My father chose that moment to utter the most profound understatement in human history. “This is bad.”

I couldn’t help it. I let out a bark of hysterical laughter. “Oh, really? You think?”

Dad turned and glared at me. It was on his lips to say something harsh, but whatever he saw on my face stopped him. His dark eyes softened and he laid a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, son. Let’s go home. We have things to do.”

*****

If there was one thing my father believed in, it was preparedness.

He and I stood in front of a workbench in the garage. In front of us lay a collection of pistols and rifles, boxes of ammunition, spare magazines, tactical gear, and freeze-dried emergency rations.

“We’ll take a rifle, a pistol, and a backup piece each,” Dad said. “No point in bringing anything else. It’ll just be extra weight.”

“We should bring the hunting rifle and the .22s,” I replied. “Useful. Ammo’s easy to find.”

Dad thought it over for a moment, then nodded. “Agreed.”

I scanned the collection of pistols, shotguns, and carbines, and wondered what to do with the ones we weren’t bringing along. My father glanced at me, and I could tell he was thinking the same thing.

“We’ll give them away,” he said. “No sense in letting them go to waste. Things are going to get bad pretty soon. People will need a way to defend themselves.”

I let out a breath. “Yeah. Okay.”

“When we leave, I’ll open the garage door, put a note on them. Let folks take what they need.”

“Sure.”

“You all right, son?”

I shook my head. “No, Dad. I’m pretty fucking far from all right.”

For once, he did not reprimand the use of profanity. Behind us, the door opened.

“Gary’s on the phone,” Lauren said.

We turned toward her at the same time. Her jaw was tense, the veins in her neck pronounced. Over the last few days, the tension in her had grown to a fever pitch. There was a jitteriness in her eyes, like she was afraid to look at any one thing for too long. A sharp pang of worry lanced through my stomach as I looked at her, and I wished I could think of something to say to calm her down. But I knew nothing would make any difference just then.

I followed Dad inside as he went into the kitchen and picked up the satellite phone. All of the instructors at BWT had been issued one in case of emergency. At that point, both landline and cell phone communication had shut down.

“Hello? Gary?” he said.

Gary was Dad’s boss and the owner of Black Wolf Tactical. He lived in Oklahoma and trusted his employees to manage his many businesses, so I saw him only rarely. He was a big man, well over six feet tall, balding, fantastically obese, and always in possession of some silicone-breasted, botoxed, bleach-blonde trophy a couple of decades younger than he. But for all that, he had always treated my father and the other instructors at BWT with respect. His booming bass buzzed through the phone loud enough I could hear it from three feet away.

“Joe, how you holding up down there?” he said.

Dad scraped a hand across his beard stubble. “If I’m honest, Gary, not too good. Houston is gone.”

There was a long silence. “Listen, Joe. I’ve already called most of the other fellas. I want you all to go to BWT and take whatever you need, then get the hell out of there.”

“You heard anything from your contacts on the east coast?” Dad replied.

“No, Joe. That whole part of the country has gone dark. Listen, friend. Do what I said. Get your family, take what you need, and get the hell out of East Texas. The Army won’t be able to stop those things from overrunning the place. Head for Colorado. That’s your best bet.”

“What about you, Gary?”

“Don’t worry about me. I have my own plans. Just do what I said.”

Dad ground his teeth, his grip tight around the phone. “Gary?”

“Yes, Joe.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Good luck, my friend. God be with you.”

“Yeah,” Dad said bitterly. “Same to you.”

He hung up, then looked to Lauren and me. “Come on,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

THIRTEEN

We were the last to arrive.

Dad took back roads on the drive over. We saw only a few other cars along the way, all laden down with as much cargo as they could carry, wide-eyed drivers clutching steering wheels with strained white knuckles and driving faster than was safe for conditions. I wondered how many of them we would pass wrecked on the side of the road.

What few houses we passed looked abandoned, some of their front doors hanging open as a result of their former residents’ haste to escape the approaching blaze. The sky above grew steadily darker while the choke of falling ash became thicker and thicker. When we finally arrived at BWT, Blake, Tyrel, and Mike’s vehicles were in the main office parking lot.

“Leave the rifles,” Dad said. “Pistols only for now.”

Reluctantly, I laid my carbine aside. The three of us piled out of Dad’s truck and went to the front door to find it unlocked. Dad put a hand on his pistol, pushed the door open, and leaned inside. It was dark in the foyer, but I detected a faint illumination deeper within.

“Blake? Mike? Tyrel? It’s Joe. Anybody in there?”

A muffled voice shouted back. “Yeah, just a sec.” A moment later Mike appeared around the corner. “The others are in the armory. Come on.”

I followed Dad inside as he proceeded down the hall past the empty receptionist’s desk. He took a small LED flashlight from his tactical vest and shined it ahead of us. The light at the end of the hall grew steadily brighter until we turned the corner and saw shadows of people moving around in the armory.

“What’s the story?” Dad asked as we drew near.

Mike put down the box he was moving and pointed at the rows of metal shelving. “Sorting through it all. Prioritizing.”

“Beans, bullets, and bandages?”

“Pretty much.”

Stepping further inside and looking to my left, I saw Blake and Tyrel sorting through the ammo stacks. To my left, I saw Mike’s daughter, Sophia.

For a moment, I stopped breathing.

Sophia was my age, a senior in high school, and the star of her school’s soccer team. Tall, trim, and fit, she had straight blonde hair down to her shoulders, chestnut brown eyes, and was as pretty as a spring morning.

Mike rarely brought his daughter around BWT, as she had no interest whatsoever in what he did for a living so long as he handled the car payment and insurance on her brand new Infinity G-35. I had known her for years, the two of us attending the same barbeques and holiday events and such, and she had always been distantly, indifferently polite. I guess when a girl has a veritable legion of testosterone-fueled teenage boys lusting after her, it is hard to be impressed by a gangly, taciturn home-schooled kid.

Our eyes met across the dim gray room, and I felt a lance of pain in my chest. She looked haunted, her face red and puffy from crying, the thin coating of ash on her cheeks smeared from wiping at tears. She had tied her hair back in a loose knot, but a few errant strands hung loosely over her face. She sat alone on top of a wooden crate looking heartbreakingly delicate and vulnerable. Out of protective instinct, without thinking, I walked over to her.

“Sophia, are you okay?”

She looked up in mild surprise; I think it was the most I had ever spoken to her. Not that I had never wanted to, mind you. But when she was around, I always found it difficult to form coherent sentences.

“I’m all right, I guess,” she said. “All things considered.” Her voice was thick with the stuffiness that comes from crying. She crossed her arms and seemed to shrink without moving.

“Is your mother okay?” I asked gently, looking around. “I don’t see her anywhere.”

“She’s in Oregon, visiting my grandparents,” Sophia replied. “She wanted to come back when things … you know. Dad told her to stay put.”