Tim Meyer - The Switch House

But when he was ready to release the arrow, let his fingers slip off the string, he found himself unable to do so.

The bear sniffed under Tilda’s blouse. She whimpered and turned her head. Then she screamed when the bear opened its jaws and bit down on her thick thigh. It tore away a section of meat, a slab of raw muscle.

Tilda screamed until her vocal cords broke.

Milo continued to sit in the tree, keeping his aim on the bear, but as time slipped, so did his view on the current situation. He’d come here to kill a bear. A beast. A plight on society. Something that terrorized and killed; something that must not live for the safety and well-being of others.

But that wasn’t the bear, was it?

The bear hadn’t hurt a soul, not until it had met Tilda Medlock, the real beast, the real monster in Milo’s life.

The bear ate a piece of the woman’s thigh and decided it deserved seconds. It lunged forward, snout first, and tore away another piece of Tilda’s leg, from her calf this time. She thrashed around and cried out, but she was no match for the all-powerful jaws of the woodland critter. It feasted on her muscle, wrestling with the blood and skin, digging its nose deeper into her, pulling away with more gore and muscle, more pieces of Tilda.

Milo thought he should look away. He thought he should do something, other than sit in the tree stand he’d made for himself, his front-row seat to his wife’s evisceration.

He decided he should end the beast’s life.

He readjusted his aim and let the arrow fly. It connected true with a wonderful THWACK!

He wouldn’t need another arrow.

The beast was dead.

And the bear continued to eat.

Clenching fistfuls of wet sand, the man climbed his way up the beach. Behind him, the waves clapped against the shore, sounding like the duel of distant pistols. Rallying against the pain, he forced his head around and glared at the ocean, the rocky sheet of endless gray. In that moment, somewhere beyond his vision, he heard his men scream, deck boards crack, and disturbed waters growl.

Was it the waters that growled? he thought, looking up, spotting the sky and noticing it held the same colorless hue as the ocean—here, the world looked dead. Was it really the waters?

Or something else?

When he couldn’t take any more of the dismal scenery, he returned to his long crawl. Up the beach, a stretch of dunes blocked his vision of the deserted coastal town, a place he’d been before, a place that ended up not being deserted at all. There was one place that had kept its lanterns lit—a small pub about two streets in from the dunes.

If I can make it, the proprietor will help me. He had to. It was the least he could do. He’ll nurse me back to health and then…

And then what? The survivor had no ship; that had gone down in a glorious battle with the sea and…

Those things.

Whatever they were.

He had no outs. He was trapped here. On this godforsaken edge of the world. This little island off the coast of the mainland.

The survivor managed his way up the beach, writhing like a worm through the sand, kicking his legs in rhythm with his upper torso. Surprisingly, the dunes weren’t hard to summit. He’d reached the top and scouted the first avenue he’d set his eyes on, located his bearings, and then decided which course to take.

He slid down the dunes on his bottom. When he reached the stony, uneven road below, he tested his feet. His knees wobbled with the slightest bit of pressure. He sat back down. Five minutes later he tried again. Better this time. Easier. Less wobble in his knees, less ache in his bones. Not perfect. He spent another quarter hour standing, allowing his muscles to acclimate. It felt like he hadn’t stood in years.

How long had it been?

He didn’t know how long he’d been drifting in the Atlantic, floating among the flotsam of his ruined ship. Days? Weeks? None of it mattered now. His life—the only precious thing he had left to worry about. What little of it remained.

He hobbled down the street, toward the small inn/pub combo. He took the cobblestone walkway two steps at a time, paused, and then took two more. This approach ensured his body would not become overtaxed. His muscles protested movement of any kind, and hot flares of pain streaked up and down his body. He longed for the comfort of a mattress and pillow, the warmth of a hot compress and kindling in a fireplace. Tea. Yes, lots of tea. The phantom aroma of a hot cup filled his nostrils and that alone was enough to keep him warm for the time being.

A half hour later, the survivor found himself before Siren’s End, the last pub on the edge of the world. He glanced around the dead street, remembering the days when this seaside town hadn’t been so derelict, when townsfolk of all kinds populated these streets, bustling about their day. Those days were long gone, and it had been years since the shops around Siren’s End had seen business, save for the pub and their occasional visits from passing fishermen and semi-lost seafarers. The occasional crew of adventurous pirates.

Now, everything here was closed.

Everything here was dead.

Except for Siren’s End.

And Garrett Means, last captain of the King’s Folly, aimed to find out why.

The buildings he passed were covered in soot, the fires that caused their condition long since smoldered. Debris littered the streets; old newspaper pages blew across his path, wooden slots from ruined crates and rum barrels lay across the cobblestone walkways, and spoiled food lined the gutters, too rotten even for the rats to claim.

A town in utter ruin.

When he arrived at Siren’s End, he marveled over the impeccable condition of the inn’s exterior. Fresh paint coated the brick facade. Black smoke unfurled from the chimney, suggesting the fireplace was in peak working condition. Gulls circled the sky above, hoping to secure fresh scraps from the kitchen.

Captain Means heard nothing from his position. The place seemed quiet on the inside, along with the apocalyptic town it resided in.

This dead city on a dead island off the coast of—if what Means had witnessed was any inclination—a future dead country.

Means headed for the door and was surprised to find the entrance unlocked. He shouldered his way inside, stood in the open doorway for a moment and took in the sights of the interior décor. It was as nice as any other pub along the coast. A place nice as this should have packed in quite a crowd, but today the joint was empty. Not a single patron was cozied up at the bar or occupying the nearby tables and Means suspected the inn’s check-in log would prove every available room vacant.

Behind the bar stood a shadow.

“You’ve returned,” the barkeep said, drying a drinking glass with a dirt-smudged towel. “With far less company than when last we met.”

Tempted to rush the man, Means controlled himself, harnessing his raw emotions. He was in no condition to fight. No condition to take another step but he did so anyway, fending off the dizzying lightheadedness that crawled throughout his skull, erasing his worldly perception as it circumnavigated his dome.

“You…” Means managed to say, continuing his little two-step toward the closest stool. “You…”

“Yes, me. I know. A bastard, ain’t I?”

“Did you know? Did you know she was among them? My Isabella? My sweet?”

The elderly man scratched his thick mutton chops with his free hand. “Isabella? Isabella?” He squinted. “Yes, I seem to remember an Isabella. Your sweet, you say?”

“You know damn well. I told you we were searching for her during our first arrival at this godforsaken place.”