As the Snows Fell

The wind whipped unforgivingly against Marcus' cloak. He pulled it tighter around himself and trudged through the snow on his makeshift snowshoes, searching through the storm for any signs of shelter.

This was the forty seventh day, fifteenth hour, twenty first minute- roughly - since he had seen another live human being. He had killed the last one. It was tragic, but done in self-defense. She had wanted his supplies in his pack. Or perhaps the meat on his bones, if she was desperate enough. Marcus tried not to think about her, because whenever he did, the guilt poured back into him. Sometimes he saw her in his dreams. Those were the bad nights.

At least she had been remorseful, he reflected. "I'm so sorry for this," she had said, as she snuck up behind him with a fire extinguisher in her hands. It was that statement that had saved his life. He had turned, seen the red metal flash in his direction, and ducked before he the thought even entered his mind. Another moment and his knife was out, ready.

The woman had clearly not expected to miss. In her eyes was an expression of cold bewilderment. Marcus used that opportunity to attack, stabbing into her with his knife, just once, under the ribs. The fire extinguisher fell, and she collapsed, slowly bleeding to death.

"I'm sorry, too," Marcus said, "but I want to live. I hope you can forgive me."

She didn't respond. She only stared with dying eyes, as if seeing through Marcus to something on the other side of this winter armageddon.

Marcus shook the memory from his head and bent further into the wind, which whipped around him, sending snow and ash everywhere.

It had been five years now since it had struck. A minor comet traveling across earth's orbit in its thousand year journey around the sun had unexpectedly fractured, sending a chuck of ice and frozen rock the size of Manhattan hurtling towards the unprepared planet.

Emergencies had been called. Martial law declared. Riots surpressed. Everyone looked to the sky in fear and panic as a new, brighter star appeared, growing brighter the closer it came.

In the end, it had slammed into the Pacific Northwest, nearly blasting Oregon out of existence. The shockwaves circled the earth as a cloud of ash and debris was flung into the air by the impact, wrapping the planet in a suffocating blanket. The plants began to slowly die. The animals began to follow. The people came last.

It had been three months after the disaster when he had heard it. A radio abandoned outside an electronics store had been left on. As he walked by, the message had caught his attention.

"Safety and shelter. Underground bunker. Supplies for years. Latitude: 40.990139 North, longitude: -74.572011 West. Come find us. We are waiting." It was the same message that ftreplayed whenever Marcus turned the radio on.

Marcus grabbed the radio, walking into the electronics store through the shattered window and, finding pen and paper, wrote down the information. At home, he pulled out an atlas of North America, and by the end of the night, he had mapped the route from his house outside of Richmond all the way to the bunker, which was outside New York City.

Marcus followed the highway as much as possible. While the roads were blanketed in snow, interstate signs still stuck out above the white desert landscape, beacons on his journey.

It would have taken sixteen days to make the trip from Tampa, Florida to New York City under ideal conditions to make the trip, but the end of the world was far from ideal conditions. Marcus had been traveling now for a quarter of a year. Some days the wind whipped up blizzards so bad, it would be a week before Marcus could set out again. And even on the best of days, he moved slowly over the snow and ice.

It was Linda that kept Marcus going. Or, rather the thought of her and Maggie that pushed him onward. His ex-wife and daughter lived in the suburbs outside of New York. Had lived, he reminded himself. In any case, there was a chance they had made it to the shelter, so close to home for them and so far away for him. Over time, that possibility had grown into a certainly in his mind.

"Just two hundred more miles," he told himself, "and you will see them again." Later it was "just one hundred and fifty miles" until they would be reunited. Every time he thought this, he found the strength to move on.

He and Linda had parted uneasily seven years ago, while Maggie was just one and a half years old. It had been rocky for a while, but they eventually settled into a comfortable friendship. They seemed to work better as friends than as spouses. The thought occasionally made Marcus sad, but right now the thought of those who he still called family drove him on.

Ahead, the blurred outline of a highway overpass melted out of the snow, like a ghost becoming visible in the night. Marcus stopped beneath it, grateful for whatever shelter from the cold and wind he could find.

He opened his compass, took his bearings, then pulled out a map of the eastern United States. In red pencil, he had drawn out his journey so far. Doing the math in his head, he extended the line to his current location. He was only ten miles outside of New York City.

Marcus would rather have avoided the icy megaliths that once comprised one of the most famous cities on Earth, but he saw no real alternative. Staying on the roads as long as possible helped ease the journey. Even if those roads were often hurried in snow.

Silently, Marcus hoped the bridges onto the island were still intact. If they weren't, he would have to trek the long way around, and risk getting lost off the main road. As it was, he would have to leave the road after New York, anyway.

He set out again, tugging his goggles down and his gator up, using the goggles to hold it in place. He pulled the cloak tighter around himself, still cold with three layers on.

As far as he could tell, it was still morning. He should reach the city before nightfall. If he was lucky, that is.

It turned out to be the next day that he reached the city. A pile of wrecked cars covered in snow delayed him as he gingerly picked his way through the mess cost him more time than he had, and he ended up taking shelter in an abandoned convenience store for the night.

The next day, he came within sight of the city early in the morning. From a distance, it looked relatively the same. Just New York City during a cloudy winter day. As Marcus drew closer, however, and the buildings began to crowd in on him, the damage to the area became clear. Smaller buildings had their roofs caved in, unaccustomed to years of built up snow. Many were empty, looted. Abandoned. Marcus still hadn't seen another soul since the woman. He pushed her from his mind and thought of Linda and Maggie, for whom he would find the strength to go on.

He crossed over the Williamsburg Bridge into New York City. The bridge was intact, though showing wear. A section of the outer guardrail was wide open, where some vehicle had likely lost control and plowed through, plunging into the East River below. It made Marcus nervous, looking down through that gap down to the frozen river below. Even so, he crossed the bridge without incident.

Marcus started down the road to where the bridge connected with Delancey Street. His plan was to work his way up through the city, cutting down Bowery to Cooper Square, up past the Flatiron Building and Empire State Building, skirting Trump Tower on his left and Central Park on his right until he came to West 117th. From there he would cut across west and make his way to the George Washington Bridge. He chose to steer clear of the tunnels. Too dangerous, too risky. Not that bridges were too much better, he thought.

As he walked down the streets of New York City, abandoned to their winter isolation, Marcus kept his eyes open, looking into the shadows. He listened for any sound, any noise that might indicate he was being stalked. With humanity gone from their cities, nature reclaimed what was hers. What animals still lived had moved into the vacant cities of man. Deer, rabbits, and other animals moved in, searching for food in the city's parks as the world slowly died around them, died with them. Pack hunters followed their prey. Wolves, bears in some places. Whatever needed meat to survive. With the usual prey dying off slowly but surely, these hunters would need different meat to survive. And Marcus had no desire to supply it.

The city was eerie. Abandoned, it felt like an enormous mausoleum, each skyscraper the tombstone of some immeasurable giant, slowly decaying with the world around it. It gave him chills. Still, he pressed on, deeper into the abandoned city and closer with every step to the source of the broadcast. He didn't dare turn on the radio to see if the broadcast was still ongoing. Too many places here for a predator to hide. Best not to let anything know he was there.

Every step he took, he took in the hopes of seeing his daughter again. He had no idea what she looked like now. Only memories to sustain him. But that was enough. Every step, he imagined she was waiting for him. Linda would kneel down, tell her to run to daddy, and with open arms and a wide smile, she would run into his waiting hug. Every so often he smiled back, and answered the wind, "I'm coming, Maggie. I'm coming." The image replayed in his head with every block he passed, while his eyes kept scanning for danger ahead and behind.

He paid special attention to Central Park as he went by. As the city depopulated, rumors started spreading of wolves in the park, growing bolder as the people grew more scarce. Marcus kept his head on a slow swivel as he walked, searching for any signs of attack. Nothing came, and he passed north of the park without incident.

When fifth Avenue t-sectioned 120th, he turned left onto the west route, heading towards the Hudson River. He followed 120th through Harlem until he ran into Morningside Park. He hugged the park north, crunching through the snow as he headed towards the bridge. He followed Morningside up until he could head Northwest on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, which took him to Broadway, now abandoned.

Broadway brought him up into Washington Heights in the afternoon, where he ran into 179th in sight of of bridge. Once across, he felt he would be within sight of the end. It was with that optimistic thought that he started walking up the incline leading onto the George Washington Bridge.

He was halfway across the bridge before he saw the hole. Cursing his luck, he stared across the thirty foot gap with no way across. Kicking some snow into the hole, he found burn marks on the roadway. "So, an explosion," he said to himself. "Guess I have no choice."

Sighing, he turned and walked back into the city, past the little red lighthouse and north into Washington Park. Marcus dreaded what he had to do next, but there was no choice. He would have to cross the Hudson River on foot, hoping that the ice would support his weight the entire way across.

Shortly after impact, before the world had become so cold and empty, New York had tried to plant heaters in the Hudson River. They hoped to keep artificially keep the River flowing. Had it worked, they would have moved on to the East River and beyond, hoping that mankind might subsist around artificially heated river systems. But the math had been off. The heaters weren't powerful enough and the Hudson still froze. At least, the surface had. Nobody was entirely sure how thick the ice was, or how safe it was to pass over it.

Marcus stepped out onto the ice, testing the firmness. It felt solid enough, and no cracks formed immediately. Tentatively, he took another step. And another. And another. Soon, he was a hundred yards from the shore. Still no sign that he was about to plunge into the watery depths. He allowed himself a brief moment of relief. "I'm coming to you, Maggie. So close now." he whispered softly to himself.

From behind, Marcus heard a howl. His blood ran colder than the air when he heard it. Wolves. They had likely tracked him through at least part of the city, and now, on the frozen Hudson River, they were ready to attack.

Marcus glanced back and saw six wolves, scrawny and malnourished, driven mad by hunger and ready to take any risk for a meal, start stalking him across the ice. He turned and ran. Maybe the ice would hold, maybe it wouldn't. But if the wolves caught him, he definitely wouldn't survive.

As he began to run, so did the wolves. He could hear their claws clack on the ice as their paws kicked up the layer of snow. He had to outrun them, or he was dinner. Suddenly, the dream of seeing his daughter again seemed so distant, so remote. Replacing it was an image of several wolves, fighting over his insides as his dead eyes stared into the blueless sky.

The wolves were close now. There was no way he could outrun them. He had only one chance to survive this, and it could end up killing him as well. Still, he had to take it.

Marcus pulled the pistol from the holster on his hip. He had found it in an abandoned gun store shortly after starting the journey. He had only found three bullets, however. He had saved it. Not wanting to waste it on anything but the most dire of circumstances.

Marcus aimed the gun down and behind him, still running as fast as he could. He fired. A shot rang out, nothing more. A small hole in the ice where the bullet had entered, had he stopped to look. The wolves backed off for a moment. This prey could fight back. But soon, their hunger overrode their caution, and the hunt was on again.

Again, Marcus aimed and fired. Another bullet sped through the air and into the ice. This time, the wolves barely flinched at all. They were only a few feet behind him now.

"Please, God," Marcus prayed, "Let this work!" He aimed one last time. Pulled the trigger. Fired.

The bullet slammed into the ice, but this time the sound of the shot was accompanied by a horrific cracking sound. The ice split apart, swallowing the wolves as the thin ice vanished from beneath them. Marcus raced on, hoping the section of ice beneath his pounding feet was thick enough to sustain the shock.

He didn't stop running until he had reached the other shore, where he doubled over, pulling deep breaths of freezing air into his tired lungs. With the sun setting, he barricaded himself in a restaurant kitchen nearby and rested.

The next day he set out again, walking along along roadway towards the point on his map. When the buildings started to give way to nature, he left the road and cut through what was once a forsted park.

He was heading to a spot a little bit northwest of Deer Lake in Jersey. By Pyramid Mountain. He followed the compass through the dead trees, past the lake and Stony Brook. As the sun began to slip into the west, he saw something ahead. It was a radio tower. Marcus breathed a sigh of relief. He had made it.

Behind the tower was a garage of sorts. A ladder led underground into what seemed to be a recently-constructed bunker, consisting of multiple sections connected by hallways.

"Maggie?" Marcus called out. "Linda? Anyone!" but recieved no reply. He called again, each time he walked into a new room, but each was empty, unlived in.

Finally, he found the communications center. The monitor showed a broadcast in progress. Marcus flipped the switch to put it on speakers.

"74.572011 West. Come find us. We are waiting." The message began again, repeating. Just like Marcus had heard it every night since he found the radio. But there was no one here. It didn't look like there ever had been. Whoever sent the signal was gone. Perhaps forgot to turn it off before they left.

Slowly and silently, Marcus walked back to the ladder. He climbed out into the freezing cold, sitting with his back against the radio tower.

Maggie was hazy to him now. A dream, soon faded. Marcus took off his goggles and gator, letting them fall to the snow beside him. His breath clouded in the eternal winter air.

The next morning, he was still there. His eyes stared outward, but no puff of breath escaped his lips. Instead, he sat, unseeing eyes watching for those who would never come, staring into time as the world slowly froze. Staring into the end of it all, as the snows fell.