The Witch and the Werewolf by John Burks

proper. There were screams as well, in the
distance, and she couldn’t begin to imagine the depth of human
suffering in the ruins of Houston. The ground was covered in a
layer of brackish mud and the landscape was littered with the
busted up remains of cars and trucks that looked much like a giant
child had tossed them around. The neighborhood was reduced to
rubble. The houses were gone, their brick and two by four
structures scattered like broken matchsticks, and the foundations
were covered in the mud.
    The smell was horrendous,
a mix of mud and death. She gagged before clearing her nose. She’d
lived around Houston all of her life and had seen the damage left
by hurricanes. That was nothing compared to this.
    “ My god,” she whispered.
“It’s all gone.”
    “ I know,” the boy
whispered.
    Cassandra scooted closer
to the boy and put her arms around his shoulders. He was wearing
shorts, like her, and the temperature was dropping
rapidly.
    “ It is daylight,” she
said, watching as the clouds parted long enough for her to catch a
glimpse of the new moon, a moon called Wormwood. “All the pieces of
the comet must have kicked up a lot of stuff in the
air.”
    “ Like a nuclear winter,”
the boy said, agreeing.
    “ You know about that
stuff?”
    “ I read some stuff before
it all happened,” the boy began. “The chunk of debris acts just
like you said. They drive down into the earth and send up great
clouds of ash and dust. Volcanoes do the same thing. The clouds
cover the sky and block out the sun. It’s getting really cold,” the
boy said, teeth chattering. “I did the best I could with the fire
but all the wood I could find was wet. It was hard.”
    That Jeremy had done it at
all was something, she thought, what with the whole no eye balls
thing he had going.
    “ You did good,” she said,
trying to sound reassuring like her mother wood. “But the fire
isn’t going to help us once the temperature really starts to drop.”
Her clothes were soaked through and she felt the same chill. “We
need to find shelter somewhere.”
    “ Where?” the boy asked.
“It’s all gone.”
    “ I know a
place.”
    “ Where?”
    “ My house,” Cassandra told
him. “We had a basement and, if it’s not flooded, my mom kept all
kinds of survival stuff there.”
    “ Your mom was a
prepper?”
    “ Yeah, I guess so.” Not
that she knew just exactly what her mother was. Not really. There
was still so much to learn.
    “ She was preparing for
something to happen. Storing water, food, stuff like
that?”
    “ Yes, something like
that.” Cassandra had often thought her mother was obsessed and she
was right. She’d just been wrong what her mother was obsessed
about. The basement was filled to the brim with supplies. She
wished agains she’d stayed home with her mother, in the basement.
If she had, her mother might still be alive then.
    “ Do you think the basement
survived?”
    “ I don’t know. But even if
it’s filled with water, we’ll still be able to get some supplies,
right? She had clothing in vacuum sealed packs. We could probably
find some blankets too.” Not to mention guns. The silver swords
were nice and had a great effect on the wolves, but she wanted some
real fire power. The werewolves were not the only monsters in the
ruins.
    “ I don’t really have
anything else to do, so if you don’t mind, I’ll go with you,”
Jeremy said seriously, as if she might turn the boy
down.
    “ I wouldn’t have it any
other way.” She’d already started thinking of the kid as her
partner. They both were reborn in the new world with abilities they
had no idea about. They were kindred spirits and an odd team, for
sure, but they’d get through it.
    “ We might as well get
going,” she said, standing. She still felt exhausted and knew that
the spell she’d inadvertently cast had drained her. The sooner they
made it home the sooner she could find something to eat and
recuperate. And then it was off to find