Apocalypse Dance

An eBook By Michael Barnette.

Prologue

    The heavy motorcycle sped down the cracked highway, weaving between cars that were either abandoned or had passengers he didn't want to study too closely.

     No point. They were all dead anyway.

     And he'd seen enough dead people to last a lifetime.

     Several dozen lifetimes in fact.

     He slowed the bike. He was coming to an exit and he was getting tired. Hours of endless driving, looking for survivors and finding no one had made for a seriously depressing day. But then, most days were like that.

     So many dead, and he carried a gun on his hip in case a few more wanted to join the majority of humanity in the silence of the grave.

     Welcome to the Apocalypse, six billion served, no waiting.

     The unknown disease had spread so fast, killing so many people that there weren't enough living left to bury the dead.

     It had been worst in the cities. People getting sick so fast and not enough hospital beds. Not enough doctors or nurses, and they'd died like everyone else, making the situation even more critical.

     Death had walked the streets, arms spread wide, welcoming humanity in their millions.

     There really weren't enough people to even keep civilization, the old World As We Knew It, from crumbling to ash.

     Now the cities were full of nothing but ghosts.

     Lost hopes, lost dreams.

     Lost lives.

     And he was tired. Tired of being alone. Tired of waking up. Tired of being alive.

     And that was the real bitch, because he couldn't die.

     He rode the bike down the ramp and came to a stop at the traffic light. It was dead, like everything else. Strip malls stretched out to either side. Windows smashed, shops looted.

     The man wondered how many people had taken TVs from the Hal's TV and Video store he could see in the nearest shopping center. Lot of good that would have done. There wasn't even a working power grid. But if you had a generator you could watch DVDs. Movies. TV shows.

     The good old days.

     Gone like a puff of smoke on the wind.

     "God..." the man whispered to himself, his voice like audible velvet, smooth, deep toned. It was a bedroom voice, but there wasn't anyone alive to hear it.

     Not here.

     Not anymore.

     A super strain of SARS had seen to that.

     Pulling his helmet off caused a Medusa's tangle of cornsilk pale braids to fall from inside. The bells at their ends ringing softly, grey feathers fluttering in the light breeze, glass beads catching the light, cobalt glass, their color blue as the man's eyes as he scanned the empty main street of yet another dead town. Two days worth of beard stubble glinted gold on his jaw, but there was grey showing in places, just as there was some grey streaking his hair.

     Old. He was getting old in a world now as dead and empty as his own soul.

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