Silver Heart

The sunlight wasn't bright enough to burn my eyes, but I checked my goggles anyway. I heard an infant cry for just an instant somewhere. I ignored it, instead focusing on the apartment block I came here for.

The building was in bad shape, with siding falling off and most of the windows broken at least partially. The stairs were concrete on metal framing, so held up better than most of the building to the constant storms I could already hear rumbling off in the distance, but my main worry was what I didn't hear. I wasn't near the city centers but this was still within the city limits so there should have been a few feral dogs or cats around scrounging for whatever they could find in the corners of abandoned homes. Nothing moved anywhere I could see except for my own breath misting in the air. This time last year I would be sweating from heat, not shivering in the cold. I heard the baby scream again. I ignored it again and moved closer.

Slipping from abandoned car to abandoned car is the closest I could come to cover. After months in dark corners of old barns or moving from gas station to gas station under cover of what little daylight I had left, my hands were trembling from being so exposed. If just one of those things was nearby and spotted me that would be it. I ducked down even further as I heard a car actually driving down the road. I would be in even more trouble if the locals found me. Looters and scavengers tended to have lifespans almost as short as law-abiding citizens did.

I couldn't wait any longer. If this was too exposed in daylight it would be infinitely worse after dark. The local authorities hadn't abandoned this area because they were lazy, and the local wildlife wasn't absent by coincidence. I spotted it as I reached the base of the building itself. Too-long arms and legs jutted out of either side of a fire-gutted minivan on the other end of the parking lot near what had once been a public pool. The sharp claws at the end of each finger or toe were crusty with things better left to imagination. It was asleep. I kept my steps as light as I could and did all in my power to keep my breathing even and steady. It could hear me from this close. If my breathing became irregular it might wake up to investigate the change.

I only needed to climb one flight of open-air stairs before reaching the door I needed. I wasn't surprised to find it hanging open, but it still almost made me stumble. I heard the baby cry again. I ignored it yet again. I needed to move faster before I couldn't keep myself calm anymore.

A bedroom and bathroom flanked the entrance. I did not look into either. They would be full of ruined furniture, but otherwise empty. It also wasn't the kitchen or living room beyond that I cared about. It was the half-closed, half-shattered master bedroom door directly across the apartment from me that I was going to. The door had no lock. It was blocked by the sofa, but I was able to move that out of the way without much difficulty or noise.

I found her inside the bathroom, behind the last door our home had had to protect her, also smashed. I wasn't surprised. The baby crying was overwhelmed briefly by the memory of her sobbing that she loved me into her phone as that thing in the parking lot smashed its way through the door. I tried not to look too closely at what was left of her. I saw what I was here for and grabbed it at the same time as I heard movement on the stairs.

The scratching of clawed hands and feet was unmistakable and terrifyingly familiar. It could hear me breathing, it knew exactly where I was. My hand unconsciously went to the hammer hanging from my belt but I didn't waste time even considering using it as a weapon. That thing wouldn't sleep in broad daylight if it was that easily killed.

I blinked as I heard that car driving back down the road. This place must be at the far end of their patrol route. It would have to be for them to not have killed or been killed by the thing hunting me. I wasn't going to get a better chance to get out alive. I waited for the car to get closer, hands sliding along the toilet seat cover. It had always been loose, no matter how many times I had tried to tighten it. I pulled as hard as I could when the car was almost under the bedroom window, pivoted, and flung the ceramic through and out towards the street. The sudden noise and the car engine covered my own breathing and heartbeat as the malformed thing charged through the apartment, ripping wood as it went and leaping out the window almost on top of the approaching patrol. I heard screams and gunshots, even a chainsaw revving up, but I didn't wait around. I was outside and heading in the opposite direction at full speed long before the gunshots ceased. It didn't matter who had won the brief fight.

I didn't stop running until I found a storm shelter. Pre-Calamity tornados were less of a concern now, but the shelters were priceless. I checked as carefully as I could to be sure it was empty before I closed myself inside for the night. I lit one of my candles and pulled out what I had gone for.

It was heart-shaped and made of silver, on a thin chain. My hands shook as I opened it. On one side was a picture of my wife and I from our wedding ten years ago, smiling and happy. On the other side was the last picture we took of our little girl.

I heard the baby cry again. I joined her.