelbarrow wrangler’s red hair. He yanked her head to one side as he pushed her against a wagon and wrenched up her skirts. She screamed and battered futilely against his chest, her face contorted in horrified panic. Half-Skull’s fist collided with the side of her face, leaving a trickle of blood in its wake, then he turned his glare on the rest of the camp.

  Sally stood but was pulled back down by Todd. Everyone else turned away except for Half-Skull’s gang, several of whom were grinning with approval at their leader.

  Mary’s screams turned to sobs as Half-Skull tore her dress entirely away.

  Noah turned away, too. His hand wrapped around Bourne’s handle, gripping so tightly his fingers went cold. Bourne who was empty of bullets, unlike those muskets in the camp. Bourne, who made him feel so powerful in his idle moments, now left him impotent in the face of depravity. But, then, he didn’t know the woman. She didn’t even know he existed. Why would he risk anything for her when her own people wouldn’t?

  His stomach tightened. These people sickened him, just like most did in the end. Better to be alone than constantly reminded of what humanity really was.

  He picked up his pack, drew deeper into the shelter of the trees, and started walking east.

  CHAPTER THREE

  DUMPSVILLE

  A FEW DAYS later Noah found the town of Dumpsville lying an hour’s trek north of the highway. For the first time in a month, he thought he might finally scavenge some decent supplies. The journey east so far had been bitterly disappointing – a few empty houses and a burned-down gas station, and only one rabbit in his snares. Even the local mushrooms had an unhealthy purple color that no sane man would put in his mouth. But Dumpsville held real promise, as much as anything made by people could.

  It probably had a proper name once, something sweet and homey to fit its cozy, secluded setting. Cherry Wood, maybe? Or Pastor Heights. Something that spoke of family values and the Appalachian country spirit. But the meteorite that had hit the road at the southern end of town had taken out whatever welcome sign had proudly declared its name, and so Noah filled the gap. He hated towns like Dumpsville – they reminded him too much of home.

  He skirted around the edge of the meteorite crater. It had been there a while, long enough for a whole range of plants to sprout up in the rubble, including clusters of those purple mushrooms and even some small trees. Which probably meant no-one had been around for a long time either, otherwise they would have done something to repair the road. Maybe the inhabitants had evacuated in the early days, headed to somewhere more secure and populous, and never returned. Maybe they’d taken the meteorite as a sign from the heavens and pulled up stakes to move on – all it took was one charismatic preacher and a couple of misfortunes to poison people’s judgment. Or maybe they’d just decided it wasn’t worth staying with the main road in ruins. Could be they were all dead now, or living on some Caribbean island like the characters in a pre-collapse holiday brochure. Whatever the case, Dumpsville seemed both deserted and largely untouched, the best sort of town.

  Noah walked Main Street, past squat houses with big yards and a couple of boxy shops. His heart leapt at the sight of a gun store, a grin splitting his face at the thought of such a place long left untouched. It only took a moment’s work to bust the lock and get inside.

  Once inside, his heart sank. The store had been thoroughly and neatly cleaned out. Not a gun on the walls, not a bullet on the shelves, just a pile of crumbling paper targets and a counter gray with years of dust. Whatever their motives, the townspeople had gone fully armed when they left. Even after pillaging through the backs of cupboards and in a store room behind the register, Noah came up empty handed. Finding ammunition was looking a whole heap less likely for Noah.

  “Sorry buddy.” He patted Bourne. “Guess you’re going hungry tonight.”

  “That’s ‘cause you’re in the wrong shop bro.”

  Noah spun around at the sound of the voice, Bourne out of his holster and pointed towards the stranger silhouetted in the doorway.

  “Whoa, chill!” The guy’s hands flew into the air and he took two careful steps back into the street. Daylight revealed a grin through his ragged blond beard despite having a gun trained on him. “No need for that. There’s a Walmart down the street, got more food than both of us can carry.”

  Noah cautiously lowered Bourne. He wasn’t in the mood for more people, and he liked surprises the same way a rodeo bull liked a rider on his back. But if this guy had meant him harm then he’d wasted his best opportunity, which made him friendly or stupi
d, and either way Noah could handle him.

  He slid Bourne back into his holster.

  “What’s your name?” Noah asked.

  “Paul.” The other guy lowered his hands, held one out in greeting. “Nice to meet you, bro.”

  Paul didn’t know the town’s name any more than Noah did, and he laughed heartily at the idea of Dumpsville. But then, Paul laughed heartily at most things.

  “You should save that one for New York bro.” Paul brushed a dollop of sauce from his faded letterman jacket and leaned back in his plastic chair, reaching to open another can of beans. “Place is a total wreck. There’s, like, old cars jamming up half the streets, skyscrapers with all the windows smashed out, all kinds of crazy shit. Capital of the world, take away the computers and it’s nothing but dead concrete. I mean seriously, it makes total sense man. What can you grow in New York, huh? Am I right?”

  His face contorted as he tasted the beans, cast that can aside and reached for another. The can clattered to the curb, spilling its contents across the Walmart parking lot.

  “Thought this shit would last forever,” he continued. “Like cockroaches or this rash I caught off some skanky cheerleader in college. I swear to God, you do not want to know what that did to Big Paul. Every minute was like some eternity of torment. I may not believe in Jesus, but I totally believe in penicillin.”

  After a pause he spoke again.

  “Wonder if they still make penicillin.”

  A flash accompanied by a growing roar announced the arrival of a meteorite. Blazing a long, glowing path through the air above Dumpsville, it turned the sky from blue to a burning orange before crashing into a nearby hillside, the explosion echoing through the valley.

  “You think that’s it?” Paul asked, looking up to see if any more fragments would follow.

  “Reckon so.” Noah watched the woods where the meteorite had hit. If a fire broke out, it could make it risky to keep heading east. But though the crater smoldered, there was no sign of flames.

  “What about you man?” Paul asked. “Where you from? Where you going? What’s your place in this crazy, mixed up life on the road?”

  Noah hesitated. He’d known Paul for all of an hour, though he’d heard enough of his stories to fill in a lifetime. But then what was there to lose? And how else could you get news of the road ahead, if not by sharing with other wanderers?

  Still, his hand drifted a little towards Bourne as he leaned back, a half-empty can of spaghetti resting on his full belly, and considered where to start.

  “I grew up in Tennessee,” he said at last. “No place you would’ve heard of. I was barely eighteen when all of this happened.” He waved his hand, taking in the deserted buildings and the dust rising from the fresh crater in the distance. “Been working odd jobs – construction, auto, all kinds of stuff with my hands. I was fixing to settle down and be another small town nobody, huntin’ and fishin’ on the weekends, marrying some girl I’d known since she was wearing her hair in pigtails.

  “If it wasn’t for my older brothers I’d likely have died. We stayed in town, but a new mayor took over and that place clean went to Hell. Jeb and Pete, they tried to stand up to him, but he didn’t like that. He...”

  The words caught in Noah’s throat, swollen by the horror of memory. Of waking into their shared room one morning to see Jeb’s blood-soaked sheets, rushing over to shake Pete awake but finding him cold and pale as a midwinter snow, his throat sliced open, eyes wide and staring up at Noah, demanding justice.

  For an hour he’d just sat there, rocking back and forth on the blood-soaked floor, unable to comprehend what he’d seen, even more bewildered to still be alive. At last he’d pulled himself together enough to pull out Jeb’s stash and roll the fattest, strongest joint he’d ever seen. As the glow crackled up the bloodstained paper and fragrant smoke filled his lungs, Noah had tried to make sense of it all. Why the killing was obvious. Gunderson had had it in for Jeb and Pete for weeks. But why leave Noah? Had the self-proclaimed mayor forgotten about him? Had he or his lackeys not seen him in the darkness? Maybe they just thought he wasn’t a threat, or found it funny to leave him alive and suffering, a reminder that they could bring anybody to their knees.

  Nobody brought the Brennan boys to their knees.

  That night Noah took Pete’s knife and paid a return visit to the apartment above town hall.

  The flash of another meteorite brought Noah back to the present. He lit a cigarette from one of the packs they’d found behind the counter, passed another to Paul.

  “Let’s just say it ended badly,” he said as last. “And he won’t be troubling folks no more. But after that, I couldn’t stick around. It wasn’t just that I was afraid of what I might face for my revenge, I s’pose I was more afraid of living in that town and seeing those streets but not my brothers walking them, than I was of dying there.”

  “Been on the road ever since – half a lifetime and more, but I’ve never looked back.”

  Paul nodded sagely.

  “That’s some heavy shit, bro,” he said at last. “Some major heavy shit.”

  “No worse than most folks by now, I expect.” Noah took a long drag on his cigarette, fought down the sorrow that rose within him, threatening to steal away his energy, his will to go on. He flicked the butt away, lit another, looked for a distraction. “What’s next for you?”

  “Heading south, catch me some sunshine,” Paul said. “Winter was hella cold upstate this year. I want to get somewhere hot before I lose any more of these bad boys.” He pulled off one of his boots, revealing the blackened stumps of two toes eaten away by frostbite.

  “Hate to tell you this,” Noah said, “but it ain’t gonna be much better down south. Weather’s a mess wherever you go. Even the Bayou gets frozen some winters now. And before that, you’ll have to bake through the summer – from here on out it gets hotter every day.”

  “Thanks for the warning bro.” Paul pulled his sock and shoe back on, started tying the twine that had replaced the laces. “But what I saw this winter, storms burying whole houses in snow, fucking polar bears roaming the streets, whatever’s down south it can’t be any worse. What about you? Where next for Tennessee’s own Lone Ranger?”

  “Keep heading east. See what I can find.”

  Paul gave his thoughtful nod of the head. He had a way of gazing off into the distance that made him look wise until you heard him speak. It was only then that the distance and the pauses were revealed as vacancy, not thoughtfulness. There was far worse company to be had, but he wasn’t exactly filling Noah with a desire for civilization.

  “Maybe two hours of daylight left,” Paul said. “Trade before we part?”

  Noah nodded. It was the common parting point for folks on the road, getting the chance to switch supplies before going their separate ways, not giving the other guy time to plan a scam or rob you of the wealth you’d shown them.

  “You got any bullets?” Noah asked.

  “Sorry bro.” Paul shook his head. “No-one left that shit lying around. Got this though.”

  He pulled a bottle of brown liquid out of his pack, the remnants of a whiskey label still visible across the middle. Noah grinned, then sagged as he realized how little he had to trade.

  “Nothing I’d love more,” he said, and he could hear the longing in his own voice. “But all I’ve got are these.”

  He undid a tow sack hanging off of his backpack, opened it up to reveal the rabbit skins inside.

  Paul grinned.

  “Shit man, that is badass,” he said, gazing into the bag. “I saw some needle and thread back in the store. Can make me a proper fur coat, like some crazy wild man out of history. I’m gonna be mother-fucking Captain Caveman.”

  Noah blinked in confusion. Was this guy for real? How had he lasted this long if he couldn’t even trap and skin his own food?

  But then he remembered the baboon. The world was a crazy place, best not to question the good bits of that craziness.

&
nbsp; “You’re a good dude, Noah,” Paul said, handing over the bottle. “You travel safe, you hear?”

  Noah couldn’t remember the last time he’d had the chance to get properly, wretchedly drunk. That night he managed, screaming at the crazy world long into the night, passing out at last in a patch of tall grass. He woke the next morning wrapped around his precious, empty whiskey bottle, his thoughts wrapped around a kernel of fierce pain.

  He got up, tried to brush the dew from his clothes, and walked on alone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHAT PASSES FOR CIVILIZATION

  WHEN SPRING-LIKE weather rolled through, it was a good time to be heading to higher ground. As the snow and storms eased off, the prospect of ascending into the Appalachians became more practical, with less threat of snow or violent storms to rip Noah off a hillside and leave him lying like a broken doll in the valley below.

  There were times he cursed his own overactive imagination. This was one of those times.

  The advantage of heading up the mountain was the pickings to be had now that the weather was changing. As animals emerged from hibernation and dormant plants started to appear, suddenly a wealth of eating could be found, as great a bounty as he’d see before the fall came. And as Dumpsville had reminded him, up here there were plenty of places that had been abandoned early on that other drifters might not have completely emptied out. One more reason to get up the mountain quickly, before anybody else did.

  The next place he found had once been like Dumpsville, but time, humanity and the ravages of a devastating climate had entirely transformed it. The houses were ruins at best, burned out shells at worst. Tree roots and meteorite falls had turned the roads into little more than broken clumps of asphalt between raised ridges of dirt. There were plenty of stores, but those that still stood had been thoroughly looted, windows smashed in, shelves not just emptied but torn down and scattered across the grimy floors.