Page 4 of Last Light

As soon as he’s far enough away, I pick up my bag, swing my leg over the seat of the motorcycle, and holster my gun. I rev the engine.

It’s still running just fine.

Some of the dirt and gravel flies up in a cloud of dust as I take off toward the road, leaving Travis and his shotgun and the last remnant of my town behind.

***

IT ONLY TOOK FOUR YEARSfor the whole world to fall apart.

I was sixteen when an asteroid slammed into Germany, the shock waves and blast debris decimating most of Western Europe. Astronomers saw it coming, but it wasn’t supposed to hit us. They talked about it, imagined scenarios of what would happen if it did. But it was all theoretical, and no one paid much attention.

Because it was supposed to pass us by, close but not close enough.

But scientists—everyone—learned a hard lesson about the universe’s unpredictability. The trajectory of the asteroid changed course just slightly. They realized it a couple of months before impact, but there was absolutely nothing we could do to stop a chunk of rock so large and moving so fast from doing exactly what it wanted.

It hit.

The asteroid wasn’t big enough for an extinction-level event. That’s what all the scientists said.

But it was worse than anyone could imagine.

The mass exodus from Europe in the two months before it hit disrupted the worldwide economy and stability as every developed country took in as many immigrants as they possibly could. The dust and debris that was thrown up from the impact caused global temperatures to cool and a haze to block much of the sunlight for almost a year.

And, if that wasn’t bad enough, the planet tried to fight back against the assault, throwing up devastating tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes on every continent.

In the US, we didn’t feel the immediate impact, but we sure as hell felt the aftermath. People fled from the coasts, moving in waves toward the middle of the country to escape the battering of one hurricane after another on the East Coast and the constant earthquakes on the West Coast.

Then the supervolcano under Yellowstone started to rumble. There was never a major eruption, but for two years it spit out cloud after cloud of ash.

The vast stretches of farmland in the middle of North America that might have barely survived the cooling temperatures and haze of dust were finished off by the ash.

There went our food.

Power, communication, and government went next.

People died. And kept dying.

In the last radio transmission I heard, they were estimating that the world population had been reduced by half.

I’m sure it’s been reduced a lot more by now.

Some people hid themselves away in bunkers, hoarding as much food and supplies as they could.

Some people gave up completely.

Some people joined up with others in roving mobs that became known as droves. Sometimes a thousand strong, they move over what’s left of our roadways with trucks and tanks and take everything they want, killing anyone who gets in their way.

My little town had a population of three thousand when I was sixteen.

By the time I turned seventeen, we were down to fifteen hundred because so many had moved away in fear of being too close to the coast or had joined survivalist and militia groups.

The people in Meadows who were left did everything they could. In the second year, when reports of droves laying waste to every community they encountered started becoming more common, the town leaders blew up the bridge over the river that was the main route into Meadows. The two other ways into town were winding mountain roads that were easily defended.

Most of the men in town and a good number of the women knew how to hunt, fish, and shoot. We partnered with some of the neighboring towns to maintain and guard the power plant, so we had electricity for months after most of the rest of the country went dark. Food was shared and rationed. Everyone tried to do their part. It still wasn’t enough.

A month ago, with animal populations decimated in the woods from changes to the environment and the river emptying of fish, most of the four hundred survivors in Meadows packed up and left for Fort Knox after hearing rumors that the Army base in Kentucky is guarded by what’s left of the military and is accepting refugees. The same was said about Fort Bragg down in South Carolina, but people were worried it was too close to the coast, so they chose to go to Fort Knox instead. The only ones who didn’t go were the people unwilling to leave loved ones who were too sick to travel.

That was me. I lost my grandfather when the power plant fell, and I wasn’t going to leave my grandmother. She begged me to go, but I wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Even though I knew the risks, I stayed with a couple dozen others, and we eked out a barren existence for a few weeks.

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