Free Earth's Survivors Apocalypse by Unknown

the old U-S-of-A, and at least he had the place free and clear.
    He had practically fallen into bed once he had gotten home. He hadn't realized how tired he was.
    He'd been working all the short shifts he could get, along with his normal evening shifts, saving the money after he'd paid off the house, and today would be the start of his first real vacation in over twelve years.
    Mike had grown up in the small city of Watertown, and had never left. It suited him, he liked to think. Where else could you see the seasons change so vividly, or take a quiet stroll through the woods anytime you felt, he often wondered. The Adirondacks were close by. The southern tier, where he hoped to be in just a few hours, he reminded himself, stretched away for miles. Forever wild lands, Lake Ontario, wet lands. And if he wanted the big city it was just seventy miles away down route eighty-one.
    This is going to be one great vacation, he thought, as he got out of bed. Despite the damn birds.
    The vacation he had planned was a three week camp out in the State Forest Preserve that started only twenty miles to the east. The preserve was nestled up to the military reservation and stretched from there all the way into Central New York. Mike had no idea exactly where he would camp. He had decided to just hike until he found a spot that suited him.
    As he headed for the bathroom he noticed that the clock on the dresser was off. Not blinking, but off, and he could vaguely recall dreaming of waking during the night to some loud noise.
    It had seemed at first, when he had awakened within the dream, as though the entire house had been shaking. He had passed from that dream into another, but the noise and the shaking had seemed to accompany him into that dream as well. It had to have been the strangest dream he could ever recall having.
    At first he had been in his bedroom; the walls shaking around him, and the next thing he knew he had been standing on a stone pathway that overlooked a wide and deep valley that stretched away for miles before it hooked to the right and disappeared. Its forward path blocked by even higher mountains, with others lifting even higher behind that. He turned to follow the ridge lines back to where he was and the scene had shifted to the bedroom once more. He had found himself sitting up in bed, breathing hard, frightened, the room silent, wondering if this was just more of the dream or an actual waking. As he began trying to figure it out, waiting for his head to clear, he had found himself sitting on a bar stool in the Rusty Nail, Moon Calloway beside him holding down the other stool.
    He tried speaking to Moon, but he either couldn't hear him, or he pretended not to. In his dream he had still known Moon was dead, so it made sense to him that he could not speak to him. He turned to Mort to order a beer and Moon had suddenly spoken.
    “It was right here, Mike... Right here. Bad place to die... Used sawdust on the floor... Soaks up the beer... The blood.... You know....”
    He tried to turn as soon as he heard the voice, but by the time he turned the scene had shifted again. Instantly the bar was gone and he found himself standing at the edge of what he took to be a lake at first. The water stretched away as far as he could see. There was a tang of salt on the air; red earth crumbled away as the waves came in, taking more land with it.  He could remember the salt smell from a trip to Florida as a kid with his grandparents. The smell of the sea.
    “This is the place,” Moon said from beside him.
    He turned expecting Moon to be gone, but he was standing a few feet away staring out over the water. He turned and looked at Mike. “You see it?” Moon asked.
    “Yeah,” Mike managed. The word was barely audible, lost in the sounds of the sea as it worked to take the red dirt away. “Where,” Mike asked. “Where is it? What place is it?” He turned when Moon didn't answer, but Moon was gone. He blinked and he was back in his