Valerie’s Locket

I remember the day that the world fell. The chaos, the fire, the screams. No one was ready for it. Brimstone erupted from all the world’s volcanoes within just a week. Fire spread easily, like dust on a breeze. Acid rained down from the sky. Panic multiplied faster than any pandemic that had ever trotted the globe.

Very few people live now. The population used to be over ten billion, and now it’s barely 200,000. Bodies, like debris, litter the ground everywhere. Those that do live loot the bodies for supplies.

Supplies can be hard to find, but there’s always something around that can be useful. I stay in what used to be a warehouse that manufactured steel beams. One side of the building rests in a pile of crumbled concrete, but the other remains standing. Food is probably the most difficult thing to find, but I know of a grocery store that has a decent amount of cans and plastic ware. There’s also a greenhouse I visit once a week to check on the handful of vegetables that I grow there. The only other place I go to is a library, which I only visit when I need a new book. Sometimes it’s nice to have something to do that isn’t focused on mere survival.

I leave the warehouse every day after the sun fully peaks the mountain. I walk the same path every day so that I can see any signs of the fire advancing toward my home. It is constantly growing and spreading, so I have to fight it back sometimes, in order to keep it at bay.

Sulfur fire is nearly impossible to put out, so I use a metal snow shovel with several handle additions, and I push the brimstone back. The heat from the fire is hotter than anything I’ve ever felt, being several thousand degrees.

Things change every day in the city. More buildings collapse, more trash, more fires. But today, I saw spray paint.

It was on the ground, half covered by the blue blaze of brimstone. I could tell that something was drawn in red under the fire, but I couldn’t make out what it was. Then two red arrows pointed to a blue gas mask and a yellow diving helmet. Those had red arrows pointing to the same red question mark, and below it, a circle with a heart connected to it.

I looked up from the spray paint and turned in a circle around me. The world had become a grim place. Sulfur litters the ground and emits a putrid odor as it burns. I haven’t seen anyone survive without wearing a mask or helmet of some sort. Fire decorates the planet in blue, yellow, and red heat. The trees have all but vanished, and it’s ten times harder to breathe because of that. Everyone isolates themselves and lives alone. I’ve seen few people since the world fell, and they all ran at the sight of me.

I looked back down at the spray paint on the ground. I would’ve spat at it. I tightened the strap of my gas mask on the back of my head. “Someone must be hunting me.”

I wear a gas mask everywhere I go. I practically haven’t taken it off since that day, six years ago. Eating and drinking in it is a hassle. I have to change the carbon filter in it every six months, but replacements are extremely difficult to find. I take them from any gas masks I see in the city, but most aren’t any good.

The heat during the day is almost unbearable. If it weren’t for the raging winds most days, I probably would’ve had a heat stroke by now. My lungs are constantly fighting to get oxygen. My body is in a never-ending sweat. And the perpetual fire heats the planet more and more every day.

I made my way from the spray painted ground and toward the warehouse, dodging fires. As I passed the old courthouse building, a flash of yellow passed the corner of my eye.

I instantly turned my head to see what it was, but nothing was there. I continued walking and then saw a shadow creep closer to me. “Show yourself!”

A man with a yellow diving helmet emerged from behind a pile of broken concrete. His hands were raised beside his helmet. “I came to find you.” His voice echoed through his hollow helmet before it entered the contaminated air of the world.

“Who are you?” I asked, still hesitant to draw the machete that I carry on my back.

“My name is Felix. Who are you?”

“Napoleon.”

“Are you from the southeast part of Bellevue?”

“No, southwest.”

“You saw the spray paint, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “What does it mean?”

He pointed just below my face. “I think he wants that.”

I looked down. The bronze locket around my neck, heart-shaped, faded. “This? Why? Who?”

“I don’t know, man. I just know I don’t want to die for something I have nothing to do with. Drake is pretty spiteful.”

I walked off.

• • •

I stood, facing him. His fists were clenched around long black knives. I had my machete in my right hand, shining patterns of Damascus steel onto the cracked concrete between us. His beaked mask couldn’t hide the anger in his eyes.

“Why did you choose the plague doctor mask?” I asked him more out of insult than curiosity. That mask couldn’t look good on anyone.

“I want the locket,” he said through gritted teeth.

I looked down at my left hand, which was now holding the bronze heart that hung from my neck. “It was my daughter’s locket, and it is all I have left of her. I’m not just going to give it up just like that. If you want it, then I guess you’ll have to come and get it.”

His fists gripped the knives tighter and his fingers started to turn blue. I gulped hard, preparing myself for his sudden charge.

He slung his blades through the air like a helicopter’s propellers, trying to slash at my chest and stomach. I backed up and raised my blade toward his throat. He gave me a quick pause and then shoved the machete to the side.

He flipped one of his blades around, hoping to stab it into the flesh of my arm. I barely missed it and swung my blade down in his direction. We both heard the chunk sound as my machete cracked his left collarbone.

Dropping that knife, his arm fell limp and his eyes lit with red fury that matched his spray paint. Using the other knife, he managed to slice my stomach, my arms, and my shoulder with his renewed sense of speed.

“I. Want. The. Locket.” He screamed every word. “Just give it to me!”

I twisted my patterned blade while blocking one of his rapid slashes, and it ripped the knife from his hand. He stood there, staring. I couldn’t tell if his expression showed anger, sorrow, or fear.

“Why do you want my daughter’s locket?”

He didn’t move nor speak, just stood there. I walked closer to him, machete raised. “I asked you a question.”

At that moment, he slapped my blade to the side and threw a fierce kick toward my knee. I watched him go right past me as I stepped aside.

“It rightfully belongs to Valerie. Not you, old man.” He caught his balance and tightened his fist.

“How do you know Valerie?”

He chuckled. “You’re just so blind, Napoleon. I see that, everyone sees that. Valerie was mine for months before the world fell. And it would’ve been years if you would’ve let her come with me the night before.”

“Valerie wanted to go to the library that night.”

“That’s what she told you, yes. But she would’ve been with me in the Paolin District, where I stayed then.”

“She would’ve told me.”

He laughed a terrifying laugh. “Told you about a man she was seeing? You would’ve condemned her, just like you did her with Eric.”

“Eric was a maniac. A freak that tried to get her to do things she didn’t want to. He was corrupt and she didn’t need to be with him.”

“You always have a reason to justify your side of things, Napoleon, and no one else is allowed to say anything to oppose it. That’s why Valerie didn’t tell you about me.”

I stood there, silent.

“I’m glad you did get rid of Eric though, because it led her to me.” He gave a crooked chuckle. “Give me the locket, Napoleon. It belongs to her and you stole it.”

A tear broke away from my eye as I thought about my daughter. Nothing else compared to the pain of losing her.

“Just admit it, old man. You were a terrible father. Even your wife thought so.”

He started to walk toward me and continued insulting me, using my family. Anger started to boil within my stomach as his words entered my ears. My fingers gripped the machete harder.

As he started to circle me and walk behind me, I stuck the machete into his face and forced him up against the barely-standing concrete wall. “Don’t talk to me about my family, you insignificant and ignorant twat. You’re a bug beneath my feet and I can tell that just by how you talk to me. You don’t know anything about me and if you’re lucky, you won’t learn. Now go back to Paolin and leave me from your life.”

I could tell by his eyes, through the glass circles of his mask, that he smiled. In an instant, he pulled a black dagger from the back of his belt and jabbed it into my side.

He whispered, “If I’m a bug, then here’s my sting. I’m much more than you’ve ever been.”

I fell to my knees, clutching my bloody side, and dropped the machete. The clanking sound of the metal hitting the concrete seemed to happen in slow motion. I felt a pull at my neck and then a shove to my chest, which put me on the ground.

[FULL NOVEL COMING SOON]