“Andie, run!”

Abandoning the bike, we sprinted down the road, perhaps a hundred yards ahead of the enraged wolf pack. The grid had killed their dogs—a lucky break, but there was no cover, just a deserted suburban development, separated from the nearest woods by the interstate, which ran below the deserted community.

We slid down a weed-covered embankment to access the highway, my heart skipping a beat as I heard Andria scream out in pain.

“My ankle … I felt something snap.”

I helped her up, only to see her cry out in frustration, her foot unable to bear any weight.

“Ike, give me your gun.”

My heart pounded. It was suicide time.

I searched my waistband. “Shit. I must have lost it sliding down the hill.”

“Goddamn it, Ike—”

“It’s okay, I can carry you.”

“And outrun these assholes? Ike, listen to me, you need to kill me, you need to snap my neck! Come around me from behind, you can do it. Ike, please—”

“Andie, I can’t–”

Tears flowed down both our cheeks; her eyes were filled with desperate fear. “You said you loved me, Ike! You swore on that love you’d kill me if it ever came down to this.”

“Shh!” Hearing voices, I dragged her down into the weeds.

Gunfire erupted, bullets ricocheting off the highway’s steel girder.

“Andie, the bullets. On the count of three, we stand up into the line of fire.”

She kissed me hard and fast. “You are my heart.”

I was about to tell her how much I loved her when the gunfire abruptly ceased. Lying in the grass, I could hear their boots thrashing through the weeds. “I’ll stand and draw their fire again, then drag you off the ground.”

“Okay.”

“One … two…”

If I said “three” I never heard it. What I heard instead was the bone-rattling reverberation of helicopter blades beating the air, followed by gunfire—the kind of gunfire that can split a car in two.

I crawled on top of Andria until the rain of hot lead ceased and the chopper landed on the interstate.

“You folks all right?”

I looked up at the soldier, his face obscured by his helmet’s dark visor. “Who are you?”

“Naval reserves. Domestic forces are sweeping the area for survivors. We see a human carnivore, we kill them and ask questions later.”

There were sixteen people aboard the Sikorsky transport—bewildered adults, malnourished children, a paraplegic bound to a wheelbarrow and an infant suckling her mother’s breast. We learned that the Internet was back up, powered by solar grids and windmills. Pockets of communities had organized, calling upon war veterans and returning soldiers to mobilize military firepower to reestablish law and order, their vehicles fueled by secret reserves stored at military bases.