Leo Cormac drove the armored police SUV slowly along the dead streets of the City. The engine growled softly, its vibration transmitted to his hands; the tires crunched over the shards of shattered auto glass scattered like the city's bones.
The heat of July 2030 was receding, giving way to dusk. A gray twilight enveloped the streets, turning the ruins into ghostly silhouettes. Leo kept his hands on the wheel, gripping it so hard his knuckles turned white, as if that could hold back the panic rising from the depths of his soul.
For several hours, he had been driving around the city, stopping by intact cars to search them for anything useful. Every creak of a door echoed in the emptiness.
On the back seat lay his meager haul: batteries—some new, others salvaged from various devices; power banks pulled from phones that were now useless; several flashlights whose light trembled in the dark; first aid kits; cans of food; packages of pasta and spices, their aroma mixing with the smell of decay from long-spoiled fresh vegetables and meat. Now that he couldn't go to a store and buy everything from a list, any item could come in handy.
In one pickup truck, he found a brand-new game console with a box of discs. For a moment, a faint smile touched his lips, the corners of his mouth twitching like a memory of the past.
Something to pass the time, he thought, though he knew time in the bunker stretched endlessly anyway, elongating into a viscous emptiness.
He also collected several laptops, their cases covered in dust, hoping their hard drives held something valuable—maps, records, maybe even answers about what had happened. But for now, they were just trophies: necessary for survival and a reminder of the world that had vanished, leaving behind only an echo.
Leo drove slowly, maneuvering around wrecked cars and burnt-out shells. Their metal groaned under the wheels like the moan of a dying city. He tried not to look at the bodies frozen at the wheel or scattered across the asphalt. Their silhouettes were shadows carved from a nightmare, but their images pursued him, searing into his mind. Charred skeletons clutching the wheel with bony fingers, or torn remains left by the mad ones, were like a warning: this world was no longer for the living. Its silence screamed of death.
Not hoping for luck, he still turned on the car radio, hoping to catch any sound of life. But instead of music or voices, only white noise came from the speakers, its hiss cutting his ears like a mockery. Leo turned it off, feeling loneliness tighten his chest, its pressure almost physical.
The twilight thickened, and rain began to fall again. Its drops drummed on the roof of the cabin, tapping like the fingers of fate. Leo decided that was enough for today; fatigue weighed on his shoulders. He turned toward home, toward his bunker. The SUV's headlights pulled chunks of shattered asphalt and fragments of storefronts from the darkness; their glass sparkled like tears.
He drove past a wholesale supermarket, its once-familiar, always-bright sign now long dark, when he suddenly noticed movement in the rearview mirror—a cautious shadow flickered like a warning.
His foot slammed on the brake on its own. The vehicle jerked to a halt, tires screeching. His heart began to pound, echoing in his ears.
He waited a few seconds, then drove a bit farther, turned into a dark alley, and switched off the headlights; their light died like hope. Slowly, in the thickening darkness, he reversed to observe, unnoticed, what had caught his attention.