Page 1 of Embers

1

Year One after Impact, Fall

The gunfireand screaming begin in the morning.

We don’t know what’s causing it, but Derek and I hunker down in the basement of his mom’s house as soon as we hear the faint sounds of violence. Maybe it’s another riot—with the meaner or more desperate folks fighting over what’s left of the town’s food and supplies. Or more likely it’s a gang of violent outsiders. They’ve started grouping up into larger packs, and they travel from town to town, killing and pillaging indiscriminately until every resource is devoured and nothing remains but smoldering rubble.

They haven’t hit our town yet. Maybe today is the day.

It’s been a year since Impact, since the asteroid slammed into Europe, decimating an entire continent and sending the whole planet into a downward spiral of famine, turmoil, and natural disaster.

My mom worked in a grocery store, and she died in a food riot before the asteroid even hit—trampled to death by a terrified crowd looting the store shelves—so I moved in with Derek and his mother. He was my boyfriend all through my sophomore year of high school and overnight became the only person I have left in the world.

By late afternoon, Derek and I have to make a choice. The brutal sounds have gotten worse. Louder. Closer. It can’t be a regular riot. Those have always petered out after a few hours.

It’s one of those gangs. They’re going to reach this house eventually. We’re on the outer edge of a small town in Kentucky but not far enough out that they might miss us.

“Maybe we can both fit in that crawl space.” Derek’s suggestion is the first either of us has spoken in hours.

“They’d find us. There isn’t a hiding place in this house that’s good enough to keep us safe.”

Derek nods, coughing in that stifled, choppy way he has, instinctively trying to keep the hacking quiet. “We’ll have to get out then. Go to my dad’s.”

I make a face although I’ve known he’d land on this option eventually. His father lives way out of town on a mountain. The gang would probably never find him since they stick to more populated areas where there are plenty of people and supplies to be plundered.

Derek’s relationship with his dad has always been conflicted. For the first eight years of his life, his mom wouldn’t even tell his father that she got pregnant and had a son, so he and his father never got close the way they might have otherwise. Derek still considers him family though.

I don’t like his dad. I never have. He scares me. He looks mean and rough. Like he belongs in one of those gangs himself.

“Rachel, please.” Derek is trying to speak through another coughing fit. “We have to. What other choice do we have?”

There is no other choice. I come to that conclusion almost immediately.

We can’t stay here. We’ll be killed or something worse when those monsters finally reach this house. We know a lot of folks in town, and some of them have gone out of their way to help us ever since Derek’s mother died last month and we were left on our own. But everyone else here will be running too, fighting to save themselves. I have no one, and Derek only has his father.

“Okay,” I say at last. “We need to leave now then. Right now.”

He’s already pushing himself to his feet. Derek has light brown hair and gentle brown eyes, and he was the only boy who ever really tried to get to know me. He’s coughing worse than ever as he stuffs our last three bottles of water and a sheath of stale crackers in an old backpack. I run to our bedrooms and grab several pairs of underwear for each of us and a couple of clean shirts. He adds his mom’s well-read Bible, and I find our flashlight and all the batteries we have left.

And that’s it. Other than the clothes we’re wearing, what’s in the bag are the only things of any value we have left in the world.

He arranges the straps on his shoulders and nods. “Okay. Ready.”

“We need to run until we’re away from town. Head for that old Exxon station, and we can pick up Wolf Creek Road there. That should lead us up to your dad.”

“Yep.”

“Are you going to be able to do it?”

His mother died from the lung disease that’s afflicting half the people we know from all the dust and debris in the air. I’m pretty sure Derek’s lungs are declining too. Every day his coughing gets worse.

He’s pale and already sweating. I’d offer to carry the backpack myself if it wouldn’t upset him. He gives me another nod. “Let’s go.”

So we do it. We run.

My mind is clouded with the bleak, surreal haze I’ve been existing in for almost a year as I accelerate. My feet hit the pavement steadily, and thick, dirty air blows into my face.

We only make it a block before three gross-looking guys roar up on loud, intimidating motorcycles. They aren’t from our town. I can see that immediately. They’re clearly part of the attacking gang, and they must have been on the prowl for stragglers.

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