“The end of the world occurred on August 9, 2011.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about Kevin?”
“August 9, 2011 is when my high school sweetheart Stefanie told me we should see other people before she started college. My heart was broken. My soul was crushed. Even though my body continued to function in a haphazard function my world had ended.”
“Shut up Kevin. I don’t know why I even talk to you.”
“Who else are you going to talk to?”
“Yeah, good point.” Chuck looked over the top of the wall at the black shapes swirling below them and considered taking a shot but then rejected the notion. Bullets were scarce and he would probably miss, even with all the moonlight.
“All right Chuckie don’t be mad with me. Here’s a different date. April 26,1986 was the start of the end of the world.”
“That far back? Even before you got your itty-bitty heart broken. What happened then?”
“The nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded and bathed large areas of Eastern Europe in radiation.”
“That sounds bad but so what?”
Kevin internalized his frustration at how dim-witted Chuck could be. “One year after the accident they found a pack of radioactive wolves thriving in Chernobyl.”
“Oh … right. So that was the start.”
“I think so. If it wasn’t the start, it should have at least been a warning. Of course, things didn’t get crazy until the Ukraine war got crazy and they started to hit each other’s nuclear plants.”
“Yeah, what a goddamn mess that was.”
The spread of nuclear radiation was horrific and caused mass casualties on both sides. At least it brought the war to an end but it started a chain of events that led to Kevin and Chuck standing guard duty on the wall of their small compound.
Both men ducked their heads a little when a chorus of howling erupted from the large pack surrounding the walls. They had heard the sound many times over the past couple of years but it still had the atavistic power to make them feel like helpless prey.
“Fucking, ugly, mangy, furry bags of radioactive puss.” Kevin muttered. “C’mon Chuckie let’s give it to them.”
He struggled to heave a cinderblock over the wall and Chuck joined him with a cinderblock of his own. They grinned at each other when they heard yelps of pain from below and the howling stopped.
“We better not drop anymore Chuck.” Kevin surveyed the remaining pile of six cinder blocks with disappointment. “We need these if they try to climb the wall.”
“Have you actually seen that happen?”
“Couple of times. They made a pyramid like they were a bunch of cheerleaders that got turned into werewolves. They’re smart as hell. Never underestimate them.”
“How did they get so damn smart anyway?”
Kevin shrugged and looked up at the full moon overhead. It was a clear night and the moonlight was so bright that everything glowed, unless it was in the shadows.
“The best guess is a combination of constant mutation and good old survival of the fittest. Wolves that were already radioactive from Chernobyl were irradiated again and again because of the Ukraine war. Now we’ve got these bastards replacing us as the alpha predator.”
A wolf padded into a clearing in front of the wall so it was clearly illuminated to the humans on the wall. It looked up at Kevin and stared at him directly in the eyes. It was daring him to shoot but he wasn’t falling for it. This was a game they often played with humans. Their reactions were so quick they could dodge a bullet before a human finished pulling the trigger.
Kevin whipped up his gun to make it dodge but this wolf had played the game before. It froze and watched and listened. When it realized Kevin had no intention of shooting the small wolf bared its teeth in a smile and seemed to merge into the darkness of the night.
He lowered his gun and tried not to let Chuck see how intimidated he was. “What was I saying? Mutation, right mutation. These wolves have three big improvements because of mutation. They’re smarter. They’re faster and they were bloody fast to begin with. Last but not least they breed like rabbits in an orgy.”
“So, basically we’re all going to die because radiation made wolves super horny?”
“It’s kinda’ depressing whey you sum it up like that. But here’s the rub Yorick.”
“I think you mean Horatio.”
“No, I don’t. Hamlet was talking to himself so I can use any damn name I want. Their insane breeding rate is why we’re going to win. There are billions of wolves all over the planet killing and eating humans as well as everything else. What do you think happens after they run out of food?”
Chuck nodded and looked more hopeful. “We just have to survive until that happens.”
“We can do it Chuck. There are islands they haven’t reached yet. After the wolf population collapses, what’s left of the human race can organize and figure out how to fight what’s left of these hairy bastards.”
“Why are they so quiet?” Chuck asked and leaned over the wall to look at the pack of wolves. “Hey Kevin! They’re gone. They must have given up.”
Kevin looked over the wall and panicked. “No, they never give up. This is bad. Where the hell are they?”
His question was answered when wolves streamed out of a hole they had dug under the wall. Chuck had known how well they could burrow and made sure a number of stakes had been driven deep into the ground but it hadn’t been enough to stop them.
There were another 12 survivors inside the compound and they jumped out of their beds to fight when they heard the alarm being raised. Half were armed with guns. The other half made do with a mixture of machetes, axes and home-made spears.
They were tough and they could fight but it didn’t take long for the wolf pack to demonstrate why they were the new alpha predators on the planet. They flowed around the humans like water and tore off chunks calves and hamstrings without breaking their stride.
A pack of wolves fought so well together that some scientists theorized they had developed a from of telepathy. Kevin believed it was just heightened instinct. Wolves had always known how to hunt in a pack. The irradiated wolves had turned it into an artform.
A wolf danced in front of a human armed with an AR-15 and pretended it was wounded. In a blur of motion, it dashed away to avoid the gunfire while two of it’s packmates ripped the biceps out of the man’s arms. They tore out his throat after the gun was safely on the ground.
Kevin shot one of the wolves that had killed the man. He knew from sad experience that his best chance of hitting one of the impossibly fast animals was when it was preoccupied killing something.
He shot at the other wolf but the damned thing had been warned by the death of its packmate and was gone by the time the bullet arrived. There were eight bullets left in his magazine now. Both Kevin and Chuck had started the night with 10 bullets apiece. It was all the group could spare.
“Chuck! Listen to me.” Kevin saw a wolf bite into the hamstring of a young woman and he was able to shoot it, only to see another wolf disembowel her.
“When we run out of bullets, drop your gun and run for the ladder.” The woman was being swarmed by a number of wolves and Kevin sent three bullets into the center of the swirling mass. He might have hit the woman as well but she probably would have thanked him for it if she could.
He lowered his gun to look for another target and saw a wolf turn its head and look up at the two humans shooting from on top of the wall. Kevin shot at it but missed when it started to run toward the stairway that led to the wall. It was followed by some of its packmates.
“Shit! Chuck run for the ladder!”
“No! I’ve still got a couple of bullets. I’m not leaving them when I can still help.”
“Goddamn it! Do what I say!” Kevin fired the last of his bullets at the wolves climbing the stairway. He successfully led his shots enough so that he hit a couple.
“Chuck run! They’re on the wall!”
“Wha…” Chuck looked back at Kevin as if he couldn’t understand what he was saying. A wolf shot out of the stairs and leapt across the walkway to sink its teeth into his face.
Kevin automatically shot at the wolf as he watched it rip off the face of his friend. He futilely pulled the trigger on the empty gun and screamed in frustration. Chuck dropped his rifle and raised his hands toward the bloody meat of his destroyed features.
The wolf left Chuck for his packmates and leaped toward Kevin. It knew the sound of an empty gun being fired and didn’t view the man as a threat.
Kevin shouted with fear and rage as he rammed the barrel of his gun down the open mouth of the wolf. The gun barrel penetrated deeply into the throat of the animal and Kevin lifted up with his gun and threw it off the narrow walkway.
Two wolves raised their heads from Chuck’s body. They looked surprised that this human had managed to defeat their packmate.
The ladder was behind Kevin and he turned around and ran for it, anticipating their sharp teeth removing his calf muscles. It only took him a few seconds to reach the ladder but he didn’t understand how he made it. They could have hauled him down before half a second was gone.
He climbed up six feet, still waiting for a wolf to jump up and haul him down. Kevin turned his head to see Chuck had managed to grab both of the wolves and hold onto them to give him the few seconds he needed. One of the wolves was now busy opening up Chuck’s throat while the other one was racing toward the ladder.
The wolf managed to use its momentum to partially climb the vertical ladder and clashed its teeth together inches from his boot. Kevin was panting with fear as he climbed the rest of the ladder and stepped into a room 40 feet above the ground.
This had been his group’s plan. Establish an inaccessible refuge high above the ground with enough food and water for six months. They had destroyed all the stairways in this building so the only access had been this tall ladder. They had been days away from being ready to move in permanently but the wolves had their own plan.
Kevin looked down at the wolves unsuccessfully trying to climb the ladder. In a rage he pushed the ladder away from the opening and heard yelps of pain as it fell on top of the swarming pack.
That hadn’t been very smart but it had felt good all the same. If he ever needed to leave his refuge, he would just have to figure it out.
“Thanks Chuck.” He swallowed and looked down at the wolves eating his friend. “Thanks for my life, buddy. I’m going to miss you. You were a good guy.”
He was frustrated by the inadequacy of his words and walked away from the opening. He felt a survivor’s guilt that sucked the energy out of him.
There was a sofa in the room and he collapsed onto it. He closed his eyes but could only see images of bloody fangs, swarming wolves and Chuck’s face being ripped off while he stood there with an empty gun.
His eyes snapped open when there was a faint sound in the room and something jumped onto the couch. How could they have got in? What had he missed?
His night vision made out the silhouette of a cat looking at him from the other end of the couch.
“Did we strand you up here when we took out the stairways? I’ll bet you’re hungry.”
Kevin swung his legs off the couch and found a tin of cat food in the food stores for his new roommate. The survivors had originally intended the cat food to be human food for themselves. He pulled the top off the tin and left the cat to its meal while he returned to the couch.
He was pathetically grateful for the company and felt better about his situation as he lay back down on the couch. When the cat finished its meal, it curled up on his chest and started to purr.
“Never thought I’d be a cat person.” He whispered to his new friend as he fell into an exhausted sleep.