Remnants: Volume One

By Stephen Coghlan

Fedowar Press presents a new edition of an amazing anthology originally published by Kyanite Press. Remnants: Volume One is revised, re-edited, and includes 3 brand new tales of the remnants of humanity as they survive beyond the end of the world.

 

Strange clouds on the horizon herald the coming of the swarm. The undulating masses of the horde cannot be stopped. Terrifying creatures roam the Earth, seemingly with no aim but to devour all that stands before them. Experience the end of the world as we know it with these seventeen tales of horror, survival, and hope. The world ends in a frenzy of death and miasma of terror, but what will become of the remnants of humanity?

 

Seventeen tales of post-apocalyptic survival horror!

 

Featuring:
Resistance by Stephen Coghlan
First Swarm by J.D. Sanderson
Heatwave by Aaron E. Lee
Megan by J.D. Kellner
Against the Darkness by Stephen Coghlan
Love Song by Rachel Ford
The Brood by Ian Fairgrieve
The Other Side by Michael D. Nadeau
The Sheltered Isle by Benjamin Hope
Echoes of Faith by Alan Provance
The Badlands by Crystal L. Kirkham
Rian's Path by D.W. Hitz
The Forgotten by A.A. Rubin
Weed Wacker by David Wickenden
Surviving Humanity by Ian Fairgrieve
The Kings of New York by A.A. Rubin
A Final Longing by Stephen Coghlan

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fedowar Press, LLC
• Release date: Oct 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781956492026

Stephen Coghlan

Stephen Coghlan is an ever-expanding multi-genre, small-house published author who writes out of Canada's National Capital, who started writing in his teens for the same reason most young men do anything, to try and impress someone they have a crush on. The love of the written word outlasted that relationship, and while Stephen may have matured as a person and an author, his sense of humor has remained deceptively juvenile. You can find out more on his website, http://www.scoghlan.com

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Copyright

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Remnants: Volume One

Copyright © 2021 Fedowar Press, LLC

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ISBN-13 (Digital): 978-1-956492-05-7

ISBN-13 (Paperback): 978-1-956492-06-4

ISBN-13 (Hardcover): 978-1-956492-07-1

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Edited by Crystal L. Kirkham

Previous Edition Edited by B.K. Bass, and Sam Hendricks

Cover Design by Evan Scale

Interior Design by D.W. Hitz

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Remnants was created by Stephen Coghlan

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Copyright to individual works contained within this anthology are the property of their respective authors:

Resistance, Against the Darkness, and A Final Longing by Stephen Coghlan; First Swarm by J.D. Sanderson; Heatwave by Aaron Lee; Megan by J.D. Kellner; Weed Wacker by David Wickenden; Love Song by Rachel Ford; The Brood and Surviving Humanity by Ian Fairgrieve; The Other Side by Michael D. Nadeau; This Sheltered Isle by Benjamin Hope; Echoes of Faith by Alan Provance; The Badlands by Crystal L. Kirkham; Rian’s Path by D.W. Hitz; and The Forgotten and The Kings of New York by A.A. Rubin.

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eBook License Notes:

This e-book is licensed for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make it publicly available in any way. It may not be resold or given away to others.  If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Disclaimer:

Remnants: Volume One is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination, or the author has used them fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Bonus Content

Stick around after Remnants: Volume One for a sneak preview of Fedowar Holiday Horrors, coming November 15, 2021.

Get more info on FedowarPress.com.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Table of Contents

Bonus Content

Remnants: Volume One

RESISTANCE by Stephen Coghlan

FIRST SWARM by J.D. Sanderson

HEATWAVE by Aaron E. Lee

MEGAN by J.D. Kellner

WEED WACKER by David Wickenden

AGAINST THE DARKNESS by Stephen Coghlan

LOVE SONG by Rachel Ford

THE BROOD by Ian Fairgrieve

THE OTHER SIDE by Michael D. Nadeau

THIS SHELTERED ISLE by Benjamin Hope

ECHOES OF FAITH by Alan Provance

THE FORGOTTEN by A.A. Rubin

THE BADLANDS by Crystal L. Kirkham

RIAN’S PATH by D.W. Hitz

SURVIVING HUMANITY by Ian Fairgrieve

THE KINGS OF NEW YORK by A.A. Rubin

A FINAL LONGING by Stephen Coghlan

Acknowledgements

About the Authors

Special Sneak Preview: Fedowar Holiday Horrors: Volume One

What’s Next?

RESISTANCE

by Stephen Coghlan

CHAPTER ONE

Something sharp and painful presses against my side. Fearful that it is one of the ugly monsters of the horde gnawing on my flesh with its serrated teeth and hot, fetid breath, I snap my eyes open and look about in panic, but I am alone. It is only the scabbard of my knife, which has shifted in my sleep and prodded sensitive flesh, that has fooled me into thinking that I was being consumed.

A ramshackle roof of soggy planks lies overhead, which had once been a house’s main floor. Beneath me, a dirty ledge of mud and concrete keeps me above the water that scares me. There is nothing alive in the liquid, not even an errant insect, and I wonder what would happen to me if I roll over into it. Would my skin scream as it was dissolved off my bones? Would I feel nothing at first until a sickness claims me hours later and robs me of my life? Or would nothing happen outside of me getting wet?

I don't want to find out.

Gathering my supplies, I scramble up towards daylight. The morning air is clear and cool, the sun is warm, and the dew that has collected overnight sparkles where it lays.

So too glints the rotting remains of humanity: houses, damaged by neglect, have crumpled into little more than piles of timber and brick. Roads are cracked and in the spaces between the pavement, vegetation arises. Plastic trash and discarded toys speckle the landscape, and rusted automobiles with broken windows rest idly in the returning fields.

Things have changed. The way it used to be; if you were thirsty, you'd go to a water fountain or a sink. If you were hungry, you could go to your fridge, a restaurant, or a supermarket down the lane. You could ask someone for spare change for a vending machine, or could beg on the streets to get what you needed. You can't do that anymore.

I'm a Remnant, one of the last of the human race. We call ourselves the resistance, which is a glorified way of saying that we've survived, so far.

It all started when Africa went dark. Russians and Europeans began to flee from their continents in droves, and Asians hurried to Australia, only to turn and run away again. South America crumbled in weeks. As our neighbors to the south panicked, our reserves were called up, militias were formed, and the military dug in along the borders.

The plans to preserve us failed. The government went into hiding. The military collapsed and dissolved as they suffered debilitating defeat and excruciating loss. In their final days, humanity nuked whole cities, poisoned the air, corrupted the water, fought with banned chemical and biological agents; but any and all action proved futile. The world of man was wiped away and scrubbed from the Earth, and all that was left was a stain in its passing.

There were beings that came for us, murdered us, tortured us. They could keep you alive for days as they peeled the skin off your bones, or ate you, starting at the feet and working their way up. Science tried to label them. People who used to believe in a God called them demons and devils. Survivors named the grounded beasts the horde, and the monsters of the sky, the swarm.

My thoughts are broken by someone crying out in pain. The part of my brain that has kept me alive demands that I run and hide, but another part of me requires that I fight back.

It is slow going through the thick bush. Sounds are easily distorted. Before the fall, I had been a hunter for recreation. After the fall, I hunt for survival. Wet leaves drag against my beard, and branches scratch at my hands and pull at my clothes, but they do not bother me. My only concern is if they are rustling or giving away my position.

The monsters have captured a woman and her son. The boy is screaming, but at least he can't see what they are doing to him. His eyes are gone and his gut is open. Two of the nightmares are playing tug-of-war with various internals.

The woman has been skinned from the waist down, and another beast is snacking on her groin in a way that would never be described as erotic.

The last beast is laughing as it flips a severed arm through the air and catches it in its terrifying maw.

I draw my bow. The rough string rubs against my cheek and the breeze blows the scent of carnage into my nose as I carefully select my first target.

The horde have no eyes on their heads, just mouths filled with terrible rows of razor-sharp fangs and a tongue that rolls about in thick saliva. Their necks are little more than stumps that lead to powerfully wide, but flabby chests. Their arms are long and serpentine and snake all the way to the ground. Their bulbous guts are covered in pinkish-orange skin, fattened on human flesh, and all is supported by squat legs that wobble deceivingly, hiding their blinding speed and terrifying strength.

I hate them with all my being.

Bullets do not hurt them. Cannons barely slow them down. They are almost impossible to kill. Almost.

Their brethren, the swarm, are chitin-covered creatures that travel in purple storms, leading the ground troops. They poison their victims with stingers or shock them with bio-electrics that can render vehicles immobile.

I fire.

The first round smashes into one of the monsters that is pulling on the boy’s entrails. The impact is low, just under the monster’s arm, but the pain and surprise fells it and draws the attention of the others.

I charge. My spear is special, crafted from bone and claw, salvaged from the corpse of a beast I once found. The monster had been torn apart by its own kind. Waste not, want not. Salvaging its teeth, I made them into arrows. Its claws, I made into knives and spears.

That does the trick.

The weapon punches through the back of the monster's head and exits out its mouth, piercing the woman again, but doing no harm to her already-ruined body.

The one that had played with the limb is next, and it covers its head against the ensuing slashes of another crafted blade but, in the process, it leaves its throat exposed. That is its fatal mistake.

The last beast’s massive maw closes over my chest, but its bite is halted by the armor I have built out of its dead kin. It recoils. Its mouth is broken and bloodied, and it dies as I drive a short spear through its jaw and into its brain.

Once more, I survive.

There is nothing I can do for the child, except to grant the little one mercy. I am quick.

The woman watches me. She does not have the dull, expectant look of death about her, but instead remains proud, fighting to the last breath. She is immobilized, both from her injuries and by wet, ropey restraints whose origins I don’t want to think about.

Thank you for sparing us, she says, gasping, coughing, and then continuing. Please, she pleads. Find my daughter. I pushed her into a hole when we were running. There’s a picture in my locket.

It isn’t smart to hang around any place too long, and I know that my chance of finding the girl is slim at best, but I humor the woman and remove the jewelry from about her neck. As I lean close, I smell her skin and feel the fullness of her flesh and it distracts me enough so that I fumble with the clasp before I bury the memento into a pocket.

The woman slips into death’s welcoming embrace, but I do not notice as I hurry to salvage what I can before more beasts arrive.

CHAPTER TWO

A key to surviving: don't think about the past. The past is depressing. You don't hope for the future. All you worry about is survival.

I'd forgotten about the girl; she didn't mean anything to me. She was a photograph, that was it. If nothing else, it was something to break my heart one more time and remind me of all the pain that has already gone on in this world. Neither did I think about the woman or the boy. I had left them to rot. Burying them would have taken too much energy, and they weren't inhabiting their bodies anymore.

I harvested what I could from the monsters, took what I wanted and bleached their bones in some all-too-clean water. Then, all I did was walk; walk until my feet bled, walk until they swelled so much I couldn't remove my shoes.

Maps were quickly rendered useless. Fields became overcrowded masses of vegetation, neighborhoods turned into burned husks with macabre reminders of what once was, bridges, mere wrecks of metal and stone.

The sun is almost set as I enter the small village, or what is left of it. It's a crossroads community, one of those that, if you were driving and you blinked, you missed the whole neighborhood. It is all busted now, and I imagine that if I look at the rickety porches, I will see a one-eyed boy playing the banjo. There are no convenience stores to raid; and judging by the condition of warped and rickety foundations, smashed windows, and bowing roofs, there are no occupants to bother.

I am proven wrong as a cheer of jubilation sets my blood to ice. It is the celebratory cry of a savage inflicting pain, of a sadist drawing blood. My gun appears in my hand, useless against the horde and the swarm, but it does well enough against the other monsters; the psychopaths and mass-murderers that the demons saved for last. They've only started hunting them recently, otherwise the sickest of our population is allowed to live.

I want to run, but my feet are anchored to the ground by the horrified screams of a young girl.

I advanced upon the house. There is an open cellar that draws me. My footsteps are quiet and my breath short and fast. As I peer down the steps, I imagine a mud-filled hole with a rat—as long as my arm, made wide by the consumption of rotting corpses, welcoming me into the bowels of hell—but all I see is the dim flickering of lantern-light.

The sounds of pain and abuse have grown. At least the noise covers my descent.

One man sits in a corner and binges on home-made swill. He laughs in the stupor of the intoxicated as his hands fumble with his limp and sore-covered crotch.

There is another, his face scarred with disease and rot. He’s snarling like a rabid dog as his arm moves back and forth, waving an elaborate walking stick, smacking it into a young child's flesh. She is unable to resist as the cane-man bruises her lower body with every hit. Already, her flesh is purpling, from the rear of her legs to the small of her back. Her underwear hides little of the damage done, and yet still her abuser continues, speaking profane words through rotten teeth.

The locket in my pocket burns hotly against my flesh. The little girl, who is tied at her feet and suspended from the ceiling, whose arms are bound painfully behind her, whose clothes are torn from the lashes of the cane, matches the picture within.

Rising to challenge them, I'm brought to a stop. I will never forget the feeling of cold, hard metal cylinders digging into my skull. I had not seen the third man, and he has snuck up behind me and put the double-barrel of a gun against my scalp. I turn my head just enough to know that he is huge and powerful and well-fed, and has the physique of a linebacker.

Well, The big-man’s voice is deep, and it rolls from his chest in a growl. You boys can have the girl, but this one’s mine.

Sarcastic comments, quips, and negotiations will fall on deaf ears. There is only one language my captors understand. Fortunately, I speak it.

My open hand slaps the barrel that is pressed against my head. In response, the big man pulls the trigger, but I am out of harm’s way, and instead of blowing my brains from my skull the shot destroys part of a rafter. Unsteadied, I fall backwards, squeezing my own gun’s trigger. My shot grazes the big one’s scalp, failing to kill him, but he steps backwards in surprise. He needs to reload his shotgun and there are still the other two to worry about.

Rolling to my feet, I fire two rounds into the man with the cane. The bastard catches both bullets in the chest and he falls, limp and lifeless, just the way I want him.

Ignoring the drunkard, I look back for the big man, but he and his gun have vanished. I take for granted that the drinker is too inebriated to be a threat.

I am wrong.

By the time I turn back to face him, he has retrieved the fallen one’s cane and brings it down on my shoulder. If I hadn’t already been turning my body it would have broken my collarbone, but I block with my gun arm and the impact numbs my hand and sends my pistol flying into the shadows of the basement. A second, less-powerful blow drives me to my knees. As I fall, my good arm draws one of my special knives and I slash desperately. Claw meets flesh, and I draw a smooth incision from elbow to wrist. Fetid blood sprays from my opponent's severed arteries and he howls in pain, despite the anesthetizing effect of the drink.

Lunging forward, I crash my head into his nose. The impact knocks him to the floor, but before I can finish what I have started the big one returns in a fury. His tackle sends him and I through a clapboard wall, and the fall knocks my knife from my hand, but my fingers close over something, and I bring it down on the bruiser’s head. Whatever improvised bludgeon I use splinters in the collision, stunning him.

Despite his grievous wound, the drunkard is not out of the fight, and he charges into the darkness with his still-exposed genital flapping sadly about while his stained hands wield a twisted machete, raised high in attack. Bracing my improvised weapon against my hip, I thrust forward, feel it enter flesh, and then release my hold while his clumsy strike misses me.

Silently, he drops his blade and stumbles backwards, towards the light.

A blow from behind brings me to one knee. The big one has recovered enough to stay in the fight, and he wraps his giant hands around my neck and lifts me into the air. My legs kick but find no purchase. My vision begins to blur from red to black. Numbing fingers feel for any of my weapons, but the heavy jacket I wear conceals most of my claws. There, my Ka-Bar knife which I wear against my hip is just within reach. Snapping the holster open, I draw the blade and jab it into my opponent's side, twisting, digging deeply into vital entrails.

It works, and the big man's grasp loosens as he collapses, but I cannot afford mercy or respite. Wrapping my fingers about his head, my thumbs probe deeply into the sockets of his eyes. Bellowing like a wounded bull, he writhes in agony, falling over entirely, almost taking me with him, but I catch myself against a pillar.

My boots are army surplus that I have raided from a store weeks ago. They are heavy, sturdy things. Stomping them down sharply onto his head, I feel his skull shift and see his skin tear. The next two blows resound with cracking and crunching sounds. I do not relent until the man’s head is cracked open and his brain lays in a wet and pinkish pulp on the floor.

It is quiet. Even the child has stopped her tears. Catching my breath, holding my aching head, I walk back into the light and trip over the drunkard’s corpse. He is on his back, and a dumbfounded look is etched onto his face. Sticking out of his ample gut is my improvised spear, the remains of a human femur.

I kick the corpse for good measure. It does not stir. For some reason, I find the dead man's expression hilarious, and I laugh so hard I cry.

Only once I am under control do I remember about the girl. She is staring at nothing with an unfocussed gaze and she does not react as I collect my gear, loot the dead, raid their supplies, and then cut her free. Wrapping her in a blanket, I hoist her onto my shoulders and limp my way into the night.

CHAPTER THREE

White, blue, and green orbs dance about and around me. Are they trying to talk to me? If so, it is in a language that I do not comprehend. It is but a daydream, an illusion, caused by exhaustion and staring into the embers of a dying fire. Shaking my head, I look over at my companion only to find her staring back at me.

Gone is the catatonic and flat expression she has worn and, in its place, I now see pain and turmoil, but it is a sign of life. Without warning the girl drags her pained body across the rotting cardboard I have used as an improvised mattress, before she wraps her arms around my chest, buries her head against my heart, and begins to weep. It's not the tears of a spoiled brat, but the release of fear, loss, and trauma so deep she will never be free from its hold. The kind of tears that come from a soul trying to purge itself. Pulling her into my lap, I hold her, rocking her softly until my shirt is wet and she is breathless.

I had considered leaving her behind more than once since I rescued her. She wasn't useful, nor was she in the best condition. Her mother might have kept her alive, but she hadn’t managed much better than that. The girl had suffered bleeding gums, loose teeth, and obvious malnutrition. The damage she had taken to her backside had injured her so much she had constantly shat bloody stool. She had not spoken, had only eaten what I put in her mouth. She had not seemed to sleep, at best she blinked sparingly. Yet something, some compassion buried inside my soul, urged me to continue to care for someone other than myself. So, I bathed her, clothed her, and fed her clean water, thin soups, and boiled pine sap. I raided vitamins from a crumbling drug store, and some expired antibiotics which helped her body fight off infections.

We are holed up together in the back of an abandoned convenience store, lying by a fire I'd built on the concrete floor using boxes of receipt papers, old magazines, and a busted wooden stool. Only once the coals turn grey and cold does she pull away, dry her eyes, and whispers in the voice of a frightened and lost child, aged well beyond her years, Thank you.

Silently, I stand. I do not trust my voice enough to reply without scaring her. Fetching the remaining kindling, I find a few live embers and fan the flames until its light and warmth raise both our spirits. Having raided the shelves earlier, I placed cans of what I hope is soups and stews to warm.

When I sit back down, she clings to me. It isn't the hold of someone who is looking for warmth, but of someone who is looking for security.

The soup begins to boil over. Giving the girl one of the many spoons I keep in my backpack, I offer her a meal. At first, she doesn't even bother to chew, but attacks the food like a ravenous wolf, and I fear that she is going to choke. Popping the lids on the other cans, I offer them too.

We understand each other. I know what it means to be starving. I know what it means to be so weak that you only have strength to crawl. I know what it’s like to lose all your loved ones. I know what she’s gone through. We are kindred spirits in our survival.

She speaks again once we have finished off two more cans together. There is more strength in her words, more power to her spirit.

What is your name, mister? she asks, lightly, curious. Mine's Annette.

When I respond, I am shocked at the coarseness of my voice. It is rough and brutal in my own ears. Ward. I answer, pointing at myself with my thumb.

Removing the locket from my pocket, I open it. Your mother asked me to look over you.

Her eyes already have the infinite stare that seems to look through the world, the same look veterans who have seen the horrors of war wear for the rest of their lives, but her smile of hope breaks through.

Is my family alive?

I worry that my reply will break her, throw her back into the lost, but it is unfair to lead her on.

No, I admit, but her smile only fades, it does not flee. She already expects my answer, hoping beyond reason I would say otherwise. When I ask if she's okay, she nods and holds me tightly.

She needs to go, the food still too rich for her delicate stomach, so I help her to the washroom. There is something in the toilet's water that dissolves organic matter, so we are not worried about contamination or smell, and when she's done, I carry her back to the fire.

We talk. She tells me about how her father, who had left in the first weeks of the crisis in order to help his 'other' family in a big city. No one survived in the cities—I know that from experience. She is an orphan now, but no different from me.

She asks about me so, I tell her that I will help her, but I don't promise to keep her safe.

Tired, unable to stay awake, feeling comfort in each other's company, she falls asleep. Watching over her, I notice her smile has not waned. Closing my own eyes, I lean back, resting against the wall, my weapons within reach.

Only to open them again to something tapping and knocking against the wall. The sounds are sudden and abrupt. I grab for my spear, waiting nervously.

Annette’s eyes are wide with fear but she is quiet, barely breathing.

Have the monsters found us and are they, even now, digging their way through the walls to get us?

I do not want to die without a fight.

Standing, I approach the door I had closed and locked. Annette doesn't move, but she shakes her head, not wanting me to leave. I step into the darkness of the main store and wait, hoping to see the movement of whatever is making that sound before it gets me.

Suddenly, there is commotion on all sides of me. The walls seem to shake, and the shelves vibrate. Packages, yellowed and rusting, fall to the floor, but I cannot see the source of the chaos. Chancing an encounter, I run outside where ruined hulks of vehicles sit in the lot. The bright stars let me see almost as well as I do during the day. Looking to the roof, I spy nothing but the ventilation system, yet the knocking continues about me, changing from the clunk of drywall into the accented pings of metal and glass. It is following me, chasing me down and in a moment of childish panic I ran back into the station. To my amazement it is quiet inside. The sounds continue, traveling away from us, lingering in the night air, eventually becoming too distant to hear.

Shaken, I returned to the room.

Annette is shivering in the corner, and upon my return she throws her arms around me, and cries the tears I wish to make stop until the weeping exhausts her, and she passes into fitful slumber while I stay on watch, too terrified to rest.

CHAPTER FOUR

My first reaction is to look to the sky. My breathing is heavy and shallow, and I fight with my body for control. Before I panic, Annette whispers, It’s clean, to me, and I relax.

From the sun’s position, I can tell that it is only early afternoon. We are lying on some grass by a river bed where we have stopped to rest. Leeches can be seen swimming in the water, so we know it is safe.

Annette points to a group of wild horses that are grazing nearby. Raising myself to my elbows, I stare in wonder. The horde murders everything that is useful to humankind. Pets and livestock all met their gruesome ends, or so we thought. The sight of such a large pack brings hope to our hearts.

Laughing, she begins to lace her boots. Annette has changed her shoes twice since she started walking again. By the end of her first day on foot, she had given off obvious signs of pain when her heel had grown a blister on it that took up the whole bone. I was proud that she had not screamed when I cleaned her foot. After that, we stopped for checks. Carefully wrapping our feet during the day and soothing them at night. Before long, Annette had begun to develop the callouses required to survive.

It's amazing how just a few weeks has helped her improve. When she'd gained enough strength, Annette had walked then ran. She carried her own supplies and some weapons. We had forced our way into a music store and taken guitar wire, and with that Annette had built her first snare and had caught her first rabbit. I had taught her how to wait, to be quiet, and she had killed her first deer with a crossbow that was almost the same size as her. We sparred. I taught her to clean her gun, track animals, hide in the trees, walk silently, understand the weather, to test water to see if it was safe to drink, and if the ground was safe to walk on. I didn't want her to die if I did. Mortality was a certainty, in this world and the last.

From time to time, I let myself wish that my daughter was still alive. She and Annette might have become good friends; probably the best of friends if my daughter was still with me in this world.

Are you okay? she asks me.

Smiling, I am about to stand when the herd turns as one and begins to run away.

Annette sees why first. There is a yellow-greenish cloud swelling on the horizon. A toxic storm—a leftover weapon that outlived their makers, scientists who had been given a carte- blanche in an attempt to devastate the enemy ranks—is growing fast. We need something solid, stout, and thick to hide beneath. Tents and fabrics are useless. We break into a run and I lift the pack from Annette’s shoulders so she can keep pace.

Droplets of water come rushing towards us, but there is a chance at salvation in some old ramshackle steps. Diving down them, we find ourselves in the basement of an old brick structure. Without light to guide us, I hit my head, fall to my knees, and scramble about on all fours for something that will elevate us above the puddles that are sure to form.

The ‘water’ pounds against the mortar. We