Free Genesis by Michaelbrent Collings

another few breathless moments, the thing ran off.  Ken noted that it looked less sure on its feet than had the first three, though he didn’t know why.  It hadn’t appeared injured.  He filed away the information.
     
    “So anyways,” Dorcas continued, as though they had been interrupted by nothing more than a minor annoyance, a glitch in the day’s proceedings, “even though you hadn’t been torn to itty-bitty bits, I didn’t think it’d be a good idea to leave you there, so I grabbed you and brought you here.”
     
    “But how?  No offense, but I’m a bit too big for you to pick up.”
     
    A cloud of smoke drifted by the window, as though to underline his question.
     
    Dorcas grimaced.  “Yeah, I had to drag ya .  You’ll probably find a fair amount of gravel in the back of your head, legs, and ass tonight.  Sorry.”
     
    Ken tried not to gawk at her.  She had dragged him for a quarter-mile?  She had to have done it one-handed, too, or she wouldn’t have been able to retain her XXL lug wrench.  And she was apologizing ?
     
    “Why?” he said.  And even as the word escaped him, he wasn’t sure what he meant by it.  Why had she cared to stop for him in the first place?  Why would she apologize when she’d done nothing to warrant an apology?  Why had he survived when so many had not?
     
    Why was any of this happening?
     
    Dorcas lavished another one of her “my, aren’t we the idiot?” looks on him.  “It was the right thing to do,” she said.  “Jesus said ‘Do unto others.’”  Her eyes flashed to the side.  “You’re head’s bleeding again.”
     
    Ken touched his temple.  His fingers came away red.  The sight of his blood made him woozy.  Or maybe it wasn’t the sight, but the fact that he’d probably lost so much of it.  Either way, he once again found himself riding a Tilt-a-Whirl that nobody had bothered to ask him if he wanted a turn on.
     
    Dorcas put a hand on his shoulder.  “You should lay back down.”
     
    “Can’t.”  He closed his eyes, willing the vertigo to stop.  It didn’t.  He opened his eyes and concentrated on seeing through his dizziness.  He seemed to have better luck with that, if only marginally.  “My family’s out there.”
     
    Dorcas ’ face tightened.  “Where?”
     
    “Wells Fargo Center.”
     
    She nodded.  “Well, we best get to it, then.”
     
    “To what?”
     
    “To them.”
     
    She started moving toward the front doors.  Ken moved after her, pausing only a fraction of a second.  He didn’t have to ask her why.  He knew what she would answer.
     
    “It’s the right thing to do.”
     

26
     
     
     
     
    The Wells Fargo Center was less than two miles away.  Less than a half hour’s hard walk under normal circumstances.
     
    But then, these were hardly normal circumstances.  Now, with the world spiraling into a maelstrom of chaos and violence, two miles could take a day.  Longer.  There was no way to know.
     
    Ken took a moment to search the receptionist’s desk.  It yielded little more helpful than the pencil he had already seen.  Just a ruler too flimsy to use as a weapon, and a plastic stapler that would probably fall apart if he tried to use it for anything more strenuous than attaching one sheet of paper to another.
     
    Welcome to the world of disposable living .
     
    Looked like he would be leaving the office as empty-handed as he came in.  At least he was still alive.
     
    Dorcas led the way out, creeping on cat-feet to the front of the drab room.  She unlatched the door, and Ken was amazed anew at the woman.  Not only had she rescued him, not only had she dragged him a quarter-mile through decidedly hostile territory, she had had the presence of mind to lock the front door when she came inside.
     
    The tax preparation office was in the middle of a small line of businesses.  One of the little groupings of buildings that would grow a few stories every block or so until they