Page 8 of Day Death (Brutes of Bristlebrook Trilogy)

Eden

I slip in and out of dreams.

I’m nestled in feather-soft beds. Walking through grand libraries. Sparring with roguish kings. Each time it changes, I’m secreted away somewhere magical. Somewhere safe. It’s warm in the otherworlds. I slip between misty fairylands and rest on quiet, stony riverbeds. They’re painted in rosy, cozy colors that make no sense, but they soothe me anyway.

But something always tugs me away.

The edges of my dreams are hazy, ephemeral. I want to clutch at the warm, pretty moments with both hands, but when I reach out, I only send them spinning.

They change as they spin.

Lurid. Dark. My dreams twist, coming in nightmarish flashes and screaming bursts as they turn and turn.

The spinning stops.

In a sharp flash, my peaceful riverbed runs red, and Henry stands over the severed head of a pig, his mouth painted crimson, his eyes blank. Blood leaks from the pig’s torn, gaping throat into the water. Sluggish red raindrops that drip.

And drip.

And drip.

My white face wavers over the blooming, bloodshot surface.

Drip .

My reflection ripples and suddenly corpse after bloated pig corpse is staring up at me in terror from under the water, their eyes screaming for help.

Drip .

The river ripples again and then the pigs have glasses. They have glasses and long, dark hair that bobs under the bloody waves. They’re not pigs at all. They’re... Oh God . They’re...

My ex-husband’s blank, dead stare turns my way.

Tears slip over my nose. Dawning, sucking horror holds me in place.

It’s too late.

Henry opens his mouth and it’s an empty cavern. A black and endless abyss. His eyes are stark and wide as he draws in a death-rattling breath, preparing to scream, and it sucks in the riverbed too. The world tilts— I tilt—and everything slides toward that mouth. Toward that gaping, infinite nothing.

I fall through my own reflection.

Muddy river water fills my veins. It gushes into my throat and streams through my nose. It leaks from my eyes until I can’t see. I can’t breathe. I’m going under, drowned and dying as I swirl into the dark.

Henry wails as he swallows me. He wails and wails and?—

I clutch my throat, gasping back a scream as I sit up.

It’s so black, so impossibly dark when I open my eyes that my first thought is that he consumed me whole. That I’ve been sucked away to nowhere.

I’m lost in nightmares.

But then I blink, then blink again, disoriented in time and space. Slowly, the screaming changes, becomes something human and mundane. A siren, and then another, wailing into the night. People laying on their horns like it’s the solution to their problems.

My next breath in is shivery and calming. The sheen of pungent, terrified sweat cools on my skin. The earthy decay of river water is gone, and sweet air fills me in a steady, freeing rhythm.

I’m okay.

The siren wails again, and I sink back into my pillow, trying to bury the sound, but the tin-thin walls weren’t built to keep it out. Or the cold. Or the wet, for that matter, if the budding mold in my kitchen is any indication.

There’s a thud outside my door, a hurried clatter of boots. More arguments and shouting. It’s the usual mess of my neighbors, but it’s late, even for them. I rub my hand over my gritty eyes.

For a sleepy moment, I almost call out to Gran to find out what’s happening—she’s terribly nosy, so she’s likely already at the window with the curtains cracked, making notes for Sunday’s after-church brunch gossip—but when I drowsily sit up, I’m not in our trailer.

Shadows claw their way toward my bed.

My pulse starts to race again, and a book slips off my pillow, snapping shut with a clarifying clap . I blink down at it.

The savaged head of a bloody pig stares accusingly back at me.

I flinch.

My heart patters uncomfortably as I stare at the illustration, remembering conches and fires and woodland glades. Words. They’re just words on a page. Sure, they might inspire change—or nightmares—but they can’t hurt me. Not now. Not directly.

But deep, primal dread still clings to me, cobwebbing my usual rationality. It’s too late to be awake. The room’s shadows warp and every sound is a threat.

Nothing feels safe when you’re alone in the dark.

It’s a long, slow moment before I pick up the book. The second-hand copy of Lord of the Flies is tattered and worn, its cover a grisly homage to my dream.

Uneasiness unfurling in my stomach, I slap it face-down on the bed.

Eden, you’re being ridiculous.

It’s just a room, and it’s just a book.

Something slams against my door, and I scream.

That was not just a book.

No. No, no, no. Not tonight.

Fumbling at my side table, I grab my glasses and shove them on. The awful, stretching shadows become edged, real, and slowly, my grip on my bedsheets eases.

There’s nothing deadly here, right? It’s just the same worn, empty studio I fell asleep in. It’s safe. It’s fine. All predictably ordinary.

I pull my covers up to my chin.

My ordinary lawyer’s bills are still strewn across the table. My ordinary divorce certificate is out, so I could fill out my ordinary name change application. My ordinary work schedule hangs on my fridge, with only half the ordinary shifts I need to work to make rent. The ordinary photo of my gran sits by my bedside, her favorite cross necklace hanging from its frame. And there’s no point in calling out to her to ask her for gossip, because she died two years ago, in a very ordinary way.

There’s nothing preternatural coming to get me.

Another thud echoes in the hall, then a clatter in the stairwell... and my stomach flips squeamishly.

Not ordinary. That was not ordinary.

I throw my covers back, and edge out of bed, staring at my door.

“Hello?” I call out—and immediately wince at the tremor in my voice.

Brilliant. Wonderful. Why not just announce that you’re prey next time?

“Come on in, Mr. Murderer, sir. Oh no, I’m entirely alone—and entirely lacking a social life. It’ll be days before anyone thinks to look for my cold, dismembered corpse .”

But no one answers my tentative question.

I shift my weight from foot to foot, unsure what to do. I wonder, briefly, whether I should call the police, but dismiss the idea almost as soon as it comes. I’ve called them far too many times from my old trailer—after listening to my neighbors’ fights take on the kind of drunken ferocity that chills me to my bone—only for no one to show up. Maybe it would be different here, now that I’m no longer living in that trailer park... but I still don’t think my neighborhood is wealthy enough for quick justice.

Car horns blare from the street outside, and I jump at those too, the realization that something is happening finally catching up with my sleepy brain. It shouldn’t be this loud. Not at this time of night. Not here.

My door bangs again, and I bend down to pick up the baseball bat tucked under my bed. My trembling hands sweat around the rubber grip, but I cling to it for dear life as I creep toward the door.

Is it a raid? Someone cooking up something they shouldn’t? Or maybe there’s an event on, somewhere, that I didn’t know about. At night. On the edge of town.

No, don’t be stupid, Eden. That’s ridiculous.

It’s definitely a demon.

Oh no, I never had the depth perception for baseball. I know how to use this bat about as well as I know how to load a bazooka.

Holding my breath, I peer through my peephole, half-sure I’m going to see an eye staring back.

I don’t, but what I do see is just as concerning.

I open my door, frowning. “Mr. Flores? Is everything okay?”

He spins on the too-dark stairs, his eyes wide, and his enormous suitcase smacks against the railing. “Mrs. Hargreaves? What are you still doing here?”

“Oh, well, it’s Ms. Anderson now. Can I ask, what are you?—”

“You need to leave. Now!” Sweaty, panting heavily, my next-door neighbor stares at me, seemingly panicked. “You haven’t heard the broadcast?”

My uneasiness returns with a vengeance. “What broadcast?”

“What—?!” The sharp, abrupt pitch of his voice makes me flinch, and he stops, shaking his head like he doesn’t know where to start. He swallows. “We’ve been attacked. Nuclear. Cities, Eden. So many cities. I . . .”

“Julian?” a woman shouts from downstairs, her voice anxious, and Mr. Flores looks down the stairwell urgently.

My stomach crawls into my throat, lumpy and full of bile. My thoughts are sluggish and unhelpful. “I’m sorry, what do you . . .?” I stare at him. Confused, I lift my hand to my messy sleep-mussed hair—until I remember I’m still holding the bat. I lower it. “ Which cities? By who ? Why would they. . .”

“Julian, we need to go ! They’re putting up roadblocks.”

I stare at the shadowy stairwell, my breathing starting to come in panicky hitches. It’s Nadine. Mrs. Flores. She leaves empanadas on my front doorstep in exchange for cookies. She’s usually so soft spoken, but that...

The bat falls from my numb hands.

Mr. Flores shakes his dark, curly head, edging backward. “Not Harlow. Not yet. I’m sorry, I can’t?—”

“Julian!”

He sighs, rough and rattled. My gaze swings wildly between him and the stairwell. The noises outside are growing, crashing together in a sea of desolate fear and angry desperation.

“You should go. Be with your people, your family. Just find a radio. Listen to the cities, I?—”

“But I . . . I . . . don’t have any people,” I stammer, bewildered.

“Julian, now !”

Mr. Flores swallows, then looks at me pleadingly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He backs down the stairs, dragging his suitcase. It smacks on every step.

He’s sorry ?

Fear clutches my gut, and I rush toward the staircase, bending over it to plead down at him. “No, wait. Please. Please wait. Don’t leave me. Please, just wait.”

But he doesn’t stop moving. Every crashing step stokes my alarm. My thoughts are coming in dizzying, panicky swirls.

Attack. Nuclear.

I grip the railing, and my terror rips free. “What am I meant to do ?”

My shout echoes through the empty halls.

He finally stops in the stairwell, half lost to the shadows, and his face crumples.

When he finally looks up at me, there’s a wet shine to his dark, guilty eyes that chills me to my marrow.

“I can’t help you, I’m sorry.”

He disappears into the darkness.

And leaves me alone.

I stagger back into my apartment, stumbling over the bat. I grab it as I step inside and slam my door shut against the lightless hall.

Attack. Nuclear.

He’s not . . .

That can’t be . . .

Another car screams outside my window and it’s too dark . I flick on my apartment light, but the bulb doesn’t obey. I flip it up and down again with more urgency, but there’s not so much as a flicker, and I slam my shaking hand against it.

No .

Storming to the window, I fling open the curtains.

Up and down the street, as far as I can see, taillights glow in infernal orange and red, headlights glare in medicinal white. Cars kiss each other, bumper to bumper, flooding both lanes of traffic, moving in a glacial crawl.

My unwilling gaze tracks the long, stretching lines of cars.

On, and on, and on.

They’re fleeing town.

I bend over, trying to breathe as the sounds of car horns swamp me. People shouting. Doors slamming.

Attack. Nuclear.

Dread swamps me. Rushes into my nose and chokes my throat like nightmares and river water. Get a radio, he said, but I don’t have a radio. This can’t be real. It’s something else, something.. . something ordinary .

Rushing to my bedside, I clutch at my phone. I don’t have anyone to call—I have exactly three contacts on my phone, and I doubt my lawyer, my manager at the library, or my old college study group organizer will answer me right now—but if I can just search , get some information, then maybe.. .

There’s a single unread message on my phone.

It takes my clammy, quaking thumb two tries to open it.

This is a message from the Federal Emergency Management Agency: nuclear detonations have occurred in multiple locations across the country. To protect yourself and your family, get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned for more information. Move to the lowest level and most interior portion of the building if possible. Follow instructions from officials—this can save your life. Martial law is now in place.

I freeze.

I read it again. The message doesn’t change, but I try twice more for good measure. I half shake my head, like the silent denial will change the words on my screen.

No. No, this is a bad joke. AI nonsense, or some scam or troll or... or something .

My stomach turns jittery, fizzling. This isn’t right.

Pulling up social media, I search nuclear strike USA , but my feed doesn’t populate, and it only takes me a single, sick-stomached moment to realize I don’t have a signal.

I have no Wi-Fi at all. No power. No cell service. No news.

My vision blurs. What... do I do? Even if I leave town, I don’t have anywhere to go . No long-lost aunts with summer homes or ride-or-die besties who would take me in.

My hollow, empty studio mocks me. My divorce papers. Mrs. Flores’s empanadas.

The dried, lonely tears still clinging to my pillow.

I . . . I don’t have anyone .

They all left me alone.

Oh God, how do I . . .? What am I meant to . . .?

There’s a sharp, rapid burst of gunfire outside my window, and I jump back from it, trying not to hyperventilate.

Panic has me by the throat as I snatch up a backpack and start stuffing it with clothes. Essentials only. Warm clothes. Clothes I can move in.

My terror is clouding my thoughts, but I need to think. Nuclear and attack are too big for me to handle right now, so I try something smaller. The immediate problem. The immediate solutions.

What do I need? Where did I last see it? Will it fit in my bag?

Supplies join the clothes in the backpack. Cans. Pouches. Bars. Foods that last. Nothing too heavy. A lighter. Water bottle. First aid kit. Flashlight. My empty apartment taunts me with its miserable lack of guns and toilet paper.

I don’t have anywhere near enough toilet paper for an apocalypse.

I shove a few rolls in anyway.

Every immediate solution is another breath. Another salve against my raw, throbbing panic. But one question storms past all my attempts at calm.

Where do I go? Where do I go? Where do I go?

There’s another burst of gunshots outside, and I jump, my glasses slipping down. A sob escapes me, but I rip off my pajamas and get dressed. I pointedly ignore how worn through the soles are on my threadbare boots as I shove them on. They’re the most comfortable shoes I own, and I have no choice.

Where do I go?

I leap to my feet. Right now, it doesn’t matter where I go, as long as it’s not here.

I just need to find the next safe place.

Glass shatters, too close, and I pause, wavering as I haul my heavy backpack over my shoulders.

Was that the store downstairs?

Dread creeps in alongside my panic. I’ve seen looting before, and this hot, nervy restlessness is too familiar. I need to get out before it gets out of control.

I scan my tiny, cramped studio for anything I’ve missed in my packing, and it hits me that this could be the last time I see it. It’s not much, but it was never as bad as Henry made it out to be. It was safe enough. Comfortable. Not too far from the library. As far as places go, I’ve certainly lived in worse.

It could have been a home, if he’d let it be.

My chest aches.

I haven’t packed sentimentally. I don’t have many items I feel sentimental about , but I still find my gaze pausing on my grandmother’s photo.

She stands beside me at my high school graduation in a military-tight bun and her Sunday best, her gaze slightly off center. Her necklace—a dark red stone cross—sits neatly around her neck.

The same necklace dangles from the photo frame.

Another gun fires outside, and I kick myself for delaying. The frame itself is too big to be practical, but...

On instinct, I pick up the necklace, and the chain links slide between my fingers as I slip it over my head, then tuck it under my shirt.

I’m not really sure why I do it. The stone is chipped. Cheap. Hardly imbued with the power of Christ or protective strength, as my grandmother believed.

But right now, when being alone suddenly feels terrifying... I want it with me.

A reminder of the only family I ever had, pressed close against my chest.

Cold, numb with fear, I pick up the baseball bat.

And, with gunfire and carnage raging behind me, I leave my past behind.

I fly down concrete steps and burst out onto the pavement.

And into anarchy.

People are pouring out of cars and onto the road. Parents are running with their children in their arms, away from the gunfire, small bags in tow. There’s a young blonde woman ducked down beside her car door, frantically repacking the contents of her suitcase into a backpack. A skinny man is standing in his trailer among cases of bottled water and heavy gas canisters, pointing his gun at a small pack of encroaching men. An American flag billows from the back of a truck behind him.

The auto parts store is busted open, and Arnie’s newly stenciled window lies in a thousand shards on the sidewalk. I back away from it, my throat raw at the sight.

It shouldn’t matter. Not now.

But he was so proud of that window.

“ You fucking move! I’m blocked in—go left!” someone yells, and I pivot to keep them in sight, only for another stream of curses to burst behind me. A shot.

The sounds are too loud, and they come from all sides. Horns and shots and shouting.

A murky, lumbering figure climbs out of Arnie’s store, a car battery under one arm and oil under the other. There’s no overhead halo of streetlights, so I can’t make out his features as he turns to me.

Only his eyes gleam in the dark.

Not safe, not safe, not safe.

Scrambling, I take off down a side street. My backpack strains my shoulders and slams against my lower back as I run, but I don’t care. I turn through alleys and streets, darting away from every shout and gun muzzle and panicked face I can see.

I need to get to . . . to . . .

I stagger out onto another street by the town square, and I bend over, gasping for air for an entirely different reason.

Oh no. Not good. I have not done enough cardio to handle an apocalypse.

My glasses drop off my face, and I swipe them back up with a scowl, straightening as I pant.

Cheap backup glasses a size too large are also not ideal. Noted. Wonderful.

Maybe I’ll write a book— How to Survive a Nuclear War: A Librarian’s Guide to Not Being a Useless Sack of Potatoes . At this point, I’m learning by failing. If I survive, I might actually have some good content.

Hidden in the shadows, I rest one hand against the brick and take in the town square.

It’s quieter here, and it looks . . . different.

People are moving, moving fast, but this time, they’re all heading in one direction, and it isn’t out of town. Holding a flashlight that glows like a beacon, a sheriff’s deputy is walking the line, beckoning people and pointing them north.

I frown, trying to remember what lies north. The library, of course. The bank. There’s a supermarket that takes up two whole blocks and the high school sits behind it. The hospital is northwest—could that be it?

A family passes through the deputy’s protective nimbus. An elderly couple. He puts the flashlight down briefly to help a man in a wheelchair down several stairs before he picks it up again.

Watching, I waver, anxiety still squeezing from my pores.

No, stop being hysterical, Eden.

This makes sense. This is what law enforcement is here for. County sheriffs and deputized police, they get manuals on this sort of thing, right? Training? They’ll have rules and resources, probably, and information. I can’t make good decisions without information now, can I?

I ignore the voice in me that questions whether it matters—the who and the why. Whether more information really will do me any good at all. Whether there really is any adequate response to a nuclear war , or how local law enforcement could possibly do anything at all to keep us safe from that kind of attack.

It doesn’t matter to me who is trying to kill us.

All I care about is who is most likely to keep me alive.

So, it makes sense. I should follow the herd. There is nothing wrong with herds. That’s how animals keep safe, isn’t it? They let many eyes and many ears keep the majority safe?

Only.. . it’s not really my herd.

A man tugs a woman to a halt. Caught in the deputy’s light, he bends down to tie up her shoelaces, and she rolls her eyes with a huffed, emotional laugh that catches me in the chest. When he stands, she melts into his side as they hurry into the night.

I swallow as the shadows press around me.

My lower lip begins to waver as loneliness fills my throat. Looking down, I check my shoelaces and, through a damp blur, and I see they’re undone on one side. They’re undone, and I’m going to trip and fall and no one is going to help me up. No one is going to watch my back if there’s danger. No one cares if I live or die or become fodder for another man’s war.

Is it too much, to wish for more?

To want someone . . . kind ?

Gran’s necklace slides against my skin, and I grab hold of it under my shirt. It’s cool and steadying as reason through my fear.

It’s just adrenaline. You’re okay. It will be okay. Just... just solve the next problem.

I kneel and tie up my shoelaces with shaking hands.

It makes the perfect bow.

Okay. So I don’t have my own herd, so what? I have eyes. Mildly ineffective ones, true, but they work. I’ll just... I’ll just watch out for myself. It might even be easier, not worrying about anyone else.

I can do this. I can be logical.

If the officials are saying we should go this way, then I should take their advice.

My shoulders firming, I stride toward the deputy, falling in among the other people as they move through the gloomy streets. He smiles at me as I pass him, giving me a small nod that shouldn’t feel as reassuring as it does.

“To the high school football field, ma’am. We’re setting up an evacuation point,” he tells me, and his voice is as much of a balm as the light from his flashlight, calm and easy. He flips it casually.

My chest tightens, fills with poisoned, bittersweet hope.

Maybe it will be fine.

He’s lustrous, his features vague and angelic under his guiding light, and I smile back. Awkwardly, I tuck my bat behind me.

Can I get in trouble for that?

“Thank you, deputy.”

They have this.

Something happened, and it was unexpected, and people are naturally reacting out of fear, but they have this. They’re trained and ready and capable, and I need to stop letting my past dictate my actions, because it’s going to get me killed.

I can trust them.

I can trust them to keep me safe.

I can still hear the distant screech of wheels and the patter of gunfire, but it feels far away now, and the trudge toward the high school is eerily familiar. I walk the same way to work most days. Over these steps and into that post office to mail letters. But it’s different in the swampy night, when the clap of footsteps feels thunderous and thick, anxious sweat sours the alley airways.

It’s like whispering through a jungle to avoid predators.

Only the trees are buildings, and the prowling predators are strange and unknowable. Faceless creatures with their hands on triggers half a world away.

The deputy’s light finally falls out of sight, eclipsed by buildings and bodies, and I wait for another beacon to appear, for the next official to usher us on. .. but no one does.

It’s fine, I reason. More than okay. We’re only a mid-sized town. Our county is small, but our sheriff’s department still has other places to care for. Other towns to divide resources between. It makes sense that there aren’t many officers out. There are probably more at the evacuation point, preparing for our arrival. That’s all.

I glance up, hoping for starshine and moonlight, but the thick, smoggy clouds roll on, bitterly suffocating the light.

My backpack cuts harsh lines into my shoulders, and my back begins to ache, and I regret packing so much. It was alarmist, and likely unnecessary, I’m sure. Mr. Flores just startled me. Nuclear action is horrifying, but we have one of the largest militaries in the world—if someone bombed one or two of our cities, our government’s response will be prodigious.

I’m sure things will be tougher over the next few years, but there are systems in place for this. I’ll probably be back home and waiting things out in Harlow for a while.

We pass the bank, then my library, with its charming double doors, and shoulders begin to bump against mine. The crowd edges together against the oppressive dark like we truly are a herd, moving together toward safety.

Up ahead, noises are growing louder, more chaotic again in a way that has me tensing. The people around me start muttering, groaning to their friends and family members in bovine worry.

I stay quiet... but cautiously, I bring my bat around again, keeping my eyes scanning the dim streets around us.

We turn a corner, and the supermarket looms large, a swarming crowd of people in front of it. They push and shout and buzz with electric energy. Cars are parked haphazardly in the parking lot, on the street, diagonally over well-manicured gardens, abandoned without care. There are lights, too, but this time, it’s not the radiant halo of flashlights. The colors turn over the crowd like a warning and a promise, by turns ominous and hopeful.

Red, blue, red, blue.

Police.

My caution doesn’t shift, though several older women around me murmur their relief, and I slow my footsteps. There’s something about the people teeming around the supermarket, pressing against its doors that makes me adjust my backpack and stop.

That herd... doesn’t look like one I want to join.

A new sound—a megaphone, I think—crackles over the low roar.

“It is not safe to leave Harlow. I repeat, it is not safe to leave Harlow. Return to your vehicles. Please remain calm. Local enforcement is now working to redirect traffic. In the interest of public safety, roadblocks are being enforced. At the earliest opportunity, please return your vehicles home, then proceed to the evacuation point at the football field for further instructions. Looting will not be tolerated. Anyone who does not follow these instructions may face criminal charges.” There’s a brief silence, then, “It is not safe to leave Harlow. I repeat, it is not safe to leave Harlow. Return to your vehicles. Please remain calm. Local enforcement is now working to...”

The blaring voice continues its recitation, and my throat tightens as twin instincts war inside me.

I understand the need to follow a rule of law. I like rules, generally speaking. They make order from chaos. Provide stability, predictability , when everything becomes unpredictable. I even understand that it’s unsafe for people to be fleeing, congesting the roads and barreling headfirst into potentially deadly situations. And the deputy was kind. He was helping, and calm.

He had this.

So maybe it’s fine. I’m overreacting again.

I mean, no, talk of criminal charges and roadblocks isn’t exactly calming my agitated nerves. And yes, the feeling of being penned in makes me want to bolt free of my cage, but that’s natural for livestock. Which is what I want to be. Safe. In a group. It’s far better than trying to go this alone, with no information or skills or place to go.

Truly, they should call it alive -stock.

Really, the police are just like... shepherds.. . herding the flock. Ranchers, directing the herd.

My stomach churning, I let the crowd pass me.

So why can’t I shake the image of wolves biting at our ankles?

Apparently, I’m not the only one.

“Fuck you, and fuck your criminal charges!” a man shouts.

“Where the fuck do you get off?”

I’m jostled hard by a man from behind, and my glasses fall off again.