Short Stories Volume 2: Collections

By Josh Hilden

SHORT STORIES VOL. 2 - THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS

(Collection)

 

A collection of short stories mostly centered around one theme, the end of the world as we know it. A couple of stories also deal with more personal tales sprinkled in for variety. From worlds dying of the plague to a deep dive to retrieve relics from the past, THIS IS THE WORLD ENDS has a little something for everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GWSP
• Release date: Mar 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224519484

Josh Hilden

Josh is a native of the Metro Detroit region of Michigan and currently calls Dayton, Ohio home. He cut his writing teeth in the role-playing game (RPG) industry working for companies such as Palladium Books and Third Eye Games. Josh married his wife Karen in 1996. They have six children and two grandchildren. Josh writes in a variety of genres, but the majority of his books are in the realms of science fiction and horror.

Book preview

Beer Run

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I was reading when my day got turned upside down.

Or as upside down, as it could be in modern America.

If there still is an America.

Mom thinks there’s still an America out in the Midwest and the mountains. But here in the Northeast, America has been gone a long time.

Mikey, I’m out of beer! dad yelled from the upstairs landing.

I hated being called Mikey, and he knew it.

He’d been in his room listening to his short wave radio, searching for any broadcast he could pick up,  last time I’d checked on him, but now he was up and ornery. If dad didn’t have his beer, he was even less pleasant to live with than normal.

You want to try not yelling, Harold? Just because the property was clear this morning doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way. The last thing we need is another one of those things watching the house for days on end, mom countered.

Then she added, Michael, tell him he needs to be quiet.

Dad, you know mom’s right. We need to be quiet. Just because we’re out here in Bum Fuck Egypt doesn’t mean we should take unnecessary chances. I grumbled, not looking up from my book.

Look at you, mommy backs you up, and you think you can tell me what’s what, dad laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh, but it was one I’m all too familiar with.

It was the laugh he used when I wrecked my bike when I was ten, don’t sit there crying. It’s only a skinned knee, little Mikey.

It was the laugh he used when Shannon Evandale wouldn’t go to the prom with me, she is so out of your class, little Mikey.

And who could forget it was the laugh he used when Ellen left me, you were never man enough for a piece of ass like her little Mikey.

Leave him alone, Harold, mom snapped.

Each word, every syllable sent the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. They both knew how important it was to keep the noise down. For six months sticking to the routine of quietness, caution, and staying inside except for when needs dictated going out had kept us safe.

But old Harold Preston had to have his beer.

As if he was reading my mind, dad piped up, I need beer, Mikey.

So, go get it, I said just a little too loudly.

What did you say, boy?!

He said you need to get off your fat ass and go get your own damn beer! Mom yelled.

Quiet! I hissed at both of them, do you or do you not remember what’s out there? For the love of Christ, don’t you remember what happened to Uncle Chet? I demanded.

The house went quiet.

Everyone remembered what happened to Uncle Chet.

Fucking Volfs, dad whispered before stomping off to his room, slamming the door behind him.

The sound sent a chill down my spine.

Mom came over a sat opposite me on the couch. She looked tired. But we all looked tired. It was hard to sleep knowing that dozens of eight-legged monsters the size of bowling balls might be just outside the boarded-up windows of our refuge.

After a pained moment of silence, she spoke.

He needs the beer, Michael. Don’t you remember what happened last time he was out?

I remember, I said, a cold ball of anger building in my bowels. I remember, and Uncle Chet would too if he’d survived.

Uncle Chet, Chester McMillan, had been my mother's brother and the real father figure in my life.

That was an accident, mom said, sounding like even she didn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth.

He left Uncle Chet there. When I went to the store the next morning to get his body, it was in the parking lot between two abandoned cars. His gun was empty, and he had his hunting knife out. So, don’t feed me that line about it being an accident, I snapped.

Mom looked like I’d struck her, and guilt filled me.

I’m sorry, mom, I said, casting my eyes down.

I know, she said, all of the fight gone from her voice.

I’ll get the truck ready and head out at first light, I said, setting my book down and getting to my feet.

I can come with— mom started.

NO! I almost yelled. Forcing calm into my voice, I continued, he should be the one coming with me. It’s his beer, not mine or yours.

Nobody leaves the house alone. That’s the rule. Michael, you made that rule, mom countered.

True, but that was when Uncle Chet was still here. I went and brought him home to bury by myself, I said.

I should never have let you do that, mom said.

It had to be done. I wasn’t going to leave him there for the Volfs to finish eating, I said.

You still shouldn’t go alone, mom repeated, her eyes locking on the door at the top of the stairs.

***

Just stay in the truck when we get there, and I’ll get the supplies, I said, not looking at my dad as I drove.

You mean my beer, dad grumbled.

Yes, your beer, I muttered.

If I’m staying in the truck, then why am I eve coming with you? dad asked.

He’d been in a terrible mood ever since mom told him I wasn’t going unless he came with me. He’d yelled and beat his chest, declaring he was more of a hindrance than a help. But mom was right. I needed someone to watch my back. It might be daytime, but that wasn’t a surety that the Volf’s would be asleep. They were photosensitive, but enough noise would draw them out in midday.

It looks bad out here, dad said, watching the scenery as I weaved in and out of wrecked and abandoned cars.

Six months ago, everything was still normal. People woke up, went to work, went shopping for food, went to the movies and dinner, and generally lived their lives.

The swarm swept the coast in less than two weeks.

The Volf Arachnids, named for the primary geneticist who engineered them, were meant to produce steel silk. Steel silk is a substance intended to replace wood and lighter metals in construction.

The rumor mill on the short-wave radio claimed a terrorist attack on the facility outside Boston set them free. We lived twenty miles from Boston and faced the great swarm on the first day. But, considering the Volf’s were engineered to breed at a record pace, the Northeast fell in days.

Old webbing everywhere, dad said.

They’ve stripped the region of almost all easily accessible food. They’re heading south and west, I said, answering my dad’s unasked question.

If they’re all gone, why did you need me? the question was so petulant I thought I was talking to a twelve-year-old as opposed to a man in the second half of his life.

Most of them are gone, not all of them.

Dad nodded slowly, his eyes fixated on the Walmart as we passed the building. More than a hundred web strewn cars were parked haphazardly in front of the big box store, abandoned, and forgotten.

There was a questioning hunger in dad’s gaze.

We are not going there, I said.

Why not? There have to be tons of supplies still in there.

I went into the building once and never made it past the vestibule. The place is so thick with Steel Silk that nothing but a tank is getting in there, I answered.

Dad grunted.

It was only ten minutes to the liquor store. I pulled into the parking lot and came to a stop in front of the broken main entrance doors. The webbing I’d cut down last time I