6.2
Mike woke because the sun was in his face. He frowned before he'd even opened his eyes all the way. Sleeping in wasn't something he'd ever been particularly good at, but sunlight had always irritated him. It found its way through every gap in a curtain, every crack in a blind, and once it landed on your eyelids there wasn't much point pretending you were still asleep. He rolled onto his back with a quiet groan and stared at the ceiling for a while, blinking away the last bits of sleep. The room smelled faintly of old pine, laundry detergent and the lingering aroma of last night's stew. Somewhere outside a bird was making enough noise to suggest it had absolutely no idea civilization had collapsed.
The sofa beneath him had probably been old before Mike was born. Whoever had owned it over the years clearly believed furniture deserved second, third and fourth chances because every worn-out section had been patched instead of replaced. One armrest had thick stitches running across it where the fabric had split open years ago, and little clumps of yellow cotton were poking through the seams like they were trying to escape. Every time Mike shifted his weight another spring protested beneath him with a tired squeak.
He pushed himself upright and stretched until his shoulders cracked. Sleeping on a real mattress would've been nice, but after yesterday he'd probably have slept standing against a tree if he'd needed to. He rubbed the back of his neck, slipped his boots on and glanced across the room.
Logan hadn't moved. The big man was lying flat on the mattress beside Sarah, breathing heavily enough that Mike briefly wondered if the guy had slipped into hibernation. Sarah looked just as exhausted. Sometime during the night Mia had abandoned whatever bed she'd started in and curled herself between her parents, one tiny hand resting against Logan's arm while she slept with the absolute confidence only six-year-olds seemed capable of. Tyler occupied the smaller bed pushed against the opposite wall. One leg hung over the edge, the blanket had long since surrendered to the floor, and his mouth was hanging open just enough to embarrass him if anyone happened to have a camera. Mike smiled to himself. The kid could sleep through artillery.
He stepped out into the hallway, easing the guest room door almost shut behind him without letting the latch click. The farmhouse had settled back into silence. Floorboards creaked every now and then as the timber adjusted to the day's warmth. Pipes somewhere inside the walls gave a faint metallic knock. Wind brushed against the outside of the house, carrying the soft rustling sound of thousands of corn stalks swaying together beyond the windows. If someone had dropped him here without yesterday's memories, he would've sworn he was spending the weekend at somebody's ranch.
Out of habit more than anything else, he wandered past the bedrooms, peeking through each doorway. The Mercer family hadn't stirred. The owners of the farmhouse were still asleep too. Nobody was awake, and Mike wasn't about to be the asshole who ruined the first decent night's sleep anyone had managed in what felt like forever. He pulled the last bedroom door almost closed and headed downstairs, taking each step carefully because old wooden staircases had a nasty habit of announcing your presence whether you wanted them to or not.
By the time he reached the kitchen he was already acting like he'd lived there for years. The refrigerator door opened with a dull suction pop. There wasn't a huge amount inside, but there was enough. A tall glass bottle of milk sat beside a carton of eggs, homemade jam, butter wrapped in wax paper and a few leftovers from last night's dinner. Mike grabbed the milk and set it on the counter before opening one cabinet after another until he found a ceramic bowl with tiny blue flowers painted around the rim. Another cupboard held flour, coffee, canned vegetables... and one bright red cereal box shoved toward the back.
Mike picked it up and sighed.
"Captain Crunchies..."
He stared at the grinning cartoon captain on the front of the box for a second.
"You've got to be kidding me."
He set the cereal beside the bowl, opened a drawer and started searching for a spoon. Forks. Butter knives. A potato peeler. Three different bottle openers for reasons he couldn't begin to explain. Whoever organized this kitchen apparently did a bad job. Still rummaging through the drawer, Mike reached absentmindedly into the cereal box, scooped out a handful of brightly coloured rings and tossed them into his mouth. They crunched loudly enough to echo through the empty kitchen.
He kept chewing while continuing the hunt for the missing spoon, completely unaware that, somewhere in the back of his mind, the end of the world had apparently convinced him to start eating the one cereal he'd spent most of his adult life making fun of.
Captain Crunchies had somehow survived every health craze, every government nutrition campaign and every angry parent convinced the cereal industry was trying to kill their children one spoonful at a time. It had been sitting on supermarket shelves for decades, refusing to disappear no matter how many people swore they'd never buy another box. You couldn't miss it. The thing practically screamed at you from halfway down the cereal aisle. The front of the box was dominated by Captain Crunchies himself, a ridiculously cheerful old sea captain with a beard so white it looked freshly painted, one hand gripping a polished golden spoon while the other pointed dramatically toward an overflowing bowl of cereal as though he'd just discovered buried treasure instead of breakfast. The cereal wasn't content with being one colour either. There were bright red rings, electric blue stars, green loops, yellow nuggets and little marshmallow anchors thrown in for absolutely no reason other than to convince children this counted as food. By the time milk hit the bowl, the colours began bleeding into one another until the whole thing looked like somebody had rinsed a paintbrush in it. Kids adored it. They'd happily eat two bowls before school if their parents weren't paying attention. Most parents bought it with the same defeated expression people wore while paying speeding tickets. Grandparents, on the other hand, acted like Captain Crunchies was a direct insult to everything they believed breakfast should represent.
Logan's father had never once referred to it by its actual name. To him it was always "diabetes in a cardboard box." Sarah's father, Robert Hayes, usually took a more military approach to criticism. He'd pick up the box, adjust his reading glasses halfway down his nose, spend a full minute studying the ingredient list like it was classified enemy intelligence, then snort loud enough for everyone in the kitchen to hear.
"Jesus Christ," he'd mutter. "There's enough sugar in this thing to fuel a fucking missile."
He'd shake the box once in disgust before putting it back exactly where he'd found it.
"When I was growing up, breakfast came from chickens, cows and fields. Now it comes from a chemistry lab."
The older generation always found themselves drifting into the same speech eventually. Eggs. Bacon. Toast. Oatmeal. Real food. Things that came from farms instead of factories. They'd spend ten minutes complaining about preservatives before taking medication with names longer than most people's addresses. Mike always found that part funny, although he'd learned years ago to keep those observations to himself.
His hatred for Captain Crunchies had nothing to do with nutrition.He simply thought it tasted like absolute shit. The first time Logan convinced him to try it, years before either of them had kids or grey hairs creeping into their beards, Mike had sat at Logan's kitchen table, taken one enthusiastic spoonful, chewed twice, then stopped moving altogether. He'd stared down into the bowl for a good five seconds as though expecting an explanation to rise out of the milk.
Finally he'd looked at Logan with complete disbelief.
"What the fuck is this?"
Logan had already started laughing.
"I'm serious."
Mike pointed the spoon at the bowl like he was presenting evidence in court. "It tastes like somebody melted three bags of candy, mixed it with insulation foam and said, 'Yeah... that'll make a great breakfast.'"
Logan nearly sprayed milk across the table trying not to laugh.
Mike shoved the bowl away.
"This isn't cereal. This is what happens when a drug dealer opens a breakfast company."
That joke had followed him for years.
Whenever Mia sat at the table happily demolishing a bowl of Captain Crunchies before school, Mike would glance into the bowl with the same expression people reserved for suspicious mushrooms growing in their backyard.
"You know," he'd tell her every single time, "one day scientists are gonna cut one of those things open and find a tiny nuclear reactor inside."
Mia would simply grin through a mouthful of brightly coloured cereal.
"They're yummy."
"They're radioactive."
"They're yummy."
"You'll glow in the dark."
"No I won't."
"You'll be the first kid NASA sends to Mars because they won't need flashlights."
Logan would laugh. Sarah would roll her eyes. Mia would giggle and keep eating. And every single time, without fail, Mike refused to touch the stuff.
Mike continued digging through the drawer, pushing aside serving forks, measuring cups and enough mismatched utensils to stock a yard sale before finally spotting the spoon buried beneath a battered potato masher. He pulled it free with a little grin of victory, carried it over to the kitchen island and looked down at the cereal waiting inside the bright red box. He paused for a second, almost expecting his younger self to appear out of nowhere and call him every name under the sun for voluntarily eating Captain Crunchies. The thought made him chuckle. Funny how the end of the world rearranged your priorities. Twenty-four hours ago he would've walked straight past the cereal without giving it a second glance. This morning it looked like the greatest invention mankind had ever produced. Maybe hunger was winning the argument. Maybe stress was. Hell, maybe after everything they'd been through his brain had simply decided sugar sounded like a pretty good idea. Whatever the reason, he stopped questioning it. He filled the bowl until the colourful cereal nearly reached the rim, twisted open the bottle of milk and poured it over the top. The cereal crackled happily as the cold milk disappeared between the rings, and for reasons he couldn't explain, that sound alone made him hungrier.
Mike climbed onto one of the high wooden stools beside the kitchen island, resting one boot against the lower rung while the other swung lazily above the floor. He scooped up what could only be described as an irresponsible amount of cereal, the spoon overflowing with brightly coloured rings dripping icy milk back into the bowl. It was the kind of spoonful a six-year-old would proudly build before being told to stop making a mess. Mike opened his mouth wide enough to swallow the entire thing in one heroic bite, already imagining the satisfying crunch that was about to follow. Instead, the second the milk touched his tongue, every survival instinct his body possessed slammed on the brakes. His face twisted into pure disgust. His eyes bulged. The spoon never even made it fully into his mouth before he leaned sideways and launched the entire mouthful across the kitchen in a spectacular spray that would've made a malfunctioning tennis ball machine proud. Bits of neon cereal ricocheted off cabinet doors, bounced across the countertop and scattered onto the hardwood floor while Mike hacked violently, trying to rid himself of the taste.
"Oh, Jesus Christ..."
He grabbed the nearest dish towel and wiped his tongue as though that might somehow erase what had just happened. The smell hit him a second later. Sour. Thick. Wrong. He lifted the milk bottle toward his face and cautiously sniffed it again before pulling it away with another look of betrayal.
"For fuck's sake."
He turned the bottle around until he found the date stamped near the cap and it was expired long enough ago that the milk had apparently decided it was no longer interested in being milk.
Mike stared at the bottle for a few seconds in complete disbelief before letting out a laugh that sounded far more exhausted than amused. Of all mornings to discover he actually wanted Captain Crunchies, it had to be the one morning the milk had chosen to die. The universe really did have a twisted sense of humour.
"I spent twenty years calling this shit radioactive," he muttered to himself, glaring at the colourful cereal floating innocently in the bowl. "One day I finally decide to eat you... this happens."
He sighed heavily, picked up the bowl and dumped the entire thing into the trash. The cereal landed with a wet splat that somehow looked even less appetising than it had tasted. He watched it disappear beneath yesterday's potato peelings and coffee grounds before tossing the ruined milk in after it.
His stomach growled almost immediately.
"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled. "We're all disappointed."
Still hoping to salvage something edible, Mike opened the refrigerator again, expecting at least the blast of cold air that had greeted him earlier. Nothing.
He frowned. The air inside no longer felt cold. He reached in and touched one of the eggs. Room temperature. His eyes wandered upward toward the small light inside the refrigerator. It wasn't on. He hadn't noticed before. He closed the refrigerator slowly, stood there for a second and looked around the kitchen. Something wasn't right. He glanced toward the ceiling where an old four-bladed fan hung above the room, its wooden blades perfectly still. Out of habit he reached for the switch mounted beside the doorway and flicked it upward.
Nothing. He flicked it back down.Then up again. Still nothing. Mike stood perfectly still in the middle of the kitchen, listening. No distant hum of electricity running through the walls. Just the wind brushing softly against the farmhouse outside and the old timber settling somewhere deep within the house. The power was long gone.
Mike still couldn't get the taste out of his mouth. It clung to the back of his tongue no matter how many times he swallowed, a sour reminder that the world had apparently decided even breakfast wasn't going to cooperate anymore. He crossed the kitchen, grabbed the nearest glass he could find from the drying rack and turned the faucet. Water burst from the tap with a loud hiss before settling into a steady stream. He filled the glass to the brim and drank half of it without stopping, letting the cold water wash away whatever was left of the spoiled milk. Then he filled it again and drank another glass for good measure. Setting the empty glass beside the sink, he leaned both hands against the counter and looked around the farmhouse. It was strange how quickly a place could begin feeling familiar. Twelve hours ago he'd walked through the front door wondering whether the people living here would even let them stay the night. Now he knew which cabinet held the cereal, which drawer refused to close properly, which step on the staircase creaked loud enough to wake somebody upstairs. People adapted frighteningly fast. Maybe that was why the human race had survived as long as it had.
With nothing else to do and nobody awake to talk to, Mike wandered through the house with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. The living room was filled with warm morning light pouring through the tall windows overlooking the fields. Family photographs covered one wall from end to end, generations frozen inside wooden frames that had probably hung there for decades. There were graduation pictures, Christmas mornings, birthdays, hunting trips, weddings and babies being held by grandparents whose smiles seemed too genuine to have been posed. Mike found himself slowing down in front of them without really meaning to. It was funny. Yesterday these people had been complete strangers. Today he knew where they kept their coffee mugs and which bedroom belonged to their youngest daughter. Outside, the wind brushed gently against the windows, carrying the soft rustling sound of thousands upon thousands of corn stalks moving together. It reminded him of rain, except the sky beyond the glass was spotless, a perfect Colorado blue stretching from one horizon to the other without a single cloud daring to interrupt it.
He unlocked the front door and stepped onto the porch. The morning air greeted him immediately, cool enough to wake him properly but already warming beneath the climbing sun. He slipped his boots off without thinking and left them beside the doorway. The wooden porch felt pleasantly warm beneath his feet, and when he stepped down onto the packed earth of the front yard, the ground surprised him with its softness. He curled his toes into the dirt, feeling loose soil squeeze between them. It had been years since he'd walked barefoot outside. Army life had a way of teaching you that boots stayed on unless you wanted an emergency room visit. Out here, though, standing in front of a farmhouse surrounded by endless green fields, that rule suddenly felt unnecessary. The corn stretched in every direction, rising well above his head, swaying lazily beneath the breeze like an ocean made of leaves instead of water. Waves rolled through the field one after another, disappearing toward the distant hills. Mike smiled to himself. If the world hadn't gone to hell yesterday, this would've been one hell of a place to spend a weekend. Peaceful. Quiet. The sort of place where people complained about raccoons getting into the chicken coop instead of governments deciding who deserved to survive.
He wandered a little farther from the porch, letting the silence settle around him. Just birds somewhere overhead and the endless whisper of corn rubbing against itself. The birds stopped. Every single one of them. One second the trees around the farmhouse were alive with chirping, and the next there was nothing. The silence was so loud that Mike noticed it before he understood why it bothered him. He frowned and looked toward the cornfield. The wind was still blowing. The stalks were still moving. Everything looked exactly the same.
Then the ground shivered beneath his feet.Not enough to knock him over.Just enough for him to feel it through the soles of his bare feet.Mike stood perfectly still.
"What the hell..."
The vibration came again.A little stronger this time.Something was moving inside the cornfiled.
Several rows deep, the stalks began folding over one after another, not because of the wind but because something unimaginably large was forcing its way through them. The movement traveled across the field astonishingly fast, throwing up leaves and broken stalks as though an invisible freight train were charging through the crop. Mike's brain desperately searched for an explanation. A combine harvester? Impossible. A herd of elk? Too fast. Bears? Not a chance. Whatever it was covered nearly fifty meters in the time it took him to blink. His heartbeat accelerated. The movement stopped. Everything became still again.
The creature erupted from the corn with enough force to shower the field beneath it with dirt, broken stalks and chunks of earth. Mike never managed to see it clearly because it moved far too quickly for his eyes to follow, leaving him with only scattered pieces that his mind struggled to assemble into something that made sense. He saw powerful hind legs folded tightly beneath an enormous body before extending with explosive force. He caught the flash of dark armored skin that looked more like overlapping plates than flesh, muscles rippling beneath it with frightening power. A long tail whipped violently through the air behind the creature, ending in what looked unmistakably like a razor-sharp blade that caught the sunlight for the briefest fraction of a second before disappearing again. Whatever it was, it covered nearly fifty meters in a single leap, hanging in the air with impossible grace before crashing back into the earth hard enough to send a shockwave rolling across the field. The impact travelled through the ground beneath Mike's bare feet like the vibration from a controlled explosion, knocking him backward before he even realized he'd lost his balance. He hit the dirt flat on his back, the air leaving his lungs in one painful burst as he stared helplessly into the bright blue sky, every logical part of his brain refusing to accept what his eyes had just witnessed.
He was still trying to process it when another sound tore across the valley. The steady chopping rhythm of helicopter blades echoed overhead, growing louder with astonishing speed until a military helicopter burst into view above the treetops, flying dangerously low as it raced across the countryside. Mike scrambled onto one elbow, shielding his eyes from the sunlight while watching the aircraft bank sharply over the cornfields. Whoever was inside wasn't searching aimlessly. They were pursuing the creature. The helicopter swung around in a tight arc, matching the monster's direction almost perfectly as though the pilots had been tracking it for miles. The creature didn't hesitate. It landed, gathered itself for barely the length of a heartbeat, then launched upward again. Mike had never seen anything living move like that. The thing climbed higher than gravity should have allowed, its massive body rising until it seemed almost level with the helicopter itself. For one impossible second both predator and machine occupied the same piece of sky. Then the creature's tail snapped forward with terrifying speed. Mike couldn't tell whether the blade struck the rotor or the cockpit because everything happened too fast, but the effect was immediate. One of the main rotor blades exploded into glittering fragments that scattered across the morning sky while the helicopter rolled violently onto its side. Smoke poured from the engine compartment as the aircraft spiraled downward completely out of control before disappearing behind a distant line of trees. A heartbeat later the explosion arrived. The blast echoed across the farmland like thunder, followed by a towering column of black smoke climbing steadily into the perfect blue sky.
Whatever courage Mike still possessed disappeared with that explosion. Every survival instinct he'd spent a lifetime developing took control before conscious thought had a chance to catch up. He turned and ran. Bare feet pounded across the uneven ground as hard as they could carry him, his heart hammering so violently he could hear the blood rushing through his ears. Halfway to the farmhouse his foot caught the edge of a shallow irrigation ditch hidden beneath the grass, pitching him forward so hard that he slammed into the dirt with both hands and one shoulder. Pain shot through his palms where the gravel tore away skin, but he barely noticed it. He shoved himself upright and continued running without once looking behind him. Twenty yards later he stumbled again, this time catching his foot on a length of rusted fencing wire buried beneath loose soil. He crashed to the ground a second time, rolling awkwardly before scrambling back onto his feet with dirt covering his clothes and blood beginning to bead across his scraped hands. By the time he reached the porch his lungs were burning, every breath coming in desperate gasps as he threw himself against the front door, stumbled inside and slammed it shut with enough force to rattle the entire farmhouse. His shaking fingers struggled against the deadbolt before finally forcing it into place with a metallic click that sounded absurdly small compared to everything happening outside.
"Logan!" Mike shouted as he charged toward the staircase. "Logan, wake the fuck up!"
His voice echoed through the silent farmhouse, but nobody answered. He took the stairs two at a time and burst into the bedroom where Logan, Sarah, Mia and Tyler had been sleeping. Nothing had changed. Logan still lay exactly where he'd been earlier, breathing deeply with one arm resting across the blanket. Mike grabbed both of his shoulders and shook him violently, shouting his name over and over until his own throat began to ache. Logan's head rolled slightly from side to side, but his eyes never opened. Panic tightened inside Mike's chest. He pressed two fingers against Logan's neck. A strong pulse answered immediately. His heartbeat was perfectly steady. His breathing remained calm and regular. It was as though he had simply fallen into the deepest sleep imaginable. Mike moved to Sarah next, shaking her just as hard while calling her name. Nothing. He checked her pulse. Strong. Tyler refused to wake. Mia refused to wake. One by one Mike rushed through every bedroom inside the farmhouse, trying every member of the Mercer family with growing desperation. Every single one of them was alive. Every single one of them was breathing. Every heartbeat felt perfectly healthy beneath his fingertips. Yet no matter how loudly he shouted, no matter how hard he shook them or pleaded with them to open their eyes, none of them responded. They remained trapped in the same unnatural sleep, completely unaware of the impossible nightmare unfolding outside their windows. Mike finally stopped in the upstairs hallway, breathing so hard his chest felt ready to burst, his eyes darting from one bedroom door to another while his mind struggled to understand what reality had become. For one terrifying moment he genuinely wondered if he had never woken up at all, if he was still asleep on that worn-out guest room sofa, trapped inside the most vivid nightmare his exhausted mind had ever created. But somewhere beyond the cornfields another distant explosion rolled across the countryside, and the trembling floor beneath his feet reminded him that whatever was happening outside was horrifyingly, undeniably real.