January, 2025

Life, love and adventure after the pandemic…

In 2072, antibiotic-resistant bacteria cause a pandemic that kills 90% of humanity. Armageddon’s Shadow introduced us to members of a scrounger gang who trade goods they find in the ruins with survivors in the few settlements. Now, we follow the adventures of the youngest gang member, John Moore, as he grows to manhood and finds that the evils of the old world have followed him into the new. So has the Shadow that haunted his childhood and killed his loved ones.

John falls in love with two beautiful sisters, Alicia and Jaclyn. After the abduction of Alicia and a desperate chase to rescue her, he has no idea how to solve the problems inherent in a love triangle.

But the sisters do.

January, 2025

I Know the Answer - What's the Question?

I was frantically typing notes into my tablet about a new, exciting proof to try out when she spoke to me.

“Pardon?” she said.

I looked to my left, disoriented as I often was when lost in a mathematical fog. As always, I sat at the end of the bar, as far from people as possible. She had taken the barstool next to mine, apparently because the after-work crowd filled most of the others.

“What?” I asked stupidly. She had a round face surrounded by ginger curls, bright blue eyes and a broad smile. I quickly shut my mouth, which had been hanging open in a doltish fashion.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I thought you were speaking to me.”

“Oh, my. I'm the sorry one. I sometimes do that – speaking aloud when I can’t find a solution or have a new idea.”

She chuckled. “That can be dangerous. You might disclose secrets you don’t want others to know.”

Her humor was contagious. I smiled. “I'm afraid I lead too dull a life to have any dangerous secrets. What did I say?”

“You don’t know?” Her smile widened. “You said, ‘Maybe I’ve been looking at it wrong,’ and started pecking away at your tablet keys like a madman.”

“Ah, yes. I just had an idea and wanted to get it down before I forgot it.”

“Did my question make you forget it before you got it typed in?”

“No, I got the gist of it down. I can work out the details tonight.”

“You’re going to work tonight? It’s already almost 6:30. And look.” She pointed to his beer mug. “You still have a third of the beer left you had when I sat down. I drank a whole one since then and I'm not a fast drinker, so yours must be warm and flat.”

“Well, I –”

“I always have two when I come in here in the evening, so I'm going to buy you one while I have my second. Hey, Jack.” She raised her hand, holding up two fingers to the bartender. In popular bars and restaurants calling themselves “efficiencies,” customers ordered food, drinks and music from machines on their tables. They only saw the waiters bringing their orders, who still expected a hearty tip. Murphy’s, a step above a “dive bar,” relied on personable bartenders like Jack, who knew when a patron wanted conversation. I valued him because he sensed the times I liked being left alone to work.

“Thanks,” I said. “I was going to go back to work, but I can’t let a beer go to waste.” I downed the rest of my beer – it was warm and flat like she predicted.

“So,” she said, “you just come in here for a beer and go right back to your office?”

“I work at home on a special project that takes a lot of time. Sometimes, I need a change of place and a little alcohol to work out a problem.”

“Are you some kind of scientist?”

“I'm a mathematician, trying to solve a problem that will help computer scientists and other technical people. I think I'm close to an answer.”

The bartender arrived with our beers.

She sipped hers. “It’ll help you to get away from your computer for a while. What’s your name, anyhow? Mine’s Meribel McGonigal. I prefer Mel.”

“What a poetic name! I'm Arthur Edelman. Art.” I had seen her here in Murphy’s before when I came in for my beer break, always alone. I thought she had glanced my way a few times, but that was unlikely, given my long, lugubrious face, shaggy hair and droopy brown eyes.

I asked, “Do you work around here?”

“Yes. At the trucking company Algonquin Carriers. I type shipping labels, sort mail, keep track of scheduling. You know, I'm a paper pusher. What kind of project are you working on?”

“It’s a boring mathematical problem.” I couldn’t tell her anymore. Not that she looked or acted like an industrial spy, but I couldn’t take the risk.

Taking the hint, she changed the subject to inconsequential things. I found her easy to talk to and was glad to get my mind off the P versus NP problem. Her blue eyes sparkled and I liked the sprinkle of freckles across her cheeks and upturned nose.

After a time, she said, “Are you hungry?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“If you like shrimp, the College Inn has a shrimp special tonight. Even though the nearest ocean is over five hundred miles away, they fly them in, fresh-frozen, for specials.”

“I love shrimp. Let’s go.”

We finished our beers and went out. I could let my work slide for one night. She signaled a cab and, after it arrived, input an address into its keyboard. It whisked us away, and fifteen minutes later, we sat at a table in the College Inn. We ordered shrimp scampi.

She said, “They have a great pinot grigio that goes well with it.”

So we ordered a bottle of that.

Halfway through the meal, from behind, I heard the high-pitched voice of the only friend I had made in the month I had been in town.

“Artie! Fancy seeing you here.” He knew I hated the nickname but insisted on using it.

I turned partway to face my portly friend. His little dark eyes, small mouth, and nubbin nose looked lost in his fleshy face. The ends of his mustache quirked upward, much like those of Frans Hals’ Laughing Cavalier, but the pointed end of his black goatee looked vaguely Mephistophelian.

“Hello, Rollie. Here for the shrimp?”

“Just finished eating.” He was looking at Meribel.

I said, “This is Mer-, uh, Mel. And Mel, Rollie.”

“It’s Ed Rollingford,” said Rollie, “but I like Rollie better. Ed is so bland, don’t you think?”

“Oh, there have been famous Edwards,” she said. “England had ten or eleven King Edwards. Edward Teller helped develop the atomic bomb and later became the so-called ‘Father of the H-bomb.’ And Edward Morley was the first scientist to measure the atomic weight of oxygen.”

“Why, uh, yes,” he said, surprised at her knowledge of Edwards. As was I. Mel was a well-educated paper-pusher.

Rollie joined us for the rest of the meal, helping himself to the last of the wine but ordering and paying for another bottle. By the time we left the College Inn and went our separate ways, I felt pleasantly replete.

As I walked back to my rooms, my portable comm unit buzzed. The caller’s unfamiliar number stunned me. Nobody outside of Szilard Enterprises should know I was here. I didn’t even let my mother and friends know. I hesitated to answer but finally did; I had to know if somebody had found my location who shouldn’t have.

Ben Delgado answered.

“Ben, what are you doing calling from this number?”

“I was afraid my comm got compromised, so I got a new one. How are you doing? Any progress?”

“Yes, I thought of a new approach this afternoon. I'll pursue it in the morning.” I laughed. “I myself got too compromised tonight. Too much wine with friends.”

“Friends? We didn’t send you to the middle of nowhere in the Midwest to make friends, Art. You’re there to solve the P versus NP problem in isolation. To keep hackers from copying your work.”

“Relax, Ben. These two aren’t scientists. They wouldn’t know what I was talking about if I explained it. One is a bookkeeper who works for a trucking company, and the other is an independently wealthy guy who collects bugs.”

“Well… okay, but watch yourself. When will you have something for us?”

“Tomorrow, I’ll send you an update on your commcomp, like I did last week. I won’t let you know my new idea over it, though. If there are any agents in town, they can spy on me with those minuscule drones. I assume they can hack the commcomp, which I only use for messages, but they can’t my tablet.”

“I'm glad you’re careful. As always, I look forward to getting your message. When you complete the project, it’ll make us the world’s richest, most important data-processing company.”

“Okay, I'll have it soon.”

“That’s all for now, then. Bye, kid.”

“So long, Ben.”

Yes, solving the P versus NP problem would make Szilard the wealthiest, most sought- after company in the world. Presently, there was no known way to quickly find an answer to some questions, but ironically, if given an answer, it could be verified quickly. One example was the traveling salesman problem. If he has a list of cities and the distances between each pair of them, how does he find the shortest route enabling him to visit each city once and return to the one from which he started? Once the salesman finally finds the answer through trial and error, he can immediately prove it.

P stood for problems that took computers a long time to solve, and NP for those with solutions that could be rapidly checked. If I solved P versus NP, this and countless other insoluble questions would be speedily answered. If I could find a way for P to equal NP instead of being versus NP, information technology would profoundly change. There would be no gap between finding a problem’s answer and recognizing the solution once it's found. Travel routing, increased production and scheduling would be optimized. No delays in traffic or waiting for days for a package.

And if Szilard Enterprises had the solution, anyone with such a problem would have to come to it.

And I would have the answers in a few days.

For a change, I went to sleep elated, either from my nearly completed project, the wine or perhaps from thinking of Mel.

---

Rollie had invited me over to see his loft the next day, Saturday. I arrived at 10:00, as agreed. The large main room served as the living and dining rooms, with a kitchen separated from it by a counter. His furniture was scanty and scattered about haphazardly. Dirty clothes, empty beer cans, pizza cartons and other miscellaneous refuse lay about. A ladder led up to a mezzanine level, which appeared to be a sleeping room. His rooms occupied the top floor of the building and the ceiling, studded with skylights, soared to just below the roof.

The adornments on the wall piqued my curiosity: shallow, glass-covered boxes with insects pinned to white backgrounds. I examined a couple of them, both inhabited by beetles.

“Did you collect all these?” I asked, waving a hand to encompass the dozen or so exhibits, remembering him saying that was his hobby.

He was beaming. “Yes. I have to give it up in the summer; it’s so hot, but I'll be back out now that it’s October while you’re hacking away at your commcomp. My dear Aunt Martha, who raised me, God rest her soul, hated my bugs but left me her fortune anyway.”

“At least it gives you something to occupy your time.”

“Oh, I have other activities. But here, look at this picture of my hero.”

A photo of British evolutionary biologist and geneticist JBS Haldane hung on the wall. Under it was one of his most famous quotes: “It is my supposition that the universe is not only queerer than we imagine, is queerer than we can imagine.”

I said, “He liked insects too, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Especially beetles. When asked what his search for beetles told him about God, Haldane said He “must have an inordinate fondness for beetles.” There are more species of beetles – phylum Arthropoda, class Insecta, order Coleoptera – than any other group of living animals. About one out of every four animal species on Earth is a beetle.

“But, say, Artie, I was waiting for you to have coffee. Would you like some?”

With our coffee, we sat in comfortable chairs and discussed his favorite scientist’s many talents and achievements for a while.

At last, he said, “Now you know everything about me, while you’re a complete mystery to me. Tell me about yourself.”

“There’s nothing interesting to tell. I grew up in an academic family. My mother and father had positions at the University of California, Berkley. Father died of a rare heart condition. Mother, retired, still lives in Berkley. I got my Master’s at MIT.”

“So, what are you pecking away at on your commcomp or tablet day and night?”

I shook my head. “It’s not work. I went back to MIT for my PhD, and now I'm working on my dissertation.” Which was partially true.

“Wow! You could be another of those young geniuses like Einstein, who won the Nobel prize at age twenty-five.”

“It’s too late for me. I'm already twenty-nine.”

“Can you tell me the subject of your dissertation?”

“Not till I finish it. That would be bad luck.”

We spent the next few hours chatting agreeably. Rollie wasn’t as foolish as he had appeared. He had some college and had gained a great deal of knowledge on his own. For lunch, he prepared two humongous, delicious sandwiches piled with pastrami, Swiss cheese, marinated onions, pickles, leak lettuce, and yellow mustard on rye bread, which explained his broad girth. I couldn’t eat all mine, but he wrapped it and made me take it with me.

At home, I sought one of my own favorite scientists on that wonderful machine that allows us to communicate long distances, solve intricate mathematical and scientific problems and play games. We can also access virtually all the information in the world: the commcomp. That was the mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel.

I reviewed the implication of P equals NP for the fortieth time, trying to determine whether Gödel’s incompleteness theorem was an example of something that either can’t be true or might be true. I ended up deciding that not only could this not be demonstrated, but it led down the wrong trail. I ended up back on the thread I had begun when Mel interrupted me in Murphy’s Tap Room and worked late into the night. I was close to discovering the answer.

---

To unclog my mind the next afternoon, I went on a run down the hiking-biking trail by the river. It was a pleasant day for it. Summer’s heat had gone, but autumn’s chill wouldn’t come for another month. As I took Bullhook Bend, I approached a lithe figure from the back. Her ginger curls, though not long, were bound behind with an orange ribbon, which looked like it was about to fly loose.

It did as I neared her. I sped up and got close enough to catch the fluttering band as it fell.

She reached behind her head when she felt it parting, slowed to a stop, turned and gasped when she saw me. I also halted, grinned and held out her ribbon.

“Art! Where did you come from?” Her huge, luminous blue eyes held mine.

I grinned at her surprise. “I sensed a maiden in distress.”

She said, “My hair isn’t quite long enough for a ribbon to hold it, but running with it down makes my neck sweat.”

“Turn around. Let me fix it.” When she did, I raised her curls and bound them with the ribbon, then took out my handkerchief and wiped the sweat off her neck.

She turned to face me. “Oo, the breeze feels wonderful on my neck. Are you in the habit of saving damsels?”

I wanted to say, none as lovely as you, but settled on, “My best talent. Shall we race on?”

“Only as far as Clement’s, where we can have a cold drink. I'm beat.”

We proceeded at an easy lope for a few more minutes until a concession stand appeared ahead. It had service windows facing the street as well as the trail. Soon, we sat at a picnic table sipping lemonade from clear plastic glasses.

She said, “This is the first time I’ve seen you without your tablet in your hand.”

“It’s my companion all too often. I was glad to leave it home today.”

We got to know each other. I gave her the same background information I had given Rollie. The part about the PhD was correct. After working with computers for a couple of years, I returned to MIT to pursue my PhD. I chose the P versus NP problem for my research project. When my dissertation advisor, Francis Delacroix, told his friend Ben Delgado of Szilard Enterprises about me and said he thought I had a good chance of solving the problem, Delgado hired me. If successful, I stood to make a bundle of money and a PhD at the same time. If I failed, at least I would have earnings from Szilard for my current work.

Mel told me she hadn’t been in town any longer than I had. She was from Chicago and had gotten tired of the city. Surprisingly, she didn’t speak like my cousin Rudy, who lived in Skokie. Her accent sounded general-American with a hint of the East Coast, perhaps New York. As a Californian, I wasn’t used to the nuances of speech in that area.

She asked, “How is your dissertation going?”

“I think I'm on the last lap.”

“When we first met and I asked if you were a scientist, you said you were a mathematician working on a computer problem. It sounds like you cover a lot of fields.”

“I suppose I do.”

“I don’t know much about math, but I know enough about computers to manage my commcomp. Can you tell me what your project is about?”

“It’s bad luck to talk about a dissertation until it's complete. After I submit it and it’s approved, I'll give you a copy of it.”

She looked down, embarrassed. “Sorry, I was so presumptuous. I didn’t know –”

Impulsively, I put my hand over hers. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I'm just superstitious.” I quickly withdrew my hand, though she hadn’t moved hers.

“Hey,” she said, “I'm thinking of fixing fettucini tonight. Why don’t you join me?”

“I'd love to. What time?”

“Around seven.”

When I returned to the apartment, I was too excited to work or even read. You can’t get so worked up about a woman’s invitation to dinner. It means nothing romantic to her. Women find you dull. Remember Carol. Carol moved in with me after three months of dating, the only woman who ever had. It didn’t last long. We had too little in common; she was a chatterbox and mistook my quiet for gloom. We didn’t argue about it, but I wasn’t surprised to return home one day to find Carol and her belongings gone.

But I had no trouble talking to Mel. Unlike Carol, her words were substantive and humorous, and time passed quickly. But I reminded myself that I would return to Cambridge in a few weeks, maybe less.

On the way to Mel’s, I bought a bottle of wine. The fettucini and the cannolis that followed for dessert were excellent. Our conversation was pleasant, as always. I found out she was much better read in literature than me. I told myself that her choice of dinner by candlelight wasn’t meant to be romantic.

After dinner, she showed me the paintings she had made in her studio, mostly landscapes, with a few country scenes, but mostly of cityscapes, painted in shapes and variegated colors of an impressionistic style, many with swirling, organic skies. A few were of less expansive subjects: children playing in a park; stark, gritty scenes of alleyways with fire escapes in dark, dramatic colors; and homeless people huddling in doorways. Though the skyscrapers were too stylized to recognize, the scenes felt more like New York than Chicago.

We had coffee in the living room, and finally, I figured I'd better leave. We both had to go to work the next morning. When I took her hand to say goodbye, I held it a little too long, but she didn’t withdraw hers.

We saw each other several times the next week, a few evenings for beers when I took my work break at Murphy’s, after which I talked with Mel instead of working. Then, an occasional lunch. I saw Rollie a few times from a distance, frowning when he saw Mel and me together. Could he be interested in her, I wondered, or gay and jealous of her, though he had never made a pass at me that I noticed.

On Friday evening, after our two beers, despite a sky that threatened rain, the appeal of being outdoors, free of the summer’s oppressive heat that had reemerged that day, drove us to walk along the hiking-biking trail by the river. The clouds increasingly glowered down on us. The sky dribbled a few drops of rain in warning and then cut loose with the full fury of a thunderstorm. I took Mel’s hand and pulled her toward a densely crowned pine tree.

“No, no!” she protested. “You never stand under a tree during a thunderstorm.” And guided me toward a dilapidated boathouse.

Soon, we stood under its portico roof, drenched. Seeing her shivering in a short-sleeved blouse, I took my windbreaker off and draped it around her shoulders. It was light but waterproof.

“What about you?” she said. “You’re wet, too.”

“I'm fine.” In fact, standing so close to her to avoid the rain made me quite warm. “Why not stand under a tree to stay dry?”

“If lightning strikes a tree, it electrifies the ground for a broad area around it. Anybody standing under it is toast. Literally.”

She looked up at me, her enchanting large, blue eyes mesmerizing me, and her broad, full-lipped mouth parted slightly. I brushed soggy red curls away from her face, bent down, and impulsively kissed her.

I grabbed the doorknob as the kiss became fervid and intense. Miraculously, the door wasn’t locked. I didn’t think to be surprised at finding a motorboat docked inside the decrepit building. We descended into its cabin, rapidly pulling each other’s soaked clothes off.

Much later, as we lay on its cushioned seat, she said, “We should go before the owner shows up.” and snuggled up to me.

“Yeah,” I said. The rain continued to beat on the boathouse roof.

---

On Saturday, two opposing imperatives pulled at me: finding the answer to the P versus NP problem and seeing Mel that evening. I knew how to solve P vee NP now. It was only a matter of completing the unassailable proof. I could have done that by indulging in an extremely long day’s work until two or three a.m. the next morning, as I had done until last week. The second, far more important imperative, demanded that I see Mel that evening.

Delgado called me about mid-afternoon.

After I answered, he said, “Greetings, Art. Where’s the latest progress update? Last week, you said you practically had a solution, so I assume you’ve either got it by now or will in a day or two.”

“That’s not what I told you. I said I had a new approach to try. That hasn’t succeeded yet, so I'm still working on it. I get closer all the time, though.”

“The Board’s getting antsy. Other firms are working on this. It’s even bigger than you probably realize. Solving this will give the answer to a lot of other mysteries that not only plague the computer industry but other technologies.”

“I'm sure I know as much about that as you do, Ben.”

“And more. But you need to give me some kind of progress report to get the Board off my ass. Give me a completion date.”

“I can’t tell you an exact one, but I'm getting close. That’ll have to placate them.” Delgado sighed. “Do the best you can. My ass is on the line. The president hired you and the Board recommended you based on my guarantee of Delacroix’s endorsement.”

The call didn’t last much longer.

I had lied to him, of course. I could have had an answer to him and to MIT tomorrow. I could still delay returning to the Szilard offices in New York for close to a week, claiming that writing the paper containing my proofs and then submitting it to all the journals would take that long.

But the second imperative kept me here. I wanted to have Mel as long as possible. I knew when I left, I would lose her forever.

That night, we shared a charcuterie board of cured meats, pâtés, cheeses and bread.

Much later, when we snuggled in her bed, she said, “You’re such a mysterious man, working on a secret project you can’t relate even to me. If you weren’t so sweet, and kind of shy, I'd say you were an evil scientist trying to take over the world.”

I laughed. “When I finish it, you’ll be the first to know, to reassure you the world will remain free. But I'll give you a hint tonight. To some extent, it’s based on work done by one of my favorite scientists, Kurt Gödel.”

“Girdle?”

“That’s pretty close.”

---

On Monday, with Mel at work, I outlined my paper but delayed finishing it to fool myself into thinking I had a reason to be here. That evening, at her apartment, I saw a large bouquet of red and golden chrysanthemums in a vase in the middle of her coffee table.

“What’s the occasion?” I asked.

“My Mom had them delivered for my birthday,” she said. “She knows I love mums and these have beautiful fall colors.”

“Your birthday is today? Why didn’t you tell me? How old are you? Twenty?”

She laughed. “No, my birthday’s tomorrow, and I’ll be thirty.”

“You should’ve told me, so I could’ve gotten you something. At least, let me buy you a birthday dinner. Your choice of restaurant.”

“Okay. The College Inn for their shrimp special.”

“No. Not a neighborhood dive, great though their shrimp special is. Do you like lobster? We’ll go to the Seafood Platter.”

“I love lobster, but you’re a starving PhD candidate. We can aim lower for the birthday dinner.”

Little did she know I would soon have more money than I had ever dreamed of. “Nonsense. Paying for a fine dinner once a year won’t break me.”

So, we dined at the finest seafood restaurant in town.

The next morning, as we went on a run, I saw she hadn’t bound her hair up in the back.

Afterward, while having coffee at Clement’s, I asked her why she had left her hair down.

“I lost my ribbon and haven’t thought to buy another. I’m accustomed to leaving it wrapped around the stem of my car’s rearview mirror but when I went to take it down yesterday morning for my run, it wasn’t there.”

“I suppose you looked to see if it fell to the floor.”

“Of course. I looked all over the car’s interior.”

We kissed before we left the picnic table and parted to go to our homes and showers. I went by the flower shop and bought a bouquet of roses to have delivered after Mel returned home from work and a green ribbon to give her that night. It should go well with her red hair.

---

The next morning, I organized the maze of mathematical notes in my tablet into a systematic form that anyone could understand. Only a section giving the proofs and a conclusion – a half-day's work – remained to finish it. I would put that off until tomorrow.

I took a walk through a park at the edge of town where Rollie collected his bugs – uh, beetles. As a scientist, I didn’t have the right to disparage a colleague’s profession. I hadn’t seen him for a while and missed our visits. And as I rounded a thicket festooned with blackberry briars, there he was.

“I’ve been hoping to run into you,” he said in his high-pitched voice.

“I was about to say the same thing,” I said. I felt guilty for not returning his calls. He had left a couple of messages wondering if I would like to meet for a game of chess, which we had done a few times, but I had been at Mel’s both times. We walked along together.

He said, “I get the feeling that you’re about to finish your project, and you’ll leave after that, so we won’t be able to visit anymore.”

“Yes,” I said. “I'll be finished in a few days. But I'll be sure to come back to see the new beetles you’ve collected.” I probably wouldn’t return, but hated goodbyes.

Rollie stopped, frowned and looked at me. “There’s something I have to tell you, Artie. I know you’ve grown fond of Meribel, but I’ve done a bit of research on her.”

I was surprised and irritated. “Why on Earth would you do that?”

“I hope this doesn’t make you mad, but I did it out of friendship. She seemed quite interested in you and your whereabouts during your first few weeks here. She watched and followed you, found the house with the apartment you stayed in, and finally made your acquaintance in Murphy’s Tap Room. She told you she worked for a trucking company.”

“So?”

“An inquiry disclosed that no Meribel McGonigal worked at Algonquin Carriers.”

I was stunned. After a moment, I murmured, “There must be some mistake….” “I'm sorry, Artie. I'm sure there is. Just be careful.”

(TO BE CONTINUED)

November, 2024

His weapon-waving guard made him realize that doing anything would be stupid.

“Sit right there,” said the man. “Just like Duce said.”

He coughed. For the first time, Con noticed his pale, drawn face and saw him try to not shiver.

A victim of Chou’s.

Con looked around, trying to figure out how to help Chloë and shuddering. He wasn’t a brave man. At least there were only three men and this one was sick. From the office, came the other two’s muffled laughter and lewd comments, furniture being knocked around. Nothing from Chloë.

His guard slid down the wall to sit on the floor. He coughed in his hand but never took his eyes off Con. Nor did the gun waver. They sat that way for a long time, watching each other, Con trying not to hear sounds from the office.

Then, all grew quiet in there. Duce emerged grinning, swaggering, making sure Con saw him buckling his belt. He grabbed the pistol and everlight from Binky’s hands.

Binky tried to stand. He collapsed. “I—I don’t think I can.”

Did he mean, take his turn raping Chloë? wondered Con. He didn’t even look able to stand.

“I don’t think you can either,” said Duce. “Fact, you’re too sick to go any fu’ther with us.”

Binky scrabbled to his feet. “You—you ain’t gonna leave me here!?” he whined. “They’ll—they’ll kill me.”

“You’re dyin anyhow.” Duce swung the gun to cover Con. “You set right there, boy. Count to a hundred before you even think a movin.” Duce backed away, holding the gun and everlight on Con until he disappeared into the office. Con heard him say to Chloë, “We’ll see you again, mama.”

As soon as the office door to the street closed and the light in the office disappeared, Con leaped up and ran to it, yanked the door open and went in.

“Chloë!” Still half-blind from the everlight, he could barely see in the dark office. “Chloë, where are you?” Not seeing her made him fear the worst.

“I’m right here.”

Following the sound of her voice, he found her sitting on the couch, her knees, with her arms clasped tightly around them, drawn up against her breasts. When he reached out to her, she flinched away.

“Are you hurt? Did they—”

“Do you mind getting the hell out of here while I find some clothes?”

He stumbled numbly out the door. The man the others left behind, who Con had forgotten, had somehow gotten to his feet. Leaning against the wall, he had moved away from the office door.

“Oh no you don’t,” Con said. He reached the man in two long strides and grabbed his collar. “You’d ’ve done just what those other assholes did to Chloë if you could’ve.” Con held him against the wall, feeling him tremble and trying to hold back a cough. He wondered if his toughness was compensation for being so cowardly in facing the others.

“I see one of ’em stayed behind.”

He turned to see Chloë standing in the office doorway, having replaced her probably shredded scrubs with a blouse and jeans.

He said, “What’ll we do with him?”

“Did I give you all that training for nothing? We put him to bed and give him some water.” But her stern look didn’t soften as she approached them.

“But he would’ve… I mean he—”

“But he didn’t. He isn’t able. Don’t worry. We won’t do him any favors. He knows he’s a dead man and I won’t let him forget it.” She pulled a .38mm snub nose revolver from her pocket and pointed it at Binky’s head. His hands shot up. She said to Con, “Had the pistol in the cabinet but couldn’t get to it. You can bet I’ll carry it from now on.” She nodded to Binky and to a vacant cot. Binky stumbled to it and collapsed.

“What if he’s one of those who survives Chou’s?”

“Oh, one way or the other, he won’t survive.”

Suddenly the lights and music came on. And what music! Soaring sound enhanced by layer upon layer of added heroic accompaniment. It went on and on, ever more monumental. He couldn’t speak for a moment after it ended. Then, “What’s that music, Chloë?”

“Flight of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner. Noble, huh?”

“Flight of the what?”

“Valkyries. The beautiful maidens who take the souls of slain warriors to Valhalla to party with the gods.” Then she said, “Go back to bed. I’ll watch this asshole while you sleep.”

But Con saw her split lip tremble and the bruises purpling her brown face. He grasped her shoulder and held it when she tried to back away.

“No, Chloë. You’ve bossed me around enough. My turn now. You go hide in the farthest, safest corner of this warehouse and get some sleep. I’ll go lock the front door and—”

“You can’t. They wrecked the door when they broke in. I closed it as well as I could and braced a chair against its knob. You’ve forgotten that I’m the trained soldier and you’re—”

“And I’m the boss now. I can see the front door from here. We’ll turn the lights off. I can hear anyone who comes in and turn the everlight on ’em. But we won’t see anyone else tonight.” He put a hand out and looked down at her revolver.

“Do you know how to use it?”

“Of course.” Though he had never fired a firearm in his life.

She looked down and wept. When he put her arms around her, she let him hold her for a moment, then backed away and handed him the revolver.

“Okay, Con. You’re the boss this one time. But I’m back in charge tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

She wiped tears and mucus from her cheek with the back of her hand. “I’ve got to clean up a little first. How I wish we had a shower.” She headed for the “Hers” door by the office.

Con had never been in charge of anything before. He felt safe from Duce and his buddy for the night but how would he handle an emergency with the patients? He felt totally inadequate.

Until Gloria smiled at him.

---

Con couldn’t have slept, sitting on a cot next to the would-be rapist all night. The man rolled about, groaning, coughing, sometimes talking in his sleep, much as Con must’ve done while sick. As dawn’s first glow lightened the eastern clerestory windows, he saw Chloë checking the patients, speaking to some. They had long ago moved them all close together for convenience. She came to his cot, sat beside him and smiled. She smelled like soap.

“You were right to take my place as boss last night. But now…” She put her hand out. He handed her the revolver. Watching the sick man roll around coughing, she said, “In spite of everything, I bet I slept better than you did.”

He stifled a yawn. “I sure hope so.”

Louie and Tony appeared with breakfast and greetings.

“Morning, guys,” said Chloë. “No one for you to take away this morning.”

“Looks like you had excitement of another kind last night,” Louie said with concern. “What the hell happened?”

Chloë said, “Let me feed the sick ones. Tell you when I get back. I know more about it than Con does.”

When Chloë returned, she started telling what happened the night before but interrupted herself when she bit into the burrito. “Wow! These have actual eggs in ’em.”

“Hell yes,” Tony said smugly. “They’re breakfast burritos, ain’t they?”

“But where’d you find eggs?” asked Con.

Tony said, “Folks had chickens in the ’hoods. The folks is gone but the chickens ain’t. They’re ours now. We git the food we bring you from them folks’ houses.”

Then Chloë returned to her version of what happened. Con recognized it as sanitized bullshit, but she interrupted him whenever he tried to interject something.

She waved toward Binky, who mumbled in his sleep. “This one was in better shape last night. He held a gun on Con so he couldn’t do anything.”

Louie said, “I can tell these shitheads hurt you worse ’n you’re tellin us. And it’s possible they’ll come back.”

Chloë said, “They found out we don’t have any drugs.”

“But that Duce creep,” said Con, “told you he’d see you again.”

Tony said, “Remember, they think there’s only two of you, stuck here because of these sick folks. And good luck getting police protection.”

“But,” said Louie, “there’s an easy way out of this.”

“I’m glad you can see it,” said Con.

Louie said, “It’s something we all been missin. Just like you got empty beds here because of the folks we carry out, the hospital must have even more. They’ll take these few folks that are left.”

Chloë smacked her forehead. “You’re right. How dumb of me. The hospital should’ve thought of this too.”

Louie shook his head. “They got problems of their own, prob’ly don’t think of outlier clinics like this.”

Chloë stood up. “I’m gonna call them right now. That is if my damned phone still works.” She stalked off toward the office.

Con asked, “What are you guys gonna do when food in the houses runs out?” He worried about what he would do.

“The wife and me always had a garden,” Tony said. “I’m plantin a bigger one. As soon as our work here is done, like maybe tomorrow if the hospital takes these sick ones, we’ll scour the countryside for livestock.”

“I always been a city boy,” said Louie, “but Tony here was raised on a farm down Escondido way.”

They, or rather Tony, talked about farming until Chloë returned, holding her phone and looking relieved.

“They’ll send ambulances sometime this afternoon,” she said. “But I got the police voicemail telling me to leave my number and they’d call back.”

By mid-afternoon, no ambulances had arrived, and the police department had not answered Chloë’s call. When Chloë called the hospital, they said drivers had been busy bringing multiple casualties from a riot at a food distribution center and an uncontrolled fire in the south end of town. They would make two ambulances available for them first thing in the morning.

Tony said, “Like I said earlier, good luck gettin help from the cops. Or any other so-called public servants.”

Con shuddered. He hadn’t thought of living without police or fire protection. Pointing to their sleeping captive, he said, “What do we do with him?”

“Well,” said Louie, “he needs to tell us where his buddies hang out so we can tell if they’re close enough to come back tonight. Why don’t you two,” nodding to Chloë and Con “go wait in the office. Chloë, can we get outta one of them doors?” He pointed to the large rear truck entrances.

“No. They welded them shut when they made this a clinic but there’s an employee entrance at the north end of the building. It’s locked, barred and chained on this side, but you can get out.”

Con said, “But what are you going –?”

Chloë said, “C’mon, Con. This is Louie and Tony’s business.” And to Binky, “I’m officially discharging you as my patient, you son of a bitch.”

Binky whined, “No, please….”

She took Con’s arm and led him to the office. Louie and Tony roused the weakly protesting Binky and half led, half dragged him toward the north end of the building. Con saw the wrecked office for the first time in daylight: overturned furniture, the contents of shelves and filing cabinets dumped all over by Duce and his pal looking for drugs. The chair Chloë had jammed against the door could not have stopped a determined intruder. While he helped her straighten the mess, she packed a suitcase and backpack. She would leave for Colorado as soon as the patients had been taken. He would also go, so he packed his meager belongings in a knapsack that had belonged to a patient.

He tried not to hear the muffled cries from behind the building where Louie and Tony had taken Binky.

When Louie finally entered the office, Con said, “Binky—?”

Louie frowned and shook his head. “Another victim of Chou’s disease.”

Chloë looked at Con. “We did our part, took care of our patient. But I told you he was a dead man.” And asked Louie, “Did you find out where the others are holed up?”

“Down by the river. That’s so close Tony went to get stuff to fix the door in case they come back. We’ll stay here tonight.”

After Tony returned with tools and lumber Con helped the two barricade the broken front door and add support to the plywood-covered front windows. That made the employee entrance the only exit, but no one could get in from outside.

They finished by evening. The electricity had been off all day. Like the other three, Con would leave as soon as the ambulances left in the morning, but he didn't know where he'd go. His apartment held too many memories to return there.

Louie had also brought bread, sausage and cheese. They left the dark office to eat in the warehouse, where a little light peeked through the clerestory windows. Chloë fed the patients first and then joined the others. They talked in a desultory fashion, a little nervously. Con hoped last night’s mayhem would satisfy Duce and his remaining crony for several nights. Then he and the others would be gone. But he had seen rifles Tony had brought with the tools and lumber just in case.

At last, Louie stood and stretched. “I’m for turnin in,” he said. “I’ll stay in the office with you, Chloë, if that’s okay.”

“Sure.”

“And I’ll stay by that locked door at the end of the building,” said Tony, “even though I know nobody can get in.”

Con looked up at the clerestory windows. “What about them?”

Chloë said, “They can’t get in up there if that’s what you mean. That’s where I slept last night, thanks to you for letting me get my shit together, the safest place in the warehouse.” She pointed to the catwalk under the eastern clerestory windows across from the office.

Con said, “That doesn’t look too safe to me….”

“That catwalk’s thirty feet high and there’s no way to climb up the outside wall.”

“But still….”

Tony said, “If you think them guys can fly through them windows why doncha take some bedding up there and spend the night.” Just humoring the over-cautious kid, thought Con. “Here.” He held out a sleek, futuristic-looking pistol.

“He wouldn’t know how to handle one of those new German Kromachs,” said Chloë. “I’ll take it and give him my old Smith & Wesson.” She handed Con her revolver and took Tony’s pistol. “Just stay away from the railing, Con. It needs fixing in places.”

Con chose a place on the catwalk directly across from the office. Though not especially afraid of heights, he found the thirty feet from the catwalk to the floor intimidating. Looking down from near the top of the ladder had been a mistake. From there, with the floor invisible in the dark, it felt like peering into a bottomless pit. Because of that and the weak railing, he unrolled his bedding against the wall.

Tony had set up a cot by the employee entrance at the north end of the building thirty yards or so to his right. Con opened a clerestory window—it squealed from lack of use—and looked down. Indeed, the concrete paving lay as far below as the floor did inside and he saw no way anyone could climb the smooth outer wall. He closed the window—another screech. Because of his sleepless night watching Binky, followed by work in the office that afternoon and the stress of the Duce guys’ invasion, he soon fell asleep.

---

Harsh sounds coming from the office awakened him. No, from outside the office, pounding on and rattling the boarded-up front door, beating on the plywood-covered windows, loud voices muted by walls and distance. But more than just two voices. The noises ceased; he lay listening, his heart pounding.

A truck pulled up to the building’s rear, larger than a pickup. He jumped when something bashed the huge, welded truck doors below. He prayed they would hold.

Then quiet. The truck didn’t leave.

Time crept by.

Then, impossibly, thirty or forty feet down the catwalk in Tony’s direction, a clerestory window shrieked. He grasped the revolver in one hand and withdrew the everlight from his belt, moved silently to his knees and then to his feet. Kicked the bedding out of his way. A figure filled the open window, dark against the moonlit night, and dropped to the catwalk. Another followed him. And then two more. The first one looked outside the window and down.

Con barely heard the second one whisper, “Whatcha lookin at?”

“Makin sure Dick drives round front and waits. We four can take care of that dipshit kid and the woman. He’s toast and she goes with us.” Duce’s voice.

Con could only avoid becoming toast by striking first. He steeled himself, rubbing the sweaty palm of his gun hand against his jeans.

Another man whispered, “Where’s the stairs down?”

“Fuck if I know. Get to lookin for ’em.”

Con switched the light on and trained it on Duce’s eyes and the revolver on his body. He pulled the trigger. It didn’t fire.

When Duce fired, his pistol’s report sounded preternaturally loud so near the ceiling. But he missed, probably blinded by the everlight. In panic, Con hurled the worthless revolver at Duce, who dodged. It struck the next man who stumbled back into the third. Con kept his everlight trained on Duce’s face and desperately charged, sidestepping another shot on the way.

Though a poor high school football player, when Con’s outstretched fist hit Duce in his solar plexus, he went down. But so did Con’s everlight, right over the edge of the catwalk, making him as blind as the others in the dark. And they had all the guns. Con stumbled and fell on Duce.

No, not quite as blind. He had stood behind the source of light directed at their faces. With Duce and Con down together in the dark, the other three dared not fire. Con disentangled himself from Duce and scooted back to sit against the wall. Stunned, Duce struggled to stand. Bending his knees and drawing his feet back, Con straightened his legs and struck Duce as hard as he could with both feet. Half standing, Duce stumbled into one of the other men, who lurched back against the railing, crashed through it and fell screaming to the floor below.

Con stood and turned toward the ladder, knowing he had little chance of making it. He heard footsteps. A hand grasped his shirt collar and slammed him against the wall; Con recognized Duce’s short blondish companion from the previous visit.

“Lemme have him,” Duce snarled. He grabbed Con’s shirt front, elbowed the little guy away and said, “Okay, dipshit. You’ve caused us enough trouble. I’m not gonna waste a bullet on you, though. You’re gonna go right over the edge—”

A shot came from below. The little guy crashed against the wall and slumped to the catwalk floor. Duce whipped Con around to stand between him and whoever fired, his forearm tight across Con’s throat. Con looked down. Tony pointed his rifle and an everlight up at them.

“Let the boy go,” Tony said calmly, “and we’ll let you leave however you got in here.”

Duce said, “Sure you will, Pancho. I got a better deal for you. You put your rifle down on the floor and walk away. Then I’ll let the boy go.”

Tony lowered the rifle but kept his light trained on the two. What!? thought Con frantically. Is Tony believing this asshole!?

Another shot, this time from the direction of the office. Duce lurched, clamped a hand over blood spurting from his neck and struggled to keep standing. Pulling frantically out of his grasp, Con pushed him against the railing and watched him fall through it. Con was vaguely aware of the fourth man escaping out the open clerestory window.

He looked down. Chloë stood in the office doorway, lowering a rifle to her side.

Of course! With him and Duce facing Tony at the building’s north end, a good marksman in the office doorway would have a clear shot at Duce’s left side. That’s why Tony held the light on them even as he lowered his rifle.

---

They heard nothing from the thug Duce had ordered to go to the front or the one who escaped out the window. The sound of gunfire, Chloë said, must have made him decide discretion was the better part of valor and he fled into the night. They sat in the dark office, weapons ready, though they didn’t expect any more violence.

After Chloë returned from explaining to her patients what had transpired and reassuring them, they discussed the raid. Duce and his remaining partner had brought buddies along. Chloë shuddered when she mentioned their intent to abduct her.

Louie had retrieved Chloë’s 38mm snub nose. He laughed. “It’s no secret why the gun didn’t go off. The safety was still on.”

“I'm wondering how they got up to them windows,” said Tony, “but I got no interest in goin out for a look-see in the dark.”

Con knew the other three could easily have defeated the thugs without him. Duce’s guys didn’t know about Chloë’s revolver or Tony and Louie’s presence. They nevertheless treated Con with more than warranted esteem. In case they thought he threw the first thug off the catwalk, he didn’t tell them otherwise.

As weariness replaced their adrenaline high, they began to realize how tired they were. Hours had passed. Dawn would soon spread her rosy fingers across the high windows.

Tony said, “Okay, it’s time the rest of you hunkered down for some sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

Just as Con started to doze off, the lights blossomed and the music came on, a rip- roaring thundering that sounded like celestial beings galloping overhead.

“There it is again!” said Con. “The Lone Ranger theme!”

“I never heard of no ‘Lone Ranger’,” said Louie.

Chloë chuckled. “He was an old-time cowboy character in the days of Western videos. This is his theme song. It’s a movement from an overture written long before the Lone Ranger came along by an Italian composer named Gioachino Rossini, the William Tell Overture.”

“See,” Louie said to Con. “I told you she knew all about this classical shit.”

Chloë said, “My grandma told me it was so famous as the cowboy’s theme song that the word ‘intellectual’ came to be defined as someone who could listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger.”

---

Gloria holds out her arms to him. Her look of longing breaks his heart. He asks, Why did you leave me? Will you stay with me now? She smiles sadly. She seems to say, I’ll always be with you. He reaches for her but can’t touch her for some reason. She grows pale, no, fades to translucence. But you can go to Chloë, Con. She continues to fade. Gloria, come back. He can scarcely see her. She smiles wanly and disappears.

He sat up abruptly, shaken by the dream. Only Tony sat there to wish him good morning.

“Louie went to our place to get us something to eat,” Tony explained. “I told Chloë we’d wait for the ambulances, so she got her bags and took off.”

“I wanted to say goodbye to her,” said Con.

Tony shrugged. “Said she couldn’t stand goodbyes.”

When Con went to care for the patients, he was delighted to see Ms. Taylor sitting up. She looked weak but smiled up at him. “I’ve quit coughing, Con,” she said. “And the fever’s down.”

Con grinned. “Chloë told you that you’d walk out of here. Chloë never lies.”

He found Mr. Mercer also feeling much better and the young woman Lucy sitting up.

Tony turned on the music and when Louie returned, they ate with Flight of the Valkyries playing in the background.

He said, mostly to himself, “I wonder if there’s any Black Valkyries.”

Louie said, “I don’t know much bout stuff like that but I spose so.”

After they finished eating Louie said, “I found out how those assholes got in the window last night. There’s a flatbed truck under it with a long extension ladder on the bed. They wrapped gunny sacks around the upper ends they laid agin the building to muffle the noise.”

“Wonder why the truck’s still here,” said Con.

“I’ll bet the keys are in Duce’s pocket.” Louie nodded toward the employee entrance. They had piled Duce’s and the other corpses outside it.

“I see you’re ready to leave, too.” Louie nodded at Con’s knapsack.

“Yeah, as soon as the ambulances get here.”

“You don’t need to wait for them,” said Tony. “We’ll be here. But you’re welcome to come home with us.”

He shook his head. “Thanks, guys, but I have too many memories here.” He hoisted his knapsack onto one shoulder and stood up.

“Then where will you go?” asked Louie.

Gloria’s sad smile from the dream lingered with him. In it, she had given him permission to seek out Chloë. But how did he feel about Chloë?

He only knew one way to find out.

“I think I’ll head for Tin Cup.”

August, 2024

Antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases increased alarmingly during the 20th and early 21st centuries. By the 2020s they caused worldwide epidemics, though people paid no attention to them.

Then, in 2072, a super-bacteria called Chou’s Disease won the arms race with antibiotics. It killed 90% of humanity. Governments and civilization collapsed. The few stunned survivors struggled on in an empty, unsympathetic world.

Armageddon’s Shadow tells how some of the survivors fare.

Scroungers find useful goods among the ruins to trade with survivors in the few settlements. Orphan John Moore is attracted to the adventurous life he imagines they lead. Matt Pringle cannot dissuade John from joining his scrounger gang even though bloodthirsty foes chase it across an empty world. In their flight, the people John meets, including the beautiful Alicia, show him humanity’s indomitable resilience. Though he finds friends among the gang members and others, he finds hardships and terror instead of the adventure he expected.

And learns that a Shadow more insidious than disease, starvation and violence stalks the world.

Free book offer below!

June, 2024

My novel, Making the Most of It, is appearing with a new cover but the story remains the same. Citi of Books prepared the cover, though I asked them to make sure they gave the fine illustration by Charles Anderson a prominent place. The story asks…

What if you are the only person you know who survived the worst pandemic ever?

The apocalyptic plague of 2072 has killed 90% of the world’s population. Conrad Colby is an unremarkable young man from Tres Robles, California. He’s used to letting others make decisions for him and avoids conflict and adventure. So, what does he do?

He conquers his fear and travels a thousand miles across lifeless deserts and inhospitable mountains to Tin Cup, Colorado. Companions join his quest across this devastated, dangerous post-apocalyptic world.

They encounter bandit bikers, religious wackos, small-time dictators, murderous gangs out for their blood, deteriorating infrastructure, sandstorms, rattlesnakes, hunger, thirst and other dangers they never dreamed of.

Only to find Tin Cup is not the safe haven they expected.

How do they cope?

With courage, ingenuity, luck, gonzo schemes, humor and by just…

making the most of it.

Now for the free book offer:

To get your free book, all you have to do is promise to read and review Armageddon’s Shadow on Amazon and I'll send you a free Kindle edition of the novel. Let me know:

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