They could just sit outside the fence and starve us out!” Liam put his hand on Paige’s shoulder, “Drop your cynicism for a minute. Not everyone in this world wants to kill us. We’ll never get anywhere if we don’t trust anyone.” She looked at her best friend. He had always been trusting, but he was also rarely wrong. Liam always had a skill with people that Paige knew she lacked. It had taken her a long time to warm up to him since they first met in class at the university, but he had grown on her. Still, there were now five people standing outside their home. “Be careful, please,” she sighed. “We don’t know them.” Liam turned to take another step toward the fence, but before he could say a word, Bill leapt from the top of Liam’s blue milk crate and got a solid start climbing over the fence. The four others in his group started climbing right behind him. “Stop! Please you don’t have to do this!” Liam shouted as he stepped backward. Paige ran down the corridor toward the ladder. Liam tried to stop her, “Paige, don’t!” She stopped at the ledge and reconsidered for a moment, then decided ignored his plea. She slid down the ladder, landing at the next ledge, and ran past the lighted room where the smell of the dandelion stew filled the air. She reached the battery bank and grabbed the yellow-striped cable Liam had hauled down. Paige pushed the cable’s plug into a socket. Voices screaming immediately filled the mine shaft, and just as quickly, were silenced. Paige could hear the fence crackling with electricity, rattling with the bodies shaking against it. She climbed the ladder and ran toward the fence. She could smell burning flesh as she approached, and when she shined her light, she saw four people clinging to the fence, paralyzed by the electricity. They
shook slightly as it coursed through their bodies. Muffled impacts reached Paige’s ears as she realized she did not see Liam. She shined her flashlight down the corridor and searched for him. Her flashlight found him on the ground with Bill straddling him, pummeling him with punches. Liam had his arms raised in front of his face, attempting to block the strikes. Paige ran at the man and tackled him with full force, knocking him off Liam, then tumbled to the ground with the man. He gained his feet just before Paige and lunged at her, but Liam pushed him away. He hit the wall and fell to the ground once more, face in the dirt. Paige took advantage of the opening, knelt on top of the man, pulled the screwdriver from her hair and drove it into his back. He screamed in agony as she pulled the screwdriver out and brought it back down, piercing his body again and again. Liam grabbed her arm to stop the strikes and pulled her off the man. “You bastards,” Bill shouted, rolling over to face them. “You killed them all!” “You were going to kill us!” Paige shouted back, lunging toward him again. Liam held her back, “Stop, Paige. Isn’t killing four people enough?” While Liam restrained her, Bill kicked out Liam’s legs and lunged for Paige with a desperate cry. Rotting teeth lined the gaping mouth in the center of his beard and his eyes were wild with rage. Paige took a step backward and defended with her arms, bracing herself. He knocked her to the ground, landed on top of her, and then lay still. A warm liquid trickled over Paige. Liam gained his feet and pulled the man off Paige. Her long hair was caked in dirt and blood and stuck in places to her face. As she stood, Liam turned Bill over. The screwdriver protruded from his chest. Liam took a step backward, “My God.”
“Liam…” Liam ignored Paige, picked up her flashlight and shined it at the fence. Paige stood beside him. The faces of the intruders were frozen in terror and agony, mouths open, flesh charred. Their fingers grasped the fence in a death grip, electricity still crackling along the fence as the wind shook their corpses. Liam rounded on Paige, “What did you do?” Paige remained silent. “I thought we saw enough charred bodies after the comet!” “We’d be dead otherwise,” Paige said. “I’ll turn off the power and we can bury them in the morning.” Liam looked at her aghast, then sagged and nodded, “They deserve that.” Paige shut off the power and returned to the entrance of the mine with a wooden rod. As she pushed the bodies off the fence, they fell to the ground and threw up a dust cloud of ash, their limbs cracking with the impact. Liam knelt just inside the entrance. “What are you doing?” Paige asked. Liam was silent, his eyes closed and head bowed. After a moment, he answered, “Praying.” “Since when do you pray?” “They were religious.” Paige dragged Bill’s body to the fence, carefully avoiding the puddles of blood on the ground. As she laid him on the ground, she noticed something weighing down his side pocket. Reaching inside his pocket, Paige pulled out a dark leatherbound book. She shined her flashlight at it and turned it over. Gold letters lit up the front, reading ‘The Bible’. She stood a moment staring at the object and remembered her father shaking the same book at her before the disaster. Paige slid the book into her back pocket, then walked back down the corridor, kicking dirt over the trail of blood. Pulse - 95