Solstice: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse (2 page)

Tomas had designed the structure, and the creation was his pride. It wasn’t completely self-sufficient, but it was energy efficient, with the glass front side providing warmth and the earthen rear side allowing insulation, making even the harshest winters quite cozy. If the apocalypse rained down on them, they would be safe in their little home in the side of the hill. Just like Bilbo Baggins. And like Bilbo, Tomas wasn’t looking for any adventures.

He began to run east toward the village, cautious of the slippery footing and of the dog’s paws on the salted road. Ahead, the little hamlet rose into view, decorated for the Solstice festival and for Christmas, glorious in the morning light. Metallic streamers ran across the roadway, linking building to building and waving in the breeze, reflecting the sunshine like a thousand little daggers to the eyes.

The air smelled of snow—a crisp and wonderful nothing. Tomas pulled the air deep into his lungs and exhaled slowly. His cheeks and chin became numb, but the rest of him was already warming. His mind cleared of Leila’s complaints. He would go to the Solstice Festival that evening, his son perched on his shoulders, and the boy would marvel at the lights and the music. The air would then be filled with saffron buns baking and mulled wine steeping.

They entered the village, plunging into and out of the shadows of the buildings. Like most mornings the past three weeks, Tomas entertained the thought of just taking his son and leaving. He would pack just enough to get them through for a few days and buy more as needed. He would go to Australia where it was warm all the time, and they would play on the beaches and become as brown as Indians. He might be Tom Smith or Walter Thomas. Nobody would know them. Leila could have her precious accountant who made a fraction of Tomas’s income. He would not think of her again. Christopher would be a footballer and—

A man materialized suddenly and rugby tackled Tomas hard, driving him onto the icy pavement.

“These are the end days, my friend,” the man shrieked. He pressed all his weight down onto Tomas’s back, thrusting Tomas’s face into the hard packed snow. “We’re dying!” he cried. “I can feel it. I can feel it.”

After he had shaken the initial surprise of the attack or whatever the hell was happening, Tomas threw the man from him. The guy weighed almost nothing—a scarecrow wrapped in a tattered parka and a moth-eaten scarf that obscured all but his eyes. He smelled of vodka, piss, and cigarettes, making Tomas fight the urge to retch.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tomas rolled over and sat up. He looked around. Bo was nowhere in sight; Tomas gripped a now-empty leash in his gloved fist. The clasp had pulled apart.

“Great! Just great!” He climbed to his feet. He approached the bum, towering over him, fists clenched.

The tattered man cowered. “
God Jul
.” He then took off, vanishing into the narrow alleyway between the bakery and an accountant's office.

“Yeah, well, Merry Christmas to you, too. Damned idiot.” He turned, then bent over and planted his hands on his knees, catching his breath. The knees of his running pants were shredded. And worse, his nose was pouring blood. Fat droplets dotted the white ground between his feet. He slipped the glove from one hand and touched his face gingerly.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Dejected over Bo, he started back toward home, hoping the dog might be there when he arrived.

***

Stockholm, Sweden

Melanie stepped from the shower, steam rising from her skin like smoke. She toweled off and pulled on her frumpy robe again.

In the bedroom, she flipped on the clock radio and the announcer’s overly jovial voice piped up, “… this type of solar superstorm can cause some changes in the biochemical makeup of humans and possibly animals. Symptoms may include irritability, headaches, dizziness, and anxiety. In fact, with the expected intensity of these predicted storms, hospitals are bracing for more than the usual number of emergency visits tomorrow. Looks like Mr. Sun’s going to throw one heck of a magnetic temper tantrum, people.”

“Great,” she muttered as she stood before the mirror. Could the storms possibly make Leila even more of a bitch than normal? She sighed and tried to ignore Kira’s mess cluttering the vanity counter, but she couldn’t. She hated clutter. She gathered her roommate’s makeup, facial cleanser, moisturizer, contact solution, and toothbrush, and quickly moved everything into a drawer on Kira’s end of the counter.

Vaguely, she remembered how it was before—before her parents burned—and she came to live beneath the shadow of Leila, a woman she had never met, and Tomas, a man she knew
of,
but did not truly know. Melanie had been an accident that occurred to a couple who should’ve been welcoming a granddaughter into the world, not a daughter. Worse, the accident eventually became the accident of a second couple in the process of having their own family. Before Leila, there was no need for perfection. Of course, Tomas didn’t require perfection. He desired happiness for those around him. That was how he found happiness for himself. Leila, on the other hand, needed more. Melanie had tried so hard to make Leila like her, or at least not
dislike
her so much.

Melanie had wasted a year at Stockholm University, attempting to follow in her father’s earth science footsteps, but found her heart wasn’t in it. Finally, she immersed herself in psychology.
Doctor, heal thyself.
Perhaps at the heart of things, hers was a selfish endeavor, but she felt that in helping herself, she might help others in similar situations.

As for Leila, Melanie decided there was no cure for being a complete bitch.

Two hours later, Melanie boarded the tram, shopping bags clutched in one fist, messenger bag over her shoulder, and a latte in her other hand. With no classes to attend, she had decided to do a little shopping. Stockholm was built on water, and the briny odor of fish hung in the air from the boats and restaurants. Fish! She’d be happy to smell anything but fish. Even cow manure would be a welcome change. From time to time, there came a momentary reprieve, a woman’s perfume, the sweet breads fresh from the oven at the little café on the corner, or sausage dogs steaming from the street vendor’s cart. However, stink notwithstanding, the place looked mystical with its old buildings and narrow, winding avenues decorated for the Solstice festival. Slivers of gold and silver danced atop the light poles and from the fringes of the roofs of public buildings. Mechanical Christmas trees twirled in shop windows and Tomte, the Christmas elf, shared space with a U.S.-styled Santa in many store displays. The sweet twang of some American rock song floated up and chased her into the tram, and she thought of Tom’s love of that music—Springsteen, especially.

Merry Christmas, baby. You surely treat me nice…

Despite her distaste for so much of the outside world forcing itself in, she smiled.

She wanted to buy something special for Christopher, but what to get a little boy? She had considered asking woman in the toyshop with a small child around Christopher’s age. The child was a pretty little thing with a head full of curls and indeterminate gender, but Melanie was afraid of indicating the child was the wrong sex, and she wasn’t in the mood to anger anyone. That would come when she was with Leila. Just her arrival at the door would be enough to arouse Leila’s ire.

Melanie sat down, placed her bags close to her side, and watched the snowy city pass by the window. As a splurge, she’d also gotten a “little silk dress.” She usually never bought anything so frivolous, but she was determined to make Tomas see her as more than a child. She would wear it for New Years.

Who was she kidding? Chances were greater that she would leave the dress in her suitcase and then return it when she got back to campus.

She sipped the overly sweet latte, stinging her tongue, winced and then took another taste. At the festival later that evening, there would be drinking and dancing… and David. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see him. They had only been going out for a month, but things were already becoming too serious as far as she was concerned. He’d already mentioned getting a place together, but she’d scoffed at the idea. Although it had been a gentle scoff, he sulked the better part of the weekend. She had ended up pretending she wanted sex to get him out of his funk.

Kira knew something was up, but said little, unless, of course, she was drunk. Once she was blotto, she teased Melanie endlessly over her “strange fixation.” It was simply Freudian, she insisted. David was blond, broad-shouldered, and handsome, and a little too similar to Tomas. Melanie had ignored her, but beneath the folds of her coat, she tapped her fingers to her sides, six times right and six times left, because she always tapped when she became uncomfortable. David was certainly pretty enough. Unfortunately, he was also an idiot. Idiot or not, being with him was still better than being alone.

Melanie had mentioned David to Tomas because she had nobody else to tell, since Kira was never there anymore. Tomas, playing protector, had insisted he wanted to meet David before their relationship progressed very far, but Melanie wasn’t warm to that notion. Tomas would spot the poor guy’s lacking intellect immediately. And of course, discussing such personal things with Leila was not an option. In the five years she had lived under their roof, she and Leila had remained little more than nodding acquaintances. Maybe Leila sensed her feelings for Tomas, or perhaps she knew Melanie had overheard her secret phone conversation with another man.

How she dreaded seeing Leila. Her stomach churned, and she wished she bought something other than the cream-laden latte. Across the aisle, a woman intently read a tattered Angela Carter novel. She was older, the age Melanie’s mother might have been had she lived. How her mother had loved Angela Carter. So much so, she named her daughter for the protagonist in Carter’s
The Magic Toyshop
. Sadly, the moniker became more an omen than a name. Little did Mother know on that sweet, sunlit morning that her daughter’s future would follow a similar path as the fictional Melanie. The real Melanie would also find herself with a mother and father scattered in pieces along a stretch of faraway land. She would become an orphan, cast away to live under the shadow, not of a maniacal uncle, but of a cold, unsympathetic woman who would more quickly turn her out into the Swedish winter than welcome her into their home.

She rested her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes. Her mind drifted back to the day she’d learned of her parents’ death, five years ago.

“
Your parents, Melanie. They’re… gone,” the headmistress said, her normally stern tone suddenly soft. Somehow, that odd softness only added to the nightmarish reality of the words. She grasped Melanie’s hand in hers, making Melanie want to pull away from the old woman’s cold, dry touch.

Sunlight poured into the office, too bright for a day when a girl’s parents had died. A man was there, blond as an angel. She should have known him—she’d seen him before—many times in her seventeen years, but in her state, she just couldn’t place him.

“
Melanie. I’m a good friend of your father. Remember me? I’m Tomas…”

Melanie withdrew her cell from her coat pocket and sat a moment, trying to decide what to do. She wanted to just call and tell Tomas she wouldn’t be back, that some of her friends had decided to remain in the city and spend Christmas together. She dialed Tomas’s number and her favorite photo of him holding Christopher popped onto the screen. She stared at the picture a moment, her thumb hovering over the
Talk
button. She had never seen a happier expression on Tomas’s face than when he was with his son.

After another moment, she hit
Home
and put the phone back in her pocket.

***

Trollhättan, Sweden

Tomas returned home without Bo, unsure of how to handle the dog’s disappearance with Christopher. He’d hoped, by some wondrous miracle, the shepherd might be waiting on the front lawn. No dice. He wasn’t sure if he was more anxious over the dog being gone or his young son’s reaction. The kid loved that dog; he had known Bo all his short life. Christopher was a creature of routine. The evening would be difficult, unless the festival could provide enough distraction.

Tomas entered the warm house, went to the kitchen, and tossed his keys onto the counter with an echoing clank. Upstairs, Leila sang Christopher some little song from
Bolibompa
. Christopher chimed in, giggling and off-key, making Tomas smile even as he leaned over the sink to wash the blood from his face and hands.

The morning had been shitty so far, but hearing Christopher’s little voice made everything seem all right again. Briefly, he allowed himself to imagine things were still good between him and Leila, and for a moment, even the dilemma of the missing dog no longer seemed such an immense problem.

He flipped on the small countertop television set, hoping to catch the weather report. He didn’t want anything to spoil the Solstice festival. He had looked forward to taking Christopher for weeks.

A female announcer grinned too widely at the camera.
“A solar event could disrupt electrical systems on Earth. Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, do not produce intense light. However, areas of northern Europe and Britain have fragile power grids and may possibly be without power from several hours to several days. Although most researchers agree the utilities will likely go unaffected, those with generators may want to consider checking their fuel reserves, just in case.”

Tomas frowned and changed the channel. The news networks loved to play up the smallest stories. It must be a slow news week.

Winter sun poured through the skylights, and glancing upward toward the rectangles of endless blue, he remembered the previous summer and going to the sea with Christopher. Warm weather seemed a thousand years away. He sprinted upstairs to see his son, anticipating Leila’s third degree over his torn clothes and the missing dog. There wasn’t much he could tell her, anyway.