Ninety Days Before The Apocalypse

The Debt Collected

"The coat too, Zhao," Lin Feng said, his voice coming through his visor speaker with a raspy, electric edge. "And the insulated boots."

Director Zhao’s fingers were shaking so violently he could barely work the oversized zipper of his mink jacket. "Mr. Lin, please. It is minus forty down on the lower levels. Without a coat, my lungs will freeze in ten minutes."

"You have twenty seconds," Lin Feng said, shifting his thumb onto the heavy safety switch of the pump-action shotgun. "Or I blow your kneecaps off and let you crawl down the stairs without legs."

Zhao let out a choked, desperate sob, ripping the heavy mink coat off his shoulders and tossing it onto the blood-stained ice. He kicked off his insulated leather boots, standing on the frozen concrete in his thin cotton socks. He unclipped a small two-way radio and a tactical belt carrying two magazines, throwing them onto the heap.

"Down," Lin Feng gestured with the shotgun barrel toward the pitch-black stairwell.

"You are a monster!" Zhao shrieked, his teeth chattering so hard he bit his tongue, blood trickling down his chin as he took his first agonizing step into the dark. "The government will come back! They will hang you from a lamppost!"

"Step," Lin Feng repeated flatly.

Zhao turned and sprinted down the dark concrete steps, his bare soles slapping against the ice as his terrified wails echoed lower and lower into the hollow building shaft until they faded completely.

Lin Feng lowered the shotgun slightly. He stepped toward the three fallen guards lying near the yellow demolition crate. He raised his gloved right hand, focusing his mind on the grey void inside his consciousness.

With a faint, imperceptible ripple, the three tactical vests, the heavy winter parkas, the leather boots, the iron crowbars, and the loose boxes of high-pressure nail gun cartridges vanished from the floor. They settled neatly into the infinite darkness of his spatial storage, preserved perfectly alongside his other supplies.

He turned his head slowly toward the corner of the landing.

Su Yan and Mother Su were huddled against the concrete wall, clutching Su Ming, who was unconscious on the floor, his burnt palms wrapped in dirty rags.

Mother Su scrambled forward on her knees, dragging her frozen knees across the blood-slicked concrete. She reached out with blue, trembling hands, attempting to grab the cuff of Lin Feng’s heavy tactical trousers.

"Lin Feng! My son! My son is dying!" Mother Su wept, her face covered in dried snot and tears. "Look at his hands! He needs warm water! He needs medicine! You have medicine inside, don't you?"

Su Yan crawled up beside her mother, her long hair matted with frost, her lips cracked and bleeding. She grabbed Lin Feng’s boot with both hands, pressing her pale cheek against the cold leather.

"Lin Feng, I was wrong," Su Yan sobbed, her voice barely a whisper against the howling wind outside the broken window. "I should have stood by you. I should not have let my brother talk to you like that. Please, just let me come inside. I will do anything. I will clean your floor. I will wash your clothes. Just give us a coat. Just one coat for Mother."

Lin Feng looked down at her through his clear glass visor.

In his mind, the memory flashed with horrifying clarity. He remembered the metallic taste of rat poison in his morning tea. He remembered Su Yan’s voice telling the scavengers to leave his boots on until he collapsed in the ice quarry. He remembered Mother Su handing his life away for six cans of stewed beef and a jug of water.

He did not feel rage. He did not feel pity. He only felt an empty, arctic quiet.

"You took three years of my life," Lin Feng said, his voice flat and clear through the speaker. "You took my savings, my pride, and my self-respect."

"We can give it back!" Su Yan cried, looking up into his hidden face with desperate, bloodshot eyes. "We can start over! We are still husband and wife!"

"We were never husband and wife," Lin Feng said softly. "You were a parasite, and I was a fool."

He reached his gloved hand deep into the pocket of his tactical vest. He pulled out a small, pale object and held it over their heads.

It was a piece of rock-hard, stale bread crust, barely two inches long, covered in dry flour.

Mother Su’s eyes bulged at the sight of the crust. Her jaw worked uselessly as a thick drop of drool spilled from her lips. "Food... give it to me!"

"This pays off every meal I ever ate at your table," Lin Feng said, his dark eyes locking onto Su Yan's terrified face. "This pays off every debt I ever owed your family."

He opened his fingers.

The frozen bread crust fell, landing with a soft tap on the bloody ice right between Su Yan and Mother Su.

Lin Feng took two steps backward, stepping across the threshold of his apartment. He reached for the heavy steel handle of his custom vault door.

"Wait!" Su Yan screamed, reaching toward the closing door. "Lin Feng, do not leave us! Lin Feng!"

"Enjoy your meal," Lin Feng said.

*CLANG.*

The massive forged steel vault door slammed shut into its frame. The three heavy mechanical deadbolts engaged simultaneously with deep, metallic thuds that sealed the apartment off from the cold world outside.

Outside on the dark landing, Mother Su did not look at the closing door. Her eyes were locked onto the tiny piece of bread lying in the crimson snow.

"Mine!" Mother Su shrieked, diving forward on her stomach, her claw-like fingers snapping toward the crust.

"Mother, no! I need it!" Su Yan screamed, her mind snapping under the weight of sheer starvation. She threw her weight onto her mother’s back, grabbing Mother Su’s hair and yanking her head backward with a violent jerk. "I walked three miles in the snow! I deserve it!"

"Get off me, you ungrateful bitch!" Mother Su screamed, turning around and digging her long, dirty fingernails straight into Su Yan’s cheeks, drawing fresh red lines across her frozen skin. "I gave birth to you! I feed your brother!"

They rolled across the bloody floorboards, scratching, biting, and shrieking like wild animals, their breathless grunts echoing wildly down the empty, dark concrete corridor. Su Ming groaned weakly on the floor beside them, his eyes rolling back in his head, unable to move his blackened, ruined hands.

From the dark stairwell five floors below, the sound of rhythmic, crunching footsteps began to rise.

Three tall figures emerged from the shadows of the lower landing, clad in filthy, mismatched fur coats, carrying iron pipes and heavy butcher knives stained with dark, dried crusts.

The lead scavenger stopped at the top step, his hollow, sunken eyes taking in the scene: the dead guards, the bloody snow, and the two women fighting wildly on the floor over a piece of stale bread.

He raised his iron pipe, a low, yellow-toothed smile spreading across his frostbitten face as he looked at his companions.

"Look at that, boys," the scavenger rasped, his voice sounding like grinding stones. "Fresh meat on the thirtieth floor."