Valentine

Dinner was already on the stove when Camilla and I entered the farmhouse. All canned food found in the cellar, but it was a thousand times better than no food at all. Plus, no one can turn down a hot bowl of chicken and stars.

The first thing we did was promptly inform Karen that she was wrong about the weather, to which she scoffed and returned to live, laugh, loving, or whatever Karen’s did to keep from going insane during the apocalypse. Shortly after, Uncle Sean, his old neighbor, Big Greg, and Joey came through the front door smelling like burnt demon.

“Spring storm, eh?” Big Greg boomed, and slumped down into one of the kitchen chairs.

“I thought we were expecting a flash winter,” Mama Homes, a surprisingly tough woman in her late sixties teased, shooting a wink in my direction. From her spot on the sofa, Karen grimaced into the scarf she was knitting.

“We almost didn’t make it inside,” Uncle Sean said, and as if on cue, the torrential downpour arrived, hitting the farmhouse like machine gun fire. Mama startled from her place by the stove, and Camilla grinned like a maniac next to me. She’d always loved storms, and sometimes it almost seemed like she enjoyed the apocalypse for its dramatic weather shifts. Almost.

“It should be over by morning,” I thought aloud. What I didn’t say was how well I would sleep that night, with the rain drowning out the whispers of the damned.

Dinner was glorious, with cans of hot soup, green beans, and even some canned peaches for dessert. We had enough unopened nonperishables to take on the road as well, and with only around a week’s worth of walking before we reached the Standing City, less if we found working vehicles, things were looking up.

The farmhouse was stocked with an array of board games, and it was clear to see a large family had once lived there. Since there were no bodies, we hoped they had made it to the Standing City, but it was hard to say. There was enough food left that it didn’t make sense for a family to leave it all, but the cans were caked with dust, as was everything else. Either way, no one complained when Mama Homes suggested we all play board games. Our survival crew only took the essentials along, so if we were to enjoy things like board games and other electives, we did them when we were lucky enough to find a stop stocked with the materials.

We split into three groups; Monopoly, Cards Against Humanity, and lookout. There were those who chose to get extra sleep, or play games like solitaire on their own, but the majority of us were down to party. I was on second shift for lookout, so I was able to play a few rounds of Cards Against Humanity before heading out. Camilla made everyone uncomfortable with her explicit answers, which only made me proud to be her unofficial mentor, but ultimately Big Greg won, as usual. With his history in the military, no one even had a chance rivaling his raunchy humor.

When my nine to one am shift rolled around, I put on a light rain jacket and headed out to my post on the front porch. It was covered with a waterproof awning, but the rain would still blow in with the occasional violent burst of wind. I sat alone for a while, listening to the others laugh and cheer inside. The back was covered by Uncle Sean, and the sides by some of the other adults, so the front was all mine.

My battle axe rested heavy in my lap. I was going to have to get used to the new weight. I sort of liked it-- I could feel the power behind it each time I made an attack-- but I knew I had to be careful until I could wield it with confidence.

The rain continued steadily, and if it wasn’t, you know, the apocalypse, I would have closed my eyes to enjoy it. Sitting there alone though, staring into the dark treeline fifty yards out, just made me miss companionship.

Behind me, the door to the porch unlocked, and my younger sister stepped out. She was one of the four non-adults in the party, and not put on guard duty, but she would keep me company on some nights when I was positioned alone.

“What up?” Camilla asked, plopping down next to me. I half-smiled at her, and then turned my gaze back to the rain.

“Just thinking,” I sighed. “Lonely out here.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, before shooting me a glance. “Missing Alex?”

“You know me too well,” I chuckled in response. “It’s just weird on guard duty without…” I trailed off and shrugged. Missing people never really changed, end of the world or not.

The two of us were quiet for a while after that, our thoughts drifting wherever they dared. I tried to shut out the memories of the many people we had lost along the way, but sometimes, the mood just didn’t allow it. Finally, Camilla sighed, breaking the silence, and pulled something from her bag.

“Three years, one month, and seventeen days,” my sister read aloud from her journal. “Think we’ll make it to the Standing City by the end of the month?”

“Oh, definitely,” I snorted. “We’re maybe a week out. I bet by June, we will be moving into our new places!”

“I hope,” Camilla nodded. “I seriously don’t want to deal with another period hiking through the woods. A girl deserves a break.”

I laughed at her peeved tone, accidentally dropping my axe in the process and startling us both, which only made us laugh more. Like I said, the apocalypse sucked, but with the right people, it was almost like life before on nights like these.

But not all nights were like these.

The rain continued until dawn, when the temperature dropped below thirty for a few hours, before shooting back up to seventy-five. The crew packed up, loading the haul of food we’d scavenged onto a wagon, and then set off. Big Greg was our navigator, leading the group with a map and unreliable compass (the angels fucked up the poles so half the time it just spun). The supply crew and kids traveled in the center of the pack, and then those of us who had proved ourselves in battle guarded the outside.

We mostly traveled through woods, or just off the road, unless we had a vehicle. Demons tended to gravitate to more populous areas to feed off humans, so a lot of nature was left untouched. That was one thing the divine seemed to protect during all of the chaos; the natural world, no matter what extreme weather shifts and demonic torment fell around it, survived, reminding us even more that whatever hell befell humanity was its own fault.

“Do you think they’ll let us in?” Camilla asked while we trapsed through the woods of Montana, and I glanced over to see her holding her radio. We had found out about the Standing City through a radio message sent out spreading the word of survival, and brief discussions of it and the other safe havens online (in the rare cases we found working internet). However, in recent months, the radio broadcasts had lessened, and we heard word that they were becoming more strict on letting in survivors, whatever that meant.

“They’ll have to,” I replied, swinging my axe back and forth absentmindedly. “They can’t just turn away survivors, especially since we have kids with us. We’ll just have to convince them.”

“What if they say no?” she worried, and stuffed the radio back into her pack.

“Then I’ll make them,” I said, earning a glare from my sister. “With my, ah, charm, obviously. Not my axe, of course.”

“Of course,” she drawled. “You can’t win everything with punching, Val.”

“Hey, it’s worked so far!” This earned a shove from Camilla, but I caught myself with my axe, leaning on it while we both laughed.

“I swear sometimes you two enjoy the apocalypse,” Joey said, and I shot him a teasing glare. I’d known Joey since high school, and we’d always joked about how we would survive a zombie apocalypse. I was supposed to be the navigator, which obviously changed when I discovered how much I liked to beat the living hell (haha, get it?) out of things, but he had always been into pyrotechnics.

“Don’t act like you didn’t have wet dreams of a zombie invasion since middle school,” I shot back. In reality, we had both lost a lot of people to the apocalypse, but it was easier to joke about it than to constantly grieve our lives before Hell’s Gate opened that fateful day.

After that, I put in my ear buds and cranked some music from my phone. I’d been able to charge it at the farmhouse, and music was a rare treat in the apocalypse. I tried to enjoy it every chance I had, as there was no guarantee I would ever be able to again. I was feeling oldies that day, and before long I was lost in my own thoughts as Fleetwood Mac, Simon and Garfunkel, and other favorites from the 60’s and 70’s filled my ears.

It was maybe an hour before dark when we saw the house.

“Up ahead!” Uncle Sean called, and I snapped to attention. A few hundred yards out, a decrepit building sat atop a tree-covered hill. There didn’t appear to be anyone there, but it was hard to say. The windows were all boarded up, blocking any view to the inside, and the treeline offered substantial cover leading up to it.

“Might be a good stop?” I asked, turning my music down a few notches. “Assuming it’s vacant.”

“Right,” Uncle Sean nodded. “We’ll need to clear it first.”

We approached the building slowly, using the trees as cover, until we were at the front doorstep. After scouting the outside for any open entrances and finding none, we decided to try knocking, in case anyone actually was there.

“Excuse me,” I called after wrapping the front door with my axe a few times. “Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior, the Flying Spaghetti Monster?”

“Hush!” Camilla scolded. “You’ll piss off the angels talking like that!”

“The angels piss me off every day,” I sassed back, before looking back to the door with a sigh. “Break it down?”

“Break it down,” Uncle Sean agreed. “Usual formation.”

I stepped back to allow Big Greg to position himself in front of the door, and readied my axe. Uncle Sean stood to my right, and Joey and two of our other fighters waited just behind us.

When Big Greg kicked in the door, he would branch to the left, while I ran in straight, and Uncle Sean to the right. Joey and the others would follow in after us, and then, once we cleared the house of danger, the rest of the party would take shelter while Camilla tried to restore power. That was our method, and it had worked time and time again without fail.

Of course, there’s a first time for everything.

Big Sean busted in the door as usual, and I rushed into the dark with the others on my tail. Silence overtook us as we carefully scouted our way through the darkness. I stepped as softly as I could as my eyes adjusted to the lack of sunlight. I heard Big Greg clear his direction, followed by Uncle Sean, and was making my way down the main hallway when I heard the clicks.

Click, click... Click.

My mind registered what they meant a second too slowly.

“Immolator!” I shouted, and dove to the side, just as the fire blossomed.