“You do it.”

“No, I won’t. You’ve done it before, haven’t you? Why do I got to do it?”

“I did it once, and I ain’t doing it again. You head up there or you’re out of the gang. This is our territory… But even the soldiers are scared of her. Only reason a gang as small as us can survive in this place. No one wants to fuck around and find out what she’ll do if someone upsets her. You’ve heard the rumors. Best to give her tribute so she doesn’t swallow us all. Like a dragon. Now get to it, Simon. Deliver the goods. And hope you’re not the one getting gobbled up rather than what’s in that bag.”

Simon let out a gulp and took the sack bursting with food and slung it over his shoulder. His boss opened the door and ushered him forward into the dark recesses of the building, only the light shining through the windows breaking the gloom.

Most places had lanterns or even the occasional light set up after the quarantine had officially been lifted a month ago as the last of the Infected had been killed off by the soldiers and the city had been cleared. It had now been four months since the bombs had dropped.

People had started grouping up and working together again, even if it was only under the hands of the scattered gangs or the iron fist of the soldiers that ruled from afar from within their base and powerful weapons.

People were still getting sick, but it wasn’t from the virus anymore. The swelling waves of radiation wafting in from the blast sites around them created a persistent haze of tanginess or tingling on Simon’s skin and tongue as he moved. Or at least he thought he could feel it.

But not too many were dying yet. They probably all had cancer down the road, but it only made them a little sicker, a little weaker than normal in the moment. A weakness that Simon felt acutely as he stumbled up the stairs of the mostly empty building with the heavy sack held over his back.

Most buildings had lights inside them from the communities living there, but not here. All of the residents had fled the building as soon as the quarantine had lifted. Fleeing as far as they could from the monster inside.

Simon reached the door on the fifth floor and took a deep breath as a pair of electric lights hung above the door, pushing back the shadow and somehow making the door to the apartment even more sinister than if it had been in darkness. As if the bright lights and rare electric lights were inviting him in, to lull him into safety before the trap snapped closed around him.

But after mustering his courage, Simon reached up and rapped his fist on the door hard before taking a step back.

He waited silently at the door for a moment. It remained closed and everything was silent, and Simon felt a tingle of dread run down his spine as he stood there motionless.

Then there was movement and Simon resisted startling as the door swung open revealing a woman standing behind it.

“Oh, hi,” the woman said, “You’re here for the delivery? You can just leave it there. Nice of you guys to do this, I thought it’d be more on a commission basis rather than giving us this much weekly… And tell your friends that I should finish what they want in a few days. Maybe two or three. I’ll leave it in the front lobby when it’s finished.”

“Y-Yes, ma’am!”

Simon quickly placed the sack down in front of the door before taking a few steps back, although he relaxed slightly at the woman’s calm tone. Even if he had no idea what she was talking about.

“Okay,” she said, “Thanks. Here, you look skinny. Take a tip.”

She reached inside the bag and took out a metal can of beans and tossed it to him. Simon caught it and almost fumbled it before quickly tucking it into the pocket of his ragged coat as quickly as he could to conceal the bulge it would form as best he could.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Simon said gratefully, relaxing further by the woman’s unassuming presence. Despite her being the healthiest person he’d seen ever since the bombs dropped. Completely smooth skin, no dark bags under her eyes, and not looking even the slightest bit tired despite everything. Just so… normal. Like things should be.

“No problem. Hope to see you next week. And don’t let the rumors scare you off. They- well, It was only nine, not twenty or thirty or whatever they’re saying these days. And self defense. Just remember that when your boss tries to scare you off once you leave.”

“Er, I… I will ma’am?” Simon said uncertainly.

“Okay, bye,” the woman said as she reached out and picked up the heavy sack of food with one arm with seemingly little effort that Simon had needed all of his strength to carry on his back. She stepped back and shut her door and with a loud click the door locked.

Simon stared at the door for a long moment before he turned and carefully navigated down the dark stairs with his hands empty now.

He reached the base and his boss Frank was standing there looking nervous before noticing Simon emerging from the dark doorway of the building.

“Well?” Frank asked, “She good? You upset her? What's with that look?”

“No?” Simon said, the image of the demon he’d been imagining in his head not quite meshing with the woman he’d just met.

“She killed twenty men with her bare hands,” Frank said in a whisper as the two of them started hurrying away, “I’ve talked with the folks living nearby looking out their windows. Smashed their heads in with a crowbar, just left them in the street and kept on walking after she was done with’em. All calm like, didn't bother her the least bit after she caught her breath.”

“But it was self defense, right?” Simon said, “They were attacking her?”

“Maybe,” Frank said grimly, “She killed Major Smith too. Nasty man in charge of them soldiers. Whole lot of them tried to stop her. Machine guns, grenades, all of it. You heard the booms and explosions that day. She walked that off and killed him anyway like it was nothing. Whatever she did, the soldiers won’t even talk about it, it was so frightening. They flinch whenever someone threatens to point her their way. You watch yourself Simon. Underneath that mask is a monster waiting to swallow you whole. Go again at your own risk.”

Simon held his jacket tighter as a blistery cold wind swept across the streets and pushed a dusting of gray snow mixed with ash into his face.

He blinked hard to clear it before he kept walking as he felt the cold can of beans inside his jacket. Maybe Frank was right and she was a psycho that would kill him because he looked at her wrong. Some sort of monster… But he needed this food. So despite Frank’s warnings, Simon was sure that he’d be back. He had to in order to survive. There only were so many crops to harvest that hadn’t already died from the radiation by now. Only so much canned or long lasting food left.

Food supplies weren’t critically low yet, but everyone could see the writing on the wall. It was sometime in November right now. Winter had barely even started yet and it was already snowing slightly.

This winter would be brutal, and Simon and everyone else was scrambling as hard as they could to prepare for the hard times.

Because if it was snowing now, then how cold would it get when true winter was on them?

— — —

“Sean? Hey, we’ve got that food. I’ve almost finished that spare generator for those people bringing the supplies.”

“They… they think you’ll kill them if they don’t agree,” Sean croaked through his sore throat.

“Just take it easy, take it easy,” Emily said as she rushed forward and put her palm to Sean’s clammy head to check his temperature. She stroked his matted and clammy hair soaked in sweat for a moment as he lay on the bed she’d dragged into the main room for him.

“I know,” she said to actually answer his statement, “But that means they won’t attack us, so it’s fine. I don’t want to hurt anyone else if I can. You tell me next time you’re uncomfortable, okay? I don’t want you to try to push through and get sick again. I panicked when it first started, thought you caught it from the delivery man and it was something worse than a fever… That man last week nearly ran screaming when he saw my expression when I opened the door…”

She held her hand to his feverish head for another second and adjusted his blankets slightly, “I’ll take care of you. It’s just a fever, you’ll be fine.”

“Heater’s nice,” Sean said and nodded his head to the little generator that was powering all their electronics including a nice heater that she’d installed. The apartment had gotten too cold and she hadn’t even noticed until Sean got sick. Somehow after thinking out loud for a bit she’d managed to build this contraption in their place for them. It had a crank on the side that she had to turn to charge the battery, but with her endless stamina that was no problem.

Most of her time it was tucked under her arm as she cranked it with one hand actually to keep it charged as much as she could. She had a bank of three or four extra batteries that she could swap out into the generator so they should always have enough energy even as she charged one of the dead ones.

“Just let me know if you need anything, don’t try to tough it out,” Emily said quickly, “I think I saw some soup cans in the delivery. I’ll make you some warm chicken soup, make you feel way better. Test out that camp stove that I fixed up yesterday to boil it a little.”

“Thanks, Emily,” Sean murmured, “Do I really have to be in the main room though?”

“Yes,” she said firmly, “You’re not leaving my sight until things are safer for us. Not even to sleep in another room. Especially when you’re sick.”

Sean chuckled and coughed slightly after a moment.

“Way to not make it creepy… Sis.”

Emily huffed and gestured to her own bed set up on the opposite side of the room. But still in the main room and not in the attached bedroom. Emily wanted to be able to leap up and protect Sean in seconds if anything happened.

“I’m here too. Not like you’re the only one.”

“Bah. You don’t need to sleep anymore apparently,” Sean said, “Still… watching me sleep.”

“No, I still sleep when I can,” Emily said a little guiltily.

She did watch him sleep, staying up longer than him and waking up earlier if her body allowed it. She couldn’t bear the thought that something would happen to him while she wasn’t there to protect him. That as soon as she shut her eyes that something horrible would happen to her brother.

She wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

He was her whole world now, the last thing for her to cling to. Nothing would ever happen to him. The two of them would be happy together and make it through this. No matter how hopeless it all seemed right now.

They’d make it through this together.

— — —

Emily scrunched her neck against her shoulder to hold her flashlight in place as she disassembled the microwave in front of her. Most of it was completely toast. All of the microchips, and most of the advanced electronics were fried and destroyed by the EMPs. But a few had survived, and Emily could extract them and all sorts of other components from this thing.

She was on one of the apartments on the top floor of their building, going apartment to apartment and scavenging everything usable that she could, having already cleared most of the rest of the building.

She wasn’t sure how, but as she hummed and talked to herself she seemed to somehow understand exactly which pieces were still functional and which had been burned into scrap. Which components to use to build, how to build whatever sprang into her mind when she brainstormed out loud.

It was eerie, the knowledge just popping into her mind as she moved by instinct to accomplish whatever she needed to do. It must be another part of her powers. Was it making her smarter, increasing her brain function or something? She had already been considered a genius before all of this had happened, was this like what the next level felt like? Just knowing things intuitively without being able to pinpoint how she knew to do this or that or why she had a feeling that certain electrical components were good and the others were destroyed despite her not knowing how she knew?

She finished disassembling the electronics in the apartment and put everything useful into her large backpack and took her flashlight and held it in her left hand. The whole building was completely dark usually except for the lights shining in from the windows.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Her backpack jingled and rattled as she walked down the stairs towards Sean’s apartment. She was working on a higher powered radio. Hopefully one strong enough that it could pierce through the ash still choking the skies and let her talk to some other group in the distance who could help.

Emily held the flashlight pointed at her feet as she carefully navigated the stairs. Two weeks ago, she had tripped and landed on top of her bag and broke half of the things she had harvested.

Emily reached the dark hallway and frowned and stopped walking as she heard some noise. She tilted her head to the side and listened. There were heavy footsteps and murmurs in their apartment and she could hear Sean’s angry voice as he argued with someone.

She dropped her bag and sprinted towards their door. There was a woman standing just outside, lurking just outside the circle of light that Emily had shining from the electric light she’d planted above the frame.

Without even pausing, Emily shoved the woman hard to the ground before she could even react to Emily suddenly going from a stand still to a full sprint in a blink of an eye.

With a squawk, the woman Emily had shoved went falling backwards and flailed her arms wildly. In her right hand, Emily spotted the glimmer of a small metal pocket knife reflect the light before the other woman was in shadow again.

Emily ignored the woman and opened the door to her apartment as quickly as she could.

She barreled inside and saw four burly men standing close to Sean. Two of them were holding Sean up in the air by his arms while the third stood behind him and loomed menacingly with his arms crossed. The last man stood in front of Sean and had an ugly sneer on his face as he leaned over to have his face close to Sean. That had a large blade out and was waving it in front of Sean’s nose. Sean already had a long bleeding cut carved a few inches down his cheek, his blood still dripping from the other man’s blade. Sean looked bruised and injured, like he’d been roughed up before they had cut him with the blade.

At Emily’s sudden entrance to the apartment, all four men’s gaze turned to her. The man with the knife’s eyes widened and he quickly put his large knife to Sean’s throat even as Emily charged towards him.

Emily slammed to a stop, and stood there glancing between the four men that looked nervous at her sudden entrance.

“Now, just… We’ll be going now,” the man with the knife said, “You make any moves, and I’ll cut his throat.”

Emily didn’t move, her thoughts racing as the four men started edging to the side as if to move around her. Emily noted idly that the entire place was trashed as another man emerged from the spare bedroom with a large sack filled with food held over his back.

The new man froze, but seemed to understand the situation after taking a few seconds to take it in and the nod from his boss with the knife.

Sean was dragged along with them as they moved.

“Leave him here,” Emily said and stepped to the side to block them as they moved to go past her, “Then you can go.”

The leader let out a giggle of nervous laughter, “Not a chance, girl. You’d kill us the second he was out of my grip.”

He tried to move past her again and Emily stepped in his way again.

“You’re not taking him,” Emily said again, “Let him go!”

The leader hesitated before shaking his head and seeming to come to a decision.

“Actually…” he said and smiled slightly, “We’ll be taking him with us. All the way. And you’ll work for us. Or we’ll kill him. Oh, and we’ll take all this food you’ve been hoarding for so long. Do that and your brother here won’t get hurt.”

The man pressed his blade harder against Sean’s throat and a bead of blood oozed out and started running down the side of Sean’s neck. Emily flinched, and she saw a faint light of victory in the leader’s eyes.

Sean glared at the man, but stayed silent and appeared to be keeping his breath as shallow as he could to avoid the knife pressed against his throat.

“Now get out of our way, girl. Or your brother dies,” the leader sneered, his posture switching from slightly fearful to arrogant as he saw the overwhelming indecision and fear that must have leaked out from her expression as she kept standing there motionless.

“I…” Emily said, and a faint memory came to her. An instinctive feeling of something that she could do that could help. She licked her dry lips as the leader edged to the side and this time Emily didn’t move to block him as he and the other four men and Sean slowly moved towards the door, their eyes on her at all times.

“I…” Emily repeated again as Sean met her gaze as he was dragged away, the men now past her and moving towards the door.

“I…” Emily said one more time, before taking the leap. She couldn't let them leave with him.

“Help. Guide Me. SaVe SeAn!”

Everyone in the room flinched as Emily’s voice warbled and distorted as her mind turned to a haze and the world seemed to fade slightly from around her. Her body was now moving on its own, and only her own faint awareness allowed her to know what was happening.

“Let SeAn go,” Emily’s body said her voice still warbling and distorting as she spoke, “Or PrepArE to diE. I haVe no mErcY foR sCum liKe yOu.”

“I- No way!” The leader shouted even as his arrogant expression switched to fear again as she took a step forward, “Y-You move again and I’ll slit his throat! No, that damn magic spooky shit act isn't gonna work on me!”

Emily stopped moving and tilted her head to the side to consider the man, despite her heart pounding in her chest and her worry for Sean becoming nearly overwhelming. The strange instincts guiding her made it seem like this was the perfect thing to do, and to do anything else wouldn’t let her save Sean. The instincts told her what to do, and in her desperation and hazy state of mind, Emily agreed and let them Guide her.

“tHen yOu aLL wiLL diE.”

“S-S-Shut up, bitch! You’ve got nothin’ on us!” the leader shouted, “You stay over there, we’re leaving now. Don’t you come chasing after us either! Or this guy gets it! You think that I won't do it?”

Emily idly noted that the woman she’d shoved over coming in was standing at the open door to the hallway and watching the confrontation, glancing between Emily and her boss.

The leader’s head turned to the woman and he opened his mouth to bark an order at her. But it distracted him as he took his eyes off of Emily for an instant and his knife slightly eased its pressure on Sean’s throat and lifted off his skin a few inches.

In a burst of motion, Emily’s body leapt forward at full speed and her hands reaching out in full extension.

“Boss!” One of the men holding Sean up shouted in surprise, and the leader’s head whipped back and his eyes widened to see Emily leaping towards them.

The leader applied some pressure on Sean’s neck with his knife to stab him… But Emily was there just in time. Her hand swooped up from underneath and grabbed the knife by the blade, managing to stick her fingers into the small gap between Sean’s neck and the blade. She hissed as the knife bit into her first knuckles of her fingers as the leader slashed hard and tried to take his blade back as he saw that Emily had stopped his attempt to kill Sean.

Before he could pull back, Emily closed her fist and the other side of the knife bit into her palm. She held it there and her body jerked its arm hard outwards and away from Sean.

Emily’s hand fully closed into a fist as the blade cutting into her fist disappeared somehow.

The leader dumbly stared at the empty blade handle for a moment after he pulled it back from her grip. He didn’t recover his wits fast enough to dodge Emily’s heavy punch to his skull.

Emily’s mind in her hazy state dimly noticed her whole body rippling and her feet pivoting as every muscle was used to its absolute maximum as her whole body was put behind the singular punch.

The punch landed on the leader’s temple, and his head twisted to the side and with a sickly snap he died before his body even hit the floor as his neck broke.

Before the other four men could realize what had happened, Emily was on them, landing sharp blows on their hands and faces to get them to let go of Sean. Sean was dropped to the ground as the two burly men yelped in surprise and clumsily tried to ward off Emily’s assault with her fists.

Emily immediately stepped forward so she was standing directly over Sean who was weakly crawling away from the fighting, seeming confused and his eyes unfocused. The men must have given him a concussion before little Emily had arrived.

Despite her best efforts in fighting, she couldn’t take down either man who had been holding Sean before they collected their wits and started fighting back with angry expressions on their faces after a glance at their dead leader. The man in the back dropped the sack of food and joined the remaining man in reaching into their pockets and all drawing out their blades.

Sean kept crawling away as Emily was repeatedly stabbed by all four of men standing over her body as their large frames pressed her backwards with their sheer mass even as her body fought with all of its might.

Her body stomped hard on one man’s foot, causing him to groan and lean forward with a loud curse. Emily’s body grabbed his head in both hands and brought her leg up to land a devastating knee strike directly into the man’s nose.

Hands still wrapped around the man’s face, she twisted her body and shoved the man hard to the side to the ground. He fell there and lay on the floor groaning as he clutched his broken nose, which was bleeding profusely.

Another knife stabbed into Emily’s eye, and she was blinded in one eye for a few seconds and stumbled before the blade was taken out again. She was grabbed and shoved backwards as she recovered until she was standing over Sean again. The two of them were cornered now in the little kitchenette with the sink and eating counter to their right and the fridge and the exterior wall to the hallway to their left. Sean was sitting on the ground and leaning against the wooden cabinet behind him and watching Emily fight with what appeared to be wide eyed shock.

Emily took a step forward and she was stabbed again this time in her gut. She was shoved back again and braced herself against the counter to the side. Sean was exposed. The three men fighting her with their knives all looked the worse for the wear from her fighting them. But they all remained focused on fighting her with a look of desperation and anger in their eyes.

The man who had been carrying the food before raised his knife above Sean and prepared to stab him, ignoring Emily fighting the other two men for a moment.

Even in her daze, Emily felt herself to begin to panic. What could she do? How could she save him? The answer came quickly. She couldn’t fight off all three of the men without risking Sean getting hurt.

Even as she weaved a gap between the armpits of the men fighting her, the information kept coming to her. These men knew they couldn’t kill her intellectually, but kept fighting and stabbing her in a mixture of panic and anger. She just had to do something to turn that panic into outright fear and make them run. If they all attacked Sean at once then she wouldn’t be able to save him.

She had to give them their monster. No matter how horrible Little Emily would feel about it afterward. It had to be done to save Sean. Emily’s body collided with the man standing over Sean in a flying tackle and she knocked the man to the floor.

Emily brought her hand up and stiffened it so her fingers were forward and rigid like a spear as she straddled the man squirming on the ground below her and slicing at her desperately with his knife to no effect.

Emily’s hand speared downwards into the space directly below his ribs and pointed upwards.

Her fingers broke, and her eyes teared up slightly from the pain even as she felt her fingers regenerate… within the man’s body.

The man screamed as Emily curled her fingers and grabbed a hold of his lower rib in her fist buried in his body.

Emily felt the two other men approaching from behind her, ready to attack her from behind. She had to delay them long enough to scare them off.

Emily leaned over the man underneath her who sliced a cut across her cheek with a wild swipe of his knife that healed almost immediately.

“RaaAAAAhhHHHhhhhaaAAAAA!!!!” Emily screamed at the top of her lungs in her warbling and distorted voice as her arm and shoulders heaved and she ripped the man’s rib right out of his body with her strength. Or at least snapped it in half and tore out the portion of the bone that she had been holding. In an explosion of gore, the bone was pulled from the bloody hole in the man’s body.

The footsteps from the two men behind her stopped. Emily plunged her other hand in the hole and gripped the rib on the other side. With a loud crack of bone she ripped open and cracked the next rib to peel it open. One more time she did it and reached inside and felt something twitching and squishy inside the cavity. With a firm grip on the slippery object and another primal scream, Emily gripped the man’s heart and tore it directly out of his chest.

Her arm was soaked in blood as she turned to the two men standing behind her, close to Sean. Far too close to Sean. One wrong move, and they would kill him…

But their eyes were filled with terror as Emily’s body stared at them.

“RaaahhHHHhhhhaaaaAAA!!!” Emily screamed again in her warbling tone and drew back the heart held in her hand and threw it towards the closest man, who ducked to dodge the lump of flesh. Emily stood to her feet and took a single step towards the men and carefully didn’t look at Sean as she stared them down.

Their resolve broke first.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” one of the men said before turning and running full force with a limp away and out the door as quickly as he could. The other man followed his example and fled as well, not even glancing behind them as they fled full speed away from the monster behind them.

Emily watched them go and walked over to the front door and shut it behind them, and locked it with a loud click.

She turned and rushed back to Sean and ran her hands over him to check his wounds. At some point he’d slumped over unconscious and slid down to the side to the ground. But his wounds looked fine, he would make it.

Little Emily would be able to take care of him.

Emily reached out a hand and palmed Sean’s cheek gently and a softness came into her eyes for a moment. One last moment with him, she'd thought that she'd never see his face again. Her blood soaked hand left a large red splotch on his cheek where she touched him and she drew her hand back.

“SaVed him, sAved him, sAved him, sAved him,” Emily said rhythmically as her body fell to the side and started twitching uncontrollably with her cheek pressed to the floor and her eyes open and staring sightlessly at the wooden cabinet in front of her.

“SavEd Him. Guided.”

Emily the ghost of the distant future guiding her past self’s actions closed her eyes, the final image of the slack face of the unconscious Sean flitting through her mind as she returned to the observer rather than the actor.

— — —

Emily opened her eyes, her head pounding with her cheek pressed to the cold floor. She immediately noticed that Sean was lying there unconscious a few feet away from her and slumped to the side as well.

She immediately rolled over and crawled over to check on him to make sure that he was okay. He was bruised and had a few small cuts on his neck. And a large nasty one across his cheek. But they weren’t bleeding anymore, and his breathing was even and steady. He would probably be fine. She took a shaking breath of relief, all her stress releasing her like a deflating balloon and she sagged to the ground as if all strength had left her even as she kept a grip on Sean’s shoulder and lay next to him on the ground.

Emily looked around now that she was sure that Sean was okay. She yelped as she saw that there were two bloody bodies visible. One only a few feet away and another by the door. The one nearest to them was mutilated, a big bloody hole in its chest and a few fragments of what looked like bone on the floor next to it.

Emily looked between her hands and arms coated and blood and the dead body. Had… had she done that? Had whatever happened with those infected men happened here again too? Emily knew that she should feel horrible right now as she stared at the two dead bodies. But she turned back to Sean and studied his sleeping face for a few seconds.

Sean was okay, and that was all that mattered. So long as she never hurt him and he was safe, everything would be fine. Even if she went crazy in the meantime.

Sean was all that she had left in the world. Just the two of them.

Emily hugged Sean’s unconscious body and started to cry.

As long as he was safe, none of the rest of it mattered.