The Way It Went Down: White Was Coming In From The Edges

There are a thousand books about the end of the world. A thousand movies. Mad Max. Whatever. It's a moment you never think you'll end up at. You never think about it like a place you will go. You never think, oh, yeah, finally, here we are everyone. Welcome. Welcome. 

You never think you'll cause the end of the world. 

In any case, you never think, if I shoot this kid, It'll end the world. Is that a normal thought? Does it make sense? I never thought it. I didn't know. That's all I can really say—I really had no idea and I'm really very sorry, OK? Get off my back. It was just another op. Just another fucking night at the opera.

The kid jumped on Gwendolyn and her Sig Sauer went off twice—taking out the window, and putting one in the floor. But she was dead before she even hit the floor. The kid was naked. Blue skinned. Its face and hair were pitch black, slick with blood. The eyes were rings of silver. The teeth were split and blackened and sprawling and yellow. I say kid because we had known him before all this.   

Gil had said the spirit was trapped in him. The kid was a door. The Inlut-Shua. The Windigo. It was trapped. But we all knew I wasn't going to let this little shit rip my throat out. If I don't sound too upset about Gwen, let's just say she could have learned not to drop her gun, but her and the kid had history. Whatever. She wasn't worrying about anything anymore. 

She was safe, finally.

So, I shot the kid. Ooooh. I know. I put one through his chest and it was like someone threw a bucket of oil out of his back. But still, he crossed the fifteen or so feet to my face so fast that there was only a second shot before his hands would be on me.

I saw a silver eye swing in front of the gun sight, out-of-focus, and closed my eyes and emptied the gun. I fell to the ground then, and landed half in and half out of the farm house. Upstate New York. Summer.

The snow began to come down.

I ran back to the car. I didn't even check on Gwendolyn. Didn't matter, no one was there. She was dead, I'm sure. It didn't matter. By the time I was on the highway, it was a blizzard. Snow everywhere in July. Drifts piling near overpasses. Wind whipping curling patterns in the freezing air.

No cars. The clack of my tires catching the ice, windshield wipers keeping time as I crawled east.

There were parked cars, but nothing running on the road. Just me. Lights worked. The radio; static. Nothing. No people.

I hit the city and turned up Memorial, and the snow was still coming down. White was coming in from the edges. I stumbled from the car and began moving up to the apartment on foot. Slipping on the ice in the empty city. A tomb.

I had not seen a single person.

And I heard it, then, in the distance; a howl that tracked down the street with a hollow ring. A song for me, alone.

I turned on the street and the wind caught me full on, making my eyes water.

I stumbled, and began to run.