The Last Christmas Read online

  “That’s thirty miles from here,” I replied. “You did that on foot?”

  “Yes. I wasn’t alone. I was with my boyfriend and … And …”

  “And?”

  “My daughter.”

  Thinking, Oh God. My hands shot to my face. Don’t say it.

  “We broke down and those things … they surrounded the car,” she cried as she spoke, “we got out to run and … they just ripped my baby from my arms.”

  “Oh my God.” My heart broke. It literally broke right then and there. As a father I couldn’t imagine her pain.

  “My boyfriend, tried to get her back and they got him. I ran. When I saw I couldn’t help … I ran.” Her head lowered.

  “It’s okay.” I placed my arm around her. “When was this?”

  “A week ago.”

  “Where were you going?”

  “To my mom. We were safe. We were. But then Liam picked up a radio signal finally. It was a survival station. They were right outside my parents’ town. They had names. My mom was on the list as a survivor there. Two days later, she made radio contact with us. And we decided to try to make it there.”

  “A survival station.”

  “One of many. They fortified places. Waiting things out. Those things won’t last much longer.”

  “Wow, this … this is great news. Where is it?”

  “In Jonesville. Not far.”

  Jonesville wasn’t far. In fact, it was about four miles, the opposite direction from my house.

  I kept thinking, this is truly a Christmas miracle.

  “What about you? Are you alone?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I have my family. My wife and two kids.”

  “Where are they?” she asked.

  “Home. Safe. And close to Jonesville, I can tell you,” I sighed out, “this amazing news. A survival station. Hope.”

  She nodded and then she burst into tears.

  “I am so sorry about your daughter, I really am. I am so very sorry.”

  “Why did you leave your family at home?”

  “To get supplies. Food. I needed to feed my family and I wanted to do so because tomorrow is Christmas. I wanted it to be a good Christmas. Now it will be. Food. Presents. And a survival station nearby.”

  “You’re very fortunate.”

  “I am, Jenny. So you are you, in a way. You survived. You’re alive. And …” I looked out the window. “We have to go.”

  “Please don’t leave me.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it. You can come to my house. Meet my family. We’ll eat and then as a great Christmas present, we’ll hit that survival station.”

  Jenny was excited and happy to go, I could tell.

  We talked in the van on the way back, not even noticing if we saw any of those things.

  “What are they like?” Jenny asked. “Your family.”

  “Melissa, my wife, is amazing. Beautiful. Carly, she’s four. But so mature. Quite though. Jeff, well, he’s a character. Wait until you meet them.” I caught myself in my enthusiasm. How callous of me. “I’m sorry.”

  “No. It’s okay, my daughter was eight months old.” Her head lowered again.

  I don’t think I could ever say I was sorry enough. The pain the young woman was experiencing had to be unbearable.

  I squeezed her hand to convey my strength.

  She seemed better and calmer when we pulled into the garage and I secured it.

  “We stay in the basement. I have a fireplace down here in the family room,” I told her. “But I have to do something.”

  “What’s that?”

  I smiled and reached for the generator and started it. “It’s Christmas. I was thinking you know, it would be our last one together. Our last Christmas dinner. But after hearing about the survivors … maybe not.”

  “Maybe not. What are you doing?”

  “Christmas lights.” I plugged in the cord.

  “Aw, that is so sweet.”

  “Thanks.” I knocked on the door between the family room and garage. “Melissa, it’s me. I’m back. Merry Christmas, sweetie, I brought food.”

  I reached for the knob and turned.

  Jenny stopped.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Her hand went to her mouth and nose. “The smell.”

  “You’ll get used to it. It won’t be for long.”

  I felt the tension as I put my hand on her back. She didn’t want to go, but I led her in and shut the door.

  “Melissa. Jeff. Carly.”

  My family immediately showed their enthusiasm at our new guest and rushed our way.

  Jenny screamed. Unbelievably loud, and it hurt my ear.

  She spun around and ran right into me.

  “Where are you going?” I asked. “I thought you wanted to meet my family.”

  Her entire body shook. “Let me leave. Let me leave.”

  “I can’t do that. It’s Christmas. Come on in farther.” I grabbed her arm. She was no match, really, for me, and I pulled her easily into the family room.

  It was bright and colorful with the lights. The spinning artificial tree played a sour version of Winter Wonderland.

  Jenny wouldn’t stop screaming.

  Carly ran to us, but snapped back from the restraints.

  “Stop it!” I yelled. “You’re scaring them.”

  “Oh my God, you’re insane. You are completely insane. Mark … Mark … don’t you see them?”

  “They’re my family.”

  “They’re dead.”

  “No!” I blasted. “They’re… they’re …”

  “Dead.”

  “No.” I growled. I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. “They’re my family. They’re hungry. That’s all. I told you I needed to feed them. You’re gonna help me. You’re gonna help me feed them.”

  Jenny screamed powerfully with anger and pulled from my grip, backing up. “Feed them yourself! They’re your family. Feed them yourself.”

  “I need you. You can be with your daughter if you do this.”

  “I want to be with my mother. She’s my family, too, she’s alive. I’m her child. Just like they are your children. She loves me.”

  Jenny argued so emotionally, so passionately, that something struck me. Something in her eyes. My head lowered. “You’re right.” I held up my hand. “They are my family and I have to be the one to do this. The keys are in the van. Take the supplies.” I took a step back.

  “No!” She grabbed me and yanked me forward. Her tone softened, “I know … I know what it’s like. I do,” she pleaded. “I lost my child. I know. Just … let this go. Please. Let’s leave. Let’s go to the station.”

  “I can’t leave them.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “I tried.” I closed my eyes. “I tried. Early on. I wanted to run for the hills, release them. Just let them go, because I couldn’t bring myself to … to … but I couldn’t. I bound them and brought them to the van. But then I couldn’t leave. Too many of them were out there. And once I got them here, I couldn’t do anything but feed them. Keep them alive.”

  “Let them go, Mark. They need to be let go.”

  I looked at my family. It didn’t matter how they were physically, they were still my wife and children. I thought back to the day when it started. Carly got the fever first. How? We had been in the house. They didn’t take a breath of fresh air. Yet, the baby got sick. Carly died within a week, and while she was sick, Jeff got sick.

  It was one thing to lose a child, but another to watch them rise.

  Rise from the dead. Eyes glazed over without color, skin drawn of any life, and filled with a rage brought on by a hunger that only flesh could satisfy.

  The news said to destroy them. To hit them in the head.

  But how do you do that? How do you do that to your own child? Let alone two of them.

  Melissa and I talked about it. We bound them so they wouldn’t be a danger, but they were still our children. Day after day, t
heir flesh rotted, it killed me. Killed me.

  They cried out in this agonizing, damnation moan every second of the day.

  Melissa didn’t get sick.

  The kids were hungry, and she did what any good mother would do, she fed them.

  I tried to stop her, but it was too late. They had consumed half of her arm.

  Melissa died that night and rose the next day.

  The longer I stayed with them, the harder it was to get rid of them.

  “I tried,” I whimpered out. “I did.”

  “I know you did.”

  “I’m sorry. I did some terrible things. I almost did it to you.”

  “Let’s just go.” She held out her hand. “Let’s go.”

  “I did it for my family. And I brought you here for them. I just kept thinking. Look at them. They aren’t gonna be here next Christmas. They won’t. I just …”

  “Mark, what you did you did. Let it go and let’s leave.”

  I nodded sadly, looked at her hand and then made eye contact. “You’re good people. Go find your family. I need to feed mine.”

  I stepped back and as I did, Jenny desperately tried to grab for me, but I made it too far back.

  She screamed loudly. Almost as if she cared at that moment. Perhaps she did in some way. A bonding between strangers.

  But my decision was made and in that final step it was too late to change my mind even if I wanted to.

  I didn’t want to.

  Melissa grabbed for my head while Carly grabbed my leg and Jeff leapt for my arm. My family embraced me.

  When I had left, I believed it was our last Christmas. It was. We were together.

  Jenny’s screams of horror continued. They faded as I was totally encompassed in the throes of my hungry family.

  I was okay with it … A weird, peaceful feeling swept over me. I was doing what I set out to do. I was feeding my family on Christmas.

  2.

  The Last Christmas: Baby, It’s Cold Outside

  August came in with a vengeance, baking us beyond belief. I was just complaining the day before it happened. It was the hottest summer I could remember in my life.

  I hoped for better weather for our town’s Community Day. Little did I know I would regret hoping for that.

  Just as the last of the Community Day’s fireworks exploded in the sky in the grand finale, the first snowflake fell. A sudden cold took over the northern area, dropping to fall-like conditions. People donned sweaters and sweatshirts, and watched the traditional lights in the night sky.

  It snowed, temperatures dropped more, but nothing arctic. Not yet. It then snowed continuously without stopping. At first, not heavy, just those dusting flakes. The ground was much too warm to hold an accumulation. The earth seemed to be fighting itself, wanting to be warm, while the sky had other plans. For about ten days, that snow fell steadily and fine. Then it grew heavy, and Mother Nature, still in a bout of schizophrenia, wouldn’t let it stick to the ground. Instead it melted, for as fast as it fell, it melted and areas flooded.

  Scientists called it a freak weather anomaly brought on by a northern weather condition.

  Any day it would change.

  After a couple weeks or so, people called shenanigans.

  The ice age had begun.

  No one would ever have expected for the ice age to begin in the middle of August. When people were still wearing summer clothes.

  But it did.

  When the reality was finally forefront in our minds, the exodus began. Actually, it started out as an evacuation of New York and other areas that were flooded. Because soon, the flood waters would ice over.

  It then turned into massive movement to get everyone south as fast as possible. Once the new ice age arrived in full force, it was only going to be a matter of weeks. A huge snow cap would top off our world and a ripple of cold would cast the remaining planet into a near-extinction level.

  Only a few, very remote, areas would be habitable without worry.

  They were south, far south below the equator.

  The storm front that brought in the cold, blanketed the northern portion of the globe so there was no air travel anywhere north of Georgia.

  To get that airfare, you had to have the resources. Too many people did not. They either left on their own or had to rely on the help of the government movement.

  Imagine tens of millions of people moving south, only to stop at a city or place that was not safe and then all of those moving. Over a hundred million Americans and Canadians were moving at the same time.

  It was insane.

  It was also not advised. Not only were military units dispersed to extract people, but also to extract resources. Foraging on a grand scale like no one had ever imagined. It had to be done. There weren’t enough resources in the south.

  There were those who made it to safe places—the rich. Those who made it south into temporary camps, and there were those who didn’t make transport, tried on their own, and were stuck somewhere in between.

  Waiting.

  Hoping.

  Barely surviving.

  They were called the nomads.

  I was one of them. Me and my daughter. We had no intention of being nomads, but when the water started rising—rather quickly too—my husband, Tim, and I packed the car and left.

  We weren’t even anywhere near a flood area. But, Tim, you know, he was smart. Personal belongings were a minimum; he shoved food and other survival things into backpacks. Making everything we had mobile, in case we had to walk.

  When the announcement came about the ice age, Tim wanted to go south right away. But you weren’t permitted. In order to keep traffic flow going, you had to wait your turn.

  August 15th – the heat wave hit.

  August 20th – the first snowflake.

  The flooding began mid-September and exodus orders were in place by the end of that month.

  Tim knew we couldn’t wait until our leave date of Halloween.

  Not with water rising, the lakes expanding, the snow falling and temperatures dropping steadily.

  Priority evacuation states and areas were the coastal cities, and those farthest north.

  We were southeast New York.

  I have to admit, for as much as I doubted our government, the Emergency branch had it together. They announced stopping points and fueling stops for those traveling by car. Areas where you could pick up an emergency ride.

  The so-called FEMA camps that were always denied were in fact, real, and our family was assigned to one in Texas.

  That was where we’d head. We had fifteen days before we were permitted to check into the camp. We brought that much food with us.

  Tim had our stops marked and route determined. The path of the least traffic. I was confident. We took the back roads, initially, from our home and ran into small amounts of traffic. I couldn’t imagine how bad the main highways were.

  The trouble came once we hit Olean, New York. A mere thirty miles from our home. A storm blew in, a bad one too. Lake-effect weather, icy rain mixed with snow, along with powerful winds.

  We had to stop, we knew it.

  “We’ll pull over after we get to higher ground.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant at first. Higher ground? I thought it more dangerous to drive. We moved at a snail’s pace as we crossed the First Street Bridge over the Allegheny River.

  Tim tossed me the map. “We’re here.” He pointed blindly. “How far until a road goes up into those hills.” He then indicated out the windshield.

  I could see the hills he mentioned. It was hard to determine how far away they were with the storm beating on our windshield.

  My daughter, Brea, was in the backseat, perched in her booster. She was being really good for a five-year-old. Her little feet kicked against the back of my seat. “Mommy, the river is a monster.”

  “It is,” I replied, not really paying attention to what she meant. I focused on finding that road, or any road. And there was one,
not two miles away.

  “Mommy, do you think it will eat us?”

  “What, baby?” I asked.

  “The river.”

  Then Tim gasped, “Dear God.”

  This prompted me to look. I gazed to my right. The river was indeed a monster. The typically mild river was raging and lifting; it snapped out waves to the right and left in the oddest manner that defied any reasoning of nature.

  The wind picked up and not only could I feel the bridge sway, but branches and other small items swirled through the air. “Tim?”

  “We’re almost across the bridge. Almost. Traffic is moving ahead, I bet. We’ll be fine.”

  Did he believe that?

  The river was like nothing I had ever seen. In the few minutes since I noticed it, it had swelled and grown, the waves now reached up and smacked against the bridge.

  Brea shrieked, “Mommy!”

  Suddenly, I my mind sped to all those stories of flash floods and hurricanes. I thought of my daughter and our car being swept into the river.

  She was in a booster seat, not a car seat. Kept in place by a seatbelt.

  What would happen if our car plunged into the river? With that thought on my mind, I turned in my seat. “Come here, sweetie.” I held out my hands to her.

  “Katie, what are you doing?” Tim asked. “Leave her. It’s safer. She’s in a car seat.”

  “No she’s not. It’s a booster seat. I need her in my arms. Just until we get away from the water.”

  Tom nodded. His hand hit against the steering wheel in frustration. He wanted to move faster.

  Brea slipped to the front seat, and sat facing me on my lap, her legs straddling over my hips, and I put the seatbelt over us.

  Was it smart? I didn’t know at that moment. I just knew I had to hold my child. She was safer in my arms.

  Just as we made it to the very end of the bridge, just as we sighed in relief, that was when it happened.

  I saw it.

  My eyes widened the closer it came.

  Seemingly in slow motion, a huge tree flew through the air, like an arrow it sailed our way. I thought, that was it. We were done, but the tree landed just before us, causing Tim to slam on the brakes. When he did, the car swerved sideways. I gripped my daughter tightly with everything I had as my side of the car slammed into the tree; it caused the tree to move some. But we stopped with a hard jolt.