Snow billowed around the cave entrance, leaving glittering dust on the smooth floor. It was nearly dusk and there was only a few minutes of light left when Brian saw a figure coming up the wooded hill, slow and encumbered by something large on its back.

“Danny?” Brian called into the wind. His voice was whipped away and he was sure the figure could not hear him.

Brian was wrong, and a deep voice replied.“Leave the gates open, there’s more coming!” Brian turned and ran down the short cave entrance, slapping a red button that was haphazardly wired into the wall.

“Danny’s back with refugees!” he shouted into the intercom. “Gates open for another ten minutes, I need at least three–no, five swordsmen up here.”

“Copy that, Commander. Sending them now.” The tinny voice clicked off and Brian jogged back to the entrance of the shelter and shaded his brow, scanning the trees for friend and foe alike. Danny lumbered up the last of the small hill and Brian saw what he was carrying.

“Took it off a bleeder while they were trying to attack the new refugees.” He dropped three quarters of a huge deer and puffed in the chilly air, catching his breath.

“Your blood or the deer’s?” Brian asked, pointing to Danny’s incredibly wet shirt. It might have been white or grey at some point in its life. The brownish black it was now was the shade that most of their clothes were slowly becoming. Until they could scavenge more or find someone able to make new clothing, they just kept rewashing the disgusting garments and moving on. It was only one of several hundred concerns weighing Brian down.

“A little the deer’s. Mostly the bleeder’s.”

“Not a scratch on you?” Brian asked, impressed.

“No, commander, jealous?” Danny grinned through his thick black beard and rolled his head on his massive shoulders. At nearly seven feet, Danny was impressive. It was only those that took the time to get to know him that understood he was a soft man with a usually gentle demeanour. The Cataclysm changed a lot of people, though, and Danny was their best warrior and their best line of defence against the bleeders. For some reason, they stayed away from him and he often was the only one untouched by the bestial demons.

“Any comets while you were out there?” Brian scanned the stars just appearing along the edge of the cave entrance and frowned. It was cloudy which meant it was going to be darker out in the woods than usual.

Before Danny could answer, the gates behind the two men swung open and they could hear the clatter of steel. Five poorly armoured people came out single file, their hands on the hilts of their swords. The armour they wore was hodge-podge. Brian and Danny had outfitted their warriors with whatever they could find in the abandoned castles and defunct museums but it was ill fitting and most of them didn’t know how to wear it properly. Another concern to add to Brian’s never-ending list.

“Commander,” the first swordsman said quietly, raising his hand clumsily to an approximate salute. Brian shook his head and waved his hand down.

“Kid, just draw your sword and ready yourselves. We’re going to be beginning the inbound process for…” He turned to Danny. “How many?”

“Four. Three young adults and a really old lady.” Brian nodded.

“Right, let's go.” The group marched out of the cave to the sound of steel being drawn.

The first thing that Brian realised when he woke up the morning of the Cataclysm, was that it was dark outside for eight in the morning. The next was the screaming. His usually quiet neighbourhood was under siege, enormous rocks falling from the sky and bursting open to reveal two foot tall monstrosities, wicked teeth gleaming with venom. Their leathery wings made Brian think of bats…or demons. The small monster’s cackled with impish delight as they bit legs and tore at clothes.

Brian later nicknamed the small creatures imps and their larger cousins bleeders. They were five foot tall, wingless and bat-faced. They were the ones that actually tried to eat people, to drink their blood. They were mindless and they were deadly. Brian burned their bodies and ordered their heads all cut off. He was fairly sure they could heal after a time and eventually walk away from any damage. He hadn’t proved it yet, but the missing bodies seemed proof enough to Brian.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

That first morning of the Cataclysm, Brian learned a lot about himself. He always assumed he was a fairly boring man, single with no pets nor significant love interest. He worked his nine to five and drank beer on the weekends. He sometimes went out with friends, had occasional hookups. He was kind, patient, average intelligence, ok looking. But he learned he could lead a band of survivors. Brian was a survivor. He had an instinct that was neigh infallible and he trusted it with his life and everyone else’s.

Staring out of his eighth floor apartment window into the street below, watching this unbelievable massacre take place, Brian leapt into action. As the power flickered on and off, Brian packed a suitcase with his warmest clothes, his most versatile garments. He grabbed his duffel bag and stuffed it with all the non-perishables as quickly as possible. He also took his can-opener and several knives. As an afterthought, he took his first aid kit and a backpack full of two towels, toiletries, and a box of tissues.

Brian heard his neighbour two doors down shrieking and slammed his door shut, not bothering with the lock. When he got to Mrs. Angus’ door, he could tell it was too late for at least one of the occupants. Her small designer brand lapdog lay in two pieces, one half dangling from the jaws of the imp that managed to cackle maniacally around the grizzly capture.

“Down! Head down. Do not take the elevator. Just head down into the basement. We’ll head to the old bomb shelter.” And that sealed Brian’s fate as the commander of their small band of survivors.

Brian shook the memories away as the newest refugees traipsed tiredly up the crest.

“Stop, far enough.” Brian motioned for the swordsmen to advance before him and he saw them all subtly change into deadly warriors. No longer just gangly, starving teens, the five youth became liquid danger, survival having moulded them into their deadliest forms. The leader of the five swung his sword in a showy circle so fast it made a low whistle. Brian nodded to his protection.

“The swords are steel but I have them laced with silver. And I carry a gun with five silver tipped bullets.” He was always honest with his arsenal, upfront with any new survivors that wanted to be accepted into their ranks.

“Please, we just need to get away from the monsters,” their leader pleaded. He was a skinny young man, maybe twenty or so. Brian eyed him, checking for markings that could denote him as a threat. His eyes were shaded by the dark and a long black curtain of hair. Brian couldn’t see his neck where the veins of the infected often bulged purple and blue and grotesque. He took a deep breath in with his nose and did not smell sulphur. However, he did smell death and it made his skin crawl with goosebumps.

“I smell…” He trailed off, his eyes narrowing at the smallest form, bundled up so much it was impossible to make out gender or age. Danny nodded and pointed.

“I told you he’d ask you to remove your cowl.”

“Take off your hats, every one of you. And pull the hair off your faces. Jackets off and necks exposed.” Brian’s own body language had changed. Just as his swordsmen transformed into warriors, Brian morphed into a no-nonsense commander, his back straighter, his eyes harder. The four refugees hastened to follow instructions.

Their breaths puffed out in chilled clouds, the strangers were lined up as Brian slowly walked past each. His eyes flicked from their eyes first down to their necks and he leaned in to smell them. He jerked his head to Danny when each passed and they were allowed to line up behind the huge man. When he reached the smallest figure, the third in line, he stopped.

Her eyes were golden. Her hair was a mass of blackish curls and her skin was lacking any colour at all. Her neck was clear but she smelled decidedly of a corpse. He slowly took a step back and drew his pistol.

“Sir,” interrupted the fourth in line, the old woman. She put a hand out to him and swallowed. “We had to clothe her, she came to us in rags. All we had left were the clothes of the dead. She’s no deader, I promise you.” The old lady grinned up at him, her own pure blue eyes crinkly at the edges. Her missing teeth left huge gaps in her grin but Brian lowered his weapon.

“Her eyes,” he said, not putting away his gun.

“We noticed.” The old woman grinned again. “But others have changed since the Cataclysm.” Brian frowned. She wasn’t wrong. He had seen strange patches of colourful hair being brought into the world on newborns, but it often fell out within months. Then there was the strange skin condition that some children contracted, their skin becoming leathery for a few months then slowly softening back into a more human texture. And the last of the changes… Brian shuddered and shook his head. He would rather never see that again. It terrified him.

“How old are you?” Brian asked the golden-eyed girl.

“She doesn’t talk.” The old woman took the girl’s hand and gripped it protectively. “She came to us mute, wearing hardly anything, starving. She was nearly dead and we even started preparing a place to bury her. It took me weeks to nurse her back to health.”

“How did she find you?” Brian asked, his brow furrowing.

“I don’t know. She don’t talk, sir.”

“Right,” Brian agreed, his hand on his chin. He put his pistol back into his coat pocket and weighed his options. If he let the band in, anomaly included, he could be putting his small community at risk. But his gut said the four of them weren’t going to be any trouble. And Brian’s gut wasn’t often wrong.

“Fine, let’s go in.” As he turned to head back into the cave entrance, he saw the girl pulling the hood back on and wrapping her face in a thin black cloth, leaving only her eyes exposed. “What’s with the garb?”

“Her skin burns easily.” The old woman said. “Perhaps you noticed her albinism?”

“Right,” Brian said again. His gut gurgled a little and Brian put a hand to his stomach. He was hungry, his gut said, and his gut wasn’t often wrong.