From Abandoned Bride to Apocalypse Survivor

Theresa Pov

The first thing I felt was pain. The second was cold metal digging into my back.

I opened my eyes to a gray sky and lay still while my head throbbed and my ears rang. The air smelled of rust, burnt wire, and damp dust, and a cold wind carried fine grit that settled on my eyelashes.

When I turned my head, a jagged strip of steel jutted from the ground beside my cheek, close enough to have opened my face.

Mountains of scrap surrounded me. Bent pipes, crushed vehicle doors, and sheets of steel twisted like paper rose so high in places that they swallowed the horizon. A bus lay on its side nearby with its roof buried under machinery, and beyond it the shells of old buildings leaned together like exhausted giants. Far off, a colossal statue of a crowned man stood half-buried in wreckage, one stone arm raised and its fingers gone. Strange markings ran across its chest, and I couldn't read them.

When I pushed myself up, pain stabbed through my right ankle. My wedding dress had snagged on the metal. The white fabric was torn at the knees and stained brown, and one sleeve hung ripped to the elbow. My veil was gone.

Then the memory hit me. The wedding preparations. The sky turning black. The wind tearing through the city, and the fires it spread as it went. I remembered orange light on the windows and the smell of smoke, and then Ben's hand slipping out of mine.

"Ben!"

The wasteland swallowed my voice. 'Panic wastes energy. Observation saves it.' My years as a soldier had drilled that into me, back when I believed I understood danger. My fingers curled, reaching for a weapon I no longer carried. No radio. No team. Only a ruined dress and a world that looked dismantled and dumped in one place.

"All right, Theresa. Think."

I took inventory. A cut on my forehead, scraped palms, a bruised knee, and an ankle I could still wiggle my toes in. Probably a sprain. My phone was cracked, its screen frozen on a dead clock, and I nearly flung it away before tucking it back into my purse. 'Never discard something just because it stopped doing the one thing you needed.'

My heels sank between two pieces of metal, so I pulled the shoes off and tossed them aside. There went a small fortune.

Barefoot, I picked my way across broken concrete and gray dust, studying the land as I went. Some piles had been shoved together by enormous machines. Others were vehicles stacked like toys. Mixed among the cars and bicycles were things I couldn't name: black plates that swallowed light, long cylinders pocked with tiny holes, and joints larger than my body.

A rusted sign lay in the dust, its letters unfamiliar, with a symbol beneath it of a circle split by three vertical lines.

A cold feeling settled in my stomach. 'What if I'm not even in my own country?' I shoved the thought away. One problem at a time.

Under a bent panel I found a canvas bag holding a dented flask, two packets of dry biscuits, and a small folding knife. I tested the blade and slid it into my purse. For the first time, I felt a little less helpless.

Then a voice came out of the wind. "Theresa?"

My heart slammed. "Ben?"

He staggered out from behind a pile of machinery, his white shirt torn at the shoulder and blood drying on his cheek. I ran to him and nearly fell when my ankle twisted, and he caught my arm.

I threw my arms around him. "You're alive. Thank God. I thought I'd lost you."

He stiffened. "Can you stop squeezing me? My shoulder hurts."

I let go at once, ashamed of how much it stung. "Sorry. Let me look at it."

"It's a scratch." He looked me over, and his mouth twisted. "You're still wearing that? Honestly, Theresa, in the middle of a disaster you couldn't find something practical?"

"We were getting married, Ben."

"And now we're not, are we?"

The words hung between us. He rubbed his forehead and looked away, but he didn't take them back.

"When exactly was I supposed to change?" I said, my voice shaking. "Between the electric storm and being flung across a burning city? Forgive me for skipping the wardrobe break."

He didn't answer. I wanted to stay angry, but he was alive, and in this place he was all I had. When I told him about the supplies, his eyes locked on the bag before I'd finished. He snatched it, tore open a packet, and ate half in seconds, then pushed the rest into his pocket.

"We need to ration that," I said. "We don't know how long we'll be here."

"We need energy. I'm starving."

"We need to decide things together."

He glared, then shoved the second packet at me. "There. Happy?"

"No."

"Then I don't know what you want from me."

I wanted the man who used to ask whether I'd eaten before he thought of himself. I wanted the one who had looked me in the eye and promised we would face everything together. 'Don't let a packet of biscuits become another disaster.'

"Let's go."

"Finally."

We walked deeper into the scrapyard as the paths narrowed to gaps between crushed vehicles. Beside a heap of concrete lay a metal hand, palm up, its five fingers curled inward and its cables trailing from the wrist. It was larger than a person.

"Look at this," I said, crouching. "Each finger has several joints, and the wrist is cut clean. Something enormous stood here once, and something deliberately took it apart."

"Or it fell apart," Ben said, barely glancing over. "You're the soldier. Surely you've got a theory that makes me feel worse."

"Former soldier. And I don't invent answers just because the truth frightens me."

"What a relief. Wisdom from a woman in a ruined bridal gown."

I bit back a retort. Then something small struck the ground at my feet. Another. A fragment of metal fell from the gray sky, then dozens, bouncing off the wreckage and ringing against steel. In that moment, one cracked my shoulder.

"Move!" We dove beneath an overturned truck as the shower thickened into a roar, like a thousand hammers on a tin roof. Fragments no bigger than fingernails mixed with shards long enough to slice skin, and they piled in the gaps between the wrecks. I watched through a crack, noting that most fell straight down and only a few spun sideways in the gusts.

"What is this?" Ben shouted. "Is this normal here? Where does all this junks comes from?"

"Does it look normal to you? we're in a freaking hellscape, Ben."

"You keep acting like you know everything!"

"I have never claimed that! I'm only trying to keep us alive!"

A shard suddenly rang off the truck above us like a bell, and we both flinched into silence. When the fall weakened, I held up a hand. "Wait. Don't rush out."

He was already crawling into the open. A fragment buried itself beside his foot, and he leapt back.

"That was a brilliant decision," I said.

"Want to say that again?"

"No. I want you to stop treating every warning as an insult, because next time the thing that lands beside you won't be a warning shot."

His chest heaved. At last, he muttered, "Fine. I'll listen next time."

It wasn't an apology. But it was agreement, and I took it. Then I saw something moving over the new scrap.

"Stop."

It crawled out of the shadows on four short limbs, its broad back covered in rusted plates. Its belly hung like a swollen metal tank, scraping the ground and dragging cables through the dust. Two narrow orange lights burned where its eyes should have been.

Ben laughed. "Someone stuffed a barrel into a pig!"

"Be quiet. Look at how it's standing. That thing's definitely not human."

"Oh, please. It's the ugliest thing I've ever..."

The creature had suddenly gone still, its eyes fixed on us. The hair on my arms rose. 'A target that has noticed you.' It lowered its front body, its belly rumbling, and its mouth opened on rows of grinding metal teeth.

I raised the knife. "Behind me, Ben. Slowly."

"You're going to fight that with a kitchen knife?"

"It's a folding knife, and I'm open to better ideas."

The creature Suddenly began to charge at us.

"RUN!" I shouted. I yanked him sideways as it exploded through the pile where we'd stood. We sprinted between wrecks while my ankle screamed. It moved far faster than its absurd belly suggested, and as it ran, sparks spat from the cables dragging beneath it, setting oily scraps smoldering in its wake. The flames licked up behind us and the smoke thickened.

"How do we kill it? in fact, where the hell are we? are we dead?" Ben yelled.

"We don't! We survive!"

We squeezed through a gap between two crushed cars, and the wreck shuddered as it slammed into it behind us. At a fork I chose the climb, hoping the tangled metal would slow it. Halfway up, Ben cried out. His trousers had snagged. I grabbed his wrist and hauled with everything I had until the cloth tore and he scrambled up beside me, pale as ash.

"Thank you," he gasped.

"Save it. Move."

At the top, the creature halted, belly rising and falling, head tilting. Clicking. Listening. Its eyes dropped to my ankle, where blood seeped from a fresh cut. 'It's tracking the blood.'

We ran across fields of broken machines, ducked under a fallen beam, and slipped between two overturned trucks. Then I saw a half-collapsed building with a single doorway. I shoved Ben inside, slammed the door, and dragged a shelf across it. The creature hit it, and dust rained from the ceiling.

"We can't stay here!" Ben shouted.

"I know that!"

"Then do something!"

"You think I'm standing here enjoying the sound of it chewing the door?"

The wood cracked. I spotted a collapsed wall at the back and pulled him through as the door splintered and metal jaws snapped at empty air. Beyond lay a narrow alley, and at its end, a real wall of reinforced metal and concrete, with watch platforms and dark searchlights. A settlement.

"Ben! Look!"

"Oh, thank God."

We staggered toward it. Guards in scrap armor lined the platforms with weapons across their backs. I raised my hands. "Please! We need help!"

The rifleman leaned over the barrier and laughed. "Look at this! The wasteland is sending us a bride!"

The others howled. Heat flooded my face. "She dressed for a wedding and ended up in the trash!" one crowed.

Ben stepped forward. "I'm strong. I can haul, repair, anything you need."

My stomach sank. He hadn't said we. He hadn't asked what I could do. He was already selling himself.

"Security, supply runs, medical aid," I said, straightening. "I have military training."

The laughter swelled. The rifleman's smile was not friendly. "Captain Sniper accepts one new person at a time when supplies are low."

He raised his weapon until it pointed straight at us. "So, bridegroom. Which one of you is worth keeping? Choose. Only one of you gets through this gate."