We were still gathered outside the entrance to the hospital, making the final decisions about our journey, when all four of us were shaken by the sound of explosions. They came from right behind us.

  We looked up and down the tunnels for the source of the noise and split up to check them out. We found nothing, and my instincts drove me toward the hospital to make sure Robert was okay. My heart sank when I arrived and realized this place was the point of attack. It looked completely disheveled and vandalized, torn apart for someone to loot the supplies and resources. Furniture knocked over, shelves and desks cleared out, chests broken into.

  Chests. Scarlett!

  I don’t think I’d ever run faster in my entire life. It wouldn’t have mattered, because I didn’t make it halfway to the supply room before I saw four men rushing away, their faces covered with bandannas. They were carrying the supplies they’d stolen from us. I fell back to let them get ahead without them noticing me, and then gave chase. They were what we fear the most. Raiders, looters, pillagers. Where they came from, how they even found us, I didn’t know. Our community situated in the ice that had settled on Stafford was never the most populated or popular area in East Virginia. So we weren’t a hotbed of resources like Richmond or Norfolk. We’d faced the occasional attack, when groups of survivors attempted to steal food or supplies, but this was the worst, a determined raid to deprive us of the means to keep our children alive. Of all the days for it to happen, it had to be today. The day we were preparing to set out for Alexandria, and our guard was down.

  There was a hole on the east side of the supply room where the raiders had entered. They knew exactly what they wanted, and the attack was a precision strike. Three of the four men jumped through an opening in the tunnel wall, but the last man tripped and dropped his haul in front of him. The man in front of him picked it up and ran on with it.

  Scarlett was right behind me. She grabbed the legs of the man who’d fallen, not letting the bruises and blood on her face where she tried to fight off the raiders stop her from grappling with him. He managed to get his leg free, and I witnessed him nearly knock Scarlett out with a hard kick. The blow pushed her away which allowed him to stand. I rushed to her aid, kneeling and delicately lifting her in my arms. She was conscious, but barely. I didn’t know what to do. I had so many emotions, a cocktail of fury and anger inside me. I was going to kill the motherfuckers who did this to us. Our way of life had been completely violated and upended.

  Our worst nightmares had come to life. I should never have left her alone and should have been here to protect her. I wrapped my arms around her, not bothering to hold back my tears. When I got her back to the supply room, Roy and Helen were already there. I gently handed her into the care of Helen, turned, and went after the raiders.

  The tunnel they’d created with their explosives was filled with debris and rocks. I couldn’t run as fast as I wanted to go after them, but I still made a quick enough pace, and I finally saw them in the distance as they turned a corner.

  “You’re going to die for this!” I shouted to them.

  A second later, the roof of the cave exploded and collapsed. The entryway to the tunnel where they’d turned the corner was closed, and ice was still falling from huge cracks on the roof. I was about to be buried alive, and I covered the back of my head with my hands to brace for the impact as the ice surrounded me, and my past life began to play inside my head like a movie.

  * * *

  “I’m so glad I was able to come home for this,” I said, holding my newborn son. At twenty-three I’d become a father quicker than I’d expected. His arrival changed everything, but past plans don’t seem to matter anymore, not when you have your entire life cradled in your arms. Scarlett reached out from the bed to caress my cheek as she admired the two men in her life.

  “He looks like his old man,” she said. She was twenty-two-years-old and still my girlfriend.

  “Except for his eyes. He clearly got those from his old lady.”

  She smiled. I smiled. Baby Robert smiled.

  “Brad.”

  I looked at my future wife. She grabbed my hand and softly whispered, “This is the start of the rest of our lives. This is us. Forever.”

  Those moments in life make it worth living for. The moments you remember for a lifetime, especially when it looks like you’re near the end of that life.

  “Brad.”

  “I reckon all of his cuteness came from his mom’s side, not his dad’s,” Roy teased me at Scarlett’s Welcome Home get-together we held shortly after bringing our new family member home.

  Scarlett kissed me on the cheek and handed the both of us red solo cups. “Fruit punch. Non-alcoholic. We can’t set a bad example for him yet, babe,” she joked as she grabbed her own cup. Roy began to say something but stopped, waiting as we chugged our beverages down rather swiftly.

  “Well I was going to give a toast to you and Scarlett on your new life together, but we don’t have anything alcoholic. Never mind.”

  “We’ll pretend there’s beer in here instead,” I laughed.

  “That’s for the adult party later on tonight,” Scarlett remarked.

  “Game night at seven?” Roy inquired.

  “Game night at seven,” she confirmed, “Don’t be late.”

  “For you two, never,” Roy affirmed, rising to make a toast with the punch, “A set of new parents who will go on to raise a child as extraordinary as them. To the smartest woman in Stafford, Virginia, and a future 5-Star General of our great nation’s army, the best two people I’m happy to call my friends. Cheers!”

  We touched our plastic cups together, and Roy threw his fruit punch back in a celebration of such an amazing day. Those are the kind of memories that flash before your eyes during your last moments of life.

  Soon after, it happened.

  “That looks really scary, Brad,” Scarlett voiced in concern as we watched the newscast.

  “The effects of climate change are happening at a much faster rate than anyone could have anticipated,” Dr. Robert Bolin, climatologist and professor at UCLA explained in an interview, “A warming has caused the seas to rise at an alarming rate, putting many coastal communities in grave danger, from California to Louisiana to Florida, even as far up as Virginia and Delaware. Flooding of these locations is imminent, and people need to prepare themselves for the worst-case scenario.”

  “That was going to be my next question,” the anchor said, “What should people living along these coasts do to prepare?”

  “Evacuate.”

  A chill came into the room. I put my arm around my fiancée and pulled her in close, silently reassuring her. I was a newly minted Army Ranger, a job I’d been preparing my entire life for. I was going to protect and serve for my country and my family, no matter what.

  Even in the face of the flashfloods that came, and the deep freeze that followed a year after that.

  You never forget the moments when you knew your life changed forever.

  * * *

  “Brad, Brad! Brad!”

  Roy’s voice screaming my name became louder and louder as he and Mike clawed their way through the ice to reach me. At least I assumed it was them. My vision had become blurry from the lack of oxygen. I vaguely remembered them dragging me out from the icefall and back to the hospital before I completely passed out for what I was sure was the last time in my life.

  “He’s waking up,” I heard someone say as I regained consciousness. My vision started to come back, and I made out a young boy with a blanket around his shoulders.

  “Robert?” I softly called out.

  “Dad!” He wanted to run toward me, but Roy held him back. Dan and Mike looked relieved that I was okay.

  “Do you have any idea how lucky you are? You managed to get away with no more than a few bruises from your hero stunt.”

  I turned to see it was Scarlett chastising me. She’d managed to clean up her face a bit, but the bruises she took from fighting the raiders were still noticeable.

  “Am I…am I okay?” I sat up and moved my arms and legs a bit to see if there was anything damaged, dislocated or out of place. She was right, other than some soreness in my back and hands, I seemed fine.

  “You’re okay,” she confirmed.

  “What about you?”

  She ignored me and walked over to Robert. She murmured a few words to him, and Roy took him away, leaving the two of us in the hospital room.

  “Scarlett, what is it?”

  “They took everything we had, Brad. The vaccine I gave you is the last one.”

  I put my hand into my right coat pocket. It was still there. The last hope for an entire community of East Virginians lay inside this small bottle. They’d stolen everything else, the vaccine, all of it.

  “We’re going after them, Scarlett. They won’t get away with this.”

  Scarlett seemed less than convinced as she needlessly tidied up what remained of her workplace, trying to regain the sense of normalcy that had been ripped away from her. Dan entered the room, and I asked him why he hadn’t caught up with the raiders.

  “We were making sure you were alive, that was our primary concern, Mr. Hero,” Dan snapped back at me, “Back there it was touch and go, and if we hadn’t got you out fast, well, you can imagine the rest.”

  “Besides, they were long gone,” Mike pushed into the room, “Even if we’d used our explosives to break into the tunnel they used to escape, we’d never have caught up with them.”

  “Picking our battles is crucial to our survival,” Roy grunted, “We’ll get back what they took, somehow. But we can’t bring the dead back to life.”

  Scarlett and Helen came back while we talked about recovering our supplies, especially the vaccine. I was thinking hard, trying to process everything that had happened so quickly, the onset of pneumonia, the children falling sick, and now the loss of the vaccine.

  What are we going to do? What’s going to happen to Robert, Kenny, Scarlett, to all of us? Is this where it’s all going to end? All I wanted was to protect the people I love, and instead I wound up buried beneath several tons of ice.

  It looked to me like the world was punishing all of us, imprisoning us in this hell made of ice. I must’ve still been woozy, for I sat back into the darkness, and the movie in my brain began to play again.

  * * *

  My sister Lisa slapped me as she shoved me out of her apartment.

  “What the hell was that for?”

  “You know what it was for. For Scarlett, asshole.”

  I felt myself racked with guilt, knowing she’d figured out my secret.

  “Look, she seems like a nice girl, Brad, and I can see why you carry her around in your wallet. But maybe next time you should try appreciating her instead of trying to fuck the hostesses in that club.”

  She’d slammed the door in my face.

  Why did I even go there in the first place? If I can’t handle marriage this early on, how will I be able to take what the rest of life throws at me? Am I not strong enough to make my new life with Scarlett work? She’s counting on me. Robert’s counting on me. Am I in over my head? Did I make a mistake? Can I do this?

  * * *

  I opened my eyes. They were still there, watching me, and I was back in the ice hell we called home. Remembering what we had to do, and the alternative if we failed.

  “We keep to the plan,” I told the group, “They cleaned us out, the rest of our medicine, our food, and our spare explosives. We have no choice but to make it to Alexandria. Now more than ever this is life or death.”

  “What if they attack again?” Helen voiced her concern.

  “Why would they?” Dan answered, “Like Brad said, they’ve already milked us dry, what else could take from us?”

  “Nothing. All we have left is our dignity,” Roy said, “Everything else has gone.”

  I swung my legs off the bench where I’d been lying and found I could stand. They brought the gear into the room, and I gathered my pickaxe and pack. “We’re leaving.”

  “You can’t leave. You suffered a severe trauma.”

  “We’re all suffering severe trauma, just in different ways. Keep everyone alive while we’re gone, Scarlett. We won’t be long.”

  “I’m coming with you.” I turned to face her, and her lips were pursed into that determine expression I’d seen so many times before, “You heard me. I’m coming with you guys.”

  “Scarlett…” I began to protest.

  “Helen and I have talked it over, and she can take care of everyone. I’m no use here without my medical supplies, so I might as well go with you and get them back myself.”

  I moved closer to her so we could have a more private conversation.

  “I can’t let you go, Scarlett. This isn’t right.”

  “Neither is it right for you to go so soon after the roof fall, yet I’m not stopping you.”

  “I’m fine…”

  “Yes, you are, that’s why I married you. And so am I fine.”

  “This isn’t funny, Scarlett.”

  “Perhaps not, but if you think I’m about to let you take on the weight of the world alone, you can forget it.” She gave me a soft, brief kiss, “I can’t let you go without me, Brad. You’re not fit, and you’re sure to need medical attention. We’re doing this together.”

  She grabbed hold of my hands and stared at me with her vivid blue eyes. She knew I could never say no to that look. Never had and never would.

  “I guess she’s coming with us,” Mike correctly deduced.

  CHAPTER 3

  “We should be a few miles northwest of Mt. Vernon now,” Mike informed us as he looked at the map.

  We were a day into our trek to Alexandria. Though everyone was understandably paranoid about it, thankfully there were no more raider attacks for us to deal with. The only thing we had to worry about was time, and our decreasing patience to get there as quickly as possible, which caused us to make some careless mistakes along the way. The explosives we used to blast our way into the Newington area were placed on the corners of the cave walls haphazardly. Instead of the impact being taken fully by them, residual debris came flying back at us at dangerously fast speeds. Luckily, Dan noticed our poor positioning and was able to warn everyone to take cover before we were in the way of what could have easily killed us.

  “Jesus Christ, you idiots ARE trying to end up like me! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “Is everyone okay? Roy?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Scarlett?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Mike?”

  “I’m fine. I’m…”

  Mike had suffered worse than the rest of us. Multiple blood spots showed on his leg. Scarlett went over to check on him.

  “Hold still, Mike. Let me take a look.” She straightened his leg out and felt up and down it, “Does it hurt here? Here? Okay, the fall hurt you more than the rocks and knocked some bones out of place, so I’m going to have to readjust them.”

  Mike gulped nervously, then closed his eyes. “All right, do what you have to do.”

  She placed one hand on his knee and one on his upper thigh. “You ready? One, two, three!”

  Crack!

  To his credit, Mike only screamed out a little bit.

  “Try and stand up.” She helped him to his feet, “It might sting for a while, but you’ll be okay.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Mike took a few steps, “Thanks, Scarlett. I got it, guys.”

  “Good, so now that both Coopers are crippled, does that mean we’ll actually take our time to do shit correctly?” Dan reprimanded us jokingly.

  “Yeah, let’s keep it moving,” I said as the rest of us stood, collecting ourselves. Roy went to Mike’s side to help keep him steady, and I caught up to Scarlett. She turned to me and flashed a small, sly smirk.

  “And you thought you wouldn’t need me here.”

  What can I say, when the lady’s right?

  “Are you sure you have them set up correctly this time?” Dan cautioned us.

  “We took our time, Dan, don’t worry.” Roy reassured him. “You set, Mike?”

  Mike, standing far behind the rest of us, nodded his head. “All right in three, two, one, cover!”

  The next layer of wall exploded outward, a much more successful attempt than last time. Hopefully, though, we were getting close enough to Alexandria where we wouldn’t need to use much more of our dynamite, because we were starting to run low. Double-checking on the map Mike carried, he’d designated himself to take charge of the map on the journey, we should have been a little south of Rose Hill, a city a few short miles from Alexandria. I felt optimistic about this mission for the first time.

  We’re going to do this. And who knows, if Alexandria’s still intact, maybe we could relocate everybody here. I’d never brought Robert here before. This could be a new beginning for us, a new beginning for him.

  “Brad, you might want to take a look at this!” Roy shouted back to me. I walked up to where he, Dan, and Scarlett were standing around the opening we’d just made. It’d already been cleared of debris, complete with a junction heading northeast to Alexandria. The flooring was also clear, and I stepped through to test it. It had been salted.

  “Alexandria is still standing,” I murmured, “These tunnels are too fresh, too well maintained to have been abandoned. People are still using them.”

  “Hopefully people that don’t think we’re encroaching on their territory,” Roy mentioned cautiously.

  “We’re not here to ambush them,” Scarlett inserted into the conversation, “So they won’t have anything to worry about.”

  Dan added his two cents. “Either way, we need to be on full alert. There’s no telling what’s waiting for us up ahead.”

  I put the shovel back into my bag and strapped it on my back. “Well, there’s one way to find out. Let’s go.”

 

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