WIPE (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) Read Online Free

because they’ll smell that I’m weak and vulnerable now. But her hand crawls up and squeezes my shoulder.
                “Wills. I need you. You with me?” she asks.
                “Yeah,” I say, ruined by her genuineness. If she were any less sincere, it would be easier for me to ignore my feelings for her, to have turned back once we reached the forest. But that’s part of the deal. Part of why I like her so much. As much as I know that her theories are nonsense, just like the Fatherhood’s, she isn’t. Not when she speaks to me like that, from her gut. I can feel it and I’m powerless to resist.
     
    She moves away softly over the rubble and disappears through a doorway. I hear the creaking of what must be a staircase, and I watch her through a shattered window until she’s out of sight, whispering be careful Maze even though she can’t hear me. And then, once I know she’s made it to the second floor of the rusting piece of shit safely, I start my own path around to the back of the building. At least we won’t run out of daylight, I tell myself as a chill wind cuts through to suggest what this place must be like after dark. The black rises of the abandoned buildings, all cold and empty and filled with the terror of night wolves and whatever other kind of horrible creatures live out here. And then, in the next minute, I’m at the edge of the alley. I dart up and duck behind a metal garbage can that’s bolted right into the concrete. I peek out and look, and there, right ahead of me, are the men. But they’re much closer now, and I realize they must have crossed the street to our side. I can tell right away they’re going to walk right into the building Maze just went into. They must have heard her. I make my whistle, a horrible bird call, and two of them stop. I pull back and out of sight. The third one continues into the building to look around. That’s when I realize that they’re Fathers. I can’t believe it—up close and in the light it seems impossible that we didn’t notice before.
     
    Why would there be Fathers in the Deadlands? The very place that most of their sermons preach against ever traveling to.It doesn’t make any sense, and my first instinct is to ask Maze, but she’s upstairs. It dawns on me that my bird call sounded terrible, and she may not have heard it at all. I make the noise again, but this time, it’s too loud. And I know—it sounds nothing like a bird.
                When I poke back out, the two men pause, peering down the alley as if they’ve caught sight of me. I jerk back behind the trashcan. The next thing I know, I can hear one of them calling the other, the third Father, to come back out to the street. It sounds like one of them is nervous, and the other one says something about hearing something in my direction. I don’t recognize any of their voices. And then, all I can hear are their footsteps. That’s when I decide to stick my head out one last time, to be sure my instincts are right, to be sure I’m as screwed as I think I am. And it’s exactly my worst fear—all of them are coming. Right down the alley. I know I won’t be able to stay hidden behind the trashcan for long.
                Some part of me thinks that Maze will save me—that she knows exactly what’s going on, and she’ll come jumping out of the window to save the day. But I realize that there’s nothing she can do, and she probably doesn’t even realize they’re all coming after me. She heard my call and won’t even move a muscle because she’s doing her best to hide. So I do the only thing I can—in one powerful explosion, I bolt off, away from the trashcan and around to the back of the building.
     
    At first I think I hear footsteps coming after me, as if the Fathers are giving chase. But the next thing I know, I’m free, racing over the low fence and back into the container yard.  I charge past the first half-dozen containers, nearly