Book 0 in the Aftertime series, 2011

An Aftertime Novella

At first glance, everyone thought he was a girl. It was the hair-so long and glossy that even disheveled and dirty and badly cut you wanted to touch it, brush it, braid it-and those beautiful wide brown eyes with the impossibly long fringe of lashes.

The presence of a child-Cass’s daughter, Ruthie, was the only other one, and she almost didn’t count, being barely three and not having the words to describe the world’s new horrors-this had a discomfiting effect on people.

And the old woman wasn’t dead, though she looked it. Her mouth was slack and flies buzzed around her eyes. It was Faye who carried her, walking in a crouching gait to minimize the jouncing, but still the old woman’s head and limbs swayed and joggled in the raider’s arms. Her hair was thin, her skin slack and pouchy.

Cass watched along with the others when they carried the two squatters in, nearly unconscious from dehydration and exhaustion. The boy had been keeping vigil next to his grandmother when they found him. At that point he was so weak and so tired that he didn’t hear the raiders come in, didn’t panic and bolt even when they came up the stairs. Even though it could have been anyone, human or inhuman, the boy hadn’t left the stinking befouled mattress where she lay.

Hastings used one of his few remaining saline bags and a precious needle on the grandmother, but, given the boy’s youth they took a chance, forcing him to sip water and nibble at kaysev cakes. A good gamble-within hours, his milky eyes cleared and his color returned and he plowed through the snack packs of crackers and nuts donated by the Box’s merchants. This really was the best treatment anyone could hope for Aftertime.