Free How the World Ends by Joel Varty Page A

thoughts twirl instantly away from my indecision and the indeterminate purpose that I seemed to be hovering around, to a much more practical, logistical concern: what do I do with a city full of displaced people?
    Striding with a quickened, yet steady pace, my mind begins to boil with possibilities. They come at me so fast that I don’t stop to think of the problems leading up to the point where a group of people become mobilized to the point where they are in a position to follow me. I don’t it see it that way, at this point, deep in the night, on the tracks. That battle is over.
    After a few minutes of walking, the moon comes out from behind the clouds, nearly directly overhead now, and the stars swell with brightness in the absence of ambient light from the city. The peacefulness of the night seems to override the anxiety in my heart from earlier.
    The voice in my head is silent, and I know that no one is following me – I don’t even turn around to check.
    …
    Rachel
    Rachel stands by the window. The children are sleeping across the room in the bed she normally shares with Jonah.
    He has not often been absent overnight, but it seems that none of the regular commuters have returned from work tonight. The street is nearly empty of cars, and most houses have a window at which a pair of glowing eyes keeps watch.
    Where are you, Jonah? Why couldn’t you have stayed home today?
    In the early hours of the morning, Rachel eventually lays down beside the children, but she does not sleep.
    Sometime later, when she feels so tired that she must close her eyes, a darkness deeper than closed eyes envelops the neighbourhood. The streetlamps, nightlights, reading lights, standby lights and all other electrical devices, click off with the abrupt loss of power. Hope seems to glimmer, though, all on its own, for a few moments in the darkness, just as Rachel drifts off to a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Eleven – Awakening
    Herb
    My name is Herb Wiseman, and I wasn’t always like this.
    The city is darker than it has ever been, since before it was even here, I imagine. It certainly was something to see it switched off last night; I just never imagined it would be like this. I can remember a time when I wondered what it would be like when it happened – when there wasn’t any fuel or electricity left or something like that. It never seemed like a real fear, back then, just some interesting dilemma that someone ought to be doing something about.
    Well, who’s worried about it now, I wonder? I wish it still meant something to me, in a way, but none of these things even seem to register on the scale anymore, after everything that’s happened. How can I be worried about riding on trains, or driving around in a car, or keeping the house warm, or even having enough money to get through the month, when none of those things are even remotely possible even if there was anything left? I haven’t been worried about those things in a long time.
    I think for bit about going up to the little hill in the park to see what the stars look like, but it’s probably too foggy, and everyone’s hiding out tonight anyways. We’re all tucked up into every nook and cranny in every sheltered place we can find to keep us out of the cold mist that seems to cling to us like a film of grime that won’t wear off. I wonder what those stars might have looked like before all of this. Not before the lights went out, or the pumps went dry, but before I found myself wandering the streets and back-alleys of this forsaken city looking for anything remotely edible, or something to drink, or someone more vulnerable than myself to take it from.
    Where was I before I jammed myself into the corner of an old warehouse between some empty crates and some fellow that stinks to high heaven like rotten whiskey and clinks when he shivers? Or is that me that clinks and stinks and shivers in the night? Am I cold, or am I hungry? I can’t remember what those things feel like