December 14th, 2030

David woke suddenly. He didn’t know why, but he woke all the same. Sunlight was pouring into his eyes through the cracks in the trees and he had to squint to avoid taking in too much. Birds chirped in the distance. Crickets sang their soothing melodies. No reason for him to wake.

A frightening unease settled over him.

Juliet lay next to him on the bedroll they’d put up in haste. Still sound asleep. They’d walked and talked long into the night and early into the morning about having children; what they would name them, how terrifying it would be to suddenly be parents, how they would raise them.

Truth be told, David was just as thrilled as Juliet by his sudden confession. He’d been perfectly honest: Juliet had always wanted children and he’d denied her that because of his own stubborn ways. Fear, probably, at the prospect of being a father. But he’d realized at some point during their walk that he loved the woman next to him more than the air they breathed, and he would give her whatever she wanted.

Not to mention that his heart had made a complete turn-around. David wanted children almost as much as Juliet did. He couldn’t explain a fraction of it, but before the attack he would have firmly resisted any pleading on Juliet’s part for children. Now he thought it was a perfect idea.

And yet, he was lying there awake, apprehension turning in his gut. Something felt wrong. He just couldn’t place it.

David sat up and stripped the blanket off him, surveying the area. They’d hiked another five or six miles last night, headed toward D.C., then found this small enclosure in the woods that looked like the ideal place to settle for a quick nap. The thickness of the vines and tree branches gave them decent privacy from the rest of the forest, and the ground was clear of leaves and greenery. Just soft grass and brown dirt.

Nothing seemed out of place. The sun was directly overhead, which meant it was about noon. They’d fallen asleep just after five or six—there was no way to tell precise time anymore.

Juliet shifted beside him, then settled and fell back to sleep in an instant.

David stood, careful not to wake Juliet. She’d trained herself to wake with the slightest disturbance, whether it be the most insignificant motion of the covers or even the sound of them moving.

Once that task was accomplished, David grabbed the boots he’d left at the end of the bedroll and slipped them on. It was December, so naturally it would be cold, but he’d been rather comfortable last night with just a blanket and his clothes. Strange, though hardly anything could fit that description now that the world had been turned inside out.

He knew something was terribly wrong, either with himself or with the area. The fear or uneasiness or apprehension that had settled in David’s stomach was slowly eating away at him. He frowned involuntarily, lacking the knowledge to figure it out.

If nothing else, he could run a perimeter check. It sounded so formal when David thought of it like that, but living with Juliet for the past three years and all the commotion with Miri for two days before that had instilled a bit of formality in him. He’d even summoned the fighter inside him and picked up a gun on occasion.

So David did just that. He grabbed the rifle and knife that lay beside Juliet and took off. He knew she’d worry if she woke up and found him gone, so he had to make his sweep a quick one.

David twirled the knife through the air, causing it to flip three times and rotate more times than he could count, then slammed it through one of the belt loops on his jeans. The rifle he carried cautiously, keeping it in both hands in case he needed to take aim quickly. Then he set out through the jungle.

The hardest part was to slip out of their natural enclosure without rousing Juliet, but with patience and skill, it was an easy task. David wandered around the thick forest for what seemed like an hour, though in reality he knew it was mere minutes. He examined everything that even had the possibility of appearing strange, and it took its toll on his perception of time.

Eventually he decided he would find nothing, so David turned back toward camp.

That’s when he did find something.

A streak of black darted out of the corner of his eye and David turned to follow it, seeing nothing. He knew it was there, though. He’d felt it, and now he’d seen part of it.

“Hello?” David called, knowing he might wake Juliet. It was a calculated risk.

He shifted left and right, gun aimed, watching and listening for any sign of movement.

Something dull hit him broadside, like an enormous rock or an extremely painful sack of potatoes. Only then, when he was tumbling to the ground, did David realize that he had been tackled. Someone was attacking him!

He yanked free and rolled on the ground to get away from the figure, but before he’d even stood to his knees he felt a lump on the side of his head. Heard a dull crack of wood against his skull.

And then his world faded to black.

Juliet awoke to a smack. She was dreaming of fireworks, the last Independence Day she’d celebrated before the Accident. She’d been in New York on assignment and stayed to watch the parade and subsequent fireworks. Thousands of them had lit up the night sky, throwing showers of gold and red and blue and green and every other color imaginable through the sky. They’d popped and hissed and exploded a quarter-mile up in the sky, then faded and were replaced by an even greater symphony of light and color and sound.

But Juliet wasn’t back in New York in 2027. She was here, somewhere between Ohio and Washington D.C., in 2030. The Afterlife Era.

Something had woken her up.

Juliet immediately snapped her eyes open and rolled over.

David? Gone.

Smack!

The sound came from the left. Juliet twirled around and looked, but saw only the thick canvas of trees and forest greenery protecting her from the outside world.

Both the rifle and the Renegade’s black knife were gone. David must have woken early and went out to find a stream or fruit for them to eat. He’d taken the weapons because people were crazy these days and would gut you over a pair of warm socks.

Juliet bolted upright, flipping the cover off, and grabbed the pistol the Renegade had left her. She ejected the magazine to make sure it actually had a few rounds in it, then slid it back into the hilt. Cocked it.

She ran quickly, not caring who she alerted now that David had already gone off on his own and found something to whack. She tumbled through the threshold of tree branches and shrubbery and came through into a dense forest that looked more like a green ocean.

How was she supposed to find David in this?

Juliet took two steps and had already lost their secluded campsite. She doubled back and poked her head through what she thought was the same mess of greenery she’d come from, saw that it was, and decided to circle around it in order to familiarize herself with it.

She did just that, but it looked no more familiar. She’d just have to hope David remembered how to get back to it.

Juliet turned and darted outward, looking for any sign of David. He wouldn’t simply leave without giving her some hint as to where he was because he knew he’d infuriate her—a task he’d already accomplished marvelously.

She saw something that resembled the kind of trail David would leave and chased after it. Juliet knew that she was simply getting more lost with each step she took, but there wasn’t really any choice. What if David had been the one who’d received the smacking?

The thought quickened her pulse and her pace, and soon Juliet was in an all-out sprint, nearly passing by an indentation in the ground. She skidded to a halt in her bare feet and very nearly tumbled to the ground due to her momentum.

There, he’d definitely been here. The ground was soft, though from what, Juliet could only imagine; it hadn’t rained last night. What she could imagine was David’s body fitting almost perfectly into the imprint in the ground. He’d lain here, not more than five minutes ago.

Then Juliet saw the dragging marks.

David had been taken.

“Hey.”

David awoke for the second time in as many hours. He knew this because the sun hadn’t shifted all that much. It was the first thing he made sure to check.

The second thing was the condition of his body. No restraints. No wounds. No pain at all aside from the throbbing in his head and the dull ache from being tackled in the side.

He’d been kidnapped.

One thought sped through his mind: the Renegades. The streak of black he’d seen in the forest and his being taken was stereotypical of the bandit clan. The fact that he didn’t know where he was didn’t console him. If anything, it fed the panic that had him by the neck. If he wasn’t in the green sea of the woods, that meant he had been taken a considerable distance away from Juliet.

David chastised himself for leaving her. He’d already left her for a month; he couldn’t see doing it again. Once he figured out how to overwhelm his captor he would run back to her and beg forgiveness for following his own uneasiness out into the jungle.

Then a different thought struck him. If he hadn’t left her and trekked out to be captured, his attacker may have killed Juliet then and there. In a way, he may have saved her life by leaving her. He’d heard of cases where people subconsciously knew about danger ahead of time and managed to get out of its way. In this case, maybe he’d subconsciously chosen to get Juliet to safety by endangering himself.

It was a flimsy fantasy, he knew. Something he’d made up to justify going against his better instincts and walking out into the forest on a whim. Now both of them would pay for it, because Juliet would come looking for him and be caught just as he had.

Unless he overpowered his attacker.

David opened his eyes as wide as he dared in order to get a better view. He’d cracked them open to get a glimpse of his surroundings, but his mind had known he was in danger even as he slept and kept him from revealing the fact that he was now fully conscious.

He saw gray rock. That was it. Merely a wall of gray, all different shades, in a coarse, rocky texture.

A chimney.

Yes, that was it. It was a chimney. He was lying sideways on the remains of a chimney, facing away from his attacker, who was presumably behind him. They’d done the smart thing and made sure that he had to turn over if he wanted to see them, indicating his consciousness.

He couldn’t very well lie there forever, so David shut his eyes, yawned, and rolled over. With any luck, the Renegade—because it had to be a Renegade—would think he was merely shifting in his sleep.

“I know you’re awake,” a voice came out. Male. Deep. Commanding. Though he’d been found out and didn’t know what the man looked like, David could tell by his voice and inflection that this was a man who posed quite a bit of a threat.

David sat up and opened his eyes.

The man stood there, head to toe covered in nothing but black. Not black clothes, just black. David didn’t even notice that behind the man was the same forest he’d just been in a short time ago because he was transfixed by the strangeness of the image before him.

The first thing to enter David’s mind was the thought that he had been correct: this man was a Renegade. The second was that Renegades wore clothes. This man looked like he didn’t. He was covered in a black so dark that it couldn’t have possibly been skin, yes, but it wasn’t clothing. He was simply a silhouette with black eyes and all the appearance of a human. Except that he didn’t have gender.

Then it registered in David’s mind. Black eyes.

He stared at them and they stared right back, white orbs filled in the center with absolute black. His pupil was indistinguishable from his iris and his cornea was the only part of him that wasn’t black. The eyes looked as though they might pierce David’s soul and tell him things about himself not even he knew.

The rest of the man looked absolutely normal, aside from the fact that he was nothing more than a silhouette. He had facial features barely distinguishable from the pure black of his skin—mouth, nose, ears—and he was bald. Smooth, round head. He stood about six feet tall and had a slightly larger build than David. Muscular.

“Sorry if I frighten you,” the man said. The inside of his mouth was black, same as his skin. Black teeth. Black tongue. The only thing that indicated he’d talked was the slightly visual movement of his mouth and his voice. Again it came out deep, strong, assertive.

“I understand, of course, that you don’t see many of my kind,” the man continued. “So I’ll forgive your rude stare.”

David fumbled for an apology.

“I’m sorry,” he said weakly. “As you said, I don’t see many like you.”

The man nodded. “And as I also said, I’ll forgive you. Come, sit, eat. I’ve caught us fish and fowl, the best this planet has to offer.”

David stared, not sure what to make of the man. He was clearly otherworldly, that much couldn’t be disputed. He’d attacked David. That also couldn’t be disputed. But now he was offering food and fellowship as if they were good friends? The man was a living slab of pure black flesh, and David wasn’t even sure he was a man. Or a woman. He looked to be more like a phantom.

“Well are you going to come eat or are you going to sit there lost in thought all day?”

David acknowledged it, knowing that this man may very well be his savior or his destroyer. He may be crazy. He may not even be a he, for crying out loud!

And there was Juliet! David desperately had to get back to her, to tell her that he’d never leave her again and that he was sorry and that they could settle down and have as many kids as she wanted as long as she let him live.

“She’ll be fine for now,” the man uttered, stooping over a log that sat a foot away from a small fire. Just like he’d promised, fish and several small birds lay on a grill of sorts over the open flame, cooking to perfection.

The man smiled—if such a thing was possible considering how little of his face David could see—and beckoned him to a tree stump directly across the fire from his log. “Come on, you’re hungry. I can see it.”

“I have to get back to my wife,” David said, summoning as much conviction as he could muster.

“Is that all you people ever think about?” the man asked. “Each other? It’s no wonder the world’s falling apart.”

He was saying he wasn’t a part of them. Not in the select group known as the humans who’d escaped the end of the world. What was he, then? By the look of him, someone who’d been bombarded by the aftereffects of one of Darrow’s warheads. Radiation could be the cause of all his physical oddities.

Could this man be the demented Judge?

It made sense. Whatever had happened to him to make him so distinguishable may have taken its mental toll on him, which caused the mental illness. It would explain the note he left in Capital, attacking David, and now this entire ordeal.

Something else hit David. He couldn’t be the Judge, because less than two days ago the note was found in Capital. He would have had to sprint the entire way from D.C. to Ohio in order to reach David and Juliet.

“For the love of . . .” the man started, but didn’t finish. Instead he grabbed a fish and bit into it, juice dripping down his chin. “See?” he said through chomps. “Good meat. Come and dine with me.”

David approached slowly, wondering what the man was up to by kidnapping him and forcing him to eat fish and bird. He could still be a member of the Renegades, for all David knew. The whispers were that they wore black and Juliet had confirmed it. No one ever said they wore black clothes, just black.

The man was black. Being a Renegade was the most logical explanation.

But he hadn’t displayed any hostility yet. In fact, he’d displayed hospitality.

That was probably his weapon. Lure David into a false sense of security with food and niceties, learn whatever it was he wanted from him, then pounce. Whatever this man had in mind, David knew it wasn’t as delightful as he was pretending this whole situation was. His gut, which had been filled with dread only an hour or so ago, told him to be careful.

David sat on the tree stump and warmed his hands by the fire.

“There you go,” the silhouette said, emphasizing each word. “Get comfortable, because what I’m about to tell you is nothing short of uncomfortable.”

This was it. David’s fate was now in this man’s hands.

“Go ahead, eat if you want.”

“No thank you.” More tact, David. Don’t be rude. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m not hungry.”

The man shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He took one of the small birds and chewed half in one bite.

“Where are my weapons?” David asked. Then, quickly: “Not that I intend to use them. It’s just that in this age, being able to defend yourself is almost as important as being able to eat.”

“They’re safe for now.” The man swallowed the bird. “And your—uh, wife, I think you called her?—she’s safe. In fact, she’ll be here any minute.”

He’d seen Juliet? And yet he hadn’t killed her. This distorted, disfigured man was becoming more of an enigma with every passing second. Maybe he was the Judge.

“You must have brought me here for a reason,” David said, deciding to test his theory. “Again, I apologize if I sound rude, but there’s someone I need to get to. He could be in a great deal of danger. More than he knows.”

“Danger?” The man stopped eating. “Seems to me you’re the one in danger right now.”

So he wasn’t as benevolent as he tried to act.

“No, you misunderstand,” the man continued. “They’re closing in on you. It won’t be for quite some time yet, and even longer now that you’ve gone and flown the coop, but they’ll hunt you down and find you. It’s what they do.”

The Renegades. “You know about them?”

“Everybody knows about them,” the dark man said, as if David had asked the most ridiculous question in the world. Which, he supposed, he had. “The question is, do I know who they are? And that’s the one everyone wants the answer to these days.”

David stared at him. Juliet had been in almost this exact position just a day or two ago. Maybe he could find out from the shadow in front of him what she hadn’t been able to.

“And do you?” David asked. He suddenly realized that he was now having a conversation with a silhouette of a man—a man who’d knocked him out and claimed to be all-powerful, at that—and it didn’t bother him in the least.

This was, however, an extenuating circumstance. Three enormous warheads had destroyed half the earth and set in motion a chain of events that destroyed humanity. David was actually somewhat surprised that there hadn’t been more incidents like this.

The man leaned back on his log with David’s question, never taking his black dots off of his partner in conversation. He was considering whether or not to answer, David thought. Which meant that he did, indeed, have more knowledge than the average person.

Whoever this impossible person was, David knew he’d stumbled onto someone very unique.

“Yes, I do,” the man finally said.

That sealed it. He was now a very important man. Of course, David couldn’t tell if he was lying, because the oily black skin didn’t show much expression, but David sensed that he wasn’t. This man was very knowledgeable.

“I know exactly who they are,” the shade continued. “And I know exactly what they want. What they want with you, and what they really want in the end. Their life’s purpose, you might say.”

David leaned forward, eagerness displayed as plentifully as love on a young couple’s faces. “Tell me.”

The shadow laughed. “Oh, I will, David. I would like nothing more. But I need something from you in return.”

That changed things. Though David was almost ecstatic about learning anything of the Renegades, he wasn’t one for being indebted, especially in these times. He stated exactly that to the man sitting across from him, black eyes glowing with anticipation.

“It’s nothing, I assure you,” the man said. He leaned back in and glared deep into David’s eyes.

Then David saw it. Instead of a white ring around a full black circle, the man’s eyes went completely black. Evil. David felt it much more than he saw it.

Gravity crushed in on him. His chest suddenly tightened and he felt as if someone had just leapt onto his back feet-first. His heart and lungs and stomach burned, then folded in on themselves and began crushing him from the inside.

David fell off the stump and doubled over in pain, reaching out for something to stop the anguish generating itself inside him. His hand gripped the burning metal that grilled the fish and birds and he yanked it away, though he hardly noticed that in comparison to the pain his own body was racking him with.

“What’s wrong?” he heard through fits of absolute agony. “This is the darkness you’ve tried to run from.” The voice had taken on an inhuman, guttural sound to it and David knew this was no mere man. His entire essence was soaked with evil.

David’s eyes were closed and his world swam with black. Black and pain were the only two things he knew.

“You want to know the truth?” the man screamed. Torturous crushing bore down on David and he screamed with all the strength he had left in his lungs. “The truth is: you’re going straight to hell!”

The last sentence sent direct shots of chaos into David’s body and he shook uncontrollably. His mind was clouding. His senses were slipping.

He was dying.

And then light exploded in his eyes. They were closed and still darkened, but something was shining brightly enough on the outside that it burned through his eyelids and lit his entire world on fire.

The pain began to subside. All his organs that had been slowly crushing and killing him from the inside began to set straight and the sharp stabbing agony that pulsated in the back of his skull began to lessen. Light surrounded him on all sides.

Finally the pain completely ceased to exist, and all that was left was confusion.

And light.

David opened his eyes and the light disappeared.

He bolted upright and looked around. There was nothing. No black man, no unexpected savior, no Juliet. Nothing to have stopped the intense darkness he’d felt.

There was just the green of the forest, a stone chimney, and the remains of a camp. The fire pit, the log, David’s stool, and the fish and bird the dark man hadn’t eaten.

Had David imagined the whole thing?

That was impossible. Who knocked him out and dragged him here, two hours away from Juliet? No, the dark man had definitely been real, and he’d definitely attacked David somehow.

Then there was a light.

And now it was gone.

David stared again at the log his insane, evil counterpart had sat on.

He’d just met the devil himself.