Remnants — Episode 19

A chill wind frisked the alley. Newspapers stirred, rose in twirling confusion.

A desolate figure entered, lifted his bent head, seeking shelter before darkfall turned inky black. Next to a dumpster, an oversized box skewed sideways but appeared intact. Until this evening, there’d been no rain for weeks. The box would make a home, at least tonight.

Few buildings remained complete. Most had burned. Even when comet chunks had missed, gas and electrical fires had run rampant. What structures remained appeared ghostlike, jagged, and black. Out in the open, he also felt safer. Some houses hid strange occupants.

Beside the box, Yancey stood still and listened. None of the telltale junk, fragments of some life dragged from one place to the next, cluttered the ground outside the box. He reached down, picked up an empty tin can, lobbed it underhanded. It landed atop the cardboard, bounced in the air, then disappeared over the other side. The box didn’t move.

He crept closer. Then closer. Then bent down to peer inside, prepared to jump back if someone jabbed a stick toward him.

Wide eyes stared back. An animal! He leapt away then realized what he’d seen. A girl, probably a teenager, frightened and alone. Yancey looked inside again.