THIRTY-EIGHT

Hi, there. It’s Aiden again. Shit is getting real, don’t you think?

You probably remember Anthony and me speaking to one of the heavily armed men in the crowd, who you now know as Billy. When he told us about the soldiers in the helicopter taking pictures, Anthony decided to send food outside. I went back to the roof just in time for Paige to spot Billy and the others walking out of the trees. My mind had become a universe of chaotic, screaming nonsense, and even as we met the new people, I was working out how to get back to the roof. Without Paige.

269 rounds, remember?

After introductions, during which a strange exchange passed between Jimmy and a man named Seth, Anthony led everyone into the warehouse.

“I need to go back to the roof,” Paige said as we walked toward the common area. “And Aiden should probably come with me. I could use another pair of eyes. Something is different this morning.”

“I’ll send him up shortly,” said Anthony. “For now, I’d like Aiden to stay here while we get to know our new guests.”

Paige looked at me carefully as she turned to leave. I wondered if she could sense what I planned to do.

“We still have three men in the trees,” said Billy. “And a pair of young boys. You’re running out of time here.”

It was easy to see who the boys’ parents were, especially the mother, who kept looking over her shoulder toward the door.

“And your sniper is right,” Billy added. “With that awful smoke, the crowd ain’t gonna wait much longer. There are starving babies out there. Pregnant mothers.”

“But I already promised to—”

“Too little, too late. As soon as they see food, it’ll be pandemonium.”

“It’s pandemonium everywhere now,” Jimmy croaked. “We fought a group of assholes who wanted to take Keri and Chelsea away. Marie died trying to save her daughter.”

Keri was such a distant memory it was like I had known her in a different life. And anyway, she was probably happy to be a sex slave if it meant she could eat.

By then we’d almost reached the common area. Billy was on high alert, his gun drawn. Seth and Jimmy kept looking at each other in an awkward way, as if neither believed the other was really there. The woman who wasn’t the mother was small and beautiful and strangely familiar. I felt a sense of destiny, as if every person present had been summoned for a purpose.

While my mind spun and my ears rang, someone cried out behind us. I whirled around and saw a couple of young boys running in our direction, their faces frightened and relieved and hopeful. But Seth and Natalie looked horrified and lurched forward to intercept the boys’ approach. Behind them marched three more men.

“I told you to wait in the trees,” Billy said.

“They wouldn’t wait,” growled one of the new men.

Two of these guys were carrying military rifles and looked ready for anything, but the other seemed more like a college professor. His eyes were wild and uncertain. Afraid.

Seth pushed the boys toward their mother and said this to Jimmy:

“I don’t understand what’s going on. How in the hell are you here?”

“I live ten miles away,” answered Jimmy. “You live in Oklahoma. What the hell are you doing here?”

Seth nodded at Thomas.

“We came with him. It’s a long story.”

“I assume you brought the money you owe me?”

“Not exactly. We came after the pulse.”

“Bullshit,” said Jimmy.

“Thomas has a running car. An old Mustang. The day of the pulse, he drove to Tulsa and brought us back.”

Billy didn’t seem to believe this.

“You have access to a working vehicle, and you walked all this way with Blaise?”

“There wasn’t enough fuel,” Thomas said. “There wasn’t enough room. And the car would have attracted too much attention.”

The entire scene felt unreal. Not only did Seth and Jimmy know each other, not only did Seth owe Jimmy a king’s ransom, but he lived hours away …by car. The odds of them accidentally crossing paths would have been astronomical in the old world, but after the EMP it should have been impossible. The only way to explain this meeting was that it was no accident.

But who could have arranged it?

* * *

“This is all his doing,” said Larry, pointing at Thomas.

During yesterday’s journey, as the sun beat on his bald head, as the ringing in his ears intensified, Larry devised a brilliant plan. He would, upon arrival at the warehouse, reveal to everyone how this awful world had been created by Thomas. Had been wrought by him. And maybe on its face the notion sounded absurd. But Larry was convinced, when people saw Skylar Stover, they would be compelled to believe. Her appearance would legitimize his claim, especially if she publicly agreed with him.

The ironic thing was, until now, Larry himself had not been convinced. Until now his primary goal had been to strike blindly at Thomas. But this exchange between Seth and the wounded man raised the possibility that Skylar was right, that the pulse and everything after might be a dream, a story designed by the hand of an invisible writer, an external Thomas. How else to explain this unstable scene?

“Don’t you get it?” Larry said to Seth and the wounded man. “All of this is a story Thomas wrote and now we’re trapped in it. How else would you two have crossed paths?”

“Larry,” Skylar said. “I was lying to myself when I said that. I didn’t want to accept reality because I was afraid to die.”

“But you were right,” Larry said. “This whole scene proves it. And so does this awful ringing in my ears.”

“My ears are ringing, too,” said one of the men. “It’s like a bell trying to beat itself out of my brain.”

“This is what I’m talking about!” shouted Larry. “Thomas writes movies for Hollywood. His new screenplay is about a pulse, and this is that story come to life.”

He moved his arms upward in an exaggerated way to emphasize the magnitude of his claim.

“Larry,” said Thomas, as if to a child. “If you and Aiden both hear the same ringing sound, maybe it’s something to do with the pulse. Like a physical problem in the brain.”

“I hear it, too,” Natalie blurted. “I’ve been hearing it since the first day.”

And that’s when Larry remembered reading, months or years ago, an article about the discovery and mapping of magnetic particles in human brains. Possibly they were genetic remnants of some long-lost navigation system, similar to that of birds. Could the pulse have damaged these particles? Reoriented them? Reversed their polarity?

The problem was this explanation did not line up with the story he wanted to believe. Larry had always considered himself a victim. Ever since he was a little boy, ever since those awful nights in the shadows, when his father’s hand had reached—

And that’s when he felt it, the cognitive split, as if his sanity were a branch broken in two. His mind went blank as he reached for Skylar. His arm found its way around her neck. He pushed his pistol against her temple.

Skylar screamed and thrashed. The boys screamed. Natalie grabbed her sons and ran into the darkness of warehouse shelving.

“Larry,” Thomas said. “Aiden and Natalie hear it, too. It’s not your fault. It’s the pulse. It’s done something to you. Put the down the gun.”

Before Larry could answer, he heard an odd sound on his right. Something like a laugh or a cough or a cry. He turned his head in the direction of the noise and saw Aiden, eyes open wide, smiling like someone who’d also lost his bearings.

He was cradling a military rifle. A machine gun. He raised it perceptibly.

He fired.

* * *

The rifle kicked in my arms. The sound of it was enormous, echoing around the DC for what seemed like forever. Billy and his tough-looking friend went sprawling. Both of them hit the concrete floor and smeared blood like a couple of sponges.

Outside, the sound of the crowd swelled in response to the gunshots. If I didn’t head for the roof now, I never would.

“Put down your weapons!” I yelled. “Every one of you, put your guns on the ground or I will open fire.”

Larry looked at me defiantly.

“I’m taking Thomas and Skylar outside,” he said. “I want to show those people why they’re here. I want Thomas to pay for doing this to us.”

I could have shot him. With my automatic weapon, I could have shot them all in seconds. But Larry’s charade, I realized, might delay the crowd long enough for me to reach the roof. And I’m not going to lie: It intrigued me to consider all this a film scene, the climactic conclusion of my extraordinary life. I was a special man meant for special things, even if no one else had ever acknowledged as much.

“Remove the clip from your weapon,” I said to Billy’s remaining friend. “Then remove their clips as well.”

I pointed to the dead bodies.

“Toss the clips out that door. Throw them as far as you can. Seth, pick up your gun and throw it out the door. Throw Thomas’ out the door. I don’t want complications. I have work to do.”

When I was confident I wouldn’t be shot, at least not right away, I backed away from them, toward the warehouse door. As soon as I fell into shadows, I turn and ran.

The noise of the crowd continued to swell. Near the exit, from my hidden stash of weapons and ammunition, I grabbed two extra clips and stuffed them into my pants. It was all I could carry for the moment.

As I climbed the stairs, I devised a story to tell Paige. She was already approaching when I reached the roof, holding a handgun at waist level that looked ready to fire.

“What the hell happened down there?”

“There was an argument among the new people. Two men are down. The crowd is coming. Anthony wants everyone to leave and needs you inside the warehouse to provide cover. I’m supposed to fire warning shots from up here.”

“What good will it do to fire warning shots?”

“To stop the crowd long enough for you guys to get away.”

“What about you?” she said. “Will you leave or just go full Alamo?”

“I’ll be fine. I like to go it alone.”

“I can’t put my finger on it,” she said, “but something is off about you. Like you have no empathy. Like you’re not even human.”

These words were meant to provoke a response, but I didn’t take the bait. I kept my eye on the prize.

Eventually Paige backed away and lowered herself onto the ladder. She watched me carefully, but she needn’t have worried. I respected Paige too much to shoot her.

When she was on the ground, I scrambled toward the front of the roof and peered over the edge. The crowd had grown more belligerent. They were reacting to something near the fence line. Something I couldn’t see.

Then it hit me. The woman who looked so familiar was a famous actress. The blonde chick in Darkest Energy. Skylar Stover.

Larry had taken her outside to prove his claim that all this was a film.

And maybe he was right. Maybe my imminent scene was the climax.

I surveyed the crowd until I found the woman from before, the fat one in red. The one whose shirt read I’M A LUCKY DEVIL.

I shouldered my weapon.

Placed my finger on the trigger.

* * *

Natalie kept seeing the image of Billy and Miguel going down in a heap. She kept hearing the machine gun, the staccato roar of it, which was an evil sound, like industrial human death. But clutching each of her legs was a seven-year-old boy even more terrified than her, and love for Ben and Brandon had focused her mind. She had to get them out of this warehouse. It was the only thing that mattered. The problem was Aiden, the man with the awful eyes, who had run by only moments before. She didn’t know where he was.

Seth and Tim were still in the open area of the warehouse. Larry had taken Skylar and Thomas hostage. Natalie didn’t want to leave the others behind, but if forced to pick, her allegiance was to her sons. What she needed was a sign or sound to know if Aiden was nearby or long gone.

She would have expected the ringing in her ears to hinder her ability to hear, but instead it seemed to isolate actual sounds. Because now she could hear soft footsteps. Like someone creeping forward on the balls of her feet, trying to mask the sound of her approach. Natalie realized she could almost smell the person coming. It was the woman from the roof. The sniper.

“Paige!” Natalie whispered loudly. “Is that you?”

The footsteps stopped.

“Paige, it’s me, Natalie. My sons are here.”

Now the footsteps crept forward and turned into the row where Natalie and the boys stood. Paige was a silhouette. Her heartbeat was fast but not frantic. She was a woman in control of her emotions. A woman of unusual strength. She held her gun as if it were a part of her body.

“What happened?” asked Paige. “Are you guys okay?”

“For now we are. But I’m afraid to take my boys outside unless I know that awful man is gone.”

“Aiden is on the roof,” Paige said. “You should run for the trees. He’s watching the crowd out front and probably won’t see you.”

Natalie felt a rush of relief, but also guilt. Now that Paige was here, maybe there was something to be done about Seth. About Skylar and Thomas.

“Larry took my friends out front,” Natalie explained. “He thinks the pulse is Thomas’ fault.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story. But we walked all day under the sun to get here. I can’t just leave them behind.”

As Natalie said this, the crowd grew suddenly quiet, as if taking a breath.

“Listen,” said Paige. “Give me two minutes. I might be able to help. If I see your husband, I’ll tell him where you are. He can help you get away.”

“Thank you,” Natalie said. “Thank you so much.”

“But if one of us doesn’t return in two minutes, run out of here and head for the trees. Understand?”

“I understand. Please be careful.”

It was too dark to tell, but Natalie thought maybe Paige had smiled.

“I can take care of myself,” she said.

* * *

Larry stood at the fence with Thomas and Skylar. He felt like a king. All eyes in the crowd were on him.

He had walked across the lawn with his arm around Skylar’s neck, her back to the crowd all the way, her identity a secret. Her skin was like silk. Her hair tickled his cheek. His hands wanted to roam across her chest, fondle her heavy breasts, but Larry was afraid Skylar would fight back if he broke concentration. She was a formidable kickboxer, after all. Anyone who followed her on Instagram knew that. Larry himself had downloaded every one of her videos, had fiddled with their brightness and contrast to add dimension to the contours of her Lululemon ass. How he longed to please her. To own her.

“By the way,” he whispered to Thomas. “I’m the one who sent Matt to your house. You should have let me have some of that curry.”

“You hate yourself,” said Thomas. “So of course you hate everyone else.”

“I should never have gone outside,” Skylar lamented.

“It’s not your fault,” Thomas said. “It’s my fault. I never took any of this seriously enough.”

Rather than listen to the lovebirds coo in each other’s ears, Larry puffed out his chest and motioned to the crowd.

“Are you people ready to eat?”

The crowd roared, an organism poised to pounce. Larry absorbed their power, exalted.

“Before I let you in,” he said, “I want to know how you think the world came to be this way. Who here knows what happened?”

“An alien attack!”

“It’s God’s retribution for all our sin!”

“The Federal government did this to us! Oppressors!”

“No!” yelled Larry. “It’s all this man’s fault! This rich and famous screenwriter! He wrote this world and now you’re stuck in his movie!”

Larry waited for the crowd to cheer louder, or at the very least jeer and boo Thomas. But they didn’t.

“Come on, sir!” yelled a woman. “Just let us in! My baby is starving!”

“We don’t even know who that guy is!” shouted someone else.

“But you know this woman!” bellowed Larry. He twisted Skylar around to face the crowd, the gun now pressed against the back of her neck. “Why would she be here except to make a movie?”

Surely, when these anonymous nobodies identified his dazzling princess, they would finally be convinced. Larry would accept the recognition he deserved after languishing in obscurity for so many years.

“Oh, my God!” yelled a woman. “That’s Skylar Stover! What are you doing to her?”

“Yeah, man,” said another. “What is this shit? Let the lady go!”

“Why are we even listening to this?” yelled a beautiful mother of three children standing not thirty feet away. “Who the hell are you?”

And that’s when Larry decided Skylar had been right, even if she no longer believed it. There was no way this scene could be real, not when he was forced to listen while a lovely young woman hurled insults at him. Larry wondered how long this temptress had been there, though it seemed as though she had always been there, that he would forever see her face, those big, lovely eyes and that tiny nose and those perfect pink lips. Of course a woman like this loathed him. She had always loathed him. She would always be there with him, waiting to cut him at the knees with her haughty smile and biting wit, her note handwritten in beautiful script, My boyfriend says you are a FUCKFACE, and suddenly the ringing in Larry’s ears rose up and clobbered him in the head. He seemed to fall to his knees, or the world turned sideways, and still the woman was there, hating him, looking at him as if he weren’t human, as if he were a bug she could squash with the step of her foot.

P.S. Don’t write back!

* * *

You probably didn’t know human screams sound just like the screeching in my ears. Until then, I didn’t either. It made me wonder if the sound I’d been hearing all this time had been a literary device meant to foreshadow my defining moment.

Dirty humans in the crowd went down by the row. It would have been nice to savor each kill, like the bittersweet flavor of lemonade, but the mass of them lost density as they fled from their fallen comrades. They spread in all directions the way a drop of liquid soap repels a film of greasy water.

The gun was a live thing in my arms, growing warm, punishing me. In moments I was through the first clip and was forced to replace it with another.

My targets were children, mothers, teenagers in football jerseys. A man in a flannel shirt and jeans was pointing a rifle at me when he fell backward, two beautiful maroon blooms spreading into the brown pattern across his chest. No good guy with a gun was going to stop me! And I get it, most of you think I’m a monster, but that’s only because you accept the idea of meaning in the world, that our puny decisions matter. They don’t matter. Nothing does. Whether or not this world is a movie is irrelevant. The important thing is I am not simply allowed to behave in absurd ways. I am obligated to.

Something whisked by me. A whip crack of a sound. A bullet.

As much as I enjoyed the carnage, the last thing I wanted was to be killed by one of my targets. By then the mass of them had pushed down the fence, and they were streaming toward the building, which meant my retreat would have to be careful.

When I reached the ladder, my path to freedom was still clear. But in the distance, running for the trees, I saw a woman and two children. The clip was nearly empty, so I switched the rifle to single-fire and allowed myself three shots. One for each of them.

Remember my dance in the rain, days ago, as I dodged bullets fired by Paige? This was the same scene except I had become the sniper.

I shouldered my weapon and fired. Fired again. And a third time. Finally, the woman went sprawling and dragged the children with her.

I climbed quickly down the ladder. On the ground, I crept toward the employee entrance and listened carefully. I could hear screaming. Gunshots. I darted away from the open door just in time for a bullet to scream past me.

My spare clips and weapons were inside, only yards away, but if it was Paige who’d shot at me, I wouldn’t get another chance. The moment she saw my silhouette in the doorway, I would be dead.

There was no option but abandon the other guns and remaining rounds.

I ran.

* * *

When Seth saw Billy and Miguel knocked to the ground by gunshots, a moment passed where his mind went completely blank, like an email someone had been writing but quickly deleted. After walking so far, having overcome so much to get here, he couldn’t believe it would all end like this.

“Put down your weapons!” Aiden yelled at them. “Every one of you, put your guns on the ground or I will open fire.”

The darkness was closer than it had ever been. All his life Seth had known it would come to this. All his life he’d been waiting for the end.

“I’m taking Thomas and Skylar outside,” Larry said inconceivably. “I want to show those people why they’re here. I want Thomas to pay for doing this to us.”

Seth understood how Larry felt. A couple of days ago, while he was drunk on whiskey, Skylar had convinced him to believe all this was Thomas’ fault. But in the sober light of day that reasoning seemed desperate and futile. This was no movie and there would be no happy ending. It was reality, and it was always going to end poorly.

“Seth,” said Aiden, “pick up your gun and throw it out the door. Throw Thomas’ out the door. I don’t want complications. I have work to do.”

Seth could barely make himself move. His family was in danger and these weapons were the only means to protect them. But at the moment his options were limited, so he carried out the orders as instructed.

Soon Aiden was swallowed by shadows, and the sound of his retreat faded in the distance.

“We need our weapons back,” Tim said. “Larry has lost his mind. He’ll drive the crowd inside before we secure supplies.”

“I’ll get the weapons,” Seth heard himself say. “The rest of you grab whatever you can.”

He approached the open door of the warehouse, the place where a truck would back its trailer to be loaded or unloaded. The floor was about four feet above the ground outside. He jumped to the concrete below and retrieved a military rifle and two handguns, including his own. He could hear someone in the crowd yelling. Or maybe Larry yelling.

Anthony took the weapons from Seth and helped him up, back into the warehouse. Outside, the sound of the crowd grew quiet. After so much noise, the silence felt ominous.

“My wife and children are back there somewhere,” Seth said to Anthony, pointing over his shoulder. “I need to find them.”

“We should all go,” said Anthony. “Now.”

Seth nodded. But when he turned around, toward the darkness, he saw Jimmy doubled over on the concrete floor. His face was tinted green and his eyes were closed. Seth approached and knelt next to him.

“Jimmy,” he said. “You want me to drag you out of here? I don’t think I can carry you.”

“Nah. My goose is cooked. Live fast and die young, right?”

“Just so you know,” Seth said. “I was going to pay. If it weren’t for all this, you would have gotten what was coming to you.”

“I had a nice life. I got what I deserved. Now, go get your wife and kids.”

“All right, Jimmy. Take care, man.”

Seth stood. Tim had emerged from warehouse depths carrying a small box labeled PETER PAN CRUNCHY.Anthony held his rifle at waist level.

“We need to—”

The sound of running footsteps interrupted him. It was a teenage girl followed by a woman who might have been her mother. The two of them ran into the darkness, toward the warehouse exit. A few others followed, nodding at Anthony as they ran past. These were other warehouse employees, Seth guessed. Everyone was leaving.

Everyone except an imposing figure that emerged from the darkness, coming quickly this way. Seth raised his weapon, afraid Aiden had returned to kill them.

But it wasn’t Aiden. It was Paige.

“Your wife and kids are safe,” she said as she roared past. “They’re waiting on you. I’m going outside to take care of Larry.”

“Thomas and Skylar are still out front,” Seth said to Anthony and Tim. “I can’t leave them. I should help Paige.”

“She doesn’t need your help,” Anthony replied. “You should go to your family.”

While Seth stood there, deliberating, a gunshot erupted. It was barely yards away, just outside the warehouse door. Then Paige appeared near the dock. She was gesturing to someone, imploring them to run. The roar of the crowd swelled enormously.

And then from above, on the roof, more gunshots.

Bitter bursts of gunshots.

People began to scream. Everyone began to scream. And still the industrial battering of gunfire, like something Seth would expect to hear on a battlefield. So many shots. So much screaming.

Coming this way.

“Natalie!” he yelled into the darkness. “Take the kids and go. Run back to Tim’s house as fast as you can! Go now!”

He hoped she could hear him. He hoped she was already headed for the exit.

While he stood there, watching for the silhouettes of his family, Seth heard Paige climb into the warehouse from the dock. Anthony hurried over and reached for Skylar. Seth helped Thomas inside.

“You guys need to run,” Paige said. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

But Seth knew now what he was meant to do. This was how he would save his family. Not by crawling into a car and going to sleep. Not by deserting them.

No, he would stand here and fight for them.

“Please take care of my boys,” Seth said to Paige. “Help Natalie get them away from here. That’s all I ask.”

Thomas and Skylar were already running toward the rear of the warehouse. Tim followed, struggling with his case of peanut butter.

“Many people are coming,” Anthony said. “I will stay and try to negotiate with them.”

“Please,” said Seth to Paige. In her smoky blue eyes he saw empathy. Ferocity. Admiration.

“Natalie will know what you did for them,” she finally said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Then she turned and sprinted away. Seth watched her go, running past Tim and into the darkness of the DC, where Thomas and Skylar had already disappeared.

The shooting above them stopped. Seth remembered Aiden’s declaration, how he had “work” to do. The nature of that work seemed clear now. Seth imagined Aiden climbing to the roof with all the ammunition he could carry, standing above the crowd, firing into them, another mass murderer, only this time there would be no television coverage, no breaking news banner, no active shooter alerts.

Just a man with a ruined mind killing innocent, starving people for no reason other than he could. A crowd fleeing in fear, hungry, desperate to survive.

Now, the first faces of the crowd reached the docks. Hands appeared, reaching for purchase on the warehouse floor. Seth pointed his weapon toward the door, but there was no reason to kill anyone who didn’t deserve it. These people were hungry and wanted to eat, just as Seth and his family had wanted to eat.

The first man finally hauled himself up and stood in front of the dock door. He held a handgun. Now another man with a shotgun. They crept forward with their weapons ready to fire, and Seth wondered what the impact of a bullet might feel like. The worst injury he’d ever sustained was a broken finger. There hadn’t even been pain at first. Just an anxious sense of something terribly wrong.

More people on the dock were climbing up.

“You’re the one who wouldn’t feed us,” said the man with the shotgun, looking at Anthony. “We stood out there for three days. Then you ordered your man on the roof to open fire on us. Why?”

“That man on the roof acted alone.”

Anthony held a weapon. He could have pulled the trigger at any time.

“I was just doing my job,” he explained.

“And I’m just doing mine,” said the man with the shotgun as he fired.

The image of Anthony being hit at close range was something Seth refused to see. He looked down at his leg. Something had stung him in the thigh, the ankle. Something like a bee or a wasp. He reached down to swat his leg, to scare the bug away, and fell over.

Something was terribly wrong. He was on the ground. Fireworks were going off above him. Blood was spilling out of him.

That couldn’t be right. Blood was supposed to be on the inside. He wanted to scoop it up and save it because there was no way to get it back. But he couldn’t move his arms. They were bound to his sides.

Someone maybe stepped on him, crushing his bones together. He was rolling the bones. Standing at the head of a crowded craps table. A suited man on his right swallowed the rest of his whiskey and dropped $500 on hard eight. An Asian kid barely out of college explained to his three buddies how to bet. The boxman was bulky but observant, nothing distracted him, not even the famous actress who stood at the far end of the table holding Seth captive with her sea green eyes. She was speaking to him. The sound of her words was swallowed by cheers but he knew what she wanted. He threw bones at her. Tossed them against the interior wall of the craps table, little red cubes spinning in slow motion before settling near each other, four white eyes on each surface staring upward, and the suited man roared, the college friends cheered, and Natalie’s words finally resolved themselves as if they’d traveled a great distance across post-apocalyptic plains to reach him.

Thank you, Seth.