The wind howled through the ruins of a desolate, abandoned town. A mixture of dust and snow covered everything. The sky was grey with clouds and a misty fog lingered in the air. Inside a bedroom in an abandoned apartment building, the sound of a door banging in the wind outside was heard. The place was a complete mess – the windows were blow out, leaving it exposed to the elements. Mavis was wrapped tightly in a large quilt on the bed – she clutched the covers closely to her face. Wiping away the frost which had formed there, she slowly opened her eyes and turned over.

  A few moments passed, and then reluctantly, she got out of the bed. Now in the hallway, fighting back against the cold, Mavis stood in the doorway. She went to the kitchen. She opened a cupboard and retrieved a rectangular tin container. She opened it. There was nothing left but crumbs inside. She collected the crumbs put them in her mouth. It wasn’t fulfilling. She placed the container on the table, and continued to search other cupboards. Some were empty. Rummaging through a cupboard filled with pots and pans - she found something at the back. A box - she took it out. It was a packet of kitchen sponges. Not what she was after. Food. There was no food or water here.

  The all too familiar hunger pain in her stomach continued to gnaw at her from the inside. Moving from place to place to scavenge what little scraps she could find was how she had spent her time enduring the long winter. She had lost track of how long it had been since she had eaten a proper meal. It felt like months, or even years perhaps. Nor could she remember how many places she had been to. Now it was once again time to leave and search again.

  ??????

  Mavis flew through the cloudy sky. The thick clouds obscured vision of the ground below and ahead. Soon she emerged from the clouded region. It was much clearer here. Behind her, the clouds enveloped the landscape, extending to the horizon. Her form was insignificant compared to them.

  The landscape below was completely destroyed. There was a large crater. Mavis continued to fly high above - looking at the ground, searching for any structures that may still be intact - but there was nothing.

  She continued on until she found a road. It was empty except for a few abandoned, destroyed cars. She followed the road, flying high above it. Then - over in the distance to her left - she heard an explosion. She stopped to see what it was - squinting in that direction. Mavis went over to investigate.

  A flaming SUV gave away the location of what seemed to be a small compound – parked just off a dirt track leading away from the cracked and dusty road. Two rough-cut men in their mid-thirties loaded guns and ammunition into a pickup truck. Another guy emerged from a nearby shed carrying cases with more ammunition. The other two went back to the shed. A fourth stood guard with a bazooka, monitoring the roadside. He looked over to where the SUV was engulfed in flames.

  “How d'ya think they knew where to find this place?” the guy who had emerged from the shed began to load the cases into the back of the truck.

  “I think they were following us.” The guy with the bazooka replied.

  “D'ya think there'll be any more of 'em?”

  “ I dunno. We best get out of here quick.”

  The guy nodded, turning back to the shed. “Jimmy! You guys finished back there?” When there was no answer, he went over to investigate.

  The roof was rusted through, and the whole place looked like it might collapse with a strong breeze. It was filled with old rusted metal pipes, building materials, and machines. He walked to the back door, tripping over a stray pipe that he hadn't seen because it was covered with dust and leaves. “Darn!” Coughing, he got back to his feet. He opened the back door. There was still no sign of them.

  Behind the shed, there was the edge of the forest beyond a stretch of tall grass. “Jimmy! Where ya at?” He looked around. Ah, there! He saw them some 50m away, near the edge of the forest. He went over to them. They were prying up a wooden board that had been covered in the soil - a hidden cache. “Whatcha guys doin?” They looked down at the shallow hole in ground below which contained more cases. They were pleased with themselves. Jimmy picked up a case and opened it, showing it to the others. Inside are grenades.

  “Lookie here. You like?” Jimmy chuckled.

  “Hehe, nice.”

  Meanwhile, the guard with the bazooka was left alone. He looked back at the shed. What was taking them so long? Quickly, he turned back around to focus on the road. Was there some movement there just now? No - that's impossible - he hadn't heard any vehicles approaching.

  Unbeknownst to him, Mavis now stood behind the burning SUV. This must have been the source of the explosion, she thought. She walked around it.

  The guy saw a silhouette emerge from behind the burning SUV. “Hey! Who's there!” he called out.

  Mavis stopped in her tracks.

  “Show yourself!” No one would have been able to survive that blast. And though he had been sure no one had got out of that vehicle prior to it - he must have been mistaken. Mavis emerged into clear view by the side of the road.

  “Shit.” The guy aimed and fired his bazooka, though doubtful it would do anything, for he knew exactly who she was. Mavis sidestepped to dodge the shot, and it exploded behind her. She walked towards him. He began to reload his weapon for another shot.

  “Stop.” Mavis commanded as the weapon turned to dust in his hands. He fumbled in confusion with some of the intact metal fragments he held on to, then dropped them to the ground and stumbled backwards, drawing his pistol.

  "You'll never take us alive! You can kill me, but you'll never kill our movement!”

  “What movement?” Mavis asked, pausing in her tracks a few metres away from him.

  “Be gone!” The man fired the gun multiple times at her, but the bullets turned to dust in the air before they reached their target.

  Realising his attempts were futile, in a panic he took one look at the girl in front of him, and then at the gun in his hands. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of killing him. So in a fit of defiance, without thinking, he put the gun to his temple and shot himself.

  Mavis stood there for a moment stunned, before she saw other figures racing up the path to the dirt track where the pickup truck was parked. They must have come as soon as they heard the noise. When they saw her, and the sight of their dead friend, they immediately turned back to run in the opposite direction – but Mavis stopped them. She focused on their bodies, on the matter that made up their bones and flesh. But rather than just disintegrating it, she held it in place, and the men were no longer able to move. Though she had not yet perfected such precise control. The body of the one at her periphery began to warp and melt, maintaining a shadow of a form, but to the others, nothing remained of the Jimmy who they had once known. The horror was evident on their faces – it was the only means of expression they had, with their backs to Mavis. Pain welled up inside their entire body, but they couldn’t scream or shout.

  Mavis quickly realised her mistake and tried to maintain her focus on the remaining two but the distraction of Jimmy’s corpse splashing to the ground like a water balloon of blood was too much for her. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to…” she released them as she ran up to them, frustrated, hoping they might still be alive.

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  One of them wasn’t. He had become a statue with his legs fused to the ground and his glassy eyes maintaining the same horrified expression as the moment his heart had made its last beat. The other wasn’t so lucky. His joints had fused, and possibly some of his muscles too, but he was still alive – in agonizing pain. His eyes darted around frantically as he saw Mavis enter his field of view, now facing him.

  “Do you have any food? Do you know where I can find some?” Mavis asked the pitiful man, staring directly into his hate-filled eyes.

  Her questions were so ridiculous to him in his current situation that at first he failed to comprehend the meaninglessness of the deaths of his comrades. That’s all she had been after? They had died for that?

  “Kill me” was all he could grunt in response, through gritted teeth. He couldn’t move his jaw, else he would have spat at her. Instead, the saliva trickled down his chin. The pain was becoming unbearable, he felt his whole body on fire.

  Mavis couldn’t bear to watch him endure this torment any longer. She ended his suffering by vaporising him.

  Back at their vehicle, Mavis unlatched the door and got inside. She had no idea how it worked or how to drive it. Perhaps there was some food in here though. She scrounged around the seats and doors but found only dust, dirt and rubbish. Frustrated, she hit the dashboard hard, causing a dent in it and simultaneously causing the glovebox to unlatch and open. Surprised at her discovery of this hidden compartment, she realised with amazement that there was indeed some of what she had been searching for here after all. Food – some muesli bar snacks, to be precise. She took one out and opened it, gobbling it up.

  Mavis got out to look around a bit more, carrying the rest of the snacks with her in her jacket pocket. She followed the road until she came to a small cottage nearby. Before long, the sun began to set. She broke into the cottage, found some blankets, and like usual, lay down on a bed and let herself drift off to sleep.

  ??????

  In the morning, Mavis awoke to a strange sound. It was as if a car had sped down the road outside. Could it really be? She went outside and flew up – sure enough, there was a car there, on the road, driving towards the location of the others she had encountered yesterday. It was strange to encounter survivors, but this was the 2nd time in only two days she had done so. She continued to observe them from a distance.

  The car stopped when it came to burnt-out husk of the SUV. Two men got out to examine it, then walked down the dirt trail where the pickup truck was parked. When they saw the decaying body of the first man, they began to argue.

  “No… this can’t be happening.”

  "What is it? Oh – shit.” He saw the man lying on the ground who had clearly shot himself. Why would he do that? It wasn’t like him… he would never do this… unless…

  “We shouldn’t have come here…” There was only one reason why he would have done that. It was a warning to them. A warning of who they had encountered here. It was her. He didn’t want to believe it. He wanted there to be any other explanation. Slowly they both walked up the path until their eyes widened with horror upon seeing the place where the other 3 had died. An acrid smell wafted away from the standing corpse, mutilated and rotting. A bit away over to the left, the ground was covered in dried blood, and bits…

  They both felt a sickening sinking feeling. “Why did you insist on coming?!” Wilson shoved Harvey, the younger of the two, in anger. They both lived together in a small bunker community not too far from here, together with Jimmy and the other men who had come here. This area had not been as badly hit as others. Nevertheless, they had remained in shelter so far. Their supplies had lasted them this long, and would continue to do so, but one thing they had been lacking were weapons. It would be necessary if they were to have a chance at fending off other factions. Luckily, Jimmy, one of the survivors among them, knew just where they could find such items. As radiation levels had begun to subside, he had convinced the others to come out here. Ultimately it hadn’t been the radiation that killed them. It was a risk, however small, that they hadn’t even thought to consider.

  “You realise what you’ve done, right? You’ve doomed us both!” Wilson screamed at Harvey again.

  “Shut up! You were just as concerned as I was, you wanted to come here! I didn’t force you! You were just as supportive of Jimmy’s plan as I was!” Harvey scowled back.

  Wilson took a deep breath to calm himself. It’s true he had never voiced the nagging concerns about the plan which had haunted him for the past few days. He didn’t want to worry them. He had assumed it was just his irrational anxiety.

  “Come on, let’s go.” Harvey got out a small handheld radio device, pressing the transmitter. “We’ve found them. They’re dead.”

  “We can’t possibly go back now!” Wilson despaired, looking up at the skies. “She could be watching us! She could follow us back.”

  “Maybe not. We haven’t seen her, it’s best if we get out of here quickly.” Harvey responded optimistically.

  But no sooner had he said that, than Wilson spotted something up in the sky. “There!”

  Mavis, realising she had been spotted, flew down to meet them.

  “Ahh!” Wilson screamed. He and Harvey both felt the air wash over them away from her landing and now turned to face her directly, a dumbfounded expression on their faces, silent at what she would do to them.

  "Take me to your food storage." Mavis asked calmly.

  "Never!” Wilson screeched.

  “Over our dead bodies!" Harvey added.

  Mavis contemplated killing them then, frustrated at their obstinance, but then had a better idea. They may not be willing, but they could still lead her to it. There was no way they had survived this long without some serious food stores. Her mouth watered at the thought of it. She would just have to watch and wait. But she didn’t want them to do anything irrational. So she turned around and walked back a bit, then launched back into the sky, quickly disappearing into a cloud.

  “What… “ Wilson was still recovering from the shock. “She didn’t kill us?”

  “Don’t panic, but I think she’s still up there, watching us.”

  Wilson crouched to the ground, breathing heavily. “What are we going to do now?”

  “Just remain calm. We’ll just go back… back to the car and drive… back to base.”

  Wilson frowned at him. He couldn’t be serious? Before Wilson could respond, Harvey grabbed his arm and pulled him up, whispering in his ear: “she may still be listening”.

  Of course they wouldn’t be going back to base. At least not immediately. They needed to drive around a bit first, to try and throw Mavis off, to lose her in the haze. Maybe that would give them a chance to escape.

  They returned to their car, and they began to drive. From high up above, Mavis saw them and smiled. Her plan was working. She followed them.

  It went on for hours and hours. They drove through the desolate wasteland, at a snail’s pace compared to Mavis. It was a bit boring for her. She snacked on another muesli bar. Multiple times she had considered going back down to confront them again, but the remaining dwindling food she held in her position made her change her mind. She didn’t want to scare them off. Surely they were almost there.

  Wilson looked ahead through the windscreen – the perpetually grey sky had begun to darken. It might be nearing nightfall. In the distance, he could see a storm was brewing.

  “Do you think we might have lost her?” he asked Harvey.

  “I dunno. I sure hope so.” Harvey replied.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t risk it.” Wilson had been arguing against going back for the past hour. But unlike himself, he knew that Harvey had a family waiting for him back at the shelter. A wife and two children. “Maybe we should wait until nightfall.” Wilson knew that at night it may be harder for Mavis to follow them, if she was even still doing so, but that came with risks of its own. At night the temperature would drop much lower, and the car engine might fail on them. Or even worse, they may just not survive the cold out here, especially if there was a storm.

  A faint voice came crackling over the radio. “Harvey… dear, please just come home, we’re so worried about you.” It was Harvey’s wife. Then, the voice of a boy, Harvey’s son. “Daddy, I love you. Please stay safe and come back.”

  Harvey pulled over the car to the side of the road as he became emotional, tears in his eyes.

  “Let’s go back.” Wilson said solemnly.

  “Ok.” Harvey muttered as he wiped his face. After a few moments, a steely determination took its hold within him. He turned the car around and began to drive back in the opposite direction.

  It was an hour or so before they returned to the bunker. It was night by the time they arrived, and the wind had picked up a lot. They shivered as they got out of the car hobbled to the large steel door that was cut into the side of a mountain. They were glad to be home. Wilson glanced up at the sky which was now pitch blank. He couldn’t see anything. He pushed the intrusive thought out of his mind. He was being silly. They were fine. They were all going to be just fine.

  The bunker entrance opened to greet them, light streaming out, and Harvey’s wife stepped out to give him a hug. “I’m so glad you made it back safely” she said, full of relief.

  Wilson thought he saw some movement at the corner of his eye. He stared out into the darkness. No – there was no one there – it was just his mind playing tricks on him. Harvey and Wilson quickly hurried inside so as to not let more of the cold air in. They helped Harvey’s wife and another to pull back the heavy door of the entrance.

  Just as they had almost pulled it shut, a hand from outside grabbed the far edge, stopping it from closing, and pulled it back, against the force of the 4 people who had no ability to resist against it. Those shocked and terrified survivors.

  Mavis opened it just enough to pop her head inside. “Found you!” she grinned cheekily. Then she opened the door a bit more, slipped inside and then closed it effortlessly behind her.