Free V.J. Chambers - Jason&Azazel Apocalypse 01 by The Stillness in the Air Page B

that about you.”
    “Kieran, I’m not—”
    “Yeah, it’s okay,” he said. “I’m not pledging my everlasting love or something. And you don’t have to feel anything for me at all. I just wanted you to know that I’m here, and I’m going to try to take care of you. That’s it.”

    I chewed on my lip and didn’t say anything. That was sweet, so why did it make me feel awful?
    “We should sleep,” I said. “We’ve got to lug all this baby crap back to camp tomorrow.”
    He handed me Guy. “I’ll be in a little bit,” he said.
    I was asleep before he got into the tent.

    * * *
I had a dream about talking flies. There were a bunch of them. They were all standing on a half-eaten piece of cantaloupe in a trash can. Abruptly from above, a human hand reached down and tied the trash can closed, leaving them in darkness. A few escaped but the others were trapped inside the bag.
    There was panic. The flies flew against the stretched plastic, screaming.
    But one of the flies nudged another fly. “This is it,” he said. The flies all had tinny little voices, like Alvin and the Chipmunks. “This is our chance.”
    The other fly didn’t seem much interested in what the first fly was saying. “Go away,” she said.
    “It’s the end of the world,” said the first fly. “We’re important. We are special flies with magical powers.”
    The girl fly just laughed at him. “We’re flies,” she said. “Nothing we do matters.”
    “Sure it does,” said the boy fly. “If it didn’t matter, then why would you be so interested in trying to stop me?”
    The girl fly rubbed her two front legs together and didn’t answer.
    “If it doesn’t matter,” said the boy fly, “then why won’t you join me? We can rule this trash bag together!”
    The girl fly flew away from the boy fly.
    Then the dream sped up, like time-lapse photography. The flies laid eggs. The eggs hatched. The trash bag was thrown in a landfill and covered with other trash bags and dirt. The flies all died.
    I woke up and stared up at the top of our tent. Kieran was lying on his side, his eyes closed. Guy was twitching in his sleep. They both looked peaceful. I burrowed into my sleeping bag. Was it true? Did we matter at all? Were we nothing more than flies in a trash bag to the universe? The sun had wiped out our transformers and left us without power. We were a civilization forced to its knees. It was odd, I thought, because all the stories and predictions about the apocalypse involved humans doing something wrong. Nuclear bombs or pollution. It was weird that when it really came down to it, as destructive as we might have been or as powerful as we might have thought we were, it only took one overactive flare from the sun to cripple us. We were nothing.

    * * *
    I woke up the next morning to Kieran hovering over me with a hand over my mouth. My eyes opened wide and I tried to struggle away from him, but he held a finger to his lips, signifying me to be quiet. Cautiously, he moved his hand away from my mouth and gestured outside of the tent.
    Now, I could hear footsteps and muffled voices. Who was it?
    But it was pretty obvious who it must be. Our people wouldn’t be out here. It had to be Jason’s people. Perhaps this was how they’d captured the scouting team. They weren’t going to capture us. I got my gun out, which I always kept close while I was sleeping, and sat up. Kieran also had his gun drawn. Together, we softly crept to the door of the tent. Kieran mimed unzipping the tent quickly and jumping out with our guns drawn. I nodded. It was a good plan. With any luck, we’d get them by surprise.
    But there was one thing we had forgotten to take into account with our little plan. Guy.
    He woke up at that moment and started screaming.
    Kieran and I both sat back from the door, exchanging a look. Whoever was outside knew we were inside at this point. And they knew we had a baby. I holstered my gun and picked up Guy.
    He didn’t stop