Shattering Humanity (Surviving For Humanity Book 1) Read online

  “It's not going to be over any time soon,” Tillman said.

  The man pressed his lips together and nodded. He sighed, and then, with nothing more to say, he bid Tillman farewell. Tillman stood still as the crowd passed before him, one undulating mass who all were connected by terror. He met the gaze of those who had suffered, and shared in their disbelief and terror.

  Those who died had suffered a lot, and those who survived would go on suffering.

  Tillman waited for them to pass. They almost were like a funeral procession, although instead of carrying a coffin they were carrying the weight of everything that had happened to them. The weight of all they had lost, and all the fear of what was yet to come. It was something they each had in common. Perhaps, Tillman hoped, it was enough to unite them, but more than likely humanity would find a way to divide itself again. It was always good at that, making things into a competition when there was no reason to do so.

  He turned his back on that crowd and continued making his way to the Game Changer.

  The sounds of their talking and their footsteps receded into the distance. Soon enough, everything was silent again.

  Tillman walked through the dark mall. Strips of silver light poured through the windows, illuminating everything. He breathed slowly, tensely.

  A noise.

  Tillman turned round and saw two men staring at him. Were these crazy drunks? Grief-stricken people?

  They turned out to be something completely different.

  “What have you got in the bag?” one of them asked.

  The voice was laced with a taunting tone. Tillman groaned inwardly. This was exactly the kind of situation he had wanted to avoid. There were a number of ways to handle this. Tillman chose to ignore them, hoping that simply by walking away they would lose interest and find someone else to harass.

  His hopes were unfounded. As soon as he moved, they moved with him.

  “What's wrong, stranger? Cat got your tongue?” the guy said. They both seemed to find this incredibly funny. Tillman groaned and stood still, hanging his head.

  “Don't you have something better to do?” he asked.

  The men cackled.

  “What else is there for us to do? The devil makes work for idle hands,” he said, and promptly tried grabbing Tillman's bag. Tillman jerked away, using every ounce of his strength. The man grabbing the bag hadn't expected him to be so strong, and found himself falling face first to the ground. The other one laughed. The one on the ground pushed himself up, snarled, and glared at Tillman.

  Maybe he wouldn't make it to the store after all.

  “You'd better watch who you're messing with, dude. Just give us the bag and we'll let you go,” the guy said. He did most of the talking, the other one seemed to be too busy laughing. Tillman wondered if they were on drugs.

  “There's nothing of interest to you. It's better if you go on your way. You should find a place to stay safe,” Tillman warned.

  “Ha! Everyone else should find a place to stay safe from us!” he said, looking proud.

  Tillman only pitied him for being so ignorant. In the old world he was the kind of person who would have fallen through the cracks. Tillman doubted he had much of an education, or any kind of prospects. He likely would go through life a petty, small man, but at least his sphere of influence would be limited. Now, however, it was men like him who had the full reign of the city. He would be able to go anywhere and intimidate as many people as he saw fit, and they would all be so scared that they would give him exactly what he desired.

  That was the moment when Tillman's pity turned to anger. He felt a hand on his shoulder. In a flash, Tillman grabbed the hand and bent down, pulling the guy over his shoulder, sending him crashing to the ground. In order to do this, Tillman had to put a lot of weight on his injured ankle, and he almost passed out because of the pain.

  The stars dancing in front of his eyes made him pause, giving the other guy a chance to attack. Tillman felt a fist strike his cheek. Pain throbbed through his face and his eyes began to water. Another fist pummeled him. Tillman quickly shook off the daze, and blocked the next punch, then hit back, clocking the attacker with a right hook that sent shock waves through his body. Tillman let the bag fall to the ground as he grabbed the guy by the scruff of his neck and threw him into a nearby wall. He went back to pick up his bag and, noticing the other guy was just getting up, kicked him in the face.

  “Now you two better listen up. You aren't going to get much out of the world acting like this. One day you're going to come across someone crueler than me, someone who isn't going to leave you alive. Frankly, I'm fighting with myself not to kill you right now. Maybe I'd be doing you a favor, putting you out of your misery.”

  At this Tillman put his hand around the man's throat and watched his eyes bulge. Tillman squeezed. The man started to slap Tillman's hand and gurgled a plea for Tillman to let him live. With a disgusted look on his face, Tillman pulled his hand away and stood up, leaving the two of them there to think about what they had done. He moved away as quickly as possible.

  By now his ankle was pulsing with pain, and it lanced right up into his leg. Every step was arduous, every moment brought with it more anguish, and he knew if he encountered anyone else who wanted a fight he most likely would end up on the ground.

  Hobbling along, he felt a great sense of relief when he saw the familiar territory of the Game Changer. As soon as he was at the door he dropped the bag and banged on the door. Then he recoiled as something was thrown against the windows.

  “Get out of here! We don't have anything, and we're armed! If you open that door, I'll blow your head off,” Greg shouted.

  Tillman chuckled to himself. He had forgotten that in this dim light they wouldn't have been able to recognize him. He was probably just a silhouette to them.

  “Greg, it's me! It's Tillman!” he shouted back.

  There was a moment's pause.

  “How can I be sure?” Greg yelled. Tillman rolled his eyes. Trust Greg to be paranoid.

  “Don't be an ass, Greg. Open this door!”

  He heard movement, and then the sliding sound of a chain and padlock being released. The door opened and Penelope was standing there, looking as though she was at the end of her rope.

  “Thank God you're here. I was about to kill him,” she said, then turned her back and walked into the store. Tillman followed.

  Chapter Seven

  Tillman shut the door behind him.

  “You should put the chain back on,” Greg warned, stepping up from the counter. He wasn't armed, of course, that was just a lie to threaten intruders. “There are some nasty people out there.”

  “I know. I think I just encountered two of them,” Tillman said, struggling to lock the door behind him. The pain was getting to the point where it was unbearable. As soon as the padlock was fastened he grunted and made his way to the nearest chair, sinking into it.

  “Are you hurt?” Penelope asked, checking on him.

  “It's my ankle,” Tillman groaned. Penelope fell to the floor and took off his boots, then rolled down his sock.

  “Get some candles, Greg. I can't see anything here,” she said.

  Penelope always kept a stock of candles in the back room, telling them that it was nice to have the place smelling of a pleasant aroma. Greg ran to the back and returned with some soft flickering light. Seeing it reminded Tillman of the car fire, and all the destruction he had seen. He clamped his eyes shut, trying to pretend that it didn't exist.

  He opened his eyes again to look down at his wound. His ankle had ballooned up, and looked red and raw.

  “Ouch,” Penelope said.

  “Tell me about it,” Tillman replied.

  “Did you get this in your fight? You said there were two of them? That sounds about right. There were two of them that came along here. They were laughing, like this thing was all a joke! They rattled the door, but didn't try to come in. Troublemakers they are,” Greg muttered, folding his arms acro
ss his chest.

  “Do you want to get him some water or something?” Penelope said sternly.

  “There's some in the bag,” Tillman said, “along with some supplies.”

  Greg leaned down and pulled out a bottle of water. He handed one to each of them, then pushed the bag toward Penelope, who looked to see if there was anything of use in it. Greg opened the bottle and started to gulp down the water eagerly.

  “I'd go easy on that if I were you. Not sure how long it's going to last,” Tillman said. Greg brought the bottle away from his lips and looked at Tillman quizzically.

  “What are you going on about?”

  “Greg, the world has ended,” Tillman said.

  Greg furrowed his brow and looked at Tillman with disbelief, shaking his head. “Let's not start this again. Things will be back to normal soon.”

  Tillman looked down and heard Penelope mumble something that was decidedly unladylike under her breath.

  “I'm being straight with you, Greg. Why do you think I'm here? I went to the airport, but all the flights were canceled. I drove away and then my car stalled, I crashed into a truck. That's how my ankle got wrecked. You should see it out there, man. I was on the freeway. There was so much death. Planes fell from the sky. How could you not hear it? How could you not believe it?”

  Tillman finished speaking and, in that moment, now that he finally was sitting down and in a place he considered safe, the entirety of the last few hours came rushing over him. All the anguish crashed through his body and mind. He'd been trying to hold it together as much as he could, but now it all came apart. As he processed everything he had seen his entire body began shuddering and tears stung his eyes.

  Greg and Penelope looked at each other warily. They never had seen Tillman like this.

  “I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean anything by it. I just, I guess I didn't realize it was that bad...” Greg said, trailing off. “We were here when everything went dark. At first we thought it was just a power outage, but then we heard and felt the crashes and prayed for our lives. I guess we're the lucky ones.”

  “I don't know about that,” Penelope said sharply.

  Tillman bowed his head and wiped the tears from his eyes, knowing that he had to compose himself. Just like Dan had to be strong for the sake of his family, Tillman had to be strong for these two. They were his employees, his friends, and he felt a sense of responsibility for them. Furthermore, he already had seen too many people go their own way in this world. Too many people had been separated. Now was a time for him to keep the people who meant the most to him close.

  “Things are bad, guys. I don't know the full extent of it, but people are scared, and soon they're going to panic. There's so much death out there. I can't even begin to describe it,” Tillman said.

  “I can't imagine what you've gone through. We were waiting for word, for somebody to tell that us that everything is okay,” Penelope said. “We figured that eventually someone would come along, and then time kept going. We didn't want to leave until we figured out what was going on.”

  “I took a quick look around when the power first went out, but nobody was around. This place is giving me the creeps. It won't be too long before we're back in business, though. Right? I mean, they said the solar flare wasn't going to have this much effect. They wouldn't have lied to us,” Greg said.

  “The government lie? No, that never would happen,” Penelope replied sarcastically.

  Greg made a face toward her.

  “We don't know what the truth of the matter is, or how long the solar flare lasted. But even so, we know about the effects. A flare powerful enough to do this will have lingering effects. It's probably going to be at least four years,” Tillman said, “and even then I'm not sure we'll actually be able to claw our way back to the same level of technology we had before.”

  Penelope gave out a low whistle. She finished administering first aid to Tillman, and then stood up, placing her hands on her hips.

  “So, it finally happened. The world finally has gone to hell.”

  “Sheesh! Listen to the two of you, all doom and gloom,” Greg said, getting back to the counter. “This isn't going to be as bad as you think. Tillman, I love you, man, but you've been playing too many games. I told you that you should focus more on the old school platformers. All these new games are so depressing. They keep thinking they have to have a story, and it's not like they're written by scientists. They just cobble together a few ideas and leave it at that. The old ways are the best. Games shouldn't be about stories, they're about skill and reflexes. Who needed a story to Pac-Man?”

  Tillman leaned back, bracing himself against the pain that throbbed in his ankle. It was a little better than it had been now that he had taken the weight off it, but it still would be a while before he was able to walk properly again.

  Now that he was sitting down he realized how exhausted he had been. It was as though all his muscles had been clenched since he had been in the car crash, and now that he was in a safe place he could relax.

  “Greg, I don't just know this from games. I've done a lot of reading too. Trust me on this, the world has ended.”

  “I'm sorry, Tillman, I just can't believe that this is the way it's going to go. This isn't a game. We're not here to talk about the end of the world. The government won't let this happen,” Greg said.

  “I don't think they had a choice,” Penelope said. “What could they have done to stop it?”

  “They have methods. I'm pretty sure that any moment now the lights are going to come on and we're all going to have a big laugh about this,” Greg said, looking up at the ceiling as though he expected his statement to come true, but it did not. The three of them remained in darkness.

  “Well,” Greg continued, “obviously the universe doesn't like good timing, but that's not my problem.”

  “It doesn't matter anyway,” Tillman said, his words almost a groan. “It doesn't matter how it happened. All that matters is that it happened. This is the world we're living in now. There's no police, no army, no hospitals, nobody looking out for us except ourselves. Everything we know has been destroyed. We're not going to be able to play games anymore, Greg. This place means nothing. Hell, there's a plane lying out there on top of crushed bodies! Every moment is going to be a fight for our lives. All the people you game with? You'll never talk to them again. All the people we've met at conventions over the years? We'll never talk to them either. The chances are that everyone we know is dead.”

  Tillman's words hung in the air.

  “Well, that was dramatic of you,” Penelope said. She took a sip of her water. “What's your plan, boss?”

  “I don't think you have to call me that any longer. My job here doesn't matter, nothing here matters. I don't have any authority over you anymore,” Tillman said.

  “Did you ever?” Penelope replied with a wry smile.

  Tillman laughed. “I don't know about you guys, but my plan is to get to my family.”

  “Your parents? I thought you hadn't spoken to them in years?” Greg said.

  “I haven't, but I figure now is as good a time as any to see them again, if they're still out there. Besides, I can't rest easy until I know that Morelle is safe,” Tillman said, his heart lurching as he thought of the precious girl.

  “I'm in,” Penelope said.

  “As easy as that?” Tillman wondered.

  “Sure. My dad was a drunk asshole and my mom has probably found a bed to rest in. I came here to escape them anyway. It's not like I want to go back,” she explained.

  “Fair enough. Greg?” Tillman asked.

  “I guess so, as long as we can make a stop along the way,” he replied.

  “What for?” Tillman asked.

  “A girl I've been seeing, a girl I love,” Greg said.

  “What? You haven't mentioned her. I don't believe you,” Penelope said scornfully.

  “The girl has a point, Greg. Usually whenever you have the slightest hint of interaction with a
girl you always tell us about it,” Tillman said.

  “Every. Damn. Detail,” Penelope added.

  “This time I thought I'd be more of a gentleman and not kiss and tell. It could be serious. I didn't want to jinx it,” Greg said.

  “Go on then,” Tillman sighed, “tell us about her, if she's this important to you.”

  “Oh, she is. She's amazing. Gorgeous, talented, and the best part of all is that I think she loves me too!”

  “I'm very happy to hear that. I guess we can make a detour if she's that important to you. I'm loath to stand in the way of true love,” Tillman said.

  “Wait a minute,” Penelope said, holding up her hand just as Greg was grinning. “How long have you known her?”

  “Love can happen in the blink of an eye,” Greg said.

  “How long?” Penelope replied tersely. Greg shifted on his feet. The grin disappeared. He bowed his head and when he spoke again his words were very low.

  “Two weeks,” he mumbled. Penelope let out a burst of laughter.

  “Two weeks?!” she exclaimed.

  Greg's face reddened.

  “What the hell is wrong with that?” he asked.

  “Oh, nothing, nothing at all,” she said, rolling her eyes and throwing her hands up in the air. She turned her back to Greg and shook her head in disbelief.

  “You know, it's not the length of a relationship that matters, it's the connection between two people. Me and Ivana have something real!” Greg shouted.

  Tillman could see that if he didn't say anything things were going to get out of hand. Tempers were frayed, and his two friends, who already had a tempestuous relationship, were going to bite each other’s head off if they weren't careful. They were scared, and they'd been cooped up here together ever since Tillman had left.