Ashes of the Fall (15 page)

The truck’s reinforced
grille blasts through the automatic arm, shredding the cheap wood without slowing down. The halogens shine against an official government sign, stamped with the FEMA logo and what must be the Tennessee state flag. I catch only the faded text as I roll past. FEMA Disaster Relief Camp 2287.

There’s no sign of life in the outer section of the camp. I guess Jana was telling the truth about Vlad and the Remnants not living here.

I jam on the brakes and the truck groans to a stop outside a large chain link fence with barbed wire on top. A chill sweeps through the cab when I open the door. I make sure to button my jacket. Feeling the scratch of dust against my throat, I step out.

I leave the engine running—ready to make a quick getaway. The .38 is in my hand.

High beams knife through the darkness, cutting past the rusting fence to reach the first row of tents. Beyond that, the camp is shrouded in a dusky haze. Some of the tents still stand, while others have fallen to the decay of more than twenty years. Strands of torn fabric flap in the periodic gusts. Peppered amongst the temporary structures are pre-fab buildings of varying sizes. These, I suspect, are where the real goods lie.

I rummage around in the truck’s back, finding a blowtorch at the bottom of the tool chest. I use it to cut a large hole in the fence, sparks flying into the night. Glowing orange metal twists off into the dust.

When I’m finished, I head back to the truck, grab an almost empty pack from one of the hangers and cut the engine. I debate leaving the lights on, since someone might be watching—come looking for an easy mark. But I take Jana at her word, that Vlad or whoever else is out here will leave me alone. And Kid and Adriana—they’re not coming any time soon.

I think about how Jana told me they were probably gonna die. The temperature is already dropping precipitously. I shove the thought from my mind and head towards the hole in the fence. After waiting another minute for the metal to cool, I climb through.

Flashlight in hand, I sweep the beam over the desolate landscape. A tent city, a couple of cheap buildings—that’s what home was for these people. Did anyone make it out, or was this the last stand? I walk over to one of the fallen canopies and lift up the flap.

A skeleton’s hollowed eyes greet me, its jaw buried in the dirt.

I jump back and decide against searching the tents further. Instead, I scan the landscape with the light, finding that one of the crumbling pre-fab structures is labeled
Administrative Office
.

I climb up its short steps, dust particles shimmering in the flashlight. Leaning against the door, I find that the knob sticks—so I take a step back, then barrel through with my shoulder. The plywood crumbles, the sound of the wood echoing across the plains.

The office smells stale, bottled up, the type of aroma that comes from a storage locker you haven’t opened in twenty years. I’m in a small waiting room with a receptionist’s desk. There’s a hallway to the left and right.

I head behind the desk and shuffle through the documents. Daily schedules, headcounts, itineraries. Nothing to indicate where any of the good stuff in this office—or camp at large—might be.

I reach the bottom of the stack, stopping at a pink sheet. It’s not the color, but the skull and crossbones motif lining the top of the page.

“FEMA Camp 2287 is hereby declared unsafe,” I read aloud to no one but myself. “All survivors are to be moved to an indoor facility erected outside the camp’s limits. Failure to comply will result in containment measures.”

I don’t think the indoor facility ever got built.

It gives no indication who the camp was for. Could’ve been set up for all the refugees coming up from South America, after the water started rising. But I don’t know if many of those folks made it this far north. After a while, most of them were turned away at the border. Weren’t enough resources to go around.

Wonder what happened to the people who couldn’t get in.

But another thought occurs to me as I watch a large rat pad by. It stops to cock its head and look at me. In the glare of the flashlight, its bright green eyes are unmistakable. Then it hurries off, into a hidey-hole, leaving me to my own devices.

Maybe they call themselves Remnants because they were all that was left after Damien Ford finished down here. It never was made entirely clear
what
happened down South, particularly in Atlanta, which got hit extra bad. But if my trip across the Otherland’s broken soil is any indication, it wasn’t just a couple bombs—or even a nuke.

I drop the papers on the desk. They crumble when they hit the hard surface.

I flash the light down each hall, trying to make a call on which to explore first. They both look the same, so I take the right hallway. It leads to a janitor’s closet and a small office—probably for some overworked junior staffer. I can see stacks of mildewed cardboard boxes, their walls sagging in, through the cracked door.

I make the mistake of opening the closet first. A skeleton, belt lashed tightly around its broken neck, greets me, its slack jaw pointed at the ground.

“Shit,” I say and slam the door. The bones clatter on the other end, absorbing the impact.

I enter the office, hoping for better results.

The musty smell hits me stronger in here. I take a lid off one of the boxes and a hoard of cockroaches scatter over the brown paper. I fling the ruined box across the room in disgust. None of the files are readable—their only use until the end of time will be as insect nests.

I search the desk and find a bottle of cheap whiskey in the bottom drawer. It burns going down, but there’s not exactly a liquor store around. I decide to take a brief load off, sitting down in the swivel chair with the fifth. After twenty minutes of spinning and staring at the ceiling, my mind gloriously blank, I find my eyes beginning to shut. The bottle slips from my fingers, onto the floor.

I double-check the files, but they’re useless, all ruined. From the little patches of visible text, I think they were refugee information—a log of everyone who passed through the camp’s gates. Nothing but history, now.

The whiskey didn’t spill when I dropped it, so I shove the bottle in the pack and check the rest of the desk. Nothing good besides pencils and pens. Heck, maybe those are worth something—Matt wrote me a physical note or two, after all, and if you’re trying to stay under the Circle’s radar, there are worse technologies. So I bag them all, along with a notepad. I guess, if I’m hungry and dying alone, I can always pen my own manifesto or life story—explain to the world why I matter.

I think that manuscript would be pretty damn unconvincing.

On the desktop is an old flat screen monitor with a chunky bezel. My flashlight shines brightly off the highly reflective surface. I press the power button on the bottom right corner, but nothing happens. A thought occurs to me that this machine could be used to read the drive.

Drives
, I have to remind myself. There are at least two. One with the Lionhearted and one with Vlad, mysterious Remnant leader. At least I can rest easy about Tanner or Blackstone getting a completed copy of the source code any time soon. If Damien Ford’s responsible for the Remnants’ suffering—and I’d bet all the credits I don’t have that he was—it stands to reason that the Remnants won’t be seeking a partnership with the god-fearing any time soon.

I wave the light beneath the desk, where a yellowed tower stands. Brushing the dust off, I find a faded logo. It, like the monitor, doesn’t power on. I wouldn’t even recognize what this thing was, had Matt not had a glowing monstrosity in his own room.

When I would peek into his room, late on the weeknights, it would be lit entirely by the glow of multi-colored LEDs, high-powered fans whirring to keep the monster cool. We all knew it was illegal, but no one ever came for us. I think me and my parents trusted that Matt was good enough not to get caught.

I swallow hard. Until he did.

This side of the administrative office tapped out, I head back into the waiting area, whiskey sloshing back and forth in my pack. I’m not optimistic about this next hallway, given my current meager haul. By my estimation, there are a grand total of half a dozen buildings on the premises. Everything else is tent city. The offices have probably all been picked clean by the Remnants over the past two decades. But it’s not like I have anything else to do.

This hallway is flanked by two proper doors. One is completely missing. I venture a cautious glance inside, lest another skeleton greets my gaze. But the room’s boring, much like the one I just finished exploring. Stacks of ruined boxes, a plain desk with a computer.

A hasty looting reveals a bottle of vodka—I guess to work here, you’d have to drink to stay sane—and a brief readable memo. It indicates that the camp was officially established on January 12, 2026 by the United States government, in response to “Mr. Damien Ford’s unrelenting terrorist activity and the wake of broken individuals it has left behind.”

It seems a little dramatic for a government memo, but then, I guess the government was dissolving rapidly by that point. I leave it on the desk and head back into the hall to the final door.

There’s a strange rattling noise on the other side when I get closer. I put the flashlight underneath my armpit and fumble for the .38. If someone’s here, and they’re not all bones, at least I won’t be caught off guard.

I tap the barrel of the revolver against the flimsy wood.

“Hello,” I say. There’s no answer. “I got a gun. You best come out now.”

The rattling continues, ignoring my request. I slowly crouch down and place the flashlight on the floor so that I have a free hand. Then I grasp the knob quickly and fling the door open, sweeping the pistol over the open frame.

I spot a little movement in the corner, and my nerves get the better of me. A shot ricochets off the wall, my ears ringing, a fist-sized chunk of drywall falling to the dirty floor. A rat—maybe the same one as earlier—scurries away, unharmed.

The room’s completely empty, save for a generator belching smoke in the center. Its little green light blinks. When I pick up the flashlight to examine the scene, I spot an open window—dusty footprints on the bare floor.

I creep towards the generator and turn it off. A thin film of dust coats the finish. There’s a short note taped to the front.

“Vlad sends his regards,” I read aloud. “For your family giving the Remnants hope. If you want to trade, leave objects in the gatehouse with a list and offers. Will check tomorrow.”

Must’ve dropped this off while I was sleeping. There’s no way to tell how long I was out, but it had to be a couple hours. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the generator, but I do appreciate that Vlad doesn’t want to kill me.

The room is thick with gasoline fumes, so I decide to head back out to the truck for some fresh air. Before I do, I climb through the administrative office’s window, where I see a dirt bike’s tracks leading away. The path it takes is strange—instead of cutting through the camp, which seems like a quicker route, the messenger went straight through a gash in a fence, and went all the way around.

With gas at a premium out here in the wastes, it’s an odd choice. I recall how Jana gave the camp a wide berth.

I shrug it off, shivering from the cold as I walk towards the truck.

Tonight, I’ll sleep in the empty office. Tomorrow, I’ll decide where to go next.