Build a Better Apocalypse 2: Beyond the EMP
Author: Ee Isherwood
Date: 2025-06-26T05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Sci-Fi; Fantasy; Adventure; Post-Apocalyptic; Science Fiction
Description: What if all the conspiracies were true? 'They' are working to end the world... Frank survives the shock of witnessing the disappearance of his neighbors, and has built a small group of survivors around him, but the search for Carmen leads him to an unexpected place. A clear answer to where all the people went. The terrorists who ended the world have been planning it for a very long time. They have been manipulating our leaders to do their bidding, including conspiracy-like use of actors in high places. When he meets one of the architects of this system, he captures a glimpse of the big picture
Publisher: Isherwood Media

Build A Better Apocalypse

Book 2

Beyond the EMP

E.E. Isherwood

Connect With E.E. Isherwood

http://www.eeisherwood.com

Copyright © 2025 by E.E. Isherwood

All rights reserved.

Cover illustration by Covers by Christian

Editing services provided by Mia at LKJ Books

Special thanks to my super advanced reader, Heather. I’d also like to thank the great advance readers in my author group, who see it all first.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Prologue

Stettin, Germany, April 1945

“Do we have full engine power?” Captain Van Nuys asked the skeleton crew manning the bridge.

“Jawohl,” the ensign replied.

Soviet aircraft patrolled the eastern shore of the harbor in the daylight hours, and the main Red Army force was less than ten kilometers from the city of Stettin. Wehrmacht forces were unable to even slow the impending doom heading their way, so he and his bosses decided tonight was their last chance to rescue the greatest superweapon the German navy had ever produced.

Van Nuys looked at the crest of the ship above the front window. The Graf Zepplin had been built as the pinnacle of superior German aircraft carrier design, but it had never formally been completed. Shifting priorities in the upper echelon of the government had slowed it, evolving realities on the battlefield had further delayed its completion, and, finally, the upcoming end of the war was destined to ensure it never launched a single plane in hostility.

Still, the captain couldn’t be prouder of his men and what they’d built. It wasn’t only the vessel that mattered, but the technical know-how baked into the design. He picked up the one working mic for internal comms.

“My crew. I’ve radioed HQ to inform them our mission tonight is to take this ship to deep water and scuttle her.”

His hand-picked crewmen already knew their mission was one-way, but he had to broadcast the directive throughout the ship, in case there were spies or listening devices on board.

“They have approved,” he finished.

The Graf Zepplin sailed into the night at top speed. The hangar lifts still didn’t work. It had no anti-aircraft guns mounted. There were no planes on board. For all practical purposes, she was as defenseless as a pleasure craft plying the calm waters of the Rhine.

History would record how Van Nuys was destined to take the unfinished masterpiece to a watery grave…

CHAPTER 1

I stood at the beginning of our street where it turned at Poseidon Pier. The droning bass of the giant aircraft was long gone. The crackle of the burning bus had faded. The everyday whir of car engines was no more. Even the clucks and peeps of the giant flock of birds were mostly silenced by the passage of time and the deaths of the stubborn creatures. Now, standing in the silence of a once-vibrant neighborhood, all I heard was the wind.

What was this world I was living in? Everyone had been zapped away by an unknown enemy, leaving every house, car, and business stripped of their occupants. Stripped of their humanity. The only clue I had about what had taken place was a mysterious priest whose ashes were strewn all over the circle at the end of my street. He’d blown himself up rather than tell me the full story.

Now, miles away, across a thousand empty houses, I could see the tower at the beach, barely peeking above the tree line far away. That’s where my apocalyptic journey started. Turning around, I looked to where the journey had ended. A bus explosion and the devastation done to the group of houses at the far end of my cul-de-sac.

My new friends walked toward me.

“Hey, Frank, mind if we join you?” Faith asked.

We’d had a brief lunch to recover from our morning, and I’d given Dr. Faith Sinclair the run of my bathroom to clean up after her harrowing escape from the bottom of that mossy ramp. I hadn’t pressed her immediately to tell her story, but now I couldn’t wait a second longer.

“Sure, let’s talk,” I said as they arrived.

Nathan and Cookie, the two young people, came along with the middle-aged doctor. Gunther, the hulking older guy, trailed behind everyone, with Mr. Puppers at his side. The only person missing was Carmen, and she was the reason we were talking to Faith in the first place.

“I came up here to clear my head and listen for signs there are any people left alive around here, but I think I’ve failed at both tasks. My head isn’t clear, and I don’t hear a peep out there.”

The four of them gathered around me. At first, I thought it was random, but I figured out Nathan, Cookie, and Gunther had moved to each side of me, while Faith stood alone in front of us. Mr. Puppers hesitated in the middle for a few moments before trotting over to sit at my left foot.

“I guess you want to know what I was doing down there?” Faith volunteered.

We all nodded.

“Well, I already told you the main part—about the children disappearing, the priest in charge, and the criminals.”

“You didn’t really explain any of those,” I clarified. “You said nothing about criminals.”

“I didn’t?”

“Nope.”

“Well, I guess I better start at the beginning. I’m in charge of a research complex called SNAKE, which is short for Search for Nuclear, Astrophysical, and Kronometric Extremes.”

“That’s a wild name,” Cookie snickered.

“Are you familiar with CERN, in Switzerland?” Faith queried.

Cookie shook her head, as did most everyone else. I’d heard of it from one of the books that I’d read, coincidentally also about the end of the world, but I didn’t think that made me an expert.

The scientist continued. “It is a supercollider like ours, but ours is much bigger. SNAKE runs in a giant sixty-two-mile ring underground. It gives us the ability to study the tiniest pieces of the universe, sped up to near the speed of light so we can then smash them together, to learn more about the structure of time and space.”

“What does that have to do with criminals?” I wondered aloud.

“That’s where Father Mackinaw comes in. I run the science group doing research in our facility, but I am not the boss of the entire United States science corps. People above me inserted experiments that piggybacked the research we were doing. Since I would never have allowed such barbarism in my facility, they did it without my knowledge, in the labyrinth of science labs hidden within our many subterranean levels.”

“What did the priest do?” Nate whispered.

Faith looked at him. “I mentioned earlier that seven children had been murdered. They were the test subjects, and they were kept in a central room overseen by the supposed man of God. The prisoners, who were also under his supervision, secretly observed the children and were instructed to press a button if anything odd happened to them.”

“How does that have anything to do with science?” I asked.

“I thought the same thing. I was pissed when I saw what was taking place under my nose, but before I could even raise my first objection, the children…” She seemed to hesitate, as if it was distasteful.

“Let me guess,” I interrupted. “The children disappeared.”

“Yes,” she answered with relief. “And I have no idea where they went. The priest wouldn’t tell me before we all passed out from what I think was poison gas.”

“Seriously?” Cookie jumped in. “Why?”

“To stop us from talking about it, I think,” Faith answered.

“So how do criminals fit in?” I pressed on, bringing the discussion back to the original question.

“From what was shown to me, those men had to press a button when the kids…left the room…and that’s exactly what took place. The children were gone, and the prisoners hit their buttons to raise the alarm.”

“It was just the kids who disappeared?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure whatever it was that did the deed, it took the kids but left those bad men where they were. The priest made a big deal about them still being there, as if they were somehow the control group for the experiment…” She dropped into thought, as if stuck in a sticky web of memories she couldn’t quite figure out.

I shook my head. “So, you think the kids were murdered and the criminals in those rooms had something to do with it?”

The doctor rubbed her chin. “No, I’m not sure what happened. I mentioned the poison gas…I think they tried to kill everyone who was part of this experiment, but the gas somehow failed. When I woke up after it dissipated, the priest was gone, the technician was gone, and, to add insult to the whole situation, the killers were all gone as well. I was left with nothing but questions.”

“So, you don’t know anything about what you were doing down there?” I asked.

“I know what I, personally, was doing,” she clarified. “It’s the other experiments that I didn’t know about.”

“Sure, I see. That means you have nothing that can help me figure out where my friend might have gone down there? Did they use grown women as part of their experiments?” I shuddered at the thought, but the question had to be asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” she answered. “I have no idea how those children disappeared, though I can’t ignore what you’ve told me about the giant plane coming along and making everyone else zap away in your area. Maybe they were using the children as a proof of concept.”

Gunther shifted from side to side, as if uncomfortable.

“Whatever was going on, can we get back down there? Do you think you could lead me to that lab? If Carmen slipped down the slope, she might end up where you came from.”

“In Denver? I highly doubt it.”

“Oh yeah.” I’d forgotten that little detail.

“But of all the things I don’t know, what I do know is that I’m not strong enough to walk all the way from Denver to here, so I have to admit nothing is right about this. I believe you about this being Florida, but I still can’t believe I made it here in six days. What else I know, however, is that I can’t go back down there.”

“Don’t worry about that. You don’t have to go all the way back to Denver—I certainly don’t want to go that far. Just tell me what you can about the tunnel system in general. What will I find at the bottom of the shaft you came up?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. The tunnels have a tram system, like a subway, but I never saw the cars operating. It also has vertical shafts every mile or so that make it possible to walk without a flashlight, at least during the days. Still, I had to wander around a lot, making turns here and there, since the power isn’t working anywhere down there.”

“So we know these tunnels have to go at least between here and Denver,” I stated dryly. “Probably other places, too.”

“Lots of places where your friend could get lost,” Faith reasoned.

“And no one ever told you the tunnels were there?” I asked.

“No. We had underground chambers housing the supercollider, of course, but those are purposely built for our facility. We have a small maglev system going around it, for maintenance purposes, but I had no idea it connected to a larger system. One that crosses the whole country.”

“I’ve heard of DUMBs, Deep Underground Military Bases. Us truck drivers have shared rumors of them since the time we first set foot in a semi. Sometimes we did deliveries in limestone tunnels, usually near quarries or river bluffs, but I never saw any evidence they had tunnels that went deeper or farther into the rock, like the conspiracy theorists said.”

“Maybe it isn’t conspiracy,” Nate agreed. “I got busted for being a whistleblower back in a little suburb of Miami called West Highlands. You’ll never guess what I found out the money was being used for.”

“Tunnels?” I guessed.

“Probably. Our little village had huge contracts with construction companies and no explanation of where the money was being spent, besides the pockets of some of the local politicians. It wasn’t going to fill the potholes around town, I’ll tell you that.”

“They sent you to jail for that?” Faith asked. “How long were you in for?”

Nate and I shared a knowing look.

“I served my time,” he said with a smile.

I didn’t dispute it.

“So, back to the problem at hand, what are we left with?” I asked. “Is there any reason we shouldn’t go back down the way you came up?”

“If I could make it out, so could your friend.”

I sighed. Nothing she’d said gave me any confidence we could go down into that pit and easily find Carmen. One would imagine she would stay near where she’d come in, but I had to be prepared for anything. Maybe she was at the bottom of the shaft unable to move, or she’d been injured in the fall and stumbled in the wrong direction in the darkness.

“How far was it to the bottom from where I found you?”

“I don’t know. A couple hundred yards? The light at the top was tiny when I first saw it from the bottom.”

My mind swirled with ideas on how we could get down into that tunnel. I pulled out my notepad and sketched a couple while they were at the top of my brain. However, as I stood there looking at the paper, I realized I’d struck upon an important fact.

If Carmen wasn’t at the bottom of the incline, there was no way we could search an endless sewer system, no matter how much intel Faith provided. Or maybe she wasn’t down there at all, and I was looking in the wrong place entirely. Maybe she’d gotten lost in the miles and miles of forest surrounding our street. It could take weeks to look high and low for one missing person. As much as I wanted to find her, I had three other people, now four, I had to take care of.

“Guys, let’s go into the nearby houses and grab every length of rope we can find. I’m sure we’ll be able to collect enough to reach the bottom of the ramp. If she’s there, we grab her. If she’s not there, we’ll re-evaluate. That’s the quickest action we can take without delaying what needs to be done up here.”

“What needs to be done up here?” Nate asked.

I looked over to our ruined homes and thought of all the possible threats that might appear from over the horizon. Threats I’d picked up from reading all those books about the end of the world.

Invading armies.

Zapper planes.

Blue energy waves.

Eventually, even plagues would arrive.

I took a deep breath before answering him.

“Everything.”

CHAPTER 2

Despite moving fast, it was the middle of the afternoon before I was outfitted and ready to go down the slippery ramp. We’d joined numerous ropes from peoples’ homes and tied the end to the big red Dodge truck, which was the perfect machine to go off-roading through the dead birds of the forest.

A cool, damp mist flavored like death seemed to pour out of the pit in waves, like a foul beast from Hell was continuously belching on us. We’d all fashioned our own face shields to blunt the stench. Mine was a simple bandana.

“Alright, before we do this, let’s launch the boats,” I announced.

One of the more important things I’d written in my journal was the need for recon. While I planned to go to the bottom and use my eyeballs to look around, I also wanted to send a light source to illuminate the way before I went in. We settled on some cardboard shipping boxes to be our scouts.

First, we taped trash bags around the bottoms and sides, so they wouldn’t get soggy and fall apart. Second, we chose boxes that were wide and shallow, so they would have low centers of gravity for the uncontrolled slide into the darkness. Third, we selected dry bark and old papers as the fuel for our fire, so it would burn bright but wouldn’t be too heavy. Part of my design consideration was that Carmen could be incapacitated at the bottom, and I didn’t want to send down anything that would crush or seriously hurt her. A box full of burning papers shouldn’t hurt anyone, even if it plowed into her.

I figured the flames would last until it reached the bottom, but not much after, so I wouldn’t accidentally burn her to death.

We considered sending down flashlights and lanterns, but we couldn’t decide if we would be able to see them from so far away. Even the burning boxes would be hard to see, but they were easy to make and didn’t cost much in the way of materials, so we decided to start there.

I lit the fire on our first ‘boat.’ When the three-by-three-foot box caught, I pushed it over the lip and let it slide across the wet, slimy entryway. As expected, it glided easily over the nasty moss and accelerated into the darkness.

We all watched with anticipation as the flaming box shrank as it went faster and faster.

“Launch the next one,” I advised.

We lit the second while the first was still on its way. When I looked down, the light was hard to see.

“Is it going out?” someone asked.

“I think the airflow is keeping the flames low,” I reasoned. I’d done a lot of wild things as a kid, but I’d never created burning boats, so this was all new territory for me.

When the second box went over the precipice, the first one was a pinprick down the shaft. “Wow, you weren’t lying. That’s a long way down.”

“Mmhmm,” Faith answered.

The second box started on its way, cruising over the thick slime at the beginning before it went into total darkness. We’d sent it down the middle of the thirty-foot-wide slope, but it seemed to catch on debris and angle toward the right side of the wall.

“Hang in there,” I begged.

The box bounced a little, then struck the wall at high speed. That pushed it back toward the middle, but it also started to spin.

Beyond it, far down the shaft, the first one seemed to be stopped.

“We should have brought binoculars,” I commented, walking over to grab a rifle with a scope. My normal AR was outfitted with a red-dot scope, which was more useful against close targets. Instead, I chose one of the Kingston brothers’ rifles, which was a Heckler and Koch HK43. That thing had a giant Leupold scope that was more appropriate for long distance.

When I got it adjusted and looked down through the lens, I was disappointed at the performance. The distance and darkness combined to make it difficult to see more than a bright smudge at the bottom, rather than the perfect clarity the expensive scope seemed to promise. The second box crossed my line of vision, momentarily blocking my intended target.

“I don’t see much,” I said.

We waited until the second box made it all the way to the bottom. I watched in my scope as it continued to zigzag, using the walls to zip from side to side, but when it finally reached the bottom, it seemed to collide with the first box, creating a momentary flare as the fires joined together.

For two or three seconds, I got a good, clear look at the entire landing. The scope really delivered on the brand name.

“There’s no one down there,” I announced.

It was unclear whether I should be grateful she wasn’t down there or disappointed I hadn’t found her. However, it was a huge tunnel junction, and the fire test was by no means the end of it.

“At least we know I can get all the way down,” I said to my friends.

“You’re still going?” Cookie asked. “I wouldn’t.”

“I don’t want to,” I agreed, “but I have to know if she is anywhere near the bottom of this thing. If she was hurt or confused, she might have moved in the wrong direction. I want to go down there and at least satisfy my curiosity she isn’t right around the corner.”

That seemed to satisfy her.

Gunther prepared the rope, which was securely tied to the front bumper of the Dodge. He looped it around the tubing and held it snug, so it was possible for him to lower me down in a controlled fashion. He was big enough to do it all on his own, but Nathan and Cookie could help him when it was time for me to walk back up.

I tied the end around my waist and walked to the edge of the ramp. I was glad to be wearing a bandana over my mouth and nose, and I’d doused it in my cologne, so I couldn’t smell much of the foul odor. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but my eyes seemed to water from the cool, damp air, as if they knew how bad it stank.

“Wish me luck,” I said, lowering myself over the side. I wore my utility gloves to save myself from the inevitable blisters and my work boots to give me solid grip while on the move.

I slipped a little on the slime, but I kept my legs spread apart and held the line taut, so I had a stable foundation while Gunther let out a little slack. When he did, I stepped backward about three feet.

“Are you okay?” Nate asked.

“Yeah, lower me down.”

I was still high enough to see the young man talk to Gunther. The big guy nodded to me as he let out slack, then I slid downward and out of their line of sight.

Cookie stood at the edge, watching. Faith was nearby, but she’d avoided getting close to the opening, as if it might slurp her into its jaws.

I walked backward for ten or fifteen seconds.

“This is a good pace,” I relayed to Gunther through Cookie.

Once I was on my way, the journey became monotonous. While it was easy walking while under support of the rope, my legs weren’t used to going backward and down, so my muscles called foul the closer I got to the bottom.

“Hold up!” I shouted about halfway down.

When I stopped, the rope kept coming, so I had to quickly take a few more steps until it halted. When it did, I was whipped back, and I dropped to my knees in one clumsy fall.

“Whoa!” I yelled.

“Go again?” Cookie asked. She sounded a lot farther away than she was. The tunnel absorbed the sound, plus there was a lot of water gurgling down the incline, making it even harder to hear. I wished for a handheld FRS radio to keep in touch with the surface. Anything to maintain immediate contact with my lifeline operators.

“Not yet!” I called up.

I paused for less than a minute.

“I’m ready!” I finally announced.

Cookie was a dark shape in the white entrance above me. The bright contrast made it impossible to see her features or any colors on her clothing. I could only imagine what Faith had gone through on her climb up.

As soon as the line moved, I moved with it. I had to ignore the pain in my legs as I watched the box of light get smaller and smaller up there, and I zoned out for a bit, but I tuned back in when the light from the small fires started filling the space around me.

I couldn’t stop and study where I was going, since I was sure the noise of the water would make it impossible for anyone to hear me up top, or vice versa, so I had to look over my shoulders to check out where I was going.

The landing was about thirty feet below. Both of the scout sleds were burning hot and bright, making it possible to see most of the area that made up the junction. Besides more sloppy slime and water, there didn’t seem to be anything of note. Certainly, no missing young women.

My feet soon reached level ground.

I didn’t need to hold onto the rope once on the bottom. The line fell beside me as more came down, and I hoped Gunther would figure out where I was. The bright opening was now no larger than my thumb as I held it in front of the exit while stretching my arm as far as it would go.

My AR rifle remained over my shoulder. I’d picked my regular rifle instead of the scoped H&K, since I was more familiar with it. The Springfield XD-S pistol remained on my hip. This journey, as dangerous as it was, only rated a two-gun solution since walking up and down the ramp required me to travel light.

I pulled out my good flashlight and turned it on.

“Oh yeah,” I cheered.

When I shined it to my right, the rectangular tunnel lit up for about a hundred feet, maybe two, but then it was pure darkness beyond. When I shined it left, I saw the same nothingness. In both directions, there were no lumps on the damp ground, nor were there any places to hide, suggesting Carmen really wasn’t anywhere close.

I tried to search the mossy terrain for footprints, but there was only one set I could find, and it went up the right side of the ramp, exactly where Dr. Sinclair had come to the surface. Her footfalls were easy to spot, since she’d slipped several times as she’d tried to get started up the messy ramp.

A single set of footprints went left, into the unknown.

Two sets of railroad tracks went in both directions, inset into the concrete floor and submerged in water, reinforcing what Faith had described, but also adding to the mystery. Clearly, this was no local flood control system.

Despite my intense curiosity, I didn’t have the time or resources to go scouting farther into the new tunnel. It was about twenty feet tall and thirty across, making it roughly the same size as the ramp to the top.

“How do these tunnels tie into what’s going on up top?” I asked out loud, aware no one could hear me.

“Is anyone home!” I yelled into the void.

No answer came back.

I was glad it didn’t.

Stuck at the bottom of the ramp, it reminded me of being at the bottom of the ocean, looking up at the surface. A lot of mischief could befall me between here and there.

As I started back up, I knew a lot more about what made up the tunnel, but I still knew nothing about the problem that drove me here in the first place.

Carmen was still lost.

CHAPTER 3

The trip up went fast.

Faith was at the top waiting for me. When I was close enough, she extended a hand, symbolically paying me back for doing the same for her on her climb.

“You barely got dirty,” she jibed. Her grip was strong, as if a snack and a bit of rest had done wonders for her. In the bright light, and cleaned up, I saw the blonde woman in a new way. For whatever reason, I thought immediately of Martha Stewart in her prime cooking days, when her hair was shorter.

“Just a little on my legs,” I remarked, glad I’d only fallen that one time. My feet were soggy from standing in the water flowing along the ramp, but there was no question I came out of the tunnel in much better shape than her.

Gunther secured the rope as I pulled up next to a tree and sat down.

Cookie brought me a bottle of water.

“Thanks.”

My friends gathered around me as I downed half the plastic container. When I noticed them watching, I held up the drink. “It won’t be long and clean water will be harder and harder to find.”

“Don’t we have a whole city of water bottles?” Cookie asked.

“Yeah, for now.” Of all the needed components of a good survival plan, water was probably the most essential. You could live for weeks without food, and for a good long time in the Florida outdoors even without a solid shelter, but you couldn’t live for long without a source of clean water. As such, I wanted to instill a proper respect for its value.

Cookie let it go, which disappointed me.

“We’ll work on an alternative for getting fresh water as soon as we can,” I added after I was sure she wasn’t going to press the issue. “The bottles are great for as long as they last, but everything is going to run out given enough time. We’ll have to be ready with alternate sources, like filtration, water collection basins, or even a well.”

Cookie nodded in agreement, but still did not seem interested in talking about it. I really wanted to get Carmen back, as she at least seemed interested in what was going on around us.

Mr. Puppers walked by, sniffing the ground, and I wondered whether he’d ever had a bead on Carmen from the start. Maybe he’d heard Faith in that tunnel, and he’d taken me there in excitement that I’d mistaken for him tracking my neighbor. Maybe he simply enjoyed the stench of that pit for some dog-only-knows reason.

“Nate, will you do me a favor?”

He came over.

“I need you to go to Carmen’s house and find a piece of clothing that you think she might have been wearing recently. Maybe look in her clothes hamper. Bring a shirt or dress—anything we can use to track her.”

“Can I take the truck?” he asked.

I looked to the houses, which were about a hundred yards behind us, far too close to need to drive there.

“You injured?” I joked.

“No,” he answered with similar good cheer.

“You’ll be fine walking. I need the truck here in case the rest of us need to hurry back.”

“Cool.” He ran off with Mr. P at his side.

Faith sat against a nearby tree. “Is he your son?”

I chuckled. “You think I would have a kid with hair like that?” I rubbed my salt-and-pepper locks, which were a bit longer than I’d allowed most of my life, but I’d been going native after retirement. “His hair would be more like mine.”

“Yeah, he’s got wild hair, that’s for sure… So, he’s just a random person you’ve picked up?” she went on.

“Yep, so is Cookie and so is Gunther. Hell, you’re a random person, too.”

“I am not,” she protested. “You guys are the randoms.”

We got a good laugh out of that. None of us knew any of the others. I thought back to Carmen. She and I at least knew each other before the EMP went off, giving us a better foundation than any of the others. I used that fact to justify spending the time looking for her, even though there were a million things that needed doing back at Clownfish, especially after the bus attack.

We sat and rested until Nate returned. “I grabbed this.” He held up a small sundress.

We all stood up.

“Did she wear it recently?” I asked.

“It was in her dirty clothes, like you wanted.”

He handed it to me, and I immediately called Mr. Puppers over. “Hey, boy, can you help me find Carmen?”

When he arrived, bright-eyed and with ears perked up, I let him smell the dress. I knew he wasn’t a bloodhound now any more than he was when I’d followed him the first time, but I had to try everything I could to find her, and I couldn’t think of anything better, short of walking all over the woods—not a good use of time for our small group.

The golden looked up at me.

‘We doin’ this, mate? Same terms as before?’

“Go find her,” I encouraged.

His tail wagged.

“Go!” I shooed him away in a playful manner.

To my dismay, the dog went right over to the edge of the ramp again, and I had visions of repeating the entire affair with the rope and ramp, but he immediately veered around to the side of the mound of dirt encasing it.

“He might have something,” I said in a hopeful tone. I looped the rifle over my shoulder, put on my pack, and hurried to catch up.

I waved for everyone to come with us, but I briefly wondered if the right play was to have someone stay back and watch over Clownfish. However, I decided we should all stick together for this search. Gunther was the only person I thought capable of fighting off any attackers, but I wanted him with the rest of us, not watching an empty street. Once we had Carmen back, we could worry about securing property.

Mr. Puppers stopped at a big pine tree next to the mound, leading me to wonder if he was going to stop before he got started, but he launched to the next pine deeper in the woods. Then, he looked back at me.

“Yeah, go find Carmen!” I stopped Gunther. “Hey, would you get the truck and follow us at a distance? In case this goes on for a while.”

He immediately turned back toward the big red truck. I didn’t want him to wake up the entire forest with the engine, but Mr. Puppers was onto something, and I wanted him to follow it for as long as he was able. At the same time, I didn’t want to get too far from our escape vehicle. Father Mackinaw had said he had friends, and I took him at his word.

The dog stopped a couple of times, and I had to refresh his memory using Carmen’s dress, but each time, he continued heading in the same direction. In time, I figured out he was going directly east, across the forest. This became clearer an hour later when I saw the four-lane highway at the eastern border of the forest.

“We’ve crossed the whole thing,” I said.

“How far was that?” Cookie asked, looking wiped out by the journey.

“Maybe four miles?” I hadn’t been as concerned with distance as with destination. Mr. Puppers had really gotten Carmen’s trail, and I didn’t want to take even a tiny risk of losing it by stopping or slowing down.

We took a small pause, now, however, as we had to cross the road.

“Nate, go back and tell Gunther to stop where he is and come join us. We’re going to cross the road on foot, so we don’t risk giving away that we have a vehicle.”

“Aye-aye, boss,” he said with a mock salute.

While we waited, I tried to look ahead. The other side of the street was more woods, but there was a two-lane blacktop road connected to the highway. I thought I could see houses down there, perhaps another subdivision, but I couldn’t be sure from so far away.

“Cookie, you live here, right?” I asked.

She came closer to see why I might ask such a question.

I nodded across the street. “You know anything about what’s over there?”

“I just moved here to go to college. I’ve never seen this area in my whole life.”

No help there. None of the others were locals, either, so I didn’t think we’d have much in the way of native recon.

Gunther and Nate soon came back. The big guy carried several weapons over his shoulder, as if going to war.

“We want to be stealthy about this,” I clarified. “If there is a subdivision over here like ours, I expect it will be empty and deserted, too. However, there is every possibility there are a few survivors, same as we are a few remaining people from our side of the forest.”

My heart raced as I spoke, and it had little to do with crossing the road. Somehow, I knew we were going to find Carmen and she would return to our group, alive and safe. I found it hard to quantify the feeling, but the golden seemed to have confidence the woman had gone this direction, and I’d begun to believe she was destined to play an important role in the defense of Clownfish Cove.

I waved everyone to follow me to the edge of the woods.

“I’ll cross first with Mr. Puppers. Then come over one at a time and we’ll keep watch for you.”

“Should I go first?” Nate asked.

“We should all go at once,” Cookie volunteered.

“No, let me get over there and make sure all is clear,” I answered.

There were no moving cars or trucks on the road in either direction, so it was easy to confirm we could cross without being spotted by vehicles. However, when we all got to the far side and started walking again, we were met with an odd-shaped neighborhood tucked behind a grove of trees running along the roadway.

The homes were built a lot like ours, with stucco walls, expensive tile roofs, and lots of palm trees, but the streets weaved their way around the grass fairways of a crisp, cultured golf course, and they were all set in an unusual pattern.

There was a boundary street that ran around the giant complex, about a mile on each side, and the inside streets were short, with loops of houses at the end, so they looked a bit like lollipops. The stick-candy shapes came in sets of three, so they resembled a lowercase ‘t,’ and each of the three ends had a loop of ten houses at the end, with an eleventh house placed in the middle of all the others. They barely had yards to speak of, and their driveways were short, but the golf course ran through the property, offering great views for many of the homes.

Mr. Puppers caught the scent again.

We followed him down a street, then across a few yards. No one came out to greet us, or warn us, and I didn’t think much about seeing people until we came to the middle of the development.

A huge home-like clubhouse sat on a twenty-foot mound, surrounded by several fairways. A small parking lot was located on the left side, as we looked at it, and a great number of golfcarts on the other side, near what must have been the first tee.

“Down!” I hissed.

I saw movement on the back patio.

“There are people up there.”

We were about a hundred yards out, with nothing but scruffy fairway between us and the clubhouse, but we’d stayed close to the bushes of the last house on the edge, so we at least had some concealment from the people living there.

I pulled out the H&K rifle, intending to use the big scope to get a look at them. My friends stayed close to the house behind me, not giving themselves away. Gunther held my Bravo Company rifle while he kept watch behind us, which was another smart play. It gave me some confidence I wasn’t dealing with complete amateurs while I put my attention forward.

Using the rifle, I surveyed the property. It was the centerpiece of the lollipop community, and the house was made of white brick, with a style I could only describe as really old and maybe Spanish in origin.

A bright white fence surrounded the property, probably to keep those golfers on the nearby fairways. It was the kind you might find on a Kentucky horse farm, with three planks of wood joined to each post. Each corner of the clubhouse boundary had an olive drab canvas canopy placed there, as if set up for guards to get out of the sun. And there were lots of guards patrolling.

They walked along the fence, two-by-two. Perhaps twelve total.

One stood along the left side, where a handful of cars were parked on the lot. There was a nice red 70s-era Charger parked there, along with several black SUVs, as well as…

I had to blink a few times to make sure I was seeing it right.

Yep. It was the same white Shelby Mustang that had passed me on the day of the EMP. How it had got all the way to this side of the forest in the short time after it passed me, I would never know, though if the pretty driver had kept up that speed, maybe it was possible.

I continued to look around. More guards stood on the back patio while several people sat at a table—

I had to dial in the scope, blinking more, so it was crystal clear.

“I don’t believe it,” I whispered.

“What?” Cookie asked, sounding tired.

I gazed at the woman sitting at the table for half a minute, wishing my eyes were deceiving me. Carmen had changed from the last time I saw her, but she had the same long, wavy brown hair, styled the same, and her face was unmistakable. The black shorts and sheer blouse looked like something my neighbor would wear.

“We found…”

Before I could finish, another person walked out from the backside of the clubhouse who caught my eye for the same reason I’d been observing Carmen.

I recognized the familiar black hip-huggers and an identical sheer pine-green top. I even recognized the style of long, wavy hair. Then the same pretty face…

“Guys, we have a big problem here.”

“I don’t even want to know,” Nate answered.

“There are two Carmens,” I said anyway.

CHAPTER 4

“Say that again,” Cookie requested. “Did you say there are two Carmens? You mean two women who look like Carmen?”

“No, there are two identical women. They are both my neighbor.”

I took a moment to linger in the scope, worried I’d overreacted and misidentified one of the two ladies. However, once I steadied it, I was certain the pair of women were the same. The clothes would be easy to duplicate, but both of them had beaming smiles, full lips, and long brown hair with little swirls at the ends. I tried to stay professional, but both had the same olive-toned, shapely ‘Jennifer Lopez’ bodies. It was that exotic quality that attracted me to those details in the first place, and it was how I knew her from so far away.

But which one was real?

Were they both fake?

Were there more Carmens in the house?

What if there was no real one?

I handed the rifle to Nate, so he could look at them. In the meantime, I retreated from the bushes to collect my confused thoughts.

“Yeah, they do look similar,” the boy allowed.

“Let me see,” Cookie insisted.

They switched, and she peered through the scope for a few moments.

“Yeah… I think you guys are right. I knew there was something odd about her. She was way too accusatory toward me.”

The sun beat down while we stood in the yard of the abandoned home in the lollipop neighborhood. I tried to review all my interactions with Carmen, searching for any hint that she wasn’t who she said she was. Why would someone send a duplicate to interact with the few of us left on Clownfish Cove? Was there more to her captivity in that basement than she was letting on? I wiped sweat from my brow, unable to put any of the square pegs into the round holes.

Gunther had his turn with the rifle, then he handed it off to Faith.

“You don’t even know Carmen,” I remarked, “but maybe that’s good. Let us know if you think those two are identical or merely similar.”

“I don’t believe it,” Faith said with a dramatic flourish.

“Are they different?” I asked right away.

“No, I think you guys are right and they’re identical. That said, I recognize the guy both of them are talking to at the table. He’s Petteri Tikkanen. He’s the guy who is doing all that mining in the asteroid belt…” She looked at us. “You guys know him, right?”

“Sure. Everyone knows him. That’s not the problem.” I walked over and took the rifle, so I could see for myself. “The problem is, why is he there?”

When I adjusted the scope and zeroed in on the pair of Carmens, I saw a man in a gray business suit, probably in his forties, decent looking, with a short beard. When he leaned forward, a blue tie hung in front of him. From such a distance, it was hard to identify him, but Faith’s suggestion that it was Tikkanen made me see him in a new light.

That guy was, by far, the richest man in the world. He already had a lock on a lot of mineral mining and exploration on the Earth, but he’d invested his considerable fortune into building rockets and spaceships, so he would suck the wealth out of an endless supply of asteroids out past Mars.

“We’ll have to check the newspaper back at my house. I remember something about this guy in the headlines. They had a launch taking place—not sure if it went up or not.”

“Delphi,” Dr. Sinclair explained. “That was the project he was partnered with.”

“Yeah…that sounds right.” I wished I had an even better scope, or a pair of binoculars. I would have to search through houses when we got back home. That’s the only way I would be able to see what was going on over there. “But the question remains—why is he talking to Carmen?”

“I don’t like this,” Cookie warned.

“Me, either,” I answered.

I did a quick study of who was at the patio party. Besides the pair of Carmens and the man in gray, there were a few other adults chatting with each other at surrounding tables. There was also a young boy sitting at a much smaller kids’ table, picking at food on a paper plate. He looked to be about ten, with shoulder-length platinum-blonde hair, and I figured he had to belong to someone there, but none of the adults seemed to pay him any attention.

There were also several more guys wearing black gear, like they were dressed to be mercenaries, sitting by themselves at more distant tables. Including the guards patrolling the fence, there were at least twenty or thirty men and women over there. When I was satisfied with my recon effort, I rallied the troops.

“Okay, whatever this is, we don’t want any part of it.”

“Are we just going to leave your friend?” Faith asked.

“Sounds good to me,” Cookie said, already walking away.

Gunther and Nate seemed torn.

“They don’t seem to be hurting her,” I answered, “though I can’t even tell if one of those is my actual neighbor. Getting into the base of those Cleaner guys was a lot easier than this. These guys are actively patrolling their walls, they have lots of men on the inside, and there is a wide-open golf course surrounding them. Even if I knew one of those women was our friend, and she wanted our help, I’m not sure we could get her.”

I paused for a bit of reflection.

“And I don’t even know if she was really our friend.”

That one hurt. I’d let myself get a bit wrapped up in the affairs of the pretty woman, as I’d thought we’d shared something when I got her out of that basement, but I couldn’t say for sure whether any of it was real. Until I figured it out, I had to assume she’d been playing me. She’d been playing us all…doing recon for those men in black, and possibly for the man in white.

“She didn’t look like she was in trouble,” Cookie said defensively, as if she realized I wasn’t as ready to leave as she was. “Both Carmens were outside, not tied up, enjoying the day.”

That seemed correct. The only way I could learn more about what was really going on was to ask Carmen, and there was no way to safely get that done.

I hesitated for a few moments, wondering if there was any value in walking up to the compound and simply talking to those people. Not everyone was shooting on sight, were they? Still, I couldn’t take the risk. I might not have a large group around me, but I did have this handful. Since they’d come to my street, I’d felt obligated to serve as leader and keep them alive throughout this disaster. As such, I couldn’t get myself captured or killed simply for having the hots for Carmen.

That made me chuckle. Was that what this was really about? I wanted Carmen back, the real one, since she was cute? No, that wasn’t all of it. She’d been willing to get her hands dirty, get to the bottom of another friend’s motives—Jodie. But my final consideration was that I might have almost fallen for a fake Carmen.

“Right now, our goal is to get back to Clownfish. These people, whoever they are, represent a new threat. One that could probably come at us from across the forest. We need to be ready.”

I patted Mr. Puppers on his back and sent him ahead of us.

The rest of them followed me as we retraced our steps through the lollipop subdivision. As we went, I thought of yet another set of possibilities. If I couldn’t even trust them enough to walk up to their door and talk, did that mean the smart play was to pick them off from long distance, so we could eliminate the threat before they came for us? Was that all the apocalypse was going to boil down to? Who could off their neighbor first? And taking it to its logical conclusion, was the same thing destined to happen when an outside group stumbled upon Clownfish Cove? Were they going to shoot us from a distance to eliminate us as potential threats?

Life seemed to be stuck on maximum difficulty now.

When we got back to the truck, we all piled in. We were far enough from the Carmens to not worry too much about being heard, but the truck was going to make tracks on our way back.

“Gunther, would you mind getting out and using deadfall to cover our tracks?”

Without an ounce of hesitation, the big guy hopped back down and picked up a long branch. When I started the truck and moved backward on our original path, he swept the end along the ground, hopefully brushing aside any trace that we’d been there.

I got the truck facing west toward home, then I let Gunther catch up.

“Hey, bud, we’re going to take a long route home. I want you to follow our original route and clean it up, okay?”

He nodded.

“I know it is a long way back, you up for some walking?”

He was armed, with a small pack, so I knew he wasn’t going to be hurting for supplies. While he stood outside, I turned and looked at my wild-haired friend in the back seat. “Would you mind going with him? It’s not safe to have any of us be alone anymore.”

“Oh, sure,” he said with a moment of hesitation.

“I know you are probably tired,” I said, guessing what was going through his head.

“A truck ride did sound nice,” he admitted, “but I know why we have to do this.”

“Good man,” I answered. “When we get the truck back home on our different route, I’ll help clean it up, too.” I knew a dirty chore was made easier when shared.

“We’ll just have a nice conversation while we’re doing this,” he jibed, laughing since Gunther still hadn’t said a word to anyone.

“I’m anxious to hear what you talk about,” I joined in.

I had a lot to think about on the way home, and not only about Carmen. Knowing there were armed men not five miles from my home made me hyper-sensitive to being followed or tracked, so I took a long and winding route to get back. It wasn’t feasible to cover our tracks for every mile of the journey, but I did stop at one point and write in my notebook about attaching a light brush on the back of the truck, perhaps dragging behind us, so it would jumble the ground clutter along our route.

Another thought I had was getting a group of us in different trucks, then putting dozens of tire paths all over the forest, to make it impossible to follow any of them.

But ideas all required time and resources. Two things I had in short supply.

When we got back to the street, I saw everything through a new filter. We were not only under threat from Father Mackinaw’s people, but we would soon be under threat from the group living a few miles through the trees. For all I knew, they were working together.

After snacking and drinking, and doing a few necessary chores, I called everyone outside to talk about what came next.

“Okay, everyone, gather round.”

They all came to me, standing in the middle of the street not far from the circle. Around us, the fronts of the houses were mangled and chewed up from the debris thrown there by the exploding bus. Our roofs had been torn up with shingles and tiles broken, depending on the materials used on each property.

Mr. Puppers came right up to me and then laid down on the pavement, totally ignoring the rest of us. I was glad he felt safe enough to do that, and I wanted to ensure he would always be able to do it, no matter what the challenges from the outside.

The world had been emptied, but it was not empty.

That distinction made all the difference in the world.

“Guys, I know we’re all tired from our little adventure out in the woods, and I know we didn’t bring Carmen back, but we did learn a lot from our time out there. If you are willing to stick with me, I think I have an idea for how we can secure and protect our little slice of suburbia here on Clownfish Cove.”

“Why wouldn’t we stick with you?” Cookie asked.

“Yeah, we’re with you, sir,” Nate added.

I looked to Gunther as he gave me one of his signature silent nods.

I hadn’t intended to ask them all if they were with me, but the others had spoken up, so there was only Faith left to commit or reject my offer.

She brushed her hair behind her ears.

“Frank, I still don’t know exactly what’s going on up here, but I can tell you for sure I don’t want to be alone in this. If these other three trust your leadership, I’d like to stay as long as I can.”

I didn’t know if I could trust her, especially after seeing two Carmens on that patio, but she seemed sincere. I didn’t think it was reasonable to think she’d been lying in that sewage drain waiting for me to come along and rescue her so she could spy on me. Even my conspiracy-drenched brain didn’t think that was realistic.

“You are all welcome to stay here on my street,” I replied, “but I do have one condition, and it is going to be a tough one.”

“What is it, Frank?” Cookie asked.

“Everyone has to help me defend it.”

To my shock, everyone but Gunther moved in and hugged me, which left me momentarily tongue-tied. I hadn’t anticipated they would be so enthusiastic about staying on my street, or defending it, but I realized in seconds how important that commitment was to me.

It gave me direction. It gave me purpose.

Gunther shook my hand through the group hug, smiling for a change.

“Glad to have you,” I told him.

I was happy for another two seconds before I saw a woman running toward us on the street.

She wore the same cute outfit I’d seen twice while looking through my scope.

She was unmistakable.

And she was completely untrustworthy.

“Frank!” she cheered, waving wildly.

“Carmen is back,” I whispered.

CHAPTER 5

I spoke quietly to my friends before Carmen got too close. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you all saw what I saw. There is at least one imposter Carmen, and we don’t know which one this is…”

“You want us to zip our lips?” Nate asked.

“For now. We can’t let on that we know, or it might bring in those men with guns who were guarding her.”

“It will be easy for me,” Faith whispered, “since all I know about her is what I saw through that scope.”

I turned to her, an idea forming. “I’ll catch up to you later. Maybe she’ll make a mistake when talking to you, since she doesn’t know who you are.”

“We’ll be quiet,” Cookie said, a moment before Carmen got too close.

“Frank!” the Cuban woman cried out with glee. “I’m so glad to see you.”

She held out her arms to hug me. If I hadn’t taken that walk through the woods, with Mr. Puppers’ help, I would have grabbed her with excitement, lifted her off the ground, and celebrated this moment with abandon. It wasn’t only that she was a big part of our team, and I had no idea if I’d ever see her again after she disappeared, but I had to admit I’d kind of taken a liking to the pretty woman.

Now, all that was gone.

Still, I had to keep up appearances, so I allowed her to hug me, and I hugged back with about fifty percent of her enthusiasm. When I pulled back, I tried to convey my lack of excitement was due to her disappearance.

“I really thought that priest got you,” I explained. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you alive.”

“Me, too,” she gushed. The woman gave Nate a quick hug and Gunther an aggressive handshake, but she hesitated when she faced Cookie. “I’m so sorry for everything. I know you are one of us, but can we start over?”

I could see the wheels spin inside Cookie’s head. I was glad I’d had the foresight to advise her to play dumb about seeing Carmen’s twin, since her comeback could have been epic and on-point.

“Sure, what the hell. After the places we’ve been and the things we’ve seen, a petty feud just isn’t worth it.”

Carmen’s eyes darted between Cookie and me. “Where have you guys been?”

I interrupted before the young girl could say anything. “You saw us get rounded up on the bus. They took us to an airfield and tried to zap us into oblivion, like everyone else. They have a giant plane that sends a signal through a big dish in order to steal people from the ground.”

“That’s amazing,” Carmen replied.

“And where have you been?” I asked as innocently as I could.

She took a deep breath. “Well, I hid when the bus came to take us all. I figured they couldn’t possibly know how many of us were in the houses, so I ran into the woods the second I had the chance, and I stayed out there until I heard the bus drive far away.”

While she spoke, I looked intently at her magnetic eyes, trying to detect the lie I knew was coming.

“I didn’t exactly know what to do, but I figured you wouldn’t want me to do nothing. That’s when I decided to get some guns, get in the truck, and try to follow you guys. But I drove around, lost, and realized I’d waited too long to chase after you. Then, I figured the next best thing to do was come back here and wait.”

Her words had the ring of truth to them, and she didn’t seem to be lying with her eyes, so I figured that might be an echo of what really happened.

“So, you’ve just been waiting in the forest for our return? We came back this morning, but we didn’t see you around.”

“I’ve been hiding at the El Camino out in the woods. When I heard the bus come back, I came running, but I kept my distance when I saw that priest walking around. Then…it blew up. I went back to the El Camino again, not sure if any guards were lurking around the houses.”

I thought I detected her first fibs. I had parked the El Camino in the woods, yes, and it was possible she might have even stayed there overnight, but she couldn’t have been anywhere close when the bus blew up, or she would have known right away Mackinaw came alone to our cul-de-sac.

Rather than press the lies, I had to pretend it was the truth.

“Okay, I’m glad this all turned out for the best. You’re back now, and that’s all that matters to me.”

She gave me a quick hug, then looked up at me, smiling profusely. While it would normally have been a struggle not to lock eyes with the pretty woman, I now found it easy.

I gently stepped back, then turned to everyone else.

“Oh, this is Doctor Faith Sinclair,” I said by way of introduction to Carmen. “We found her after the bus blew up.”

“Nice to meet you,” Faith answered.

The two women gave a lackluster handshake. Faith was probably wondering why I hadn’t explained her situation in the tunnel. My reasoning was that I didn’t want to give any additional information to the spy in our midst.

I took stock of the fact that most of the past week had been out of my control. I was misled by Jodie when I found her, then I was misled by Cookie as she tried to protect Jodie. Now I appreciated that I might have been misled by Carmen—a reality I couldn’t stand to imagine.

I liked to be in control of any situation—who would want random chance to decide their life—but ever since the apocalypse started, I’d had to make trade-offs. Here I was making another one, since I couldn’t let on that we knew Carmen was a spy, or the forces behind her might hurt us, or the real Carmen.

That gave me pause. Based on everything I knew about people like Father Mackinaw, they seemed to thrive on coercion of us normal folk. What were the chances the woman who’d come back to us was, in fact, the real Carmen? What if she was pretending in front of the enemy same as we were?

I gazed at Carmen with fresh eyes. The smile seemed genuine as she looked back at me, but there was less emotion in her eyes. One might imagine this was due to her being sad about having to lie to me, but I could also imagine it was a result of cold calculations to get what she wanted. That would suggest it was the copy of Carmen…

Was there a way to discover the truth without coming out and asking her?

I gathered everyone around, including Carmen.

“Guys, I know we’ve been through some rough patches, but I’m glad we’re all together. I don’t know why it happened this way, but you’ve all found your way to Clownfish Cove, and I’m happy to continue offering my home and my time to our cause.”

“What cause is that?” Faith asked.

“Our survival,” I deadpanned.

“That sounds dramatic,” the scientist chuckled.

The others didn’t laugh, which she seemed to take offense to.

“Look, you haven’t been out there. You can see there are no people on our street, sure, but until you drive around and see mile after mile of empty houses, empty streets, and empty cities, you can’t appreciate what we’re dealing with.” I hoped she wouldn’t contradict me by saying she saw all the empty homes while going through the lollipop subdivision, which would give us away to Carmen.

“Sorry, I meant nothing by it,” she replied.

“I know. This is bigger than all of us. There are forces at work that none of us can control. If one of those planes comes back, we need to be ready. If we see those priests lurking around, we need to be ready. If any of those Cleaners show up, we need to be ready for them, too.” I patted my rifle, which now never left my side.

“What are we going to do?” Faith asked.

“First, I want everyone to be aware that if a plane does come back, you might be able to survive it by being underwater. The bus driver survived by diving into a canal, so always keep a canal close to you, if possible. If you hear the drone of an aircraft, stay right at the edge. If you see that giant disc riding a plane coming toward you, jump in.”

Everyone seemed to understand the weight of my warning, even Faith.

“Second, we have to prep our street for the next time those guys come snooping around. What I want to do is set up shop on Barracuda Bay, the next street over, and use the two streets surrounding it as buffers.”

Prior to seeing the compound at the lollipop subdivision, I would have built my defenses for a group that could come from any direction, but now I was banking on an attack coming at us from the woods. However, I didn’t want Carmen to know what I was doing, so I had to leave that part out and pretend I was looking at east and west equally.

“Aw man, why aren’t we sticking with all the work we’ve already done on this street?” Nate turned toward the houses closest to mine. “Except for the damage from the bomb, we’ve hardened all the back doors, the windows, and the stuff inside.”

“Yeah, it’s going to be a lot of work, but I have an idea for how we can make it go faster.”

“I’m all ears,” Nate replied, tugging at his earlobes to show how serious he was.

“When we were taking our bus tour of Pine Island, I noticed an old tractor when we crossed through the orchard. I intend to get that, get the dump truck, and take as many of their vans as possible. We’re going to use all of them to get our stuff moved from one street to the other, but I’m also planning on building a one-lane bridge over to Clownfish.”

“A bridge?” Cookie interjected. “Why do we need another bridge?”

“I thought you’d never ask. We’re going to clog up the others.”

None of my plans were anything special that Carmen didn’t need to know. Whatever changes we made to our defenses, an enemy standing in the woods would figure them out in about ten seconds. However, I’d poured on the work for my friends to keep everyone occupied with mundane tasks for the rest of the day.

That would give me time to figure out a way out of this mess.

CHAPTER 6

The next couple of hours finally saw us make some progress on our defenses. I was glad, too, since the huge workload kept all of us busy and distracted, though some were busier than others.

Cookie and Nate were the least productive. While the girl was famous for chit-chat and wandering around aimlessly to look busy, Nate often got on his bike and rode over to his animal rescue operation, which was a few streets beyond Bayside Road. I would eventually have to address the time and resources he spent on the cats and dogs, but I didn’t think it was the proper moment to stir that pot.

Faith was a hard worker, but her lack of strength left a lot to be desired. Since much of what we were doing was labor-intensive, like moving furniture in front of windows, pushing vehicles to roadblocks, or moving deadfall in the woods, she required me to be selective about where to send her.

Gunther was my rock star. His strength and innate building skills made short work of whatever task I assigned him.

That left Carmen. I knew she had some strength, and she was as intelligent as she was beautiful, but she made every excuse in the book to stay by my side rather than go off with the others. Our close proximity led to a few playful bumps and touches. My ego tempted me by saying her closeness was because she was attracted to me, but I had to keep reminding myself it was more likely that she wanted to stay near the leader giving all the commands. To keep a level head, I reminded myself over and over she wasn’t acting of her own free will.

If she really was Carmen, she was acting to save herself from the people who’d threatened and sent her to me.

If she was pretending to be Carmen, it meant the real one was out there.

Either way, this woman was playing a part.

“Frank, what’s wrong?” she finally asked after I’d rebuffed another attempt to put her hands on mine.

“It’s not that I’m not flattered,” I said, trying to explain myself without telling the truth, “but I have everyone to think about. If I let myself get distracted by every pretty girl on the street, I could get someone hurt.”

“You think I’m a pretty girl?” she teased.

I didn’t have to lie about that.

“Well, I think you know you are,” I forced a chuckle. “If I’d met you before the EMP, I might even have asked you out on a date…”

My goal was to acknowledge her looks but clarify I would not be admiring them. With a little luck, she would back off.

“Ooh, tell me how you would have seduced me,” she purred.

Oops. I’d failed at that attempt, so I tried to take a different angle.

“It wouldn’t have been by taking you home. Why do you have all those cats in your living room, anyway?”

The smile faded from her lips.

“You already asked me that question,” she said matter-of-factly. “Is it really such a big deal to you?”

I perked up at her reply. Unless she’d been recording our conversations, she’d confirmed that she was the same version of Carmen that I’d asked that question to a few days ago. At first, I thought I’d figured out which one was my real neighbor, but then I realized they both could have been the imposter. The only other time she’d gone out of my sight for any length of time was when she’d gone into the woods and fired her gun.

Had she gone into those woods to report in?

Had she been fake even when I rescued her from the basement?

Had she been real this whole time, but was being used?

Whatever was going on, it still meant the real Carmen was in trouble. Whether this was her, or she was still at that other house, I had to keep up the charade a while longer until I knew how I could help her.

“About the cats?” I said with indifference. “No. I was just making small talk.”

“Oh.”

I wondered if Mr. Puppers would be able to tell the difference between the real and fake Carmens. I suspected the only way to be sure was to give him one of Carmen’s personal items, then have the two women stand far apart, to see which one the dog recognized. However, a new possibility crept up. What if the fake Carmen had been living on our street long before the EMP?

It was a bottomless rabbit hole.

“Here, come with me. Let’s look over our progress.”

I had everyone join me at the intersection of Barracuda Bay and Poseidon Pier. The sun was low on the western horizon, well beyond the three-story tower, the beach, and the bay.

A few mosquitoes buzzed around, and gnats played in the air as the golden sunshine cast us in long shadows. It reminded me of pleasant summer nights throughout my life, and I wanted nothing more than to return to them, rather than be doing what I was doing.

“Okay, all, we’ve got things looking pretty good.” I pointed to the roadblock built toward the entrance of the subdivision. “We’ve got enough cars chained together that I don’t even think a bulldozer could move them aside…”

On paper, I wanted to blow up the bridge, so our subdivision had an extra layer of water defense, but in our current condition blowing a bridge would be a permanent solution, since we lacked the tools and manpower to put it back. The next best solution was to make it impossible to clear the vehicles out of the way, and I did that by stealing the braided steel cables used to support some telephone poles and lashing those lines through the wheels of cars on the roadblock.

I pointed in the other direction, on the bridge between Clownfish and Barracuda. “That one looks great, too.”

We had a second roadblock there, moving many of the cars from our original one, and we interlocked cables between many of them, but we kept one lane open for our own use. Big enough for slow cars and trucks, but not large enough to fit an inbound exploding bus.

“Now we go out and get the gate for the blockade,” I explained.

I’d already told them why we were going out, to get the tractor and dump truck, but I hadn’t explained the timing. Now, at sunset, I could see the apprehension on their faces.

“Yeah, sorry, guys. For this to work, I wanted to go out after dark, to reduce the chance of us being spotted.”

“One could argue it is easier to see headlights in the nighttime,” Nate snarked.

“That’s true, but it works both ways. We’ll see anyone else driving around out there. Plus, we’re going to have our lights covered like we’re in a convoy.”

I’d seen a few military convoys in my day, in the movies, and I knew they cut down on light sources while on the move, for the same reasons we were addressing. As the sun went the rest of the way down, we used thick, black duct tape to cover the headlights, taillights, and running lights of the Dodge Power Wagon. We left open a tiny slit on one headlight and a thumb-sized piece of one brake light exposed, so we didn’t accidentally hit each other on the way back. To complete the front lights, we taped on a cheap makeup mirror above the slit and angled it down, so the light reflected onto the ground about fifty feet ahead, and the direct beam would not shine straight out to infinity. To see the direct beam of light, you had to be standing close.

We all piled in with our guns, and it struck me I could get burned by my own game if Carmen turned on us while I was driving. For me, it was a three-gun mission, but I couldn’t bring any of them to bear while I was driving the big truck. If she wanted to take me out, that was the time.

Of course, there’d been numerous private moments over the course of the afternoon where she could have eliminated me, so I didn’t think that was her game. Nonetheless, it was unsettling how casually I was taking this. Maybe I was still in shock from the first day, maybe I’d been hardened to the threat of death since then, or maybe I was simply too trusting that this woman wouldn’t do anything so evil.

Carmen got into the passenger seat before anyone else could climb in. I asked Cookie to get in with her, so there was more room in the back, but the Cuban bombshell kept the younger woman against the door, away from me.

Gunther, Nate, and Faith sat in the back, with Mr. Puppers on the floor directly behind me.

The drive was grim. It was night number seven since the event, and the sounds of humans were long gone. All I heard outside was the constant buzz of flying bugs, angry crickets, and yappy little frogs. There was no trace of light in any of the houses or businesses we passed, as even the backup batteries of EXIT signs and emergency lighting were out of juice.

“Wow, this is…something,” Faith said from the back seat. “So many are gone.”

“Now you know why I wasn’t impressed by a few deaths,” I replied.

“Yeah, this is unbelievable. And this is everywhere?”

“Truthfully, I have no idea, but we haven’t seen any friendly aircraft, police, or military. If this was only happening here, I would have expected someone to show up by now.”

“That makes sense,” Faith replied.

We wove through the streets until we made it to 40th, then we went all the way south on that route until we hit the highway that crossed over to Pine Island. The group of vans was exactly where it was when we’d crossed the previous time.

“We’ll get these vans when we come back,” I explained.

I took us over the bridge and causeway to Pine Island, then I turned right when we made it to the main street on the tall, thin landmass. It wasn’t long before we made it back to the orchard and the prize I’d seen the last time.

“Can anyone drive that tractor?” I asked, expecting it would have to be me.

Gunther raised his hand.

“You sure?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Okay, great. You start it up and get moving. The rest of us are going to grab the van at the airstrip, then we’ll get the dump truck.”

“Want me to go with him?” Nate asked.

“Eh, I would love to have the manpower to stay in pairs, but we don’t have enough time. The more vehicles we can bring back now, the better off we’ll be in the long run. If anyone notices us taking vehicles tonight, they might try to stop us tomorrow, so I don’t want to drag this out to a second day on the calendar.”

Once we reached the dead airstrip, I had Cookie hop out and drive the van. The clothes of the two owners were lying in the tall grass about fifty feet away, where they’d been when the plane flew over.

We stuck together until we reached Gunther on the tractor, then I hurried ahead. While those two moved toward the causeway and drawbridge, I sped to the parking area where five or six of the old vans were parked at the side of the road. Even in the low light, I caught sight of the black uniforms littering the roadway near where those vans had dropped them off.

“Can anyone drive a stick?” I asked. “The dump truck will be a stick shift.”

The doctor raised her hand. “My first car was an old Honda Civic, stick shifter and all.”

I pointed her toward the dump truck, which was parked near the line of vans. “Well, Mrs. Sinclair, would you be willing to drive it out of here?”

“It’s Ms. Sinclair,” she corrected in a polite manner. “And of course I would.”

“Oh, sorry, should I call you Doctor Sinclair—”

She held up a palm. “If I’m at work, you can call me Doctor Sinclair. Here, in the real world, you can call me whatever feels right to you, as long as it isn’t Mrs. Sinclair.”

“That’s a deal.” Shifting gears back to the main point. “The dump truck will be empty, so you should be fine, but just don’t go too fast. Those things like to tip over if you get too aggressive on the turns.”

“I’ll remember that.”

She hopped out, followed by Nate, who was going to drive one of the vans. That left me alone with Carmen again. I raised my eyebrows while we looked at each other. My intended message was that I needed her to get out and drive one of the other vans, however, she crawled over the empty seat toward me.

Was this where she shot me?

I scrambled to reach my pistol.

She lunged at me.

No time for the gun—

I recoiled.

She grabbed me by the shirt and…

…tried to kiss me.

CHAPTER 7

“Frank,” she pouted, “what’s wrong with you? I thought we had something…”

I was too stunned to speak. The part of my brain that drove fast cars and pined after hot women was confused as to why I wasn’t letting myself be jumped by the literal hottest woman on the block. The enticing scent of her floral perfume doubled that confusion. I found it even more difficult to explain to her in a way that wouldn’t reveal the real reason.

“Look, Carmen, I—”

“I thought we had our moments since we met, Frank. Then, today, you said you would have seduced me if the EMP hadn’t happened.”

“Um, ‘seduced’ was your word. I only said I would have asked you out.” I had to take control of the situation. “Look, let me be clear. No matter what you look like, I can’t get tangled up and distracted by you while we’re fighting for our lives. Let’s press pause on this for now, and we can reassess when we are in a safer position, alright?”

I inwardly laughed at myself and this strange day. Those were words I would never have strung together before the apocalypse. I sounded like someone in a corporate training video.

She returned to her side of the big truck, clearly unhappy with the turn of events. I had to admit it was terribly difficult to rule out anything with her, that’s why I had left the door open. If she was the real Carmen, I wanted her to know how I felt. If she was the fake one…

Now I had to remind myself to concentrate.

“Please, let’s get these vans back home and get everyone safe.” Behind us, Gunther and Cookie were already arriving.

“And then we can talk about us,” she prompted.

“We’ll see,” was all I could summon. “I’ll be right back.” I climbed down from the cabin. In the fresh air, separated from Carmen’s perfume, I wondered if the woman’s floral scent was the same as it was the day I’d found her. I thought maybe it was different now, but I couldn’t be certain. Besides, women can change perfume, and it had been a week full of awful smells.

Nothing concrete there.

I ran back to Gunther, but I was joined on foot by Cookie and Nate.

“Guys, I want you to retrace our steps and go back the same way we came. I’m going to take a different way back, since I want to sneak around and see if anyone is on the nearby streets watching you go by.” We’d brought the black tape to seal up the lights on our new vehicles, so they would be harder to spot, but the dump truck and tractor were loud diesel engines. They would be harder to sneak through the neighborhoods. “When you get back, try to park all these vans in garages. We’ll figure out what to do with the tractor and dump truck later.”

As I got back into the Dodge, I realized Carmen had gotten out and boarded one of the vans. I caught the lingering scent of her perfume, and I tried again to compare it to what she’d been wearing on the day we’d met, but I still couldn’t make the connection.

Mr. Puppers hopped out of the back seat.

“Oh, you were so quiet I almost forgot about you.”

He snorted a bit, which I took as him being upset.

The dog settled into the passenger seat as my friends drove by. First Gunther in the tractor, then Ms. Sinclair in the dump truck, then Nate, Cookie, and Carmen in the old panel vans. Despite my misgivings, I was proud to see them all working together, rowing in the same direction. It wasn’t the first time we’d all been helping each other, but I savored the moment, nonetheless.

Soon enough, they disappeared into the darkness, proving their reduced lighting was working as advertised. I pulled away from the curb slowly, knowing I could drive fast and slam into the back of the convoy if I wasn’t careful. Instead of going left where they’d turned onto 40th Street, I went a few blocks down and turned left.

There were houses in every direction, as far as I could see. Granted, in the night it wasn’t far, but the ambient starlight helped me isolate rooftops in all directions.

No one came out to meet me.

I knew from looking at that map I’d stolen from the Cleaners that I was driving through an area already scouted by them and marked with red marker. With each turn, I tried to keep myself heading north toward home, but I sometimes had to backtrack and find new paths, since there were no roads that went directly up the coast. I could have gone to 40th, where my friends turned, or over to Bayside Road, about half a mile to the east, but my intention was to patrol the subdivisions south of Clownfish Cove, hoping to catch any bad guys by surprise.

When I came around another turn, I was the one who was surprised.

I found a house with all its lights on. It wouldn’t have looked unusual in your typical American subdivision, but it looked like it was lit up by search lights for how bright it seemed in the otherwise pitch-black of the world.

No one ran out to meet me.

No gunshots pierced the glass.

I simply drove up to the end of the driveway and stopped.

To my surprise, I caught sight of motion inside the windows. It looked like… No, it couldn’t be.

Making sure there were no guards on the property, I turned off the motor.

“Keep watch, okay?” I said to Mr. P.

As soon as I closed the door and walked around the truck, he ran across the front seat to watch me from the passenger-side window.

I hurried across the lawn. When I got to the front window, I allowed myself to peek inside, justifying the intrusion by remembering this was the end of the world. Those people in there should not be doing what they were doing.

Satisfied at what I’d seen, I pulled back and stood before the door. A cozy lamp hung next to the entryway, lit up with a Fourth of July decoration hanging below it. Somehow, I’d pulled up to the one house still living in a time from before the power went out.

I took a deep drag of the coolish nighttime air. The faint odor of salt water mixed with the earthy undertones of the nearby canals. It seemed so normal, I didn’t want to ruin it by knocking.

But, I had to do it.

I was half a second from pressing the button when I thought to look to the neighbor’s homes. The one across the street was two stories, about as big as Luke’s place, but I caught sight of a light inside. Not a bright one, but a light, nonetheless. The one next to it also had a dull glow in there.

It made me wonder where I’d driven. Were there parts of the city still in operation?

While I was deliberating, the door behind me opened.

I spun around with my rifle in hand.

A middle-aged Asian woman held her hands up in shock. “I’m so sorry!” she wailed.

Behind her, a man—probably her husband—stood on a Twister mat along with two pre-teen girls. The laughs on their faces were still fading, as they realized I was a threat at their front door. I’d seen them playing it through the front window.

It didn’t look unsafe, so I swung the rifle around on my back.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” I clarified, trying to smile.

“What do you want?” the man asked, rushing over to replace his young wife at the door.

“I was just driving by… How are you still here?” I asked.

As I stood there, the doors of the houses across the street opened, one after the next, until there were men standing on at least four front porches. Unlike the guy in front of me, those men were armed.

“Did you guys know the rest of the city is gone?” I asked, certain they couldn’t have accidentally missed that important detail for the past week.

“We are immune,” the man commented.

Some of the men walked down their driveways or across their yards, coming to check out what I was doing at their neighbor’s home. I was left with the choice of running for the truck or staying to figure out who these people were. I wasn’t sure it was the right choice to stay at the door, but I had to know what the heck was going on. If they were really immune, that could be helpful to know.

The guy was dressed like anyone else in Fort Myers, with khaki shorts, a button-down shirt, and a cheap pair of reading glasses that were a bit bent on one arm, possibly from his wrestling match with his daughters. Like his wife, he was also Asian in descent, though his English was perfect, like he was a native of the US of A.

“Sir, I live a few miles north of here. Everyone between me and you is gone. Evaporated.”

“Not everyone,” he countered. “Not those like us.”

I had no idea what he meant by that, but he motioned toward the men now coming onto his driveway and lawn, as if they were part of it.

“I was able to avoid the death ray by hiding downstairs in a bunker. I don’t think the rays from the planes can reach underground.”

“Planes? No, this is the hand of God.”

I didn’t want to argue with him about religion. Whatever he believed, I saw it with my own eyes, twice. The saucer section of that giant plane was an eraser of sorts. Any time it flew overhead, people disappeared.

The men were in the yard. “You okay, Billy?” one of them called over.

“I don’t know,” the man at the door replied before looking directly at me. “Am I?”

“None of this makes any sense. Where were you guys when the EMP came through? I was at the beach. I saw a huge wall of blue light soar across the sky. It’s what turned off all the lights.”

He met my eyes, as if realizing what I’d said.

“I have an underground generator,” he explained. “We have run cables to my neighbors, so they would have a little bit of light.”

When I turned around, I caught sight of the black bundle of cables that ran from his side of the street to the other. More importantly, I caught sight of the men pulling up to the front porch, since they were illuminated by the bright lights of the home’s interior.

“Uh-oh,” I said under my breath.

“Something wrong?” the guy in the door asked me.

The men converged to within about ten feet of me. There were four of them, plus the guy behind me. I didn’t think it was likely I could take them all, but it was suddenly quite clear what made them so friendly with each other.

“I think I stumbled onto the wrong street,” I mumbled.

I was surrounded by five Chinese men.

CHAPTER 8

I suddenly wanted to be back dealing with whether Carmen was real or fake, or sliding down grimy tunnels in the middle of the woods. Instead, I was facing five armed men in the equivalent of a dark alley.

“Guys, I don’t want any trouble,” I said, trying to step to the side of the porch, praying I could get out from between the men.

“Why are you driving around in the middle of the night? We were busy in there.” The man pointed to his two daughters.

“I’m looking for other people,” I fibbed. “Until I found you all, I hadn’t found another street with someone living on it.”

“You didn’t see the Cleaners?” the man at the door asked.

“I saw vans driving around, yeah, but I didn’t feel comfortable talking to them. They looked too military to me.” I was splitting hairs, but it was no lie that I’d avoided them as much as I could.

“The Sino-UN will be here soon enough.” He pointed to his friends. “I think I’m okay here, fellas.”

“You sure, Billy?” a man asked.

Billy looked at me for a moment. “You are alone?”

I pointed to my truck. “You can search it, but please don’t hurt my dog.”

My statement made us all peer at the front window of the truck. Mr. Puppers was still in the passenger seat, pawing at the window as if he wanted to come out and help.

Billy motioned for his friends to go back home.

“Come on in,” he said to me.

“Can I get my dog?”

“Sure, why not. This isn’t really my house…” He walked inside without even a glance back at me. I found his sense of security disturbing, given I was an unknown man in the middle of the night, in the middle of the apocalypse. When I got to the door to let out Mr. P, I thought about jumping in and speeding away, but I instead let him out and walked back to Billy’s place. I couldn’t deny I was driven to understand who he was and why he had no fear.

“Stick with me,” I said to my pup.

As if to laugh at my instructions, the golden retriever hurried into the grass and lifted his leg to do his business.

“He said this isn’t his house,” I whispered, reassuring the dog that he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

We then went back to the front porch and followed Billy inside. The girls and his wife had moved to another room, leaving me with the man. He sat in one of the easy chairs and motioned for me to sit on the large sofa across from him.

I noticed no weapons.

That was really bold.

“First of all, I’m sorry for dropping in like this. I did not expect to find anyone in any of these homes, much less a whole street— Oh, my name is Frank, by the way.”

“Hi, Frank. I’m Billy Chueng.”

“What did you mean this isn’t your house?”

I sat on the edge of the sofa, ready to shoot my way out of the family room if necessary. My pistol would be the easiest to grab, but I’d carried in my rifle and shotgun over my shoulder, hoping those wouldn’t be necessary. Whatever game he was playing, I had to be ready for it.

He sat back in his chair, comfy as could be.

“My wife and I lived in an apartment a week ago. It was small, closer to downtown Fort Myers, and not a bad place to live. However, when everyone disappeared, we realized we had a chance to move ourselves up in the world, while we await the arrival of our brothers and sisters from China.”

“So, you’re Chinese?” I asked.

He nodded heavily.

“And so are the others?”

He repeated the nod. “We all found each other on our walk out of town. They had been living in similar circumstances. Together, we traveled throughout Cape Coral and South Pointe until we found the houses we thought were just right.”

“Can you tell me where you were when the EMP struck? When other people disappeared were you, by chance, underground?”

“No, sir. I was on the fourth floor of our five-story apartment. None of my new neighbors were underground, either.”

“Why do you think you survived?”

He chuckled and held out his hands over the sides of the chair. “Isn’t it obvious by what’s around us?”

“Well, I don’t want to sound racist, but it looks like you are all Chinese…”

He snapped his fingers and then pointed at me.

“But how does that make any sense?” I asked.

“Isn’t that obvious, too? The Chinese people are superior in every way. We survived where the Americans and Europeans could not. The wisdom of the communist doctrine finally becomes obvious to all.”

“Aren’t you an American?” I asked, figuring his search for a bigger house made him a capitalist at the very least.

“Look around, Frank. I have everything. Far be it from me to ask the fates why we were spared and you were not.” He leaned forward. “Actually, how did you say you survived?”

I had a nagging fear sitting in the deepest pit of my stomach. If this guy was more Commie and less apple pie, he might find a reason to consider me his enemy despite the pleasantries. I’d walked into his house after seeing his kids playing Twister with him, since he seemed like a normal dad living in suburbia with me, but now I saw him in a different light. It was like I was witnessing a sick joke played on this guy, as there was no way the communist lifestyle was what separated those taken from those left behind.

Now I tried my hand at pretending to not be worried. I sat back in the sofa, with my legs crossed and my hand on my knee, ready to whip out my pistol if this got less cordial. “That’s a funny story. I was downtown, too, doing some paperwork at my lawyer’s office since I recently moved here from Illinois. When the big zap came through, several of us in his office were spared, same as you guys.”

He turned reflective. “Hmm. I don’t like what you are implying.”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m telling you straight up that lots of different people survived this.” I didn’t want to reveal who and how many were in my group. “The Cleaners were one such group. Did you meet them? None of them were Chinese.”

“Hmm. They did stop by, once, but they moved on just as fast. But I can assure you, all Chinese were spared. We met the Wus across the street. Their adopted baby son disappeared, but their Chinese teen daughter is still here. Shin’s wife, an American, zapped away, but he was with her and survived. The common denominator is their superior lineage.”

“How old are your daughters?” I asked.

“Sixteen and eighteen,” he answered.

I’d thought they looked much younger, but it brought up one consistent point that seemed to carry through to every group of survivors. “Ever since the EMP went off, have you found any child under the age of ten or twelve?”

He tapped his chin for a moment, thinking. Before answering me, he called for his wife, who was in the room a second later.

“Dear, do any of the other mothers have children with them under ten years old?”

“No, dear,” she replied curtly.

“That’s what I thought. You may go.”

The woman hustled out of the room.

“Maybe the weapon doesn’t protect children of any race,” I suggested.

“Nonsense,” he rallied. “We don’t have a large enough sample set. We have been staying here almost since the beginning, so we haven’t been out looking. You are the first real visitor we’ve had, aside from the Cleaners.”

“Those guys are bad news. They tried to sexually assault a friend of mine. They also forced another one to betray me and my friends, before they betrayed her and made her disappear with everyone else.”

“You saw them disappear?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s what I said earlier. We saw the plane fly above us, then we saw a big group of people vanish into nothing. I’m telling you, it’s a plane.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

I happened to look up in time to see one of the girls duck around the corner. When she did it a second time and saw me looking, she disappeared even faster.

“Would your girls like to pet my dog?” I asked with great cheer.

“No, they—” Billy tried to say.

“Yes, please!” the girl squealed as she ran out. Without waiting for the okay from her dad, she wrapped her arms around Mr. Puppers’ neck. “Ohmygosh, he is so cute!”

Billy finally sat forward on his chair. He ignored his daughter and glared at me. “The Sin-U has built a weapon capable of targeting a single part of the DNA code. They used it to cull the world of all peoples not aligned with the communist way of life from mainland China. You can’t see it now, and probably never will, but the world is about to enter a golden age of peace with only one race to rule over the planet. Your kind will merely be a footnote in this period of history…”

“And you really don’t know who did this?” I asked, surprised his declaration was so devoid of detail.

“I don’t need to. Simply use the eyes you were given to see the truth. My family and those of the others on this street are a tiny slice of the giant army already here in this foreign land. An eternal peace is finally at hand.”

He sounded crazy, but his dad energy made it hard to take him seriously. It was like a four-year-old reading a fiery dictator speech…saying the words but having no idea what it all meant.

“You really think that’s what’s coming?” I pressed.

“I heard it on the radio. They are getting closer every day.”

That part lined up. I’d heard the radio broadcasts, too.

I looked at my watch. “It’s getting late. You have any problems with me driving out of here?”

“Not at all.”

I relaxed the grip on my sidearm, hidden from his view, and stood up.

“Come on, Mr. Puppers, let’s go get some Pop-Tarts.”

The girl didn’t want to let him go, but she eventually relinquished her grip on the pup and ran out of the room. I thought she was going to cry at the loss, but she returned as I opened the front door to let him out.

“Here! I have strawberry Pop-Tarts!”

I was glad to give them to the dog, as they were my least favorite flavor.

“Thank you for such kindness,” I said to the girl and, by extension, her father.

“Good luck wherever you go,” Billy said to me.

Mr. Puppers chewed the Pop-Tart to dust.

“And good luck to you and your family.” I held out my hand. At first, he seemed reluctant, but then he took it for a brief shake.

I hurried out and went straight for the truck, the dog in tow. As soon as I opened the door, I had to help the dog up the huge clearance gap created by the big mud tires. I climbed up behind him and slammed the door. As I started the motor, I noticed the four men remained at the front doors…

Perhaps waiting for a signal.

The smart dog hopped down to the passenger-side floorboard.

“Hold on, bud, we’re going to cook.”

I put my foot on the gas and got us off the street, but the second I made the first left turn, a person ran into the middle of the roadway ahead of me, with hands up, not fifty feet ahead.

There was no time to react.

I slammed on the brakes and prayed.

CHAPTER 9

The truck skidded with tires barking in complaint. When I had it stopped, I couldn’t see the person in front of me. Mr. Puppers was still on the floorboard.

“You think this is a trap?” I asked him.

‘Do kangaroos shit in the woods, mate?’ he answered.

I gave him a funny look before addressing the far more serious issue outside. There were no lights on in the nearby houses, no bad guys running out to grab me, no muzzle flashes trying to target me. For a few seconds, all I heard were the gears and pulleys of the engine spinning around.

I slammed on the parking brake, grabbed my rifle, and opened the door. Holding my breath, I hopped down and hurried around the big front tire. I didn’t want to see a corpse…

When I stood next to the front bumper, I found a young kid exactly as before, standing in the little beam coming from my headlight. He had his hands up in surrender, his eyes shut, and leaning as far backward as possible, as if the truck was still heading his way.

“You’re okay, son,” I said.

He was a Chinese kid, same as the families I’d seen around the corner. He was dressed in cheap jeans, blue sneakers, and a black T-shirt. When he heard my words, he opened one eye.

“Am I still alive?” he whispered.

“As far as I can tell. You didn’t get hit, did you?”

Now he stood up straight, feeling his chest down to his legs, perhaps searching for an injury. To me, it looked as if he’d avoided me by inches.

“I guess I’m alright.” He looked over to me. “I saw you talking to those people back there. What’s your deal? Why didn’t you stick around?”

“Well, I didn’t get the feeling they wanted me to hang out with them. I think everyone on your street are…friends.”

“You mean Commies,” he deadpanned.

“Why do you say that?”

“Live there for a day and you’ll see what I mean. Those guys act like they’re from mainland China, real hardcore reds.”

“You talk like you aren’t with them,” I suggested.

“None of them were with each other a week ago. These guys in vans came around and rounded up every Chinese person they could find, then brought us to this street. They said the Sino-United Nations would be here soon and they would take care of us. My dad would have fought against everything these guys represent. No way I’d join them.”

“Your dad?” I asked, hinting at a question for which I already knew the answer.

“Gone. Taken in the culling, like every other person.”

“Except those guys,” I reminded him.

“And me,” he said, not happy about it. “I was at my high school, doing my normal thing, when practically the whole damned school does a Houdini and vanishes.”

“Except you,” I clarified.

“Look, man, I’ll tell you all about it, but I was hoping I could snag a ride with you and get out of here.”

I looked behind the truck. “Are they going to look for you? You need to tell anyone you’re leaving?”

“Those guys? No way. They can go f—”

I held up my hand. “I can take you wherever you need to go, but I’m heading back to my street right now to meet my friends.”

“I’m cool with whatever,” he replied. “Anywhere but here.”

“Well, watch for my dog when you get in.”

He climbed in, but I had to pull Mr. Puppers from him as he got settled.

“Wow, he really likes you.”

After the kid shut the door, the golden retriever playfully jumped on the seat and practically wrestled with him. I took that as a good sign, as I wanted to believe the dog could sense bad people…though I noted at least one other security lapse of his—Carmen. Still, I didn’t hold it against him, since I hadn’t noticed the imposter, either.

“Mr. Puppers,” I said in a stern voice. “Give him a break!”

The dog listened to me by sitting next to the boy.

“Holy milk bones, Batman. I think I know this dog. He belongs to my friend Tyler.”

I put the truck in gear and pulled away, aware that my hasty stoppage and squealing tires might have attracted attention from the group of Chinese residents back there.

“Was his last name Farmington?”

“Yeah, Tyler Farmington. Jeez, he was in my Dungeons and Dragons campaign this whole last semester.”

Mr. Puppers tested the limits of my command by scooching as close as possible to the kid while putting his head on his chest.

“Oh, fine, you can play with him,” I said.

As if he understood me, the dog hopped on his rear legs and outright hugged the boy.

“I guess he really does know you.” I had to remind myself the dog was lost in this apocalyptic nightmare, same as me. Just as I was glad to have someone familiar in my life, Carmen, he was equally happy to find a friend.

We drove for a couple of minutes before the pup finally settled in next to him.

“Is Tyler still around?” he asked without much hope in his voice.

“He isn’t at his house. If he was at school, maybe…”

“Then he’s gone,” the kid replied. “I wasn’t in his class when it happened, but I looked around the school for my buddies before I left. There were a few rando underclassmen left, but there were mostly seniors walking around.”

“Were some of them of Chinese heritage?” I asked, trying to slide another piece of the puzzle into place.

“A few, yeah, but I wasn’t friends with them, so we mostly nodded to each other and moved on to find people we knew.”

“What’s your name?” I asked. “I’m Frank.”

“Wayne. My mom named me after John Wayne, so there would be no mistaking that I was from here.”

“Do you like John Wayne movies?” I asked, suddenly interested. My pop always watched them, usually on the days he wasn’t in the garage working on one car or another.

“Never caught one, no,” he replied.

“Never! That’s outrageous.”

He laughed. “I spend my life unbothered, moisturized, happy, and in my lane. Old time movies aren’t part of that.”

“I just figured with your mom calling you that…”

“The oldest I go for entertainment is the nineteen-eighties. Aliens. Terminator. My D-and-D game.”

“I think the Duke died before the eighties,” I said, watching the road but trying to remember when the actor passed away. Without my phone to look it up, I couldn’t say for sure.

“He was called the Duke?” Wayne asked. “That’s badass.”

“He was pretty badass,” I agreed.

We shared a bit of small talk on the final leg of the drive, mostly about Tyler and Mr. Puppers, but I asked him to stay silent as I rolled off the road and went into the woods. The construction people had intended to put in another subdivision south of ours, but it looked as if the project had been abandoned, as they’d only cleared the land for one street, and that had never progressed past a gravel path. I used that as a jumping-off point to get into the woods and come at my street from a different way.

I watched for lights in all directions, but mostly to the east, where we’d spotted the pair of Carmens.

“You haven’t seen any weird priests, by chance, have you?” I asked while I idled the truck and watched my street through the trees.

“I’ve seen all kinds of weird dudes,” he said like it happened every day. “First, shortly after lots of kids fell out of the world, these guys show up and pull the hottest girl in the school out the front door. Never saw her again, which sucked. Then I see a pair of priests, seriously, dressed in black robes, hats, and everything. They came in a hurry and took a bunch of students out another door… I think a bus was waiting for them.”

“And you didn’t go with them?”

“Hell no. Aren’t you paying attention? Something fishy is going on. We’ve got to assume everyone is hostile out here until we determine who are the good guys.”

I didn’t see anything unusual on the street, so I drove slowly in that direction, but his wording gave me pause.

“You got in the truck without a second thought. What if I was a bad guy?”

“Oh, you’re not. I wasn’t sure, at first, since you almost ran me over, but I knew the second I got in and saw good ‘ol Puppers here. Tyler’s dog is trained to sniff out evil. At least, that’s what he always told me.”

“That’s all it takes for you? What if I tricked Mr. Puppers with promises of endless Pop-Tarts in order to trick you?” I didn’t want to prove that I was a bad guy, but I was thinking the kid was using a strange guide on which to base important life decisions. That seemingly left him vulnerable to be tricked, like painting “Free Candy” on the side of a van, down by the river.

“Pop-Tarts? His favorite snack is Twinkies, same as Tyler’s. In fact, he used to do this thing where he would take Kit-Kat spears and jam them into the torpedo tube of a Twinkie and then yank it out covered in cream sugar.”

Mr. Puppers’ head was up, and his ears swiveled around at hearing his favorite words used over and over.

I had to laugh. “Isn’t a Kit-Kat covered in sugar already?”

“Double the sugar is double the taste,” he chuckled, before getting quiet again, as if remembering where Tyler had gone.

I drove in silence for a moment, but I couldn’t end it there.

“Does diabetes run in his family?” I asked. “Because I think it might start with him.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. That guy is always screwing around—was always—is always…”

For the first time, I heard the sadness.

“Come on, we’re almost at my place. We don’t have any Twinkies, but I promise you, Mr. Puppers will thank you even more when you give him some P-Ts,” I snickered, not wanting to use the word to tempt the dog again until we had some.

We drove through the narrow line of cars on the bridge, then turned down Barracuda Bay, where we were consolidating our position. I drove to the end of the street and parked at the circle, where the vans, dump truck, and tractor waited in the dark.

I turned off the engine and expected to get out, but Wayne kept chatting.

“I said everyone fell out of the world earlier. Where do you think they really went? Are all my friends dead? My family, too?”

“I take it you went to your house? Are your parents—”

“Yeah, both of them, my sisters, too.”

“Were your parents Chinese?”

“My real parents, yes, but not my adopted ones. They were red-blooded Floridians.” He laughed in that distant tone again. I had to help him through this.

“Well, I don’t want to give you any false hope, that’s not what I do, but I also ran into one of those creepy priests. Even got to talk to him. He told me the people taken from us have been repositioned, moved somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I didn’t get that out of him.”

“Out of him? What, were you interrogating him or something?”

“Yeah, kinda.” I thought to my street one block over. In the morning, I could show him the wreckage of the bus, and it would all become clear to him. For now, I had to explain it in simple terms. “There are bad guys operating these big aircraft that zap people away. I saw it happen with my own eyes. The only person not zapped was the priest…” I thought it over for a bit. “…and possibly people of Chinese origin.”

“Not everyone left alive in my school was Chinese, though. It seemed random.”

“Yeah, I can’t figure out the pattern, but I’m working on it.”

“Can’t you ask him?”

I chuckled a bit. “That ship has sailed.”

“Wow. This is huge. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m going to find my friends and family.”

“I said almost the exact same thing.”

“You don’t mind if I stick around?” Wayne asked, unsure of the answer.

I rubbed Mr. Puppers behind the ears.

“Any friend of this guy is a friend of mine. We owe it to him to bring back Tyler and his whole family.”

“I’m in. Sign me up. Whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes.” I nodded.

CHAPTER 10

“Knock-knock, Frank,” a woman’s voice said to me.

I knew I was asleep on the circle, with my friends—including the new guy, Wayne—but I also knew I was awake in my dream. I’d heard the man saying those words a couple of times already. Or I’d heard actual knocking… It was hard to remember.

“Hello?” I called out.

I was back in the dream world, on top of a cliff. A turbulent sea spread out below me, those underwater flashes of light jumping up and down the coast, like I remembered them from last time. Above, endless stars filled the sky. I stood on a flat spot covered in green grass, as if a putting green had been built on the edge of a fifty-foot cliff for some reason. A small waterfall poured down at the back. A hundred yards away, another patch of green perched on the cliff, and it had another waterfall behind it—

“Hello!” an old woman said.

I recoiled involuntarily. Not because she was scary, but because she wasn’t there a second ago. She simply popped into existence.

“Frank, you have to hurry. The end is here.” She pointed to the nearby waterfall. There was a modest tree growing next to it, and the water feature couldn’t have been much taller than the highest leaves, about thirty feet up, and it was getting smaller. At the rate it was collapsing, it seemed like it would complete its fall in less than ten minutes.

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“Everything has a beginning and an end. For reasons I don’t understand, a higher power has decided your time has come for a big ending.” She pointed again to the waterfall behind us but also motioned toward the one on the next platform and the one beyond that. “When they are all the way down, it is done.”

I chuckled, overwhelmed by the dream. “That’s great, but what do you want me to do about it?”

She smiled in a knowing way. “Gather allies to your neighborhood. Protect them. Abide until the end.”

“The end of what? We’ve already seen the end of the world, if you know about my neighborhood.”

She motioned to the dark forest of ancient, dead trees behind and above the rocky outcropping where the water came down. “Dark forces are about to come out. They feed on the chaos and destruction. They’ll want to clean up those left alive.”

“You’re talking about the Cleaners, right?”

“They were the appetizer, Frank. But we—” She froze as if listening for something, though he heard nothing but the ocean waves crashing against the rocks below. “I have to go.”

“Go where? Why am I here? What do you want me to do?”

“I told you. Prepare for evil to arrive.”

Just then, a dark shape came up at the edge of the grass, near the cliff over the ocean. It appeared to be a black root, maybe two of them, swinging in the breeze. Beyond them, giant waves surged out of the water and headed toward land, suggesting a storm was building.

The old woman saw it, too.

“Frank. Go. It’s all coming apart. Everything. Be ready for it.”

“Well, that’s a bit cryptic,” I said.

“Cryptic?” a new voice asked. “What does that mean?”

I woke up in the garage with Cookie looking down at me, asking me the question. My heart pumped as if I’d been running, though I knew that wasn’t possible.

“Are you alright?” she asked with a face draped with worry.

I sat up, trying to calm myself. I’d lost my good chair in the bus blast, but I’d found a similar one in the new home for our…watch system. A neighborhood watch system.

“Cryptic?” I answered, disoriented by the switcheroo.

“Yeah, you said ‘that’s a bit cryptic.’ I thought you were asleep, but obviously…” She pointed at me like it was simple.

“Yeah, I guess I was talking to myself.” The panting slowed down.

“Maybe. You mumbled a bunch before that.”

Had it been a dream after all? Did I want that strange woman to be right about something ominous coming to our street? Still, whatever her reasoning, I had already planned for a day of hardening our neighborhood for the next time someone with bad intentions came knocking.

Knocking. Why had there been knocking in my dream?

I got out of my sleeping chair and stretched. For the first time since the beginning, Mr. Puppers hadn’t slept on my lap, and I was a bit confused by that as well.

“Where’s the dog?” I asked.

“He’s with that new kid,” she answered. I found it hard to read her tone. Did she like Wayne? Dislike him? Did it matter?

“Okay, good,” I said, hiding my disappointment. Despite my Zen attitude, I couldn’t deny the old woman had lit a fire under me. We needed to prepare, and we needed to do it now. “We’ll gather everyone together this morning and go over our plans for the sunlight hours.”

“Do you want to get any more vans?” she asked. “There were a bunch still parked at that spot. I thought we were going to go back and get them last night.”

“We, uh, had some things come up.” I hadn’t told the group about the strange street filled with Chinese people. I wanted some time to think about the implications before I got them all scared about it. Now that I’d slept on it, and had my vision, I imagined that I’d made the right call about not going back out there. “Today, we’re going to focus on us.”

Getting operational vehicles might be useful down the road, but the bus explosion had taught me some quick lessons on defensive planning.

I stepped onto the driveway. It was positioned at the end of Barracuda Bay, across the circle, so it sat in exactly the same spot on the block as my house over on Clownfish. I could look down the length of the whole street and see what was going on. As it was, looking out there, I saw none of our people.

“Do we have someone on the roadblocks?” I asked.

Cookie nodded. “Like you wanted, Nate and Gunther are up there.”

“Doctor Sinclair?”

“Sleeping.”

“Wayne?”

“Gathering food for breakfast.”

“Carmen?”

“No idea,” she said dryly, perhaps still not over their personal beef.

I sighed. I hadn’t woken up in the new day with a fully functional group. Of everyone I’d found, they all seemed like they wanted to be there, but no one offered to take charge or do much more than what I asked. If anyone was going to pull things together to prepare, it would have to be me.

“Why don’t we call everyone together and I can lay out our plan.”

“Now?” Cookie asked. “Don’t you want to wait until after breakfast?”

“No, we’ll eat and talk at the same time. We’ll call them breakfast plans. We can do another one at dinner and call it—”

“Dinner plans.” She smiled.

“You get it,” I replied.

Once they were all there, I shared a moment with Mr. Puppers, comforted that he hadn’t forgotten me entirely, said hello to Wayne, then introduced him formally to the others.

“You saw him last night, but let’s use the sunlight to welcome Wayne to our group. I found him on the road while I was driving around looking for people. It turns out he knows Mr. Puppers and the boy who lives in that house.” I pointed to my left, behind the row of houses on Barracuda, to the two-story house that was next to Mr. Drummond’s place. “When the big plane came through and erased everyone, he was at his high school with the teenage boy who lives there.”

Everyone gave him warm handshakes, then he went back to petting Mr. Puppers.

“I thought you were Tyler’s neighbor,” Wayne said to me. “How do you know him if you live over here?”

“Carmen and I live over there, but there are too few of us to defend the whole street properly, since it butts up to the forest, so we moved one block over. You’ll notice we cut off the bridges at the other end, and this end is surrounded by water. Actually, since this street is in the middle of all the canals, you can take a boat all the way around the whole block. That makes it a little easier to defend than our street.”

“Are you and Carmen married?” he asked.

I must have had a blank look on my face, since he then explained his own line of questioning.

“You said you two live over on Ty’s street.”

I avoided looking at Carmen, as there was a complicated dynamic between us that I was struggling to hide. I couldn’t risk looking into her eyes, as I’d fall for her siren call as surely as the ancient sailors fell for those mythical sirens while out at sea. It was difficult to pretend I had no romantic interest in the beautiful woman despite not knowing her real identity. She was, like those sirens, mythical, made up.

“No, we are just neighbors,” I said, careful to leave emotion out of it.

“Cool. I get it. We’re fighting to protect our turf. I should ask then…since there are no police anymore, can I get one of those cool shotguns? I used them a bunch of times in World of Zombies.”

“But not in real life?” I asked.

“No.” He sounded defeated.

“Well, it’s your lucky day. We can’t afford to have anyone do nothing here, and the whole world has left their firearms behind, so you’ll be armed up, and I’ll give you some shooting practice to make good on it.”

I’d said those words in the presence of Cookie and Faith. Both of the women had steadfastly refused to even entertain the idea of wielding firearms. We had so few people already, their refusal to help defend us was going to be a problem.

“First things first. We are temporarily on Barracuda, so we have solid protection from whatever threats are out there, but I want to build connections back to Clownfish, so we can move back and forth without needing to go to the end of the block and cross the bridge.”

Gunther now carried his own notepad, so he could communicate better with us. He started writing as I continued.

“There are so few of us, it’s going to be hard to control this entire street, so I want us to have an easy out, a way to retreat, so we don’t get caught like we did with the school bus.”

“School bus?” Wayne asked.

“Yeah, we’ll fill you in when this meeting is over.”

“That’s chill,” he answered.

Gunther showed me his sheet. He’d drawn a small rowboat with a stick figure pulling on a rope over his head. It demonstrated a way to cross the canal using a taut rope strung between two anchor points.

“Yeah, this is a good step one,” I said, showing the others. “But the reason I wanted the tractor is to make a real bridge between the two streets. I want to make it so we can drive the truck across.”

Gunther sat back, whistling the ‘wow’ tune.

“I’ve been thinking about this from all angles. There aren’t enough of us to be everywhere on this street. We need to sleep and rest and eat, further limiting our effectiveness. If an attack develops, and they try to force their way through the roadblock, we’ll have a way to escape. Otherwise, we’d have to cross by swimming or on boats, both of which will take extra time and leave us vulnerable when we reach the other side.”

“What do you want us working on, sir?” Nate asked. “I have to go check on my dogs first.”

I took a deep, cleansing breath.

“Look, people, we’re in a life-or-death situation here. I know you’ve all come to me in different ways, but here’s the deal. If you are staying here on my street, you’re going to do this my way. No more double-dealing, no more hiding the truth, no more wandering off to do your own thing. We’re going to have schedules, duties, and routines, get it?”

They nodded with little enthusiasm, as if I’d taken them by surprise by my harsh tone.

“We’re going to have duty rosters sitting on a table in this garage behind me, so at any point of the day, I can look up where you are and what you’re doing.”

My blood boiled hotter than I’d intended, but these were things that had been weighing on me for a while. If these people had been there since the beginning, like neighbors on the same street, we’d already be rowing in the same direction, since we would all be trying to defend a common interest. These folks, with the exception of the real Carmen, had no shared interest in defending Clownfish, Barracuda, or any other street. They were all acting like transients only here for a visit.

“I need you to nod with a little excitement if you understand what I’m saying.”

Gunther was the first to acknowledge me.

The two boys were next.

The three women were last, but no less excited.

“Nate, I’ll build time so you can check on your dogs, okay, but I want to know where you are at all times. Plus, while you are out there, I want you to snoop around, keep an eye on our borders, that type of thing. That way, your travels out there will help us in here.”

“Oh, I never thought of it that way,” he agreed.

“Gunther will be our tractor guy. I know I mentioned the bridge, but that is going to be a multi-day project, since it will take a lot of fill material to complete it. In the meantime, I want you to dig trenches and pile dirt by the two houses closest to the bridges. Those are going to be where we set up our strong points. It’s where we’ll meet anyone who arrives using the surface streets.”

He flashed a thumbs-up gesture.

“Doctor Sinclair, you and the other ladies are going to learn to shoot. You don’t have to get in any gun battles if you don’t want to, but one condition for being a part of this group is the ability to defend our partners, okay? That means knowing how to load a weapon, shoot it, and clean it.”

“Whatever you say, Frank,” she replied.

Cookie also nodded in agreement. ‘Mean Frank’ was getting through to them.

After a brief pause to change my tone back to normal, I brought up the next topic.

“Right, so I don’t know if I should tell you all this, but I’ve been having these weird dreams. I think it’s coming from all the stress of keeping us alive in this strange, empty world, but on the off chance it is real, I want you to know. I believe we are about to be in the fight of our lives. That’s why I’m being a hard-ass about this defense stuff.”

In one of those odd moments of shared experience, we all took a moment to look around, at the sky, at the trees in the woods. The sun was behind a bank of clouds at the moment, and the breeze was light but strong enough to take the edge off the humid heat of the day. There were no sounds, no gunshots, no explosions in the distance. It was easy to imagine we were living in a truly empty world, with no threats of any kind, but we all knew that wasn’t the case. Not after seeing the compound on the far side of the woods…not after seeing the pair of Carmens.

While Carmen looked outward, I stole a glance at her, wondering who she really was. Wondering how I was going to expose her without endangering my real neighbor. Wondering what entanglements my real neighbor was enduring at this moment. Peaceful outside, yes, but there was no question we were part of a larger war. A spy for that war stood not five feet away from me.

“Okay, speech over. If you don’t like these new rules, take it up with the homeowners’ association president,” I joked.

Everyone laughed.

The race to fortify was on.

CHAPTER 11

It was about three in the afternoon when Gunther finished the first two ditches at the front end of the street. If one thought of the end of Barracuda as the junction at the top of the letter ‘T,’ Poseidon Pier was the crossbar and, since there were canals on both sides of Barracuda, they went under Poseidon on each side of the intersection. I had him dig in the two yards closest to those bridges, leaving piles of dirt next to the houses so guards could move between the holes and the garages without being seen. We also parked a couple cars in the yards, behind the ditches, to provide cover if an enemy arrived at both roadblocks at the same time.

Each of the bridges also had cars parked on them, with chains and heavy ropes linked between them and onto the side of the bridge, so it would not be easy for any vehicle, even a tractor, to push them out of the way. The bridge closest to the front of the subdivision was totally blocked, while the other one leading over to Clownfish still had one lane open for us to use.

I considered blowing both bridges, but I wasn’t sure I had the resources to get it done. It was possible I could use the Tannerite we’d taken from the Kingston brothers, but I wasn’t sure it would do the job, and I didn’t want to waste it trying to find out. Also, I couldn’t even think about blowing them until we had a crossing over the canal at the end of Barracuda, so we could escape. Until then, the tangle of vehicles at the bridges would have to suffice.

As soon as Gunther parked the tractor about halfway down the street, out of view, he began walking toward the circle. That left me alone with Carmen, who was keeping guard on the bridge between Barracuda and Albacore.

I didn’t know what to say to her, and I wondered if she picked up on my hesitation. The last time we’d been together without me knowing who she was, to spy on the house belonging to the Cleaners, we’d been chatty and maybe even a bit flirty. I’d been ready to tear those guards in half to get to her when I believed she was being assaulted in that back room. I’d saved her from falling in the canal full of alligators. We’d spent a long, stressful night traveling in that boat.

But now…even though I’d been trying to play it smooth, she had to sense something had changed between us.

“Frank, I believe you about your dreams.”

I had been expecting her to comment about our personal lives, so I welcomed the new topic.

“Do the others not believe me?” I wondered aloud, curious about the group dynamics beyond what I could see with my own eyes.

“I don’t know, honestly. I mean, you have to admit it does sound a little wild, you know.”

“It’s wild for me, too.”

“But I’ve seen more bad things than I could ever explain…” She paused for a few moments. “I mean, with my bastard of a husband.”

“Oh, sure,” I agreed. “Sorry.”

“He manipulated me. Made me do things that I’m not proud of. In a lot of ways, my whole life these days is a reflection of the time I spent with him.”

“Where is he right now?” I asked. I wasn’t sure this was the real Carmen, but the last thing I needed was for a domestic dispute to come to our cul-de-sac. In fact, that would be an epic disaster, since the angry husband would almost certainly pick up on the fact this wasn’t his real wife.

“I have no idea. In Miami, I guess.”

“You were from Fort Lauderdale, right?” I asked.

“No, Miami,” she clarified.

I’d tried to catch her in a lie, but she’d told me she was from Miami twice now. Her mother lived there.

We’d placed some cardboard on the bottom of the ditch. She moved from her piece over to mine. “Frank, I don’t say this about very many things, but I’m scared of where all this is going. Do you really think there are still people out there trying to hurt us?”

I took a step back, which was not what I would have done before learning she was an imposter.

“What is wrong with you?” She pouted. “I’m laying my heart out.”

I clenched my jaw, not sure how to respond. However, I was saved by engine noise coming from Bayside Road.

“Down!” I yelled, loud enough for Nate to hear me over in the other ditch. Behind us, I could see the street all the way to the circle. Gunther was able to dig down into the sod in a wedge shape and lift the dirt into a pile, but it was only effective as a blocker from one direction.

In seconds, a familiar old Charger came into view. I couldn’t blurt out that I’d seen it before or this woman would know I’d been to the Lollipop Neighborhood and the Clubhouse of Doom. She’d suspect I knew her identity…

“What does this guy want?” I asked the wind. I had to trust my friends not to give it away, either.

The driver slowed at the entrance to our subdivision, and it looked as if he might try to turn in our direction on Poseidon Pier, but he must not have liked the look of the roadblocks, so he veered back onto the road and accelerated north. We could see it between the houses on Albacore for a time, but then it left our line of sight.

“What do you think he wanted?” Carmen asked in an even voice.

She had to know who it was.

When I turned, her face was covered in tears.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, wary of her motives.

She crouched with her back against the wet dirt. Her hands were in front of her, on her knees, as if she was praying. I took a chance about what was bothering her.

“Do you know who that is?”

She cocked her head toward me. “Why would you even ask that?”

I shrugged. “You weren’t crying before they came by…”

Carmen slowly nodded. “No, that’s fair.”

I peeked over the top of the dirt pile, to be sure no one had gotten out of the Charger without me noticing. As I studied the area near the orange sign at the start of our subdivision, everything seemed quiet and normal. Even the hot rod’s engine had faded to a distant nothing.

“You can tell me what’s bothering you,” I coaxed, hoping she would come clean and save me a lot of trouble.

She looked up at me with sad eyes, and I wanted to comfort her by holding the woman in my arms, but I had to stay strong and distant, or I might find myself drawn in by an imposter. “What’s bothering me is that we are such a tiny force among an endless world of bad men. You saved me from a terrible fate in that house, but only barely. You can’t be my bodyguard around the clock, Frank.”

It wasn’t what I was hoping for.

“You’re worried about men taking you away from me?” I asked with some surprise.

“Yes. And Doctor Sinclair. And Cookie. I want to believe you can protect us, but there is nothing but evil out there.” She gestured over the dirt pile.

“That’s why we have to stick together,” I reminded her. “This whole thing with the street…this is for you guys, not just for me.”

“The red car will come back. Other guys like that priest will come back. There is no stopping our destinies, Frank.”

“You can help me,” I pleaded, dancing around her role in duplicating my neighbor. If I could convince her to come clean, to play the double agent, it would change everything. “I know you have knowledge that can help us defeat these bad men. You learned something when you were out there exploring, didn’t you?”

Carmen had disappeared for a couple of days, so this wasn’t tipping my hand that I knew more than she thought. From her point of view, I was only suggesting that her travels had given her insights she refused to share with me.

She smiled. “You must have angels walking next to you all the time…”

It was an odd statement.

“I don’t know about angels, but I have friends.” I held out my hand to help her up from the crouched position. “In case you haven’t figured it out, you are my friend, Carmen. I’m building all these defenses so you can live your life with us. We all work together to keep each other safe from whatever might come down our street.”

“Like that red car,” she guessed.

“Red, white, black. Any color car that comes at us, we’ll be ready.”

I couldn’t stop her from hugging me. It seemed wrong to manipulate her in this fashion, but I reminded myself this was for an important cause. The more I made this woman feel at home, and that she could trust me, the better chance I had of finding the real Carmen.

“You’ve saved my life multiple times…I don’t deserve to have you as a friend.” She squeezed me even harder. I did my best to resist, but I didn’t want to act strange, either.

“It means we all trust each other,” I explained.

“I know,” she said, pulling away, then hurrying out of the pit.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I need time to think,” she replied, barely looking back at me.

I had to let her go. My attempts to win her over seemed to fail, and I would have to rethink my strategy for our next interaction. In the meantime, I had to focus on the defense of the street, since I hadn’t been lying to her about my desire to protect them all. I’d thrown down the gauntlet in explaining everyone had to contribute to our defense, and that went double for me.

On my notepad, I wrote down the next things we needed to do. First, after seeing the red Charger veer in and then leave, I saw a new problem.

“We need to set up roadblocks on the other side of Bayside,” I muttered as I wrote on the paper. I’d set up the roadblocks on our bridges, and it did serve to keep us marginally safer from vehicle traffic, but their presence made it obvious there were living, breathing people in our neighborhood. They wouldn’t need to look at water consumption to find us, anyone would figure it out by looking at how we were changing our environment. By putting a few more roadblocks in nearby subdivisions, ours wouldn’t stand out as much.

“Next, until we get the secret water crossing completed, we should have a fallback house.” I scrawled on the paper. If we got attacked, my plan was to cross the canal and run into the woods. The El Camino was hidden out there, ready to roll, but we needed somewhere to go in the event of a true emergency. Somewhere like…the dog house.

That’s what I was calling Nate’s collection of rescue animals. If everything went to pot, and my people got out safe, that’s where we could go to catch our breath and make our next plans. If things got really bad, I was planning to open the backyard gate, so all the pups could run free.

I tapped the paper but didn’t write.

“And water. We have to find running water.”

I wasn’t sure how to tackle this problem. Father Mackinaw had made it clear how he found us, and I had to assume someone was still watching the instruments at the water company, so they could report on whether anyone was still drawing clean water through the pipes. I’d put a stop to that in our houses, hoping to disappear from their reports, but we had to get water from somewhere. In the near term, I thought maybe we could move around the area and use water from random homes, but long-term, we needed to have our own private source, like from a well.

I put ‘Well’ on its own page, thinking I would revisit that topic and consider how to find one. Surely there had to be a working well somewhere close by…

Looking up, I saw Carmen go into a home at the far end of the street. I found myself confused by our interaction and no longer as sure of myself about who she was. Could she be the real Carmen, unaware there were clones of her out there, and thus completely unaware why I was acting strangely toward her? Had I mistaken the identity of those two women back at the clubhouse?

I shook it off.

No way I could be that far off. I knew what I saw. Those two women might not be this Carmen, but they were exact duplicates of her, no doubt about it.

On the next page, I put a new heading: ‘Carmen?’

The question mark was intentional. I couldn’t write my true thoughts on the sheet, in case she found my notebook, but the punctuation said all that needed to be said about her. Seeing her name gave me a way to focus my thoughts on her while remaining clinical about why I was doing it…

I couldn’t tell her this, but I was now convinced that solving the Carmen question would be the key to our survival.

CHAPTER 12

The low-hanging fruit of our defense planning was the water crossing. I’d learned from studying the relatively clear waters of the local canals that they weren’t as wide or deep as some of the others across Bayside. Though they were all interconnected, the exact specs were largely dependent on whatever construction company dredged out the channels. In my subdivision, the canals were only about five feet deep—enough to drive a small boat with an outboard motor. The size was limited by the clearance of the bridges all around the streets. Sailboats were a no-go. Boats that sat higher than about five feet were also no-goes. Therefore, the builder must have figured there was no use making the canals any deeper than necessary.

Still, it was thirty feet across, and the fill required to reach the other side probably needed to be twice as wide as a typical road lane to account for the pile of rocks and mud of the land bridge. Also, for my plan to work, I wanted the crossing to remain about a foot under the surface, so it wasn’t obvious what it was. Thus, I figured I’d need about forty feet in length, sixteen in width, and maybe four in depth.

When I called Gunther and Dr. Sinclair to talk about what we needed, the giant used his pen and paper to declare he had never done anything like this. Faith expressed the same thing. None of us knew a thing about building a water crossing. Even my length estimates were probably way off…

“I think what we need is rocks,” I suggested. “Seems like anything we build is going to need a firm foundation of rocks.”

“Big rocks at the bottom, medium rocks in the middle, and smaller ones on top,” Faith explained.

“I thought you never did this before?” I joked.

“When I’m not managing supercolliders, I watch a lot of home and garden TV,” she replied.

We’d spent enough time chatting with each other that everyone knew the basic background of all the others. Gunther gave her a look of interest. Perhaps he wanted to know more details about her fancy-pants job in Denver, but, as usual, he said nothing.

“And they did stuff like this on those shows?” I asked.

“Not this, exactly, but I did see them build little walkways in people’s yards. We can’t tamp down the mud at the bottom, so we’ll need to drop larger rocks to create a solid base layer. Then, add smaller rocks as we get closer to the surface where you want the tires to hit.”

“Yeah, that seems logical.”

“I think the shores on each side are already built-up with giant rocks, so we don’t have to worry about the approaches holding together.”

“Maybe your calling was canal work,” I mused.

“No thanks. After setting up experiments that tapped into the origins of the entire universe, moving rocks feels like I’ve gone back to caveman times.”

I’d had similar sentiments about losing technology after the EMP, though not with quite the same eloquence.

“So, where do you want me to drive the dump truck?” she went on.

“Out there.” I pointed to the woods to our south. “You won’t have to go far. A homebuilder came in and laid down a road into the woods a few hundred yards past the canal, but they never finished it. All that’s there is a gravel road, with rocks for the taking.”

If I had unlimited time, I would cut down telephone poles and lash them together, creating a wall for each side of my underwater bridge. That would help us fill the crossing more quickly and with less rock. However, with our limited manpower, limited power tools, and limited time, I figured our best bet was to dig and dump gravel. It would mean the bridge would be a lot wider than necessary, so it wouldn’t sink in and spread out when the tires of a truck went over it, but they could get started right away.

I decided to put Gunther in charge of the project once I was sure they knew what I wanted and where I wanted it. Faith started the dump truck and chased Gunther, who drove the front loader.

Nate went with them, riding with Faith, to act as security.

While we were down a few people, I called the rest together, to ensure we had coverage on our defenses.

“Cookie, you keep watch at the front gate, okay?”

“But I haven’t learned to use a gun yet,” she protested.

“Just yell if you see something,” I razzed.

“I guess I could do that.”

The girl walked off, leaving me with Carmen again. Wayne, the new kid, wasn’t there.

“Do you know where Wayne is?” I asked.

“I haven’t seen him,” she replied. Then, looking between the houses to the area I wanted to build the bridge, she asked, “Tell me again why you aren’t making a bridge you can see?”

We stood together looking at the canal from our spot on the street.

“The trucks can cross a stream through a foot or two of still water, so we only need to build up a platform about that high.”

“Yeah, but why?”

I wondered if she was gathering intel on what we were doing, reporting it all to some handler hiding in the woods or at the compound. Despite knowing this, I decided to tell her the truth, since it would become obvious to her the second it was complete.

“We’re going to collect all the boats we can scrape up and lay them out to form a walking bridge across the canal. To anyone looking on the outside, they’ll think we have a flimsy crossing barely able to support us on foot. That will force them to focus their attack on the bridges, if they want to use vehicles. Meanwhile, if we need to escape the attack, we can cut the boats loose, then drive over the shallow crossing hiding just under the waves.”

“That’s genius,” she answered.

“Eh, it’s been a team effort.”

“No, you’re the lynchpin. The mastermind.”

I cocked my head at her. “What are you saying?”

“I wouldn’t feel half as safe if you weren’t here, Frank. I can get along with the others, even Cookie, but I wouldn’t stick around if you decided to leave, or if you got—” She choked up, and I knew what she was trying to say. This was another one of those times where I might have swept her into my arms to comfort her, but I resisted it again.

“I’m glad you feel that way… I’m sorry I can’t stay and talk.” I walked away, not like I was trying to get away from her, but as if I had other things to do. To make it true, I called out for Wayne, who had gone missing.

I found him in Luke’s garage, playing with Mr. Puppers. I suspected he’d been inside his friend’s house, snooping, since I hadn’t noticed him when I’d walked the street earlier.

“What are you doing in there?” I asked as I came up the driveway.

He held a giant yellow cowboy hat. When I say giant, I mean it was about three feet across and almost as tall. “I can’t believe Tyler kept his Halloween costume. He came to school dressed like Turd Ferguson last year… It was so hilarious. In fact, he used to have a podium that he would attach to himself. I’m going to go inside and see if I can find it.”

He put the hat on while giggling.

“Whoa, partner. Hang on.”

Wayne stood there looking at me, daring me not to laugh.

“Okay, that’s pretty funny,” I allowed, “but we’ve got a lot we need to do to watch the street, since three of our people are out.”

He sobered up a little. “I thought I was on free time, since I’m not familiar with your Jedi ways.”

“And how would you learn our ways if you didn’t participate?”

“Good point,” he allowed. “So, I should come out right now?”

I waved for him to follow.

He set the hat carefully on a table as if he intended to revisit it the first chance he got. My heart needed a seatbelt for all the whiplash it was visiting upon me. First, Carmen’s double tries to whittle her way into my heart, playing upon my emotions, then Wayne shows up in our lives and immediately finds his way to the humor section of Luke’s garage.

Despite my clear intentions to make a survival group out of them, I could see it was going to take a lot of effort and patience.

“Follow me.”

We went to a house at the end of the circle where I’d brought over a lot of our guns, ammo, and cleaning equipment. When we were both inside, I showed him a small table where I’d staged the weapons.

“Pick up a shotgun, Wayne, so we can take some practice shots.”

“Right now? That rocks!”

I took him behind the house and set up a few empty soda cans at the edge of the canal, then I made him load his weapon while on the back patio of the house. It felt a bit like being in my back yard, except this one had the benefit of the waterway behind it.

“Aim at those cans, but keep in mind your shots will travel into the woods…” I pointed to the forest. “Normally, we don’t want to endanger any people or any animals.”

“So I might hit a dead bird,” he snickered.

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.” I had to admit few, if any, of the birds were still alive over there. They’d spent the past week walking around, chewing every scrap of green, then they’d died as one big flock.

While he fired at the targets as instructed, it dawned on me how nothing was as it should be anymore. I knew this was the apocalypse, the end of the world, but nothing made sense. I couldn’t even enjoy an afternoon in the sunshine shooting guns without being reminded how ugly the world had become beyond the effects of the EMP.

Wayne went through a box of twenty-five shells before I asked him the all-important question.

“You feel comfortable using that?”

“Yeah, I think so. Can I shoot another box?” He smiled, begging me with his eyes to let him go crazy. I had a natural inclination to preserve our ammunition, but the entirety of South Florida had ammo sitting in their empty homes, so our supply was effectively endless.

“Go crazy, kid,” I answered.

The dump truck came back while I watched Wayne shoot.

I walked to the front of the houses as Faith got the dump truck situated on the street, so she could back between the houses where I needed her to unload the gravel.

“Everything go okay?” I yelled up to her.

She looked down at me. “Gunther showed me some tricks to driving this, including how to dump it out. I’m beginning to think he’s driven both dump trucks and tractors.”

“Yeah, he’s been solid. Is Nate with him?”

“Yep. Keeping guard.”

I briefly worried that by keeping Nate behind she had to drive back by herself, but I wondered if I was being overly protective. Looking back at the dead birds in the woods, and thinking about how wrong this world had become, I decided I wasn’t being paranoid enough.

“Hey, next time you come back, why don’t you have both those guys ride with you, so no one gets left behind or left alone.”

“You sure? It isn’t that far…”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” If I’d said no now and something happened to her, I would never forgive myself. It was a small thing to have the two men ride with her, but it would make me feel a thousand times better. We had so few people in our group, I couldn’t afford to lose anyone.

“Okay, Frank, that sounds smart.”

Once released, she backed the dump truck between the houses and into the back yard. I guided her to the edge of the canal and had her stop at a point above the rock-fortified bank.

“That’s the spot!” I told her.

She raised the bed of the dump truck, and the rocks shot out the tailgate, splashing loudly into the canal. It stirred the mud and muck along the bank and spread waves up and down the canal, but it seemed as if she’d done a solid job putting the load where it was supposed to be.

Once the bed was back down, she moved forward, coming next to where I stood.

“Hey, I’m telling you, if the collider thing doesn’t work out, you have a future hauling rock.”

“Still a hard pass,” she said through the window, blushing, nonetheless.

“Well, carry on!”

She drove to the street and headed out for another load.

I walked back over to Wayne, who was reloading the shotgun.

He was all smiles. “So, tell me all the hot gossip, Grandpa Frank. Who is dating who? I know you aren’t living with her, but are you at least dating Carmen? She seems to be the one who likes you the most.”

I held up a hand, certain I hated some of the words that had come out of his mouth. “Hey there, partner. I’m not a grandpa. Don’t call me that.”

“Oh, sorry. Me and Ty always call older people grandpas and grandmas. He’s the one who makes most of the nicknames…”

I clenched my jaw, telling myself not to come down too hard on him.

“It’s fine, just don’t call me that.”

“I’ll think of something else.” He saluted.

“And stop thinking of this as summer camp, with crushes and whatever. You are here to do work, right?”

“I think I’ll hit on Cookie,” he said without batting an eye at my words of caution.

I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Hey, kid! You in there?”

Cookie was a pretty girl, no doubt about it, but I’d met her under different circumstances, and I knew she was more transactional about relationships…focusing on finding older men she could use as sugar daddies. Those were practically her words, not mine.

His eyes refocused. “Sorry. I’m living the dream, sir. Guns, girls, and hot rods free for the taking. How much better do you want it?”

I cracked up at the turn of events. Here I was worrying about every little thing and how we’d spiraled into a world of apocalyptic nightmares, and this new kid saw everything exactly the opposite, as opportunities to live life to the max.

Maybe we were going to be alright after all.

CHAPTER 13

I called a ‘dinner plans’ meeting that evening, so everyone stopped what they were doing and met near the roadblocks. Since we didn’t have nearly enough people to split our forces between a lookout and a meeting, I decided to have the meeting at our lookout spot. I wasn’t fond of having everyone in one location, but it didn’t seem likely anyone was going to drop a bomb on us and take us all out at once.

Gunther and Nate actively watched the road at the first house on Barracuda while the rest of us stood a few feet away in the garage.

“Okay. Doctor Sinclair, can you tell us how things are coming with the gravel?”

We stood in a semi-circle, since the garage was otherwise empty.

“Sure. Gunther was great with the tractor, and he helped us get about ten loads done this afternoon. He also figured out that we need about a hundred cubic meters of gravel to do the whole job, which means we are about halfway done.”

“That’s amazing,” I replied.

I then explained a lot of what we’d been doing the past several days, so Wayne would be up to speed. That proved difficult, since he continually looked away or made like his mind was anywhere but our meeting.

“Wayne, you following me?” I pressed, knowing what the problem was. I’d discovered over the past few years that this generation of kids had a terrible problem with attention span, since their whole lives revolved around phones and talking on social media. My sister had told me that, my truck drivers had told me that, and I’d observed the same thing any time I went out in public.

“Sure thing, Master Frank.” He smiled, as if to see my reaction. For some reason, he’d been trying to figure out a nickname for me.

“Nope. Try again.”

“Sure, sir,” he corrected.

“Cookie, did you and Wayne get all the boats lined up?” I asked.

I’d given the pair a light task, but an important one. Their job in the late afternoon had been to collect every small boat in the area and line them up across the canal where the rocks were going in. Our goal was to lash the boats together, put planks across them, and use them as an obvious footbridge. Unseen, the vehicle crossing underneath would remain hidden until we needed it.

“We got every single boat we could, even a bunch of kayaks that were just floating around.”

“Good job. I saw the result, too. I walked across your boat bridge without getting my feet wet. Good job.”

Wayne saluted happily, as if it had been all him.

“Good work, everyone. Listen, it’s going to be dark soon, and we really don’t know what’s going to happen tonight. It’s been two days since the bus blew up, and we still haven’t heard from Father Mackinaw’s bosses. Maybe he was bluffing about having people come looking for him, and for us, but we can’t be sure. When darkness falls, I want everyone to buddy up wherever you go. I want one of you on watch at all times, so the other person can get some rest.”

“I volunteer to sleep all night,” Nate joked.

He made me shake my head, though I knew he was kidding.

“You take turns doing both,” I clarified, to be certain no one could misinterpret my directive. “Watch for an hour, then sleep for an hour, and vice versa.”

Nate smiled to show he’d been joking.

“Right. And speaking of you, Nate, I want you and me to go over to your puppy farm.”

“You aren’t going to hurt them, are you?” he asked with worry.

“Hurt them?” I chuckled. “I want to go over there and feed them. I know if I didn’t go with you, you’d try to sneak out and do it yourself. We can’t have anyone going out there alone, got it?”

“I understand.” He exhaled, maybe thinking I was going to cut him off, rather than help. “Thanks, Frank.”

We broke up into two groups. Nate and I were going out on bikes, to be silent on the road, and the rest were going to hunker down and keep watch, eat dinner, and get some rest. I expected to be back before dark, at which time I was going to start the official watch schedule. Since there were now seven of us, this left five on Barracuda while the two of us went outside our turf.

“Frank, can I come with you?” Carmen asked.

“No, I need you to keep a lookout on these folks,” I jibed, trying to stay positive, though also firm in the idea I didn’t want her to come with us. Whoever she was, I wanted her here, rather than learning more about the surrounding streets. I’d secretly asked Gunther to keep an eye on her…

She didn’t look happy, but she seemed unwilling to press the issue in front of the others.

Nate and I set off on our bikes. They were easier to slip through the roadblock by Albacore Anchorage, saving us the trouble of riding all the way around one of the canals. There were no cars on Bayside Road, and we pedaled across that street into the empty subdivisions on the other side. After winding through a few in-between blocks, we came to the one that was literally barking.

“It sounds like a kennel,” I laughed.

We heard the dogs long before we saw them.

But when we came around to the last turn, we both skidded to a halt in the middle of the street. The same red Charger was parked on the grass right next to the side fence of the house where Nate had rounded up all the dogs. Two people stood by the fence, pointing at and taunting the angry dogs barking and howling at them on the other side.

“What the hell are they doing?” I wondered aloud.

“We have to stop them,” Nate insisted.

We were armed, so we had that going for us, but I wondered if it was worth tangling with the strangers.

“Wait a second—” I warned.

Before I could stop him, Nate was already wheeling toward them.

“Hold up!” I hissed.

The young guy got about fifty feet away before he changed his mind and tried to turn around. However, the people at the fence had caught sight of him and turned around to meet him.

“Dang it, kid, you’re going to get us both killed,” I complained, getting on my bike.

He did a loop around me and then dropped in by my side. I might have abandoned the whole effort and rode in the other direction, but it didn’t seem as if the strangers were armed. There was even an adolescent boy in the back seat. He stuck his head out the side window, first watching his friends, then watching us.

“Let me do the talking,” I whispered.

“As long as they don’t hurt my dogs,” he growled.

How he could flip a switch from mischievous kid to concerned kennel owner left me bewildered.

We rode to the start of the intersection and then stopped.

The two people, a man and a woman, stood on the far side, by their car.

“We don’t want any trouble,” I called out. We were both loaded with weapons, they could see them over our shoulders, but I didn’t want to get out the guns unless it came to that. It was far better to talk things through than immediately choose violence, especially in a world without doctors.

The man and woman were both dressed in business attire, like they’d come from the boardroom of a nearby corporation. The woman had long blonde hair, was tall and trim, with black slacks and a white blouse that accentuated her ripped arms, as if she was a fitness freak. The man was solid, too, with square shoulders and an even squarer jaw. He was clean-shaven with slicked-back black hair. He wore black cowboy boots as part of his black suit, with mirrored glasses hanging off the center button of his shirt. I’d sweated through my Hawaiian shirt about ten times today, so I had no idea how the couple appeared comfortable.

“We don’t want any difficulties either,” the man called back.

“Where are you guys from?” I asked, trying to be polite. I knew there was something sketchy about them, since Carmen had reacted so oddly when they passed us earlier. The car had been parked at the clubhouse where the Carmen clones were located, so I immediately mistrusted anything they said.

“Oh, a little bit of everywhere,” the man mused. “We were just passing by, searching for survivors, when we heard all these poor dogs calling out for help. Do you live here?”

The dogs now stood silent, watching the man and woman with wary eyes, which was curious.

“We live around,” I hedged. If they weren’t going to give me straight answers, there was no reason to give up anything real, either.

“Don’t take our dogs,” Nate demanded.

The man laughed. “This isn’t a hostage negotiation. You are free to tend to these animals as you please.” He waved for Nate to go visit his dogs, but I held him back.

“I saw you driving around,” I commented.

“Is that so,” the man replied in the same level tone.

I tried to get a better look at the kid in the back seat of the Charger, but he kept himself hidden by the rear C-pillar, so I could only see his straight white hair. Whoever these people were, they didn’t seem normal, but, to be fair, maybe there was no such thing as normal in the apocalypse.

“I guess you guys will want to be getting along,” I suggested. “These dogs are going to be well taken care of by my friend here.”

“Say no more. We’ll be on our way.”

The pair stepped back several paces, then turned to get in the car. The man went around the far side and climbed in, but the woman only opened her door. She stood there looking at me.

“You know, I should tell you when the new rules get put in place, you won’t be able to walk around on these streets like you are doing.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

She smiled. Even in the lower light of dusk, her bright teeth lit up her face. She was classically pretty, like she was a fitness model or something similar, but her voice shared none of that beauty. It was raspy and dry.

“The Sino-UN is almost here. We’ve been listening to the radio.”

“So have I,” I shot back. “What does the UN have to do with keeping the peace on a dead street in the middle of Florida?” Even though I’d heard it on the radio, I still couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening with the wider world. Where was the regular UN? Where was the United States military? Despite whatever that man broadcasting said, I believed we were still going to be rescued by the military before any foreign forces showed up on my street.

“The sinew,” she said the name with the same odd pronunciation as Father Mackinaw when he was talking to the bus driver, “has cleaned up the troublemakers, leaving a new, unspoiled world for those of us left over. I hope we can be good neighbors, cutie.”

I found the flirtatious term ugly coming from her.

“We’ll see,” was all I could allow.

The kid in the back seat was looking at me again, and I placed him as the same youngster who’d been sitting at the kids’ table back at the clubhouse. I couldn’t see his whole face, but I got the sense he was scowling. I also experienced the sense he was emitting…hatred toward me.

I shook my head. That couldn’t be true. It was my imagination running away, due to the darkening shadows of the impending nightfall. The couple had been strange, yeah, but that didn’t give me free rein to throw the kid in the same category.

He said something to the woman, then leaned back, out of my view. The woman immediately got in the driver’s seat of the car, but she glanced over to me one last time.

“We’ll see you and your dogs again real soon,” the woman said with no pleasure.

The driver backed out of the grass, hit the gas, and drove away from us, heading north. She was a professional driver, and aggressive to a fault, chirping the tires with each crisp gear shift. I waited until I couldn’t hear the engine before proceeding to the dog house.

“Do your thing fast,” I said to Nate.

“What was their deal?” he asked.

“I really don’t know,” I admitted. “There was something off about those folks, right? It wasn’t just me?”

He shuddered as we walked the bikes the last few yards. “I can barely breathe, you know. I was legit scared when that lady was talking, and I’m not even sure why.”

Nate seemed to think about it for a moment.

“I mean, I’m not gonna lie, she was hot, but damned scary.”

I had a similar reaction.

“I didn’t like the way they seemed interested in what we were doing here.”

He looked at me with a serious face. “You don’t think they would really hurt them, do you?”

“No idea. I don’t see why. However, we might oughta think about…”

“Please don’t make me let them go,” he said right away.

“I don’t know how we can support them all,” I answered. “Even if we brought them all back to—”

“Yeah! It will be so much easier back on our street. Instead of going out to get food and delivering it to this house, we’ll only have to bring it back to where we already live.”

I could see a million problems that I’m certain Nate hadn’t considered, not the least of which was having a hundred dogs barking around the clock, inviting every person in the surrounding miles with a working pair of ears to come investigate the disturbance.

“We’ll have to talk about it,” I comforted, not willing to make any decision at the moment. “Let’s feed your friends for now and then get back to our street. I think I know who I can ask about these guys…”

I’d given Carmen’s clone an honest chance to come clean, but I’d witnessed her reaction when the red car came by our street. I was all but certain she knew more about them than she let on.

The bill for her staying with us was coming due.

CHAPTER 14

Nate and I took care of the dogs while listening for the return of the loud Charger. He showed me how he poured the bags of chow over the fence, and all the dogs would dive into the grass to get their portion. It was far from scientific, but most of them did seem to get at least some food. I waited outside while he went in and did the same for the cats.

I had a few moments alone to reflect on our meeting with the people in the Charger. There hadn’t been time to ask them any important questions, like if they knew what was really going on in our city, since I was more concerned about keeping our own background hidden from them. As such, I had no idea how they fit into the EMP attack or its aftermath. All I knew for sure was that they acted like they were in charge.

The second Nate was done, we got on our bikes and headed for home. It was pitch-black by the time we made it back to the last house on Barracuda Bay.

“Thanks for letting me do that, Frank,” Nate said as he laid the bike against the wall.

We’d made the garage of the last house on the circle the head of what we were calling the neighborhood watch. From there, same as at my house, we could see the entire street from the circle all the way to the pair of bridge blockades at the far end. There was a bit more moon out this evening, so we were better able to keep watch. That’s where I chose to make my sleeping area for the night.

Wayne and Mr. Puppers stayed with me. I was glad the dog was fond of the kid, but I gave him head scratches and belly rubs as often as I could, since he still hung around me, too.

I closed my eyes and fell asleep…

…but I was awakened an instant later.

“Frank,” Carmen whispered.

She leaned over me, with her front side dangerously close.

“What is it?” I asked, disoriented. It took me a few perilous moments to remember this probably wasn’t my real neighbor, no matter how pretty.

She backed off. “I have to show you something.”

I let her lead me inside the house, worried in moments that this was going somewhere I didn’t want it to go. If she took me into the bedroom—

No, she guided me through the whole house and out the back door.

“I needed to talk to you, alone,” she said quietly.

“I’m listening,” I answered, relieved I didn’t have to fight her off in a bedroom situation. It wasn’t that I was afraid to say no to a woman, but we’d been flirting in the previous days and were no longer, so I was sure this was going to be her testing me.

“I heard you say you talked to the people in that old red car,” she started.

“Yeah, that’s true,” I allowed.

She seemed to shiver, though the overnight temperature was still quite warm. “What did they say to you?”

I tried to read her face, but there wasn’t enough moon or starlight at that moment to get a good look. There was probably no point in lying to her.

“They seemed put out that we had so many dogs at Nate’s place. They talked like they were going to be watching us, though I didn’t let on that we didn’t actually live there.”

“Are they coming back here?” she asked with a voice thick with fear. “Do they know you live here?”

I shrugged at first, not sure if they had any idea if I did or didn’t live at the dog house. While the red car had swung by our subdivision, none of us had been standing around outside, so they might not even have a clue where we were. Still, I wanted to know more about this woman, so I left it a bit vague, if only to see where she stood.

“They said they would see me again soon,” I admitted.

“And they are coming here?” she asked quickly. “Did they follow you? Track you?” She looked into the sky, seeming to search for something.

“Maybe. Why? Do you know them?” There, I’d said it.

She paced back and forth for a moment.

“You do know them, don’t you?” I pressed.

She stopped and looked at me. I now saw tears welling her eyes, even in the lowest of light. “Frank, this is important. Did any of them touch you? Did they take anything of yours?”

I laughed a bit. “Why would they do that?”

“Frank!” She stomped her foot, getting loud for a moment.

“Whoa, little doggie,” I tried to joke. “None of them touched me. As far as I know, they didn’t steal anything of mine either.”

She exhaled heavily.

“Why?” I asked.

“Those people are not who they seem,” she warned. “Trust me, I know. Normally, if they visit someone, they don’t leave them unharmed.”

“So you do know them,” I said with an ‘ah-ha’ uptick in my voice.

“Yes.” She went quiet for many seconds. I let her stew in it, since I was hopeful she would reveal her role in this conspiracy. “But if I talk to you, they could be listening.”

She looked across the canal, then up in the sky again.

I looked up, too. “Do they own spy satellites?”

She led me inside. “Probably.”

This time, she did lead me to the bedroom, but not for any romance. Instead, she took me to the walk-in closet, opened it for me, and then we went in together. She shut the door after us.

“Is this really necessary?” I asked.

“It is,” she deadpanned. “They have ears and eyes everywhere.”

That ticked a memory. Jodie had said the exact same thing when she spoke to me next to the school bus. She’d been on the inside of the group of Cleaners, though she was secretly working against the priest leading them. What did that make Carmen?

“I’m listening,” I reassured.

“Frank, this is going to be hard to believe, but I…I am not Carmen.”

“You don’t say,” I snarked.

“You don’t believe me?” she asked, the hurt evident in her tone.

“I know you aren’t the same woman I pulled out of the basement. My only question is when you made the switch.”

Her breathing was heavy and fast, as if she was in a state of terror. “You knew this whole time?”

“Not the whole time,” I admitted.

Her chest heaved and she gulped air like it was about to leave the closet.

“Why don’t you tell me the whole truth,” I suggested.

“You don’t get it,” she panted. “If you knew I wasn’t really Carmen, it means I wasn’t doing my job. They would know. Maybe that’s why they drove by—they were here for me.”

“Who?” I asked, not sure if I should press her to cough up the truth or if I should ease up to make her feel comfortable enough to volunteer it. “Please, I want to help you,” I said in a less confrontational manner.

“Frank, no one can save me from them. They will kill me the second they think I’m betraying their cause. They will kill me if even one person reveals they know I’m fake.”

I reached into the dark, hoping I wouldn’t put my hand on her face. When I found her arm, I squeezed to offer some comfort. “Whoever you are, I don’t want you to get hurt. You seem like a good person and those people in the car struck me as the bad guys. That makes you and I allies, no matter what.”

She chuckled to herself. “I wish it were that simple. Those people control everything, Frank. There is no way to get away from them. No way to live off their radar. If they find out I’m revealing any of this, they might drop a big bomb on this whole subdivision. They might kill all of our families and anyone in our phone’s contact list, simply to cover all their bases.”

“Well, if we are in this together anyway, you better come clean with me.”

She put her hands on my arm, returning the gesture I was doing on her. “I like you too much, Frank, to bring this on you. But I can’t deny you are the reason I’m taking this chance…”

“Just tell me. I’ll accept the consequences, whatever it may be.”

“Even death?” she whispered dramatically.

“Well, I won’t lie down and take it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No, but what about the others? Do they want this burden?”

“Can it really be that bad?” I mused.

“Oh, it can be,” she answered in a way that was far too sure for my liking.

“Why don’t you whisper it to me, and I’ll decide what the others need to know.” I wasn’t going to intentionally hide anything, but if it would help her spit it out, it was worth mentioning.

She pulled herself closer to me, using her hands to guide herself up to my shoulder, then to my right ear. Her breath teased my ear drum as she revealed her secret.

“Frank. The man and woman in that car are my bosses. They are high up in the food chain of a secretive agency that manipulates everything you see in our world.” She stressed the word ‘everything,’ blowing harder in my ear. It was tough to resist her womanly manner even while delivering such crushing news.

“Uh-huh,” I answered.

“They are bosses of everyone, and I mean everyone. The churches. The corporations. The military. They all answer to them.”

My immediate response was to call bullshit, but I kept my mouth shut while she spilled the beans.

“Their goal is depopulation,” she went on. “And this was their big play.”

“No kidding,” I answered.

“But that’s not all. This whole time, I’ve been running around checking on things. Searching for those who are left. Anyone you see up here, except for you, is working together. They are working for…the Decagon.”

“That’s what they’re called?”

“Yeah, but don’t repeat it, Frank. Then they’ll know for sure I’ve told you about myself and about them.”

“The Decagon,” I repeated, quietly. “What does that even mean?”

“Shush,” she begged. “It means they control ten elements of our world. I already told you some of them, like the military and the church, but there are others, though I don’t know all of them, except for mine.”

“Which is,” I prompted.

“Actors,” she whispered. “I’m an actor playing a part. There are many of us. Most of who you see on the screens are playing parts, and I’m not talking about the movies, though some of that is part of this. I’m talking about politicians, the newscasters, and, when necessary, common people like Carmen.”

I was no stranger to conspiracy theories, but to have someone come out and say it to my face. It was suddenly hard to accept.

“I can tell by your silence you aren’t sure,” she said. “I can prove all of this to you, but when I do, you have to promise not to make me reveal more than I give you.”

“How could I make you reveal more?”

She patted me on the cheek. “Trust me, I’m about to give you the keys to my kingdom. What you do with them, and what happens to me, will be totally in your hands.”

My heart sped up.

“I promise I won’t make you reveal more than you want.”

“Good.”

To my surprise, she dragged her long fingernails from below my ear, across my neck, then up to my jawline. She kissed me on the cheek, as if her exploration had been a way to scout for her lips. I wanted to brush her off and keep this purely professional, but I got the sense she was shaking, even shivering, as if she was about to lay down her life for me.

“Look, I don’t want any harm to come to you,” I said with deep empathy for her. “Whatever trouble you’re in, I’m willing to help you as long as you are working in the best interest of the people on this street.”

She took a long moment of thought before replying.

“Frank, I don’t mind any of them, but just like I did with Cookie, to see if she was on the up-and-up, I would have to do with all the others before I trust them with what I’m about to tell you.”

“Why me?” I asked. “Are you saying my new neighbors could be working with this Decagon thing?”

“Shush!” she repeated, placing her hand over my mouth. “Everyone, and I mean everyone, has to be a suspect. Always remember that.”

“I will.” I’d been with the others long enough to have built a natural trust in them, but her point was taken that I didn’t know them beyond this past week, so I had to at least consider the possibility they weren’t 100% on board with our mission.

“But I know you are someone I can trust. I’ve known it since we first met, and when I learned you helped the real Carmen out of that basement. I knew it when we were out on that boat, around the crocs, around the Cleaners, and a dozen other little things you’ve done for me and for the others. You are the only person I’ve ever met who I knew almost for certain wasn’t part of the conspiracy.”

“I’m afraid to ask why,” I admitted.

“Because of this.” Since she already had her hand on me, she was able to reach down and find my hand, then guide it to her neck. Using her own fingers to manipulate mine, she made me discover a flap of skin hanging off her neck underneath her ear. “I’m showing you this, but don’t pull it off. Not yet.”

I rubbed the material, a bit repulsed at what it was, but also fascinated.

“Is this a mask?”

“Yes. I’m wearing a mask that looks like your neighbor Carmen.”

I wanted to tear it off more than any episode of Scooby Doo I’d ever watched as a kid. My fingers tugged a little, causing her to squeal.

“Frank, please—” she whined.

I let go.

“I knew there were two of you—I saw you from afar at that house on the other side of the woods—but this, I never dreamed a mask could be this convincing.”

“They’ve been using this generation of masks since the sixties, Frank. They can make them in under an hour when the need is there. I assure you, many people you saw on TV every day were wearing the same masks.”

“I can’t be the only outsider who knows about this. Why doesn’t someone go on TV and check everyone for masks? End this charade?”

She laughed like a doomed woman. “Anyone who makes such an accusation is immediately shown the truth by men and women like the two you saw in that red car. The accusers always recant, they say it was a joke, or they get paid off to keep their mouths shut forever.”

“Wow.”

“And no one on the inside will ever give it up. There’s an explicit rule every agent is made to sign when they are brought into this production. It says that anyone who betrays the cause will be killed on the spot and then have his or her entire bloodline erased. You lose your mask—dead. You take off another’s mask—dead. That’s what they do to anyone who shows the least bit of threat to their power and control.”

I took her by the arms and steadied her.

“Is that why you’re shaking like a leaf?”

“Yes,” she sobbed. “I know you didn’t ask for this, but I’ve put my entire family in your hands, Frank. Those people in the red car will find us. They will find me. When they come, please help me.”

“Why are you telling me all this? Why me?”

She was full-on crying now.

“Why me?” I repeated, not sure how I felt about being saddled with the responsibility for a woman’s family I didn’t even know.

“You are the only person left who is good enough to save me from them.”

“Good enough? I’m not a soldier—”

She sniffled and put a finger over my lips.

“I don’t mean good that way,” she whispered. “I mean that you are a good person. You would never work as an agent of evil.”

I’d lived my whole life thinking of good versus evil in the world, but this woman’s tearful plea carried more weight than any sermon I’d ever heard in church services.

A chill ran up my spine.

She’d all but admitted she worked for the evil side.

CHAPTER 15

I turned on my pen light, so we could at least see each other.

“Look, I appreciate your situation, and I’ll do whatever I can to keep your secret, but I can’t overlook one important fact of all this. My real neighbor Carmen is still at that clubhouse. If even a little of what you say is true, it sounds like she is in a ton of trouble.”

“It’s all true.” She sniffled.

“Then we can help each other.” I thought about it for a few seconds. “Hey, what is your real name?”

She didn’t answer.

“I won’t call you anything but Carmen in public, for now, but I want to know the person behind the mask. Call it a trust exercise.”

“My real name is Lucy,” she allowed.

“Is that your real hair?” I asked.

She ran her fingers through it. “Yes. I was chosen because this was a rush job, and I happened to fit her specifications. Hispanic. Long hair. A certain build.” She ran her hands above her chest.

“How many…rush jobs could be done?”

“You mean how many actresses are out there waiting to play a part? Not a lot. Not anymore. But they always seem to have some.”

“And how much of our time together was real versus you playing the part of Carmen?”

“I guess that depends. What I do can be totally dangerous, so I have taken a lot of self-defense lessons. Do you think a typical suburban housewife would go sneaking around in boats and fighting off terrorists?”

I thought back to the real Carmen and her rage at being held captive in that basement. Though there was probably some truth to her statement, I suspected my neighbor was more than a ‘typical’ anything.

“I really don’t know what to make of you,” I allowed.

I soaked in a breath.

“Alright, Lucy. This is what needs to happen before I can fully trust you. We’re going back to that clubhouse to get my neighbor. Then we’re all going to come back here.”

She’d stopped outright crying, but she occasionally let out a single sob, as if she was fighting to recover.

“Frank, that’s a suicide mission. They’ll never let you take her. Typically, when a copy goes out, they, uh…” She trailed off.

“They kill them?” I guessed.

“No, but they disappear them. Send them somewhere else.”

“Where?” I pressed.

“I have no idea. I never asked. It was understood our target was never coming back, though.”

That worried me. “Is Carmen even there?”

“Probably. If I was doing this the right way, I would revisit her several times to learn details of her life, mannerisms, and quirks, but things aren’t running as smoothly as they used to.”

I wasn’t comfortable around Lucy, even if her life was in my hands. She’d come clean about her role in duplicating my neighbor, but this conspiracy was a lot larger than her. At some point, I wanted to get all the information I could out of her, but I was now hot to get out and rescue the one person besides myself who was above wild conspiracies.

“Do you know any way we can get in that compound?” I asked.

She grabbed me again and pulled me closer. It did occur to me she could have brought a knife into the dark closet and taken me out a dozen different times. It made me realize that there was an intangible quality about Lucy that made me place a modest amount of trust in her before coming into the confined space, despite knowing she was an imposter. I hoped it was instinct, rather than luck.

She whispered in my ear.

“Frank, I stayed away from your street as much as I could for as long as I could, but there was no way to stay out forever, since I’m supposed to be playing the part of Carmen Perez, who lives nearby. I don’t have any proof of this, but I’ve noticed in previous missions, the bosses always seemed to find me. That’s why I was so scared when they showed up on our street yesterday.”

“You think they’re tracking you?” I said with shock.

She stepped back and lifted her blouse above her midriff. “I’ll strip naked if you want to check me for bugs, Frank. I’ll do anything.”

How did I get myself into situations like this? I had to tell a woman not to take her clothes off.

“No, that won’t be necessary. I don’t think they would track your clothes, since you would normally change them at the start of each new day.”

“Maybe they put it in my mask,” she gushed.

I was tempted to rip the mask off right that second, but I held myself back from acting rashly.

“Maybe we can use that against them,” I finally replied, letting my breathing settle. “But let’s get a plan together first.”

She and I spoke in almost total silence for a few minutes before separating and exiting the closet. As soon as we were out, she spoke aloud, as if she’d been changing.

“I’m ready to go now, Frank,” she said. “Thanks for letting me clean up.”

“Good. See you out there.”

I went into the garage, surprised to see the first traces of sunlight. I’d thought we might have been able to get across the woods in the dark, but now we would have to do it in the day. After what she’d told me, I didn’t think Carmen would have another full day before they ‘sent her away,’ whatever that meant in real terms.

Wayne winked at me. “Did she show you that special something?”

He must have overheard Carmen when she awakened me.

“Just do your job,” I groused, not in the mood to be playful or fun Frank. Lucy, playing as Carmen, had given me the inside track on what was really going on in Fort Myers, and in America, and perhaps the whole world. It was hard to absorb the scale of the betrayal necessary for those in charge to destroy the country from the inside. However, as I stood there waiting for Lucy to come out, I took a moment to appreciate how truly lucky the last few of us had been to survive as long as we had. I’d been given a gift, and I couldn’t squander it by making mistakes with our lives.

She came out about five minutes later, nodding at me to acknowledge our shared part in the plan to fight the conspiracy.

“Wayne, you and Puppers are in charge for a bit this morning. Me and Carmen are going to poke the bear.”

“I’m sure you’ll poke the bear good,” he snickered.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

Carmen walked out of the garage without looking at the kid.

“What?” he pleaded. “I’m only joking around!”

I stopped as we both watched the woman walk down the driveway and toward the house she’d been using on this new street. I’d asked her to get a pack with ammo, food, and water, like we were going for a hike.

“Me and her have some business we have to take care of—serious business,” I added before he could razz me. “Life-and-death business. I’m going to check out some things in South Pointe.”

I was mindful of Lucy’s warning. There could have been listening devices or spies all around us, including Wayne himself. That’s why I didn’t divulge where I was really going or that I’d found out which of the two Carmens was now on our street.

I met Lucy at the big red truck.

Not everyone was up yet, so I only had to tell Gunther of our plan as we took the Power Wagon through the roadblock. Since he still wasn’t talking, our conversation was brief and one-sided.

“A good morning for sleeping, huh,” I smiled. “She and I are going toward South Pointe for a few things.”

Without Lucy seeing, I took out my notepad, wrote a few words on it, then handed it to him. He nodded grimly, still silent, and I pulled away.

I drove into the woods, humming to myself. Lucy was mostly quiet, perhaps to cut down on the chance she’d give away the plan she and I talked about. When we’d gone about thirty minutes, often looping back on my own route, I finally stopped the truck.

“Where they heck are we?” Lucy asked.

“Do you trust me?” I asked in a sympathetic voice.

“Absolutely. My life is entirely in your hands.”

“Good. Do everything I say without question, okay?”

She looked me square in the eyes. “I will.”

“Then hold out your hands,” I said.

“What?” she said with true surprise.

“Hold them out,” I repeated.

I’d secretly brought some rope for this purpose. I looped it around her wrists and then tied them tight.

“What are you doing, Frank?” she asked, surprised at the direction our partnership had taken. “This isn’t what we planned.”

That was true. In the closet, while we whispered, we talked about how we were going to go back to the lollipop subdivision together, to storm the castle so-to-speak, but I knew that wasn’t going to work. Still, I had to tell her something to get her to come out here.

“You really think I was going to trust you? I don’t believe for a second we can drive in and rescue the real Carmen. This is all a trap, wasn’t it?”

“No, I swear! I wouldn’t lie to you.” She’d been on the edge of crying since we’d been in the closet, so more sobs tumbled out immediately.

“Now, get out,” I demanded.

“What? Why? Frank, if they catch me out here after what I told you, I’m a dead woman.”

I reached over her and opened her door, then pushed her toward the exit. Not with violence, but with firmness. She finally relented and let herself hop down to the forest floor.

There weren’t many birds in the area, which was good, since the smell of the death wasn’t hanging on the air. Together, we walked to a nearby tree that was tall enough and thick enough she wouldn’t be able to escape. I took more rope and intended to put it around her.

“You have anything you want to tell me before I tie you up?”

“Frank, you don’t have to do this. We can be partners. I have to be your partner!”

“No sale. You almost got me killed when we snuck around that night to search the Cleaners. I’d rather take my chances on my own.”

“Frank, please. You can’t leave me here. They’ll find me. They always do!” Her eyes were scared and flighty.

I hated the necessity of what I was doing.

“Remember what I asked you?”

She focused on me for a moment. “Yes.”

I winked, but without missing a beat, I took a swing at her jaw. She recoiled and hit her head on the tree trunk, then slid to the ground, looking and acting every bit like she’d been knocked out cold.

“Sorry,” I whispered to the fallen shape. “I don’t ever like to hit a woman, but I can’t take a risk and bring you along.”

I’d brought a heavy comforter on this trip for this moment. I got it from the truck and threw it over her. While she stirred, thankfully not seriously hurt, I reached into the darkness under there and got a grip on the biggest threat to both of us.

“Trust me,” I whispered.

She stopped moving.

“There is no way I can trust a traitor!” I yelled at point-blank, to create background noise for anyone listening or watching us through the sophisticated mask. At the same time, I yanked at the movie prop. “You should know me better than to try to trick me!”

It peeled off with some effort.

Keeping it wrapped in the blanket, and in the dark, I pulled the whole mess off Lucy’s head. I got my first look at the person who’d been hiding behind Carmen’s face mask. She was a plain-looking Asian woman named Lucy. She had the same eyes, however, and I smiled at the real woman for the first time.

Then I made the ‘shush’ symbol so she wouldn’t talk.

“I’m sorry I have to leave you here, but it’s for your own good,” I said to the blanket. “I can’t have you reporting in with anything when you wake up. In the meantime, I’m going to check out that clubhouse without you.”

I untied her hands and motioned for her to run to the truck while I stuffed the blanket into a nearby bush. Anyone monitoring a feed of our encounter would think I’d hidden the woman so she wouldn’t be found by her handlers. Once my task was done, I rejoined Lucy in the truck, but I still shushed her.

We got rolling.

A few minutes later, I finally let her speak.

“Frank, how did you do all that?”

I laughed. “Very carefully.”

“But what do we do now? I’m free…” she touched her face while I drove through the trees.

“If you were right about the mask, they’ve been watching everything, including our meeting in that closet. I figured the moment we left, they would set out to strike our homes, now that we knew who you really were.”

“I shouldn’t have brought you into this,” she lamented.

“You didn’t. They did, when they took Carmen.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

My intention was to return to the street and explain everything to my friends, trusting that they were on my side, so we could be ready for a possible attack. However, after about five minutes of slow-rolling through the woods, I spotted a line of side-by-sides traveling ahead of me in the trees. I swerved behind a thick grove of cedars, hiding myself from view.

“And there they are,” I whispered.

“Already?” she fretted. “We have to get back and warn your friends.”

It somewhat confirmed what I’d already come to appreciate about her. She was all-in on helping us.

“I need to check them out.” I hopped out with my rifle and ran to the thickest part of the grove. There were about six of the burly off-road vehicles, and it was important to note they were modern, not more than a few years old. How’d they’d survived the EMP was a real mystery. At the end of the procession, the red Charger followed behind the last one.

I listened for a minute as they drove farther from my hiding spot, but they didn’t go for long. They soon turned off their motors. The sound of doors slamming told me they were getting out.

They weren’t far from the edge of the flock of birds.

From a couple hundred yards back, I watched as two men climbed out of each of the side-by-sides. They gathered up and marched toward my street. I assumed it would be a few minutes before they reached Gunther at the roadblock.

Fortunately, the note I’d given him said to wake everyone up and be ready for an attack. It was the opposite of what a spy might have heard me say to the big man when I’d driven through the checkpoint.

It was one of those times I was sorry to be right.

The next part was tricky. I waited for several minutes, giving those men enough time to get far from the red car, but not enough that they would start shooting at my friends.

“I think that’s been long enough,” I said as I got back in the truck on the passenger side.

“What are you doing now?” Lucy asked with more surprise.

She shoved over to the driver’s seat.

“Winging it,” I chuckled.

We went over a five-second plan, I ducked down, then she started the engine.  The truck swerved left and right around tree trunks, cut through a thick patch of weeds, and then hit a clearing and got some speed. She got close to the target then slammed on the brakes and cut the motor.

Lucy held her head out the window, “Dutch! Elsa! It’s me!”

“Lucy?” the man said with surprise.

She hopped out.

“Are you guys alone?” Lucy asked.

“It’s just us, and him,” the woman answered. “Why?”

I pushed through the door, armed, about ten feet from them.

“Because you are our prisoners.”

The man and woman, standing in the open, looked shocked.

“You have signed your own death warrants,” Dutch, the man, deadpanned.

CHAPTER 16

I took the biggest sigh of relief of my life, since Lucy was still pointing the gun at them, rather than me, but our military operation wasn’t over yet.

“Look, this is the end of the world,” I said. “Can we let bygones be bygones and simply get on with our lives? All I want is my old friend, the real Carmen, and for my new friend to be free as well. Is that too much to ask to avoid any trouble?”

The man and woman had been standing outside the Charger, watching over the empty side-by-sides ahead of them, as if they were generals watching and waiting for the attack to be over. However, the kid was also out of the car. He wore a white gown, like pajamas from the 1800s, while he sat on the carpet of pine needles, playing with a pile of pinecones. The kid made me uncomfortable for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the proximity of so much firepower. The adults barely acknowledged him.

“I’m afraid there is no way to avoid trouble,” Dutch replied. “She told you our secret. We know all about it.”

I sighed, figuring this was how it would play out.

“Then how about this. You call off your dogs, get them back here, then you two are going to take us back to your compound to get my friend. From there, we’ll see what happens.”

If these people wanted to dance on my street, and it certainly seemed like they did, I was going to be a willing partner in the shenanigans, but only after I had Carmen.

I aimed my rifle at his face.

“You wouldn’t dare shoot me in cold blood,” Dutch complained.

The kid chose that moment to throw a pinecone at the man. It struck him in the chest, then fell flat to the forest floor. Strangely, his puffed-out chest sagged, and his shoulders slumped.

“Fine,” he exhaled. “I’ll call them back.”

We waited in uncomfortable silence as the men slowly came back to their vehicles. Before they’d gotten there, I had Lucy go to each one and knife two valve stems per rig, so they couldn’t easily be fixed. When they saw what we’d done, and who we’d captured, they were red-faced and busting for a fight.

“Drop your gear and head back home,” Dutch ordered them.

“Are you sure?” one of them asked.

“Do it!” the lead man ordered.

I counted ten men total, and they dropped weapons and packs near the tree where the boy was still playing. I studied how the men interacted with the child, and to a man, they chose to walk on the far side of the nearest tree when they passed him, so they wouldn’t be too close. I wondered if they were also worried about drawing fire toward the child, or if they were as creeped out by the white-haired kid as I was.

None of us said a thing until the men were far in the distance.

“You can’t get away with this,” Dutch said in a tentative voice. It was as if he wasn’t totally sure what he said was true, but he wanted me to believe it.

“You picked the wrong street to send your spy,” I replied, proud at how Lucy had come through for me in a huge way. She’d revealed her true self to me in that closet, so now her life was totally in my hands. In return, I had to trust that she wasn’t going to double-cross me.

Lucy made sure neither of them were armed by walking around them. We both assumed the child wasn’t packing a gun, so she only veered a little his way before leaving him sitting on the ground. In fact, despite his creepy vibe, I was afraid for him.

“I don’t want your child to come to any harm. If you’d like, he can stay on my street until we get back. I give you my word nothing will happen to him.”

The woman’s face turned into an angry sneer. “You would use him as a human shield? How evil can you be?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I only want to get him away from these guns.” I motioned to the rifle in my hands, highlighting the obvious problem.

“And you would threaten to shoot him yourself?” the woman added.

She twisted my words and intentions.

“Fine, you two can be in charge of him. Get in the back of my truck and don’t try anything. Lucy is going to watch you while we drive to your place.”

The woman walked over to the boy, and he followed her to the tailgate, which I had lowered for them. Even so, there was no way for the little kid to lift himself up. Dutch climbed up first, then he reached down for the child. The woman reluctantly lifted the slight-framed boy, though she seemed to hate holding him. Similarly, the man grabbed the kid while practically turning his head, as if he also wanted nothing to do with the little one. Both acted like the kid had a full diaper, though he was far too old to still be wearing one.

I thought about asking why they were being so weird with him, but it didn’t seem important in the greater scheme of things. Once they were inside, the three split up and sat down. The adults went to the front, closest to the cabin, while the child stayed by the sealed tailgate.

Once we were all in our positions, I got us moving east toward the lollipop compound and then drove south at a high rate of speed, doing my best to give a wide berth to the foot soldiers of the Decagon. We’d asked them to disarm, but we hadn’t searched each man, so it was highly likely they were still armed with pistols or knives.

Despite giving them a head-start, I knew we would reach the house long before they could walk or run there. When we crossed into the lollipop streets, I didn’t see any of the men we’d turned loose. At best, they had to cross four or five miles of rough terrain on foot, figure forty-five minutes if they were able to maintain a fast jog, which gave us at least thirty minutes remaining before they made it back. Much longer if they were walking…

I left the road and crossed the fairway, retracing the steps we’d taken on our previous visit, so we came up the hilly backside of the property where there was now only a lone guard standing watch.

I pulled directly onto the driveway next to the white Mustang.

“Hold up!” the guard yelled.

He came over, armed with a Glock. To me, he seemed confident and competent, using other vehicles to shield his approach as he neared. However, the second he rounded the Mustang, the child stuck his head up and shook it. To my shock, this made the man skid to a comedic stop, then backtrack away at maximum speed.

“What’s the deal with that kid?” I whispered to Lucy.

She sat in the back of the cab, nearest the window, to keep watch on the prisoners, but she seemed reluctant to acknowledge, talk about, or even look at the little boy.

“I don’t know, Frank,” she answered quietly.

“Well, it’s creeping me out. Maybe I should leave him out here when we go in to get Carmen.”

“Why don’t you go in?” she suggested. “I can keep watch on them.”

I was immediately torn to shreds over the choice. I had hoped to figure out if she was trustworthy before committing to a path where I could be betrayed. However, in this case, it seemed prudent to have one person run inside while not having to worry about two dangerous people and their weird child. Perhaps it made more sense for her to go in, given that she knew the layout, but she’d already mentioned being a target after her open rebellion, and if any of those men on foot had radioed ahead, they would incriminate her further.

In the end, I wanted to be the one to go in.

“Are you sure?” I asked to be polite.

“I can do this,” she assured me. “We have to trust each other sometime, right?”

There it was, the truth of it.

“Yeah, we do,” I allowed. Had she cornered me into accepting the situation? Was it smarter to change my mind and insist she and the others come in, or was I wasting time? Left with no good choices, I decided to throw myself into completing the mission as fast as humanly possible.

If Carmen was in there, I would bring her out. If she wasn’t, I had two VIPs who would know where she’d been taken. They would give me the answers I needed…

I got out and walked along the side of the truck.

“And, Frank…” she said through the open side window before I could get too far. “Shoot to kill in there.”

“Do you know something I don’t?” I asked. It wasn’t that I was against using my weapons, I’d had to do it enough times lately, but I seldom planned to go in blasting.

She leaned closer to me.

“Remember what I told you earlier. These are evil people, Frank. I should know, unfortunately, because they dictated my life for many years. Whoever you find in there, they will be working for the side of evil. If you trust me on one thing, let it be this.”

“What is she saying?” Dutch called out from the back, snickering a bit. “Is she putting in a good word for us, so you don’t shoot us in the back?”

It was funny how these folks twisted everything. It was exactly what an evil person would do, almost to the point of caricature.

“I’ll take it under careful advisement,” I assured her.

I walked inside, not anxious to shoot anyone but ready to do so.

I was close to freeing my friend.

CHAPTER 17

The inside of the clubhouse could have been a museum, if the curator was a bum who collected pieces of art based on touch alone rather than artistic qualities. It made Carmen’s cat living room seem organized.

It didn’t take me long to figure out what it was.

“You sneaky bastards. You’re stealing everyone’s family heirlooms.”

There were elaborate wooden pieces, like dining room chairs, wardrobes, and headboards. There were shiny objects—chandeliers, candlesticks, and lamps. There were a few antique firearms, pretty to look at but impractical to use. And then there were actual pieces of art, such as framed oil paintings, tapestries, and quilts. Between all those, there were a million trinkets of mixed values.

Walking through the open floorplan was now difficult, as the valuables were stacked into each room and hallway, almost wall-to-wall. The main open space, where numerous tables provided a place for golfers to sit and enjoy a beer, were stacked high with stuff.

I listened for anyone walking through the place, but there was no obvious sign of any guards.

“Carmen?” I called out. “You in here?”

“Frank?”

My heart skipped two beats.

“Frank!” she repeated.

“Yeah, it’s me,” I answered.

I heard her voice behind a heavy wooden door. When I hurried over there, I figured it was the entryway to a basement level. I’d been under the impression that basements weren’t common in this part of Florida, but the golf clubhouse sat on a small rise, and I wondered if that was what allowed them to add the lower level.

All that paled in comparison to hearing her voice.

“Is that really you?” I asked, wondering how she could prove it.

“Anormal,” she said with frustration in her Cuban accent. “I’m not wearing a mask, if that’s what you’re asking,” she finished in more measured English.

“You’re you,” I chuckled. The fake Carmen hadn’t used any Spanish, and I suspected she didn’t know any. However, the woman I’d rescued on that first night had spoken several words in Spanish, at warp speed, but now I recognized at least one of them she’d used again, probably to insult my dumb question.

“Of course I am. Now, be a gentleman and free me a second time.” She laughed a bit, but it was strained.

I tried the door and wasn’t surprised it was locked, and it had a modern deadbolt securing it.

“I don’t suppose there are any windows down there?”

“No,” she replied. “It’s just me in another dark basement.”

“Let me look around for a key.”

I went into the nearest room, not confident I could find a full-sized truck parked in there. I was drawn to a desk that had clearly been used lately, with a small office chair and a cardboard box sitting next to it. Papers had been scattered haphazardly on the desktop, as if the person had pulled them from the box to read.

The papers were mostly spreadsheets, which held exactly zero interest for me, though leafing through them did reveal a different set of papers that was simply a list of first and last names. I picked it up when I saw they were mostly the same last name.

“Jerry Peters, Lana Peters, Liam P—”

I flipped to more and found different last names.

“Buck Meadows, Garth Meadows—”

To the next one.

“Ezra Anderson—”

I tossed them all down.

Whatever this was, it wouldn’t serve me in freeing my friend. On a hunch, I pushed the papers up the surface of the desk, to clear out those sheets hanging over the side, and was rewarded with the revelation of a drawer. Inside, among a bunch of pens and pencils, sat a lone key.

“You have to be the one,” I insisted.

I ran the key over.

It turned the lock.

When I opened the door, I found myself face-to-face with the same woman I’d been with the past week, including the same sheer top and black shorts, but now I saw her anew.

Her long dark hair, though dirty and disheveled, was real.

Her manicured eyebrows, cute nose, and full lips were real.

Her body was fuller than Lucy’s, now that I could compare the two, and I realized I’d been too careful to avoid gawking at her chest to notice Lucy wasn’t nearly as full as the real Cuban bombshell.

In short, I saw a supermodel walk out of the darkness, rather than a simple woman who’d been caught up in this.

“Frank, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see a friendly face—” She stopped herself, then reached out to touch my neck. “May I?”

I nodded, knowing what she wanted.

She picked at my skin and dragged her nails around the side of my neck, then down to my sternum, and then to the other side of my face. “You are real,” she finally declared.

When she seemed satisfied, I repeated those same motions on her.

I touched her behind the ears, tried to peel her skin along her neck, hoping to catch the material of a face mask where it was glued to her real skin. However, to my great relief, she had no mask on.

“Frank,” she cooed.

I blinked, realizing I had both hands on the sides of her neck, like I was hypnotized.

“Sorry,” I said, pulling back at lightspeed.

“It’s okay,” she said kindly. “You saw one of them, didn’t you. You saw the other me.”

“Yeah, this is going to take me some time to process…”

“How do you think I feel?” she chuckled. “I had to watch myself go out and visit with you and the others on our street. I’ve been praying you would be alright this whole time.”

“Well, I’m not sure we’re alright,” I answered, “but at least we’re still there. If you can believe it, the woman playing you is out in the truck right now, holding the man and woman, plus a weird little kid, until you and I get back.”

“I don’t care who you have prisoner, just get me out of here.”

“Right this way, madam.” I leaned over and motioned for her to proceed down the hallway.

“Thank you, sir prince,” she giggled.

Unprompted, she drew me in for an embrace, which I drank in with abandon. Though I’d only known the real her for a short time, I’d gotten caught up in caring for this woman in a way that was hard to put into words. However, holding her, smelling her vanilla scent again, I experienced a closeness far beyond the time we’d spent. It was as if my compass had been spinning wildly for the past week, but now it had found its magnetic north once again. She was a real, living person from my old life.

Too soon, I had to push her away.

“Let’s get out of here.” I suggested.

We’d gone about three paces when the sound of gunfire broke out from beyond the door I’d come in.

My pulse throttled up.

Danger was closing in.

We looked at each other for a few moments, though neither of us had any answers.

“Hurry,” I said, getting us to the doorway.

Outside, the red truck started up and a snapshot image popped in my head that Lucy was dead. A guard had snuck close and shot her, or something along those lines. It hurt me to realize I should never have left her alone—

When I went out to the edge of the garage, I was shocked to see Lucy running from the opposite direction. She wildly waved for me to turn around, then she followed me in.

“What’s going on?” I pressed.

She hurried to the inner door before stopping.

“The guard almost got the drop on me. He shot into the side of the truck, but I managed to jump out before being hurt. Then he tried to shoot me under the big thing, but I got behind one of the other cars before he could hit me.”

“And they’re getting away,” I finished. “Lucy, this is Carmen,” I said, thinking maybe she would want to apologize for pretending to be her.

“Frank, you have to see this,” the imposter said, going into the clubhouse, passing a woman dressed in the identical fashion without a sideways glance.

I looked at Carmen with bemusement for a few moments. Her real smile lit up, and I found myself unable to look away. At least, until she shooed me to go where the other woman was calling for me.

“Oh, right.” We walked a few paces through the junk, but I talked over my shoulder. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to find you again. I had no idea you were here until yesterday, or I would have been here a lot sooner.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Frank. You don’t even know me.”

We walked near the basement door, and I thought Lucy had gone downstairs, but she’d instead gone to the messy desk where I’d found the key. She was now riffling through the papers.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

She tossed some on the floor, while holding others.

“Hang on, almost got it.”

She threw a few more down but kept about five or ten sheets behind. When she seemed satisfied she had what she wanted, she showed them to me.

“Look at the names on this one,” Lucy insisted.

I took the paper and looked at the names.

After only a few, I realized who they were.

“These are distant members of my family,” I said in a ‘what the hell does this mean’ tone of voice.

“And look at this one,” Lucy said, shuffling another piece into my hands. “Look at this name, in particular.”

It was the same sheet as I’d been looking at earlier with the ‘Peters’ name repeated over and over. Her finger landed on one that said ‘Rose Peters.’

“You know who that is?” Lucy asked.

“No, do you?”

“Not really,” she admitted, “but they talk about her a lot, like she’s important to whatever evil scheming they are doing around here.”

“Well, screw that. Why do they have a list of my family members?”

Lucy shrugged. “I told you they threaten your entire bloodline if you betray them…but I don’t know why your relatives would be on this list.” She gave me a critical gaze. “No one in your family pissed them off, did they?”

I laughed at the thought. My sister was outspoken and would probably piss off anyone if she didn’t like how they looked at her, but I didn’t think she could possibly do something worthy of erasing everyone with the same DNA. Her husband, my brother-in-law, was an outdoorsman and prepper, like me, and he would be happier than a pig in mud at the things I’d found about this global conspiracy, but I didn’t think he would bring on such a family calamity, either.

That still left a lot of cousins, second-cousins, older aunts and uncles, and even more distant bunches from our family tree. My mom and dad were gone, but they each had a lot of brothers and sisters, so our family was rather large, even if I wasn’t close with many of them. That said, I didn’t know most of them well enough to know if they were stirring up the pot of trouble enough to get on some list.

What if I’d been the one to get us on a list?

That made me crack up. What could I have done?

“Grab it all and throw it in the box. We’re rolling out of here.”

The women worked together to collect what they could, then we went back to the garage. There were a lot of cars parked in the area, but none of them were old enough to be mobile.

“I don’t see any classic cars. We might have to walk into the surrounding neighborhood to find one.” I wasn’t confident about that, since I hadn’t spotted any vehicles on our walk through earlier. However, I was certain there were old cars behind many of those closed garage doors in the giant lollipop-shaped subdivision streets.

“You can take that white one.” Lucy directed my eyes toward the Super Snake Mustang.

“No, that’s too new,” I replied.

“Trust me, it works. That’s his favorite car.”

“Are you sure? It shouldn’t be working.”

We all walked over to it. I was a Chevy guy, but—don’t tell anyone this—the tricked-out Shelby Mustang Super Snake was enough of a temptation to turn me to the dark side of the automotive market. I’d drooled over it when it passed me on that first day, and I was drooling over it now.

“Frank, your eyes are about to pop out of your head,” Carmen tittered. “It’s so cute how men like you are hot for cars like this.”

“I wouldn’t say I was hot for it,” I lied.

My ZR-1 was a 10 on the dating scale, but the Super Snake was a 9.8.

“I still don’t think it will work,” I said, fighting off the car’s trance-like quality.

Lucy opened the door and slid inside. Without missing a beat, she pushed the button to start her up. The engine rolled over, and the pistons came to life, as would any pre-1980 vehicle.

“It must have been protected from the EMP,” I said, impressed.

“The key-fob is right here,” Lucy remarked, pointing to the center console between the front seats. Why hide anything when there are no people around to steal it?

“Lucky us,” Carmen mumbled.

“You want to drive?” Lucy said, scooting over to the passenger seat.

“Wow, lady, after what you did to me, you get in the back seat,” Carmen insisted, opening the passenger door for the other woman to get out.

Lucy put her hands up in surrender. “Fine.”

When she got out, there was a brief moment where they stood together, and all the tiny differences grew in my eyes. Sure, Lucy’s face was the biggest difference, given their varying ethnic origins, but their skin color was a few shades off, Lucy was an inch or two shorter, and I’d already mentioned the difference in their feminine proportions. In short, the illusion probably only worked because I wanted it to work.

Carmen waited until Lucy was squeezing behind the front seat, then she shoved the other woman. That caused her to fall into the rear, not even close to hurting herself, but still making a point for Carmen.

“Oops,” Carmen laughed. “I thought I was pushing myself.”

It was going to be a long ride.

CHAPTER 18

“Everyone hang on,” I said, hating the situation but loving the moment as well. Once we’d gone beyond the EMP, I figured the time of modern cars was all but over. I knew from reading those books that there were aftermarket attachments for late-model automobiles designed to protect the vehicle from electromagnetic spikes, so it was theoretically possible to save every car on the road before an EMP ever struck, but few owners wanted to foot the expense to outfit their ride for an event that was unlikely to ever happen. It was nice to know at least one owner managed to save such a precious resource.

I tested the acceleration on the subdivision street outside, nearly giving the girls whiplash for how torquey it drove. Even a tiny poke on the gas pedal nearly ripped the tires under us. When we reached the north-south highway, all four lanes of it, I stopped abruptly.

“How much time do we have?” Carmen asked.

I’d explained how the couple in the suits had stolen the Power Wagon and were likely heading back into the woods to turn around the soldiers, so they could continue their assault of our street.

“Not enough time,” Lucy said under her breath, as if disappointed in herself for losing the truck. I still wasn’t sure what to think of that. A lingering thought made me wonder if she allowed those people to get away. She had one job to do, and she’d failed at it. At the same time, I had the real Carmen, and she’d played a role in that, too. In short, the jury was still in deliberation.

“I can’t take this car into the woods. We’d high-center over the first tiny rise in the ground, or we’d get stuck while crossing over a small log.” The Super Snake was built to go fast and not much else. It would probably scrape bottom on a gravel parking lot, to say nothing of open forest terrain. “So, we need to either go around the woods to the north or the south.”

I waited to see if either woman had a suggestion. I’d never gone all the way around the forest, and it had never even crossed my mind to look at a map to determine which route would be faster, so I had to trust their feedback, if they gave any.

When I turned around to Lucy, she gave me a blank look. “I have no idea, Frank, I promise. I’ve done a lot more down south, in town, than the other way, but I know that doesn’t help you.”

She’d pointed south, toward the dense part of Fort Myers. As it was, we were on the northern outskirts of that larger city.

“What about you?” I asked Carmen, who was in the front seat next to me adjusting her hair to get it off her shoulders. With all the excitement, it now seemed to be a hundred degrees outside, and getting warmer. I didn’t turn on the air conditioner since I was planning to put every square inch of the engine to another use.

“I’m sorry, Frank. I’m not really from around here. I stay on the other side of the woods, where our houses are located.”

It was up to me to make the call. It was about four or five miles straight across the forest to reach my house. It was also about eight or ten miles north to south, and the whole woodland area was shaped like a tall block.

“Holy cow, my worst nightmare is coming true,” I mused. “I have a math equation, and lives depend on me solving it.”

We discussed the approximate speed of the Power Wagon, which I assumed went directly across the woods, then we talked about how far the soldiers might have gotten on their run to reach their base. All ten men could probably fit inside the huge truck, so they could get picked up and head for my street a lot faster than they could run back. However, I didn’t expect the driver to run them right up to the houses, as that put the whole effort at risk of being shot while on the move. They would more likely stop short of the houses and then try to run in or sneak in before the shooting started. While all that was going on, we had to drive like a bat out of hell to go around the woods and beat them to the battlefield.

There were too many unknowns.

We’d spent half a minute deliberating already.

“I’m going north,” I announced, whipping us around the turn in half a second. “Hold on.”

The clutch was stiff and crisp, as one would expect with high-dollar aftermarket upgrades. The Mustang had every upgrade possible, and it showed. I wanted to look around to appreciate everything, but I had to save my eyes for the roadway zipping by.

Since there were no moving cars on the road, and no people left alive to get in our way, I indulged my eternal teenager brain and pushed the speed to the absolute limit. The needle was inching toward 200 MPH when the intersecting road came into view.

“Whoa!” I warned, pumping the brakes.

We decelerated, lurching everyone forward in their seats.

“I’m getting carsick,” Lucy complained from the back.

“I think I am, too,” Carmen said quietly, as if not wanting to admit it.

There was no way to sugarcoat the turn for them. I worked the gears and steering wheel as I powered into the left, hitting the gas the second we were on the next highway.

“We’re getting there,” I commented.

The next leg was a two-lane highway that ran along the northern edge of the forest. We quickly ripped past a large berm running along our left, which seemed to hide a trash dump or a quarry. In seconds, putting more gears into play, we were back up close to top speed.

Everything whipped by our windows as if we were running a film at 4x speed to get through the boring parts. I had to stay sharp, looking ahead, to slow and swerve around disabled vehicles, but there weren’t many of those along the unpopulated, empty roadway. However, the five-mile stretch went by in about two minutes, so the next part came at us quickly.

More braking.

More complaining from the girls.

It would have been funny if we weren’t in a real life-or-death rush.

I had to keep my heart from thumping out of my chest while dancing near the top speed of the car. It was dangerous to maintain such insane speeds, but I justified it as totally necessary.

One blown tire and it would be the end…

I ignored that tiny voice telling me to slow down.

We had no time for doing anything halfway.

The town of North Pointe was ahead, and I finally let off the gas. Ahead, I couldn’t take it nearly as fast, since there was a lot of destruction and debris blocking our way. This was the place where the energy weapon had devastated the middle of the town, so the evidence of fire was everywhere.

I made the first left turn I could, to avoid going near those burned-out buildings in the tourist areas in the middle of town. Maybe it was a bit superstitious, but if the people running that beam saw me come back to the scene of the crime, I was worried they would try to shoot me a second time.

There were more cars to veer around, but the Mustang ate up the turns like it was having more fun swerving than I had turning the wheel. We passed several establishments along the edge of town, including a daycare, a bookstore, and a church. When I turned from south to west, I skirted along more retail establishments, most of them still intact. The fire had not spread to the edge of town.

Ahead, I saw the big intersection that tied in with Bayside Road. I had to take it slower, since there were a good number of dead cars eternally waiting for the green lights to come back on, but we managed to swerve through and head south.

I thought I saw motion in the window of a nail salon on our left, but I couldn’t put any brainpower into that possibility, whether it was worth exploring or avoiding, since we had places to be.

In seconds, I shoved through the gears until we were screaming south at close to the top speed of the expensive motor. Carmen’s long hair had come undone again, and it now blew violently straight back. When I glanced over to her, she tried to stay low in her seat to cut down on the wind blasting into the open convertible, but I also noted how she had a smile on her face. Was she enjoying this as much as I was?

The miles ticked off, more than one every thirty seconds, and I soon saw the orange clownfish sign.

Adrenaline had soaked my brain.

I wanted to keep going.

If only.

There was no time to get fancy about our approach. The men could already be attacking our street, and I needed to be there to rally my people and fight off the bad guys, like we’d all planned.

If only we had a working radio.

I waited until the last possible second before engaging the brakes. I wanted to come in hot, on the off chance the Decagon troopers were already near the entrance. The tires squealed as they dragged themselves along the middle of Bayside Road, and I only let them off as we rounded the corner onto Poseidon Pier.

“Hang on!” I warned.

The car lurched the passengers forward, then right, then backward, then forward one last time as I braked in front of the blockade.

“Oh my!” Lucy tapped Carmen’s shoulder to get her to open the door.

“Be careful,” I advised. “Run and hide in the cars.”

We all tumbled out of the Mustang, easy to do since it sat so low to the ground, and I went directly toward the edge of the roadblock.

“It’s us!” I shouted, knowing our people were watching. “It’s Frank!”

Lucy threw up. I heard her behind me.

I laughed to myself, sure the girls would never understand what was going through my mind. The last few minutes were the most scared I’d ever been behind the wheel, but it was also the most liberating. I’d gotten them safely around the forest, as promised. Who could blame me for having fun at the same time?

Carmen reached me first.

Lucy arrived a few seconds later, wiping her lips.

“You guys alright?” I asked, looking forward, breathing hard.

After moving at such insane speeds, it seemed as if the world was standing completely still, and for a few moments, there was nothing happening anywhere around us. However, I finally noticed a person waving at me from the trench by the house at the start of Barracuda Bay.

I waved back.

Cookie stood up and made it clear who was manning the roadblock.

“We’re coming through!” I clarified.

She waved us forward.

I ran, but realized the girls weren’t behind me, so I stopped before clearing all the cars. “You guys coming?”

“Yeah, we are,” Carmen said. “She’s got it rough.”

My neighbor seemed genuinely concerned about the woman who’d been impersonating her, trying to make sure she was done puking and was going to follow. It took an eternity, maybe twenty seconds, but they finally got underway.

The blood in my veins was now moving faster than the Super Snake. I had to get home. I had to warn everyone.

Looking toward the woods, I didn’t see the attackers…yet.

They were out there, no doubt.

“Run for it!” I urged the women.

This time, I waited for the girls to run next to me, and we all went across the grass beyond the blockaded bridge, arriving at the pile of dirt Cookie was still hiding behind. I held my rifle at the ready, making sure the two women went up and over before I did.

It was only when all three of us fell into the ditch, safe from being shot, that I was able to deliver my message.

“Cookie, get everyone you can. We’re about to be attacked!”

CHAPTER 19

“Go, go, go!” I yelled, running down the middle of Barracuda. With Cookie’s help, we’d assembled our whole group near the circle at the end of the street and passed out guns. My blood pressure boiled in the knowledge the attack would come at any second, but a bit of it had backed off once I had my people at full alert. As long as we could get into our final defensive positions before the first gunshot.

Gunther and I covered our friends as they ran into the backyard with the footbridge, intending to cross. On the other side of the canal, looking toward Clownfish Cove, I still didn’t see any movement in the woods beyond the houses. That gave us a last chance to reposition my forces where they could do the most good.

Cookie and Nate went over first. When they got across the narrow planks, they made it into Luke’s backyard and then scurried to the corner of the house, one on each side, and kept watch for the rest of us.

Carmen and Lucy went next. We’d come in hot, and I’d been yelling about an attack every second since, so no one had any idea who they were, though there were questions waiting to be asked, since both women wore the identical outfit.

“Guys, our rescue mission was a success, as you can see. These two ladies are Carmen and Lucy. The Carmen you see here is the real one we rescued, and Lucy was the Carmen that’s been with us for the last week. The real one is in green.”

That got some laughs, since they were both in green.

“I’m Carmen,” the real one replied as she reached solid ground.

“It’s a long story,” Lucy added, landing second.

Wayne and Mr. Puppers followed the ladies. I wasn’t sure I wanted the dog involved in this, but I couldn’t spare the time to lock him up on the Barracuda side. Faith trailed behind those two.

That left me and Gunther.

“You go,” I told him.

He looked at me as if about to argue, but he wasn’t speaking, and I wasn’t going to wait for him to write anything down, so he seemed to accept his fate and head over.

A gunshot rang out when he was almost in the middle.

“They’re here!” I warned.

My heart screamed. If I couldn’t get across with my friends, I would have to stay on Barracuda, out of the direct fight.

I tried to find the source of the shot. I assumed it came from the woods beyond my street, but there was no one standing over there making an obvious target for me. Once I saw Gunther touch land and head into the backyard, I ran for the bridge.

Another crack of gunfire sounded, this time from my left.

They were coming at us from multiple directions. Smart, as long as they had the time to get into the houses. Gunther was breaking right, toward Levar’s property.

I shot left, from the hip, hoping to slow them down.

More shots returned my way.

As fast as I ran, it seemed as if I was carrying a ten-ton weight, slowing me down so I would be struck by a bullet. While I wanted to fire again from the hip, it was only thirty feet to the other side, and I was over there in moments. I jumped to the land and tumbled a bit, content to make myself a harder target for a few seconds.

My people fired, creating a distraction.

“I’m going left!” I called out.

When I sucked in enough air to move, I crawled a few yards and then got up and ran for it. I wasn’t sure where the enemy was, but I was fairly certain where they weren’t, so I headed between the homes and sprinted across Drummond’s front yard.

Carmen joined me.

I pointed to her house. “You go in there, look to the woods!”

She didn’t argue, which was a bonus.

I crossed the open space between the next two homes, heading for my open garage, but I caught sight of movement in the trees behind my place. They were back there, no doubt about it.

The race was on to see if I could get to my back window before anyone could get inside. Once they were in, they would have hard cover, and it would be almost impossible to get them out.

My garage had been wrecked by the bus blast, but the bent metal of the doors still blocked most of the three-car space, so I slid under it, praying no more shots would come at me.

Moving slowly from the jarring pain of hitting the ground at a run, I stumbled into the kitchen door and went through my dining area and living room. When I reached the rear window, I saw a man dressed in a familiar black uniform running out of the bird-drenched woods. He matched the dress code of the men who’d departed the side-by-sides earlier. It was visual confirmation I was about to fire at a true threat.

“Got ya,” I said.

My chest heaved from the effort.

I tried to line him up, sad that I would have to shoot through my window but ready to do it anyway.

The guns blast was loud inside the house.

Broken glass indicated my round went out, but I was not rewarded with a strike against the man. He briefly paused, seeing where I was, but he continued to come at me. I thought it was dumb, at first, until I realized he was in the middle of open ground. He had no chance no matter what direction he ran.

I lined him up again.

This time, I held my breath, steadying my whole body.

The shot went into the man’s chest.

I fired a couple more times as he fell.

There were others out there, but not many.

I shot at a man’s arm as he hid behind a tree.

I think I clipped another guy in the head as he, too, crouched behind a tree. The El Camino was stashed in that direction, and I worried for a second that they’d found it. They didn’t have the key for it, however, so I was hoping they might leave it alone.

That was minor, however, compared to the shooting taking place behind me, from in front of my house.

What was going on out there?

I plastered the trees to keep those men pinned down, then I ran to the front to see if I could figure out where the new threats were coming from. My windows were busted out and crashed in, from the explosion days earlier, so I wouldn’t have to shoot out the glass.

A man stood at the construction home, firing his rifle into a house on the right side of our road.

I whipped up my Bravo rifle, dialing in the red-dot scope. The man’s silhouette appeared in large size, and I aimed for the part of him I could see. I was breathing fast, chest heaving, so my aim was not the usual steady bead I needed for such distance.

Judging my chances of hitting him, I lowered the glass, took a few breaths to calm myself, then raised it again.

“Relax, Frank,” I murmured.

I held my breath as best I could as I loosed the first shot.

A crack of stucco exploded above the man’s head, on the corner, but he didn’t react to it. He was also looking into a scope, but he wasn’t looking at me. It meant he was aiming at someone else…

I held my breath again, ignoring the pain in my lungs and the dots teasing me from behind my eyes.

“Steady.”

I put the next shot into the left side of the man’s chest, the side he exposed around the corner, and he fell back as if pushed. I prayed I’d gotten him before he’d been able to hit one of my people.

Seeing how there were two groups of men from vastly different directions, I believed I’d figured out the attack plan, so I scanned the woods at the far end of our street. It was a quarter of a mile away, but I could clearly see a black shape kneeling at the tree line, aiming a rifle at—

My blood stopped cold.

If I could see him, it meant he also had a direct line of sight back to me.

“Uh-oh.”

I fell flat to the floor.

A thud struck the living room wall behind me.

My first instinct was to fire back.

I glanced down at the pride and joy of my personal gun collection. The Bravo Company RECCE-16 Carbine AR-15 was well-oiled, well-maintained, and it could casually swat a mosquito at a hundred yards. Paired with the right scope, dialed in to max distance, I could kill that same bug at four hundred yards. However, it was currently outfitted with my little red-dot scope, designed for close encounters, and it had barely been suitable to take out the guy halfway down the street, much less the tiny shape hiding at the far end. Plus, despite all my practice with it over the years, I’d never faced another shooter doing the same thing to me. I was safe on the floor, shielded from bullets by the planters on the front porch, but if I lifted up a bit…

It would be an impossible shot, but it was better than not shooting at all, right? However, before I could get set up, someone patted the back of my leg. Given the circumstances, I recoiled a bit, not sure who it could be.

A sad dog looked down at me.

He continued to tap my leg with his large paw.

“Oh, I get it, you hang around the kid when times are good, but you come to me when the turds hit the fan,” I said, laughing to myself at the dumb statement. Why I’d even gotten a tiny bit jealous of Wayne, I would never know. The dog missed his family, and the kid and I both provided something for the poor thing. Wayne was the fun kid. I was the protective dad. He was no doubt missing those things.

‘This doesn’t seem like a good idea, mate,’ he drawled in his thick Aussie accent, not answering my question. ‘Who will give me those Pop-Tarts if you get hit?’

Another shot came through the room and struck at the back.

I ducked down but saw Mr. Puppers still sitting upright, unaware of what was causing those noises, so I dragged him next to me. “Come on, boy, you’re right, this isn’t a good idea. We don’t want to be here.”

We crawled to a back room, where we couldn’t be spotted from the front, before I got into a crouch. As much as I wanted to listen to the dog, I couldn’t sit inside and hide through the whole gunfight. People counted on me to help out, and I wouldn’t be worthy of leadership if I didn’t figure out a way to keep my friends alive.

Besides, after the turn of events with those men, destroying their rides, then capturing their leaders, I didn’t think they were going to be taking any prisoners.

“We need to do this another way.”

I checked the back window for a moment, staying hidden behind a thin curtain, so I could be sure no one was coming at us from that direction. The same dead man was in my yard, and I’d apparently killed the other guy, too, as he’d fallen to the side of the tree in full view.

There didn’t appear to be anyone else out there.

Staying low, I retreated to the kitchen, then to my mudroom. There, next to the lockers, the Barrett M107A1 sniper rifle sat upright against the wall, since it didn’t fit inside any of the three school lockers.

“Do you think this will give us an edge?” I joked to the dog.

‘Hurry up,’ he answered.

I felt the pressure, too. There weren’t a lot of gunshots out there, but I knew that the bulk of them had to be coming from the attackers, since there hadn’t been time to train Cookie or Faith with firearms. They both agreed to carry shotguns and ammo to support those carrying rifles, but I didn’t expect miracles from them. None of us were soldiers.

That tempered my enthusiasm about using the sniper rifle. I couldn’t move too fast, or I’d make mistakes. When facing off against a sniper, a task I only knew from reading books or watching movies, it seemed to really pay off to be sneaky and methodical. Therefore, I grabbed a few things from the house before I dared return to the front window.

A long rope.

One of my junk guns.

An old baseball cap.

I snuck into the garage, noting how the warped garage door left a triangular gap on the left side, at floor level, so I could see outside onto my driveway through the six-foot-long opening. It was only about two feet tall at the highest point, but that was all the space I needed.

I tied the yellow hat onto the stock of the rifle, then, staying out of view, I tied the rifle to the back of the garage door, above the gap, using a bread bag twist-tie to hold it there—barely.

Then I tied the thicker rope onto the stock, draped it over a table and along the ground, out of sight of the hole in the door, and then took it into the house.

Mr. Puppers looked at me with skepticism in his big brown eyes.

“What?” I asked.

‘You really think this clumsy Wile E. Coyote plan will work?’

“It only has to work once,” I said with assurance.

‘Yeah, but if it doesn’t work at all, my Pop-Tart gravy train is over.’

I laughed as I crawled the rope through the house and into the front room. “Is that all you ever worry about?”

He verbally shrugged. ‘It’s one of the things I worry about.’

I didn’t want to ask about the others.

When I reached the windows, hidden behind the planters, I cradled the M107A1 for a moment, willing good luck to flow into the cold, bare metal. I laughed about it while talking for Mr. Puppers, but he was right about the possibility it wouldn’t work out. As deceptions went, mine was probably too dumb even for a Roadrunner cartoon.

Using more rope, I tied off a second hat in the front room where I needed it.

Maybe my deception was worse than amateur hour. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, seeing it through the dog’s eyes, but I had to remember the other factor was time. I could sit and think of how to be sneaky, but it would take time away from action, and it would make my friends absorb more of the shots from the enemy sniper. I had to get in the fight the best way I knew how.

My heart had slowly revved up while I’d been planning this goofball activity, but now it pounded on my ribs, as if it wanted nothing to do with my next set of actions.

“You ready?” I asked.

Mr. Puppers was lying down next to me. He would be safe there, no matter what happened, because he was below the level of the planters.

‘No,’ he answered.

“Well, we’re doing this.”

I tugged on the rope to activate the fake gun in the garage.

Pucker factor dialed up to eleven.

After drawing in a deep breath, possibly my last, I raised the Barrett, balanced it on the low windowsill, and put my eyes to the giant scope. Much like the HK43 I’d used for the tunnel and for spying on the golf clubhouse, the Kingston brothers had spared no expense to execute long-distance shots with the exotically expensive sniper rifle.

I heard a shot land in the garage.

He had taken my bait. The garbage rifle had fallen to the floor, exposing the rifle and a hat for the sniper to see through the gap in the damaged door. My hope was that it would take him a while to figure out it was a decoy. That would give me enough time to…

I zeroed in on him, but it took several seconds to locate him in the choppy backdrop of all those trees.

Another round zipped into the front room. The room I was in.

‘Mate,’ Mr. P warned.

I couldn’t breathe.

“I know,” I huffed.

‘He sees where you are,’ the dog added.

I saw the guy in the glass.

“I’m on it,” I replied.

Another shot came through the window. I had no idea if it was close, but I did see the man aiming in my direction. He’d figured out I’d tried to trick him. My hope was he didn’t see me through all the broken glass and tangle of drapes.

To make sure, I pulled on the second rope, which lifted my hat in front of the window about three feet to my right. It would create motion that would draw his eye.

I hoped.

I struggled to keep the gun steady. The larger scope meant even the tiniest movements would take me off my target. And this guy was so far away. There was no margin of error.

“Lord, help me protect my friends,” I quietly prayed.

I squeezed the trigger.

The boom was deafening.

Smoke filled the room, and a billion pieces of loose glass tinkled down from the damaged windows above me.

The edge of the scope bit me above the eye.

I had to drop down.

So many things had gone wrong. I touched my right eyebrow. How could I have been so ignorant about the kick? That was shooting 101 with high-caliber pieces.

‘You had a few things going on, mate,’ the dog reassured me.

I laughed, embracing the comedy of errors.

At the same time, I waited for the rounds to sweep the room. If that sniper thought I had a big rifle pointing back at him, he would probably want to pour shots in here to ensure I didn’t get a second chance.

Mr. Puppers saw me lying on the floor and took it as an invitation to crawl over to me army-style. Together, we hung out in silence, waiting for the attack. After about a minute, when it remained quiet, I realized there wasn’t any shooting outside.

I tapped my ears, then snapped my fingers, wondering if I’d gone deaf. That would be the ultimate embarrassment—standing up and thinking the battle was over, when in fact it was my ears not reporting it. However, I heard the snap as my hearing recovered from the blast.

The hat to my right had a new hole in it.

“See?” I poked the dog. “My plan worked.”

‘We’ll see,’ he allowed.

“Yeah.” I had to take a chance. I grabbed the big gun and scooted away from the window, leaving Mr. Puppers looking confused. “I’ll be right back.”

I went into the front bedroom, a place where I hadn’t yet fired a weapon, hoping that by repositioning I would be able to look down the scope to see the enemy sniper. I didn’t stand in front of the window, but instead stayed in the back of the room, near the door, and leaned in only enough to observe through the broken window and down the street.

“I don’t believe it,” I whispered.

No shot came at me.

The man was still on the ground, practically in the open, lying behind his weapon. I thought about taking another shot at him, to be sure, but with more time watching, I figured out his head was missing a good chunk of its top half.

“And you said I was Wile E. Coyote.” I smirked.

‘But I still get a treat, right?’

“Let’s make sure the battle is really over before we start cracking into the celebratory pastries,” I replied.

‘Fine.’

CHAPTER 20

“You think we’re good?” I asked my dog pal.

‘I have no idea. I’m just a lil puppy, not a fighter.’

He was exaggerating his skills. I’d seen him get plenty defensive and protective over the past week, but I didn’t think it would be a good use of my time to argue with him. While I’d asked for his opinion, I could now hear with my own ears that there was no more shooting going on outside. I’d put down three guys myself. Had the others taken out the rest? Was anyone on our side hurt…or worse?

There was no way to get out of the house without exposing myself to danger from some direction. The sniper at the far end of the street had effectively blocked us from crossing the street, though I’d checked several times to be certain he was, in fact, missing half a head. Also, I needed to make sure none of the other soldiers moved into that position. The man was dead, but his rifle was still intact.

“Hey, can you guys hear me?” I called out the front window.

“Yeah, we hear you!” Nate shouted back. Cookie and the others replied in turn. The only person who didn’t reply was Gunther, and I reasoned it was due to his lack of a voice…rather than anything else.

“Are there any guys still out there in the woods?” I asked.

I got various answers ranging from ‘probably not’ to ‘I think we got them all.’ That gave me some reassurance, but it wasn’t absolute. The only way to be sure was to go out there and check, otherwise we’d have to spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders toward the woods.

“Guys, wait where you are. Be ready to shoot if you see them, okay? I’m going to do something to stir them up.”

“Roger!” Nate yelled back. As best I could tell, he was in Luke’s home, or maybe the one beyond.

It pained me to do it, but I had to lock Mr. Puppers in a bedroom.

“I’ll let you out when it’s safe, okay?”

He was prone on the floor, pouting.

“You’ll thank me someday,” I reasoned, shutting the door before I could change my mind. I was reasonably sure my friends knew the enemy men were dead or gone, but the leader in me knew I couldn’t risk anyone else, not even my beloved golden retriever, until I knew for sure.

My first stop was the gun lockers. We’d moved some guns and supplies over to Barracuda, but those only scratched the surface. I had a lot of gear, ammo, and guns left in the three lockers.

I decided this was a four-gun mission. My everyday carry pistol was always glued to me, so that was the first. I already had my favorite AR, so that was a keeper, too. On slings, I added an automatic shotgun and one of the Kingston brothers’ smaller rifles, which I figured was an Uzi. As part of our preps, all the magazines were stuffed and ready to rock and roll.

At the front door, I inhaled deeply, girding myself for what had to be done. It would be hard labor lugging around the three long guns, but they made me feel a lot better about going out in the first place. There were no foxholes or trenches dug in this area, and I didn’t even have the wall of tarps to give us some concealment, so the only way to get anywhere was out in the open.

When I caught my breath, I sprinted off the porch.

My heart rate went critical in seconds.

I headed around my garage and went between my home and the next, dodging left and right, always wondering if a bullet was going to come at me. Lacking any cover from pits or piles of dirt, I had to use the houses as my bullet blockers. I crouch-ran close to the stucco walls and moved as fast as I could. After a brief pause behind Luke’s place, I sprinted through his backyard, went through the fence, then dashed across the footbridge. It seemed safer on the next street, since the men hadn’t attacked there, so I immediately ran to the tractor and started her up.

Gunther had explained the controls, and they weren’t hard to learn. I got the wheeled beast turned around and drove it to the far end of the street, since our planned gravel crossing was not yet complete.

Once I cleared the roadblock, I ducked as low as I could in the enclosed cockpit. I was well-shielded by the heavy scooper shovel on the front, but I was flying free in the wind against bullets coming at me from the sides.

My first stop was the sniper nest at the edge of the woods. I wheeled the big machine over open ground and rolled up next to the dead guy, then stopped on inspiration. Catching my breath from the stress of being out there at all, I opened the door, hopped down, and grabbed the man’s big sniper rifle off the ground. It wasn’t a Barrett, like ours, but it seemed nice. I put it in the scooper where it would be safe.

I rode the edge of the woods, slowly peeking over the scooper to scan for threats. I assumed anyone left alive would run when they saw me coming, so I hoped my friends were ready to take them out for me. Still, I kept my AR out and aimed sideways, just in case…

I came upon a pair of guys with terrible head wounds, clearly dead.

My blood pressure refused to come down. Seeing real dead men from a few feet away reminded me this was serious life-or-death business.

I crept along the line of trees. Dead birds and the stink of death was everywhere.

There was another man, dead.

When I got about halfway down the street, almost behind the construction homes, I found a group of five black-clad guards, all dead, all facing our homes, as if they’d tried to hold the position during the gunfight.

When I reached the area behind my property, I confirmed there were three dead men back there. I’d only shot two, so I checked out the third guy. I couldn’t say for sure, but it looked as if he’d taken his own life.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

After a considerable amount of time searching for more, or waiting to be surprised by one of the survivors, I finally hopped down and started to collect their firearms. I told myself that the next time I rounded up prisoners, I needed to count them, if only so I knew how many there were to chase down if they got free. These are things a normal person wouldn’t think about.

When I tossed the first pair of rifles in the bucket, I turned around and faced—

My heart rocketed into my throat.

I halfway raised my rifle until—

It was Carmen.

“I thought you were one of them,” I wheezed, lowering my weapon.

“You didn’t hear me coming across the grass?” she asked, laughing a bit at my discomfort.

“I think I have hearing damage,” I replied. Then I realized where she was. “Hey, you shouldn’t be out here. There could be—”

She patted a combat shotgun cradled in her arms. “Frank, I don’t know what the hell has been going on while I was gone, but there is no way in hell I’m going to hunker down and let these guys threaten you, me, or anyone. I’m not a girl who takes anything lying down.”

“No, you don’t seem like that at all,” I agreed.

She looked down again. “But, I have to admit, I’ve never fired a shotgun before today…”

“You shot it with no training?”

“What was I going to do, fight with bad language?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to tangle with the sassy woman in any cussing battle. She kept talking at a mile-a-minute pace.

“We fell out of that car, you rounded us all up, gave us the guns, threw us over the bridge, and told us to shoot anyone in the woods, so that’s what I tried to do, until I ran out of shelly things.”

“You did good,” I assured her. “All these men are dead.”

I pointed to the bodies on the forest floor to make my point.

“Wayne, that kid, said you give shooting lessons.”

“Yeah, I think my class is getting larger by the day.”

That finally made her smile.

Now that I saw her in full light, I appreciated once again how Lucy had been able to fool me only because I hadn’t been given enough time to observe the real Carmen. The real Carmen spoke with her hands, always gesturing, poking the air to add emphasis, and generally being far more animated than Lucy. She was also far darker-skinned, like a real Hispanic woman, than Lucy’s interpretation.

In short, if Lucy had been forced to play the part of Carmen while she was next to her, it would never have worked. If I’d been closer while the pair had been on the patio of that house, or I’d been using the scope on the Barrett instead of the HK43, it might have been obvious even then.

“Hey, I’m glad we found you,” I said. “Want to ride with me?”

We couldn’t stand around at the edge of the woods while there was still an active threat of being shot. Also, while it was nice she’d come over from the houses, I didn’t want to send her back across the same open terrain when I had a perfectly good tractor ten feet away.

She looked at me with her head cocked, as if deciding on these things, too. She turned to the houses, looked around for a moment, then shrugged. “If it will help me bag some more of these guys, sign me up.”

The tractor seat was large enough for the two of us, perhaps made that way for the big Bubbas who drove heavy equipment for a living. However, I had to sit in the middle to be able to work the controls, which meant Carmen had to squeeze in next to me. Rather than sit against the window, she left it open to give herself room. Also, she had to put her arm around my shoulders to keep from falling out.

“Sorry if I stink,” she commented, sounding uncharacteristically embarrassed.

“I’m sure I’m even worse,” I replied.

Despite her worry, the air in the cabin changed for the better.

I’d caught a whiff of her perfume back in that basement, the first time I found her, and I realized Lucy’s portrayal of Carmen had been missing this crucial ingredient. Her scent reminded me of sugar cookies and honey, and it needled its way immediately into the deepest, most primitive recesses of my brain. There was no way anyone could ever fool me again if they tried to pass off another Carmen clone.

“Frank?” She leaned in front of me. “Do I smell that bad?”

I saw a look of pure horror in her emerald eyes.

It struck me that I’d been sniffing the air like Mr. Puppers.

“No, the opposite actually. I really like your perfume.”

“I can’t have much on, not after all the time I’ve been out here sweating, held in small rooms, and driven around at a hundred miles an hour…”

“Two hundred,” I corrected in a friendly way.

“Yes, all that.” She sat up straight. “I’m surprised you can smell it at all.”

Her worry made me chuckle with relief at the wonderful moment together. “You aren’t anything like the Carmen who has been here for the past several days.” I smiled.

She looked back toward the houses. “Yeah, I’m going to have words with that jintera when I get the chance. I want to know what fake things she’s been saying about me.”

“That reminds me, I asked her about those cats in your living room.” As intended, the look on her face became one of horror.

“No. What did she say about them?”

“She said you have all that cat stuff because they are so cute.”

“That’s false! I got those cats to piss off my ex-husband, not because I think they’re cute. I’m allergic to cats like nobody’s business.”

“Me too,” I interjected.

“See, that’s what I’ve got to tamp down. Cutesy? No way. I can’t have people thinking false things about me.”

“She also said you were a drug dealer. That’s why so many cars were always at your house.” I’d never asked Lucy about this, but of the few things I knew about Carmen before the EMP, it was that she enjoyed tending her lawn in her bikini, and she also had a lot of visitors. Drummond had once told me he and the other neighbors had a pool going as to whether she was a drug dealer.

“That’s total bull—”

We both saw motion at the same time. To our right, about a hundred yards out, beyond the carpet of decaying birds.

“You see that?” I asked, already moving the tractor’s bucket to the right, so we were shielded from any incoming bullets.

“Yeah, I think it’s that special needs kid,” she remarked, craning her neck to look over the scooper.

“You mean the one with the two adults…” I tried to call up their names, but the excitement had beat it out of me.

“Dutch and Elsa,” she finished. “Yeah.”

“What’s their deal?” I asked, hoping she could give me some useful details.

“I have no idea, Frank. They seem to hate the kid, though, I’ll tell you that. Back at their headquarters, I never heard him talk or do anything but mope around and linger in dark corners. I got the feeling they wanted him anywhere but with them.”

That jibed with my own thoughts, though she’d been closer to them than myself.

“Are they leaders of this Decagon group?”

“Is that what they’re called?” she asked.

“Lucy told me.”

“I wouldn’t trust anything she tells you, but that’s just me.”

“Point taken,” I allowed.

We’d rolled about fifty yards, and I was careful to check our sides along the way. However, the closer we got, the more certain I was that we were going to find the two leaders plus the kid.

“That’s him,” she announced, pointing to the white-blonde hair of the boy as he ran from tree to tree to keep up with his…keepers? Parents? Guardians?

The tractor went fast enough that I could have run them down in no time, but I tried to retain my wits as we closed the distance, since they could have been leading us into a trap. Much of what I was doing was based on estimations.

I’d estimated there were ten men in the hit team.

I’d estimated there were ten dead men near our homes.

If I’d been off even a little, there could still be guards out there. They could be using the trio as bait to get us to commit to a final attack with their last few soldiers.

I slowed even more when I saw the tunnel ramp.

Carmen waved her hand in front of her face. “Oh, wow. That’s nasty.”

“That tunnel is death itself,” I remarked.

“That’s been there this whole time? My realtor sure glossed over this thing when I bought the house. It’s practically in my back yard.”

“I’m not sure this was here before,” I explained. “Or, if it was, it was sealed shut and hidden. I’ve come across a bunch of these holes all around town, including one in the center of North Pointe. They seem to have appeared out of nowhere.”

She looked over.

Despite the urgency and threat, I enjoyed seeing her up close and feeling her arm around me. Her perfume and beauty made me a bit woozy, but her grit and directness made me stay firmly planted in the moment. While she spoke to me, I resumed scanning the woods outside, ready for anything that would dare to harm such a wonderful person.

“Frank, that’s nuts, at least I would think so. However, after all I’ve seen over the past week, including being locked up multiple times and seeing people disappear, maybe nothing is too far-fetched anymore.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

The two adults got the child closer to them, and they stood at the edge of the horrible pit. I rolled the tractor to a stop about fifty feet away, not sure what was going to happen.

“They can’t get away from us on foot,” I reasoned, “but they might think they can give us the slip down there.”

“Can they?” Carmen whispered.

We both sat looking at them for a few moments.

“I’ve been down there. Let me just say if they did go down, I might be inclined to let them give it a try. They’ll probably come right back up, almost puking, same as me.”

I was going to let it go at that, but then I remembered Faith.

“Actually, there might be something down there. If you get a chance to talk to the scientist woman, Doctor Sinclair, she claims that she escaped from a science lab down there. Something called SNAKE.”

“Snake? What kind of name is that for a science lab?”

“I’ve got all the questions, but none of the answers,” I laughed.

She put her foot out the door. “Well, I’ve been waiting to get back at them for making me suffer this past week.”

“Wait.” I held her thigh, near the knee. “Lucy said something odd… She said, don’t let these people touch you. Does that mean anything to you?”

She shook her head.

“Be careful around them,” I finished, letting her go.

There didn’t seem to be anyone in the forest around us.

“Wait for me to get down,” I suggested.

When I hit the ground, she was already walking in front of the bucket and toward the trio.

The woman didn’t seem to have a ‘careful’ mode.

CHAPTER 21

I caught up to her as she approached the pit, but I kept glancing all around us to make sure there were no threats ready to pounce. We stopped about twenty feet away from the man and woman, though I was alert to the possibility there were more soldiers hiding behind the tunnel entrance into the ground.

“You didn’t think you’d see me again, did you?” Carmen teased.

The man chuckled. “If you only knew why we kept you alive.”

“Yeah, we would have ground your bones into a fine paste on any other day,” the woman added venomously.

Carmen’s face went pale. Probably from what had been said, but the deathly stench blowing out of the tunnel couldn’t have been helping.

I tried to get involved.

“Look, we fought off your attack dogs. We’ve captured you. Why don’t you two leave us alone and we’ll call this a permanent ceasefire, okay?”

The man sneered at me. “You think we were even trying? Lucy told us there were only unarmed women and children on your street, so we didn’t bring a full unit to wipe you away, but we will.”

I raised my rifle, instantly uncomfortable when the child appeared from behind the man, still wearing his white pajamas. It was hard not to see the kid as actively getting involved to protect his two watchers, but it could have been a coincidence. Whatever it was, though, I wasn’t going to shoot while a ten-year-old was standing near them.

“If you send your boy over, I promise we’ll take care of him,” I said.

“And then you’ll off us?” Dutch remarked before taking a bold step forward. “Do you think you’re the kind of person who can kill a man in cold blood?”

My first reaction was horror, as I absolutely couldn’t commit murder, but I soon appreciated how he was trying to distract me.

“Hey, buddy, you are the leader of the men sent to kill me, not some innocent bystander walking down the street. If I shot you right here, it would be entirely justified by the law, and by my conscience. If I shot your boy, however, that would be coldblooded murder. See? There’s a difference.”

The man took a half-step backward, as if realizing I might pull the trigger. When he did so, the boy took his hand and the hand of the woman, so they all stood there in a line, with the boy in the middle.

Strangely, the kid wasn’t looking at me, but was faced the other way, toward the tunnel. Nothing about the youngster seemed to make sense. Carmen had even described him as special needs. Why the pair was dragging him around the battlefield was a mystery.

“Tell me why you snatched me out of the woods that night,” Carmen demanded. “Why send that woman to replace me?”

“And why was Peterri Tikkanen at your house?” I added.

Dutch and Elsa shared glances.

“I won’t shoot you if you give us some answers.” I decided to try the carrot, since I didn’t want to fire shots around the kid. Also, if I was being honest, I didn’t want to deny the kid his parents, if that’s who they were. I knew it was illogical, given what those parents had done to me, but there it was.

“You won’t like our answers,” Dutch replied. “Are you sure you want to know who we are and what we’re doing?”

“You don’t,” Elsa interjected.

“What does it matter?” Carmen groused. “There’s nobody left. The whole world is gone.”

“Are you sure about that?” the man teased.

“I heard from…a guy…that those people erased by the plane had been moved somewhere else.”

Dutch seemed surprised. “You know that much?”

“And then some,” I exaggerated. “But I want to know how it all fits together from someone who has all the facts.”

“You have no idea how far down the rabbit hole you can go with this stuff,” Dutch began. “Yes, people are gone, now, but the past fifty years have been leading up to this moment, and our group has been pioneering these efforts.”

“The Decagon,” I deadpanned.

His eyes grew wide. “However you learned that name, I warn you to keep it to yourself. There are penalties for revealing our deepest secrets.”

“Even your group’s name?” I laughed.

“Have you ever heard of us?” he taunted.

“No, I can’t say that—”

“It’s because everyone who has ever uttered that word in public is cancelled. We can’t allow our name to become common knowledge. Then we become a target. Then we get destroyed.”

I rolled my eyes, tired of the conspiracies.

“Just tell me what’s going on. Are you behind the Cleaners and the planes?”

“The Cleaners and the planes,” he repeated, getting ever quieter.

While the man had been talking, the boy had begun swinging between the two people holding him. They fought to support him as he swung himself over the edge of the ramp, then he would swing back toward the forest. I could understand why they might let him do it a time or two, since falling over the edge would get him dirty but wouldn’t hurt him. However, I didn’t get why they didn’t take a step or two forward, so he wasn’t at risk of slipping out of their hands and going down into the stink.

Carmen had been standing to my left, but she’d gotten closer to me, as if fighting back the same feeling I was experiencing. It wasn’t fear, precisely, but I was supremely uneasy at seeing the young boy with these two adults who didn’t seem to care about him.

“Well?” I prompted. We didn’t have all day. It did occur to me this could be a big stall, while more of his guards came from elsewhere in town to rescue him.

“Are our missing neighbors alive or dead?” Carmen pushed. “I have a lot of friends on my street, and I want to know what happened to them.”

“It all depends,” Dutch replied, leaving it hanging.

“On what?” she asked.

“On whether they were worth grabbing or not,” he explained. “You see, the system we’ve been living in is based on your worth to society. That’s why men and women like us are at the top, and nobodies like you are at the bottom. If you extrapolate that to its extreme, there are even people far below you and, I have to admit, a few of them above even us.”

“And the Cleaners?” I asked again.

“They sit about here.” He held his free hand flat, about at his waist. “I mean you are way down here, by my knee, and I’m at my shoulders, but the Cleaners are down here in the middle. Their job is to make sure dirty people like you are put to good use where you belong.”

“You aren’t making any sense,” Carmen complained. “Yes or no, are my neighbors alive?”

He shrugged. “If they are like you, I suspect they are still alive.”

“Where?” I pounced. “Where are they?”

“Ah, see, there’s the problem. Those most responsible for all this are sitting up here…” He lifted his hand almost to the top of his head. “…and they wanted your friends for an important reason that I’m not at liberty to interrupt. All I can tell you is that your friends are playing an important role in keeping the rest of us safe.”

“And the EMP was used as cover to take them?” I inquired, always trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together.

He shrugged dismissively.

I was getting nowhere.

“Can you at least tell us if they are ever coming back?” I asked.

“They won’t,” he said without a moment of hesitation.

“How do you know that?”

“Because no one ever comes back,” he deadpanned.

“Dutch,” Elsa warned.

Both adults looked at their boy, who continued to swing, though without as much force as earlier. He might have spoken to them, but it was hard to see. Each of them turned back to me at the same time.

“All I can tell you is that the time of the human race living in pure ignorance is over. You have played your role, as the Cleaners played theirs. Now, in this moment, our group is playing on the stage. That is, if you’ll be so kind as to let us go.”

“Are you asking or telling us?” I asked.

His answer might give me a hint about whether he thought help was coming to rescue him.

“It’s polite to ask, isn’t it? But the truth is none of us are in this alone. There are higher powers pulling the strings, keeping watch, helping us when we are in trouble.” He looked up as if his words had been literal. I looked up, too, on the off chance there was a helicopter or drone about to drop on top of us, but there was nothing but the swaying tops of trees in my view.

When I looked at him again, he was craning his neck to see behind me. Turning back, I was shocked to see Lucy running for us.

“Well, we best be going,” Dutch suggested.

“Why?” I asked, half-turning to see how far Lucy was. It was as if they wanted to be gone before she got there. If that was true, there was only one place they could go to get away. “What does she know?”

Dutch’s face grew stiff. “We can’t trust the traitor, but neither can you. She spent years of her life practicing the art of deception to further our goals, and I assure you she was very good at it. She will tell you tales about us, I’m sure, but I warn you about acting on anything she tells you. Even she was never given the full picture. None of us are. That’s how we’ve been able to stay hidden in plain sight for hundreds of years.”

The kid had stopped swinging. He looked up at the adults, each in turn, and made them turn around, so they all faced the pit.

“Wait a second,” I pleaded, knowing they wouldn’t stop for me.

“Stop them!” Lucy screamed. “Don’t let them go!”

Dutch half-turned to me. “If I can give you one piece of advice, leave sleeping dogs lie. Humanity stands on the knife’s edge of survival, and I’m not talking about what you and your small group are doing on your lone street. Clownfish Cove, and streets like it, are the deck chairs on the Titanic. They are inconsequential—”

“Stop him, Frank!” Lucy shrieked, now getting close.

I glanced back to her, wondering if she had any suggestions on how I could possibly do that. I was armed to the teeth, but the trio acted as if they were the ones in charge. I was still torn on shooting them.

Dutch finished his thought.

“They are inconsequential to the people really pulling the strings behind all that you see up here.”

“They’re going to the ranch!” Lucy shouted. “You can’t let them!”

Now Dutch seemed to blink in disbelief at what she’d said. The boy tried to pull him over the edge of the slippery ramp, but he hesitated. “How does she know about that?”

The boy yanked.

Dutch gave me a final glance. “If you try to follow us down there, I promise it will be a one-way trip.”

Then, still holding the child, the couple jumped into the darkness, no doubt slipping on the slushy moss and speeding down the nasty incline toward the intersection of tunnels at the bottom.

Lucy arrived a few seconds later, gasping for air.

“Why didn’t you stop them?” she wheezed.

“Well, for one, I couldn’t risk hurting the kid,” I reacted.

She bent over and tried to catch her breath.

“He’s part of it, Frank. Haven’t you noticed there are no children around? Anywhere? And yet there he is.”

I was surprised at myself for not noticing that fact. Gunther had been the one to point out the lack of children on Pine Island, but it hadn’t really struck me until the moment she’d said it.

“What makes him so special?” I asked.

She finally stood up, though was still sucking in air after her run.

“I think they’re keeping all the children down there.”

Lucy pointed to the tunnel.

I hoped this was one of the lies Dutch had warned us about.

CHAPTER 22

We didn’t jump onto the slide and chase Elsa and Dutch down the slime chute right after they did. We listened as they slid away, and I thought I heard the cries when they splashed down at the bottom, but I couldn’t say for sure. We briefly saw a light down there, but I suspected they ran into the cross-tunnel moments later.

“Where are they going?” I asked Lucy.

“Yeah, they jumped when you got here,” Carmen accused.

“I don’t know what’s down there, I swear,” the woman answered. “They always talked in code when they were around people like me, and the only thing for sure is that they have this place where they go called ‘the ranch,’ but I’ve never been there. I don’t even know if it’s in these tunnels, but I’m sure they’re using the tunnels to get there.”

“Faith was down there,” I reminded us all. “Maybe she knows.”

“Then we should ask her,” Lucy suggested.

Was the scientist a part of this? I’d found the woman trustworthy when I spoke to her, but maybe it was better to mistrust everyone again.

No, I didn’t want to go down that road. If the gunfight had proven anything, we needed to stick together and trust each other even more. It was the only way to protect everyone and hold off the darkness outside. If there were answers in the literal darkness, down in that hole, I had to trust Faith would come clean about them.

“We can ask, but she’s already told us everything she knows about what’s down there.”

“So she says,” Lucy warned me.

“Yeah, so she says. So say us all. We have to trust each other.” I looked at Lucy, remembering what Dutch had said. “The last thing they mentioned was that we shouldn’t trust you, Lucy.”

She appeared taken aback.

“You aren’t going to listen to them, are you?”

“Nope. You are part of our group. You’ve been shot at, same as the rest of us. You’re one of us.”

She softened a bit. “Thank you, Frank.”

“That’s why I hope you’ll tell us whatever you might know, not just on this but on anything. That’s the very least I ask of anyone in our neighborhood watch, you know?”

“I do,” she answered. “I can tell you a million stories about what I did before the world ended, for their group, but my mission as Carmen only had one goal, and that was to learn how people like you had avoided the collection planes. The end, that’s it.”

“I believe you,” I replied.

“Not sure I do, copycat,” Carmen said under her breath.

Lucy cracked up a little. “Copycat. I get it. You love cats.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be funny. And no, I don’t love cats. You’ve been telling lies about me. You tried to take over my life, but you know nothing about me.”

Now the two women stood facing each other, both armed. Both upset about the turn of events. Out of nowhere, I had the threat of a brawl or worse.

“It wasn’t personal,” Lucy said with surprising calm. “Besides, once I committed myself to helping Frank, I was also helping you.”

“Dutch did say that you tricked him into thinking there were only unarmed women and children on this street,” I commented, realizing she was probably telling the truth in that moment.

“Yeah, I couldn’t stop them from coming here, but I knew they would underestimate you if they thought it would be a cakewalk.”

Carmen and I shared a look, like she didn’t want to believe it but had to admit it had happened that way. Unless Dutch and Elsa had planned to let their men die needlessly, just so we would trust Lucy, she had succeeded in tricking her former bosses.

The Cuban woman planted her hand on a hip. “Tell me the truth. Was Hugo part of your plan to take my spot? Is that why he trapped me in his basement before the world ended?”

Lucy seemed confused.

Hugo had to be Trevor’s dad, the kid with the party house. She’d asked me about Trevor’s dad the night I’d rescued her from that basement, though she hadn’t used his first name.

Carmen flailed both hands to ‘explain’ the next part. “A man locked me in his basement. That has to be part of this.”

“No. They told me they found you in the woods, not sure how you survived the collection plane that had passed through your area. They wanted me to come back here as you, see if I could figure out how you avoided the attack, then report back. I guess it was simple bad luck for you.”

Carmen didn’t seem happy at such a simple explanation, but what else could she do?

“Ladies, every second we stand here, those three are getting farther into the tunnels. I’m not busting to get out of here right this second, since Faith said there are miles of passages down there, but we should at least start planning.”

“Fine,” Carmen replied.

“Whatever you say,” Lucy wrapped up.

The three of us gathered up the remaining rifles and pistols lying with the bodies of the guards. We also grabbed the giant red Power Wagon, which hadn’t been parked far from the tunnel. Finding it, I wondered why they hadn’t bolted for it in the first place, rather than walking calmly toward the tunnel. It suggested that it had been part of their plan from the start to exit the battle by going belowground.

Back on Clownfish, I gathered everyone together again.

Carmen and Lucy stood on opposite sides of my garage as the rest of us huddled around a table with gear placed on top. Mr. Puppers hovered around Wayne, and I smiled when I noticed the kid had a Pop-Tart in his pocket. Despite the dog’s worries, he would be well-taken care of if I didn’t come back.

Was that a possibility?

Going anywhere in the apocalypse had that risk, but there was an unnatural quality to the pit. Dutch had warned it would be a one-way trip if I found what I was looking for. I’d already been down there once before, and coming up and seeing daylight had given me such relief I figured I’d never go down there again. Yet, here I was, gathering my friends to tell them exactly what I planned to do.

“The attack force is dead, except for the two leaders.”

“And their kid,” Carmen added.

“They went into the tunnel,” I said dryly.

“And you have to follow them?” Nate asked.

“I don’t have to, but I have a suspicion we may find the missing people from up here.”

“I don’t know about that,” Dr. Sinclair interrupted. “I walked all over down there, and I never saw anyone. I certainly never saw a bunch of missing people.”

“But we don’t know how you got here from Colorado, either. Frankly, I’m dying to know what’s in those tunnels if I’m going to find a shortcut across ten states.”

Faith chuckled, but the mystery was undeniable.

“I heard you came in the tunnels, but what did you do down there, miss?” Wayne asked.

“I ran a supercollider called SNAKE,” she answered.

Wayne lit up. “The search for neutrons and chronometric extremes?”

“It stands for the Search for Nuclear, Astrophysical, and Kronometric Extremes, or more informally in the news as SNAKE.”

“Cool,” he gushed. “Wait. That’s in Colorado, isn’t it? How did you get all the way to Florida?” It seemed he’d missed where we’d already said that.

“That’s the big mystery. Either the tunnels made me pass out and I was brought here, or the tunnels make travel a lot faster.”

“That’s whack,” he answered.

“But how do you know about SNAKE at all?” Faith asked.

“Why do you say it like that?” He crossed his arms. “You don’t think a kid like me could know about such advanced scientific pursuits?”

“No, not at all. I don’t mind your age. It’s that young people—”

Wayne laughed, petting Mr. Puppers on the head like he was having a fun day. “I’m just screwing around with you. I love to watch online videos about all that stuff. Quantum computing. Artificial intelligence. Dark matter. I can’t get enough of it.”

“Well, we don’t really deal with much beyond energy particles.”

“You guys tag-team with the big boys…” He squinted in thought. “Azura Heavy Industries, Southern Solar, Tikkanen Kinetic Mining, and so on.”

“How does Tikkanen fit into all this?” I interrupted. “We saw him at the clubhouse.” Dutch and the woman had evaded me on answering why he’d been visiting them on that patio.

“What are the odds?” Wayne asked with humor.

“This smart kid is right again,” Faith answered. “Those companies are big donors to our infrastructure. It takes a lot of money to build a sixty-two-mile ring underground, fill it with technology, and then it costs even more cash to keep it running for years on end. We accepted funding from a number of private corporations, so we could speed up construction and get to the experiments as soon as possible.”

She seemed to shiver as if remembering a cold day.

“What is it?” I asked, noticing this.

She rubbed both her arms. “I was just thinking about the children who disappeared from out of that room, and now I’m wondering if Azura or Tikkanen’s group had anything to do with zapping children up here. I was the leader on-site, true enough, but this all has taught me there were higher-ups calling the real shots.”

I thought back to what Dutch had mentioned about layers upon layers of powerful people. If a cabal of higher-ups had wanted to use the supercollider to end the world, that seemed a fairly effective way to do it. Was there a dial a rogue physicist could spin so that a blue beam of energy swooped around the world and zapped everyone into oblivion?

“We know Tikkanen survived the end of the world, we saw him in person, but we have to assume Azura is also a part of this. Probably every big company involved in space or tech was ready for all this. They probably have deep bunkers that allowed…”

It struck me out of nowhere like a T-bone collision. A sudden and obvious answer to what was taking place around us. “Do you think they’re all living comfortably in a bunker right below us?” I pointed to the ground.

“I know nothing about that,” Lucy added.

No one spoke for a few moments.

“Well, I think this only confirms that we need to go down there to catch those two bosses before they can cause us any additional trouble, but we’re not going to go on foot or unarmed, on the off chance they make it to one of their fancy bunkers before we reach them.”

I’d been thinking about how to get a vehicle into the tunnel from the moment I began sliding on the slime while going down the ramp the first time. The incline was gentle enough to maneuver a four-wheel-drive truck down there, and the tunnel at the bottom seemed wide enough to drive a subway car or semi-truck through, so the route was more than doable on wheels.

“What if they’re already in a bunker?” Carmen asked.

“Then we’ll turn around and come back up here. Even knowing they have bunkers down there will help us strategize for how to stop them from attacking. Maybe we can clog the ramp to keep them for down for good.”

“Yeah, that would be awesome,” Wayne agreed. “I have dreams about throwing stuff off cliffs, so this would fit perfectly with my life goals.”

“Not until we come back,” I warned.

“Sure. Not until then.”

I waited a few moments, to be sure we both knew he was joking. However, as I thought about Faith’s story, and Dutch’s warnings about trust, I realized there was one more dirty task I had to perform.

“Guys, there is one detail I haven’t shared.” I motioned for Lucy to come closer. “Lucy is the woman you have known for the past week as Carmen. She was working for the shady group that might be behind all this, but she has defected to our side. After she took off her Carmen mask, she helped warn us about the attack, and she was the key in rescuing the real Carmen.”

Now I pointed to the authentic Cuban bombshell on my other side.

“We thought it was something like that,” Nate replied.

“But there is one thing I have to do, and I’m afraid it will seem like I don’t trust you when I do it.”

“Uh-oh, what’s this about?” Faith jibed.

I turned to face the scientist. “Ma’am, I want to believe you traveled here from Denver and don’t remember how you did it, but there is a far easier explanation for how you can be both here and there at the same time…”

Faith was a smart woman.

“You think I’m a clone.”

“Not a clone,” Lucy interrupted. “We call them face jobs.”

“You could be wearing a mask,” I clarified.

I didn’t expect any of my people to protest being checked for a mask. If they did, it would be a dead giveaway.

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Faith chuckled. “Check me out.”

In full view of everyone, I showed where to feel near the ears. I scraped at her skin as Lucy had done to me in that closet. I went low on her neck but avoided her sternum area out of respect.

“You’re clear,” I said with relief.

“You want us to pair up?” Nate asked.

“No. This first time, I have to do it.” I couldn’t take the chance two of them were duplicates. That was the stuff of nightmare.

Nate stepped forward to be checked next.

Then Cookie, Gunther, and Wayne.

Carmen stepped up. “You’ll need to check me, just to be sure.” She smiled, almost teasing me.

I poked around beneath her ears and found nothing.

“And me again,” Lucy said, stepping next to Carmen.

I hesitated, leaving her an opening to talk.

“Frank, you all have to check each other all the time. Any time someone goes out of your sight, there is a chance the Dec—” She froze for a moment. “—the Decagon agents could potentially grab your people and swap them out. I know this is going to be a pain in the ass for you, but it’s the only way to be sure.”

I gave her a check, though she was the person I was most certain was not a mask-wearer.

“Now you.” Carmen beamed. She’d swooped in before Lucy could do it.

“I already checked him—” Lucy tried to say.

Carmen ignored her. She ran her fingernails on both sides of my neck, then she dipped along the collar of my shirt, poking and gripping at a mask edge that wasn’t there. It was only after sweeping my entire neck that she finally stepped back. “He’s clean.”

“That’s good to know about myself,” I chuckled.

“Now we know we are all us,” Faith remarked. “Should we have daily check-ins?”

“We’ll do it at each dinner and breakfast meeting. If you ever suspect someone during the middle of the day, get another person before checking the suspect. That way you can’t be overpowered.”

“Wow, the world just got a lot more dangerous,” Wayne said to Mr. P.

The dog nodded to me. ‘Me mate will take care of ya.’

I didn’t want to let him down.

I moved on to the next task, which was to give them things to do while I was belowground.

“Guys, I want everyone to put their heads together to think of where the nearest van semi-trailer is located. If we could use the tractor to pull it here, then throw it in the hole, that would stuff the ramp good.”

“I’m on it,” Wayne volunteered.

“And in the meantime, I want you guys to continue to bring gravel over to our almost-bridge. I’d really like that ready before anyone else comes poking around.”

“That’s me and Gunther,” Faith answered. “And Nate as our bodyguard.”

The big man didn’t say anything, as per usual.

“And I hate to ask this, but can we get a two-man crew to remove the bodies of those soldiers?”

“Can we dump them in the pit?” Wayne snarked.

“Not in the pit,” I answered. “They have to be moved far away from us, or we’ll get sick.”

“We’ll do our best,” Nate answered.

Everyone seemed less enthused about that one, but it was likely the most important to our long-term survival.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” I tried to say.

Carmen stepped next to me. “Actually, that’s not it. You didn’t say who is coming with you.”

“I wasn’t—”

She cut me off.

“I’m going.”

I laughed. I’d only known her for a short time, but her Cuban heritage and salty attitude suggested I’d be wasting my time trying to talk her out of going. If I thought she’d be hampering me, I would have put my foot down, but the more I stewed in the idea, the more I believed it was better to have at least two of us going down there.

“Welcome aboard,” I laughed.

Gunther stepped forward.

“You want to go, too?”

He nodded, giving his version of an argument. I had real hesitation to add him to the trip, since he was probably the most competent member of our group after me, at least in terms of defense. Nate was good with a gun, and Wayne was also a shooter, but they were too young to have enough experience getting things done and leading others. Faith and Cookie were competent in their own ways, but neither of them had shown the least bit of interest in taking charge of any projects involving hand tools or guns, which were huge parts of survival.

Gunther’s eyes pleaded with me to let him go, and he asked so little of me, I was content to allow it.

“These two are going,” I finalized. “Someone else will have to man the tractor for a bit.”

No one argued with me.

Lucy came over to me as the group broke up. “I’d like to go, too, Frank.”

Carmen harumphed.

“Look, if you leave me up here, you are going to wonder if I’m undermining you or sneaking around. Let me come with you, so you can keep an eye on me, and so I can prove myself to you and your friends.”

“Hey, Super Spy, what if you undermine us down there?” Carmen insulted.

Lucy took a few moments to collect her thoughts. “Actually, I have to be honest with you. If I go with you, I might make your trip more dangerous, since my former bosses are not going to let my betrayal of them go unpunished. But maybe that will make it safer for the people staying up top.”

I had a hard time arguing with her reasoning. Carmen breathed hard as if she was angry at the possibility, but I had to look at the big picture rather than a problem between the two. Lucy was right about making it safer for those on the surface, though I still wasn’t sure it was the right call to intentionally make our journey more dangerous.

Gunther shrugged when I looked to get his feedback.

Carmen crossed her arms over her chest, upset, yes, but I saw acceptance as well.

“Fine, you can go with us,” I allowed.

“Thank you, Frank. I won’t let you down.”

“I’ll make sure of that,” Carmen said under her breath.

I decided to continue speaking, to head off any further arguments between them.

“We’re going to load up on guns, ammo, food, and water. Whatever we find down there, I want to make sure we can fight it or run from it, even if it takes a long time. Those provisions will give us the best chance of getting back to the surface in one piece.”

The reasons to go down there were sound—to capture the two leaders to prevent further attacks on our street, and to rescue the children and my neighbors if they were being held prisoner—but I did not relish the idea of following that weird couple into their den. I assumed we would find more than we hoped for down there.

Dutch had mentioned his group had been in control of society for hundreds of years. Now, aircraft were overhead zapping people right out of their clothes. Cleaners had been sneaking around in Scooby vans until they, too, were zapped away. Fort Myers seemed to be the epicenter of chaos and destruction, and the two people who seemed most responsible for our nightmare had chosen to go down into the pit, as if that’s where they would find safety and refuge.

If that was their base, it was the last place on Earth I wanted to visit.

CHAPTER 23

Going over the edge of the ramp while inside the tall truck seemed a bit like the first drop on a roller coaster. I got right to the edge and flipped on the headlights and spotlights, creating a reflection off the descending ceiling directly ahead of us.

“I don’t have to tell you guys this is probably going to be dangerous, so stay sharp. If you see me or anyone else getting into a dangerous spot, please call it out. We all depend on each other when we’re out on our own like this, and I’m not above making mistakes.”

Often in my past, subordinates hesitated at being critical of their superiors, like in my garage, so one of my new employee lectures was about never being afraid to speak your mind. This was true in a garage, where people could get seriously hurt, but it went double when lives were on the line. Now, more than ever, I wanted checks and balances for all of us, so we didn’t risk anyone’s life down there.

Carmen sat in the passenger seat, armed with a pistol I’d loaned her. Between us, she kept watch over an armory of weapons. There were two similar pump-action shotguns, one of the H&K rifles from the Kingston brothers, my AR, my Benelli automatic shotgun, and a little .22 rifle for good measure. Gunther sat behind us in the second-row seats, tending to the ammo, our packs, and his own batch of weapons. Lucy sat next to him, keeping quiet, as if worrying she could be thrown out at any second.

We kept the windows closed and the air conditioner on, hoping against hope we could keep the stench from infiltrating the cabin. It took about five seconds to accept there was no chance of that. Fortunately, we’d thought to bring bandanas to cover our noses, like I’d done the first time.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said, fighting back tears—not from sadness or joy, but from the putrid, thick air.

The four-wheel drive truck went over the lip and soon pointed into the darkness. Even with more than ten giant floodlights on the front grill and top bar, the brightness seemed unable to penetrate the tunnel for more than a hundred yards. To make it worse, the sheen of light bounced off the wet surfaces, seemingly canceling each other out the farther it got from us.

The good news was that we didn’t slide out of control. The oversized mud tires grabbed the sludge and muck and kept our descent slow and controlled.

My heart relaxed a little.

Carmen had her feet on the dashboard, which seemed a natural pose while we were angled downward. Below her legs, an old laptop slid from under the seat. Behind us, in the bed, heavy thuds suggested we were carrying cargo.

“We’ll throw that in the back when we get a chance,” I said, pointing at the dead computer.

It took a few moments before we got comfortable with the new angle.

“Thanks for coming with me,” I went on, gripping the steering wheel. “I like to think I don’t spook easily, but when I was at the bottom of this thing by myself, I felt lost and separated from everyone.”

“I know what you mean,” Carmen replied. “When they locked me up and kept me away from you, I thought yours was going to be the last friendly face I ever saw.”

“That would suck,” I said with mock seriousness.

She glanced over at me, smiling. At the same time, she rubbed her shins, as if drawing my attention to them. “You kept me going, Frank. I really can’t believe you were the one who came to rescue me, either. We only met that one time, and I wasn’t even myself.”

I laughed, remembering the night.

“To be fair, you had a good reason, after being locked up in that basement for three days. I didn’t think anything of it.” That was a bit of a fib, but not in a bad way. “My only regret is that I didn’t chase after you when you ran into the woods.”

“I did fire that gun a bunch,” she reminded me. “I’ll be the first to admit, I wasn’t right in the head. Being locked up, then learning everyone on the surface had disappeared… Something in me snapped.”

“Well, I’m glad it all worked out. If we’re super lucky, we’ll find the rest of our neighbors down here and we can both be the heroes.”

“Plus the giant,” she mused, pointing back to Gunther.

“Of course,” I replied. “He’s been a critical piece of our team since the minute I met him, even if he’s never said a word.”

“Well, when things get dull, I want you to fill me in on all that has happened since she replaced me.” Carmen tilted her head to the woman in the back seat.

“I’m so sorry,” Lucy said quietly. “I know most of the people on Earth are gone, but I worry about members of my family. The Decagon could be killing them all as we speak.”

“Why would they do that?” Carmen huffed.

I hadn’t told her in any detail about Lucy’s background.

“Lucy is with us at great risk to her family members. By betraying that organization, and siding with us, she put targets on the heads of her entire bloodline.”

Carmen laughed at first, but then she seemed to think on it. “Can that really be true? They’ll kill people who have nothing to do with all this?”

Lucy sat forward in her seat, perhaps sensing that Carmen was coming around to not hating her. “I saw Frank as my opportunity to escape. They trapped me all the way back in college. I was in drama. I guess that’s why I was put to work imitating people. But I promise I’ve been looking for a way out every moment of every day since I learned who they were.”

“So, you were trapped?” Carmen whispered.

“Yeah, I was.”

Nothing more was said about it as we approached our destination.

Unlike the trip down on foot, we reached the bottom in only a few minutes of driving. When we touched down, I saw evidence of the cardboard boxes we’d dropped, but nothing else of note was at the junction. Importantly, I didn’t see three people hiding in the darkness.

I drove off the ramp and got the truck onto a flat surface.

Carmen put her legs on the floor.

“We have our first decision to make,” I remarked, looking into black tunnels going left and right. “Which way do you think they went?”

Gunther hopped out his door.

Carmen and I shared a bemused glance.

“When you gotta go—” I joked.

“Eww,” she snickered. “You really are a typical man, aren’t you.”

“I try,” I allowed, not sure if her tease had been meant as a positive or negative.

Lucy stayed inside, but she watched out the open doorway.

Gunther crouched and studied the tunnel floor for a couple of minutes. First, he bent down on the right side, then the left. After walking in front of the headlights, he climbed back in.

“Everything come out alright?” I razzed.

Gunther pointed out my side.

“We should go that way?” I asked, guessing he’d been looking for signs in the muck and mess about which way the people had gone. Nothing on the ground at the intersection was dry, since water drizzled down the ramp from the surface, but there were deeper pools running along the double set of train tracks, same as my earlier visit. Beyond the intersection, it seemed a bit dryer.

He nodded.

I turned the pickup to the left and slowly drove forward into more darkness. The new tunnel was geometrically blocky, with beveled corners on the sides of the roof and floor, so it almost seemed like a flattened stop sign. Eyeballing the passage, it was large enough to fit two trains passing each other, so we had more than enough room for the big Dodge.

The walls were finished stone, as if a machine had buzzed through the rock and left the walls and ceiling flat, but not smooth. It also seemed to be perfectly straight as far as my lights could penetrate, with no turns, deviations, or imperfections. Whatever builder had put it down here, they’d done a solid job of it.

“This isn’t for flood control,” I finally admitted.

I’d originally thought the tunnel system was designed to manage all the water that came into the coast of Florida during big storms, but there was no longer any doubt in my mind this had been built for something else completely. Dutch had mentioned his group had been in control of society for hundreds of years, and I figured that’s about how long it would take to chisel through so much rock.

We drove for a few minutes, and the faint light from the ramp tunnel faded to nothing behind us.

“Let me try something,” I said as I turned off the headlights.

Carmen opened her door and stood next to her seat.

“It is absolute darkness,” she commented.

“Yeah. Unless it ends in a brick wall, it might go like this for miles.”

“Our lights could go for miles, too,” she added. “Shouldn’t we have spotted those three people by now?”

Gunther hopped out and strolled ahead of us. He carried a small flashlight and used it to look below him, as if searching for footprints in the slime. When he climbed back in, he quickly wrote in his notebook before handing it to me.

“He says there are tire tracks now, as if they had a vehicle waiting for them down here.”

Gunther sat back in his place.

I sighed. “They knew the attack on our street could run into trouble, so they had a fallback plan down here.”

“It’s like these guys think of everything,” Carmen commented.

“But did they think we were going to follow them?” I wondered aloud. “They could set a trap every ten feet down here and we’d never see it coming.”

There could be spikes, blades, trapdoors, and any number of other devious devices under the surface of the creepy tunnel. If they’d wanted to stop us, it wouldn’t have been difficult.

“Well, we can’t overanalyze this to death,” I finally decided. “We’re already down here, so let’s see where they went.”

I turned the headlights and floods back on, and we got rolling.

It wasn’t long before we reached a gentle curve in the tunnel. The safe play was to stop the truck, walk ahead on foot, then scout out the next stretch around the corner, but that also gave our quarry a chance to extend their lead. I decided to risk driving fast in the enclosed space, hoping we would soon catch sight of their lights ahead of us. When we came around the bend, the smell went from dumpster to full-on sewage treatment plant. It even broke through our face coverings.

There was a light ahead, on the right.

“I think we’ve reached something,” I said, slowing the truck.

When we entered a huge, vaulted chamber, it gave me the vibe of an Art Deco 1920s subway station. There was a raised platform on the left, running for about a hundred yards, and a larger platform on the right, allowing passengers to disembark from whatever version of a subway came through the old tunnel system.

Each side also had one small tunnel connecting to the platforms, suggesting passengers getting off the trains would then head into them. Both entrances were adorned with elaborate carvings, as if the designers wanted the place to be attractive as well as functional. A larger carving of geometric shapes had been engraved in the walls above both doors, spanning most of the hundred yards. Only the entrance on the right had a dull green light shining from inside, suggesting it was in use.

“We should try there,” Lucy announced.

“Sure, but whatever is going on in there, they undoubtedly know we’ve arrived in a loud truck.” I sighed.

We all hopped out, carrying our preferred weapons and packs, and headed for the lighted tunnel.

Before we reached the threshold, the sound of voices came through.

We were not alone.

“Safeties off,” I whispered.

Whatever we were going to find, we would not be surprised by it.

“I’ll go first.”

The smaller tunnel was about ten feet tall, square, and roughly the length of a pedestrian tunnel running underneath a four-lane highway. It was dark inside, with no lights on the wall. The far exit was well-lit by a green glow in the next chamber, contrasting with the darkness everywhere else. I could see the distant wall one or two hundred yards beyond our hallway outlet. However, I couldn’t see who was in the wide-open chamber, since the floor seemed to be below the exit, like arriving inside a stadium at a middle level.

“Stay close,” I whispered.

My jaw was clenched as I fought against the anxiety of what we would find in there. It had to be people, since I clearly heard lots of voices, and each step closer made me believe there were more and more.

“Do you smell maple syrup?” Carmen asked.

She grabbed my belt, sinking her fingers behind it, so we wouldn’t get separated.

“Yeah, maybe,” I answered.

It did smell funny, but it was hard to place it, since my nose had trouble separating the larger stench we’d been stewing in since we entered the tunnel system. But, when I really thought about it, there was a pleasant breakfast smell breaking through.

We’d gone about halfway down the corridor before I stumbled and almost fell. It was as if my brain had experienced an earthquake inside my skull.

“Wow, what was that?” I said gruffly.

No one answered.

I stood up straight and continued walking, wondering if the terrible odor was also ruining my brain.

My feet managed to carry me about ten more steps before another wave came over me. My stomach heaved, anxious to leave my body, but I fought to hold my composure.

I had to put a hand on the wall.

“Sorry, guys, but something’s not right in here.”

I looked over my shoulder, and my stomach curled up into a ball.

Gunther had fallen thirty feet back.

Carmen had made it another five or six feet beyond him. I’d not even noticed when she let go of me.

Only Lucy stood close, about an arm’s reach behind. Unlike the other two, she seemed unaffected by whatever hit the rest of us.

She smiled in what I read as a kind way.

“It will be alright, Frank, I promise you.”

“You betrayed us,” I wheezed.

She cradled her rifle, the one that I’d loaned her. “No, that’s not true.”

I tried to turn around, intending to grab her, but dizziness dragged me to my knees, then I dropped all the way to the floor, same as my friends.

“I’ll find you,” Lucy said from a thousand miles away.

CHAPTER 24

I woke up on my driveway.

My first act was to sit upright and look around. It was a sunny day, and hot, with the typical amount of moisture delivering that just-out-of-the-shower sheen.

“Are you alright?” a woman called out.

I glanced her direction and saw a slender blonde woman. Her name was Penny. She and her daughter were getting into a silver Mercedes SUV, but they’d both stopped to talk.

I hopped up, feeling perfectly fine.

“Yeah, I’m not sure what happened. I was clumsy, I guess.” I laughed it off, not entirely sure I could remember what led me to fall, but not wanting to make it her problem.

“Well, glad to hear it,” she said. “We’re going to daycare this morning.”

The little girl waved shyly, then hopped into her car seat placed in the back. As the mother helped her buckle in, I couldn’t avoid seeing her shapely backside, as she was dressed in yoga shorts and a half-shirt, as if she was going to do exercise with other moms this morning.

Not wanting to seem impolite, I walked to my mailbox to check if anything was in there.

An old guy stood a bit inside the garage of the place next door. When I saw him, I took a chance and went over there, intending to introduce myself. Even though I couldn’t recall the exact circumstance of my fall on the driveway, I did know that I’d moved to Clownfish Cove a few weeks ago, and I’d been fixing the place up, prepping it for the arrival of my moving truck. I hadn’t yet taken the time to meet all my neighbors, so this seemed as good a time as any.

“Hey,” I said to announce myself.

An elderly gentleman stood at the front of a perfectly-restored classic car—an El Camino. When he saw me, he waved me inside.

“I’m Frank Douglas,” I said as I walked inside the crowded garage. “Is this a seventy-one?”

“Close. It’s a nineteen-seventy. I put my heart and soul into the restoration, but I still hate doing the manual stuff, you know.” He held up a box for an oil filter, as if he was about to change it. “I’m Herb Drummond, by the way.”

We shook hands under the soft glow of a hanging fluorescent light.

“You’re the new guy, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah. I signed the deed a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve been so busy painting I haven’t really been too friendly out here.”

“Oh, that’s fine. We’re not going anywhere. Me and Mildred are going to be here until we’re both well past a hundred. We just love this area.”

The guy had white hair and a worn face, but he wasn’t stooped over and used up, like some old folks. If I had to guess, I put him somewhere in his late 70s or early 80s.

“Is everyone else as nice as you and Penny?” I asked.

“Oh, you met her, did ya?” he said with half a smile.

“I saw her a bit ago. She’s leaving right now.”

Penny pulled around the circle, heading out. I would have waved, but it was hard to see her through the tinted windows, or through all the junk in the garage.

“It looks like you have quite the stockpile,” I commented, not wanting to press a man on his private property, but also unable to ignore the endless cans of fruit, veggies, and soups, plus all the other gear stored in the garage. “When I get all my stuff, I’ll probably use my garage a lot like you do.”

“Oh, is that so? You a doomsday prepper?”

“No, just a regular one,” I chuckled. Being around the guy put me at ease, like I could trust the man, but we’d only met a few minutes earlier. I didn’t want to tip my hand as someone who studied and prepared for the end of the world more than the average bear. However, I had a feeling he and I were going to get along.

“As you can see, I’m in it to win it. Mostly for my wife, but, I have to admit, a lot of this is for me, too.” He tapped the blue pickup on the side of the hood. “And this was for fun.”

“It really is a good choice,” I answered. “Fast when you need to go fast, and a solid hauler when the time comes to carry the loot.”

We laughed for a few moments.

“I already have my loot,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I keep my stash of guns buried under her.”

He looked at me as if he’d accidentally spilled a large drink on himself. “I don’t know why I just told you that.”

We shared an uncomfortable few moments of silence.

“I don’t know, either, but I promise I’ll keep it to myself. I’d probably do the same thing if I’d been around when the foundation was poured.”

Herb seemed shaken, so I wanted to let him off the hook. “I don’t want to keep you. I saw you over here and figured I would try to formally meet you.”

He looked outside, then walked in that direction.

“I guess we’re in this together,” he chuckled as he pointed next door. “That’s Luke and Melanie. I think Luke works from home, so you could meet him. The house beyond belongs to Levar and Kaira, a nice young couple that moved in recently. The last house down there is Ben and Eve. Across from them is a couple I don’t know. That big house next to them is the Deratas… Trevor is the kid. I don’t know the dad who lives there. Not sure I’ve ever seen the mom.”

He'd turned serious talking about that house, but he soon turned his attention to the next one. A pretty Hispanic woman came around the far side carrying a hose behind her. She wore tattered jean shorts, flipflops, and an American flag bikini top.

“That’s—”

“Carmen,” I interrupted.

Carmen? How did I know her name?

“Yeah, I see you met her, too,” he laughed. “Are those the only two people you’ve taken the time to meet?”

“And you,” I reminded him, catching his humor about it. Like Penny, Carmen was beautiful, probably in her mid-30s, and was now a neighbor two doors down from me.

The woman saw us standing there.

I waved immediately.

She waved back.

“What are we talking about?” she yelled over.

I looked at Herb, and he gave me a knowing smile. “You better introduce yourself. If what Mildred told me is true, I believe Carmen is the only single woman on the block.”

We briefly shook hands again.

I walked across the circle.

Carmen was waiting for me, but she’d aimed her hose on some of the flowers in her front bed, under the windows. When she turned the hose off, the swirl of water droplets seemed to catch her in a rainbow mist, some of which fell to her chest and bare stomach.

“Hi, I’m Frank Douglas. I live over there.”

She looked behind me as I approached. “Oh, the one with the pretty new car.”

I glanced back home and was surprised to see a brand-new red Hellcat Demon parked in the middle of my almost-empty garage. Something in the sight made me stop walking.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

A brain fog came over me for a few moments before clearing up. “I…don’t…know.”

I hadn’t expected to see the red sports car, but I searched my brain for what I had been expecting, and I couldn’t do it. When I turned back to her, she waved to someone else.

“Hi, Luke!” She beamed.

Behind me, next to Ben’s home, a father and son stood outside their garage, also pulling a hose and bucket, as if about to wash one of their vehicles.

“Come on over,” she called out. “Meet our new neighbor.”

They hurried across the street.

“I’m Carmen, by the way,” she said in a quiet voice to me.

“Frank,” I answered, ignoring that I’d already given her my name.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” I countered.

I wanted to shake her hand, to get closer to her, but I knew that was only because she was so beautiful. But there was another reason, harder to identify, as if I was forgetting it. Perhaps it was wishful thinking on my part. Older gentleman lands the babe sort of thing.

The guy and teen boy hurried over and stood in the grass with us.

“I’m Luke. This is my son, Tyler.”

I traded handshakes with both of them, but the boy seemed disinterested, which made the father take notice.

“My son isn’t happy I chose this morning to throw a chore at him.”

“Wayne and Chugs are going to be here soon. We’ve got places to go, things to do.”

“Girls to chase,” I laughed.

Tyler flipped a sideways glance to the woman in the bikini.

“What? No.” He seemed to rethink his answer. “What I mean is that we chase girls at other times, just not this time. We’re going to play a new Dungeons & Dragons campaign called Inferno, Descent into the Eternal Apocalypse.”

“That sounds terrible,” Carmen remarked.

“It is,” Tyler answered. “Because Chugs is running it.”

“No, I meant because of the hell and demons and stuff…” she replied.

“Oh, we kill all those,” the boy said with pride.

“I bet,” said the dad.

“Well, I won’t keep you guys,” I told them. “I moved in down at the last house, and I’m glad I’m putting some faces to names around here. When I get settled in, I’d really like to hang out with you fine folks.”

My Midwest attitude bubbled to the top. Wherever I lived, be it dumpy apartment or dumpy subdivision, I liked to get to know my neighbors, have a beer with them, and work together—usually to keep a watch out for potential crime.

“I’d love to hang out with a beer,” Tyler said with total seriousness.

“You’ve got a few years,” Luke laughed.

“I feel like Uncle Frank would let me have one a bit earlier,” the kid answered.

We all laughed, but his words caught me by surprise. Why had he called me ‘Uncle’ Frank? Where had I heard that before?

“No, your father gets to make that rule,” I answered, still uncertain of myself.

The kid passed another sideways glance at Carmen’s tanned bikini bod, then turned to his dad. “Can I go back home? I want to get started, so I can leave.”

“Be my guest.”

When he was gone, Luke motioned me closer, like he was about to confide in me. “He’s a good kid, but I think he’s got his priorities wrong. When the weather is this good, and you’re not sitting in school, you need to be on the beach hitting on girls.”

“Amen,” I replied, knowing that I’d intended to do the same thing, within my own age bracket, when I retired to Fort Myers. That thought turned my attention back to the pretty woman among us. “I don’t want to keep you, miss, but I’m glad I got to meet you.”

“Same,” she said with a big smile.

I held my hand out to shake hers, since we’d missed doing it earlier.

My heart thumped in my chest with the anticipation.

I could tell there was something between us, a spark.

She extended her hand.

Our fingers touched.

Our eyes met.

My heart stopped.

But it wasn’t her beauty this time.

I saw the same reaction in her green eyes.

We were still there, but somehow, in some way, I’d woken up a second time.

An instant later, a tornado siren wailed in the distance.

CHAPTER 25

“What’s going on?” Luke asked.

I searched the skies. “Are we expecting a storm? Do sirens go off for a hurricane that’s coming?”

“Hurricane Aurora is still way out there,” Luke answered.

“What else could it be?” Carmen asked.

She and I shared another glance with each other, as if we were recognizing the other person among imposters. At least, that’s how I felt.

“Luke, I’m going to take Carmen over to my place for a moment…”

“Yeah, I better get home,” he replied. “Melanie might call or text, if this is something big. She’s down in the city, so she’ll probably know before we do.”

“Let us know,” I said as he hurried home.

He lifted a hand to gesture the ‘ok’ sign.

When Carmen and I got to my garage, we stepped to the side to talk.

“Why did you look at me like that?” I asked. After the words came out, I wondered if I’d misread the entire setup. If she’d been trying to flirt with me.

“Frank, I don’t know if that is really you, but this can’t really be me.” She pinched her arm in a few different places. “I’m in the tunnel with you.”

“The tunnel?”

It all came storming back. I’d been down in the tunnels with her and Gunther and Lucy… I peeked out my garage, toward the forest, but I couldn’t see much from this angle. However, I really wanted to know if there was a tunnel entrance waiting in the woods not far behind Carmen’s place.

“What are we doing here?” I wondered aloud.

“How did we get here?” she countered.

I pinched my arm, same as her, for the same reason. I wanted to prove I wasn’t really there, since I couldn’t account for the gap between falling to the ground in the tunnel and being fine on my street.

“Lucy said something to me,” I said, trying to recall. “She said she would find me.”

My attention was drawn farther down the street. A heavier, older woman came out of the last house on the right side, searching the skies, looking around, and acting lost. Luke also came back out to stand on his driveway with the same lost look. About ten young adults stood at the house beyond Carmen’s—a large two-story with a lot of cars parked in the grass in front of the place. Like everyone else, they seemed enthralled by the sky.

“Do you have power?” Luke yelled over.

I was jolted out of my observation. I realized this was another EMP scenario, like the one I’d recently survived. Was this a replay of some kind? Maybe my head was wrapped in a VR helmet.

Using my hands, I patted my scalp, searching for evidence I was wearing anything on my head, but I found nothing. Was I in a Matrix situation, inside a simulation where there were no helmets to take off? I’d read a lot of books, so my imagination could come up with a lot of possibilities.

The light in the garage was out.

The red beam at the base of the garage door, to help it safely go up and down, was out.

I pulled out my phone to find it was dead, too.

“No, we’ve lost power over here,” I finally replied. Then, I patted Carmen on the shoulder. “Is it really you? I mean the Carmen I rescued from that basement?”

She turned to me with soft eyes. “It is, Frank. I’m me, not Lucy, not anyone else.”

“That’s a relief,” I allowed.

I let her go, but she grabbed my hand before I could step back. “Frank, I don’t know what this is, but I’m glad you’re here with me. My mother taught me to be brave, but I don’t even know where to start to figure out what’s going on.”

Now there were two dozen people standing around near the pavement of our street. Most came from the house with all the cars, but Drummond and his wife were out, Luke’s family was still coming outside, and young people continued to pour out of the house that had clearly been throwing a party the night before. Even Penny and her daughter were walking home from their short drive.

“We need help, Frank!” Luke shouted. “Come over here.”

It was an odd thing for him to ask. We’d only met. He wouldn’t know who I was or what kind of background I had. It would have been different if we’d talked longer, but this…

“I will, just a minute,” I countered.

The residents of the street seemed to come together.

“What is this?” I asked Carmen.

“A test of some kind?” she suggested.

“A test from whom?” I asked.

“Try some of the cars,” I hollered over to Luke, making a suggestion that I was sure would fail. I’d lived through many EMPs by reading all those books about the end of the world, so I’d recognized it immediately. Besides, I was modestly comfortable with the idea this was a simulation forcing me to live through a manufactured disaster for reasons I couldn’t fathom.

Luke waved everyone to follow him over to my place. Penny joined in, as did a young Black couple from the house beyond Luke’s. Many of the people from the party house came with him. Drummond and his wife shuffled over from next door. In moments, they were going to be swamping my property at the end of the driveway.

“Is this a challenge?” Carmen wondered aloud. “Maybe if you save them, some kind of watcher will reward you.”

I knew she was spit-balling ideas, but it sounded like the most far-fetched yet.

“Why would anyone care if we could help these people?”

She caught the slight change I’d made.

“We? No, this is all you, Frank. I’m no leader, and I never was.”

I took a few moments to think about it as everyone rallied around the end of my driveway. I didn’t shirk from the responsibilities of leadership when I knew why I was there, or I’d been hired to lead, but these were strangers. People living on a street I’d never even heard of prior to moving there. What could I do to pass any test with them?

Most everyone had assembled, though I took note of a blonde young man and a couple of male friends still standing on the front porch of the party house, as if they didn’t want to join in. They looked fit and athletic, and I wondered if they would be willing to play a part in whatever disaster scenario was happening around us. I knew from my books that cohesion of survival groups was a key ingredient to making it through any disaster.

A disaster. This was an EMP. That meant the clock was already ticking out there. Those who got the jump on finding food and supplies would likely outlive the rest of the community by a wide margin. Having access to guns and other weapons would be another important factor.

I patted my hip and found I wasn’t carrying my concealed carry pistol. Was it waiting for me in one of my lockers, or was this a challenge I needed to overcome with this group?

“We’re ready to be told what to do, Uncle Frank,” a voice called out from the assembled people. Clapping and cheers followed.

I turned my head to Carmen and spoke behind a cupped hand. “This is all wrong. Real people don’t act like this.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” she answered in the same quiet tone.

“How do we get out of this?” I asked. I was convinced my mind was being tricked, and that it had something to do with the tunnel where Carmen and I had had fallen, but there was no obvious way to prove it. My neighbors didn’t seem anxious for me to tell them I wasn’t supposed to be there. They had come over to get fed with some survival knowledge.

I noticed a woman at the far end of the street, walking our way. At first, I thought little of her, perhaps another resident returning home, but I soon figured out she wasn’t dressed like a normal neighbor.

The woman had long brown hair and the body and strut of someone who got a lot of looks when she was at the beach. In fact, she might have come from the beach, since she was dressed only in a black bikini.

I tried to focus on the crowd.

“Thanks for coming over,” I said to them, before looking over their heads.

The woman was a couple of houses away.

“I guess the first thing we’re going to do is…”

I paused for a few moments, unsure what to say, but also anxious to see what this stranger wanted from us. If I had three hot neighbors on the same block, I was going to be shocked. I would also have to send a bouquet of flowers to my realtor.

“…we want to gather water in our tubs, then—”

I stopped mid-sentence. The woman cut through the crowd, walking directly for my garage. I might have been shocked beyond comprehension when she seemed to walk through the other people, like she was invisible to them, with ghost-like pass-through abilities, but I’d become aware I couldn’t be in the real world already, so her freakish skill had less shock value.

Once she cleared the others, I knew who it was.

“It figures you would dress like that,” Carmen snarked.

Lucy looked down. “How am I dressed? I see myself still wearing the same clothes I had on in the truck. What do you see?”

Carmen chuckled.

I filled in the blanks. “We see you in a little bikini.”

“Pfft,” she spat. “It figures. I guess the system really wanted to get your attention.”

Lucy was pretty, and her figure was fine, but her feminine charm had faded for me once I knew she’d been play-acting as my friend Carmen. Now with them side-by-side, even with Lucy in a state of near undress, I was far more interested in the authentic woman.

“What brings you here?” I asked.

Lucy cracked up. “You have no idea what’s really going on, do you?”

I shrugged. “I figure we’re in a hologram or something. This is not my real street or my real neighbors.”

“Hey, I’m real!” Tyler shouted.

I looked around my half-naked associate. “I see you there, buddy. You’re certainly real to me.”

“Thanks!” he said with cheer.

Back toward Lucy. “But I can see by the way you walk around and through people this is not a real place.”

“Nope. I’m dragging you two back to the truck at this very moment. Unlike you two, I wasn’t affected by the airborne hallucinogenic.”

“Very convenient,” Carmen sneered.

“Hey, I’m helping you, aren’t I?” Lucy said defensively.

“Yeah, I guess,” my friend allowed. “Thanks,” she said far under her breath.

“You two should wake up once the effect wears off.”

“How long will that be?” I asked.

“It could be minutes or hours. I’ve heard rumors about this place, and what goes on in there, but this is the first time I’ve been inside a working simulation.”

Around me, I saw all my neighbors. People I knew existed in real life. Were these the actual people or fake ones? Were they deep inside the fake world, so deep that they couldn’t see it for what it was? Or were they all simulated and empty, like faces in a video game, to trick me into believing I was home?

I identified the teen boy again.

“Hey, Tyler, can you see a woman in a bikini standing next to me?”

“You mean Miss Carmen?”

“No, another woman. She’s right here.” I pointed next to me, away from Carmen.

“I wish I saw her,” he mused, “but there isn’t anyone there.”

“Look real hard. She’s there, I promise you.”

He touched his temples and purposefully gazed where I directed him, taking me literally that he needed to look super hard to see a woman. After ten or fifteen seconds, he relaxed.

“Nope, I still can’t see her.”

I had to think of another way.

CHAPTER 26

“Okay, listen up, everyone.” I waved to the young men lingering near the yard full of cars. “Hey, you guys!” Come on over!”

I waited until they finally headed in my direction.

“What’s your plan, Frank?” Carmen whispered.

“We don’t have much time, but I want to see how deep this illusion goes. If these are our real neighbors, it means they are somewhere in the physical world. I want to take a shot at bringing them all back home.”

“You are right, Frank,” Lucy commented. “They are in the giant room at the end of the hallway where you fell.”

“Can we help them?” I said, encouraged by this turn of events.

I was ecstatic to have a lead on finding my neighbors, but I couldn’t ignore how I got there. Dutch and Elsa must have known we’d find this place if they traveled in this direction. Maybe this was a necessary diversion they set up so they could get away.

“Probably. Once you are aware of the construct, you know when you see one, which is how I controlled my entry here. Now that you know about it, you won’t fall prey to it again either, so you’ll have some options.”

“If you knew about this, why didn’t you warn us?” I growled.

“I was put in one as part of my training, but it was up on the surface. I had no idea this was going to happen until I smelled that maple syrup odor. Scent is the key to tapping into people’s memories.”

“How are you in here and out there?” Carmen asked.

“My mind is in both places, like daydreaming while I’m walking in a park. Once you see how it works, it is easy to do. In the real world, I’m dragging your heavy asses to the truck. You should feel reality again soon.”

“My ass isn’t heavy,” Carmen mumbled.

I wasn’t going to touch that even with my imagination.

I turned back to my neighbors, unsure how much time we had.

“Guys, I know this is going to sound loony tunes, but you are currently in a simulation. You are—”

“Like the Matrix?” Tyler interjected.

“Yeah, I guess. I’m not really sure.”

“That sounds farfetched,” said the older woman who lived in the last house before the construction homes. “I feel perfectly normal. And who even are you? Didn’t you just move here?”

The power was out, that much was happening for real, as far as they were concerned. Perhaps that was the key to speeding up their wake-up call.

“I am new here, yeah, but I spent a lot of time reading books about the end of the world. An EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, can affect your brain, too. It can reset your entire awareness about time and your location. Think of your brain as an electronic device, right? When your phone and computers go out because their electrical components get fried, why is it hard to imagine your brain getting a reset, too?”

I was really dumbing it down, but I didn’t need to get everything right. I only needed to make them see through whatever programming had been inserted in their maple-syrup-addled minds.

“Think about what happened yesterday, or last week. Isn’t there a moment when you felt a bit off, or maybe you felt odd in another way?” I figured there had to be a link between their new reality and the old one. Whoever zapped them with the plane and beamed them into this underground vault couldn’t have wallpapered over that gap completely, unless they were able to insert entirely new memories all the way back to everyone’s birth. “It might have happened on a Monday morning.”

For me, it had been over a week since the blue streak of light started the chain of events that destroyed the real world, but they were experiencing the EMP now. For them, there was a missing week.

“Hey, Uncle Frank,” Tyler said, standing in front of the others, “if we’re in a simulation, does that mean nothing matters here in what we do?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted.

“What if we die here?”

I shrugged.

“What if we, uh, express our love for someone? Will they give an honest answer that the real person would give, or will the simulation give the answer I would want?”

His father laughed. “Son, what are you yapping about?”

“Oh, unimportant stuff like free will, the nature of the soul, and whatnots.” He turned to me. “My buddies and I talk about time and space a lot, the nature of reality, and movies like the Matrix and Inception.”

He gave me an idea.

“Hey, Tyler, you mentioned your friend Wayne just now. In the real world, he found me. He’s living on my street, taking care of your dog, Mr. Puppers.”

“That’s awesome!” He thought about it for a few seconds. “Does that mean he isn’t in this reality?”

“That’s a gray area,” I admitted, thinking of more ways to needle out the truth for them. “Hey, have I been here for the past week?”

No one answered.

“In the real world, I recently moved into this house.” I motioned behind me. I noted the miscolored Hellcat Demon parked in the garage. “Although I didn’t buy that model of car.”

Tyler held his temple, seeming to think. “I can’t really remember if I saw you in the last week.”

His father spoke up. “I can’t, either. I mean, I knew you lived here, since I recognized you, but we’ve never met. Maybe I thought you were on vacation.”

A few of the others took turns declaring similar thoughts. They mostly agreed that I lived there, but no one could recall seeing me recently.

“I know she hasn’t been around for a while,” Evelyn said in an accusatory fashion as she motioned toward Carmen. “I haven’t seen her in her skimpy outfits trying to entice the menfolk of our happy little street. It’s been nice, actually.”

“It’s because I’ve been living in the real world,” Carmen snarked.

“See?” Evelyn laughed in a mean way. “I would remember that attitude.”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “This proves it. Carmen and I haven’t been here with you all. None of you can remember us. The makers of this simulation can’t put placeholder people in. They can only put in the people who are physically in the simulation.”

That opened up new possibilities.

“No, that’s not true.” It was the oldest man on our street, Drummond. “I remember seeing you a couple of times. Miss Carmen, too. You came out to get your mail. She pushed a fertilizer spreader one morning.”

I was a bit let down.

“So, we don’t have our proof,” I lamented.

“Yeah, maybe I saw you guys, too,” Penny agreed, sounding like she was struggling to recall the incident.

I was going backward, not forward.

“None of this matters. The fact is, you all are in terrible danger from the EMP. I’m talking about the real one that happened a week ago, not the one that happened a few minutes ago.”

“This is very confusing,” Luke complained.

Lucy now spoke.

“Frank, you are at the truck now. You should wake up any second.”

Whether it was an illusion or not, my heart raced as I tried to think of a way to save everyone. These were the people who should have been living on my street. People who would have helped me survive the apocalypse and rebuild our community. I needed them to get out of this confusing Matrix-like simulation, so they could get where they belonged.

“Okay, let’s try this another—”

“I see her!” Tyler blurted out.

He pointed at the woman in the black bikini.

I grabbed Lucy, gently, and positioned her next to me. “You see this woman?”

“Yeah,” he said with a big, goofy smile. “And she looks fiiiiiiine.”

He made a cheeky gesture with his hands, outlining an hourglass shape.

Lucy stood her ground. “Hey, kid, you know I can see you, too.”

Tyler stood up straight. “You can?”

She glared at him.

“Oh no,” Luke said with exasperation. “I can see her, too.”

“She better not be in a bikini,” his wife ribbed.

“No, she’s not,” he said, clearly telling a white lie.

Lucy turned to me. “Why is everyone seeing me in a bikini? I promise I’m not really wearing one out here.”

“That’s my fault, I guess,” I said with bemusement. “I’ve planted the seed of what you looked like.”

“Can you give me clothes now?” she whispered.

“A little of this is on you. Before we came down here, you should have told us what we would find.”

She looked at me seriously. “Frank, I already told you, this is far beyond anything I expected to find. Maybe this is ‘the ranch’ they are always whispering about. I knew it existed, but not what it was. Frank, I peeked over the edge and into the room. There are thousands of real people caught in this.”

I could tell she didn’t want the others to hear her admission. Each revelation put her at even greater risk from the group she’d betrayed. Now she knew even more secrets, as did I.

“Show of hands, who can see my friend standing next to me? A woman who is wearing…” I tried to think of something the opposite of swimwear. “…a bearskin coat and a Davey Crockett hat.”

A few hands went up.

“She’s still wearing a bikini,” someone explained.

Lucy scowled at me.

“I’m trying,” I whispered.

I caught sight of the outline of a red truck, the one in the tunnel.

“Hey, once I fall out of this simulation, can’t I get back in like you just did?”

“Probably,” Lucy answered, “but this is all new to me, too. I think if they see me, it means they are waking up, too.”

“But how do we wake everyone up?” I asked. “I can’t walk around and convince them one by one.”

“I have absolutely no idea,” she replied.

By this time, everyone within our group of homes had walked over to me. I drank in the faces of residents who should have been with me from the start but had been taken from me by that giant aircraft, and I got a little nostalgic. I thought back to that terrible moment of breakdown when I found Mr. Puppers. None of that would have happened if I’d been with my neighbors.

Or, more likely, I would have been caught in this fictional world with them. I wondered if I would have been smart enough to figure out a shift had taken place. Could I still have saved them?

“We don’t have any time left!” I called. “If you can see my friend, move over here to my front lawn.”

A handful of people moved over there, including Tyler and his dad.

Once the others realized there was something legitimate happening in front of them, they started seeing her, too. Much as they’d done when they mutually agreed they’d not seen myself or Carmen recently, now they were going the other way. They were telling each other to agree on the fact there was, in fact, a pretty woman standing in front of them. It happened fast, as if a disguise had been cast off and the illusion collapsed as fewer believed in it. There was probably a dissertation in how it happened, but I was too dumb to understand the nuts and bolts.

I experienced a shift, like I was being jerked sideways. For a moment, I saw the Dodge truck sitting in the dark subway station, then I was back on my driveway.

“I think I’m about to fade out, or I might be replaced with another version of me that is fake… I really can’t say. I guess if I suddenly start talking like I don’t know about any of this meeting, you’ll have further confirmation this is a simulation.” I tried to think of what Lucy had said about how close we were to them. “I’ll flash my headlights in this tunnel. If you see it, try to find me.”

My lawn was quite full, but not everyone was there.

Both of the Drummonds remained on the street. Penny and her daughter stayed out there, too. Tyler’s mom and sister were there. A few others.

“Remember, go toward the flashing lights!” I called out.

“We’ll try!” Tyler cheered. To my surprise, he walked over to one of the young women from the party house, a redhead, and he said something to her I couldn’t pick up from so far away. However, after a moment of discussion, he and the girl began making out.

“Ty!” his dad protested.

The boy came up for air, all smiles. “This is only a simulated kiss!”

I laughed.

“Frank, we’ve got trouble!” Lucy cried out.

Her voice came through loud and clear, as if I was back in the real world, but I was still on Clownfish. Even more odd, I saw another person running at me. He’d come from behind Luke’s house, and his bulk and gait made it impossible not to know who was coming at me.

“Gunther?”

I’d all but forgotten about him in the simulation, though he’d been with us as we’d walked in the tunnel.

“Better hurry up,” I laughed. “We’re about to drop out of this thing.”

He approached at a run.

The crowd separated to let him through.

I held out my hand, ready to slap him on the shoulder like we were at a friendly barbeque, but he stopped a bit short.

And spoke.

“Hey there, Frank.”

CHAPTER 27

“You can talk?” tumbled out of my mouth.

“Yeah, I guess I can!”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, holding out my hand.

He shook fast, but didn’t linger.

He still panted from his run. “You, too, but I have to tell you this as fast as I can because I bet I don’t have much time.”

Gunther glanced behind him, as if the Devil himself was tracking his footsteps. I gazed back there, too, and felt a chill grab a hold of my spine, as it didn’t take much imagination to envision evil, given where we were. The underground holding cell did remind me of a certain belowground place where the bad people were sent.

“Okay, lay it on me,” I insisted.

He breathed for a few seconds.

“Ever since I met you, there has been a…force…preventing me from speaking. I’ve been fighting it, but I can’t break its grip. I tried writing to you, but it stops me any time I try to say anything it doesn’t like.”

“It? What is it?”

He shrugged. “A demon? A spirit? A brain aneurism? Who knows. All I can tell you is that you’ve got to know where I came from, because then you’ll know what’s really going on up top.”

I was listening intently to his deep voice, but I also noticed the hallway had ‘bled through’ the simulation, so I now saw both equally. Having no experience with this, I didn’t know for sure, but it seemed as if I was about to come out of the illusion.

“Hurry, I don’t think we’re going to be in here for much longer.”

“Frank, I was on a tour boat out on the gulf when it happened. My wife and my two children disappeared before my eyes. So did many of the others with us. Just, poof, piles of clothes.”

“I already know that,” I answered. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

He smiled like he was about to hit me with the biggest revelation of my life.

“They disappeared, but there were no planes in the sky anywhere around us. I looked everywhere in the air because I wanted to flag someone down to rescue us. I was also looking in the air when the blue wave of energy passed over us. That was about five minutes after my family was taken…”

“After? But that can’t be. That doesn’t line up with my timeline.”

“Right. That’s because your timeline is backward. The real attack happened at the beginning. It was invisible, and it struck the whole world at the exact same moment.”

The simulation was almost completely faded now.

“What was it?” I pleaded.

Gunther took a deep breath.

I begged him with my eyes to speak fast.

There were only seconds before we’d be out of the simulation.

He opened his mouth but gripped his throat.

“Frank—” he croaked. “It’s here.”

I was concerned for his well-being, but I also needed him to say what he had to say.

“Who attacked us?” I urged.

He struggled as if he was being choked, looked me square in the eye, then whispered.

“God.”

“The Rapture?” I blurted.

“Yes,” he said with his eyes.

Could it be? Was it the simplest explanation for everything I’d experienced on the surface? A neat package that perfectly contained every missing piece of the puzzle. I already knew for a fact there were several different types of attacks that had taken place, so why would I think the Rapture couldn’t be one of them?

“Frank!” Lucy said as she slapped my cheeks.

“Huh?”

“Wake up.”

I was back in the tunnel.

“I’m here.” I got up from the ground, needing great effort to fight the dizziness in my skull. I knew there was urgency in her voice, but jackhammers seemed to bang on my eardrums from both sides.

“The side effects don’t last long,” she explained.

Gunther was on the ground next to me. She saw me look over there.

“I almost couldn’t move him,” she complained “He’s probably going to have a lot of scratches on his back.”

I knelt next to him and found his eyes open and alert, but he was gripping his neck in the real world exactly as he’d been doing in the simulation. He’d spoken of a force that kept him from talking to me, but I couldn’t see anything or anyone holding him at the moment, except for him.

Not knowing what else to do, I put my hand on his head and tried to keep him calm, so he wouldn’t slam it on the stone floor.

“Hey, bud, it’s me, Frank. It was nice meeting you.”

He settled down.

His body relaxed.

He dropped his hands to his sides.

His eyes looked up at me and seemed to acknowledge my words, but he didn’t respond. Whatever had prevented him before was back at it.

“Frank,” Lucy interrupted. “There are guys running out of a door back there.”

I glanced over my shoulder to note what she was talking about, but I had to return my attention to my friend.

“Gunther, do you think you can get up?”

He nodded.

It took all three of us to get him upright and to his feet.

When he was all the way up, he slipped me his notebook without looking at it. I grabbed it a bit clumsily but stuffed it in my pocket without making a big deal about it.

The lights were still on at the end of the hallway, and I desperately wanted to go over there and pull each and every person to freedom, but I didn’t think that was possible.

My attention turned to the other end of the subway platform. Several men in black overalls ran through a door, heading into the dark subway tunnel without a look back at us.

“What’s going on out here?” I groaned.

There was something I was supposed to do.

“I’m not exactly sure, but I think that’s a place we need to check out.” She pointed to the door.

Carmen held her temples, probably suffering the same withdrawal symptoms as me. We still had all our weapons, which was good, so I set us on a course toward the door to see if we could get some answers.

The stone entryway blended perfectly into the surrounding rock. There were no visible hinges or handles, so I wasn’t even sure how it opened. If it had been closed, I would have needed to be next to it to see how it fit together. As I went through, following Lucy, I wondered how many other doors I’d passed while in the tunnel system.

The interior stairwell was illuminated by walls covered in a soft, green glow, similar to a bioluminescent moss. There were light sconces on the walls in several places, but those weren’t on.

I overtook Lucy as we reached the third floor.

“Frank, you don’t know what’s up there,” she protested.

“Neither do you…do you?”

“No,” she admitted. “I just want to take some of the danger, so you don’t think I’m here to screw you over.”

I stopped her in the dim light. “Lucy, the only thing you have to worry about right now is working together with me. I believe you were telling the truth about being surprised in that maple syrup hallway. I don’t think you screwed me over there. I think you risked it all to help us out.”

“Yeah,” Carmen said with some exertion from the climb, “even I don’t think you’re all bad anymore. You could have easily left us in that simulation, but you didn’t.”

“Thanks, guys, but—”

I kept moving.

“No butts,” I joked.

Carmen came after me, leaving Lucy and Gunther in the back.

I was sure there was something I was forgetting, but maybe that was part of the side effects, like I’d left my lunch pail back in the fake world.

The stairwell only went up to the third floor, and we spilled out in a chamber that could only be described as an observation deck. Giant window frames graced the far wall, about fifty feet in length and six or seven feet tall. Two of the overall-wearing men stood at the window, looking to a lighted space beyond.

“This is it,” I whispered to my friends.

I pulled my AR off my back. I wanted to put the proper fear of God in these men, since I wanted some answers.

There were several desk-like stations throughout the room, but there were only stone blocks on top of the desks, as if the cavemen had tried to imitate modern society. I ignored most of it as I neared the two men.

One of them saw me before I crossed the last ten feet.

“How did you get down here?” he asked.

“You don’t seem surprised to see us,” I answered.

The guy was about thirty, with thick black hair, wild eyebrows, and wide-set eyes. The uniform was a heavy denim style, with buttons, long-sleeves, and similar trousers. He would not have been out of place in a garage or loading dock setting back home. The only thing that made him unusual was his environment.

“Oh wow,” Carmen exclaimed as she neared the window.

I had to look outside, though I tried to keep one eye on the men.

The ‘room’ beyond the windowpanes was about the size of an aircraft hangar built for jumbo jets, and it was lit up by the same bioluminescence as the stairwell and observation area. It made it a bit difficult to see the people standing on the floor of the chamber, but there was no doubt about what we were watching.

“Those are the people zapped from the surface,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Yep,” the guy answered. “Soon it won’t matter, though. The simulation is failing.”

“How do you know that?” I looked around, not seeing anything flashing red or blinking warning signs.

“You think everyone sprinted out of here for their health?” the guy asked.

I shrugged. “You tell me.”

“They’re trying to get to the surface before all this fails. Once it does…they will come.” Both men flinched as if that thought was forbidden.

“They?” I queried.

The guys shifted nervously again.

“Who are ‘they’?” I went on.

The man shook his head aggressively. “Don’t ask again. If we say their name, we die. They hear us up here.”

“Up here?” Carmen laughed. “You mean in this booth?”

“No, just up here.”

The other guy patted his buddy’s shoulder. “Don’t ask again.”

Lucy stepped closer. “Gentlemen, I’m with the Decagon, special infiltration branch. You can speak freely with us.”

“Not about them,” the first one insisted.

“No, just about what’s going wrong here.”

Both guys seemed to deflate, their fear escaping.

“Oh, that’s a relief,” the guy answered. “I’m Toomy. This is Rodge. We stayed as long as we could to keep this working, but it’s been breaking down for all of the last shift. Those other operators saw the writing on the wall, so they took off.”

“But you stayed, that’s good. The bosses will consider you highly.” Lucy seemed to take charge of the men, and I wondered if this Decagon group had a hierarchy. I decided not to press the issue, so they didn’t figure out she wasn’t exactly telling the truth about herself.

“It won’t matter. We got lucky the first time we lost the herd, but if this group gets ruined, nothing will stop them from coming up…” He nodded to a black hole in the farthest corner of the cavernous chamber. It was on the floor, seemed to be about thirty feet across, and resembled a giant shower drain. None of the people got within twenty feet of it.

As my eyes adjusted, I realized a few more details.

The windows in the observation booth had no glass. It was open to the floor thirty or forty feet below. The people down there were all dressed the same, with coverings made of white material. The women wore jumpers, with shorts and short-sleeve tops. The men were all outfitted in shorts, but not shirts.

As Lucy had warned, there were thousands of them.

“Hey, Toomy, can you tell us what we’re looking at down there? This power loss has thrown everyone into odd places, you know, so this isn’t a place we ever expected to visit.”

The prisoners walked in a circle around the square space, like they couldn’t stop or sit down for any reason. The far corner had the black pit, another corner had what looked like a food station, another had water, and the last one seemed to be strewn with holes in the floor for toilets. A few people pulled out of the larger mass to stop at three of the four corners to do their business. The rest kept going.

“I would imagine it is pretty shocking the first time you see it. Before the power loss, no one but the observers were allowed in this room, but ever since the attack, you guys have been coming and going for days.”

“Did a man and woman come in with a weird child, by chance?” I asked.

“Yeah, they checked in, same as you are doing, then they left.”

“What did they say about those people?”

He turned to look out the window.

“As you can see, all the tech is offline. The data tables are off, the lights are off, the waste tubes are down, the feeding tubes are offline, and I have no idea what else. We made do when the herd was swapped out, and obviously these new ones were stocked fast enough that the interruption hasn’t been noticed by them, but now I’m not so sure…”

His eyes went to that dark hole again.

“I know this is going to sound dumb, but is that corner abyss going to where I think it is? Please tell me, so I know I’m not losing my mind.”

He nodded as his eyes got bigger.

“Sir, if they come up to check why their services have stopped, we’re all toast. If this herd gets corrupted, which it looks like it will, then they will almost certainly rise to figure out why. Me and Rodge will be the only ones left to take the fall.”

“If we stay,” Rodge hinted.

Toomy nodded grimly.

“How long has everything been off?” I asked, innocent as could be.

“Didn’t you see that wave of blue light tear through everything last week? I’m told it went everywhere on the surface, too.”

“Of course,” I replied, trying to sound like I knew everything that an uppity-up would know.

“Well, we were here when the last herd zapped out of existence. Whatever weapon they used, it took every last one of them.”

“Odd question, but did they disappear before the blue light or after?”

“Before,” he said without guile. “But we’ve since learned the attack was several things happening at once. Whoever launched it, they knew exactly how to hit us hard.”

“So the, uh, herd disappeared, then five minutes later, the blue light came through and knocked out the power?”

He looked up, thinking.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. We had power for a time, since we checked all the computers when the people, I mean the herd, zapped away.”

I glanced at Gunther, who silently nodded.

Was this the smoking gun?

I took a few moments to survey the crowd of white-clad people below us. There was still a lingering doubt badgering my subconscious, as if I woke from a dream at the exact moment I was going to save someone’s life. I spoke in a similar dream-like quality, as I tried to think and speak at the same time. “If they all went away, why are there still people down there?”

“Hey, man, I just work here. One herd zapped away, another herd zaps back in. Only problem is this herd is only about half as big as the last one. You can see all the spare clothes against the walls.”

Once pointed out, I did see piles of white clothes shoved against the walls.

“Why do you call it a herd?” Carmen asked. “Those are people.”

Toomy chuckled. “It makes it easier to do our job. You folks do good work on the surface, keeping everything hidden, but we have to deal with all this in-your-face garbage at the edge of oblivion, you know, so we pretend this is all a dumb herd of cattle.”

I had no idea what to make of what I was hearing. I could see plain as day there were real people down there, and I knew a few of them—

I froze.

I did know them.

It struck me what I was forgetting. The business with Gunther had distracted me, as had the process of leaving the simulated Clownfish Cove. I grabbed Carmen and Lucy. “We have to go back to the truck.”

“Why?” Carmen asked.

I spoke so the two men couldn’t hear me. “I told Tyler and the others I was going to flash the lights so they would know where to go to get out.”

“Oh yeah,” Carmen said, as if remembering as well.

Lucy spoke as we walked. “You did mention flashing lights, Frank, but I didn’t know what you meant. You said it as I dragged you toward the truck, but you didn’t say it when you woke up.”

“That proves it,” I said with gratitude.

We left the two ranchers in the observation booth. If there was time, we would return to get some more answers. As it was, my real neighbors were waiting for me to get them out of the simulated Clownfish Cove.

“Hurry!” I urged.

CHAPTER 28

I spoke to my friends as we hurried back, but I still had trouble piecing together what this place was supposed to be. “Did you guys pick up on what he was talking about up there? Gunther told me this was the Rapture, so how does that figure in?”

“He told you?” Lucy asked.

“Oh yeah, did I mention he could talk in there?” I smirked.

“No, but that somehow seems like the least weird thing I’ve heard in the last ten minutes.”

“So, let me walk through this.” I halted at the exit door. I knew I had to flash those lights to help my neighbors, but I also wanted to figure out what was going on, as it seemed we were close to having our answers. “First, God Raptures his people, taking away everyone who believes in a creator.”

Gunther stood rigid, and now that I knew what to look for, I realized he probably wanted to say something but couldn’t.

“But as soon as that happens, someone else sends the EMP, blue light, and those giant planes… Why would they do that, other than to confuse us?”

“Maybe it was simple opportunity,” Carmen remarked. “Like, why not use all your weapons if you think the whole world was ending anyway.”

“Yeah, that could be it,” I agreed, not entirely sure.

“Or maybe God knew they were going to attack at a specific time, and he figured there was no better chance to grab his flock and get them out of the firing line,” she added.

Lucy headed for the truck.

“You don’t like that?” I asked her, waving my friends to follow her.

“If there is a God, he’s been gone for a long time, Frank. The Decagon runs the tables on the surface, including the churches, the movies, the schools, and pretty much everything else you can imagine. God is someone I’ve not seen or thought about for a very long time…”

I realized she was describing me, to a certain extent. I’d been so consumed with living my life, running my business, driving trucks, and trying to scrape enough money to retire, that I’d hardly given religion a second thought for many years. If God had come down to take his flock to Heaven, I suddenly felt left out, left behind, like I’d missed the easiest bus ride in history by virtue of looking in the wrong direction.

However, while I had these feelings bubbling up, I couldn’t dwell on them at the moment because, once again, there were more pressing issues.

I hopped in the Power Wagon and moved it directly in front of the entrance of the connecting tunnel. I didn’t dare drive it too far inside, lest I accidentally fall into the simulation again, but I aimed all of its lights forward and flashed them on and off, to get the attention of those inside the giant room, as I’d promised.

“Do you see anyone coming out?” I asked my friends below.

“Yeah, actually,” Lucy pointed. “There’s some people coming.”

I watched with genuine surprise that it had been that easy, but I had already set up this escape plan, so all that it needed was my follow-through. Sure enough, there were a dozen or so people coming into the lights. But then there were more at the far entryway.

“Are they all coming?” I asked with surprise.

Soon, it seemed as if there was a stadium of people trying to leave the big game. A hundred of them stuffed into the side tunnel, all heading for the lights. When they reached the front bumper, the first few went around and came to my open door.

“Frank?” a middle-aged man with messy black hair said to me. His son, a similar-looking teenager with frazzled black hair, stood next to him.

“Luke? And Tyler?”

Luke reached up to shake my hand.

“Thanks for saving us,” he said wistfully. “I can’t believe this is all real.”

Tyler tried to smile, but he seemed shell-shocked, with distant eyes and slack cheeks.

“Yeah, well, we’re all learning about this at the same time,” I relayed, still flashing the lights. “I have a lot to tell you when we get you back to your real homes.”

“Our real homes…” he whispered.

“Will it happen again?” Tyler wondered aloud.

“I don’t know, kid,” I replied honestly.

It looked like something out of a movie featuring Roman times. The women walked by looking uncomfortable in their retro jumpers, while the men seemed more like tall babies with giant diapers, since their white shorts were their only coverings.

“How did all these people get free of the simulation?” I asked, trying to make the pair focus on the moment.

Tyler looked back to all the escapees. “We realized we could wake people up once we were aware of the truth,” the boy said, sounding more himself. “So, we shook them out of their slumber, they stopped walking in that circle, and then they helped the next person.”

“That’s amazing,” I said, while simultaneously remembering what the observer had said about how the simulation was in danger of collapsing, and what would happen if it did. They had mentioned corruption of the herd, but I never dreamed I would be the cause.

Whatever the cost, however, I wasn’t going to second-guess freeing my friends and neighbors from a cruel simulation designed to trick them into believing they were somewhere they really weren’t.

“We have to get everyone to the surface,” I explained. “Do you think you two can lead them?”

Neither of them acted as if they’d heard me.

“Hey, Luke! Tyler!”

They finally turned back to me.

“Did you hear what I said? I need you two to take them up to the top.”

Luke looked all around. “Where do we take them?”

I pointed to the correct tunnel. “It’s about half a mile that way past one giant turn. You’ll come to a ramp that leads upward to a hole in the ground. You’ll be surprised where it comes out in the woods behind our street.”

“I don’t remember a hole…” he said in a ghostlike manner.

Every moment they were out of the simulation, it seemed as if their brains were forced to reconcile their conflicting realities. If that was going to happen to every person who came through the tunnel, we were going to have a lot of messed-up walkers. I had to get them to safety before they lost their marbles completely.

I honked the horn several times, waking up those around me.

“Listen up! These two men are going to lead you to safety, alright? Follow them back to your homes!”

A few of the people waved at me or flashed a thumbs-up sign, showing they were listening, though not everyone did so. Importantly, Luke and Tyler headed behind the truck, then toward the large tunnel.

Gunther opened the back door, grabbed a flashlight, and nodded silently at me, conveying a message I understood, then he ran to catch up to Luke and Tyler. His little light wouldn’t be much in the giant tunnel, but it would provide a guide for everyone following. I intended to be at the end, shining my light over everyone, so they weren’t left in total darkness.

The rest of us watched the crowd file through the tunnel for the next half-hour. No one lingered once they saw my headlights flashing, and the need for haste was infectious once everyone began walking into the larger tunnel, so the stragglers hurried to catch up.

When no one else came out, I wondered if that meant there were still people trapped in there, or if every person was now free.

“Do you think we can go in this way?” I asked.

“I would go upstairs again,” Lucy advised. “I’m not sure what magic they use to get your brain in the fake world, but I don’t want to chance losing you to it again.”

Part of me wanted to go back in to see what it was like with no people in it, but she was right. There was no real value in endangering myself to such advanced technology when there was a much safer alternative.

I asked Carmen to guard the truck, so no one took it from us, then Lucy and I headed back up the stairs. Once inside the observation booth, it was immediately apparent the pair of men had slipped out at some point.

“I guess they figured there was no upside to staying here when the prisoners were out of their cage,” I remarked.

“The Decagon is a harsh mistress,” she allowed. “They never suffer failure without doling out consequences, but it is strange to see them even more scared about what’s going to come out of that hole.”

She stood at the window looking at the corner pit. Below us, the room was easy to identify as totally empty of ‘the herd.’ Aside from thousands of empty uniforms on the ground, there was no living person still walking down there.

“Are you sure you don’t know who or what is in that pit?” I asked, a bit chilled by my wording. My imagination was a runaway train, with images of terrible monsters coming out of the ground. Lizard people. Demons. Robots. Who knew.

“Frank, never in my travels has anyone talked about any person or group being over the Decagon. I’m realizing there is plenty I don’t know about, such as this ranch place, but it blows me away to learn the Decagon is scared of anything. As for what it could be, I’m at a total loss.”

“I believe you,” I said.

“Good. Then let’s not tempt fate any longer. If these workers fled their posts, it means they fear whatever is down there more than they fear a system designed to kill their entire families for failure. Whatever they’re afraid of, real or not, I’d take it very seriously.”

“You had me at get out of here. We freed them from this room, but we haven’t gotten them home yet. Let’s make sure they end up far from whatever is in that nasty hole.”

I gave one last glance to the pit tucked into the corner of the room, then I led her downstairs and back to Carmen and the truck. We mounted up and got moving, almost immediately meeting the last stragglers of the group now walking in a long line toward home.

We crawled at walking pace for the next hour. A mile wasn’t far to walk in broad daylight, but these people moved slowly and stopped a lot more than seemed normal. It gave me plenty of time to think about the big questions still gnawing at me about the end of the world. It was one thing to consider our options when we were facing an enemy with high-technology people-snatching planes, but I hadn’t solved the source of the blue light, the EMP, or, now that I knew about it, the meaning of the Rapture.

“We need to find a Bible when we get back,” I announced.

I’d read a million books about how to survive an EMP, and I’d even read some books about what happens during the Rapture, but I was far less of an expert on that type of scenario. Since I didn’t have immediate access to those books, it seemed like the Bible was the next best thing.

“That should be easy enough,” Carmen said. “I have one in my bedroom.”

“You do?” I asked with surprise.

She chuckled. “Why does that shock you? I’m a Cuban from a family who fled Godless Cuba. We are really big into religion.”

The first question in my mind was to wonder why she was still around if God had come through to collect the religious people, but I didn’t want to make her feel bad, so I merely nodded and kept driving.

Eventually, we reached the ramp. Most of the people were already on their way up or were out. We hadn’t coordinated for how the prisoners were going to climb the ramp, we hadn’t even known we were going to find those people in the tunnels, but someone had sent a rope down from the top to help them out.

My lights shined on Tyler, who remained at the bottom.

“Keep watch on the truck,” I instructed the girls as I got out. “Hey, bud, how is all this possible?” I asked the kid.

His chest swelled with pride. “Me and my dad climbed out first. It was slippery, but not too bad. We were able to walk where skidmarks had cleared the muck for us to get back up. Then we found a pile of rope sitting up there, so we tied it around a tree and sent it back down. My dad is getting people off at the top, and I’m putting people on here at the bottom.”

“Wow, that’s amazing.”

I noticed a dim light from farther down the tunnel. Maybe a hundred yards out.

“Hey, did anyone go over there?” I asked him.

He looked where I pointed and shook his head. “Nope. Everyone wants out of this stench. They want to go that way.” He motioned upward.

I’d long since dropped my bandana around my neck, as there was no force in the world that seemed able to fight off the deathly stench. As long as you breathed through your mouth, and ignored whatever little stink particles were landing there, it was tolerable.

“Hmm, I better see who wandered off.”

I waved to the girls in the truck, so they didn’t think I was leaving them for no reason, but then I brought my AR to the front and jogged toward the flashing light. As I crossed the giant subway tunnel and approached my target, I figured out it was a pair of men next to a low-profile truck parked on the tracks. They seemed to be fiddling around inside a small cabinet inside the wall.

“Hey, what are you guys doing?” I asked.

One of them stuck his head out from the door to see me.

“Hey, stay back. We’re authorized to be here.”

The truck was impossible to identify at a glance, and it sat on four metal train wheels, rather than rubber tires. All the panels had been stripped off the sides, hood, and bed, leaving an open engine, the frame of a cab, and a flat bed with no side support. Judging by the simple motor design, it was probably a hundred years old.

“So am I,” I lied. “I’m with security.”

“We saw your lights coming.” He eyed me for a moment. “But you don’t look like you’re with security.”

“Has anyone been normal since the attack?” I asked, feeding on the statements made by Toomy back in that control room. “I’m not even supposed to be down in this nasty sewer, but here I am, you know?”

He sighed. “Yeah, I guess we’re all struggling. We’re putting the final touches on—” He halted as the other guy stepped back from whatever controls were inside the door. “—this repair.”

The pair stood there watching all around with anticipation, as if something was going to happen. When it didn’t, he slammed his fist on the panel.

“This sucks!”

A red strip of light came on, leading away from the panel back into the dark tunnel. It was thin and only bright enough to give vague definition to the one side, not the whole corridor.

“There it is!” the guy celebrated.

“You guys are fixing the lights,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Lights. Rails. Cloaking circuits. VIP vault doors. We have miles of tunnels to fix, and it’s just us two, but we get paid by the hour, you know.” He snickered as if it was funny to stick it to their boss.

I glanced back to the operation finishing up at the ramp. From my perspective, the bright red truck was all lights as it faced down the tunnel toward us. That made it a bit difficult to see all the people walking up the incline toward freedom.

Did the guys even see them?

If they saw them, did they know where they’d come from?

“Where you guys heading next?” I asked.

He pointed past the truck. “After we finish up here, we’re heading that way to repair the wall units until we reach the next herd. It’s taken us three days to get this far, but we’re doing our best, since there is lots of equipment there to fix, as we’ve been made aware.”

“The next herd?” I repeated, stunned by the implications. “How many herds were…affected?” I didn’t want to give myself away as an outsider, but my question seemed appropriate for any member of their organization to ask.

“All of them. We came up from the Fort Myers enclosure. We saved that one from breaking down completely. I’m hoping the next one is the same.”

I laughed inwardly. They were in for a real surprise.

“Well, good luck,” I said with all the innocence I could muster. “I’ve got to get back to my patrol. I get paid by the hour, too.”

We all laughed.

“See ya,” the guy said as he turned back to the cabinet.

I strolled by the truck on rails again, noting the engine sitting right out in the open. After peeking into the bay for a moment, I continued on my way.

When I reached the ramp, I was glad everyone was now going up toward daylight. If those guys hopped in their truck and noticed the escapees, I suspected they were going to do more than simply drive on to the next service panel. Once they saw a bunch of people in togas, it wouldn’t take them long to piece together where they’d come from.

If I wasn’t already on the naughty list of the Decagon, I certainly was now…

CHAPTER 29

“Should we take them prisoner?” Carmen asked.

Once back in the Power Wagon, I’d explained what the two men were doing in the tunnel and where they were going next. The fact that her first reaction was to capture them reminded me that we were in a war with these people. War with this Decagon group.

I turned to Lucy, as our resident double-agent. “What do you think we should do?”

She pressed her lips together while she thought it over. “I understand why you might want to bag these guys, and I’m not sure there is a right answer, but my gut tells me we would put ourselves even more on the radar than we already are if we started collecting hostages.”

Father Mackinaw had threatened to send his Cleaners to us.

Dutch had threatened to send his Decagon minions to hurt us.

Whatever was in that pit, it might also be after us.

She was right. We’d already invited enough trouble.

“Prisoners,” I corrected, though I realized there wasn’t much difference in this scenario. “Prisoners they are going to want back.”

“Yeah, and I would think two guys working to get the power on would be highly valued,” Lucy explained.

“Maybe that’s why we need to take them out,” Carmen reasoned. “We could slow down the repairs big time.”

I sighed. Out our windshield, climbing to freedom, thousands of people struggled up the steep ramp to the tiny light at the top. What was going to happen when they were all back in their homes? Would it really benefit them to take out the repair guys, so the problems stayed down in the tunnels rather than up there? Maybe there were advanced weapons the guys were going to fix, if we let them go about their business. Taking them out before that point could really help us all.

“Look, we were lucky they didn’t seem to notice the escapees as they went up, and there were obviously no alarms that went off when we took them from their cage, so, at this point, we are in the clear. If we mess with those two guys, maybe they trip an alarm or—”

While I spoke, one of the thin red lights activated on the opposite wall from where the guys had fixed the first one. It ran from their truck on the rails all the way to us at the ramp. Then, to my surprise, the light came on inside the tunnel up to the top, though just on the left.

“This isn’t good,” Carmen whispered.

“While I was walking back, they must have fixed more lights,” I suggested.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. What had been a short encounter to figure out the source of a light had blossomed into a life-and-death decision about the fate of thousands.

“Look, we got lucky coming down here. We didn’t catch the leaders, but we found our neighbors in a tunnel system that seems endless. We don’t know why it was set up, who really runs it, or how many people are working to support it. You guys can try to talk me out of it, but I really think we should take the win and get the hell out of here while we still can.”

Lucy, in the rear, slid to the back of her seat, seemingly accepting my decision. Gunther also made no effort to counter me. That left Carmen.

She looked over to me. “Frank, you’re in charge and you’re right. We’ve got our people. Let’s live to fight another day.”

The decision made, I gave one last glance to the repair crew. The lights of their cart were still far away, and I suspected they were still working in the same vicinity as where I’d walked. It was best to leave them to it, so we could get back to the real world.

Also, I’d loosened one of their spark plug wires. It was just sitting there taunting me when I’d walked past it. I didn’t think two technical guys would be fooled by that for long, but it might give us enough of a lead to get everyone clear of the tunnels. Once we drove upward, that would most likely give us away.

I put the truck into gear and started up the incline.

Most of the people had already exited the tunnel by the time we neared the top. Someone had moved another vehicle to the opening, its black silhouette standing on the precipice up there. There were multiple ropes lying on the roadway, which explained how so many people were able to clear out so fast.

We were about thirty yards from the rectangular opening when an amber light turned on ahead of us, near the topmost corner on the left. It flashed on and off, clearly a warning.

“What do you think that’s for?” Carmen pointed.

“Nothing good,” I answered.

I couldn’t crush the gas pedal and blaze through the exit, since there were still people milling about as the last few of them scrambled out of the darkness. Instead, I kept my speed steady.

“Frank,” Carmen pressed.

My heart locked up.

“I see it.”

The roof was dropping.

“It’s shutting!” Lucy cried out.

“Move faster!” Carmen begged.

“I know,” I answered, still unable to gun it. No matter how much I wanted to save us, I wasn’t going to plow over the last people escaping.

It didn’t take long to figure out the truck wasn’t going to fit through what was left of the opening. If we were at the exit, we could have perhaps hopped through, but we still had twenty yards.

Carmen rubbed her hands together with nervous energy.

Approximately the last twenty yards of the ramp moved downward, and I saw the section was made of metal, not stone. The wetness and slime hid most of it, but it had also been built to exacting specs like the rest of the tunnels, so I’d missed the breakaway system until the outermost section started to dip.

I tried to go a little faster, but there were still three or four people hanging on ropes up there.

“We’re going to have to bail out,” I said with forced calm.

I didn’t want to incite panic.

“Everyone grab as many weapons as you can.” I didn’t want to leave our valuable firearms in the truck. The vehicle was already going to be a big loss.

The entrance was about halfway closed.

We arrived as the parked vehicle, a black 90s-era GMC pickup, got squished by the roof of the tunnel exit as it came down.

“That’s my truck!” I said with a mix of disappointment and pride, as it was the only thing slowing the descent of the roof.

I put on the brakes at the last second. Since we were pointed up the ramp, it didn’t take long to stop.

“Run for it!” I ordered.

We all hopped out and went forward.

My pickup was now making creaking and crunching noises. What sounded like the strain of distant electric motors seemed to come from the walls. It might have been my imagination, but the system was not happy that the truck was blocking the closing process.

We reached the exit to find a ten-foot wall of stone. The light of the exit was a strip at the top, maybe another two or three feet, as you might imagine if an elevator got stuck between floors. The last couple of people climbed out on the ropes, which now hung straight down.

“That’s our way out!” I said as I grabbed one of them. “Climb!”

Gunther lifted Lucy almost all the way to the lip of the exit using only his arms. She grabbed one of the ropes and shimmied up.

Carmen hopped on another rope and climbed. When Gunther saw her scamper up, he must have figured she didn’t need the assist. He looked at me, perhaps considering hefting me upward, but I waved him to get himself clear. No way I was going to let him be last.

The blinking amber light turned to a solid red as the engine strain reached fever pitch. My truck was now crushed at the middle of the cabin, with the weight of the ramp bearing down on it. From where I stood, it was impossible to tell if my trusty GMC was going to be ripped in half as the doorway sealed shut, or if it would prevent the closing simply by being there.

Gunther neared the edge.

The chugging motors crushed the truck a little more.

My chest heaved as I tried to steady my breathing.

“Don’t panic,” I reminded myself.

I grabbed onto the rope and started up. It was wet and grimy, as it had been lying flat on the ramp a few moments earlier, but I managed to put one hand over the other as I headed for freedom.

The metal of the truck snapped.

My heart seized.

Was it going to close?

More creaking.

I kept climbing.

“Come on, Frank!” Carmen yelled.

I realized I had stopped climbing to watch the nightmare.

Gunther’s legs went over the top. He was safe, at least. I’d managed to get everyone out, except for me. Looking up, there was now only about sixteen inches of light, maybe less. The truck was almost completely flat.

My hands yanked the rope a couple more times as I steadied myself and continued upward.

“Hang on!” Carmen shouted.

I imagined the truck was on the verge of being sliced apart.

Maybe I needed to jump off the rope, so my friends didn’t endanger themselves.

The rope jerked.

I almost fell off accidentally.

Then it lifted me.

It finally registered why I needed to hang on.

In seconds, I was in the gap, but my nightmare was only half over. I imagined the roof slicing me down the middle as I crossed the cutting edge, which would be a terrible way to go.

Leaving nothing to chance, I let my fingers get skinned up as I came over the top, not letting go of the rope for any reason. Gunther walked backward into the light, pulling me fast with him.

“Thanks!” I blurted, finally letting go. “Everyone, get clear!”

At the first possible moment, I turned to watch my truck do its final service for me. The large mountain of dirt that had been the top of the incline was now not much more than a molehill as it tried to compress the truck further, so it could shut the entrance completely and hide the tunnel below. However, the old truck wouldn’t give up.

Tyler and Luke appeared from the far side.

“We put some wood over there,” Tyler huffed.

They hurried to the near side, carrying stout pieces of firewood. I had no idea what they were planning on doing with them, as it seemed so out of place, but they dropped them at the entrance and then propped them sideways in the gap, essentially using them as blockers.

The boy had my three-pound hammer at the ready, and he slammed it against one piece of wood, so it stood up straight. When he had the first one done, he used it on the other three.

“That’s my hammer,” I said, as if dreaming.

The stench and excitement of the moment made me appreciate that I’d been storing a few logs in the bed of my truck, as I’d intended to put a little firepit in my backyard as part of my relaxing retirement goals. Luke and his son had ensured the doorway stood open for me, using those logs, by providing more resistance than the truck by itself.

Luke sat back to watch his son finish up.

Mr. Puppers and his brown blob of fur ran around all of us, excited at what was going on.

When the boy had the wood in position, he also stepped away. When he saw me, he ran over and gave me the hammer. “My dad said we had to keep this open at all costs. Is everyone out? Sorry for taking your hammer.”

I made a show of looking it over. “You got it a little dirty, but I think I can clean it up.”

He stood there in shock.

“I’m kidding, son. You guys did good, but I was the last one, so you really didn’t need to—”

Tyler shook his head. “No, we did. My mom and sister are still down there somewhere. We need to be able to get back in there, so we can find them.”

I slowly turned to Gunther, who had revealed to me what he thought this apocalyptic nightmare was really all about. If this was indeed the Rapture, I was certain there would be a lot of questions about who was left and who had been taken. However, even before all that, I realized the boy and his father had figured out what I’d recently learned from those two repair guys. There were more people down in those tunnels waiting to be rescued.

And who was I to say his mom and sister weren’t among them?

Most of the rest of the escapees had already faded away toward the subdivisions. Many of them walked on Poseidon Pier, heading for the streets beyond Clownfish Cove. Given the circumstances about where they’d been, I had no doubt they’d be anxious to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the nasty-smelling tunnels.

I walked over and shook hands with Tyler and Luke.

“Hey, guys, it’s nice to finally meet you in the real world.”

Though I was still armed with multiple guns, I held the hammer in my left hand. It reminded me of Earth Abides, one of my favorite post-apocalyptic books, and how the character of that story spends much of his time rebuilding his little slice of the world. I suddenly had a compulsion to rebuild our streets, fortifying them against whatever force might come to collect these people and put them back in a cage.

All those lessons from my books were about to come in handy.

CHAPTER 30

On the walk back to Clownfish, most of the residents had sped ahead to reach their homes, but a few of us hung back, walking at a more measured pace.

“Whose idea was it to use my truck like that?” I asked.

Faith raised her hand. “Frank, I want you to know I didn’t know it was your truck, exactly. It was the closest vehicle we could find.”

I’d used it as part of the roadblock system, so that added up.

“We didn’t really know it would shut,” Nate added, “but we had nothing to do up here but worry, so we figured this was a good use of our time.”

Wayne and Tyler walked together not far ahead of me, chatting excitedly at their reunion, with Mr. Puppers circling his pals.

“I don’t care,” I chuckled. “You guys planned ahead, and I couldn’t be more proud of the result, even if my truck is trashed. It never even occurred to me that the ramp would drop back down, even though it seems obvious now, since that mound wasn’t always sticking up.”

“What did you find down there?” Faith asked. “Did you figure out how I got here all the way from Colorado?”

“No,” I declared. “Actually, that’s the one thing we didn’t discover, though I now have a lot more questions than I did before I went down there. All these people…they were being held prisoner in a giant room.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Faith replied.

She was a bit of a mystery to me. I didn’t make a habit of calling people liars, and Faith didn’t seem like she was holding out on me, but there had to be more to her escape story. In fact, that thought made me stop where I was.

“Hold up. For you guys that weren’t down there, I guess I should tell you. We rescued our neighbors, but at a cost. This street is probably in the crosshairs of our enemies even more than it already was. If you want to bail and go somewhere less intense, I won’t blame you one bit.”

Carmen hurried to my side, bumping my hip with hers. “I’m in.”

Lucy wasn’t as forward, but she stood close by, signaling her desire to stay.

I hadn’t intended to make this a scene, but one by one, they came and stood by me.

Gunther. Nate. Wayne. Faith.

“Where’s Cookie?” I asked, noticing she wasn’t around.

“She’s watching the roadblock,” Faith announced. “She said you would want to make sure no one snuck up on us.”

I thought about it for a moment. “That is what I would want.”

“See? We’re all in this together, Frank.” Carmen’s eyes practically glowed as she looked up at me.

“Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

We all resumed walking toward home.

Back on Clownfish, after giving everyone about an hour to freshen up and change out of their diapers and togas, I began bringing people together for a meeting. I walked out of my house and into the street, calling for people to gather up. Many of the escapees from the tunnel were already on their front porches, watching and waiting, as if they weren’t willing to disappear inside their homes for too long and be alone. When they saw me walking, they came running, led by Tyler and his dad.

I stopped when I reached Carmen’s mailbox. It was symbolic, as it had been the last place I’d seen the real Carmen before she’d been swapped out for the fake one. Having the authentic woman back at the mailbox brought her adventure full circle.

She’d been waiting on her porch, too, and she’d hurried down her driveway. She and I traded sideways glances at each other while we waited for the arrivals.

When everyone got there, I noticed many of them stood far away and seemed to stare into the distance, like they were still in shock.

“Come on, I don’t bite,” I coaxed.

“What really happened here?” an older, gray-haired guy asked. His question didn’t need an explanation, since the bus wreckage, crater, and damaged homes were now the dominant features of the circle.

“I’ll tell you everything in a hot second, but first, let me introduce myself and my friends.”

I went around listing off the small group of friends I’d been surviving with for the past nine days, then I had my returning neighbors tell who they were and where they lived.

“I’m Ben,” said the old guy. “I live in the last house down there. I notice my cars are gone. My wife, wherever she is, won’t be happy hers is gone.”

“You are missing a wife?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m missing her,” he joked.

A few chuckles went up from the others.

“But, yeah, she’s not home.”

A tiny Black woman went next.

“I’m Kaira. My husband is Levar, but he isn’t here. We live next to Ben.”

“What’s the last thing you remember before you were taken down to that underground place?” I asked.

She rubbed the side of her head.

“Underground place?”

“Yeah, the place you just came out of…”

“Oh, right.” She squinted as if forcing herself to think. “I can’t remember, exactly. I think I was getting ready to go to work. I was running late that day. I was wondering what my husband was doing, since he was already gone.”

She drifted off, deep in thought. I waited for ten or twenty seconds, but I didn’t want to press her when she was clearly uncomfortable. Instead, I pointed to Luke, so he would go next.

“Hi, I’m Luke. This is my son, Tyler. We live here with my wife and daughter, though, like the others, they aren’t here.”

“And what’s the last thing you remember?”

Tyler spoke before his dad. “I was skipping school,” he said unabashedly. “It was the end of the year anyway, and we weren’t going to be doing squat besides an assembly or something.”

“You said you were sick,” Luke said with disappointment. The father looked at me. “I work from home, so I keep watch over both of my kids when they stay home from school.”

“I was going to stay in my room,” Tyler explained, “but I was going to play games online with my buds.”

While they hashed out the morality of playing hooky from school, I looked to see if the older retired couple living in the next house were around, but I didn’t see them. I also didn’t see the pretty young woman who lived on the other side of me, nor did I see her little girl.

“Has anyone seen the people who live in these two houses?” I asked, pointing. “I found a note in the Drummonds’ kitchen that said they were in Africa, but it didn’t say when they were coming back.”

“I think they were still gone when we were snatched,” Luke answered. “I saw the couple leave about a week before that, and I doubt they would go to Africa for only one week.”

I’d never even been out of the country, so I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but I figured if you were going to go somewhere on a big trip to another continent, then maybe you’d want to take enough time to appreciate it.

“Penny should have been home,” Carmen said, gesturing toward the other home. “I saw her take her daughter to daycare, then we waved at each other when she came back home.”

“Okay, I’ll note that.” I had my notepad out already to keep track.

“We know Carmen is home,” I said with pride while looking at her, though my eyes turned dark when I realized the owner of the next home was approaching.

The same house where Carmen had been held.

“My dad isn’t here,” a young man said to me. He was probably in his early twenties, had wild blonde hair, was missing a tooth, and looked like he worked out a little. Unlike most of the others on the street, he still wore the white “underwear” he’d been in down in the pit. “Nor is my mom.”

“Was your dad around before you were taken?” I asked, carefully tiptoeing around the abduction of my pretty Cuban neighbor.

“No,” he said with a pause, as if knowing the question was loaded. “Why?”

“Did you know your dad kidnapped this woman and kept her in your basement for a whole weekend?” I asked, motioning toward Carmen. I figured there was no point in hiding the fact, and I wanted her to know I wasn’t going to let it go without seeking justice.

“I told you I heard someone in the pipes!” A pretty blonde girl slapped Trevor on the arm.

“Yeah, I guess you were right,” the boy answered, not really looking at her. Instead, his eyes were on Carmen, for reasons I didn’t want to consider. “But we don’t even have a basement.”

I was sure that was wrong.

“I don’t bring this up to make my friend uncomfortable,” I explained, “but I want you to know—I want everyone to know—we can’t count on the police anymore. There is basically no law of any kind up here, because of the attack on our country.”

That caused a crescendo of questions from the survivors. They wanted to know about the EMP, they wanted to know about the blue light, and they wanted to know what we’d been doing on their street every moment of every day over the past week. I answered what I could in a short time, but I was desperate to finish the introductions.

“Tell me, who are all these young people?” I asked Trevor.

He looked around to his friends. While it might have been obvious he’d been having a house party when all the cars were parked on the lawn, his front yard was now empty, since all the vehicles had been rolled to the roadblocks protecting Barracuda Bay.

“These are my hockey buddies,” he finally admitted. “Just a few friends.”

There had to be twenty of them, mostly the same age as Trevor, and many of the guys were now dressed in khakis, fancy silk shirts, and lots of thick gold chains. The women wore what appeared to be expensive evening dresses, like they’d come from a formal prom.

“Dude, we walked home in these Depends undergarments and found all our clothes lying on the floor. Is that where we…zapped?”

I didn’t ask why he’d opted to not change.

“That’s where you were when the plane went over,” I answered.

The group of young people excitedly spoke to each other.

“What about the last house?” I pressed on. “Are any of you from that one?”

Ben raised his hand.

“Those two workaholics are almost never home. I’m going to guess you didn’t find cars there to take to your blockade, did you?”

“No, we didn’t,” I admitted.

“They pretty much keep to themselves. My wife, Eve, has talked to them a couple of times over the last few months since they moved in, but you’d have to ask her when she gets back.”

That statement struck me as important. I’d taken an informal census of our street and found that most of us had come back, but there had been a few losses. Finding those people could be the key to understanding what we were really dealing with.

Gunther and I shared a meaningful glance. He’d been convinced we were dealing with the Rapture, and I’d been quick to accept it as the truth, but in the light of the day, with all the seemingly good people back where they belonged, I was having second thoughts.

“When we were down there, I saw Penny and her daughter. Did anyone also see—” I looked at my list. “—Levar, Eve, the Drummonds, and the workaholics at the end of the street?”

I got mixed answers. Almost everyone remembered Penny and her daughter. Some claimed the Drummonds were there, while others said they weren’t. No one could recall seeing the workaholics while in the cavern.

Should I warn people I thought we were dealing with the Biblical end times? Should I warn them their loved ones might have been taken up to Heaven by Jesus? Would they think less of me for bringing up religion? And, more to the point, what did I believe about all these facts?

I pulled Carmen aside. “Hey, do me a favor. Can you run in and get that Bible? When I get the chance to sit down, I’d like to do some research.”

She nodded.

I was deliberating what I wanted to say next when I heard a police siren in the distance. We all listened for a few moments.

“No police, huh?” Trevor sniped at me.

“It’s coming closer,” Ben warned, ignoring the other guy.

“It has to be on Bayside,” I said. “We’ve got to get over there.”

Could it really be the police? I had my doubts. Whoever it was, and whatever they wanted, I had to make sure they didn’t find our subdivision undefended and unprepared. As it was, our show of force at the front gate was Cookie, the least threatening person I could imagine. From that standpoint, it was urgent we had people backing her up.

“Everyone grab a gun!”

The scramble was on.

CHAPTER 31

I could tell my newly freed neighbors weren’t too enthusiastic about running through the streets and checking for threats to our community, but I had come to understand how most of them were solidly in the ‘shocked’ category. After being in that underground bunker, living a fantasy life like they were in The Matrix, they were now back in the harsh immediacy of the real world. Maybe ‘doing something’ was exactly what they needed to fight off the effect.

“If you need a weapon, follow me!” I shouted. “Otherwise, take your guns onto Poseidon Pier and meet us there.”

My team were all armed, a lesson picked up from a week of desperate living, so we led a small group over the kayak bridge using our shortcut to Barracuda Bay. When we reached the new circle, I remembered the people of this street had no idea what we’d been doing there. My focus had been on the Clownfish residents, since it was my home, but the ‘Barracudans’ probably needed even more handholding after seeing what had become of their homes.

I went directly to the last house on the block, since I’d set up our neighborhood watch desk in the garage. It was also the place where I’d stashed most of the guns we’d taken from the Kingston brothers.

“Oh crap,” I said to myself.

“What?” Carmen whispered.

“We took all these guns from those two brothers. If they came out of the ground with everyone else, they are probably getting home right now and wondering where all their stuff went.”

Their station wagons were parked nearby.

“That’s a problem for later,” I allowed.

No one was in the house, making me wonder if this was one of the people who never came out of the ground…or if they were still down there, somewhere else, like Tyler had suggested of his mother. I wasn’t glad to know they could be in trouble, but it did make my immediate job a lot easier.

“Alright, gather ‘round,” I said, playing the part of a traveling salesman about to hawk his wares. “These weapons are on loan to us, so don’t lose them, if at all possible. I can’t get into all that has been happening up here, but if there is one lesson to impart, it is that you don’t want to do anything without a weapon. Firearms are ideal, but even a knife can save your life.”

“Is it really that bad?” Kaira asked timidly.

“I wish it wasn’t true,” Carmen replied. “You are going to want a gun, trust Frank on that.”

“My husband had a pair of guns, one for each of us, but they seem to be missing from my house.”

I held out a different Glock, but I knew exactly what she was talking about.

“I found those, ma’am. One of them was already gone, but I didn’t want the other one to go missing, so I stuffed it in a duct in your kitchen. You don’t have to go back for it, but it will be there when you go home.”

She smiled with wild surprise. “You did that for us? But you don’t even know us.”

“What can I say, I’m the new guy on the street. I’m trying to win over friends.”

She took me into her arms, surprising me.

“Thank you, Frank.”

“You bet,” I said, patting her on the back.

She separated and took the weapon.

Several of the young people were with me, though the kid I was thinking of as their leader, Trevor, wasn’t with them. It didn’t sit well with me that ten or fifteen young adults were lined up to be armed, but I couldn’t turn them away after inviting them all over.

“Raise your hand if you’ve fired guns before,” I said.

About a third of them raised their hands, most of them guys. I decided to give them rifles and shotguns at random, but I invited each person to travel with an unarmed newbie, so they could show them the ropes of gun handling. Despite the need for a show of force, I wasn’t going to send absolute untrained shooters into danger without so much as a lesson.

A few minutes had passed since we’d heard the sirens and hurried to the garage, but it soon became clear the owner of the siren wasn’t speeding south like he was on the way to a crime scene. The wailing siren got louder and quieter while we worked on handing out weapons, much as one would expect of a slow-moving parade.

The last gun I gave out was a shotgun, and I gave it to Luke.

“I’ve only fired a gun a couple of times,” Luke explained, seemingly wanting me to say he wasn’t qualified. “Melanie isn’t a fan of them.”

“I’ll take one,” Tyler interjected.

“Absolutely not,” his dad countered.

“You’ll be fine with this,” I told Luke as I pointed to the pump-action shotgun. “Even a blind monkey could operate one of these. Besides, you seem to be a natural leader, so I want you to help me keep these other civilians calm.”

“A leader,” he said with surprise. “Yeah, I guess I can do this.”

Tyler beamed with pride. “My dad wears the pants in the family.”

I double-blinked.

“Ty, be serious,” Luke chided.

“I am. You’re a leader in a lot of things. Like with your bike club—”

“It’s all good,” I interjected. “I just need someone I can count on to listen.”

Luke puffed his chest. “Now that’s something I can do.”

I sent them on their way, anxious to finish up and get myself to the front of the subdivision. The others had taken the long way off our street, walking Poseidon Pier across the bridges and through the roadblocks, but they should already be at the main intersection. Whatever was going to happen, it would be there.

However, I didn’t bet it all on that outcome. I pulled Nate and Wayne aside. “Guys, I need you two to stay back on Clownfish and keep an eye on things. If there is the tiniest chance you see trouble coming out of the woods, I want you to run your buns to where we are, okay?”

“You think they will come from the woods again?” Nate wondered aloud.

“I think we’ll never know for sure who is coming from where. There are sirens on the main highway heading toward our subdivision, so it seems prudent to put our main force up there, but it also seems prudent to have our sharpest people watching the back door, you know?”

He nodded.

Wayne and Nate hurried back toward the footbridge to return to our street.

I took the others and got into the closest working vehicle, which, coincidentally, was the old wood-paneled station wagon. There was plenty of room in there, since all the weapons had been cleared out, so we crammed into the car and headed for the front.

When we reached the intersection of Barracuda and Poseidon, I turned off the motor. We’d only driven a short distance, but I’d sped the whole way.

“That’s it?” Kaira laughed.

“We got to the end of the street faster than walking,” I replied. “But it would take us a long time to turn left, cross the bridge, pick our way through the woods, and then come out by Bayside. It’s much easier to run from here.”

I hurried onto the bridge and ran for the sign with the orange fish on it. Most of my neighbors remained at the corner of Albacore, behind the less secure barricade we had facing Bayside Road, but I continued to the two-lane highway, hoping to see what we were dealing with. At first, there was nothing there, though I could still hear the sirens. A few minutes passed before the source of the sound turned onto the road.

“There it is!” I yelled.

Carmen was with me, as were Faith and Luke. Lucy was nearby, about halfway between us and the barricade. I figured she was staying close to the thick wooden posts holding up the sign. Did she know who these guys were, or was she simply being prudent?

“Guys, let’s stand back a bit,” I advised.

A plain-looking white police car led the procession, but three huge touring buses followed it out of the subdivision street, and they were soon all heading right for us.

“Be ready!” I called back to the roadblock.

The driver of the police car saw us immediately and hung his hand out to wave at us. He turned off the siren as he came close, and we took several large steps backward into the grass as he slowed and stopped at the intersection. The buses halted behind him, then turned off their motors.

It was a guy driving the car. A balding guy dressed in a black shirt. He didn’t get out or take charge, like a real officer might have done, but instead directed our attention to the first bus. There, a woman was already walking in front of the vehicle to head over to us.

“Hello!” she said in a happy tone. Her bubbly demeanor and platinum-blonde locks were inviting, friendly. And she looked super familiar. I couldn’t quite remember her name, but I’d seen her face recently.

Maybe it was a magazine cover.

Maybe it was on television.

“Hi,” I replied, feeling a bit foolish for backing away from the convoy. I found myself wanting to get closer, since she was both beautiful and comforting on the eyes.

“How many are you?” she asked.

I took note of two men exiting the bus behind her. They wore olive-drab military uniforms, but they wore the distinctive light-blue helmets of the United Nations. It was then I noticed the California plates and blocky spray-painted letters on the side of the giant bus.

“Sino-UN,” I whispered.

“Yeah, these are the guys you told us about, right?” Lucy asked. “You said a man on the radio said they were coming.”

I had told her that.

“We’re here to take you to safety,” the woman explained. She waved with excitement to the people at the blockade, urging them to come forward and get on the bus. A lot of them moved closer.

I was about to ask for her name, but my neighbors filled that box when they got close enough to recognize her.

“It’s Monique!” a woman shrieked.

“Monique!” others joined in.

I leaned over to Carmen and Lucy. “You know who that is?”

Word spread to the roadblock and nearby streets. Soon, it was a stampede. Despite the apocalypse, being held captive underground, and returning to a world missing most of its people, this person generated a spark of life, an excitement that had been taken from them. Whatever it was, it spread like wildfire to many blocks in the area.

Carmen whispered, “I think she’s a popular country star. Monique is the lead singer for the Midnight Foxes.”

I’d heard of her and knew a few of her tunes but that was about it. I hadn’t expanded my musical tastes in several decades, and Jimmy Buffett was always at the center of it. However, if I’d known she was so attractive—

The revelation slapped me across the forehead.

“I know her!” I blurted.

Carmen looked up at me with surprise.

“You know her know her?” she laughed.

“No, it’s not like that,” I reassured. “Just before the blue apocalypse wave swept across the land, I was in the waiting room of the car dealer where I bought my ‘Vette. That woman was on the television talking about… I think she was about to go on a big tour.”

They turned away from me, perhaps satisfied I wasn’t going to break down from my excitement and run to Monique like many of our neighbors. As I watched more people arrive, some of the healthy attraction and distraction wore off for me. Looking at her in a more serious manner, it struck me as convenient for this super popular star to show up on our street at the exact time I’d freed people from that underground prison. Maybe they’d come all the way from California and their arrival was a complete coincidence, but maybe not.

I guided my group close enough to be heard over the excited fans.

“Why would we want you to take us to safety?” I asked, trying to stay cordial.

“You’ve been through trauma,” she said, turning serious. “All of you have. We’ve been hearing tales from the people we’ve picked up so far. It is dreadful to think of being held prisoner in the forest, you know?”

One younger blonde woman held out a pen, begging Monique to sign her shirt, which, coincidentally, was a tour T-shirt for the Midnight Foxes.

“Here’s a real fan!” Monique beamed, willingly signing for the lady.

“Thank you! I’m your biggest fan!”

The girl fell back but stayed close to the center of the action, which was now a solid group of perhaps fifty people, and it was growing.

“It wasn’t in the forest,” I clarified, speaking louder. “It was under the forest.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” the country star said with barely a concern. “They’ll explain what you’ve been through when you get to the welcome center. The Sino-United Nations is here to take over and keep you safe from here on out.”

“We should get in the bus?” someone piped up.

“Sure!” Monique answered. “I’ll ride with you!”

At that, several people stormed toward the parked bus, though far more stayed near the popular woman, as if she was going to say something profound and they didn’t want to miss it. It was all the more impressive given the context. It was like people were completely and hopelessly in love with her.

“So, this is an invasion?” I asked.

She laughed. “Oh, heavens no! No one is a prisoner. This bus will simply take you to somewhere safe, until we can reestablish security out here in your cozy little neighborhoods. I encourage all of you to join us.”

More people broke and ran for the bus.

Motion caught my attention far down Poseidon Pier. Another police cruiser passed through the distant intersection, followed immediately by tour buses. Far beyond that, near the tower at the beach, I saw more buses pass through the last intersection before the ocean.

“You are picking everyone up?” I asked.

“More like we’re fighting them off,” she giggled. “No one wants to stick it out in these nasty, empty homes anymore. We’re going to take care of them all. We’re going to take care of you.”

Lucy had moved closer while the woman spoke. She was almost even with me and Carmen as we listened to the country music artist chat. I only really noticed her movement when she spoke.

“I’m a big fan of your music,” Lucy said matter-of-factly.

“Terrific! I’m a fan of you all, too. I’m from Jacksonville, actually, so I guess that’s why they had me help collect people here in Florida. It makes me so glad, since I love the way we Floridians have ‘stick-to-itiveness’ to survive these awful disasters.”

“Hey, do you think you guys could give us a concert when we all get to wherever you’re taking us?” Lucy pressed.

The star seemed to think about it. “Maybe.”

While my neighbors were falling in love with the beautiful country star, each passing moment made me go in the opposite direction. I’d already doubted the chances of her showing up at this exact moment, but I also wondered how they’d gotten all these buses working. Had the EMP skipped California? Had they been repaired over the last week?

“Do you think you could sing one of your songs for us right now?” Lucy needled.

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on. Please!”

I had no idea why Lucy was asking something so off-the-wall. It was great the woman was a famous musician, and she was an attractive singer, but I wasn’t smitten with her, like several of my neighbors.

Lucy now stood closer to Monique than to me.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” she rebuffed. “We do have a schedule to keep.”

“Oh, come on. I bet if you were to sing for us, it would really help get the last few of us to drop everything and board your bus with you. I know it would help me a lot.”

I thought she was being a bit pushy, but it dawned on my slow brain why she was asking such odd questions. I figured out why Lucy, of all people, closed the distance to be near the popular singer. In fact, I made all these connections as she reached over to the other woman…

…and yanked off her mask.

CHAPTER 32

As the mask of the vivacious woman tore partway off her face, I initially thought it was a good thing, since it would reveal to those around me that this was never a rescue mission by well-meaning musicians. I would step in and help everyone fight back against whomever these imposters were. However, that opinion changed when Lucy and Monique fell to the ground and wrestled like honey badgers. One to prevent the rest of her face being torn off, and the other to try to rip it off.

“She’s attacking Monique!” the autograph girl wailed.

The two guards sprang into action, unfurled their rifles, and I had a premonition where this was heading.

Anyone who betrays the cause will be killed on the spot and then have his or her entire bloodline erased.

Those were the words spoken by Lucy. Words that once had the otherwise bad-ass woman shivering like a wet kitten. I now understood that she was risking her entire family to protect me and my neighbors…

I wanted to jump into action, but how?

The goons with guns aimed at Lucy as she wrestled with the singer, and I got the sense they weren’t going to be too careful with their shots. Lucy made it clear the Decagon was more concerned with mopping up messes caused by such revelations than defusing them. If the mask came off, both of them were going to die.

There wasn’t time to use any of my own guns.

I did the only thing I could.

I shoved my way into the scramble.

“Lucy, hang on!” I warned. If I could get her to back off, we could approach this from a better position.

“Not me!” Monique shrieked. “I don’t want to die!”

I pushed the women to the ground.

Someone landed on top of me.

Carmen?

The men’s guns fired.

I put my body between the rifles and the fighting ladies. With a little luck, my intervention would give my friends enough time to fire back at the men. Then we could—

A breath caught in my throat.

The women were gone.

The shooters were gone.

Everyone was…

I knelt on green grass, not the roadway.

It was unnaturally silent, like being in the most remote section of a library.

“Hello, Frank.”

I sat back on my haunches, so I could look up at the woman who’d spoken. She was old and wrinkly, and quite small, but she wore an impish smile, as if she’d witnessed a cosmic prank.

“Hi?” I replied, confused.

She held out a tiny hand, but I waved her off, thinking I would more likely pull her down than her lift me up. When I looked beyond her, and could think for a few seconds, I recognized where I was.

“Am I dreaming again?” I asked, almost launching myself to my feet. It seemed as if gravity wasn’t quite as constricting in this place, which—given that I was probably in a dream again—made perfect sense.

“Not this time,” she said with certainty. “As to where you are and why you are here…it’s complicated.”

I also knew her from my prior visit. She’d told me to ‘prepare for the end’ in her dramatic fashion.

“Great.”

I towered over the woman, who couldn’t have been more than five-foot-nothing. Her hair was pure white, curled and short. She wore a pink pantsuit and a few pieces of jewelry, which made her look completely out of place on the grassy platform.

“You told me the end was coming… I assume what you really meant was my end, right? One of those soldiers shot me while I defended my friends, didn’t he?”

She waved me over to a small concrete bench, where she intended to sit down. I did follow her, but I took notice that things weren’t like they were before. If this was a dream, it had changed.

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” I pressured her to cough up the truth.

I took a seat next to her.

“Not yet,” she said softly. “You showed you were willing to die for what is right and good, though. Your friend Lucy was also willing to die for you, as was your friend Carmen.”

“We’re all dead?” I blurted, stunned.

“No,” she chuckled. “You most assuredly aren’t dead.”

I exhaled in relief. I hadn’t thought twice about defending my friends, but I wasn’t ready to hang up my Hawaiian shirt yet.

“The three of you acting selflessly is what brought you to me. The…system operates best when it finds a trio of people working for the cause of good.”

“Well, I’m glad to be alive, like you say, but what am I looking at here? This is different than in my dream. Where did everything go?”

The water of the ocean was gone, leaving a descending slope of muddy, slippery rocks leading outward as far as I could see, like a cosmic Grand Canyon. The stars above were gone, too. Now it was a pure black sky, with not a hint of light beaming down on us. Strangely, this didn’t seem to matter to us on the patch of green, as I could see the woman as if she was under a streetlight. To complete the scene, the waterfall was gone, and the entire forest behind the platform was smooth and blackened, like after a forest fire. The same tree was still next to the empty pool where the waterfall once fell, but it had grown to the size of a California redwood, if not larger. It had grown so large it pushed against the pool as well as against the rocky wall with the windows.

“This is THE END, Frank, as I warned you about when we briefly met in your dream.”

“The end of what?” I wondered aloud, aware that the last time I asked that question, I woke up next to a very confused Cookie.

“Of everything.” She pointed to the left and to the right. “You might notice we are standing on the last platform. They used to go off in both directions, filling the entire multiverse. This is also the last tree in the forest. I’m the last woman tending her universe.”

My silence carried all of my confusion.

“Frank, this grassy platform, and that computer back in that room, represent your universe. I know it doesn’t look that impressive, but human brains aren’t sophisticated enough to see the higher dimensions supporting the material universe, so the only way to show you is to represent it with physical structure.”

That made me smirk. “We’re too dumb.”

She smiled back. “I was too dumb to see it before I took over this job, so don’t take it personally. In fact, the whole reason we are both here is because I made a very human mistake when I was given a little power around here. I managed to screw up the entire universe in my first ten minutes on the job.”

“What’d you do? Unplug something important?”

“Worse.”

She thumbed back toward the door, which stood half-open on the rockface seemingly sprouting from the side of the overgrown tree. When I got a good look at the unnatural structure, there was a striking similarity to the mound leading down into the tunnels behind my subdivision.

“Oh no,” I said in a fatalistic tone. “I’m back in the tunnel system, aren’t I? This is another simulation room.” I wondered if Lucy would be there to pull me to safety again.

“No. I know this is hard to understand, but I am talking to you inside your brain. I’m tapping into the electrical signals darting among your neurons like a wireless phone. It’s a little trick I picked up with my great grandson…way back when.”

I shook my head, unable to process any of it. I’d been in the grit and muck of the post-EMP world—a powerless, dangerous, quiet world. The futuristic mind-reading technology and cliffside platform were the farthest things from post-apocalyptic survival.

“No, this is the most apocalyptic story of all, Frank.”

“You can hear my thoughts?”

“What did I just say?” she shot back in a kind, grandmotherly way. “I’m tapped into your brain.”

I would have to be sure not to think about Carmen.

Why did I even think of her?

And I definitely couldn’t think of her in that way.

I couldn’t stop myself.

The woman held up a hand. “Frank, how about I agree not to listen in.”

I caught my breath.

“I think that would be best,” I allowed, realizing my brain had no off-switch.

“Let me change gears on you. Have you ever heard of the Rapture?”

“Yeah, I’ve read a few books about it. God comes and takes his people home, leaving the so-so and evil people behind to fight over all the remaining souls. Those, along with EMP books, are my go-tos, though I also love those about…” I realized she probably wasn’t interested in my reading habits. “Sorry. I don’t usually babble.”

Babble? What was wrong with me? It was as if I had no filter here. First, I was distracted by Carmen and the way her calves really stuck out when she had her legs on the dashboard of the Power Wagon.

No, I couldn’t go there.

Why was I thinking of her again?

I needed to concentrate on the moment.

That thought brought me to another.

‘Echo! Echo!’ I called out loudly in my brain, with an actual echo, mimicking a bit from the movie Airplane!.

Could this woman still hear me?

For a few seconds, I listened for her response, but I was glad not to hear it. I was still in private mode.

“It’s okay,” she said, hopefully unaware of how my brain was misbehaving. “You are way outside your comfort zone, I’m sure. What you need to know is that the Rapture is happening right this instant. You are still in the car dealership getting your lovely orange sports car squared away. Do you remember?”

I had to dig deep into my memories. Wherever I was, it made my recollection of the real world seem distant and faint. However, once I found the right one, it seemed to come forward in my brain, and I saw it with unusual clarity. I started my day at the library to get several of my favorite stories, but then I went to the car dealership to have them show me how to hook my phone to the sound system. I then drove toward home, diverted to the beach to take some pictures of my new Corvette, and the apocalypse happened there.

“I do remember. I fell asleep in the waiting room chair because I was so tired from a weekend of painting and prepping the house.”

“Right, and you are still asleep. Please hold onto that memory while I tell you all I can in the little time we have together. We—”

“How much time do we have?” I cut in, sensing the new urgency.

Her lips pursed for a moment. “Time doesn’t flow the same here, but I’ve used up most of my allotment showing you a week of what was coming.”

“That is even more confusing,” I chuckled.

She stood up and paced, fresh worry emanating from her.

“The Rapture has started with the culling of souls. The instant it did, I made my move and tapped into your brain. I have no idea how long this culling will last, the Bible isn’t clear on that, so it could be a second, a minute, or maybe even a week. Whatever it is, I can’t risk missing our window to get you up to speed.”

“On what?”

She pointed to the open door and to an old computer sitting on an even older wooden table. “Will you be offended if I quote a Bible verse?”

“No,” I laughed a bit, pointing to the bottomless ocean. “Who would take offense when they are on the edge of forever?”

“You’d be surprised,” she said without emotion.

She pulled out a small, well-worn Bible and opened it. “You would think I would have these memorized, but I’m old, after all.” She found her page. “Here it is. Joel, chapter two, verse twenty-eight. ‘And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.’”

She slammed the book shut.

“Am I the old man dreaming or the young man with visions?”

“Focus,” she chided. “The books of Daniel and Revelation are filled with visions of events heading our way, but I don’t have time to really get into them. I’ve been able to give you a gift, Frank. You’ve just had a vision nine days in your own future.”

“You mean none of what I did was real?”

“No.”

“Well, that sucks.”

She scooted closer. “Have you not been paying attention to anything I’ve said here?”

“I have,” I promised.

“Then you have to understand that you, Frank, are now a prophet in the Biblical sense—a prophet of the apocalypse. You say you read books about the end of the world? Well, you’ve now lived it. The last nine days were imaginary, but they were also highly accurate. More accurate than any book you’ve ever read. I think your vision was God’s way of giving me one last gift, so you and I could be together.”

“What did you do that was so bad?” I asked with respect.

She thought about it for a few moments. “Imagine all that you see right now is the totality of creation. In this framework, an infinite number of universes can be summoned, each with humans living on Earth, expanding their empires, growing civilizations until they reach the stars. There was a time when you could look left and right and see endless platforms, exactly like this one, and thousands of them in each direction were almost identical—parallels, some would say. Each one had a waterfall feeding a small tree. When any universe died at the end of its time, the tree would join the dead forest behind us, where the corpses of an infinite number of previous universes littered the landscape.”

She pointed to the barren field behind me.

“Why is your tree still here?”

“Thanks to me, it has been repeating in a time loop for countless eons. As you can see, there is no forest behind us, no water in the ocean, and no other platforms remain. I’ve watched them all fade away. Everything but this universe has decayed into nothingness.”

“But why?”

The woman looked at a small wristwatch. “I don’t have time to explain everything. That journey took years of my life. I have to get you back to your regularly scheduled world-ending event before the Rapture is finished.”

“I’m listening, I am.”

She bit her lip a little. “All I can tell you is that this universe won’t die because it keeps reaching the same point and then it reboots itself to a point long before your birth.”

“I hate to sound like a broken record, but how did that happen?”

“I had a hand in it,” she admitted. “I wish I could tell you exactly, but I cannot actually travel back in time to research how my actions warped the natural progression of an entire universe. However, I can tell you with certainty that I started the chain of events by sending another…” She coughed a bit, gently patting her chest. “By sending one of my great-grandsons back in time.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t do that.”

“I can’t do that for myself,” she corrected, “but I did it once, for him, not understanding how that act of kindness would screw up God’s creation. Liam had a hard life helping me stay alive during a terrible plague for those years, and my predecessor gave me power to watch over him from this perch here. It was a human choice for me to send him back before the plague, so he wouldn’t suffer as much, but by doing that, I destroyed the logic of the entire universe. It seems as if I broke time.”

“And you aren’t breaking it again by talking to me outside of the normal flow of things? Isn’t this a two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right type of situation?”

“No, I’m not sending you back in time. Even if I wanted to send you back to my original era, I couldn’t send you there. That universe is long gone, overwritten by the infinite loops of repeats that have come since then. Each one is a tiny bit different, so that over the ages, it has almost no similarities left with those earlier versions.”

“But my reality seems normal enough,” I commented. “How much worse could it have been?”

“Do you have zombies walking all over the country?”

“No way. I don’t read books about zombies because the whole idea is crazy,” I shot back. “I read books about EMPs, because they are real…as are…”

It hit me that I was about to tell her that I read books about the Rapture because I believed it was real, too, but I wasn’t sure if it was true anymore. To admit it was true, to believe this woman, I would have to believe God was real, evil was real, Satan and his minions would be taking over Earth, the whole shebang. Was I ready for all that?

“If you flipped the pages of our universe backward a million times, you would discover zombies were once very real for those living there.”

“That’s where you came from?”

“Yes. The end of our world came with zombies, just as yours is coming with an EMP.”

“You might be out of the loop a little. The EMP already struck.”

“No, you’re remembering the simulation.”

“But it will strike,” I corrected.

“Yes, it should…”

That uncertainty had me worried.

“What you witnessed in your nine-day vision is what the most powerful computer simulation believes is going to happen, based on data from prior reboots and what is currently going on in your world.”

“You can see the future?” I queried.

“Not exactly, but close. Think of it as one of those dashboard cameras that is always recording, but it only keeps the last thirty seconds before deleting the tape. I set up this ‘camera’ to trigger the instant God decided to begin the Rapture and Tribulation. At that moment, you were still sitting in that waiting room. That’s the microsecond when I made my final move. That’s when I gave you a vision of what could be...so I knew you were the right person for this job.”

“The simulation was a test?”

“I’m afraid so. I got the idea from Liam, my youngest great-grandson. He was always playing video games, and he loved to hang out with his real friends in those fake worlds.”

“I see,” I allowed. “So, after winning this game, you pulled me back out, so I was prepared for my new reality where the world was really going to end, and it will end like it did in my head, with the blue light, an EMP, and so forth?”

“Almost certainly.”

“Far be it from me to ask a super being showing me the universe, but why was I, of all people, even on your dashboard camera? If we’re calling it that.”

She took ten or fifteen seconds to consider.

“Frank, the computer simulation wasn’t only focused on you, your street, or even the state of Florida. That old bag of chips back in the computer room generated events for the entire universe. Every person on Earth was part of the test. When you and Carmen and Lucy sacrificed yourselves for each other, I knew I had found my champions. You are, I’m pleased to say, one of the good ones.”

That made me wonder.

“But I’m not good enough to be taken in the Rapture, am I…”

She smiled enigmatically. “Now that would put a stop to my plans right quick, wouldn’t it?” She seemed to think about what she was saying. “I needed someone who walked the line. Not too good, not too bad.”

“Funny, I always thought of myself that way, but here, now that I see things from this perspective, I guess I’ve failed at the game of life if I wasn’t called up with the good people.”

“God has plans for you that are always much bigger than mine.”

“He outranks us all,” I jibed.

“Oh, far and away, he does. I still pray to him every chance I get.”

That made me look around before whispering, “It is pretty empty out here. Does God ever visit you?”

“Not even once,” she said without malice. “I know I look important from where you sit, but I don’t even rank up there with an angel. I’m just a tiny old woman who was rewarded for surviving her own apocalypse, and I’m waiting to meet my Redeemer, same as the rest of his followers.”

It gave me a lot to think about.

I finally stood.

“Well, lady—”

“You can call me Grandma Marty.”

“You aren’t my grandma,” I replied matter-of-factly.

“That’s true,” she said with a trace of mirth before continuing. “But everyone seems to call you Uncle Frank, and you are only an uncle to one young man.”

“They do?” I asked. I recalled Tyler calling me that once in the simulation within the simulation, but no one else. It certainly hadn’t caught on up in the real world. I still knew none of my neighbors in the actual, living world.

“Hmm, maybe that was another version of the universe,” she snickered.

I dropped it, for now.

“Grandma Marty. I guess I can go with it. I was going to say I don’t really understand what’s going on, but if you point me how to get back into the real world to face these challenges, I would be much obliged.”

“I called you here for a reason, Frank, and I haven’t even said what it was. As I’ve explained, I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. Now that I have you and have outlined the problem, I absolutely want you to go back.”

“Oh, that makes me feel better.”

“And I want you to fix my mistake.”

“That makes me feel less better…”

CHAPTER 33

“Our time is almost up,” she warned. “I’ve got to tell you what to do.”

“I’m all ears,” I said. Secretly, I still wasn’t sure if any of this could possibly be real. If I was dead, shot defending the women, this could be a twisted version of the afterlife. If, as she said, I had been put into a virtual world to see what I would do, then I wanted to get out of it as soon as humanly possible. I’d never wanted the real world more in my entire life.

“Okay, let me say this in the most basic way possible. I’ve seen this universe loop back over and over while the rest of existence fades to dust. In all that time, and in all those versions, the world did not end in the real Rapture. It’s like God allowed all those do-overs to go on. He let the bad guys have a field day.”

“Hmm. You said all those former versions had people in them, right? Human people?”

“Yes.”

“Then maybe God let all those reboots happen so this last universe could generate more people, more souls. Maybe this was his way of maximizing the output of this piece of real estate.”

Grandma Marty rubbed her chin while looking at me.

“You really do like to figure things out, don’t you?”

One of the most sacred duties of being a man was to problem-solve. It was baked into my nature, and I’d learned to embrace it as I’d gotten older. That’s why even in the simulation, I’d taken lots of notes about tasks, ideas, and solutions. That’s why a lingering question that had been spinning in the back of my mind throughout this whole discussion with this strange woman was whether the real Carmen would be as interested in me as the fake one. As problems went, it had little bearing on anything we were discussing, but I could readily admit it was one of those problems I was most anxious to solve when I got my second chance. I had such strong feelings for her, and I hadn’t even gotten the chance to make a move. Would I have to go all the way to square one when I found her in the real world.

My endless thoughts had delayed my answer.

“Yeah, solving problems is my thing,” I finally got out. “Do you think I’m right about God’s plan?”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps the devil tricked me into sending Liam back through time, so everything broke, the Rapture would be delayed for eons, and he could then maximize the number of souls that go down.” She pointed to the grass, as if saying the word ‘Hell’ was forbidden.

“I guess that is above my paygrade.” I smirked.

“And mine,” she agreed. “However, the repeating timeline isn’t the main problem.” She glanced at her watch. “The issue is that certain people figured it out right away, and they also learned how to always be a part of the reboot. They’ve mastered it so well, and have an uninterrupted string of repeats, that at this point, I think of them as nearly being immortal.”

“Isn’t going back in time how you broke things to start with?” I asked.

“Yes, but unlike what I did for my Liam, where I acted from outside the universe, these clever engineers tapped into quantum physics and dark energy to modify reality from inside the universe. They don’t reset the entirety of existence, but instead, they cut out a slice of real estate and fold it through space-time, landing them in an alternate version of the past.”

“All the way back to dinosaur times? That would be an eternity within an eternity.”

“They went that far back in the first reboot, but they’ve refined the process over the ages. Now it takes them back to the early nineteen hundreds…about when I was born.” She seemed to think on that fact for a few moments before continuing. “It gives them the ability to quickly build up their infrastructure in each new timeline. They short the market when the Great Depression hits, they accelerate covert military and construction projects during World War II, and they use the information age and the internet to keep everyone looking the other way while they prep their escape back to the starting point.”

I liked this less and less, but my brain made a sudden connection. “Do you know who they are? Aren’t you something special? Can’t you stop them?”

“This might surprise you, but I don’t know them by name.”

“Are they called the Decagon? That’s what I learned in your video game version.”

“That is one group, yes, but that isn’t the one running things.”

“Seriously? There is someone above a group that runs the government, the church, and the screen actors guild?”

“There is. They are the ones that have been hidden from me. They stay deep in the earth, shielded from human eyes even during the reboots.”

“Uh, then how are we going to find them?”

“I see their handiwork in each version of the universe as they come up through history until they build the next version of a scientific monstrosity called SNAKE.”

“I learned about that in your video game, too,” I remarked.

“See? You have a huge leg up—almost like a prophet,” she teased.

“Doesn’t really help in finding them, though.”

“No, and I’ve had computer queries searching for them all this time, too. As best I can tell, based on second-hand data, these beings are what most would describe as demons.”

“That’s unfortunate,” I sighed.

“Frank, remember what’s going on here. If the Rapture is real, it means God is real. If God is real, it means evil spirits are real.”

“Grandma Marty, I trust that you aren’t reading my mind, but I was thinking this same thing earlier.”

“A scary thing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“But remember you aren’t alone. If you let him into your heart, God can walk with you in this never-ending journey, so you aren’t overwhelmed by the bad guys. The Rapture can seem scary, but I’m glad it’s here. It proves there has been a battle between good and evil going on since the first day of the first universe, wherever and whenever that was. Heck, for all I know, our universe was the first. It would be fitting if it outlasted all the others.”

I pointed to where she said the forest of older universes was once located. “Wouldn’t the first universe be on the other side of the forest?”

She shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of time to consider that question, but I really can’t tell you for certain. I wasn’t here at the beginning. Heck, I’m a simple St. Louis woman who lived a long life in the nineteen hundreds and who had a final adventure in the early two thousands. Despite living as a caretaker of this universe all this time since then, I’m still essentially human. I don’t have all the answers.”

“Well, that brings up a question. In the computer simulation, I saw an airplane with a dish flying overhead. If I’m understanding what you’re saying, that wasn’t responsible for taking all those people. It was the Rapture?”

“The planes are real, Frank. They are already in the air, heading for their designated targets, as part of this group’s original plan to crash the world. But no, they aren’t tools of God. They aren’t the Rapture itself.”

“I knew there were two events,” I said to myself.

“There are two events. Remember, the simulation showed you what is about to happen. They always use the planes in their scheming, faking the Rapture and precipitating the end of the world, but this time, they have to use them as legitimate cover for the real Rapture. Left alone, things will play off just as they did in your sneak peek. They will likely come out on top once again.”

“But how could they have been deployed so fast? The planes would have had to already be in the air…”

She nodded grimly. “Ever hear of Southern Solar Digital-TV service?”

“Of course, they…” It hit me like a Mack truck. “They have solar planes way up high that continuously fly for months, and they broadcast over each major city.”

“Bingo,” she agreed. “The development of that secret weapon was common in lots of recent universe versions. As I said, there are sneaky people who ride this loop repeatedly, and they build them each go-round.”

“That’s unbelievable.”

“These demon-people have had plenty of time to refine their process. Originally, they tried zombie plagues to end the world, then they tried to drop asteroids on us, then they tried a global series of EMPs using those planes, and finally, they figured out faking the Rapture was the easiest method. They use the planes to kick-start the end of the world, complete with takeovers by duplicates for Satan and his lieutenants. With no one left to tell them any different, humanity will believe whatever these powerful leaders tell them. They convince them there are safe places that are actually deadly and deadly places that are safe. It’s all part of a plan, Frank, so only the right people are at the launch point, ready to be taken back to the beginning of the time loop.”

“That’s horrible,” I huffed.

“It is. These intentional apocalypses often end with humans throwing themselves at anyone with a loaf of bread and a warm fire, while the perpetrators ride off into the sunset to set it up all over again.”

“And no one ever catches on?”

“Zap lots of people into nothingness and everyone else falls in line with any leader who comes along with an explanation for why it happened and how it can be avoided going forward. It’s hard to deny anything when whole cities are reduced to piles of clothes.”

“Yeah, I see your point.”

She tapped her forehead. “The mark of the beast comes out. People sell their souls. Those in charge laugh all the way to the bank. Meanwhile, the real Satan is down deep welcoming all those lost souls because they have no idea what is really going on.”

“Do they always make those underground tunnels and ‘the ranch’ getups?”

“Always.”

“Evil has rigged the game.”

“Exactly. But this time, the joke is on them. God really is starting the end of the world of man. The Tribulation. End of days. It’s really happening.”

“Ha-ha,” I jibed, seeing the humor but not relishing it.

“I’ve been watching this happen over and over, like I said. I now have a plan that I think has a chance to turn the tables on these terrible perpetrators as the world experiences the last, real Rapture and Tribulation.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Hold out your arm.”

She and I stood near the cliff edge, which now seemed to drop for miles without water in the deep ocean, but I didn’t experience fear or worry like I might in the real world. I held out my arm as she took it with both of her hands.

“Only you will be able to see this.” She rubbed the back of my wrist and up to my elbow. To my shock, several names appeared in small block letters, as if they’d been tattooed to my skin.

“Buck Meadows. Ezra Anderson. Ted MacInnis. Elle Valentine. Liam Peters. And this one is just question marks.” The final name was written as a line of question marks rather than a name. “What’s the deal with this last one?”

“I don’t know if this person exists,” she deadpanned.

“Hmm. Okay. Would it surprise you to know I’ve seen these names before? They are on a list sitting in a golf clubhouse near my home. Did you take them from that list? Who are they?”

“I had no idea about that, but I’m not terribly surprised. These forces had a list with my family members on it back in my time. They wanted to eliminate my entire family as part of their security measures.”

That reminded me of what brought me to this place originally. “Lucy said they put a person’s whole family on a kill-list if they are a threat to the powers in charge. I think I got shot by one soldier who was making good on closing out that list.”

“You haven’t really been shot,” she reminded me, “but your point is well-taken. If you found a list, it means these people are already being hunted. Now that the Rapture is in play, the forces of evil will come out of every hiding spot to pursue them. This, I’m sorry to say, means your job will be a lot harder.”

“Wait a second. Wait just a second. If I’ve spent the last week in a simulation, how the heck could it know there was a list of names in that house? How accurate was this virtual world?”

Marty shook her head like that wasn’t a line of questioning I needed to go down. “Frank, when the blue energy beam goes by, listen for the tinkle of debris. The entire world is continuously mapped by tiny micro-drones, offering real-time data to whoever controls them. That’s how this computer was able to tap into endless streams of real data to get the subsequent nine days faithfully correct.”

“I did hear that tinkling, now that you say that.”

“Uh-huh. You have no idea how much surveillance goes on.”

“Well, great. So, I’m supposed to find these people while the worst characters in existence are also after them, with all these drones at their disposal to boot?”

“And the Rapture is happening. Don’t forget that. You’ll experience fires, plagues, floods, and worse.”

“Tell me some good news.”

She stepped back from me. “When the energy wave hits, all those drones will be lost forever. Fried. Their advantage goes away. So, you’ve got that going for you.”

“Oh, that changes everything,” I replied in a friendly manner, then I decided to ask a different type of question. “Can you at least tell me who they are?”

“I can’t.” She smiled knowingly. “But I think we will both learn that I haven’t been the only one watching what’s going on out there, and I’m not talking about the drones, either. The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways, and I think assembling this team is one of those deeds.”

“Okay, fine. Be mysterious. But now that I have their names, how the heck am I supposed to find them? And why do I want to find them? What’s so special about these particular people?”

“They are all in your area, I made sure of that. You might try downtown first. The names will glow as you get closer to them. I couldn’t risk putting this on paper too early due to those drones I mentioned, and besides, I can’t send you out into the world with anything physical. That’s beyond my ability.”

She checked her watch. This time, her eyes grew in size.

“Oh my lands, Frank, I’m out of time.”

“Will you be able to leave here with me? Can I keep you around to ask questions?”

“Wouldn’t that be nice? I could be like Jiminy Cricket, tagging along on one more adventure to help you along, but sadly, that’s not how my position works. I didn’t want to worry you, but every second I spend with you is time away from the entire rest of the universe. Remember, the Rapture isn’t only happening on Earth, it is happening everywhere in existence.”

“Wow,” I declared.

“And I have to be there to address an infinite number of problems.”

“Like a customer service rep,” I laughed.

“Oh, I hated talking to those people,” she agreed. “Most of the time, they couldn’t even speak my language.”

“Isn’t only happening on Earth… Are you saying there are other worlds out there?”

“Don’t worry yourself about that.” She smiled widely. “Your problems are all here on good old Earth. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“I’m sorry we don’t have more time,” I said.

“That’s my line,” she snickered. “I have so much to tell you.”

“Well, thanks, I guess. I’m glad I’m not dead, and this has been weird, but I think I understand a little about what you want me to do.”

“Find those names. Work together. Come up with a plan to stop the Decagon from gathering at their escape point.” Her face brightened. “And, Frank, I’ve had another of those premonitions… You’re going to want to find the SNAKE facility. Like any good story of good versus evil, this facility shows up in every universe in some fashion or form. It has to be a hive of evil.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“Yes, Denver, but I don’t need to draw you a map, since you already know a woman who works there.”

“Faith.”

“Yes.”

“But I have to wait a few days for her to come out of that tunnel, don’t I.”

She pursed her lips. “The simulation you’ve lived through is accurate to a fault in the first minutes, and it has high fidelity for maybe a few days, but the longer it goes, the less precise it becomes. Also, you might look for her earlier, but each time you deviate from the simulation, you are changing the possible outcomes in the real world. Do you understand?”

“I could do exactly what I did in the simulation, and it might play out precisely the same way?”

“If you were re-reading a book, then yes, you will know exactly how it goes every step of the way until the last page. However, you are now entering reality again, where random chance and the mysteries of the Rapture will interfere and make changes without you even knowing it. With a lot of luck, and if the computer code got the Rapture correct in the simulation, then it’s possible you could relive everything to the point where you met Monique and I pulled you out, but you would have to be strict about replicating everything exactly.”

“Not too likely.”

“No, and you also have free will. The ability to make judgment calls in the moment, to make things better or worse. However, at the very least, there will be events you can accurately predict based on what you’ve seen and what you know of your friends, and that will make you the modern-day equivalent of a Biblical prophet. You can use this gift for the cause of good.”

Grandma Marty winked at me.

“I’ll do my best.”

“I know that with all my heart.” She held out her wrinkly hands for me to hold, then she pointed to the names written on me. “If you see my Liam, please tell him that I love him.”

“I will—”

The ground shook a little.

A big piece of the grass platform cracked at the edge of the cliff and fell over the side.

Before I could look back to her, Grandma Marty was gone.

CHAPTER 34

“—call my flock home,” a man’s soothing voice announced.

“What did he say?” I asked, still groggy.

I’d woken up with my muscles already cinched tighter than a bass drum being bashed by a gorilla. I knew I’d been living a simulated apocalypse and that I’d been pulled out of it by Grandma Marty, a woman who I could liken to a guardian angel. Now I was back in the car dealership, waking up after dozing off in the waiting room. If she’d been telling the truth, I was witnessing the beginning of the Rapture.

Had I heard God pointing to the outfield wall, ready to crank a home run over the fence?

“I heard it, too,” a woman in the waiting room answered. “He said ‘I will now call my flock home,’ whatever that means. Must be someone goofing on the PA system.”

I was tempted to believe her and the logical response, but I knew better. I was going to—

“Frank Douglas?” a voice interrupted my thoughts.

The woman at the desk called my name a second time, with more volume. “Frank Douglas!”

“I’m here,” I answered.

A slight tremor shook the room, adding to my sense of sitting on the edge of a major disaster, but I seemed to be the only one who noticed it, likely since I was already at heightened alert. An older couple slouched in chairs nearby, watching a country music singer on an old television set on the wall.

Like I remembered, it was Monique and the Midnight Foxes.

“Car is ready,” the receptionist insisted.

I sat up, checked my watch, and reflected on where I was and, more importantly, when I was. In the simulation, when I got up and walked out to my car, I spoke with one of the technicians for about twenty minutes, happy to be among ‘my people,’ since I’d spent my whole life around mechanics and garages. However, I would skip the chat this time. With that extra time before the arrival of the blue wave EMP, I could warn people I cared about, like Jodie, Cookie, and…

Carmen.

My heart skipped a beat at the mere thought of her. Right now, she was in that basement, waiting for me to rescue her.

It was as if I’d been placed at Pearl Harbor thirty minutes before the Japanese came swooping out of the skies to destroy our fleet back in 1941. Grandma Marty’s simulation had given me a huge advantage before the attack, but it would also give me an even larger advantage once it was over. I knew about the Cleaners, I knew about the evil priest, I knew about the underground tunnels. I knew about Lucy.

I hopped out of my seat, ready to spring into action, but I was distracted when a woman’s voice called my name from behind me.

“Sir?”

“Yeah?” I answered in a hurry.

“I know why you came back,” she said in a dramatic manner.

I halted in place and turned to find a thirty-something blonde woman sitting in one of the other waiting room chairs, though facing another direction. Her perfect skin practically glowed, even in the waiting room, from lots of time on the beach. And, though I was pressed for time like never before in my life, I took notice of her beauty. The platinum blonde was either a model or actress.

It was the woman from the white Mustang, the one I thought could have been a passable Christy Brinkley in her prime. But hotness aside, how did she know I’d come back from my talk with Marty?

“You do?”

“That’s your sports car, isn’t it?” She pointed to the glass front doors, where my orange Corvette waited for me with its driver’s door opened for my convenience.

“Yes,” I answered with some reluctance.

“And now you’re back?” she pressed.

My stomach turned into a boat anchor.

I’d been sent back with knowledge to survive the coming apocalypse, but I hadn’t been warned about anyone else knowing about the resets. Was she going to work against me? I hadn’t been in this timeline for twenty seconds and already had a problem. A difference from the simulation I’d been living inside.

“I have been here before.” I agreed.

She stood up and fluffed her hair.

I braced myself to run.

“I thought so!” Her smile was a spotlight of white teeth and dreamy eyes. As she came around the seats to be closer, I took a couple of small steps back. A wave of enticing floral perfume came with her.

“You were here the other day,” she said in an even tone, testing whether it was true.

“And so were you,” I exhaled, letting go of the most immediate tension in my gut.

“Yes.” She smiled, holding out a hand. “I wanted to say something the other day, you know, but you left before I could work up the nerve.”

I didn’t have any clue how a woman as stunning as this one could possibly be shy around men. On any other day, I would have stopped to talk to her and maybe angle for more, but not today.

“You have a nice Mustang,” I offered, trying to back out.

“I just signed the papers. How did you know I’d gotten it?” Her smile turned conspiratorial. “Have you been spying on me?”

If only I could tell her.

“I’m so sorry, no, I don’t spy on people.”

“Well then, maybe I could—”

It pained me to cut her off.

“I would really love to talk, but I have a commitment I can’t miss,” I explained, crushed by the disappointment in her eyes. In the previous iteration of the timeline, she hadn’t talked to me in the car dealer waiting room, but she had driven by me in her white Mustang in that simulation, so I knew she and I at least shared a love of fast cars.

But that recollection made me realize an important fact. While I was gifted with a few minutes of advanced warning before the end of the world, I was also given the ability to interact with anyone I chose during that time. I could, in effect, save people from the oncoming freight train of disaster.

I continued toward the front desk.

She trailed behind.

“Hey, if you wait a few minutes, my car should be ready, too.”

“Sorry again, but I can’t,” I said. The woman at the desk gave me a sheet of paper, but she didn’t ask for my credit card.

“This one is on the house,” the young cashier remarked, barely looking up. “This is normal sales prep work, and we should have ensured the Bluetooth feature worked before letting you take it out the door.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said to the top of her head as she looked down at paperwork for the next person. I was going to head out, but I thought of an important question for her. “Hey, did you hear that weird voice? The one that said he was calling his flock home?”

She finally looked up. A plain-looking, dark-haired woman of about twenty-five, totally bored at her job but doing it, nonetheless.

“In this job, you hear a lot of weirdos here in the course of a day.”

“So, it was a guy on the PA?”

She shrugged with massive indifference. “Could be.”

When it was clear she had nothing else to offer, I stepped away and headed for my car.

“Frank, please wait,” the new Mustang owner pleaded.

I couldn’t afford to be delayed even a few seconds, so I kept walking toward the front door. My only concern was collecting the people I already knew, since those were the only ones I could trust. This woman in the waiting room could be a legitimate person hitting on me, but she hadn’t done it in the simulation, so there was a lot of room for mistrust. In fact—

I stopped. “Hey, how did you know my name?”

She pointed up, smiling big again. “They repeated it about six times on the PA, since you were asleep.”

“Crap,” I said under my breath. My haste was making me see things that weren’t there. Thinking of how I could get myself out of this mess, I decided to offer some casual advice. “Hey, if you know anywhere that has a basement, go hide in it for the next hour. I think…”

“Why?”

How could I tell her what was coming without freaking her out or making her think I was nuts? I couldn’t exactly flaunt the fact I was now a ‘prophet’ like Grandma Marty suggested. “I’m an astronomer, and there is a huge sunspot storm heading for us. I’m going underground myself.”

That was somewhat true.

After I’d said it, the woman was silent, but the gal behind the desk looked up at me as if my message had come with an electrical charge. Without asking any questions, she stood up and left through a back door.

Content I’d done all I could, I ran out the front doors and hopped in my new car.

“Okay, see you, Frank,” I heard the woman call out a second before the glass door shut again.

“See you,” I answered, far too late to be heard.

The motor roared to life when I started the car. My phone hooked up almost immediately, and a display showed songs queued up. It was a playlist from my music app. The dealership techs had gotten it working as promised.

“Hey, buddy, wait up!”

An older gentleman in dark overalls came out of the garage at a waddle, since he was a bit overweight. I already knew his name, Brian, and I knew what he was going to ask me about…

“That’s a sweet ride!” he yelled over the din of the motor. “How do you like it?”

I opened my door and hopped out, not happy to have another delay but also not willing to blow him off. “Hey, I’ve got something I’ve got to get done, but maybe next—”

A blue light surrounded the worker, and he stopped in his tracks, not ten feet from me. For a few seconds, he was completely frozen in place, like the frames of a television show were stopped.

“Brian Francis Reynolds, I call you home.” It was the same male voice. It was soothing, not too loud, and I wanted to hear more of it, like a top-shelf narrator in one of my audiobooks.

The blue energy swirled around the man and lifted him off the ground, slow at first, but then he shot into the clouds in seconds.

A crack of thunder burst out, and the shift in air pressure nearly knocked me down.

“Holy crap!” I blurted.

My mind was stricken by what I’d witnessed, but I also knew exactly what I’d seen. The first voice had been literal. God was, in fact, calling his flock home.

To Heaven.

I looked inside the showroom, curious if anyone else saw the event, but the woman and cashier were both out of sight.

“Move it, Frank,” I told myself.

I jumped in my Corvette and slammed the door. I sat there panting for a few moments, unsure what to do next. This was a huge change from the simulation. Grandma Marty had warned me about the possibility, but I’d never seen anyone turn blue and float into the sky, so that was major change number one. She’d also been rushing to get me back here, since she’d started her simulation the instant the real Rapture started on Earth. What she’d been less clear about was how long the real Rapture was going to last, as that would give me a sense of when to expect the more dangerous, for me, attack in the form of the zapper plane. I didn’t want any of my friends and neighbors to get sucked up by that plane and then spit out in that maple-syrup-scented vault.

Gunther had told me his family disappeared five minutes before the blue light ripped across the ocean, but that only hinted at how far after the end of the Rapture I could expect the blue energy wave to appear. It did not tell me how long the Rapture would take or when the plane would arrive.

Then again, solving one more problem, I understood that the planes had to spend time coming down from their high-altitude flight patterns, which meant that maybe they started down the second the Rapture started…but how would they know so quickly it had begun?

I remembered Faith’s story about the children, and I suddenly saw it as if I’d been there with her.

The Decagon set up the experiment with the children. Though they liked to fake the Rapture with their giant planes, they needed a failsafe in case the real Rapture ever happened on their watch. They knew the prisoners were evil people, like them, and they would not be taken by the legitimate gathering of souls who were heading to Heaven. As soon as the children disappeared, and the prisoners pressed their buttons, the message went out to the bad guys.

“Send in the planes!” they would have ordered.

I breathed fast, putting more and more pieces together.

Faith had said a gas knocked her and the prisoners out, as the Decagon wouldn’t want too many people knowing the truth. If that happened in the real world, the shady group might be willing to kill a lot of extra people to keep this new truth hidden.

My brain wanted to solve the growing puzzle, but I had to stay in the moment. Faith’s story had given me one important clue, and I didn’t need to see children disappear to appreciate it. If I’d been lucky enough to hear the voice of God, and he’d told everyone he was starting to collect his flock, it meant the enemy wouldn’t have started its counterpunch until that moment.

I knew the Rapture was in progress.

A blue wave of energy was coming.

An advanced superweapon on wings was up there.

Knowing what I did about the Decagon, and how many times they’d been through this exercise for their mock Rapture apocalypses, those planes were likely already descending.

The new variables to plug into the supercomputer, if I’d had access to it, was how long the plane above Fort Myers would take to drop low enough to use its weapon.

I pounded the gas pedal.

The final clock had started ticking.

CHAPTER 35

The woman’s white Mustang came out of the garage bay, but I peeled out of the parking lot before I watched where they parked it. I’d given her a clue about how to survive the incoming attack, and it had cost me little to share the advice. If she’d watched the man fly into the sky, I bet she now took my warning a lot more seriously.

I started breathing again once I was on the road.

To my right, at the hospital, I saw a few blue streaks of light. I might not have noticed them if I hadn’t seen Brian the mechanic go up right in front of me, but now I knew what was going on. When I followed the streak as high as I could tilt my head, I was stunned—

I stopped the car in a long skid.

I fell out the door.

“Holy— Holy cow.” I didn’t want to cuss in the presence of this.

Straight up, beaming down at me from an unknown height, a digital clock showed giant numbers counting down. 25:25, 25:24, etc. It was lit by the same blue light sucking up all the people.

It was mesmerizing to see the numbers count off, since I knew this was no ordinary clock, and the meaning was quite literally the fate of people’s souls.

“This really is the apocalypse,” I whispered, echoing what Grandma Marty had warned me about. EMP-shmee-empee. No disaster was half as bad as what I was witnessing…not for those left behind.

I found it difficult to peel away, but I slowly got back in the Corvette.

My new car made it easy to roast the tires.

I let the big motor open up as I got back to seventy in mere seconds, but I eased up right away to make the sweeping left turn. The edge of town was soon on my right, along a canal, and I both sped up and slowed down in the next few seconds, heading for the last intersection out of town.

Vehicles in my lanes were all stopped at a red light.

“No time for this,” I said to myself.

I decelerated toward the busy intersection, then I veered into the empty opposite lanes as if I was a fire truck, but at the last second, I cut to the right around dozens of stopped cars. One of the vehicles in cross traffic had a streak of blue shoot out, and it rolled through the intersection until it ran directly into the back of a postal truck. I gave the skidding federal truck a love tap against his front fender as I merged with traffic heading south, only narrowly avoiding a larger wreck.

He laid on his horn.

“Sorry!” I shouted.

There would be no trading of insurance today.

Did the postman have any clue what was coming? Were there passengers in the wrecked car, perhaps wondering why Aunt Joan was no longer at the wheel? How much worse was it going to get for the morning commute?

Pointing south on Bayside Road, I punched the Chevy in the guts, and the big Z-rated tires did the rest.

I passed a young woman sitting in a little electric car as she was ready to make a turn out of the strip mall on my left. She was cast in that same blue aura as the mechanic, but I sped by before she ascended into the clouds.

“Speed it up, Frank!” I insisted.

The speedometer went to 200 MPH, and I sling-shotted up to 125 in mere seconds. I couldn’t go much faster, as there were other vehicles in both lanes, some empty and rolling in odd directions, and I had to swerve around them several times.

A bald man stood at an intersection coming up on my right, and it was clear he saw the clock. As my super-tuned small block engine screamed like a feral banshee past his quiet street, he stared straight up, unconcerned with my lawbreaking and noisemaking, apparently lost in the countdown.

He was soon a dot in my rearview mirror.

Seconds later, a red minivan must have seen me coming in their own mirrors, since they pulled over to the shoulder to let me pass.

“Thank you!” I yelled into the wind.

There was more driving.

More panting.

More gripping of the steering wheel.

There was no time for mistakes. No time for pleasant drives or too much safety. I saw more of the blue streaks going up, lifting through roofs and cars in the giant spread of subdivisions along the right side of Bayside Road. Luckily, the supercar made it so I only needed a couple of minutes before I spotted the big orange fish on the welcome billboard to my subdivision.

Above me, the clock fell below twenty minutes.

I used those last seconds before reaching my turn to process where everyone I knew was located at that moment, if they were at the same place as the simulation.

Jodie would be in the woods near the beach.

Cookie would be lying on her towel on the sand.

If I went right and shot along Poseidon Pier, I could grab both of them at the same time. However, even though I knew them, they didn’t yet know me, and what were the odds both women would jump in a convertible with a strange guy blaring Jimmy Buffett?

I turned down the radio.

The intersection came at me with breathtaking speed.

Left or right?

The more important question was where each of the women would be in the next thirty minutes of real life. If they stayed where they were, at the beach, they would both miss being picked up by the plane, since they would be outside its cone of zapping. They would also survive the Rapture itself. In fact, if the simulation got things right, none of my friends had to worry about being picked up by God.

A dark spirit seemed to walk across my grave. I wanted my friends to get taken, not left behind. Those were the best people being lifted up, leaving the middle-level and bottom-level souls behind. It made me realize every person who’d been in my simulated apocalypse had been judged as non-Rapture material by the supercomputer. Could it possibly have been wrong about that?

I shook it off.

Grandma Marty had hinted her ‘champion’ had to be someone good, but not too good, or they’d be sucked up to Heaven with everyone else. I very much wanted to prove her right about the first part, and wrong about the second.

A decision had to be made.

My foot braced the brake pedal, and I decelerated in the middle of the lane, stopping a bit short of the intersection. No one was behind me, not even the woman in the white Mustang, likely because she would need another twenty minutes to get her new car prepped for delivery.

But I found it hard to decide. Who else was out there? Nate would be coming along soon in a police cruiser. The empty vehicle would run off the road when the driver disappeared.

Gunther was out there, on a boat. There was no way to help him, but I knew his family would soon be drawn into the sky without him.

The Kingston brothers could be out there somewhere. It would have been nice to have those two on my team, as they’d apparently been planning for the end of the world for a long time.

Should I go to Jodie’s house and get her husband out of the path of the approaching aircraft before it zapped everyone who was still left after the Rapture?

And what about Lucy? She was a mystery wrapped in a question mark. A good person working for the worst people. I wanted to find her, like the others, but I could only guess where she was at this moment. In the golf clubhouse, perhaps, but that was far out of my way.

There were too many possibilities. I had to concentrate on what I could control. On what would benefit us all.

On a whim, I looked down at my arm where Grandma Marty had placed those names. To my shock, the names were there. Some were darker than others, perhaps confirming what she’d said about how I would use this to my advantage. However, I put my hand back on the wheel, threw the shifter, and turned right.

I worked through the gears and was soon up to ninety-five.

The houses zipped by in a blur.

“Sorry,” I whispered, knowing I was going far too fast in a residential subdivision. However, if I was going out of my way to help my friends, I was going to take this chance in the fastest time possible.

I tried not to dwell on the streaks of blue.

There was no need to keep looking at the clock.

A kid on a bike disappeared.

Two teen girls were lying in a yard, pointing straight up at the sky.

A small child playing with chalk on their driveway was taken up. As I headed west, the streaks of light seemed to become more frequent. Was this like a big fireworks show, building toward a giant crescendo?

My heart beat in time with the screaming engine.

At the stop sign for 40th Street, I slowed but didn’t stop. I punched the gas, ignored anyone in their yards or garages, and shot toward the watchtower at the beach as fast as I dared. However, I slowed considerably the last few hundred yards, as I didn’t want any residents in the last houses to come to the beach to give me a beatdown for speeding.

I pulled into the parking lot, stunned by the familiarity to the simulation. The old light-blue VW bus belonging to the people making the movie was there. They were at the edge of the water, same as before. The other two cars belonged to Cookie and Jodie. Cookie was on her beach towel, as before. And Jodie was—

An older redhead woman walked at the edge of the trees on the right side of the lot, as if she’d parked her car and was heading into the woods for some privacy, exactly as she’d said in my simulation.

I guided the ‘Vette to that side of the lot, then I shut off the motor and jumped out.

“Hey, Jodie!” I called out. I added a friendly wave.

She was immediately wary, as any woman would be given my abrupt appearance and use of her name. “Do I know you?”

This was where it would get tough.

“No, but…something big is about to happen.”

There were too many trees blocking our view, so I couldn’t point out the blue streaks of the Rapture or the ticking clock…but I also didn’t want her to see them. It was selfish to think this, but if I told her that her husband and grandbabies were in danger of being taken up to Heaven, she would hurry back to the house. If she was lucky, she might see them one last time, but then she would be in the path of the plane and would be taken with everyone else. Maybe it was sinful to be selfish at that moment, but I was building a team for the end of everything, and Jodie was the type of person I wanted.

“Just a second,” I urged.

I backtracked to my car and pulled out some of the paperwork in the glovebox. Using a pen with the car dealer’s name on it, I wrote my name and address and added ‘Please come over as soon as THE END happens.’

“Please read this when you sit down.”

She took it, and I got a good look in her eyes. I remembered how sad she was about the loss of her grandchildren. It had destroyed her to the point she was willing to die to save Cookie, simply because the young woman reminded her of her lost babies.

I clenched my jaw, realizing I couldn’t go through with it.

“Listen, this is going to sound nuts, but you have to get back to your house right this second. The Rapture is taking people up to Heaven as we speak.”

She laughed. “Oh, right. Are you one of those religious nutters?” She looked around me to my factory-new sports car. “You sure must fool a lot of dumb cultists to have such a nice ride.”

“Look, I know about your husband and your grandbabies.” I described the empty nursery she’d showed me, right down to a little choo-choo pillow sitting next to a crib. “If you don’t run home right this second, you are never going to see them again…at least until you get to Heaven with them.”

I gave her the slip of paper, content that I’d given her a choice in the outcome. It would change the trajectory of the simulation, like Grandma Marty warned, but I figured that ship had already sailed. If we ever did meet again, she could not hold it against me that I’d failed to warn her when I had the chance.

“When you get out of the trees, look straight up!” I yelled back.

Instead of waiting for a response, I took the second piece of paper and ran onto the sand, huffing with exertion in seconds. I went directly to Cookie, ignoring her bikini-clad figure as much as I could.

“Hey, I need to give you this.”

She looked at me, then sat up on her elbows.

“Oh, hey.” She smiled.

A car engine started on the lot, and tires peeled out. I assumed it was Jodie heading for her home.

“Take this,” I insisted. “I can’t stick around.”

She seemed disappointed, but I didn’t let myself get wrapped in any drama with her. I knew from our previous meeting that she didn’t have family around here and thus there was no reason to give her any information about the Rapture.

I stopped running, realizing that although I didn’t know specific people in her life, there were likely many she would miss.

“Dang it, Frank,” I whispered. Being in the presence of God made me sensitive to rights and wrongs. I couldn’t be selfish around people I cared about, even if they still had no idea who I was.

I turned around.

“Hey, Cookie. Call your mom and tell her you love her.”

Her smile faded. “Why? What’s going on?”

I looked at the clock in the sky for a moment. There was plenty of time for her to make a call or two.

“It’s just a feeling. I’m telling everyone to remember their loved ones today.” I didn’t tell her to run for the hills because the end of the world was coming, or she might drive off and be zapped. I tried to keep it in perspective how she would see me, a stranger, passing off warnings for no apparent reason. At worst, my statement might make her feel guilty enough to call home without getting scared.

I spun on the sand and ran for my car. My conscience was satisfied I’d given my two lady friends enough information to make any last-minute calls or check-ins. Even though it could endanger what I was planning, it seemed better to be as honest as possible with people I cared about.

On the parking lot, I was going to jump in my open door, but I diverted to the remaining two vehicles. While confirming no one was looking, I took out my pocketknife, crouched down, then sliced the air valves in two tires on each one.

“That ought to slow you down.”

I knew the blue ray of light was coming, and that the movie people would probably get in their van and speed east, taking them into the zone swept by the weaponized Southern Solar plane. By knocking out their van, I could make sure they remained at the beach until the plane passed over. The same for Cookie. With a little luck, they would all come looking for me, if only to make me pay for the damage.

As I got back in the car, I realized I would look like a nutter to anyone who observed what I was doing. Taken out of context, I was doing random crap that made no sense. Was this how prophets in the old days felt? Knowing things that other people did not. Unable to blurt them out, lest the target audience think the prophets were the crazy ones.

I restarted the car and slowly left the parking lot. Cookie was on her phone, hopefully making that final call. The movie people were still at the water’s edge, exactly like my simulation, reassuring me that despite the changes going on, most of the general details were still the same.

Above me, the clock was below fifteen minutes. Every hesitation and delay cost me time.

Once back on Poseidon Pier, I gradually added more speed to get back home. It didn’t surprise me to see a few people standing at the edge of the road to watch my driving. If I’d witnessed someone speeding through my neighborhood going the other way, I would have been angry and waiting for their return, too.

However, they had other things to worry about than me.

Many residents screamed and cried out as they looked up at the clock. Some raised their fists and cussed, though I wasn’t sure how to read that reaction. All around, more streaks of blue headed upward, signifying that the Rapture was plucking souls from homes.

I leveled off at about 70 miles-per-hour, which was still about three times faster than the posted speed limit of 25. Just fast enough to get me home in a flash, but slow enough that I wouldn’t scream past the concerned residents like a bat out of Hell. Also, I didn’t want to put other people at greater risk of being run over by an empty Corvette, on the off chance I got taken to Heaven.

If I thought it would have done any good, I would have yelled out for everyone to find a basement or to dive deep into the canals, but I knew enough about the local geography to know most houses didn’t have basements around here. Worse, despite knowing it was coming, I didn’t know the exact moment the plane would be here, so I couldn’t explain with any clarity about when to hide or when to dive.

I flew along the street, but I hit the brakes when a red minivan coming from the other direction abruptly veered and almost ran into a front yard. However, it wasn’t due to the driver being taken. The woman at the wheel held up her middle finger at me, yelling words I couldn’t hear but could easily guess.

It was the same red van that had pulled to the side of the road for me. She was road-raging at seeing me coming from the other direction.

“Sorry!” I yelled, hating how circumstances were making me the bad guy, even though I knew in my heart I wasn’t. Grandma Marty’s simulation had shown me what was about to happen, and there was now a time limit, so I had to trade caution for execution of my plan. Of course, it did also occur to me I could have a brain tumor or other flaw that was giving me these extended and vivid visions.

I slowed a little.

The clock said 14:01.

A tumor? My analytical brain wandered down this path…

“No way, Frank. You aren’t nuts. No one dreams of a full week in extreme detail. No one.” I glanced left and right at the blue streaks rising through the rooftops, not to mention the giant alarm clock. “And those are really happening. You aren’t dreaming now.”

Two jets blasted overhead, not far above the treetops. Those had been in the simulation, though they weren’t in the same spot. Also, there was a large four-engine passenger jet trailing behind them, like a bear chasing two cheetahs, and that was another change.

But I at least knew all this was real.

My speed went back up.

I took a huge chance at the next intersection at Bayside Road. I did my best to look each way, but I barely tapped the brakes. A white speck was far down the road to my left, safely out of my way. I went through the high point of the intersection so fast, the car cleared the pavement for about fifty feet, then she slammed back down. Keeping hold of the jerky steering wheel, I drove for all I was worth toward home.

I could hardly breathe.

My brain went back to the question of insanity.

I still didn’t believe I was losing my marbles, but if I was, I would know in less than thirteen minutes. The clock continued to tick down, leading me toward revelation in one form or the other. Rapture or ridiculousness. If the latter, then maybe my retirement was destined to be set in a mental hospital for clinically insane speeders.

I drove fast, but I kept my eyes on the sky. Streaks of blue came up from the neighboring streets, but how long did I have before the giant plane came over and finished the job of removing all the people, like in the virtual world I’d been living in?

The only way to survive it—since I was no longer at the beach—was to be underground.

And, because of what I’d learned in that simulation, I knew exactly where to go.

The gas pedal touched the floor.

CHAPTER 36

I turned left on Clownfish Cove. It was more of a slide, as the giant tires struggled to keep me on pavement while I pushed the limits of the car’s performance.

It brought a bit of relief, as I’d run the Corvette as hard as I could and I’d made it home before the blue wave came and knocked out the engine. It meant I wouldn’t have to walk home. I didn’t have the time…not when people were already being lifted into the sky by the hand of God.

Since I was close, my thoughts turned to the tunnel behind our houses, and the people trapped in that giant vault under it. In the simulation, the Rapture had taken all of them, only to have them replaced minutes later by local residents who’d been culled by the giant planes. It only now struck me that the original prisoners down there must have been good, God-fearing people, or how else could they have been taken to Heaven?

I experienced a wave of nostalgia at seeing the nine homes huddled at the far end of the street. Clownfish Cove had only been my home in real life for a few weeks, but I’d really lived on it while in the simulation. Now, seeing it for real, it was more like a legitimate homecoming, and I knew there was unlimited potential from these people.

Now I had to figure out how to save them from the approaching zap.

I got going as fast as possible in the remaining length of street, zipping through the cluster of four homes still under construction, then I shoved my boot on the brake pedal. The anti-lock brakes were designed to address this exact scenario and avoid wasteful skidding, but I managed to get the tires to howl.

Then I honked the horn.

Then I yelled.

“Come out! Hurry!”

More honking.

An old face appeared at the door of the last house, the one directly to my left from where I’d stopped in the road.

“Ben!” I shouted.

“Do I know you?” he asked, still standing in the doorway.

“I live at the other end.” I pointed, chest heaving from the excitement.

“Sure, I think I recognize you.”

“Ben, this is an emergency. A poison gas truck tipped over on Bayside. I saw it just now. Flames everywhere. Fumes everywhere. It’s heading this way.”

He finally walked outside a bit, checking all around. To my surprise, he didn’t notice the giant clock ticking away directly overhead in the clear, blue sky.

“I wouldn’t bother you if this wasn’t a real threat,” I pressed, not sure what to make of him not noticing such an oddball object up there. Still, I didn’t want to call attention to that or the streaks of blue lights, and I couldn’t let myself go weak on that. We were down to about the last ten minutes. If they were going to get pulled up by the Rapture, fine. But if they were going to be left behind, like me, I had to get them to safety, so they wouldn’t be grabbed by the incoming zapper plane. Knowing where the plane was going to send them, I was thinking of it as saving them from Hell itself.

“No, I guess you wouldn’t.” He gave a side-eye look at my Corvette, and I could almost read what he was thinking.

“I bought this the other day. I also drive that old Chevy truck.”

“Oh, right.” He brightened. “That’s what I was trying to figure out. I really do know you.”

“Yeah. I’m going to knock on Levar and Luke’s doors. Would you mind knocking on the doors across the street?”

“Yeah, sure.” He tossed his beer can behind a fluffy bush near his porch, but then he looked at me with worry. “Don’t tell Evelyn I did that.”

“I won’t if you hurry!” I joked.

He went down his steps, toward the street, and I took it as a first win.

I headed next door.

To my surprise, Levar and his wife were home. They’d been watching out the front window as I talked to Ben and were ready when I struck the front doorbell.

“What’s going on?” Levar asked right away. The man was tall, as in almost touching the top of the door frame. His hair was spiky, and he was dressed in khakis and a work polo shirt, exactly as I’d seen him in the simulation. It was hard not to shake his hand and sneak in some knowledge that I’d gleaned about him already, but I didn’t want to muddy the waters. Right now, my only job was to get them to come out of their house.

“There’s been a truck explosion up on Bayside Road. I saw it happen. I want everyone to come outside, so we can go somewhere safe.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to stay indoors? Maybe tape up a room?”

“Do you know anything about that?” I asked, fishing for skills that might be useful to us down the road.

“Not really,” he allowed. “My company had some training about gas leaks during service calls, once upon a time, but mostly, the training said to get off the property and run like hell.”

I joined his laughter for a moment, hoping to bond enough to get him to listen.

“This time, the only way to stay safe is to get underground.”

“Where are you going to find somewhere like that?” he asked.

“Trust me, I know a guy.” I smiled, then stepped off his porch, hoping he would take the hint.

“How much time do we have?”

I glanced up.

He looked up at the same time, as anyone would when a buddy’s attention went to something above their heads. However, he seemed unimpressed, as if the clock wasn’t there.

But it was.

The big display now showed less than eight minutes. However, that didn’t tell me when the plane was coming. I hoped it would be after the Rapture was done, assuming that’s what the clock was for, but the planes had been in the air since before the countdown started, so it really depended on how long it would take them to get low enough to use their zapper. Fortunately, at the moment, I didn’t hear the props of the aircraft.

I looked down at my watch, a device he could see, thinking of a realistic response. “I’m guessing, but we have probably five minutes.”

He gasped. “Let me get my shoes on.”

That was another win.

My next stop was Luke’s place. I braced myself for disappointment, since I couldn’t expect people from three houses in a row to come out in the middle of a Monday morning, but I was pleasantly shocked when the door opened. Luke wore a black T-shirt with Papa Smurf toking a wacky cigarette on the front of it. I smiled knowingly as if I’d spent a lot of time with him, though, of course, I hadn’t.

“Luke?” I asked.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“I’m Frank, from right over there. Sorry to bother you, but I’m rounding up all the neighbors. There’s been an accident…”

I explained it in moments.

He seemed to believe me right away.

In sixty seconds, Luke and his wife came out, but so did his teen daughter and teen son. I glanced straight up, nonchalant and all, to see if they would do the same. As expected, most of them looked up, but none of them had any reaction. Apparently, they couldn’t see the clock either.

What was going on?

“Isn’t there school today?” I wondered, ignoring the clock problem.

“No,” Tyler replied. “The Vice President of the United States chose today of all days to visit our school. Who knows why and who cares.”

“The vice president?” I asked.

“She’s here to oversee the preparation for Hurricane Aurora,” the sister added for context. “Tyler only cares about meeting his friends, not what’s going on in the world.”

“That’s not true,” the boy shot back. “You only want to go to school to find yourself a boyfriend.”

She punched him hard on the shoulder.

“Ow! Dad, she’s abusing me!”

“Good,” he said, still holding the door for the last family member. A golden retriever came through and ran circles around the two kids.

“Mr. Puppers!” I cheered.

The dog’s ears perked at hearing his name.

No one seemed to notice or ask how I knew it.

Luke urged his family into the street, where Levar and Kaira had already rallied. Unlike me, Ben seemed to have no luck at the last house facing his, though he was talking to someone at the next place down, the one with all the rich-people cars parked on the front lawn.

“Melanie,” I said to Luke’s wife, “will you please go to Penny’s house and get her to come out?”

I chose her, since I knew a woman’s touch would help Penny feel more comfortable with my fake story. I intended to run to the Drummonds’ place next, and I didn’t need anyone to go to Carmen’s house, since I knew where she was.

A second later, I changed my mind. I couldn’t take a risk that the simulation had gotten that part wrong. If I missed Carmen while she was in her own home, blissfully unaware of this crisis, I would never forgive myself.

“Actually, Luke, would you mind knocking on Carmen’s door?”

It was difficult to see the blue streaks happening on Barracuda Bay and Albacore Anchorage, the two closest streets. It was a bright, sunny day, and they blended into the brilliant Florida skyline. The clock, however, should have been obvious to everyone.

But I still didn’t mention it, hoping they didn’t become distracted.

I ran to Drummond’s place and knocked as loud as I could. The simulation told me the older couple was away in Africa, so I had little expectation anyone would answer, which was why I jumped half a foot off the porch when the door swung open.

“You trying to wake the dead, son?” the man asked. “Oh, it’s you.”

We knew each other by sight, but I wasn’t sure if we ever shared our names.

“I’m Frank,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, Frank. I’m Herb.”

That’s right. I knew that.

“Look, I know this is going to sound crazy, but you have to come out onto the street with the rest of us. A truck crashed on Bayside Road, and there’s a cloud coming this way…” I trailed off, my meaning clear.

He looked around.

“Wind is coming out of the south today. Where, exactly, did it crash?”

I hadn’t thought about the wind.

“Uh, south of here, I’m afraid.”

He studied the trees behind the homes across the street. “Mildred and I have gas masks. We’ll be fine.” He tried to close his door.

“Wait, hold on,” I protested. “We all have to stick together on this one.”

I couldn’t tell him the truth, though he had a trusting face, as if he could handle it. My problem was that if I told him the real problem, it would get around to the others. I was already leaving out a big piece of what was going on, the literal Rapture, so I didn’t want to stack more on top of it. I wanted the least pushback on what I was doing, since I only had a few minutes left to save their lives. To show him I meant business, I pointed to the street, where more neighbors had gathered.

“You had them all get out in the open?” he groused. “That’s going to put them right in the path.”

“We’re going into a basement,” I explained. “It’s all going to work out, I promise.”

He looked me up and down. “Look, we can take care of ourselves, trust me. You should look to the others before it gets here. Whatever your plan is for them, get them out of the wide open.”

“Alright, sorry for bugging you.”

He huffed. “Aren’t you at least going to ask if we have any extra gas masks?”

It’s what an ordinary person would likely ask him when faced with a potentially deadly incoming wave of airborne death.

“I don’t suppose…”

“No,” he shot back, seemingly looking into my soul.

He’d caught me. Inwardly, I laughed at my situation. I hadn’t anticipated anyone could possibly be geared up for a gas leak, but this old cat was obviously more prepared than I’d given him credit for. Even if all my stuff had arrived in the moving truck, I didn’t own any gas masks. However, I didn’t sweat too hard, since I took a bit of comfort from the fact there was no gas leak coming.

“I don’t suppose you have a basement?” I asked, changing the subject.

“No, does anyone?”

I pointed to Trevor’s place. “Actually, he does. I’m putting everyone down there and sealing the door until this blows over.”

“Smart,” he said without follow-up.

“Would you consider coming over with us? We could use your steady hand.”

“No, we’re old and slow. It would take me a while to get Mildred out the door. You go do your thing and let me do mine.”

I decided there was no point holding back on him, so I drew his attention to the sky. “There is a giant clock counting down to the end of the Rapture, sir. You and your wife might want to be ready for it.”

He leaned forward, so he could see it. “Wow, isn’t that a sight. What, exactly, is it counting down?”

“You can see it?” I pressed.

“Sure, you told me to look at it.”

That was true enough.

“Did you by chance hear a man saying he was calling his flock home?” I went on.

“We did,” he said with recognition. “We thought it was someone playing around outside with a PA. Maybe the construction guys down at the new houses.”

“No, I think it was Jesus or God,” I deadpanned, not knowing who, exactly, it was. “The clock started after he spoke.”

“God, huh? That changes a few things, doesn’t it.” He stepped back toward his door. “So, why are you even bothering with gathering people together?”

I half-turned toward my neighbors in the street. “Actually, not all of us will be taken by the Rapture. There really is an…attack coming, but they’ll be safe in that basement.”

“Alright, good luck with that. I’ve got to get back to Mildred, if this really is the end. If not, we’ll look for you when this passes.”

I was shocked by his level of indifference at hearing what was, to me, incredible news. Maybe it was his age making him less anxious.

“Yeah, sure. Good luck to you, too,” I replied.

He gently closed the door as I walked away.

Penny and her daughter ran down her driveway with Melanie in the lead. They headed for the group of residents, who had now congregated at the edge of the circle, roughly between Luke’s house and Trevor’s place.

I did not see Carmen. Luke came off her front porch hunching his shoulders, like he couldn’t find her. That’s about what I expected, since I knew exactly where she was.

My next target was the man who was going to save us.

“Trevor!” I called out.

He appeared, shirtless, from a crowd of young adults. Based on the number of cars parked on his grass, and the loud music still blaring from inside the home, they’d all been there the night before, partying hard.

“What do you want?” he grumbled.

“I want to use your basement.”

“My what?” He put his pinky finger in one ear, jiggled it around, then pulled it back, as if plucking gunk keeping him from hearing me properly.

“Your basement. We need it to get out of the path of a poison cloud.”

“Yeah, this geriatric Santa told me about some cloud,” he said, motioning toward Ben. “But, come on, look around. There isn’t a cloud in the sky.”

He gazed west, and based on his bulging eyes, I knew he saw the blue streaks heading upward.

“Holy crap, he’s right. There’s crazy sparks right there!”

Now everyone turned to look at the lights. It pained me to allow them to think it was part of my original ruse, but I reminded myself I was almost out of time. I thought I heard a few comments about the clock, but I couldn’t see who’d made them.

“How do we get safe from them?” Trevor became very interested in my next words.

“Your basement,” I repeated.

He sneered as he laughed. “Dude, I don’t have a basement.”

It hit me right then that being a prophet came with steep risks. I’d gambled everything that the simulation had gotten this part right. If there’d been a mistake, and the basement didn’t exist, everyone was going to look at me like I’d lost my mind.

Then all of us would be sucked up by the plane.

And delivered to that underground bunker.

The Decagon people in the computer simulation had described those stolen prisoners as ‘a herd.’ I’d never really made the connection, but that implied they were food, didn’t it? And what were those workers most afraid of? It wasn’t the Decagon, their bosses. They feared whatever was down in that deep, dark pit in the corner…

Suddenly, it didn’t seem far off that my friends were at risk of being zapped straight to a literal Hell on Earth.

“Yes, you do,” I replied, sounding certain.

It was all or nothing.

CHAPTER 37

“Trevor, we need your basement, and we need it right now. As you can see, there’s a cloud of fiery gas coming at us, and you’re the only one who can save us.”

People gathered around me, all looking at Trevor.

“Hey, I’m going to die, too. I would tell you if I had…a…basement.”

He spoke slower, and his eyes doubled in size.

“What do you see?” I asked, but I knew what it was the second I turned around to look to the west.

“We’re out of time,” I hissed. “We have to get underground.”

It was a tidal wave of blue energy crawling ever higher in the sky, as more and more of it was revealed during its approach. By the time it was within a few miles, the wall reached to a point high in the atmosphere and created a barrier stretching far to the north and south.

People screamed and held each other.

A few of the young people sprinted for Trevor’s front door.

“That’s not poison gas,” Trevor said, his mouth hanging open.

My neighbors dove behind cars or fell to the grass, but I stayed on my feet, the only one truly unafraid.

“Guys, this is part of it,” I said, businesslike. “It’s going to knock out the power, all our tech, all the cars.”

“A poison leak can do that?” Ben exclaimed with incredulity.

There was no time to explain why I’d been trying to simplify the threat for them. If they weren’t going to run inside, screaming in fear, from a poison gas attack, they weren’t going to do it for a slow-burn EMP that could take years to kill every person on the street.

“This part won’t hurt us,” I reassured.

At the last second, I looked straight up the face of the monster wall. The blue energy was translucent, clear to see through while looking at it from the front, but viewing it from the bottom, it appeared as a solid blue structure, as real as a brick wall. Seeing this illusion, I flinched as it passed from one side of the street to the other in a snap.

I recovered fast, wanting to uphold my image in front of my neighbors, but I watched with everyone else as the strange phenomenon rolled on toward the eastern side of Florida. Funny that seeing it in the simulation had prepared me to be mostly unaffected by it in the real world.

The music stopped playing in Trevor’s house.

A few songbirds crashed against the windows of Trevor’s second floor.

And there was another noise, much harder to hear, but thanks to Grandma Marty’s warning, I noticed the tinkling sounds of debris falling from the sky. They were the tiny drones sizzled by the electromagnetic pulse, causing them to fall out of the sky and strike the nearby cars on the metal and glass. That might have been the most worrisome part for me, since a hailstorm of technology had been in our skies observing us for a long time.

I waved for everyone to get up and come closer.

“That was an EMP,” I deadpanned, trying to be an island of calm in the raging sea of voices rising around me.

“How did you know?” Penny fretted, holding her daughter tight in her arms while she sat on the grass behind a sporty Lexus.

“It’s too hard to explain, and we don’t have enough time anyway. You have to believe me when I tell you, there is something worse coming.”

That got everyone’s attention.

People got to their feet and gathered up.

I shook Trevor out of his stupor. “Hey, buddy! We need to use your basement.” I tried to get around him. “Come on, everyone. Get underground before the next attack arrives.” I left it open as to what I meant. As far as they thought, I was talking about poison clouds again.

“It gets worse?” someone yelled.

People shoved each other. A few punches were thrown.

Civility broke down in real time as the fear amped up.

Trevor came around and blocked me.

“Bro,” he snapped. “I told you, I don’t have a basement!”

I had to take a different tact. I looked around for the most expensive car, which was a Ferrari that was often parked in front of the home. “Is that yours?”

He could hardly process my words.

“Is that your car?” I repeated, staying calm but firm.

“Yeah, so what?”

“That’s mine.” I motioned toward the factory-new Corvette parked in the middle of the street, now dead. “I’ll bet you my car that you have a basement. If I win, I get to put all these people down there, safe. If I lose, I will give you my car, no questions asked.”

He cracked up. “You can’t be serious. That’s easy money.”

A couple of his friends goaded him to accept, I hoped because they wanted me to win and take them somewhere safe, though I had to accept they might simply have wanted Trevor to win a free car.

“Yeah, sure. Why not. If you win, you can put them down in my magic basement.”

I glanced up at the mega clock ticking down to zero. It showed 2:22. It was plenty of time to get everyone inside. Behind us, rising beams of blue continued to go up. It was now fever pitch, with so many going up they almost made a solid wall of their own. I still couldn’t believe my luck that no one had noticed the clock, and that they believed the rising lights were part of a gas leak, but I used it to my advantage.

“Follow me!” I cried out. “We only have seconds to get to safety!”

People rushed for the door as I went inside.

Trevor managed to stay ahead of the mad dash. He tumbled through the front door behind me and caught up as I stopped in the hallway. The hinge for the door was hidden in the wall, I knew that from my prior visit. I said a quick prayer that this part of the simulation was spot-on with reality, since I’d risked a lot of lives by assuming there was a hidden basement in this house.

I banged on the wall, not seeing the hinge at first glance.

“There’s nothing there, dude,” he laughed. “Oh man, I’m getting a free car! I mean, sure, it’s a terrible whip, and sure, the poison gas is going to get me anyway, but still…I win!”

Some of the young women, and a few of the young men, openly wept at their misfortune.

“Lord, give me just a little more time.”

It took me about ten seconds before my fist hit the right section of the wood paneling on the wall. It took me about the same time to manipulate the lock, which was designed to not be found. When it clicked, a three-by-three-foot section of paneling popped out on a hinge.

Trevor, still going on about my Corvette, stopped talking. “I didn’t know that was there,” he whispered.

I didn’t detect any lie in his demeanor. “You’re lucky, kid.”

People behind us saw the opening, and cheers went up.

“Why is that?” he asked over the noise, anger building in his eyes.

I had to talk loudly. “Because your dad knew about this, and I didn’t want you to be a part of his crimes.”

“Crimes?”

I stood up and looked back. There had to be at least a minute before the Rapture ended…and an unknown amount of time before the plane flew over. “Be quiet! We’ll all get down there, but you have to stay calm!”

The volume died down.

“Help me!” a woman called from the basement.

Trevor held up his hands. “Whoa. I have no idea who’s down there.”

I pointed to Ben, who stood at the edge of the kitchen. “Ben, will you make sure everyone gets down here?”

He nodded, but he also pointed toward the family room windows. “Some of these kids made a run for the woods.”

There wasn’t time to wrangle every stray.

“Do what you can,” I answered back.

To everyone else, I yelled, “Follow me! Hurry!”

I pulled out my pocket flashlight and plunged down the steps, going first since I knew I would find Carmen in a compromising position. I might have been tempted to leave Trevor up top if I thought he’d been lying about the basement or its prisoner, but he’d at least convinced me this was a huge surprise to him. He didn’t seem like the type of person who would willingly enter a high-stakes bet for his ‘whip’ if he knew he was going to lose.

“Carmen?” I called out.

The bottom of the steps led me to the room full of ‘marital aids,’ which was a polite term for sex dungeon.

“I’m here!” she answered.

I knew exactly where to find her, and I knew where to get the robe to cover her. While the others came down, I untied her hands and arms, helped her off the board, and whispered for her to keep her cool.

“There’s been a poison gas spill,” I told her. “We’re hiding down here until it is gone.”

“Hugo Derada did this to me,” she replied, talking fast as she rubbed her legs. “You can’t let him come down here.”

I had no idea if Trevor’s dad was among the people who’d been at the party, but I guessed he wasn’t still around, or he would have been the first to protest me searching for the secret compartment. Perhaps he’d been listening, then ran when I found it. Either way, he wasn’t going to be a factor for me. I patted my hip, revealing a pistol I’d grabbed when I ran past my house during the search for neighbors.

“You’re safe,” I reassured.

The next sixty seconds saw the neighbors pour down the steps and fan out into the underground room. They had to crowd around the numerous swings, boards, and hanging devices. Some young men hopped onto the same board where I’d freed Carmen, giving her cover to put her shorts and top back on. If any of the youngsters saw the woman in her underwear, they didn’t make a show of it.

“Thanks…” Carmen said, obviously beside herself over what was happening around her. She leaned heavily against the wall, not able to stand upright on her wobbly legs. “I think I’m more surprised to see you than you are to see me.”

“Believe it, or not, you are responsible for saving all our lives, ma’am.” If she hadn’t been crying out in this hidden basement, Mr. Puppers would never have heard her in the simulation, and I never would have found her or the protective basement. Failing all that, we’d all still be standing around up top, waiting to be zapped by the incoming plane.

“Please. Ma’am? Call me Carmen.”

“Okay, Carmen.” I smiled, content to see her dressed and healthy, although I suspected she had to pee like nobody’s business.

“What the heck is going on?” she asked.

The clock wasn’t visible, but it had to be close to done.

“I hope to show you.”

I clapped a few times to get the attention of everyone else. “People, are we all in here?”

“We’re all here, Frank,” Ben’s voice called from the other side of the darkened room. “I was the last one down.”

“Are we missing anyone from the other houses?” I asked.

Lots of the young adults had their phones out, trying to get the flashlight feature working, but they all had the same problem. Everything with a battery was now fried.

“The only empty homes were Carmen’s and the one on the end,” Ben replied.

“I found Carmen,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, then we’re only missing the couple in the last house.”

“And the Drummonds,” I added. “They have gas masks.”

My statement reinforced my original lie, which was that we were down here to avoid the incoming gas cloud, but I wasn’t ready to tell any of them about the plane, since it would sound crazy.

“What the hell is all this?” Trevor asked, cutting his way through the crowd of people until he reached me.

“Maybe ask your dad,” I said dryly.

“I mean, how did you know it was here?” he asked with disbelief.

That was a sticky question, I realized. I’d been in such a rush to protect my neighbors that I hadn’t thought of the ramifications of publicly declaring the basement existed.

I couldn’t yet tell the truth, so I cooked up a plausible untruth.

“I saw the blueprints for your house when my agent was trying to get me to buy my place. I was impressed with your pool, and I commented on the fact I wanted a basement like yours.” I thought about it for a second. “Just an unfinished basement, not with all the stuff in it.”

“And who was the woman crying out?” Trevor asked, looking around at various women.

“That would be me,” Carmen offered. “Your dad tricked me into coming inside your house on Friday night.”

The blood drained from the young man’s face. “Seriously? You’ve been in my basement all weekend?”

Carmen put her hands on her hips. “Yeah. Didn’t any of you hear me screaming?”

“No. We had music playing.”

“I know,” she groused, adding a few Spanish insults. “All. Weekend. Long!”

A young blonde girl shuffled closer to Carmen. “I thought I heard a woman yelling in the pipes, but Trevor said I was hearing things.”

“Bonnie, how was I supposed to believe you? I didn’t even know my own house had a basement!”

For a moment, reality aligned with Grandma Marty’s simulation. This girl, Bonnie, had made the same claim in there.

“I’m sorry, dude,” Trevor said to Carmen. “Are you sure it was my dad?”

“Is your dad a fat bastard with a terrible toupee?”

Ignoring her, the kid turned to me, angry again. “This is messed up. I don’t know what’s going on. Is there even a poison cloud out there?”

I looked at my watch. We were now far past the two minutes that I’d seen on the final countdown. Whatever had happened with the Rapture, that part was over. Whether the plane had already flown above us, I couldn’t say, but in the simulation, it had come over almost immediately after the blue wave went by.

“There is still a danger coming,” I replied.

No one was aware of all my worldly worries but me, so I couldn’t consult with any of them to decide if I should divulge more information. If there was one thing I missed from my week of memories, it was being part of a team. Before I continued my answer, I walked over to the steps, so I could stand on the third riser and see as many of my neighbors as possible.

“When you go outside, you are going to see cars and trucks crashed on the side of the road, in lawns, and in the canals. I was out on the road when it started, and that blue light was part of it, so I made you all come down here for your own protection. I wanted you guys, my neighbors, to have a fighting chance of surviving the attack on our country.”

“Bull,” Trevor voiced back.

“All we have to do is wait another few minutes, then I’ll go up and check.”

“No way.” Trevor cut through the crowd. “No way we’re staying down here while you go up there. Maybe there is a lock on the door. He could be trying to kill us.”

I laughed to myself at how ridiculous he sounded.

“If I wanted to kill you, son, I would have left you on the surface.”

There was enough grumbling in the crowd that I figured they were freaked out by the kid’s statement, so there was no point arguing.

“To make sure there are no tricks, we all go out in ten minutes,” I declared. I was making a concession, but I didn’t mind as long as they all waited in the basement.

“Whatever,” Trevor allowed.

Ten seconds went by when a blue glow erupted from one corner of the dark room, causing the whole room to lighten.

“Oh no,” I whispered.

A woman’s voice shrieked.

People shoved as far as possible from the source.

I headed over to see it.

When I got there, I was disappointed to see Penny and her toddler daughter, both frozen as they stood against the wall. I glanced down at my watch, absolutely certain it had now been three or four minutes since we’d come down into the basement, well outside the 2:22 that had been left on the overhead timer.

“What’s wrong with them?” one of the young women asked.

A man’s voice called out, seemingly from outside the room, but loud enough to sound like he was right next to me.

“Penelope O’Rourke, I call you home… Daisy O’Rourke, I call you home.”

“Cover your ears!” I warned.

A second later, the two ladies rose up and shot through the roof, casting the room back into near-total darkness. A pair of booms blew my hair back, broke several of the wooden frames for ‘furniture’ in the room, and caused several of Trevor’s female friends to shriek.

“That was no gas leak!” Trevor cried out.

I paused for a few moments, wondering how I’d gotten the timing so wrong. Was it the right moment to tell them what was really going on? However, before I could answer, my young neighbor Tyler spoke up. “I’ve been reading my Bible a lot lately. I think we are witnessing Jesus taking his people to Heaven.”

Everyone was silent for a few moments, then everyone spoke at once, filling the room with babble.

Complaints to God.

Prayers.

Anger and yelling.

Every emotion under the sun was probably voiced by someone in the six-hundred-square-foot room. Over the next few minutes, three other people were called, all from Trevor’s group of partygoers. Two women and one man. Not Trevor himself.

I walked back toward Carmen to find a smile of encouragement, but when I got close, a blue hue formed over her body. My stomach dropped into my leg, and I’d never experienced such disappointment for what should have been a joyous achievement for my friend. In this sense of confusion, I fell to my knees and clasped my hands.

“Lord, I put myself in your hands, and I trust you with all my heart as the one who died for my sins, but if I’m going to have any chance of doing your will during the Tribulation, to help make things right, I need this woman by my side.”

“You do?” Carmen whispered, undoubtedly surprised by such a declaration from a man she barely knew.

A white light shined behind me.

I didn’t want to turn around, but it kept growing in brightness, which was hard to ignore in the dark space.

A woman walked down the steps, bathed in light. When she got to our level, I realized she wasn’t even a stranger.

“You?” I blurted.

The crowd parted for the ‘Christy Brinkley’ woman as she walked over to me.

“Frank, I tried to talk to you back in the car dealership.”

“I saw your Mustang coming on Bayside Road, didn’t I, as I flew into my subdivision.”

“Yes, I was a few minutes behind you after you left. Despite being a divine being, I still had to wait for my number to be called at the Chevy dealer.” She laughed, though I remained frozen, unable to process what was going on.

Carmen was still blue.

I was still on my knees.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You, Frank. You are stopping the clock.” She snapped her fingers, and like a lightbulb turned on, the clock appeared high above us, perfectly visible despite being above the house. It showed the time as 00:01.

“I didn’t mean to,” I replied.

“You have a powerful friend who put in a good word for you.” She smiled ear-to-ear, and for a moment I thought, I saw Grandma Marty’s features on the young woman’s face. “Did you not realize that it is you who is bathed in the holy light?”

“Me?” I asked in disbelief.

I looked down, and sure enough, I glowed. When I’d gotten next to Carmen, I was only looking at her, not myself, so my blue light shined onto her body, tricking me into thinking she was about to be taken.

“Me?” I asked again, still shocked.

“You put yourself in His hands,” the glowing woman announced. “You are destined to be called as the last member of His flock, but your selfless prayer has opened a new door that you may choose to walk through. You alone are now given the choice of taking the sure route to salvation here and now or…”

She paused dramatically.

“…you can stay here on Earth, enact your plans as you discussed with Grandma Marty, and take your chances in a world destined to end.”

Carmen put her hand on my shoulder. “Go, Frank. You seem like a nice guy. If you have the option of going to Heaven or sticking around for pain and suffering after the Rapture, take the win.”

I stood up and looked at her face. In the gentle light created by the glowing woman, her features were soft and feminine. It almost hurt me to think of her and the others struggling to survive the capital-A Apocalypse while I was up in Heaven sucking down brewskies and listening to every Jimmy song ever made—live.

But would I be making the biggest cosmic mistake anyone had ever made? Whatever was going to happen with the Decagon would happen without me…and what could one person really do?

I realized I was trying to talk myself out of it.

Almost like a voice in my head trying to get me to take the offer.

Take the easy way, Frank.

Listen to Carmen, she is right.

Grandma Marty can find someone else.

I took a deep breath and held it. I was alive, in the real world, with this choice laid before me. When I exhaled, I experienced a rush of calm and took a moment to consider why Grandma Marty had chosen me as her champion in the first place. She’d said it was because Carmen, Lucy, and I represented a trio of good people.

As far as I knew, I was the only person who knew Lucy wanted out of the Decagon. If she and I never met, perhaps she would never be able to leave. Would that doom her in the other direction?

And Carmen wasn’t cast in a blue light. If I left now, was it possible the ensuing apocalyptic time period would make her fall in the other direction, too?

How much worse would it be if I waited up in Heaven for these two women to show up, only to learn they never would?

Maybe I was one person, and maybe I would never figure out the key to taking down the Decagon and stopping time from rebooting, but I knew I could affect the lives of at least two other people who were important to me. Two people who, in time, would be willing to sacrifice their lives for me.

It suddenly all clicked in my head what needed to happen.

I spoke to the visitor.

“I get it now. Jesus sacrificed himself for me, and I am thankful for that more than I can ever properly express, but I know of two other people who sacrificed their lives for me, and I want to pay them back by making sure they also reach Jesus in Heaven. If I’m being given a choice, I guess that means I’ll stick here on Earth, so I can bring them home.” I looked around me, to my neighbors, people who were not being called at this moment. “And I’ll do my best to get all my friends up there, too.”

The woman stepped closer.

“Are you sure? There are no takebacks on this.”

“I’m sure,” I said, as certain of anything in my life.

“I’ll go,” Tyler joked as he stepped forward, “if you need someone to take his place.”

I shut my eyelids for a few seconds, rolling my eyes behind them, not sure if the prankster was going to be smacked down. Was it safe to joke with an angel doing important business?

The woman’s laugh was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

I opened my eyes to see her enjoying the moment.

“Humor is one of the qualities God most admires in you lovely people.”

“So, I can come?” Tyler pestered with a wink.

She turned back to me.

“Nice try, kid,” I said out the side of my mouth.

The woman touched my shoulder, and the blue light turned off. When she stepped back, she continued to gaze upon me, which made me feel uncomfortable. It was a look as if sizing me up for what was to come. Done by a person, fine, I could handle it. Done by an angel while God held his clock down at one second, well, that put a lot of your shortcomings in proper perspective.

“Frank, when you and your friends leave this room, the final second will tick away. For a time, God will leave this Earth and let you fend for yourselves against the tribe of darkness. Saints will fight devils. Archangels will fight archdemons. Good men will fight the bad. The last war will consume your world.”

“Is it too late to change my mind?” I joked. Tyler’s sense of humor was contagious.

She went on.

“If you fail at Grandma Marty’s task, those evil forces will reboot the entire world once again, and there will be more destruction and death than God was ever planning to do with the End Times.”

“And I’m supposed to fix it?” I asked, suddenly serious about maybe changing my mind.

“You must make things better, yes, before they can get worse.”

“Ugh, a better apocalypse? That sounds horrible.”

“This is what you signed up for,” the woman chuckled. “Would you like to talk to my manager?”

Her wink saved me from believing she was serious.

“She’s been watching for a long time, Frank. Grandma Marty picked you because she knew this burden was almost impossible for anyone to do. The enemy has too much of a head-start. There are too many of them, and too few of you, but she believed you were strong enough to do the impossible.”

“I’ll do my best,” I finally answered.

“And we’ll help,” Tyler interjected.

The glowing woman smirked, then her brightness went away, so she appeared as a normal—though still beautiful—young woman.

“Good-bye, for now,” she said to everyone.

“Hey, can you tell me if the planes already took the people?” I asked her backside.

“Come out and look,” she teased.

She headed up the steps.

Tyler chased her. “Can you fly?” he asked. “How long can you maintain that bright glow? How many hit points do you think you have?”

The door up top was open.

Many of the young people filed up the steps, in a hurry to get out of the confined space. In a hurry, perhaps, to get away from the strange events we’d witnessed. I made sure everyone moved out, until it was only Carmen and I at the back of the line.

“Frank, why did you say you needed me by your side?” She whispered her next words. “You gave up Heaven for me.”

I rubbed my neck, aware it sounded as if I’d all but asked her to marry me, sight unseen. Would she want to know about the simulation and the time we’d shared there? Would she want to know about Lucy pretending to be her? There was too much to explain, and I was desperate to catch up to the others, if only to make sure they were safe from the aircraft.

“I’ll tell you everything I know, I promise, but I need to see what the angel meant about the airplanes. There was supposed to be an attack on our subdivision by these giant planes.”

“Right now?” she said, shocked.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“And they walked into it?”

I looked to the steps, struck by her words. It didn’t seem possible, but what if the angel had led everyone up the steps and into the beam of the zapper plane? Was it even possible I’d been played that hard?

Carmen must have seen the worry on my face, even in the dim light.

“Go, Frank, go!”

I bounded up the steps two at a time.

There was no one in the house.

“Oh no,” I exhaled.

I headed for the front door, which hung half-open. When I flung it aside and ran to the porch, I was shocked at the normalcy of the moment.

All the people from inside were still alive, in the flesh, and many of the young people had fallen to the grass to pray, or hold each other, or congratulate their pals.

Most of my other neighbors were out on the street, surrounding the white Mustang.

Tyler hurried over to me. “Uncle Frank, look at that!” He pointed behind Trevor’s home.

I had to walk to the side of the yard to see where he gestured.

It took me a few moments to process.

More than a few.

A giant, boxy, solar-panel-clad aircraft had crashed in the woods behind Clownfish Cove. Up close, the saucer was the size of a baseball diamond, though it had broken from the fuselage and was behind the pile of wings, propellors, and tailfin.

There was almost no fire or smoke, as the plane was solar-powered.

The superweapon was down.

“Well, this wasn’t in the simulation,” I said to myself.

“The what?” Carmen asked, standing close.

I turned to her, glad for the moment she was there. Glad I’d made the decision to stick out the apocalypse with her. Glad to be with all my new friends.

“The main attack is over,” I declared.

“There’s more coming?” Tyler asked right away.

We all watched as the woman in the Mustang slowly pulled away from us. Her car, unlike all the others, still worked, even after the EMP. Now, I had a better sense as to why.

She waved.

“Yeah,” I answered Tyler, then halted. “Hey, why did you call me Uncle Frank?”

He seemed to think about it.

“I don’t know. It just came to me.”

The angel honked once as she turned the corner.

“I like it.” Carmen smiled.

I chuckled at how things had played out.

“I guess I can live with it.”

When I turned around, many of the young people—in addition to the adult neighbors from my street—stood watching me, as if waiting for instructions. Even after all the books I’d read about EMPs and the end of the world, nothing could prepare me for the expectant looks on their faces. These people were already counting on me to make the right decisions for them.

I took a glance at the glowing names on my arm.

Buck Meadows. Liam Peters. Ted MacInnis.

Which of them would I find first, downtown, as Grandma Marty had suggested I go?

And how soon could I leave?

Who would I leave behind?

Which neighbors could I count on?

Which ones were going to be problems?

While my mind raced, the gathering had turned to utter silence. Even the engine of the Mustang had gotten far enough away that I couldn’t hear it. These people were waiting for me to give my first command, to lead them through these dark times to literal salvation.

I cleared my throat.

There was really only one way to go.

“I guess, after all we’ve just seen, we ought to start with a prayer…”

###

Epilogue

Stanley, Falkland Islands (Reporting from Antarctica, March 26, 1982) – Local scientists baffled by the nautical find of the century. Dr. Clyde Peters, from the St. Louis Geophysical Society, has officially shared his research files with this reporter, revealing the results of his probes of the Antarctic ice sheet. In addition to other fantastical revelations, the world will be most shocked to learn he has discovered the final resting place of Germany’s sole aircraft carrier, Graf Zepplin.

The Graf Zepplin left its German dock in the last days of the Second World War and was destroyed by her crew. However, the Soviet Union claims to have found her, re-floated her, and then re-scuttled this ship off the coast of Poland in 1947. Rumors have persisted for decades that the Soviets lied about this sinking and covertly repaired the ship and towed it to Leningrad, where it was studied and later scrapped for metal.

Now, with this discovery, along with numerous eyewitness accounts, and photographs to be included with this report, we can reveal with certainty the rumors of Russian interference were false. The rumors of being sunk off the coast of Poland were also false.

Dr. Peters had this to say about the state of the excavation.

“There aren’t many of us here, and we have little in the way of heavy machinery, so it took us several months to dig deep enough to examine the full length of the site, and to positively identify the lost ship. We are proud of this group effort, but the discovery of the vessel pales in comparison to what we found inside it.”

In a lengthy interview (to be included in a future dispatch), Dr. Peters explained how his team made this revelation, why he thinks there was such confusion about the ship’s fate, and the possibilities for how the war might have ended if this superweapon had ever been deployed. Also, in a shocking twist, he hints at a cover-up by the St. Louis Geophysical Society. His bosses, he claims, did not want readers to know about post-war German and Allied weapons being stored in underground vaults throughout Europe.

Here is one quote.

“While digging in the Swiss Alps, my team has found secret reserves of unused German armaments, along with untold numbers of Allied and Soviet weapons. There is a connection between these bunkers and my latest find, but this lost ship is, by far, the centerpiece of my discoveries. We feel like this weapon could have provided an avenue for German technical know-how to absolutely change the course of the war, even near the end, though we cannot ascertain why it was never put to use. They could have easily reached Moscow or London without a single defender getting in their way to stop them. This really could have re-written history, so why didn’t it?”

A video was shown from the dig site, and while we cannot show you in this article, it goes without saying this confirms everything Dr. Peters has claimed about the weapon.

The Drill.

The entire front hull of the aircraft carrier opened on hinges to reveal an elongated hangar bay, as if a second machine had been stored inside the larger structure. We know from the hollowed-out interior of the aircraft carrier that the object was round and tubular, and approximately 205 meters in length and ten meters in height and width. It appears that the ship was run aground in a soft gravel bank, allowing the superweapon a path off the ship and into the side of a rocky slope. For what purpose it was brought this far from Germany, we can only guess.

This reporter has witnessed the photographs and videos, as well as the unnatural void inside the ship, and it appears as if a monster digging machine had exited the Graf Zepplin and tunneled into the ice and rock before disappearing. Dr. Peters claims he has taken readings showing a tunnel system exists deep inside the icecap over our southernmost continent, but the harsh terrain and remote location makes it time-consuming to get the proper equipment to probe more than the immediate area around the lost carrier.

By the time this report reaches our support vessel, and the wider archeological organizations the world over, we expect great interest in further exploring this wonderful tunnel system.

When asked why he chose to release all this information now, he answered in this manner. “As we sit here in Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, we are far from the bustle of the power brokers and liars running our organization. This puts us far from their grip as we lay out our case for their complicity in covering up our research.”

This series will continue with our Friday, April 2nd, 1982 edition.

Correction (June 1, 2018) — The St. Louis Geophysical Society has always prided itself on accurate reporting of its field work. A graduate student recently uncovered archives in the St. Louis Public Library which allegedly show at least one newspaper article and photographs that were submitted on behalf of our organization to news services 34 years ago, in 1982.

We categorically declare that article a hoax, ghost-written by a supposed whistleblower who never completed this ‘report’ or showed concrete evidence to the public.

Our organization can confirm Dr. Clyde Peters and a small research team was authorized by our group to travel to Switzerland during this timeframe, but they were tragically killed in an unexpected storm while exploring a remote mountain system. To add insult to our good name, and the name of our fallen colleagues, the article purports to have been written around the time of the Falklands War (Malvinas War for our Argentine readers), and scientific research during this era would have been extremely unlikely.

Further, we have been informed of a possible forgery of the images accompanying this whistleblower’s story. Yuri Saratov, of Saratov Systems, has provided rock-solid evidence that his country, now called Russia, always had possession of the aircraft carrier Graf Zepplin. He has sent us photos showing the giant ship scuttled in shallow water in the Parnitz River near the town of Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland) where it was recovered and refloated by Soviet experts in the months following the war. Later photos show the vessel being dismantled in Leningrad, as originally claimed by Red Army historians. The Tanager administration has, surprisingly, provided CIA aerial photography over the port in the 1960s, showing the flat-top carrier being disassembled, putting this hoax to bed for good.

For the sake of journalistic integrity, we respectfully request the files of this ‘whistleblower’ be treated as an elaborate and twisted hoax that does nothing to honor the men lost in this chapter of our organization’s history. Dr. Clyde Peters is held in the highest regard, and we wish to maintain the integrity of his research prior to these forgeries.

We consider this matter closed.

This reporting has been brought to you by Solar One News, a subsidiary of Southern Solar Digital-TV services. In the interest of full disclosure, a staple of our group, Yuri Saratov is also a member of the board of Southern Solar, Inc. and its global parent group, Azurasia Heavy Industries.

This is the second book of the Build A Better Apocalypse series.

Thank you for reading this new EMP adventure. We now know a lot more about the true enemy lurking out there, so expect things to move fast from here on out.

Please leave a review, so I know you want more in this series. Grab a pre-order for book 3 here.

I have a short follow-up author note below.

This book is a work of fiction.

All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

Build A Better Apocalypse 2 (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds)
are Copyright (c) 2025 by E.E. Isherwood

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of E.E. Isherwood

Kindle Version 1.00

Cover by Covers by Christian

Editing services provided by Mia at LKJ Books

AUTHOR NOTES

Written June 19, 2025

Thank you for reading this second novel in an alternate history of Clownfish Cove. Much of my journey as an author has been colored by books I’ve read over the course of my lifetime, and as much as Frank (and my other heroes) benefit from reading books about survival, my own career has benefited from novels and stories that have stuck with me for decades.

One of my favorite authors as a youngster was Piers Anthony. At the time, say around 1990, I tore through his Incarnations of Immortality series a good chunk of his Xanth novels, and my absolute favorite was his Apprentice Adept series. That last one stuck with me, since it involved a clever mixture of fantasy and science fiction, with a world essentially run by both wizards and a supercomputer. I’m sure there are elements of all those foundational stories in my writing and storytelling.

I also blasted through Stephen King’s The Stand, almost in one sitting, while I was home from college for Christmas break. If you’ve ever read that beefy tome, you know it probably can’t be read in one pull, but it was all-consuming for my entire visit. What made that story stick out for me was the use of religious elements such as Satan (re-branded as Randal Flagg) and God. Aside from the great characters, it made me aware of the possibility there was a cosmic battle going on around all of us with the spoils being nothing less than people’s souls.

Fast-forward to the recent past.

I read through the entire Left Behind series, which is about the literal Rapture, and is probably what most people think about when they talk about books dealing with the subject. However, the one shortfall from those 12 books is explaining what would happen to average, everyday people when this gigantic battle between good and evil really heated up. While big things were afoot in Jerusalem and Babylon, what were people experiencing in Buffalo or Baton Rouge? Or, in the case of my books, what is taking place in Fort Myers, Florida? How do normal people face this terrible new reality?

Despite the religious nature of this version of the apocalypse, I didn’t set out to write a book about religion, though I do everything in my power to be respectful to people of faith. I discovered early in my career that some readers intensely dislike any talk about religious themes. If this describes you, I’ve got good news and bad news about that. The good news is that I’m not trying to sell you anything. The bad news (for you) is that if the Rapture and Tribulation start, it means it was started by the Almighty and there is only one way it can end (both in real life and in my novelization of it)…by necessity there has to be some talk of religion to stay realistic.

Most of the books I’ve written are designed to be meta, in that the imaginary characters are readers of novels that exist in the real world, and they draw lessons to help them survive particular types of disasters. Just as post-apocalyptic books can help you survive a grid collapse, plague, or a solar flare, think of this as your guide for surviving a type of disaster that happens to be known as the Rapture.

In Build A Better Apocalypse, the characters are drawing lessons from the Bible, which, as a good chunk of the world’s population believes, is the word of God. As such, I want to take a moment to put a disclaimer here. I am not a Bible scholar. As such, I don’t study multiple interpretations of Revelation to come up with the absolutely ‘correct’ way things should be. I think I explicitly state in the story that current scholars can’t even agree on when Jesus is going to swoop up his flock and take them to Heaven. Pre-Tribulation Rapture versus Post-Tribulation Rapture is a whole college course in itself.

That said, there is a framework most scholars of the Tribulation agree upon, such as the trumpets, cups, seals, etc. and I would expect them to show up in this story, though the timeline itself might be broken for various reasons…

You see, this series draws upon the events of my other novels just as I drew upon those Piers Anthony and Stephen King stories to make the originals. If you read my End Days series (with Buck and Garth), you know what that blue wave of energy can do… If you read Minus America, you have a good idea about who is behind it. If you’ve read Neighborhood Watch, you know who is going to be leading the charge to endure this world-ending catastrophe. Now, with a little elbow grease and white-out for my typewriter, it will all come together in THE END.

Thanks again for reading my books.

That’s all for now.

EE

BACK MATTER

Website

My updated website now has links to my back catalog on Amazon, so you can see all of them on one easy-to-read page. I’ve also got maps of my books, links to my free books, and you can sign up for my newsletter.

Back Catalog at a Glance

Neighborhood Watch – Frank’s retirement starts and stops on the day of the EMP. Now, his new job is keeping the neighbors on his street alive as the world collapses around them. Ten books.

1000 Miles of Bad Road – Joey starts the end of the world 1000 miles from his family, but he is lucky. He has the only working car on the highway. Sadly, everyone he meets is going to want to steal it. Five books.

Minus America – What would happen if everyone in the US vanished in a flash? Every trucker. Every housewife. Every police officer. How would you survive in an empty land? Who would come to take it? Five-book boxset.

End Days (co-written with Craig Martelle) – A post-apocalyptic adventure about a father and son on opposite ends of a continent ravaged by a failed science experiment. Six-book boxset.

Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse – A teen boy must keep his great-grandma alive to find the cure to the zombie plague, but what if the only people immune are those over 100? Eight books.

Impact – A post-apocalyptic thriller about an asteroid slamming across the heartland of America. Six books.

Table of Contents

- Prologue
- CHAPTER 1
- CHAPTER 2
- CHAPTER 3
- CHAPTER 4
- CHAPTER 5
- CHAPTER 6
- CHAPTER 7
- CHAPTER 8
- CHAPTER 9
- CHAPTER 10
- CHAPTER 11
- CHAPTER 12
- CHAPTER 13
- CHAPTER 14
- CHAPTER 15
- CHAPTER 16
- CHAPTER 17
- CHAPTER 18
- CHAPTER 19
- CHAPTER 20
- CHAPTER 21
- CHAPTER 22
- CHAPTER 23
- CHAPTER 24
- CHAPTER 25
- CHAPTER 26
- CHAPTER 27
- CHAPTER 28
- CHAPTER 29
- CHAPTER 30
- CHAPTER 31
- CHAPTER 32
- CHAPTER 33
- CHAPTER 34
- CHAPTER 35
- CHAPTER 36
- CHAPTER 37
- Epilogue
- AUTHOR NOTES
- BACK MATTER