Cold Apocalypse: My Wife's Betrayal

The Fortress and the Fool

Money cannot buy happiness, but fifty million dollars can buy an impenetrable steel fortress that will keep the apocalypse locked outside.

Mr. Sterling was trembling so that his costly pen dropped out of his sweating fingers as he stood inside the First Imperial Bank. He looked at the obsidian-black Vance card, and then up at my cold, dead eyes. He didn't say another word. He merely typed wildly on his keyboard.

The transaction was done within ten minutes.

I didn't waste a single second. I left the bank and made three phone calls. The first was to an underground real estate broker who catered to paranoid billionaires. I bought, with thirty million dollars in liquid cash, Shelter 04 - a decommissioned, military-grade bunker buried deep beneath the industrial district of the city. It possessed five underground floors, titanium-alloy walls that were independent, and a geothermal generator. It was not on the grid at all.

The second one was to the biggest wholesale food distributor in the city.

I want it all, I said to the bewildered manager over the phone, and was driving towards the warehouse district in a rented truck. I want it to be delivered at the warehouse of the industrial district within the next two hours. It is late, the deal is off.

My new bunk-house was filling up at a great rate by noon. When the rest of the city was complaining about the chilly autumn breeze, I was paying double wages to workers to stack crates of premium meat into huge walk-in freezers. I purchased three complete pharmacies of antibiotics, painkillers, and surgical supplies. I went to a black-market contact I remembered in my past life and spent five million dollars on tactical equipment: reinforced Kevlar suits, compound crossbows, silent hunting knives, and a small arsenal of firearms.

In my previous life, I was starving to get one crumb of stale bread. In this life, I had sufficient high-quality food to supply an army with ten years of food.

As I was getting my kingdom in order, halfway through the city, Elena was getting her first taste of reality.

When Elena is standing in front of an ATM outside a luxury mall, she is furiously tapping the screen. She had on her designer coat, and Marcus was standing idly next to her, smoking a cigarette.

I can’t believe that loser actually walked out, scoffed Elena, sliding my old, battered debit card into the machine. "He thinks he's a man now? Whatever. I will only drain his account, buy him those winter boots, and leave him starving in the streets for a few days. He will come crawling back, crying just like he always does.

She typed in the PIN. The screen took another moment to load before blinking a bright red message:

ERROR. ACCOUNT CLOSED. BALANCE: $0.00.

Elena blinked. She pulled the card out and wiped the chip, her face going pale. She pushed it back in and attempted the joint savings account where they kept the rent money.

ERROR. ACCOUNT CLOSED.

"What is this?" Elena screamed, knocking on the side of the ATM. "Marcus, the machine is broken! It says zero!"

Marcus scowled and disposed of his cigarette. "Are you sure you used the right PIN? Perhaps the dog had finally developed a spine and shifted the rent money."

He has no spine! Elena screamed and took out her phone, dialing me. Without me, he is nothing! He is dependent on me in all respects!

She called me, but the voice robot immediately informed her that the line was not connected. I had hours before, thrown my old phone into a river. Elena was standing in the cold wind, with her empty wallet in her hand. The illusion of her control was disintegrating, the first time in three years. She had no money, rent was tomorrow, and the man she had treated like a slave had disappeared into thin air.

Forget him, babe," Marcus said, and threw an arm around her waist, but his eyes were a little nervous. We will see. We just go back to the apartment. It is getting freezing out here.

Marcus was correct in one aspect. It was getting freezing.

I was at the door of my steel bunker, gazing up at the sky. It was early, only 3:00 PM, but the sun had disappeared behind huge, unnatural black clouds. The cold front had been forecast to strike in three days in the news. But already my breath was becoming thick white mist in the air.

The clock was moving, I knew, a shiver of adrenaline running down my spine. The end of the world is not happening on the third day. It's coming tonight.

In a few seconds the temperature gauge on the outer wall of my bunker fell ten degrees in a few seconds. A bitter, wailing wind swept across the industrial district, bringing the first snowflakes. But the snow wasn't white. It was sickly, pale blue in color.

The freeze was hastening. There was but one thing left to do.

I leaped into an all-terrain, heavily armored SUV, which I had purchased earlier, and threw on the gas. The huge tires squeaked on the asphalt as I rushed toward the university area of the city.

I had abandoned my useless wife. I had left the rotten Vance family. But in this world, there was one man whom I would burn the city down to save him.

Maya. My eighteen-year-old sister.

In my past life, I was too weak. I had faith in Elena to bring food to Maya's dorm as I went out scavenging. Elena stored the food for Marcus, and Maya froze to death in her bed, holding a picture of us. The memory was like a knife that was twisting in my heart. Never again.

I went off-road with the big SUV and ended up on the university campus. The students were already panicking. The extreme and abrupt decrease in temperature was creating havoc. Windows were cracking from the cold. People were falling on the immediately freezing sidewalks, in thin autumn jackets, which did not offer a single bit of protection.

I slammed the brakes in front of Maya's dormitory. I jumped out of the truck, the wind stinging my face.

"Kaelen!"

I spun around. Maya was standing on the steps of the dorm, shivering violently. She had on a thin cardigan, her lips already turning a thin shade of blue.

"Maya!" I ran up and took her, immediately throwing a heavy, thermal-lined, tactical jacket over her shoulders. "Get in the truck. Now. Don't ask questions."

What is going on, Kaelen, what is going on? stuttered, with her teeth chattering. "It's so cold... the news didn't say..."

Nothing does the news know anything, I said, and I pushed her to the armored passenger door. "We are leaving."

My hand was on the door handle when a horrible CRACK resounded in the courtyard.

I stopped. The panicked screaming of the students suddenly went dead silent.

A huge stray dog, writhing on the frozen grass, was fifty feet away, near the campus fountain. But it was not only freezing to death. Its bones were breaking and regrowing. The blue ice sprang up in thick, razor-sharp spikes along its spine. The skin of the dog ripped open, exposing mutated and pulsing muscles. Its jaw opened, and it sank to its chest, as rows of jagged, shark-like teeth forced their way out of its gums.

The first Frost-Hound. The beasts had arrived.

The genetically altered monster ceased twitching. It gradually rose upon great, clawed feet, with eyes blazing with an awful, unnatural blue fire. It sniffed the air, sniffed the fresh, warm blood of the frightened students.

Then, the beast locked its glowing eyes directly on me.