I perched on the kitchen table, heels drumming a childish rhythm against its oak edge, and stared at the copper door like it was a television stuck on a single, mocking frame. My boots dangled, scuffed toes tapping air; dust motes candled through a slanted sunbeam, drifting past the burnished metal that had stolen Joshua for the third time.
I puffed my cheeks until they bulged, let the air simmer, then pbbbbt—blew a wet raspberry toward the carvings of ruined skyscrapers. The sound splattered in the silence, absurd and tiny. Not a gleam of reaction from the door, of course. It just stood there, smug and monumental, an exit only he could unlock.
He gets weekend passes to the land of hot showers and fresh socks, came one of my inner voices—sharp, bitter, the same mutter that used to keep me alive in Empire run streets.
You get to hold a hammer and pray the boards stay up. Fair trade?
I scrunched my nose, blowing another raspberry—louder this time.
The other voice—the quieter, recently awakened one—whispered back:
Without the door, you’d be rationing moss soup and rotted candy bars. Eight jars of peanut butter, Anna. Antibiotics. Soap. Try being angry at the wind while it fills your sails.
I flopped backward, palms splayed on the tabletop, eyes roaming the ceiling’s water stains—vaguely shaped like continents. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” I muttered aloud, voice echoing in the spartan room. My breath smelled faintly of stale coffee and canned beef; my stomach responded with a soft gurgle.
Joshua had left six hours ago. Six hours of foot?tapping, barricade?checking, and counting pearls like a miser counting curses. The cottage felt wrong again—too quiet, too static, like an empty stage after actors exit but before the crew strikes the set. I kept catching ghosts of his aftershave near the copper door, citrus and cloves. They dissolved quickly, and the air fell back to its usual cocktail: old timber, solder flux, damp wool.
I kicked my heels harder—thud?thud?thud—then stopped, wincing at the echo. Sound carried in dead neighborhoods. No point advertising I was alone.
“Fine,” I sighed, sliding off the table. The boards creaked. A thin draft sneaked under the north?window plywood, bringing the outside’s raw February breath. I hugged my arms—chill filament coiled around my ribs—as the gloom throbbed in corners where lantern light couldn’t reach.
“Enough sulking, Calderón,” I scolded myself. “Luxuries make you soft.”
I strode to the weapons rack. My compound bow leaned there, string taut as a held breath. I tested the draw (still crisp), then slung it over one shoulder. The short sword followed—sheath tied snug against my thigh. Next came the leather bandolier pouches: five iron?bodied arrows fletched with Pre-Apocalypse precision and plastic feathers; a small crowbar; a strip of burlap filled with nails; two iodine tabs; and, nested in a padded box, Pearls.
The routine set my pulse to a steadier drum. Working within a lattice of percieved safety calmed me the way some folks prayed.
CRACK. The winter air bit my face. It smelled of petrichor, exhaust rot, and faint far?off gun oil—somewhere, someone test?fired a weapon. Overhead, low clouds molded an iron ceiling. Crows perched along the crooked power line, feathers fluffed, silent witnesses to every misstep.
“City proper,” I murmured, scanning for movement. Roamers usually drifted in mid?morning, but caution kept graves full. I lowered my hood, listening: wind hissed across gutter pipes, a loose sign somewhere clanged. No shuffling feet, no necrotic moans.
My pulse ratcheted down another notch. Time to hunt items Joshua could flip for another plywood pallet: gold, silver, high?end lenses, consumer electronics still sealed in shrink wrap. Cash, too—he swore the other world still ran on paper bills. Hard to believe entire economies hadn’t collapsed there. Privilege came in many flavors.
I crossed the threshold and eased the door shut, bracing my weight against the warped slab while I slid every deadbolt into place. The lower one rasped; the top bolt resisted until I leaned in, shoulder to wood, and felt it thunk home inside its steel sleeve. When both lock?rods finally seated, the cottage let out a groan that sounded suspiciously like a sigh—an old house resigned to one more day of loneliness.
Next came the braces. Two lengths of rebar fit into welded U?brackets at hip height, forming an improvised cross?bar I could drop in seconds if I had to burst out. I lifted the first rod; cold rust gritted beneath my gloves as I slotted it. The second slid through with a decisive clack. Even knowing the barricade was only as strong as its frame, that ritual made my pulse slow; it carved a thin border between me and the waste?land beyond.
“Enough.”
My own voice startled me, cracked and too loud in the hush. I tightened the strap under my quiver, double?checked the bowstring tension, then cinched the belt that held my short sword. Metal kissed leather; the familiar heft grounded me. Outside, the sky had brightened to a tarnished pewter, thick with low clouds that swallowed sound and light alike.
I stepped off the porch. The wooden plank flexed, groaned, then sprang free behind me with a small rebound—like a tongue clucking. I pictured the cottage watching me leave, shutters squinting, trying to decide whether I would be the next piece of it torn loose by circumstance. A chill crawled across my shoulders. I forced my breathing into the four?count rhythm Joshua drilled: in–two–three, out–two–three.
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The overgrown lane unfurled ahead like a hallway through a mausoleum. Weeds brushed my calves, beads of rain still clinging to their blades. Each footfall stirred the petrichor of last night’s drizzle, but beneath that freshness lurked sweeter rot—composted leaves, damp wood, something animal long since gone to bone. The damp whetted every odor; it felt like walking through a thousand layered memories of decay.
Five houses in, I reached the crooked intersection where vine?choked mailboxes tilted toward each other like conspirators. I took the left fork. The bike lay where Joshua and I always stashed it—hidden beneath a buckled patio table. I dragged it out. Rust dotted the spokes like freckles. I squeezed the rear tire: soft but ridable. The front axle whined when I spun it, metal on metal without remedy. I ignored the complaint, threw a leg over, and started pedaling toward the heart of Ruin?York.
The farther I rode, the less neighborhood remained. Sidewalks disappeared first, swallowed by tree roots that had cracked concrete like brittle candy. Next went the front lawns—once green parade grounds for weekend barbecues, now ragged dandelion kingdoms littered with toppled deck chairs. Past that, civilization shed its skin in full: broken windows yawning like toothless gums; doorways marred by soot?plumes where someone had tried, and failed, to burn out infestation; cars reduced to ribbed chassis, rainwater pooling in their floor pans.
With every yard gained, the city’s heartbeat grew louder: the faint clink of glass shifting in wind currents; the distant boom of a collapsing beam; somewhere, a feral’s ululating cry—a sound too wet to be human, too tormented to be animal. I rode with head low, bow resting across the handlebars like a second set of eyes.
Two blocks beyond the charred convenience store, Empire graffiti re?appeared: stenciled crowns dripping in fluorescent yellow. Arrow?heads pointed inward toward their claimed ground. I eased off the pedals, coasted, listening. No boot?steps, no engine idle. Still, the paint felt like a cross?hair on my chest.
At the next corner, a gutted SUV blocked the intersection. Its hood had been peeled back, engine gutted; one door still hung, swinging gently, squealing in the breeze. The noise set my molars on edge. I dismounted, lifted the bike, and wove around the wreck, careful not to rattle the loose panel again. Little sounds carried too far in this quarter; sometimes the dead appeared in packs, riding echoes like bloodhounds.
On the far side, I paused to drink. The bottle’s plastic crackled under my grip; the iodine?tinged water tasted like swimming pool filtered through pennies, but it washed down the tightness in my throat. I wiped my mouth, recapped, and slipped it back.
Half a mile ahead, the skyline jagged higher: the city proper. That spine of glassless facades and exposed rebar still made me flinch—an open graveyard of ambitions. But buried in its lower ribs lay scavenger treasures: pawnshops, mom?and?pop jewelers, old bank branches ripe with locked vaults. Yesterday’s jackpot had proven it. Somewhere, other storefronts still waited behind intact roll?downs, quietly keeping wealth no one alive cared to spend.
I ghosted up to the shop I’d scouted two days before. Its sign, “HOT SPOT CASH?4?GOLD,” dangled from one bent screw. The roll?down gate sat half?raised, padlock cut. My heart sank—had looters beaten me here overnight? I crouched, nocking an arrow, then crept inside.
The showroom smelled of stale dust and something older—a trace of aftershave atomized years ago, now clinging to cracked glass cases. The smashed register still oozed tiny coils of receipt paper. But the jewelry trays beneath the counter lay intact, locked behind Lexan windows unscratched by previous raiders. Either they’d lacked patience for the double dead?bolt, or they’d died before finishing.
A back office door hung ajar. I slipped through into a narrow hallway lit only by a ceiling panel with two fluorescent tubes, one flickering. Rows of fireproof cabinets lined the walls—pawn tickets still taped to drawers. My pulse hammered: every slip represented an item unclaimed when the world toppled.
I yanked the first cabinet open. Velvet boxes slid forward—rings, earrings, pendants glinting in the dim light. Diamonds, rubies, even a battered Rolex with a cracked crystal. I worked fast, slitting a cloth tool?roll open and feeding the loot inside. By the second cabinet my bag weighed like wet concrete against my hip. That’s enough, I told myself, but greed whispered, another drawer, two more minutes.
Then I heard it: a soft trip of broken glass. The floor vibrated beneath my knee. Something large shuffled inside the showroom. I cinched the bag, shouldered it, and pulled an arrow to cheek. The mutated feral from the previous raid taught me not to underestimate scale.
The creature stepped into the hallway. Male once—perhaps. Now its ribcage bulged outward, skin stretched thin and pocked like bubble?wrap. Mandibles of yellowed teeth jutted where lips had rotted away, and its eyes—four this time, two budding above brows—rolled independently. It sniffed, head tilting.
I released. The arrow plunged just above the sternum, but the thing didn’t stagger. It roared, a sound like cellophane tearing under water, and charged. I dove sideways into an office cubicle. Plaster punched inward as its shoulder smashed the doorframe.
Bow useless at this range, I drew my short sword. The feral swiped a taloned hand, slicing through a hanging fluorescent tube; sparks showered. In the strobe?flash, everything froze: shards of glass mid?air, dust motes like snow. I ducked, slashed low at its Achilles region. Blade met tendon; the monster pitched forward, smashing its chin on desk-edge. I rolled clear as it clawed for balance.
One heartbeat. Two. I pivoted, drove the sword point into the nape where spine budded lumps of bone. A shrill gurgle rattled through its chest. It spasmed, then slumped, smashing cabinets as it fell. Jewel boxes scattered like dice.
Blood seeped—a tar?black sludge with filaments of gray tissue. The stench hit next: ammonia, rotting fruit, metal shavings. My stomach lurched. But the pearl called. Hands shaking, I knelt, sliced into the spur above the atlas vertebra. Flesh parted like rotten pumpkin rind. Warm viscous matter welled over my knuckles. I groped until fingers closed on something smooth, alive with faint heat. Pearl extracted.
I wiped it on my thigh, throat gagging. Sight tunneled; edges of my vision sparkled. Breathe. I forced air through clenched teeth, pocketed the sphere, then retched sour bile beside the desk. When the dizziness passed, I stood and surveyed devastation: another demon dead, another trove secured.
I staggered outside. Noon sun knifed through clouds, painting the street in stripes. I strapped the loot-bag to the bike’s frame, climbed on, and pushed off toward the cottage, every pedal stroke a promise to myself and to Joshua’s unseen reflection in another world.