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  Zeke screamed and attempted to rush to her aid.

  But the man’s gaze swiveled in his direction. Zeke felt…something…enter his mind. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening to him, or how it had happened, but he knew the stranger was projecting some kind of energy into his brain. Something like liquid light that moved like lightning through all the nooks and crannies of his psyche and stopped Zeke in his tracks.

  He stood there helplessly while the man tore Mary Lou’s arm completely off of her body. Blood jetted from the stump at her shoulder. Mary Lou had a stunned look on her face, like she couldn’t believe what was happening to her. Zeke couldn’t believe it either, but he couldn’t deny the truth of his eyes. Then the man—who clearly was something much more than a mere man—gripped Mary Lou by the neck and twisted her head off.

  Zeke would have cried then had he been able to, but his tear ducts were as frozen as the rest of his body. A wave of grief washed over him as Mary Lou’s headless body stumbled backward several feet before toppling to the floor. The sense of deep loss surprised him. He realized he’d come to truly care about the crazy redneck woman, despite what he’d seen her do.

  Holding it by a gore-smeared length of yellow hair, her killer swung her severed head in a swooping motion, like a softball pitcher gearing up to deliver a pitch. Then he let the head go and it went sailing over Zeke’s head.

  The man cackled. Then he looked at Zeke and his expression sobered somewhat. He walked over to where Zeke was standing and stood before him with his arms crossed again. “Now…Zeke…I don’t think I’m quite ready to kill you yet. There’s someone I want you to meet. First, though, I think we’ll need to manipulate your memory a bit.”

  More cackling. “Quite a bit, actually. Wow, I made a mess of that bitch, didn’t I?”

  Zeke seethed inwardly. He ached to brutalize the smiling young man with his fists.

  The man made a tsk-tsk noise and shook his head. “Now, Zeke, you watch that temper of yours, okay? It could get you into trouble.” The man’s smile faded as he peered more intently into Zeke’s eyes. “Ah, but you’ve always been a tad on the impulsive side, haven’t you? Well, we’ll just have to fix that.”

  Zeke found he was suddenly able to speak. “Who…are you?”

  The man shrugged. “Who I really am doesn’t matter. Yet.” He smiled. “But for now you can call me Warren. Warren Hatcher.”

  Zeke’s breath hissed between tightly gritted teeth. “I’m going…to kill you…Warren.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  And ‘Warren’ splayed the fingers of a hand against the side of Zeke’s face. “Time to forget, Zeke.”

  Zeke’s rage level surged still higher, then began to fade.

  Mary Lou, he thought. I’m sorry, Mary Lou…

  Another moment passed. He grew calmer.

  He wondered who Mary Lou was.

  And then, just like that, he didn’t know the name anymore.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  October 6

  2:30 p.m.

  Emily sensed the stranger’s presence before seeing her. She glanced to the east, where Broadway met 21st Ave., and glimpsed a dim figure moving in her direction. A woman, she was pretty sure. That, or a man with a very feminine hip swivel and a wardrobe preference indicating an interest in cross-dressing. She watched the figure draw closer a moment longer and grew certain the stranger was truly a woman.

  Emily considered her options. She could stay where she was—in a chair at a table outside Provence, the cafe that had once employed Laura Brander—or she could bolt. A quick dash through the cafe and out the back entrance would work best.

  Emily stayed where she was. She lit a cigarette with a match and drew in a lungful of smoke. Four days had passed since Jake’s death. She felt empty inside right now. But other times she was full of rage and sorrow. She alternated between these extremes like an unmedicated manic depressive—which, she figured, was sort of what she really was. Not that it mattered. There were no more psychiatrists left in the world. No more little pills to pop to make her problems go away. Well, maybe the pills still existed. But she felt not the slightest impulse to break into a pharmacy and start testing a bunch of psychotropic meds on her already too-fragile psyche.

  She winced at a sudden flash of memory…

  ….she comes to after passing out, consciousness creeping back like an unwelcome stranger tapping on her bedroom window at night. She doesn’t want to be here. Doesn’t want to face the hard things she knows await her in the waking world. But she wakes anyway, in a room shrouded in shadow. The same room where (go ahead, say it)…where Jake was killed by some kind of monster in a little girl costume.

  There’s a physical presence above her, ON her, something heavy crushing the breath out of her lungs. Then she feels breath hot on her face, feels hands clutching at her breasts, straining to rip open her shirt.

  She screams, a piercing sound in the darkness.

  He giggles.

  It’s Aaron, the awareness hitting her like a brick to the jaw.

  “You thought you were through with me, didn’t you, you dirty little bitch?” Another giggle. Then another. A whole series of them. He sounds insane. “Thought you’d put old Aaron in his place once and for all. Well, you were WRONG, whore!”

  A fist crashes against her jaw, making the back of her head bounce off the floor. She cries out and wavers on the brink of another descent into unconsciousness. But something within her—some last dying flicker of survival instinct—rallies and she snaps back. The world—with all its awful realities—comes into clear focus again. She hears a sound of tearing fabric and screams again.

  Aaron giggles. “Ooooh, I LOVE that sound! You always got me hot, Emily. Just the thought of you—just the sight of you—got me all bothered. Still does, bitch.” She feels the proof of his words in the hardness pressing against her thigh. “I should’ve figured out long ago I’d have to take you by force.” Giggle. “Well, you know what they say, whore…better late than never.”

  Emily feels her shirt come away from her body in tatters. Then Aaron’s rough hands are on her bare breasts, squeezing and twisting, and Emily screams yet again. And Aaron says, “Oh, yeah…keep doin’ that.” The sound that emerges from his throat then is a throatier chuckle. “That little bitch took my eyes, but guess what, Emily.” He leans closer to her and flecks of spittle strike her face as he speaks in a hoarse whisper: “Everything else still works. I can still do everything I ever wanted to you…”

  He shifts his weight then and Emily hears the snickering sound of a zipper being pulled down. The crushing weight has lessened. Her eyes have adjusted to the darkness by now and she watches Aaron shift his body again, this time to facilitate the removal of his slacks. She sees the upthrust outline of his pecker in the darkness and makes a decision.

  Her hand darts forward and seizes him by the balls. The next scream that fills the room is made by Aaron Harris. He tries to thrash away from her, but Emily holds fast to his scrotum, scooting across the room with him, increasing the pressure with both hands now. A fist comes hurtling toward her, but she evades it easily and bears down harder than ever. She finally releases him after she feels something give beneath her crushing fingers. She gets to her feet and staggers out of the room, leaving her blind attacker thrashing madly on the floor…

  Emily blinked and looked again toward Broadway.

  The woman was a block closer now. Emily could discern a little more about her now. She was a trim woman of slightly better than average height. And she was older than Emily. Maybe forty or so. Though it was hard to be sure from this distance, she seemed quite attractive.

  Great. Emily snorted. At least I won’t be too repulsed if I’m forced to spend the rest of my life with only another woman around as a potential sex partner.

  It was just a passing thought, was nothing like a real possibility she was considering. But as she thought about it a bit more she realized there might come a time when her li
ttle joke would no longer seem quite so funny. She flicked the cigarette away and watched it smolder in the open mouth of a corpse.

  Emily turned up the collar of a sweater she’d taken from the window display of a 21st Ave. boutique and shivered. It was getting colder lately. She’d have to look into acquiring a hardier wardrobe sometime prior to the onset of winter. The thought triggered a small grunt of laughter. Maybe she and this woman could walk across town to the Hecht’s department store. They could pretend to be two fabulous pre-apocalypse babes on an unlimited shopping spree. Oh, what fun.

  She closed her eyes, slumped down a bit in the chair, and allowed herself to slip into a light sleep. She entered a dreaming state within seconds. She was at a New Year’s Eve ballroom dance with Warren Hatcher. Warren looked handsomer than she’d ever seen him in real life, clean-cut and wearing a dazzling tux that fit him perfectly. And she was wearing an elegant white gown that reached her ankles. They danced together, swirling across the gleaming floor in perfect synch. She was only peripherally aware of the other dancing couples at first. Until she bumped into someone and Emily turned to offer her apologies. Then she saw that the all the other dancers were just ambulatory corpses. Skeletons with an overlay of gray, papery flesh…

  Emily jerked awake in the same moment that a shadow fell over the table. Fear filled her body like ice as she gripped the arms of the chair and looked up expecting to see the Abby-thing. But it was only the woman she’d seen walking down the street before. She let out a big breath and managed a trembling smile.

  “Hello.” She swallowed hard and sat up straighter in the chair. “I, uh…I’m glad to see you.” Emily wasn’t one-hundred percent convinced she believed that, but what the hell. “I haven’t seen anybody for days.”

  The woman’s slack expression didn’t change. “I’m looking for somebody.”

  “Uh huh.” Emily managed not to roll her eyes. She also managed not to immediately express the opinion that whoever the old broad was looking for was probably dead, dead, DEAD. But just barely. “Does this…person…live around here?”

  “He used to.” The woman’s flat inflection matched the look on her face. “We both came from up north. But he used to have family here and wanted to check on them. He knew they had to be dead, but he wanted to see for himself. We walked for days and days. Then…we got separated.”

  “Uh huh.” Emily nodded. She was aware of an urge to slap the woman. Part of it was to make her stop sounding like a goddamned emotionless robot. A bigger part of it, she realized, stemmed from a general irrational anger. She ached to lash out at something…anything. For a brief, flashing second, she figured this woman’s face would make an excellent choice of punching bag. Then the feeling was gone and she felt her own numbness slowly return. “When was this?”

  She sounded disinterested, like someone who couldn’t give a fuck one way or the other what happened to this lady’s boyfriend, lover, husband…whatever.

  Which—for the moment, at least—was true.

  The woman sat in the seat opposite Emily and let her bag drop to the sidewalk. She folded her hands in her lap and stared intently across the table. “Yesterday afternoon. About this time, actually.”

  Emily’s brow furrowed. “How did you get separated?” She laughed, a harsh sound bordering on derisive. “It’s not like there’s teeming masses of people to get lost in.” She smirked, a bit of the previous surge of anger manifesting now in a petty jab of cruelty. “Maybe he separated himself from you on purpose.”

  The woman’s eyes widened a bit, evincing a secret hurt. Seeing this gave Emily a sense of cold satisfaction.

  Got to you, bitch, she thought. Finally.

  And then, Jesus, what’s wrong with me? What am I turning into?

  The woman’s voice was terse: “It. Wasn’t. On. Purpose.”

  Emily held her gaze a moment, intensity meeting intensity. Then she sighed and looked away. “Okay. I’m sorry for being such a bitch. I lost my own man a few days ago.” She laughed again. “I’m bitter and all fucked up.”

  “I understand.” The woman started to stand. “I suppose I’ll be moving along now.”

  Emily frowned. “Don’t do that. Not just yet.” She nodded at the chair. “Sit down. Please.”

  The woman regarded her in an appraising way a moment longer, chewing her lower lip as she studied her. Emily was sure she detected a hint of general distaste, but she decided she’d give the woman the benefit of the doubt. For now.

  Then she smiled coldly and extended a limp hand. “I’m Jasmine Holtz.”

  Emily shook the woman’s hand, but released it quickly, uncomfortable with even this mild intimacy after so long a period of utter aloneness. “Pleased to meet you, Jasmine. I’m Emily.”

  Jasmine smiled again—a bit more warmly this time—and sat back down. She stared at Emily for a minute before saying, “So…what happened to your…man?”

  Emily averted her gaze again, directing it now at the smashed storefront across the street. “Well…” She sighed. “Jesus, it’s hard to explain. And so fucking strange.” Her gaze settled on Jasmine again. “You’d never in a million years believe me.”

  Jasmine’s smile faltered. “Oh, there’s not much I’d have trouble believing anymore.”

  Jasmine’s words echoed inside Emily’s head for several moments. Though innocuous on a surface level, the statement conveyed a greater internal weight. She’s right, Emily thought. Nothing seems far-fetched anymore. Demonic baby clowns could come shooting out of my ass right now and I’d probably take it in stride. Well, aside from the severe rectal pain, that is.

  She laughed then, tossing her head back and letting gales of mad mirth roll out of her. Then, just as abruptly, the laughter transformed into gut-wrenching sobs and hot tears obscured her vision. This went on for several minutes. Part of her half-expected—and even wanted—Jasmine to console her in the instinctual ways people often do in the presence of a person in distress. A hug combined with empty-but-heartfelt reassurances would have been nice. A hand patting her shoulder would have sufficed. But by the time Emily regained some measure of self-control, Jasmine hadn’t moved an inch. She just sat in that chair watching her with her hands still folded primly in her lap.

  God…she’s so fucking cold…

  Emily supposed she shouldn’t judge the woman. No telling what she’d been through in the days since the old world ended. Anyone still alive at this point had endured far more than their fare share of traumas.

  Jasmine smiled, a half-hearted expression that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’d offer you a tissue if…things were still the way they ought to be.”

  Emily chuckled and wiped the remaining dabs of moisture from her eyes with the backs of her hands. “That’s just the right way to put it, isn’t? ‘The way they ought to be.’” She sighed. “God, but I miss the world we knew. So, okay, it wasn’t perfect. There were wars and famine. Political scandals and rampant crime in the big cities. Child abuse, rape, and murder. But at least it was a world full of people. Not like this…” She indicated both the street and the world beyond with a sweep of her hand. “This wasteland. The old world, despite its faults, was a vital place. And there were a lot of good people striving to make it a better place.”

  Jasmine said, “Well…they’re all dead now.”

  Emily looked at her. “I’m not saying this to offend you or anything, Jasmine, but…you seem awfully blase about the whole thing. As if the death of civilization and the end of the fucking world means nothing to you.”

  Jasmine shrugged. “Of course it means something to me. But it happened, and there’s nothing I can do about it. When this process was just beginning, I lost my husband Gary to a heart attack. We watched the president die on live television and Gary was dead a few minutes after that. There was nothing I could do about that either. I let myself get attached to my young friend from New Jersey. Now he’s gone, too. So I’ve decided I’ll be better off if I work at feeling nothing at all.”


  Emily frowned. Something in Jasmine’s speech resonated in a way she couldn’t identify at first. She replayed the woman’s words in her head, examining them for some clue…then it came to her. Her ‘young friend’, a man, was from New Jersey. But he apparently had had family here in Nashville.

  No, it can’t be…

  The last Emily had heard, Warren Hatcher, the man she’d loved so intensely years ago, was living in New Jersey. And was supposedly attending Rutgers University. According to Dan Brooks, Warren’s best friend in high school, he’d picked New Jersey at random on a map. Had just closed his eyes and stabbed an index finger at an atlas. At the time Emily had figured Dan was exaggerating. Thinking about it now though, she knew it was the kind of impulsive thing Warren might really have done. He’d stated a desire to get far away from her after their painful split, and so he had.

  Emily didn’t often allow herself to dwell too long on thoughts of Warren and their doomed relationship. The memories were too painful. They’d met in the summer after high school graduation. Both of them had big plans for those first steps into the adult world. Warren wanted to become a great writer. A Hemingway or Faulkner. He was planning to attend college as an English major. And Emily wanted to be a professional singer. They bonded initially over their mutual creative ambitions, but the love that bloomed that summer soon overwhelmed everything else, including their plans for school and the future. They spent all their time together. Doing romantic things. Crazy things. Warren drank a lot, but Emily didn’t care. She kept up with Warren that summer. The drunkenness made sense to her then. After all, so many great artists of the past had spent their days pickling their brains and livers with alcohol. Why should they be any different?

  The summer slipped away and the time approached when they’d have to register for classes at their respective colleges, which were two-hundred miles apart. A gloom descended as they began to face the reality of separating for the fall. Then Warren did what she would later come to see as a typical self-destructive act. He showed up at her parents’ house in an old junker car. A lime-green Chevelle. Warren had spent the bulk of his summer savings on it. He took her for a ride in the country, during which he asked her to ditch school and journey across the country with him in the Chevelle.