Cold Apocalypse: My Wife's Betrayal

The Weight of Survival

The harsh clack-clack of a shotgun being pumped echoed through the freezing industrial district.

The three thugs were in front of my huge steel garage doors, their breath puffing in thick white clouds. The leader was an enormous man with a scar across his nose, and his weapon was pointed directly at my windshield.

Get out of the heavy rig! he shouted, and his voice broke with the minus thirty-degree wind. Give the keys, give whatever you have in the back, and start walking! Do it, or I'll blow your face off!

Maya caught me by the arm, her eyes panicked in the warm cabin of the SUV. "Kaelen, they have guns."

Guns, I said under my breath, and my voice was quite dead of feeling.

I swung the armored door, which was heavy, open, and went out into the howling blue snow. I did not reach my crossbow. I didn't pull my hunting knife. I was simply standing there, in a tattered tactical jacket, over my simple black shirt.

The thugs laughed. I was to them like a dumb, unarmed boy who had blundered into the wrong street.

See what a hard guy this is, sneered the leader, and he had the shotgun pointed at my chest. You believe that the power went off, and you are the protagonist? I have seen the delivery trucks come in here today, and I know there is food behind that door. Now, give me the access code, or you die right here.

I didn't answer. I moved slowly, consciously taking a step forward.

I said stop! The leader screamed.

I stepped forward another step.

Die, you big-headed little punk!

He pulled the trigger. The silence of the dead city was broken by the deafening BOOM of the 12-gauge shotgun. A shot of heavy lead buckshot flew through the air on point-blank range and struck me in the middle of the chest.

Maya screamed from inside the truck.

The blow tore my jacket and my shirt, and ripped the material to tatters. But when the lead pellets hit my body, my Bone-Plated Skin sprang into instant action. My skin was flashing with a dim, grey, metallic shine. The bullets didn't pierce my body. They lay flattened against my hardened chest as rain upon a brick wall, falling harmlessly into the snow.

The thugs froze. The eyes of the leader were sticking out of his skull. He glanced at his smoking barrel, and thence back to my naked, unbroken breast.

"What... what are you?" he stammered, frantically trying to pump the shotgun again.

He did not have such an opportunity.

My Apex Speed flared. The world blurred. Within a fraction of a second, I had traversed the ten feet that separated us. Before he could even blink, my hand clamped around the hot barrel of his shotgun. Using my Titan Strength, I squeezed. The massive steel barrel sank in my hands like a cheap soda can and was utterly crushed.

"I am the owner of this bunker," I whispered, my glowing eyes staring right into his terrified soul.

I drew my fist in and struck him with a dead blow in the middle of his chest. The nauseating CRACK of his ribcage breaking was heard with a roar. My fist had sunk into his chest inwards, halting his heart immediately. The huge man leaped back into the air like a shattered doll and crashed into the side of their pickup truck with enough impact to bend the metal frame. He slipped down to the ground, dead before he hit the ground.

The other two thugs gazed in utter horror. What they were seeing could not be processed by their brains. A man who ate bullets and punched with the impact of a speeding truck.

One of them shouted, dropping his crowbar, Monster! He wheeled and ran down the icy street, blindly.

I bent down and took up the crumpled, heavy steel shotgun and threw it like a javelin. My Titan Strength made the heavy metal fly into the air and hit the running man squarely on the backbone. He fell on the ice and was immediately paralyzed, screaming in pain.

The third thug didn't run. He sank to his knees, laying aside his arms, the tears frozen on his cheeks. "Please! Man, man, I have a family! We were hungry, that was all!

I went to him and looked down upon his trembling figure. I was just like him in my past life. On my knees, begging to have mercy, hoping that the mighty would spare me. But the mighty never spared the mighty.

If you had but been hungry, you would have asked, I said coldly. But you decided to rob. You decided on the rules of the apocalypse.

I raised my heavy, bone-plated boot and brought it down on his skull, ending his begging instantly. The street went silent, save for the howling wind.

It was not about being mean to survive. It was concerning being absolute.

As I was enforcing my law in the snow, another form of darkness was overtaking the slums.

The passage in the apartment building where Elena lives was as dark as black. Mr. Henderson, a kindly seventy-year-old man, stood outside her door, holding a burning kerosene heater. The orange light, warm, lit his kind, wrinkled face.

"Elena? Are you all right in there? He called. "I have some extra heat."

The door unlocked and opened a crack. Elena looked out, trembling with cold. She looked pitiful. Mr. Henderson... thank God. We are freezing to death. Please come in.

Oh, poor dear, the old man said, and he crossed the threshold and entered the pitch-black apartment. Let me only place this in the middle of the room, it will warm up the place in no time--

SMACK.

The big wooden baseball bat swung out of the shadows behind the door, hitting the back of the old man's head. Mr. Henderson fell immediately, and the heater was dropped. He dropped to the floor with a great thump, the blood gathering round his white hair.

Marcus came into the shadows, and his hands shook wildly as he held the bloody bat. "I... I did it. Oh my god, I hit him so hard."

Elena didn't gasp. She didn't panic. She passed the bleeding, groaning old man right by, grabbed the handle of the kerosene heater, and brought it close to her frozen body. The light of orange that fell upon her face showed a twisted, cold smile that was more monstrous than any monster in the streets.

Help... me... Mr. Henderson rasp-rasped at the floor, and reached out to her with a trembling hand.

Elena gazed down on him in disgust. Take his feet, Marcus, and toss him in the hall. When he bleeds on the carpet of Kaelen, it will smell.

Marcus stood, appalled at the hideousness of what they had just committed.

Do it! she hissed, and her eyes were wild. "We survive! That is all that is needed at this moment!

When Marcus dragged the dying old man out of the apartment and locked the door behind them, Elena was sitting by the fire, and was as dead to her own humanity as she was to the world.

I was five miles away and pressed my blood-stained thumb against the biometric scanner concealed in the brickwork of the warehouse. A green light was flashed.

The earth shook, and huge gears were rotating. The steel garage doors were painfully slow to open, and when they did, a sloping ramp of concrete was seen, leading down into the depths. Very bright, warm yellow light spilled out into the snow blizzard.

I got back into the SUV and drove us down the ramp. And the huge doors swung behind us, locking with a succession of heavy mechanical thuds.

The wailing wind disappeared. The chilly froth was at once succeeded by the whirr of the geothermal generator and a blast of gorgeous, seventy-degree heat.

We got out of the truck. Maya glanced around, utterly tongue-tied.

Shelter 04 was a palace located underground. The primary bay was colossal, with the line of strengthened tactical vehicles. On the left was a complete armory, lined with arms and fighting suits. On the right was the hydroponic garden, which is illuminated with violet UV lights. Right in front of the living quarters was the command center, with dozens of nonfunctional security cameras.

Kaelen... said Maya, tears of relief finally streaming down her face as the warmth oozed into her bones. How did you... What is this place?

This is our empire, Maya, I said, and walked over and touched her on the shoulder. And, as long as I breathe, the apocalypse will never come to you in here.

I strolled to the kitchen, took a thick slice of the Wagyu steak, and threw it into a hot iron skillet. The sizzling noise and the aroma of good, cooking meat pervaded the bunker. I had a bit of peace, such as I had not had since I had woken up out of my death.

Peace was a luxury that the new world could not afford.

As I served the meal, a loud and piercing alarm went off in the bunker. The red emergency lights flashed, and the steel walls were painted with the color of blood.

I threw the spatula and ran to the command center. The main radar screen of the main console was glowing brightly. The seismic sensors placed around the city limits were going crazy.

"What is it?" Maya questioned in terror at the sudden sound.

I gazed at the screen. It wasn't just one red dot. It was hundreds. A huge, synchronized tidal wave of bio-signatures was sweeping the frozen city and heading directly at the industrial district.

But that was not what caused my blood to run cold.

And in the midst of the hundreds of little red dots, there was one great, huge black signature. It was giving out a frequency of energy I had never witnessed previously.

Then, suddenly, the Chimera King System was flashing fiercely before my eyes.

[Caution: TIER-3 DOMINATOR DETECTED].

[The First Beast Wave has been launched.

[Defend your Territory, or be Devoured.]