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October 25, 2020 - Westbound on Highway 20, Near Dubuque, Iowa

One moment the truck was grumbling down the road, the next the engine went quiet. Traffic had been non-existent since crossing the Mississippi, but as she left Dubuque behind and got on the Westbound highway, there wasn’t a living thing in sight. Most of Dubuque had been abandoned, only a handful of people had stayed behind, but the further west she traveled, the emptier the landscape felt.

She coasted to a stop on a lonely stretch of highway, between exits and without so much as a road sign in sight. She checked her cell phone and the screen wouldn’t even light. Muttering curses under her breath, she stepped out of the truck.

Another door slammed. “So this is the Null Zone?” Chris asked as he joined her on the gravel shoulder.

“It sounds like some sort of trashy sci-fi novel.” Lillian said as she walked around to the back of the truck.

“What would you call it then?” Chris dropped the tailgate and hopped up.

She shrugged as she took the first of the bags he handed down. “Anything else?”

To Lillian, their conversation still felt stiff. He hadn’t wanted to make this trip, she had been pulling out of the rest stop when he caught up with her. In the end, he had come, but the argument had changed the easy flow between them. He was afraid. If she was honest with herself, she was too. Whatever had happened here in Iowa was spreading. The Null Zone had grown every day since its appearance. It was going to leave Iowa soon. How far would this thing spread before they got a handle on it? They said that the military was heading toward the source, the footage of the last moments before it happened was all over the news as they were heading west. Heading home.

The small pile of bags continued to grow next to the truck as they unloaded piece by piece. “It’s a long road from here.” Chris said, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“You don’t have to come.” She reminded him. “I told you I was going one way or another, but you didn’t have to come.”

“Yes, I did. How could I have let you come alone?”

December 12, 2020 - Chesterville, Iowa

It was cold, but Iowa winters can get so much worse. It had been mild so far, one of the few blessings this year had given. Almost everyone had left town now, headed for larger cities, hoping for a better situation.

“Frankly, Kiro. I don’t think there is a better situation.” Charlie admitted as she scratched the dog’s ear. “All those kooks on the streets in the big cities were right. ‘The End is nigh!’” Her laugh was short and humorless.

The white malamute cocked her head to the left, brown eyes bright as she watched Charlie. The blonde woman had turned her attention back to the work before her, carefully stitching up a tear in her coat. Kiro made a grumbling whine.

“I know it’s a dark thought, but it is a very rational thought.” Charlie said, still focused on her work.

The malamute grumbled again, conversationally.

“Right again, girl. It’s really not so bad here. We’ve got shelter and food and we’re both healthy. What more could you want in the Apocalypse?”

Kiro whined and grumbled again, head tilting in the opposite direction.

“Company would be nice, but you’re an excellent conversationalist.”

The dog grumbled again and Charlie laughed, holding up the repaired coat. “All done. Let’s go do so scavenging. I think we were on Oak Creek Road, weren’t we?”

Kiro grumbled again and got to her feet, shaking out her fluffy white coat. Charlie bundled up, pulling a warm knit cap over her curling blonde hair and wrapping a scarf loosely around her neck before slipping into her warm coat.

It hadn’t snowed much so far this winter, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t. “If we’re counting blessings, Kiro, and maybe we should be, we should include that. All those other things and it hasn’t snowed much this year. I mean, for an apocalypse, this has been pretty good. I guess there’s that thing in the woods, but we just don’t go there, right? Stay away from alien monsters in the woods. That’s rule number one.”

Once outside, Kiro was less of a conversationalist. The white dog raced from one interesting scent to the next. She never ranged too far from Charlie, but she didn’t exactly stay close either. It was a whole different world, without power and electronics. Without cars. It was a quiet world that was filled with a plethora of animals that you usually didn’t notice. You noticed them now, because their presence and activities were the only action there was most days. There was a family of deer that had taken up residence in the small stand of trees that flanked an oft-dry creek that flowed through town. Charlie could swear she had even seen a bear wandering through the fields outside town.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see wolves in a couple years. Without hunters and farmers keeping them at bay they’ll probably spread a lot further.” She looked for Kiro and shook her head when the malamute continued her digging project rather than respond. “You can be really poor company, you know?”

The dog still didn’t respond.

Charlie ignored the dog and went about her day, breaking into one house after another, foraging for canned goods, staples, and any tools or supplies she could get her hands on. She had a cart she loaded with supplies and carted back to her home base. She made multiple trips every day, going through each house in town. There were so many more houses than Charlie had thought. It was a small town and it had always felt like she knew just about everybody. It had started to feel like she would never finish.

“I guess the apocalypse is pretty decent. I mean, we’ve got all the things we really need.” Charlie said as they headed to the next house. “But, damn I almost wish there was some excitement.”

January 22, 2021 - Chesterville, Iowa

Time just kept moving, every day not that much different from the last. Different houses, maybe a different part of town, but the same as the day before. She was just finishing up in a house near the edge of town, on the dark borders of the forest she had avoided for weeks. She heard Kiro, within the verge of the forest, barking at something. Suddenly, the dog yelped.

She had gotten lax about carrying the shotgun with her. There wasn’t need for it most days. She grabbed it out of the wagon as she jumped down onto the lawn. “Kiro!”

The dog yelped again and came out of the forest running full out, heading straight for Charlie and the wagon. Two long, bounding strides gave Kiro some small amount of distance from the woods when the first dark lumbering shape emerged. It moved low to the ground, numerous legs churning through the light dusting of snow. Rough fur the color of last year’s pine needles covered its long, torpedo-like body. A mouth filled with razor sharp teeth opened to emit a massive roar as it chased after the dog.

Charlie nearly fumbled the shotgun, her fingers suddenly nerveless. Kiro leapt over the wagon, skidded in the snow and raced past her as the second furry many-legged snake-thing burst from the forest. “What did you do?”

The dog kept running, not even bothering to grumble a response. Charlie fired the first shot, shattering the almost oppressive silence that had gathered over Chesterville in the past weeks. It caught the many-legged thing aside its many toothed mouth, spraying rust colored blood across the snow. The thing squealed like an ancient hinge in desperate need of oil. The other creature went seamlessly wide as the first stumbled and went down, sliding and skidding along in the snow. It was impossibly quick, closing the distance between them almost faster than Charlie could switch targets and pull the trigger again.

The second shot cracked and was followed almost immediately by another pained shriek as it took one of the legs right out from under the second thing. A third shot quickly followed, then a fourth, both into the same creature. The final shot finished off the first creature where it writhed in the snow, spraying rusty blood everywhere.

She stood, panting, horrified, next to the wagon, numb fingers reloading the shaking gun in her hands. Kiro finally came back once silence settled back over the yard.

“C-c-c-coward.” She stammered at the dog. Kiro had the grace to look ashamed of herself as she slunk over to sniff at one of the downed creatures.

April 24, 2021 - Chesterville, Iowa

“It might rain.” Charlie observed as she pounded another nail in place on the wall she was putting up around the yard. The dog paused her sniffing of the perimeter and grumbled in response.

“Yes, I agree the storms are getting worse, but I think this is just rain.” Another nail and then another board went up. “Do you think anyone else is out there? Surviving like we are? Hunkered down somewhere?”

The dog whined in response, pawing at one of the slats on the wall. “I know you don’t like being fenced in, but this isn’t about keeping you in. It’s about keeping everything else out.”

It had started with the two creatures in January. Then the strange lightning storms had started coming, continually increasing in frequency and severity. Now there was almost constantly something coming out of the forest, bloodthirsty things with fangs and claws. Savage things.

For a while, in the beginning, she had been bored. As more and more people left, she had never been tempted to follow. She could have gone, any number of times, but this was home and if the End was here…

It was as the last rays of sunshine were disappearing in the west that she heard hoofbeats. She was holed up in the house, near the warmth of the woodstove. “What is it this time?” She mused to Kiro as she went up to a second story window. Looking out she saw them, a herd of horsemen running from a pack of the large wolf-like creatures that had taken up residence in the area They were heading right for her fence, galloping full out.

She hesitated just long enough to take a deep breath and let it out, then she raced down the stairs and out the door, leaving it to swing shut behind her on its own with a loud bang. She ran for the gate, Kiro hot on her heels, and threw it wide just in time for the first panting horseman to make it through without crashing.

A handful more and the last one turned, throwing his shoulder against the gate to help her close it. She felt as much as heard the impact as one of the wolves slammed into the gate, the first layer of wood splintered a bit under the impact, but the second layer held firm.

“‘Twas a last ditch hope that there was someone here to open a way for us.” His voice was warm, if winded, and Charlie looked up to him to thank him.

She looked up, and up, and up. Impossibly tall. Just impossible. She gasped. With all the things she’d seen, she would have thought herself immune to shock, but the centaur before her was a little more than even she could take.

“I thank you though, we all do.” He spoke again.

“You’re welcome?” It came out sounding more like a question.

He tilted his head to one side, equine ears flicking within shaggy chestnut colored hair. “I’m Vinero, of Huntsbredth.” He put his right hand to his left shoulder and inclined his head gracefully. “We are in your debt.”

“Uh… Welcome. I’m Charlie.”

“Would you allow us to take shelter within the walls tonight?”

The others stood back, not looming over her, she got the sense they were deliberately not looming over her.

“Uh, sure.” She glanced at her door then back at them. “Um… I don’t think you’ll fit inside.”

Vinero laughed. “That’s just fine, miss. We’ve got tents. We have supplies, let us make you dinner in thanks for the use of your walls. We are quite lost, truth be told, and cannot find our way back to Huntsbredth. Perhaps you can point us in the right direction.”

Charlie looked from one of the centaurs to another and frowned. “You’re in Chesterville, Iowa. I’ve never heard of Huntsbredth.”

The centaur made a humming sound in the back of his throat and looked over the fence at the circling wolves. “This is most distressing.”

“Yeah. Yeah. This whole thing has been distressing.” Charlie answered.