The three of them tumbled down the last of the slope as the sound of distant thunder finally reached them. The clouds overhead seemed to race away from the blasts, pushed aside by an unnatural wind. The undersides of the clouds strobed and flashed as if more strikes of lightning were hitting, more bombs detonating. Down by the stage, people weren’t running to escape the bowl—they were instead running into the tents, guided by volunteers with waving arms, the markets and food stalls clearing out, the rows of wooden chairs now a heaped and upturned tangle, a dog still tied to a post, barking.
Some people still seemed to be aware, to have their faculties intact. Anna was one of them. Donald saw the Senator by a smaller tent coordinating the flow of traffic. Where was everyone going? Donald felt empty as he was ushered along with the others. It took long moments for his brain to process what he’d seen. Nuclear blasts. The live view of what had forever been resigned to grainy wartime video. Real bombs going off in the real air. Nearby. He had seen them. Why wasn’t he completely blind? Was that even what happened?
The raw fear of death overtook him. Donald knew, in some recess of his mind, that they were all dead. The end of all things was coming. There was no outrunning it. No hiding. Paragraphs from a book he’d read came to mind, thousands of memorized paragraphs. He patted his pants for his pills, but they weren’t there. Looking over his shoulder, he fought to remember what he’d left behind—
Anna and his sister pulled him past the Senator, who wore a hard scowl of determination, who frowned at his daughter. The tent flap brushed Donald’s face, the darkness within interspersed with a few hanging lights. The spots in his vision from the blasts made themselves known in the blackness. There was a crush of people, but not as many as there should’ve been. Where were the crowds? It didn’t make sense until he found himself shuffling downward.
A concrete ramp, bodies on all sides, shoulders jostling, people wheezing, yelling for one another, hands outstretched as the flowing crush drove loved ones away, husband and wife separated, some people crying, some perfectly poised—
Husband and wife.
Helen!
Donald yelled her name over the crowd. He turned and tried to swim against the flowing torrent of the frightened mob. Anna and his sister pulled on him. People fighting to get below pushed from above. Donald was forced downwards, into the depths. He wanted to go under with his wife. He wanted to drown with her.
“Helen!”
Oh, God, he remembered.
He remembered what he had left behind.
Panic subsided and fear took its place. He could see. His vision had cleared. But he could not fight the push of the inevitable.
Donald remembered a conversation with the Senator about how it would all end. There was an electricity in the air, the taste of dead metal on his tongue, a white mist rising around him. He remembered most of a book. He knew what this was, what was happening.
His world was gone.
A new one swallowed him.
Second Shift
Order
24
Troy startled awake from a series of terrible dreams. The world was on fire, and the people who had been sent to extinguish it were all asleep. Asleep and frozen stiff, smoking matches still in their hands, wisps and gray curls of evil deeds.
He had been buried, was enveloped in darkness, could feel the tight walls of his small coffin hemming him in.
Dark shapes moved beyond the frosted glass, the men with their shovels trying to free him.
Troy’s eyelids seemed to rip and crack as he fought to open them fully. There was crust in the corners of his eyes, melting frost coursing down his cheek. He tried to lift his arms to wipe it away, but they responded feebly. An IV tugged at his wrist as he managed to raise one hand. He was aware of his catheter. Every inch of his body tingled as he emerged from the numbness and into the cold.
The lid popped with a hiss of air. There was a crack of light to his side that grew as the shadows folded away.
A doctor and his assistant reached in to tend to him. Troy tried to speak but could only cough. They helped him up, brought him the bitter drink. Swallowing took effort. His hands were so weak, arms trembling, that they had to help him with the cup. The taste on his tongue was metallic. It tasted like death.
“Easy,” they said when he tried to drink too fast. Tubes and IVs were carefully removed by expert hands, pressure applied, gauze taped to frigid skin. There was a paper gown.
“What year?” he asked, his voice a dry rasp.
“It’s early,” the doctor said, a different doctor. Troy blinked against the harsh lights, didn’t recognize either man tending to him. The sea of coffins around him remained a hazy blur.
“Take your time,” the assistant said, tilting the cup.
Troy managed a few sips. He felt worse than last time. It had been longer. The cold was deep within his bones. He remembered that his name wasn’t Troy. He was supposed to be dead. Part of him regretted being disturbed. Another part hoped he had slept through the worst of it.
“Sir, we’re sorry to wake you, but we need your help.”
“Your report—”
Two men were talking at once.
“Another silo is having problems, sir. Silo Eighteen—”
Pills were produced. Troy waved them away. He no longer wished to take them.
The doctor hesitated; the two capsules rested in his palm. He turned to consult with someone else, a third man. Troy tried to blink the world into focus. Something was said. Fingers curled around the pills, filling him with relief.
They helped him up, had a wheelchair waiting. A man stood behind it, his hair as stark white as his coveralls, his square jaw and iron frame familiar. Troy recognized him. This was the man who woke the freezing.
Another sip of water as he leaned against the pod, knees trembling from being weak and cold.
“What about Silo Eighteen?” Troy whispered the question as the cup was lowered.
The doctor frowned and said nothing. The man behind the wheelchair studied him intently.
“I know you,” Troy said.
The man in white nodded. The wheelchair was waiting for Troy. Troy felt his stomach twist as dormant parts of him stirred.
“You’re the Thaw Man,” he said, even though this didn’t sound quite right.
The paper gown was warm. It rustled as his arms were guided through the sleeves. The men working on him were nervous. They chattered back and forth, one of them saying a silo was falling, the other that they needed his help. Troy cared only about the man in white. They helped him toward the wheelchair.
“Is it over?” he asked. He watched the colorless man, his vision clearing, his voice growing stronger. He dearly hoped that he had slept through it all.
The Thaw Man shook his head sadly as Troy was lowered into the chair.
“I’m afraid, son,” a familiar voice said, “that it’s only begun.”
25
Deathdays were birthdays. That’s what they said to ease their pain, those who were left behind. An old man dies and a lottery is won. Children weep while hopeful parents cry tears of joy. Deathdays were birthdays, and no one knew this better than Mission Jones.
Tomorrow was his seventeenth. Tomorrow, he would grow a year older. It would also mark seventeen years to the day since his mother died.
The cycle of life was everywhere—it wrapped around all things like the great spiral staircase—but nowhere was it more evident, nowhere could it be seen so clearly that a life given was one taken away, than in him. And so Mission approached his birthday without joy, with a heavy load on his young back, thinking on death and celebrating nothing.