The Road Ahead

It had been months since Lizzy had seen Duke, or her parents, or her dog Charlie for that matter. She didn't have much hope that Charlie was still his happy little self, chewing on his favorite toy and yipping at cars that pass by. There were no cars anymore. The cars that were left had all been abandoned along roads, some burned out, almost all scavenged for any type of gear that would help someone survive for one more day.

Lizzy checked the sedan to her right. No one had come along and set fire to it yet, so maybe there was something that she could use. Once she opened the door, she realized that this one has already been picked through. But she knew where people liked to hide the good stuff. It was never laying out in plain sight. Lizzy took the knife she always kept at her side and plunged the tip into the driver's side headrest. There she found a wad of cash and a key, probably to a safety deposit box. Useless.

Lizzy's ears perked when she heard it. The howling came just before sunset every single night. It was relentless. Lizzy could have never imagined she would be living her nightmare, but she knew that whoever was left out there, they were living their nightmares too. Those creatures—maybe they appeared different to her boyfriend, or to her old neighbors. But to Lizzy, they were the werewolves of her childhood nightmares.

She couldn't stay on the side of the road much longer. She did a quick scan of the rest of the car, but there was nothing useful, not even a stick of gum. Lizzy put her knife back into the sheath hanging from her belt. It was Duke's old belt, and it was the last thing she had of him. She remembered the day that those creatures started coming after them, in their quiet neighborhood in a pleasant little valley town. Duke fashioned the belt to fit her small frame, and he equipped her with one of his grandfather's old hunting knives.

Lizzy and Duke were able to stay together at first. The physical apocalypse that reigned over their lives and the lives of those around them was nothing—they could eat cold spaghetti from cans, live without the modern conveniences that electricity had always brought to their lives. What they couldn't live without was each other. Until they were forced to.

It was a night the same as all the others. People followed main roads to get to the next area to see if they too were out of power, water, and supplies. Duke would stay close to Lizzy's side without crowding her. They were careful not to talk too much to people they didn't know—after all, who knew which person in the crowd would lie, cheat, and steal to get what they wanted. The howls came and Lizzy's mind couldn't remain logical. When those sounds filled her ears, she ran away from the road, deep into the woods. Had she been in her right mind, she would have known this was running toward danger, not away from it. She ran and ran, the howls and growls trying to catch up. She tripped on a tree root—then, there was silence. Too much silence. The whole world had stopped talking. No nocturnal animals were chattering. "Lizzy!" she could hear Duke calling out. Once, twice, three times. After that, there was a soft thud. The animals reawakened, resuming their nightly rituals. Lizzy slowly pulled herself up off the ground and took one cautious step after another until she made it back to the road. She must have run two miles, because it took a long time to get back. When she made it to the road, most of the people that had been traveling with them were long gone. Lizzy had been on her own ever since.

Lizzy left the car behind, focusing on the road ahead. She scanned left and right to find a place to hunker down, but she was surrounded by flatlands. She had walked for days, leaving all of the mountains and forests behind. Now she saw nothing but a solitary tree at the edge of a field. It was better than nothing.

The tree was skinny, but the canopy of branches hung low, giving her a bit of cover if she really had to hide. Lizzy adjusted her backpack behind her head and tried to doze off, but there was a buzzing sound that kept her alert. She thought she was hallucinating at first, but the buzzing kept getting louder. Then she realized it wasn't buzzing at all—it was the thrumming growl of the werewolf hiding in the tree.

Lizzy didn't want to open her eyes. She didn't want to look up and see those red glowing pupils staring back at her. She wanted this creature to disappear into her dreams and when she woke, it would be as dead as an autumn leaf. She clutched the hilt of her knife, pulled it slowly from its sheath, and like lightning she was up on her feet and staring down her worst nightmare. When the wolf lunged, Lizzy closed her eyes and hoped that she stabbed at just the right point. When she felt the monstrous thud of dead weight hitting the ground, so knew that her nightmare was over, for now.