Chapter One
“With humanity defeated and their world extinguished, we have no choice but to create our own path forward. One that we may define for ourselves.”
–Mother. Elysium, Pandemonium. 3 Years After.
* * *
The axe fell with a slam, crashing through more debris.
Liam Fenix wiped the perspiration from his brow with a grin. It had been ages since he’d come topside like this, out on the Coloradan foothills and into fresh air. To be again in this sanctuary was a welcome reprieve. Just feeling natural light on his flesh made him whole. Liam found his eyes tracing the path of the sun before long. Down from the bright blue sky, through the wooded, triple peaks of Cheyenne Mountain, into the mess of pines and junipers that lay below, down to the clearing where they kept their solar panels…
Before finally landing on a hollow that had trapped itself inside their fence. The creature hissed and fumbled, but the metal wiring held strong.
Liam sighed. How the bloody hell did that one get up here? He drew his old Remington and wiped down the lens of its scope. Getting a clear shot from this distance was child’s play, especially after so much practice. An X narrowed on the spot between the hollow’s eyes as he adjusted the sight.
He paused. This hollow had a female frame with greasy black hair that spilled out to the sides and cheeks that had been torn to shreds, exposing blackened gums and teeth.
It looked so much like her.
Liam lowered his rifle and started to march over. As had become habit in these circumstances, he quickly thrust the polyethylene covering back over his leather hardsuit torso, tightened the attached straps, affixed his rubber gloves with the added Teflon grips in place, and tossed on his insulated helmet before lowering the attached acrylic visor. The risk of infection was never to be underestimated. Not when he had so much to lose now.
The hollow clattered its teeth once near. Liam leaned in as close as safety could allow, his eyes locked with hers. A pair of blank, white slates stared back, devoid of any thought other than hunger.
“You’re all alone in there, aren’t you?” Liam asked.
The hollow chomped at empty air.
“I suppose that’s true for us both,” he considered. “It’s not like either of us can make a habit of this exchange.”
The hollow blinked.
“You know what I like to think? One day we’ll be free from these prisons. That’s what this was all about, yeah? Mother set this whole thing up just so my kind could have a chance to live on, and yours could have the chance to die off as nature intended. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
The hollow moaned, and a soft gurgle grew in the back of its throat.
“Neither of us will get to see that day, I reckon. We’ll both be long gone before the Hollowing reaches its end.” Liam smiled. “But that’s okay. This mission has never been about you or me. It’s always been about her. She’s the one who matters.” He nodded. “She’s the one who makes this suffering worth it.”
On that thought, Liam pressed the barrel of his gun through a gap in the fence. The hollow tilted its head as the barrel pressed into its chest, but then a tinge more force knocked its torso off-center. Gravity took control from there. Liam made stepped forth and watched as the hollow tumbled down the barren cliff face, through the shrugs, and into the shifting sea of other hollows that surrounded Cheyenne’s main entrance. Their moans grew in force as the disturbance reverberated out. White eyes locked with his, and their frail bodies scrambled about, but none were intelligent enough to find a way to climb back up.
His radio whirred. “You doing alright up there, Liam?”
He pressed it against his visor. “Yes, love. I’ve got quite the sweat going and everything.”
Evelyn chuckled, soft and sweet. “A lot of good that’s doing you. Power’s still spotty down here.”
“If you’re so confident, my dear wife, then why don’t you make the multi-kilometer hike through an army of undead monsters, scale a cliff before they spot you, and repair our solar panels yourself? You can even bring up some water for our herbs.”
“I can’t hold your hand through everything,” Evelyn countered. “This is the apocalypse, remember? You got the first twelve years easy, so now it’s time to work.” She paused. “But seriously, honey, get the power working again. HVAC is still offline, and if this keeps up, we’ll be back to burning bio just to keep the lights running.”
He let out a deep breath. “I’m not surprised. It looks like one of the main cords got nicked when a tree went down, so we’ll need to replace some cabling to get power flowing through the panels again. I’m thinking of scavenging from Section C until we can get a chance to bring more up.”
“No, not C. It’s the only visibility we have from the south. Go for F.”
Liam scoffed. “You want me to climb a bloody mountain just for a few feet of wires?”
“Only the first leg of it. F-5 and 6 are still faulty anyway.”
He looked behind their fenced-in clearing, along with the wires that ran up the mountain into Section F. To call that cliff a “trail” was an injustice for the term. The incline alone could topple any but the most indomitable mountaineers and had nearly claimed Liam himself on more than one occasion.
“I’m going for C,” he decided.
“Liam…” Evelyn said before trailing off. He didn’t need to see her face to know the expression. It was the kind that his first wife, Nelly, used to give him when she considered his judgment ill-placed. It was as infuriating then as it was now.
“Look,” Liam exhaled. “I know what you’re going to say, that this will ‘make us vulnerable,’ but we haven’t had so much as a squirrel work into C for more than six months now, and I’m not about to sprain an ankle trying to brave Section F. The distance is shorter, the terrain is more favorable, and we can lose a few motion sensors for a day in that zone. This is the safer choice, so just listen to me, yeah?”
There was another pause, and Liam grit his teeth. She better not have another go at me. They’d been having too many of those as is lately.
“That wasn’t what I was thinking,” Evelyn said at last. “Just take care of yourself, honey. You never know what can go wrong.”
He breathed deeply. “Thank you. I will.”
* * *
To think that Liam had once found this dark tunnel to be the world’s most terrifying place. It was pitch black, dead silent, and with a floor littered with infectious cannibals that would spring to life and murder him at the slightest provocation. Going through here the first time was only done out of necessity, as Mother wanted to shepherd him inside in the hopes that her almighty hollow sea would keep Hades and his Hunters at bay.
Oh, how times had changed. With the aid of night vision goggles below his hazmat suit and the confidence of making this trip more times than he could count, Liam was bothered by nothing more than what they were having for dinner. Probably shiitake with a side of canned peas. Their greenhouse yield had been particularly high last month, and Evelyn had been squeezing it into every meal since.
Liam strolled by the hollows in a slow but steady clip as he considered how the next few days would have to go. Section C’s wiring needed to be replaced sooner rather than later, and if Evelyn were to have her way, it would be the former and not the latter. But Section C was based on the eastern ridge, while their lentils grew on the southern entrance. They were overdue for either a good watering or a full harvest, especially with the reduced rain cycle of this time of year. The two would have accomplished both trips in the past, but ever since their daughter was born, they dared not leave her alone. Not while she was so fragile. So now they’d be left with an uncomfortable choice: leave an area of their home unprotected for a few days more, or allow their vegetable supply to be at risk of dying off.
Liam Fenix was a survivalist. He had spent the better part of his youth living out in the wilds with only the barest necessities at hand. His life hit its crest during adulthood when he became a television celebrity sent to the harshest environments to share his experience with the world. Even when stranded on an abandoned island, he survived with flying colors. All this was to say that he’d been well-prepared to handle a post-Hollowing world before ever setting foot back in the States.
And yet, that life had been an exercise in leisure compared to what they faced now. Between maintaining their bunker and caring for a newborn child, they seemed to never be able to keep their heads entirely above water.
That came before the threat of the undead themselves. Always just past the walls, ready to murder them if they dropped their guard an inch. Despite his learned experience around hollows, Liam could never quite rid himself of the fear of what would happen next should he fail to protect himself.
It was no longer just his own life at risk, after all. Humanity itself would die off if they ever made a single mistake.
* * *
“I’m back,” Liam announced as he reached the inner bunker.
“Give me a few,” Evelyn said from the kitchen.
“Take your time, love.”
He studied their home while removing the final layers of his protective hardsuit. Faux pine lined the cavern’s walls, with carpeted floors beneath. The entire unit was over four thousand square feet and held a kitchen with an attached pantry, a living room with its own entertainment center, an infirmary that doubled as a lab, a bathroom, an emergency generator, and multiple bedrooms, with enough bunks to house a family of ten. Light fell from the many UV bulbs, shrouding their home in enough artificial sunlight to mimic the surface. Curtains even fell across facades to mirror windows; sometimes, it was difficult to disprove the notion by mere sight alone.
Where the rest of Cheyenne was modified from its original design to minimize resource cost, Mother had gone to great lengths to make these rooms appear as normal as possible. Liam had not initially understood the need, but after so much time down here, he’d want it no other way. Sure, the outer bunker was a suitable enough environment to work under, but this was their true home. There was a certain sense of comfort that could never be gained by the cold, granite walls of Cheyenne Mountain.
His eyes fell on Leah at last, with her tufts of black hair and those beady, brown eyes. Liam leaned into her play area for a hug. His daughter drooled back.
“Are you waiting until I’m gone just to make a mess?” Liam quipped before giving Leah a kiss. “There, there. Come here. Daddy’s home.”
“She missed you,” Evelyn said from behind.
His wife leaned against the door, her black hair wrapped in a towel. She wore a white robe instead of her usual fatigues, contrasting her otherwise dark complexion. She smiled wide, her pursed lips twisting inward.
“Not you too, love,” Liam gawked. “I spend all day out there getting power flowing again, and you take the first shower without me!?”
“Couldn’t wait. Besides, we can always do another later.” She winked.
There was once a time when Evelyn Jones was no more than the mysterious woman whom Mother had dumped Liam on with the plan to repopulate the Earth. But looking at her now and feeling the warmth in his heart, those days were a lifetime and a half ago.
Liam breathed deep, relishing the sanctuary that had been carved out in this otherwise dead world.
“How were things up there?” Evelyn asked.
Liam shrugged. “Winter’s coming in, I’m telling you. The air’s got that taste to it. I’d give it another couple weeks before we can ease off AC.”
“Then it’s back to hoarding heat and veggies until Spring. But we both knew that was coming. Anything else?”
“Nothing substantial,” Liam considered before rubbing the stubble on his chin. “I did see something strange. A hollow that looked just like Leah. The other one, I mean. Somehow managed to climb the walls before getting stuck in the fence near the panels.”
“You put her down, right?”
“Knocked her back into the pit, yeah.”
She raised an eyebrow. “But you didn’t kill it?”
“Didn’t feel right.”
And just like that, the serenity was shattered.
Evelyn’s smile dissolved. “What do you mean that you didn’t kill it? How did it get up there? Was it climbing? Crawling? How far up the fence did it reach?”
“I checked the eyes,” Liam said before rubbing his own. “She was a hollow, I promise.”
“It was a hollow,” she corrected before taking another step. “But are you certain? You looked right in them? All white? No sign of red?”
“I made sure.”
“Liam, this can’t be left to sit. If a dreg is forming a Rez inside the fence, it needs to be put down before it becomes too smart.”
He shook his head at the lunacy of it all. Why was Evelyn like this? She could somehow be the sweetest, most caring person in the entire world, with enough love to fill a stadium on her own. But at the tiniest inkling of a threat on the horizon, her mind would warp into the unsympathetic survivor, so detached from emotion that it bordered sociopathic. This constant exercise was enough to drive a man mad!
“Do you want me to go back up there right now, Evelyn?” Liam asked, his cheeks reddening. “Walk all the way through the tunnel, find that one hollow from the crowd, and ram a knife in its brain?”
She stood unfazed. “No. We need to prioritize getting Section C connected again. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”
Of course, you haven’t forgotten. Evelyn Jones never, ever let her perception of their security lessen for a beat. They would find themselves accomplishing both tasks before long. That was the only way she’d ever grow at ease. Oh, how Liam wanted nothing more than to let her have it.
But he looked again to Leah, with her tanned, innocent face, and thought better of it. Instead, he planted another kiss on her cheek.
“Please, love. Let’s not argue about this. Not after I just got back here.”
For a moment, Evelyn stood in place, her brow hardened. But then she noticed their daughter as well, and her disposition smoothed out.
“You’re right, honey. Forget I said anything.” She closed in to embrace them both.
Her skin was warm to the touch as the three wrapped their arms around each other, but now the room held a tension that could not be shaken. It was only a matter of time before the two were back to shouting at each other, this time with more vitriol. These fights consumed so much of their lives lately, and no small calm would end them for long. Like the normalcy of their home, the happiness in their relationship was only ever skin deep.
It would not last.
