Chapter 11

“Laugh! Only the living can laugh.”

A black forest greeted the men—the one that bordered Valton. Gnarled endelwood trees sprang up against the road, as if it someone had planted them in neat rows, long ago. Any non-endelwood tree had burnt to the ground. After all, endelwood trees had thick bark. Perfect shields for the wide, ancient trunks. But that hadn’t saved their leaves. And though the light trickled through the barren canopy, the trees had gone black, dividing the sky from the earth, turning the forest into a pitch curtain that surrounded the men.

With a crack, Andrew’s leg caught an outreached root. He yelped and fell, but he caught himself before his head met the street. The damned road was peppered with fallen logs and branches. And after three hours of walking, he could hardly stand. Every time he put his heel on the ground, it screamed, begging for relief. When he allowed it to lift, his knees and hips cursed him. He’d never gone this long without food, and his body hated him for it. How dare he move? There was a bag of food in his hand, his body seemed to say. What bloody fool went on this long without eating? With the hours ticking away, Andrew had started to agree.

But soon enough, there it was—Valton. In all its ruined glory. The little town didn’t bleed in from sheds and houses like most towns. Instead, the road turned a harsh corner, and suddenly, like a seaside cliff, the forest transformed into stone walls—packed stores and townhouses that crowded the street for a half-kilometer, before turning back into trees. Only a week ago, one could drive down the quaint little main street and watch a quiet trickle of passers-by filtering down from the mountain. An industry built on the patronage of a backroad that few people ever bothered traveling. The village must’ve struggled, but it had remained until the very end. A haven for folks with too much money and too few novelty T-shirts.

Lit under the waning sunlight and faint glistening stars, the whole town now rotted, empty. The bricks had scorched, like everything else. Yet more grey. Andrew’s new least-favorite color. Shattered glass scattered across the sidewalk. A single spire reached into the sky on the left side of the road, where the town hall had once stood—but it had broken in half, leaving the point to hang tenuously at a forty-five-degree angle. Quaint. Charming.

Fucking back roads.

Dan and Andrew chose to sit in the open on the filthy ash of a felled log just outside the town’s entrance. With nothing else to do, they took the first of their daily rations—and so, Andrew handed Dan a fourth of the sandwich, setting aside an equal part for himself.

 “It’ll be half gone after today,” Dan said. “Then there’s tomorrow—three days for the jerky.”

Gazing down at the moldy bread in his hands, Andrew frowned. “And if we don’t find anything in Valton?”

“We’ll find something,” Dan said with a warm smile. “Four days is a long time. What we’ve got might not be much, but it keeps us walking. It’ll work out, long as we put work into it.”

Andrew stared down at his feet, shifting his eyes from one scuffed shoe to the other. He’d struggled to move the whole day. As if someone had shackled his arms and legs, forcing him to shamble like a beaten dog. It drained him. Left him drained. And, odd as it seemed, it was more than just the ache of his arms and legs. He just—didn’t want to move. But the man beside him had a smile on, and by God, Andrew would match it. So, he looked up, held out his sandwich-piece, and put on a big grin.

“Then we’d better not loaf around,” he said.

He didn’t wait for Dan. Instead, Andrew tossed the tiny scrap of food in his mouth, and not a second later, had to clamp his hand over his lips to keep it in. The bread was like a dry sponge, and it tasted like wet paper dipped in a mud puddle. But as soon as his tongue accidentally slid on the meat, he discovered his new least-favorite thing: the flavor of warm, mottled, rotting ham. He tried his best to keep his tongue from touching it anymore, but it was far too late for that. Gagging, he forced the vile thing down. But even though he only tasted a bit of it, the aftertaste lingered on, violating his mouth—and to top it all off, it didn’t fill him at all. If anything, it left him hungrier.

The men dry-heaved for a long time. When Andrew recovered, he suggested they go into town, but Dan balked. Anyone could be hiding in those crumbled bricks, Dan said. And so, the men waited for the dark. But as night approached, Andrew sighed. He’d hoped the night would hide them, but the clouds had given way to a clear sky with more stars than Andrew had ever seen. In full view, the Rings cast blue and pink highlights across the town, laying a hazy lavender tint on every surface.

“Fat lot of good waiting did us,” Andrew said. Shifting on the log, he closed the bag and stuffed it in his suit jacket. “Fuck it. If someone wanted to shoot us, they’ve had every chance.”

Andrew shrugged and carried himself forward. But when he got into the street, he couldn’t help but crouch and tiptoe. As they slipped across the road, Andrew led. With flitting eyes, he looked around the street. Beside them stood an old gift shop—one that once sold cheap, faux-antique kitsch to anybody dull enough to walk inside. But it was historical merchandise from a historical town, the shop seemed to scream. Don’t you like history? Don’t you love your country?

A long time ago, Andrew worked in a place like that. It was the summer after his first semester at university, when his parents’ badgering had finally flung him off the couch. He’d ended up at a store on the OldMouth docks. He couldn’t remember the name—but that was where he’d met Alisa. She’d come in with her mum in the middle of August, wearing nothing but a bikini top and shorts. Got herself kicked out after she told the manager he looked like an egg in a top hat. Back then, she could laugh for hours, and she’d talk forever if he let her. He’d loved her. If it hadn’t turned so bitter at the end…

Andrew stopped. He grimaced, the strength draining from his legs.

Shaking her from his head, walked through the shattered glass door. As he wandered around, he looked through the debris. Porcelain shards—perhaps a crowd of broken mugs—lined the front shelves. The nylon underfoot had curled and melted into hard plastic, but further inside, it returned into its original form—a hideous teal-green carpet with bright blue polka-dots and hot pink stripes. In fact, the further back he went, more and more shelves went untouched. Hell, the back of the store might as well have been brand new.

When Andrew reached the farthest wall, his eyes lit up. Perfect, unburnt clothes hung on the furthest wall. T-shirts, jackets, sweatpants, and baseball-caps sat there, all emblazoned with the same picture of a crudely drawn cartoon knight who, according to the label, called himself “Nate the Knight.” Nate smiled from the fabric, giving a thumbs up while a banner flew over his head, that said, “Every day in Valton is VALuable!” As Andrew recalled, the store he worked in used “It might be OLDmouth, but it’s always NEW!” He cringed again.

Regardless, Andrew figured the brick walls must have protected the clothes. They looked like they’d come from the distributor just a few days ago—and promptly been dusted in a fine layer of fallout. It didn’t matter. To Andrew, they looked as good as a ten-thousand-mark tux fresh from the dry cleaners. After all, he’d worn the same clothes for days. It was almost criminal—you could taste the cloud of sweat around him. Without shame, he ripped off his tattered suit right there. After shuffling through the clothes-racks, he picked up a dark brown t-shirt and an even darker jacket—the darker the clothes, the harder a bandit would have to look.

“Where would they—” Dan said from under a rack of shirts. “You seeing any socks?”

Andrew looked around the shelves. A few polos, jackets, shorts, decorative t-shirts. Suddenly, he smiled. From a small prong hung a group of identical green stockings. Wool, with brown outlines of trees and deer lining the ankles—like a sweater. The kind of sweater a psychopath would knit.

“My God,” Andrew said. He picked one off the shelf, presenting it to Dan. “Behold, Dan. Just—behold.”

Dan stared at the foot-sweaters. “Are there any other socks?”

“Have we ever been that lucky?”

“Lucky enough to survive,” Dan said.

“Not lucky enough. It’s what we’ve got, unless you want to go barefoot,” Andrew said.

Dan looked like he’d been told to eat a live crab. He trudged over to the shelf, grabbed a polo, a pair of shorts, and the same jacket Andrew had. “Right. Gimme the socks.”

Five minutes later, Dan returned to the back of the store, plastered with slogans and cartoon knights—he was a walking billboard for Valton, little green foot-sweaters and all. He was honestly kind of cute—in a way. A weird way.

Dan held a pile of identical clothing. “Clean changes,” he said. “Three days’ worth. I guess we can rotate the old ones. Give ’em time to air out a bit, right?”

“How are we gonna carry all that? It’ll be exhausting,” Andrew said.

“Oh, not at all! Now you behold,” Dan said. With a wide grin, he ran off to the hoodie rack and picked out the largest jacket. He took the extra clothes Andrew had, placed them into the torso, then zipped it up. Stretching the hood over the hole on the bottom, he pulled the neck-strings tight and tied them together until it all held. He swung the whole thing over his shoulder and laced the arms together, forming a sash across his chest.

“And that, Ladies and Lords,” Dan said, “is how you make a satchel!”

“Brilliant!” Andrew said. Clapping his hands together, he grinned. “Honestly, I wasn’t even thinking about a change of clothes, but damn, it really helps. I’ll do a jacket, too, just in case.”

“Too bad they don’t have a shower in here.”

“Warm breakfast wouldn’t hurt either,” Andrew said. “It’s odd, you’d think there would be at least a few people around. I mean, the first store—the very first store on the whole street hasn’t even been looted. People must have cleared out pretty quick.”

“It was pretty empty when I came through,” Dan said. “They must be underground still. Or—dead, I suppose.” Letting his arms hang loose, Dan leaned in. “We might’ve left a bit faster than we should’ve. I noticed it when I was changing, but my ankles are a bit red. Like a sunburn.”

Andrew’s lips curled back. “Shit.”

Dan nodded and pulled one of his stockings down. Even through the dim Ringlight, Andrew saw it clear. The accountant’s skin was darker around the ankle than the calves.

“Not really much to do about it,” Dan said. “And it doesn’t really hurt right now. If it’s just a little burn, shouldn’t be worse than being out in the sun, right?”

“I—suppose,” Andrew said. He paused, mulling over the risks. “And I guess we’ve got a few days before anybody else gets out in the open, too. So—to hell with it. Let’s go shopping.”

Dan beamed. “Right.”

Exiting the store, the two men made their way to the next building. It was an old restaurant. The kind built for passers-by, which usually had a greasy waiter standing outside, waving people in like cattle. Inside, the room was skinny and barren. Aside from the four pairs of clean silverware that Andrew grabbed, they didn’t find anything useful. Anything edible had either burnt or gone sour.

The next store didn’t give them anything. In fact, Andrew couldn’t figure out what they even sold there. It was just a pile of ash all the way to the back wall. However, the building beyond that was different from the rest. Though it looked like any other white, windowless, two-story box, it had a pointy tower in the front, as well as the only legible sign on the street. “The First House of the Old Lord.” Dan wrung his hands and looked off to the side, but Andrew wandered up to the front. Its giant, oak door scraped at the floor as he pulled it open.

Beyond the doors lay an empty room with concrete floors and a single window. Old pillows sat in a circle, with a thick book lying on each one. He knew exactly what they were. Copies of The Sacralidion—the Herrist holy book. Once, in his junior semester at university, Alisa took him to a temple like this, just to try it out. He didn’t like it. The congregation just sat there, silent, until somebody decided to walk to the center and talk about their problems. These places didn’t have priests. Just books.

Light streamed in through a crack in the ceiling, shining on one of the pillows toward the back. Andrew walked over and stared at the book on top of the pillow. He picked it up. Embossed in the leather on the front, five circles intertwined each other, connecting in the middle and along the edges. It had yellowed pages and a spine that had long since broken—as if someone had rifled through the book a thousand times before. Faintly written in gold on the spine were six words: The Voice of the Old Lord.

Without Dan, who’d chosen to stand outside, Andrew was alone and tired. Still starving, limbs aching. He’d held a smile up for so long that his cheeks burned. For a long while, he looked around, tapping his toes. He glanced at the book in his hand. Of course, he considered himself a Regalist, but not much of one. Not once in his life had his parents made him step into a rectory. They’d never spoken of God the Conqueror’s divine army, his holy spear, or his final crusade to retake the heavenly halls of—heaven. Actually, Andrew was never clear on what God was retaking it from in the first place. And the more he thought of it, the sillier it all seemed. But still, he stared. The book had a nice weight to it. After another moment, he slipped it into his pack.

When Andrew walked out, Dan got up from the sidewalk and walked over. “Find anything?”

“Nah.”

Hello, friends! If you're enjoying this story, consider supporting me on Patreon! If you'd like more stories, I post new chapters to my mainline series every Monday and Friday, and I upload a new short story every other Wednesday! Below are some of my other stories.

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Little Comforts: The world ends, and two men, Dan and Andrew, must rush to the shore for safety, pursued by a vengeful soldier and the remains of her family.