Free End of Days by Eric Walters

and hospitals falling to ruin, even a simple injury could result in death.
    But so far there had been nothing except the sound of rats scurrying away. That was good and bad. Good because they were clearing floors. Bad because after clearing each unoccupied apartment the officers would relax a bit more. Ramsey didn’t want that to happen. Being relaxed led to people being hurt.
    He motioned for Gordon to provide cover as he got ready to go into the next apartment. The door was gone but there were a couple of boards nailed across the entrance, partially blocking it—a sign that somebody was, or had been, in there and wanted to restrict others from entering. Ramsey took off his hat, holding it in one hand and his revolver in the other. He had ducked down, ready to go under the boards, when he heard a sound … a human sound. He froze in place and listened, waiting. Silence. Whatever it was, it wasn’t there anymore. Still, better to announce his entry.
    “Police,” he called out into the opening. “We’re coming in.”
    “Who are you talking to?” Gordon asked.
    “I’m talking to whoever might be in there.”
    He eased forward ever so slowly, stepping through an opening between two of the boards, head up, eyes forward, scanning the room. It was strewn with garbage but there wasn’t anybody visible. He put his back against the wall and his hat back on top of his head. Gordon followed behind him, and then a second officer. They were working in teams of three as two more sealed off the stairwells on either side.
    Room by room they searched the apartment. It was empty. Whatever sounds they’d heard hadn’t come from here.
    “Another one down,” Gordon said. “Looks like we’re not going to find anything, including a bounty.”
    “Let’s keep looking and—” Ramsey was silenced by a sound coming from one of the other rooms. “Did you check the closet in there?” he whispered.
    Gordon looked guilty.
    “No point in searching if you’re not going to search everything,” he said.
Lazy idiot
is what he thought.
    All three men returned to what had been a bedroom. The window was smashed out and it was completely empty. Unlike the rest of the apartment, the floor here was free of garbage. Ramsey walked across the room and the two other officers split off, coming at the closet from opposite sides. Ramsey dropped to one knee, his revolver in front of him, and motioned to Gordon.
    In one swift motion Gordon pulled open the door. There was somebody in the closet. Ramsey brought his gun up and froze in place. A woman and two small children were huddled on the floor. The children were wrapped in her arms.
    “Please don’t hurt us!” the woman cried out. “Please!”
    “Jeeze …” Ramsey lowered his gun and tried to hide the fact that he was shaking. “I could have killed you.”
    “Please don’t hurt my children,” she pleaded desperately.
    “Nobody is going to harm anybody,” Ramsey said. “Just get up, get out of the closet.”
    He reached out to offer her a hand and she instinctively recoiled. He grabbed her hand and helped her, still holding the two children in her arms, to her feet.
    “Why didn’t you answer when I called in?” Ramsey asked.
    “I was afraid. How was I to know that you really were the police?”
    Of course she had a point. “Why were you in the closet?”
    “I heard you coming, so we hid.”
    Ramsey pulled out two chocolate bars from his pocket. “For the kids.”
    “Thank you … thank you so much.”
    She put her children down and quickly unwrapped the two bars for them. The older child was a boy who couldn’t have been more than four, and the little girl was maybe a year younger. They started to eat greedily.
    “How long has it been since you last ate?” he asked.
    “Not that long. We had something yesterday.”
    Her response made him cringe. Things had certainly changed when eating nothing for a day meant “not long.”
    “My partner, the children’s father, went