• I still remember the day they all left. The image has been etched into my mind, down to the scent of human filth wafting though the air – one of the many side effects of to many people living in to small of a space. The tear-streaked faces of the adults still haunt my dreams -- I think they always will – accompanied by the feeling of to heavy limbs and drooping heads, weighty eyelids and pale skin. I was tired – we were all tired – worn down near the brink of death.

    I think it had been a year since the Sirens first wailed, sending city after city across the world into utter chaos, marked with random acts of truly brutal violence and looting of every store, shop, and house the masses could get into. The second the sirens started, my father was there to collect Ras and myself from the playground during school, carting us back to our building.

    Back Home…

    Nobody in the building knew what was going on, the collective knowledge of the significance of the sirens based solely on the words on the street, whispered by the refugees of previous cities, countries, or contents where the Sirens had begun. Rumors of nuclear missiles, bio-chemical weapons, demons straight from hell, and every possible idea were passed around like a cold. We gathered in the hallways to pass around these stories, as we passed around the guns and rations.

    “Stand by this window,” my father had told me, handing me a rifle. My job was simple: keep anyone from getting near the back door – the looters, the police, the civilians, and anyone else who didn’t live in our building.

    “The people who live here are family, Mags,” he said, setting me in a high chair; I couldn’t see out the window from the floor. “You do whatever it takes to protect family.”

    So I stood there, and I aimed my rifle, and I shot anyone who showed too much interest in our building. Mostly it was large men, armed to the teeth but to stupid to look above them for the death-delivering barrel sticking out of the window.

    My Father returned just before the sun disappeared behind the high-rises, my mother and Ras in tow. He was proud of me, he said, pulling me into a hug. There were tears in his eyes, I remember, and he would not look at me – neither would mother. Ras looked at me though, wanting to compare body counts. He was ashamed to admit he’d been unable to shoot a mother with a small child, and I was ashamed to admit I had.

    Father took my place at the window, and I stood with him, watching the sun continue its descent, listening to the wailing of the Sirens. When the last rays of sunlight were gone, the Sirens finally stopped, and the city held its breath, wondering, hoping that maybe it was all over, that it would bypass us, that would be safe.

    That’s when the first one flew overhead.

    My Father held me close as it past along the skyline, leaving a trail of explosive flames as it went. It was huge, a great reptilian beast with scales glinting in the moonlight, come to life right from a fairy tale. In it’s fiery wake the chaos began anew, as the first of the screams rose on the air, torn from the throats of the dead as they lifted themselves to their feet again and gave chase to the poor souls on the open streets below.

    My mother grabbed Ras first, before taking me as well, following quickly in the footsteps of our uncle as he led us to the emergency escape in the back of his room, down into the sewers. Our uncle went back to find the rest of the family, presumably for the older children. None of them ever caught up with us; I never saw the rest of my family again.

    We left the remains of the city behind us, and with the north and south afflicted – the east lie only the ocean – we fled west, into the established madhouse that was the only remains of civilization. Along the way we met up with others, more survivors of the changed world, but none of them were family – we shed no tears if the dead caught them, or any of the other mythical. Together we moved further west, following the whispers of a safe haven, a machine-guarded land in which the mythical would not tread. Nobody knew the meaning of these words – there was doubt that such a place existed. It was hope though, and with the screams of the dead following us each night, hope was what we desperately needed.

    Wherever we went, so did the screams, rising up nightly to drive the sleep from our minds. They conjured up imaginary shadow demons that would make even the strongest and bravest to jump and sweat. We were sleep starved, hungry, thirsty, and many were on the brink of suicide; though many more had already crossed this line.

    When we finally reached the machine, the small stretch of land guarded from the mythical by the whirrs and hums of the giant piece of metal, we thought the screams would go away, and that we would be allowed to sleep once again. They did not go away. Instead, they grew louder with each passing night as more and more of the dead gathered nightly, wailing in a chorus of terror and eternal hunger. Only now it was worse, as they gathered at the edge of that invisible line, for we could look at them easily, and take in their rotting corpses for what they were, or rather, what they had been.

    Once upon a time, they had been our friends, our neighbors, and our family. Once upon a time, they were people. Once upon a time, they had not been the walking, screaming corpses that hunted us nightly, wailing away for our flesh.

    We were not the only ones who sought refuge in this small town either, as many more humans migrated in, seeking the protection of the machine. Animals, both wild and domestic, also gathered around, combating for the small plot of sanctuary. It was crowded with those who’d remained unchanged when the Sirens started their song, surrounded by those who had.

    We lived the best we could in that small space, watching the mythical circle around us and fighting bloody battles to keep our territory ours. The biggest problem was the screams, which tore into our world nightly, from sundown to sunup. During the day we tried to live our best, but not even the drone of the machine could chase the screams away from their dreams. Many woke screaming, crying. Mother was one of the many who couldn’t sleep, and she went from day to day as an empty shell, her skin pale and the circles under her eyes growing larger.

    Then the whispering started, as eyes turned towards the machine with a newfound hope. The whispers promised a means of escape from the screams, a path to the freedom that so many craved, that so many needed.

    One morning the adults gathered together, leaving all the children – all those who had been specified as “to young” by their assigned caregivers – closed up and safeguarded from the animals in partially destroyed high-rise building. They didn’t tell any of us anything, didn’t say a word as to their departure, leaving us all wondering with fear what was going on. When they finally emerged from their meeting place, their faces were grim, their skin paler then usual. They would not look any of us in the eye.

    We spent the day being told to play, a rare activity as the adults strove to keep us busy and occupied, fixing up and securing the area; child labor. It was a complete turn around, like before the mythical came, and I think all us kids thought things would be alright. The adults started passing around the food – all the things we’d been rationing – and when we asked why were told we were celebrating.

    “What are we celebrating?”

    “We’re going to be free.”

    I was scared – so was Ras – when mother started hugging us, and whispering she loved us over and over again. She was never affectionate – none of us ever had been, it wasn’t really necessary. If someone was family, they would know it, and that was plenty. Still she hugged us close, crying into our shoulders, and it only served to tell us more and more that something was wrong.

    An hour before dark – an hour before the screams started – mother led us to the machine, where everyone else was gathering, forming a great big line. It was the safest part of the town, as most of the animals didn’t like to be to close to the giant metal thing. Then, one family at a time, they would step into the machine.

    None of them came out again.

    “It’s going to be alright,” mother kept whispering to us. Up and down the line I could hear those same words being repeated, soothing promises that proved more terrifying then the idea of the nightly screams. We watched, with the hair raising on the back of our necks, as family after family stepped in, their disappearance marked only by a brief change in the whirr of the machine.

    I’ll never forgive mother for stepping in without us. For leaving us there, waiting, watching family after family step in, none of the adult ever looking back.

    The last family stepped in right before the screams started, and Ras and I were left alone, huddled together for warmth and comfort in the shadow of the machine. We kept vigil of the machine, only leave to gather food or water. We knew they were gone for good, we were smart enough. Emotion kept us there, hoping, yearning for that last connection, that last member of our family to come back.

    On the third night, as we lay curled together, our eyes closed in the closest thing to sleep the screams would allow us, the whirring and the hums of the machine slowed, the rhythm breaking, until there was no more noise. We both lay there in pure terror, but the screams did not draw any closer.

    At sunrise, we moved ourselves into a safer place, taking with us the food and clean water as we barricaded ourselves in, armed to our teeth with rifles, pistols, and the shotguns with to powerful of a kick for us to use. We waiting there, in that small space, taking turns to watch the machine through a pair of binoculars, hoping for any trace of mother.

    On the fifth night, the dead started ransacking the town, tearing apart everything in their reach. They chased down every living creature they could find, and tore them to shreds, leaving behind bloody fur and bone.

    On the seventh day I led Ras away from that place, intending to leave it as only a distant memory. That’s how we wound up here, with them...