Chapter 1
CH1
Kyle was crouched on a pile of rubble, looking at the building in front of him. He took out his binoculars and scanned the structure carefully, window by window. He was always worried that he might miss one. The one that would indicate someone else’s presence. People meant trouble, whether they were Redeyes or Normals. It was a lesson he’d learned early on.
But the apartment complex felt empty. Kyle’s experience and instincts told him it was abandoned. There were usually a few indicators if someone was living there, like boarded windows, maybe plants put on the windowsill to get some light. Something. Anything. Nothing here suggested reason for alarm, but in the end, there was only one way to be sure.
His son, Sean, was lying next to him, holding his father’s hand tight. The boy was humming a tune they’d learned just a few days ago. By now, it had morphed into a whole different tune, but Kyle recognized it nevertheless. The boy’s nose was a little stuffed up, but he didn’t have a fever, and Kyle was more than grateful for that.
“It looks empty, Sean,” Kyle whispered and looked at his son. He was always amazed at how sharp the two-year-old was. Not that the child was more intelligent than the average boy his age. Kyle just felt that children this young should be less aware of what was going on. The funniest thing was that in the previous world, Sean would have been killed a hundred times over by now if left to his down devices. It was like he’d had no instinct for survival. In the previous world, he’d wanted to stick his fingers in the outlet, and run into traffic, play with kitchen knives, try to drink dangerous bathroom cleaners, and the list went on. But out here in the new world, he was careful, afraid of things. His instincts were no match for life in what had been a modern world, but now they all, in a way, had reverted to the simpler life of their ancestors, and the instincts that guided the boy applied again.
“Empy,” said the boy, smiling at him.
“Yes, empty.” Kyle looked at the building again. It had windows on the upper floors. That would surely bring some relief from the cold. The temperatures were high enough during the day, but cold enough that Kyle needed to find them shelter overnight.
Kyle ran his fingers through his son’s golden hair. “We need to check it out.”
He placed the boy in the carrier, swung it around his neck, and fastened it to his back. He’d made the carrier out of an old backpack and some body armor he’d found in the army store a few months ago. The boy had cried about it at first, desperate to get out, but now he seemed quite happy lounging around in the holster. Kyle considered carrying him on his back, but thought he could protect the boy better this way. And besides, he was more likely to get shot in the back than the chest. He really hoped the armor was strong enough to withstand a sniper bullet, but he somehow knew that a direct hit would most likely be fatal to the boy, even if the armor held.
He crawled behind the rubble of a concrete fence and slowly made his way to the building’s entrance. He half expected to hear gunshots from the windows, but all he heard were birds and Sean’s soft singing.
Cautiously, he opened the doors. Someone had broken in, and from the looks of it, that was months ago. He peered inside. The lobby was empty.
Kyle put a finger to the child’s lips, and the boy went quiet.
Kyle squeezed his handgun tight and released the safety with his thumb. He also had a rifle, but the handgun was the right choice for indoor combat.
Kyle carefully checked the first, second, and third floors, and they were all deserted. He didn’t find any bodies, either. Whoever had once lived here had either left, died somewhere else, or someone had carried them out.
When checking the floors, he’d been calm and focused, but now that he realized the place was safe, his heart began to pound. He only ever let the fear in when it was safe to feel it. But he was happy. They had found a place to stay. At least for tonight. The rooms were desolate; there was absolutely nothing to indicate that anyone was living here, and that was good enough for him.
He discovered a few pantries as he searched the apartments and went to inspect them thoroughly. He found some canned beans and fruit—nothing too exciting, but it was a feast for him and the boy. He hoped to build a fire and heat the beans.
The eastern room on the third floor seemed the least damaged. The windows were still glazed, and the room gave Kyle a good view of both sides of the street. He took a mattress from one of the beds and positioned it under a window. The wall was sturdy enough to withstand a shot from a rifle or handgun. He set his son on the mattress.
“We’ll be fine here,” he said.
“Okay.” The boy smiled. He started bouncing a few times and then threw himself on his back. Laughing, he picked himself up and did it again. “Boom!” he said as he fell onto the soft mattress.
Kyle grabbed him and hugged him. He sniffed his diaper and laughed. “You left me a present, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” the boy said with a sort of disinterest.
“Come on,” Kyle said, “we need to clean your dirty butt.”
The boy laughed and tried to run away, but Kyle caught him and set him on his back.
“You can’t get away from me,” he said, and the boy laughed again. “Here, play with this.” He handed the boy a toy giraffe they had found a few days ago. Sean grabbed it eagerly and let his father change his diaper him while he chewed on the animal’s head.
When he was done, Kyle lifted the boy up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You can play, but stay where I can see you.” He pulled some toys and a few children’s books out of his backpack, and Sean grabbed them all. He usually sang while he played, or at least babbled unintelligibly.
Kyle took out his own book and leaned against the wall. The name Stephen King was all but erased, but the title The Stand was still there. He smiled. He could probably recite the whole book by heart. It represented a connection to his childhood, but it was also a reminder of the time before the world fell apart. Besides, the theme of the book fit quite well with what was happening outside. He often thought about the collapse of the world. The human world was collapsing; the natural world was spinning on just as merrily as ever.
He read for about an hour when he suddenly noticed the silence.
“Flax?” he cried.
All was still, and his heart froze.
“Sean?” He jumped to his feet. He gripped his gun tightly in his right hand. He started for the door just as Sean stepped out of the room to his right. The boy was watching him with a mysterious smile.
Kyle seized him. “You can’t leave the room, you know that.” His voice was angry. “Never leave the room without me. It’s a dangerous world.”
“Addy,” the boy said, starting to cry. The kid knew he had done something wrong but couldn’t understand what.
“It’s okay. I was just scared.”
The boy rested his head against his father’s chest. “Find.” He raised his hand, and in it was an old red car.
“You found a car?”
“Mine?” the boy asked, a little startled. They were always leaving things behind—things he liked.
Kyle smiled and lifted the boy over his head. “It’s yours,” he said, kissing his cheek and then setting him back down. “You can play with the car, but you stay in this room, understand?”
“Yes,” the boy said, not really listening as he pushed the car up and down the mattress.
Kyle sat back down and reached for the book again. He had no idea how much time had passed when suddenly he saw Sean standing in front of him.
“What’s up, soldier?”
The boy turned his head. “Eh-dy,” he said simply.
Kyle looked in the direction of the boy’s gaze, and again his heart froze. There stood a figure watching them. He jumped up, shoved the boy behind him, and pointed the gun at the person in the doorway.
“Don’t shoot. I’m not a threat.” It was a woman.
Kyle watched her for a moment. “Step forward! Slowly!”
She appeared to be about thirty years old, which would make her two years younger than him. Black hair fell over her shoulder as she moved slowly toward the center of the room. She lifted her head as if in a trance.
“I’m not a threat,” she said again. “I just wanted to ask you for something to eat.”
He stared into her eyes for what felt like an eternity.
“You’re a Redeye,” he said finally.
She smiled. “Just like you two.” She looked at the boy, and he smiled. She smiled back.
“Eh-dy,” Sean repeated.
“Stay behind me, Sean.” He usually called him Flax, because the boy had once taken some washable paint and dyed his blond hair blue. Kyle laughed so hard tears ran down his cheeks and said he looked like flax in bloom.
“I’m not a threat,” the girl said again.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Do you have anything to eat?” She was about to go on but changed her mind. “I’m not going to fuck you for it, though.”
Kyle watched her. “You just stay where you are.” She looked like she was about to drop. She must have been starving. Food had been easy to find the first few days, but it went bad fast. He knelt down to his pack but didn’t take his eyes off her. He picked up a loaf of bread and a stick of butter they had found a few days ago. He broke the bread with one hand and threw what was left in her direction. The bread fell to the ground, and she looked at it as if she didn’t believe it was there. He threw the butter beside it.
“Eat, but stay there. I swear, if there’s anyone back there waiting to rob us, you’ll be the first to die.”
She dropped to her knees and stuffed the bread into her mouth.
Kyle watched as she ate it all, paying no attention to the small stick of butter for the moment. He lowered his gun, but was ready to use it at any moment. In his experience, women were just as talented at killing as men. Sean clung to his leg and stared at the woman curiously.
When she had finished the bread, she carefully unwrapped the butter. She popped it into her mouth and sucked on it, closing her eyes.
Kyle watched her, and a hint of a smile showed on his face. Beneath the messy black hair and dirt was a beautiful woman. He felt longing somewhere deep inside him. It wasn’t really about sex; it was about being close to someone, feeling the warmth of their skin and the desire that came with physical contact. But he chased that longing away. His life belonged to his son. The boy’s survival was all that mattered. Nothing else even came close.
It took her quite a while to finish the butter, and when she did, she licked her fingers and the wrapper, sucking up every last bit.
She rose to her feet. “So, where are you two off to?” There was infinite sadness in her eyes as she looked at the boy, who smiled back at her. Kyle had read somewhere that babies start smiling about six weeks after birth. Like they were born with the ability in order to lower their chances of being abandoned or hurt by their parents. He couldn’t imagine abandoning his son, let alone hurting him in any way, whether the boy smiled or not.
“Somewhere safe,” Kyle said. He sat down. He felt very tired all of a sudden.
She looked around. “It’s as safe here as anywhere.”
“No,” he said, almost too eagerly. The woman watched him with a Mona Lisa smile. “I know a place,” he said finally.
She laughed, and she was even more beautiful than he had first thought. “A personal sanctuary?”
Kyle smiled. “Something like that. I know we’ll be safe there.”
She considered him. “Maybe I’d like to come with you.” She pierced him with her eyes. “But I’m not going to fuck you.”
“Who asked you to?” Kyle said, sounding a little annoyed but actually amused. Yes, she would do it. If you put two people together long enough, they do eventually fuck. He’d heard that somewhere.
She turned away for a moment but then turned back around. “I’m just saying.” Her voice became almost sleepy. “It’s a strange phrase, isn’t it? I fuck you; you fuck me. It’s a little violent.” She laughed. “But making love doesn’t sound any better. It almost sounds like going to the bathroom.” She watched Kyle, waiting for some sort of response.
Kyle just stared at her. Some people said that the virus changed people’s personalities. She was definitely weird, but he had the feeling that this condition preceded the virus. She was the kind of girl he would have fallen in love with—once upon a time. “I never thought about it,” he finally said.
She seemed even more lost in thought. “The boy could use a mother.”
He raised his gun. “Stay away from him. Don’t go near him, and don’t touch him. You won’t get a second warning.”
There was sadness in her smile. She stepped forward, unafraid. “I could never hurt an innocent soul. He’s beautiful.” She stopped. “Unaware of how cruel the world can be.” She looked at Kyle. “The world can be beautiful, too.” She walked past them and stepped up to the window to let the sun shine on her face. “Really beautiful.”
There was a pop, but Kyle didn’t really understand what was happening. Suddenly the woman was on the floor, and there was red darkness where her beautiful face had been. It took him a while to realize he’d heard a sniper rifle. The shooter was close enough that he could hear it. Sean held on to him so tightly that he was surprised at the two-year-old’s strength.
He pulled Sean up and turned the boy’s face away from the dead girl on the floor.
“Got one,” he heard a call from outside. A few more voices greeted the kill. “Got her right in the head.”
“There’s more. Let me get the next one,” another voice said.
“Hey, Redeye! Come on and show yourself. We just want to talk.” A shot slammed through a window, spilling glass over them. He covered the crying boy with his jacket.
“Don’t worry, soldier. Everything’s going to be all right. I promise you that.”
“Addy,” whimpered the boy. He was scared and shaking badly, but he wasn’t crying.
“Hey, Redeye. Come and have a look. I’ll show you my boobs.” This time it was a woman’s voice.
“They’re big,” said another man, and they all laughed.
“Bigger than that Redeye whore had. Come and see,” repeated the woman. Another bullet went through the window on their right, disappearing into the wall.
Kyle took out a small mirror he had stuck onto a wooden ladle. He’d gotten the idea from Saving Private Ryan—only the gum Tom Hanks used in the film to fasten a mirror to a bayonet wasn’t a long-term solution, so Kyle had used duct tape instead.
He lifted the mirror up and saw three men and a woman, but there might have been more. They were all armed with rifles. One of the men had a sniper rifle pointed at Kyle’s hideout. They were on a taller building two streets across and would have a good view of the whole room. If he and Sean moved away from the wall, they’d easily be spotted and killed. All they could do was wait. But he knew they couldn’t stay here forever.
“What, you don’t want to look at Pam’s boobs? Maybe you’d prefer my dick, eh, Redeye?” Another salvo of laughter. He could hear there were more than four.
Kyle looked around. The old mattress was a bit too far from the wall. But he’d have to get to it. If he burned it, he might create enough smoke to cover their escape.
“Sean,” he said softly. “I have to put you down for a second.”
His son held on to him with all the strength he could muster. “No, Addy,” he said through the tears, “no leave.”
“Please, Sean. Just for a moment. I’ll be right back. You have to be brave.”
The boy didn’t understand. He was scared out of his mind, but Kyle didn’t have a choice. He tore the boy from his chest and pushed him to the floor. But there was a piece of glass on the floor that Kyle hadn’t seen, and the boy screamed in pain. A shard was stuck in his leg, and Kyle yanked him back up. He pulled the glass out and, for a moment, stared at the blood.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Flax.”
“Addy. Hurt.” The boy cried in pain, and Kyle held him tight. He cursed the men on the other side. Luckily, the blood soon stopped.
“There’s a kid in there,” said one of the men in the other building.
“So what? If a kid’s there, it’s a Redeye kid.”
The woman’s voice came next. “I ain’t shooting no kid.”
For a moment, everything was quiet. “Hey, Redeye, do you have a kid in there?”
“He’s my son,” Kyle shouted back.
“They’re Redeyes,” one of the men said after a brief silence.
“I’ve killed just about anything that crawls on this earth, but I’m no child killer.”
“We’ll leave,” shouted Kyle, hoping the shooters could be persuaded. “We’ll leave town. We’ll never come back.”
Again everything fell quiet. “We can’t let them leave.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Another silence. “Listen, Redeye, you thinking about avenging that whore you were with?”
“I didn’t even know her,” Kyle screamed. “We just want to get out of here.” He began putting their things in the backpack. Sean’s new car was out of reach, though.
“Okay,” shouted the man, who was apparently the leader. “I give you my word that we won’t shoot. But you leave. Right now. Out of our town, and if we see you again, we won’t think twice about ending you and your boy.”
“You have my word,” shouted Kyle.
“Someone will be watching you. You get the fuck out of town before sundown, understand?”
“Yes.”
This could have been a trick, but for some reason, Kyle trusted the man. Besides, he didn’t have much choice. The burning mattress might get them out of the room, and even that was debatable, but even if it did, what then? The group out there was heavily armed, and more were probably waiting by the exits. No, their best bet was to trust them.
Kyle picked the boy up and slung the backpack over his shoulder. He closed his eyes for a moment. He remembered hearing about a Native American ritual. When a member of this tribe committed something horrible like murder, they were given the chance to reach a specific tree or rock or make it across a river while the victim’s family fired arrows and whatnot. If the murderer reached the destination, he was freed. Most tried to run as fast as they could, but a person could hardly outrun skilled archers. And it turned out that those who moved slowly, those that showed courage and remorse, survived.
Kyle understood now how those people must have felt. He stood up and looked out the window. “Please don’t hurt my son. He cannot survive without me.” The men and woman stared, weapons down.
He picked up the crying boy and turned away. The few feet to the door felt like miles. He expected to be shot in the back, and he hoped the bullet would instantly kill the boy, too. It would be more merciful than to leave his son to die of thirst beside his father’s corpse.
They made it out of the building, and before the sun disappeared behind the hills, they had left the city behind.
He walked long into the night until he found an abandoned gas station. He was so tired that he fell asleep almost the instant he put his head down. He hated to sleep, though. The demon was always there, haunting his dreams.
“I almost died today.” He had no idea why he was talking to the demon in his nightmares. The creature was cunning and somehow made him talk.
“You are nowhere near death,” the demon said.
“You can see into the future? My boy almost died.” Kyle was suddenly aware he was crying. If Sean died, he would just lie down next to him and wait for death.
The demon sighed.
Why am I bringing up Sean? It’s what the creature wants. Don’t talk about the boy, he reminded himself.
“A girl did die.”
“A girl?” The demon didn’t seem at all interested in her gruesome death.
“She had long black hair. She was beautiful.”
“Black hair?”
“Yes. Why?”
The demon watched him through the veil made of nightmare grayness. “It’s interesting.”
“What is?”
“It doesn’t matter. Tell me about your son!”
“Fuck you,” hollered Kyle. “You’ll never get him. I’ll protect him from you and anyone else that tries to take him from me.”
“That’s not how it’s going to go down, Kyle. The boy has to go.”
He watched the demon, a dark shadow within the gray fog, with eyes that glowed like two flashlights. Kyle wanted to say something clever, something that might persuade the monster to leave them alone, but nothing came to mind, so he just stared past him, waiting for the dream to be over.
He was woken by his son, who was watching him sleep. The boy had a big smile on his face, but it disappeared a moment after Kyle looked at him. “Ouch,” the boy said and touched his thigh. The wound from the glass wasn’t bleeding anymore. Luckily, it wasn’t as deep as Kyle had thought at first. He redressed it carefully.
“Addy.”
“Hey, Flax. Are you hungry?” He hugged the boy and kissed his forehead. The dream with the demon was forgotten, and for now, he had a perfect moment with his son.
