Deadzone: Surviving The End of The World

Chapter 2

The river still glowed when morning came.

Caleb stood at the window and watched the water move like liquid glass. The turbines beneath the floor turned slowly even though there was no power. He did not look at them for long. Every sound in the building now felt wrong.

He found a backpack in the locker room, filled it with a flashlight, two bottles of water, a wrench, and a folded map. His phone was still dead. The batteries in the radios were drained. He tried one more time to start the generator. Nothing happened. The machine gave a single tired groan and went silent again.

He told himself to breathe and to keep moving.

If there were survivors in Rivermouth, someone would need help. He locked the plant doors behind him out of habit, though he knew it would not matter.

The air outside was colder than it should have been. The forest along the ridge looked heavy with mist. The world felt empty, but not quiet. Somewhere in the trees, he heard a crack of branches and a sound that might have been wind. He walked down the road with his wrench in one hand and his bag over his shoulder.

For the first mile, nothing moved. Cars sat on the shoulder of the road, engines cold. One of them was still running even though the lights were off. The radio inside whispered static and then went quiet as he passed. He looked through the window and saw the driver’s seat empty, the door hanging open.

He kept walking.

When he reached the first bridge, he stopped. The surface of the river below shimmered blue and silver. Fish floated belly-up in the current. A few twitched as if trying to swim. Their scales caught the light and glowed faintly, then went still. A smell of iron and rot hung in the air.

Caleb crossed the bridge fast. The hum that had filled the valley the night before was gone, replaced by something softer, like a low vibration beneath the ground. Every few minutes, it pulsed again. Each time it did, the air felt thick enough to taste.

Halfway to town, he saw the first person.

A woman stood on the road ahead of him, facing away. She wore a grey coat and her hair was tangled across her shoulders. Caleb slowed and called out to her. She did not answer. When he got closer, he saw that her feet were bare. Mud covered her legs up to the knees.

“Ma’am,” he said. “Are you all right?”

She turned.

Her eyes were open but empty, pale blue like the river. Her mouth moved once, shaping a word that never came. Then she started walking toward him.

He backed away. “Stop right there.”

She did not stop. Her head tilted to one side, her movements stiff and uneven. Caleb felt the wrench heavy in his hand. He did not want to use it. When she reached the edge of the bridge, she stumbled. Her ankle twisted but she kept walking, dragging her foot.

He ran.

He did not look back until he reached the next curve in the road. The woman was gone.

Ahead, the town of Rivermouth lay quiet. Smoke rose from a building near the centre. The streets were littered with cars and debris. A single lamppost still flickered, blue light flashing on and off like a heartbeat.

Caleb entered the town slowly, staying near the walls of the shops. Every window he passed showed dark rooms, overturned chairs, and spilt coffee cups. The air smelled of oil and burned plastic. Somewhere a dog barked once and then stopped.

He reached Main Street and saw movement near the grocery store. A figure crouched beside a car. For a moment he thought it was another survivor. Then the shape lifted its head. Its face was wrong, the skin drawn tight, the mouth streaked with something dark. It sniffed the air and turned toward him.

Caleb froze.

The thing stood and began to move. Its joints cracked like dry branches. It ran faster than he expected. He stepped back, raised the wrench, and swung when it came close. The metal hit hard. The body fell and did not rise again. Blue light seeped from a cut across its neck and faded into the pavement like smoke.

He stood over it, breathing hard. His hands shook. The thing’s clothes were ordinary—jeans, a work shirt, a name patch from a hardware store. Whatever was happening was not a sickness that could be fixed.

A sound came from behind him. He turned quickly. A crow landed on the roof of a car. Its wings shimmered faintly, the feathers tipped with the same blue glow. It tilted its head and cawed, the sound low and broken. Then more crows appeared, filling the air with beating wings. He waved his arms to scare them off, but they did not move until the pulse came again.

When the pulse rolled through, the birds lifted all at once and flew in the same direction—toward the river.

Caleb started walking again, faster now. He passed the post office, the diner, and the small park with the dry fountain. He saw more bodies on the ground. Some were still. Some twitched as if the earth beneath them breathed.

He kept his eyes forward. He needed to find a working car or someone still alive.

Near the edge of town stood a gas station. The doors were open, the glass cracked. Inside, cans and bottles covered the floor. The lights flickered faintly from a single running sign. Caleb stepped inside and called out.

No answer.

He searched behind the counter and found a flashlight that still worked. When he clicked it on, the beam cut through the dim air. He looked through the storage room and saw a man sitting against the wall. The man’s head rested on his chest. Caleb touched his shoulder gently.

The man’s eyes opened. They were bright blue.

Caleb stumbled back. The man reached forward, fingers stiff, nails grey. He made a choking sound and tried to stand. His leg bent the wrong way. Caleb dropped the flashlight and ran through the front door into the street.

He did not stop running until he reached the hill that led out of town. His lungs burned. The sound of footsteps followed for a moment, then faded.

At the top of the hill, he turned to look back. The river shone like a wound across the valley. From this height, he could see movement along its banks—people or things crawling out of the water, dripping with the same blue light. The town was filling with them.

He knelt by the guardrail and tried to steady his breathing. The sun had started to climb, but the light looked weak, like it was filtered through glass. The pulse came again, stronger this time. He felt it run through the ground into his bones.

Down below, the dead turned their faces toward the sound.

Caleb stood. There was nowhere safe in Rivermouth. He would have to go higher into the mountains, away from the river and whatever had woken beneath it.

He looked once more at the town. The streets he had driven for years were gone, replaced by a moving sea of blue light and slow bodies.

He tightened the straps on his bag and started walking uphill, back toward the forest. Each step echoed on the empty road.

Behind him the river whispered, a low voice in the morning air, calling to everything that still breathed.