Nightmare Fuel #21: The Storm
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Welcome to another edition of Nightmare Fuel, creeps and peepers. I'm Dan Cummins, and I'll be sharing another original short story of the fictional horror variety today. I highly recommend Noise Cancellation Headphones for the ultimate experience. Hope you enjoy this new nightmare.

Time now for the tale of the storm. The storm is coming. Do you fear it? November 28th, 2024, Thanksgiving. Literally no one is worried about making sure they get the turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie right this year.

47-year-old Brent Collins, his 41-year-old wife Lori, and Brent's two kids from his previous marriage, 20-year-old Cam and 17-year-old Rosie, are all anxiously staring at Brent's phone. And at one another. He has his phone open to the Ring doorbell app. Fuck, they're here.

Brent whispers quietly as he holds his phone up higher and rotates it around so everyone else can get a better look at the heavily armed group of five men standing on the front porch holding AR-15s and wearing tactical gear, including body armor, as captured by the doorbell camera. Several incredibly tense moments pass without anyone saying anything. The only sounds filling the large basement with the lights intentionally all off are each other's strained breathing and the furnace kicking back on.

Lori, who can also hear her panicked heartbeat in her ears, squeezes Brent's hand as her eyes fill with tears. She, like everyone else in the family, had desperately clung to hope that this moment would never come, while simultaneously being certain that it would. It was a tragic inevitability in the current and completely fucked state of the world.

Rosie closes her eyes and leans her head down on her stepmother's lap, who lets go of her husband's hand and runs her fingers through Rosie's long hair and gently rubs her back. Cam's eyes, cold and determined blue under his dark and bushy eyebrows, are locked in on his father's. Dad, he whispers intently. What do we do? We need to stay very, very quiet. His father reminds him. All of you, he adds, looking around. Not a peep.

They nod, and then the doorbell rings again, followed by the man asking them the same question as before, with a bit more menace in his voice. We know you're in there. We saw a young man with a green baseball cap to the window this morning. I'll ask one more time before we go ahead and let ourselves inside. The storm is coming. Do you fear it? Brent glares at Cam, still wearing his Boston Celtics hat, and hisses through gritted teeth. I fucking told you to only use the bathroom down here.

Sorry! Cam apologizes. I didn't see anyone. I thought they'd moved on. Brent shakes his head. He hates being such a hard-ass, but something as simple as using the upstairs bathroom, even with all the blinds closed, is the kind of thing that could get them all killed. Or worse. It could get them all... infected. What are you doing? Answer them, Dad! Rosie insists with a voice full of worry as she pops her head off of Lori's lap.

She then raises her voice and speaks with more urgency. Dad, hurry! Before they bust down the door! Brent feels a momentary bit of gratitude. So thankful that he pushed and convinced Lori to pay extra for the heavy-duty 14-gauge steel door instead of the wooden one that fit the look of their house a whole lot better. It'll take them a few minutes to bust down that door, maybe longer, he thinks.

But then that thought is nearly instantaneously replaced with remembering how they could just easily smash their way into the large front window, or run around to the back of the house and knock out the egress window that leads directly into the basement, putting them in the house no more than a few feet from where they all now sit on the floor. Or they could just burn the whole fucking house down and smoke us out. That thought makes Brent picture the Miller's house down the street going up in flames just the day before.

He knows if he's somehow lucky enough to live for any length of time, he'll never forget the sounds of Ben's girls, Tammy and Virginia, screaming as they burned alive. He shivers. He knows there's nothing these Red Gang animals won't do. They may still look human. They may technically be human. But they no longer possess an ounce of humanity. And this group is a Red Gang. They all clearly saw their blood-red eyes on the doorbell camera. They heard the call of the infected.

These men came to either recruit other red eyes to join them on their hunt or to kill anyone not yet infected with the red plague. After motioning with his finger for everyone else to stay quiet, Brent pushes the button on the app to reply and repeats the phrase they'd all heard on the news, radio, and podcasts, and seen on TikTok and YouTube videos. One of the strange, disturbing expressions of the infected. Fear is for the sheep. I am the lion, and we are the storm.

The red-eye who's spoken to the intercom previously now smiles and nods his head appreciatively, and looks at the men behind him who all relax a bit, lowering their weapons before he replies. "Stop wasting daylight and join the hunt, Soldier 17. Time to save the tunnel children." Brent looks around at his family again, nervous sweat beading on his upper lip. He again pushes the microphone button on his app.

"'Where we go one, we go all. "'Grabbing my weapon, Soldier 17. "'Joining you momentarily,' he assures, "'matching the authoritarian tone of the man at the door. "'Trust the plan,' the man on the porch states. "'Trust the plan,' Brent repeats before adding. "'The Great Awakening has begun.' "'And with that, the man on the porch seems satisfied "'for the moment that Brent is also a red-eye, "'and the group's spokesperson backs up "'a few feet away from the door and waits.'

Brent returns his focus to his family, asking them, "You all remember how to shoot these things, right?" A Sig Sauer P320 9mm handgun sits on the floor next to each of them, all loaded up with a full 17 round magazine of hollow points and another round in the chamber. The safeties have all been released and the guns are ready to rock and roll. The people who are supposed to shoot them? Not so much.

Each eye is wet with tears. Cam nods his head solemnly. He wants to say something, tell his dad to be careful, ask him to please let him come upstairs with him to help even though he knows his dad will say no, even though the thought terrifies him. But he's afraid if he speaks at all, he'll break down and cry. He's afraid if he says anything that reeks of a goodbye, it might actually be goodbye, that he'll jinx him somehow. He's scared and sad and angry and exhausted. They all are.

Rosie grabs the gun next to her, making sure not to wave the barrel in anyone's direction and keeping her finger away from the trigger, just like Brent taught her. She nods at her dad without looking directly at his face. Her chest heaves with a stifled sob. She's worried that today will be the day one or more of them will die.

Lori's very in the worst. She's emotional and prone to worrying even when times are good and times are now anything but good. They're about as bad as they can get. Her hands are shaking uncontrollably. She nods as well, but she still isn't ready to grab the gun. She thinks she might not ever be. Brent locks eyes with her and they share a moment of love and silent understanding. Understanding how fucking insane and horrible the world has become.

understanding that a shared moment like this might be their last, before he finds back his own emotions and addresses them all. Our only chance is for me to walk up there and open fire immediately before they know what's happening. Hopefully, if I can't take them all out, I can at least get two or three, leaving three or less for you to all fight. I'm hoping they don't know you're down here, that you're armed. Your best and probably only chance will be the element of surprise and not being as exposed as they'll be when they come down here.

And as we've talked about before, these red eyes don't seem to exactly go out of their way to protect themselves when they attack. That's a big advantage for us. If they storm the house, stay as quiet as you can. Shoot over the couch. Use the back to steady your fire. Stay ready. Keep your guns aimed just above the bottom of the stairs. Open fire the moment you see their legs. Do not hesitate. Hesitation will get you killed. It looks like they're wearing Kevlar, but don't worry about that. Still,

Still aim for the torsos and just keep firing until you're out of rounds, then pop the magazine out like I showed you, pop the new one in, and unload that one as well. Brent's wife and kids all nod. Lori has to stifle a sob and can't look at her husband. "'I love you with all my heart,' he says to them. "'Win or lose, you are all going to have to leave our house very, very quickly, so be ready to go.' "'If I don't make it,' he pauses, his voice crackling with emotion. "'Promise me you'll stick with the plan.'

Lori lunges forward and gives Brent a big hug. She can't hold back her sobs anymore. Rosie and Cam join her. After a moment, Brent pulls back, kisses his wife on the lips, and gives his son and daughter a pair of quick kisses on their heads before he stands up. Okay, they won't wait much longer. I have to go now.

And with that Mossberg pump action 12 gauge shotgun in hand and loaded with slugs, a SIG in his chest holster and a second one on his hip, both loaded with hollow points, Brent marches up the stairs towards either his imminent death or a prelude to his family's improbable escape from their home. Standing just behind the front door, less than five feet from the Red Gang on the porch, Brent checks the Ring app to get a read on the men's position.

They thankfully don't have their AR-15s pointed towards the door. A few of the guys aren't even actively holding their guns. They're also standing close together, which will theoretically bode well for the Mossberg, Brent thinks. The slugs probably won't kill the guy if he shoots towards the center of the torso of the man standing closest to the door, but they will definitely knock the wind out of him and probably bust some ribs or crack his sternum while slamming him back into the other guys behind him and knocking them all off balance.

If only they'd fly back like in the movies once they got shot, he thinks. How great it would be if he could just pull a Charles Bronson or Liam Neeson. If Brent fires a few rounds immediately after cracking open the door and then drops low and shoots around it with one of his SIGs, he thinks he might injure or kill enough of them to buy himself time to run over to the window and get some more shots in without them immediately firing back. Their position doesn't give them many directions to run and provides zero cover.

It's time to save the children, Brent announces as he cracks open the door. And then time seems to slow down for the next 20 or so seconds. The men aren't phased in the slightest that he opens the door with a shotgun in hand, strapped up with handguns and wearing body armor of his own. They expected no less. When you're infected, getting heavy with a lot of firepower is exactly what you do. Why the red eyes consistently do that is still anyone's guess. But the internet, what's left of it, has a lot of theories.

"We are the storm!" Brent roars now as he raises the barrel of his shotgun as nonchalantly as possible while also raising it quickly, and he fires his first shot, hitting the gang's spokesperson in the chest, knocking him off balance and causing him to stumble into the other men. He then quickly pumps a new slug into the chamber and fires a headshot at the man on his left, hitting him above the right eye, leaving an almost baseball-sized exit wound in the back of the man's skull.

Brent then quickly pumps again and pivots to his right, firing a third slug towards the left arm of the first man he hit, the arm he's holding his assault rifle with, and an arm also on top of the man behind him's right leg. The slug bloodily tears through both appendages, and Brent then throws the shotgun itself at the other two still living men's heads. Throwing their hands up to keep it from hitting them in the face buys Brent enough time to pop back behind the door as the man he had just hit in the leg fires off an errant shot.

After slamming and locking the door, Brent now quickly pops around a partial wall dividing the entry from a little dining area between the front door and the kitchen. He drops down and crawls behind his breakfast table and accompanying chairs. Popping out on the other side a second or two later, he has a clear line of sight on the men who aren't yet looking in his direction.

Following his own mandate of no hesitation, Brent unholsters a 9mm on his hip and opens fire, partially shattering the window as he pulls the trigger over and over in rapid succession, firing 5 or maybe even 6 shots before rolling back behind the table for cover. In his flurry of gunfire, he managed to get another headshot on a second man while also shooting the two men he'd already shot again in their legs.

One of the red gang, however, is still completely unhurt, and with the aggressiveness typical of the infected, he catches Brent off guard by shattering the rest of the window as he jumps through it and into the house. Brent screams as he rolls to his right, back towards the area behind the steel front door and fires off several more shots while the red eye returns fire. Brent gets lucky. One of his hollow point rip

to the man's neck, clipping his spine and destroying his aorta. He wheezes grotesquely as he falls to his knees, dropping his gun and clutching his throat. Worried that he'll get infected from the blood spurting from the dying man's neck and rhythmic pumps, Brent scrambles back and fires another round into the man's head, dropping him. You'll suffer for this, blue pill! One of the two remaining men on the porch screams before unloading with his modified AR-15 and shelling the door and surrounding area with a preposterous amount of rounds. In

In his rage, he completely empties his magazine. And before the man can grab another weapon, Brent cracks open the door, pokes the barrel of his SIG out and around it, and unloads it in the general vicinity of the two remaining living men who are only a few feet away. By the time he's done firing, the only noise he still hears from the porch is one of the men choking on his own blood. He starts to open the door to try and sneak a peek outside and confirm that they're both dead or dying before more red eyes show up, attracted by all the gunfire. Dad, are you okay? Dad?

It's Cam. He's yelling at his father from the top of the stairs. "Camp, what are you doing?" Brent fumes. "I told you!" A shotgun blast cuts him off. The lone red-eye survivor, the man currently choking on his own blood, a man who used to be a financial planner for Edward Jones named Chandler Jorgensen, who loved to fly fish and play basketball with his two teenage sons before he became infected and killed his wife and kids and also the family next door so he could take all of their weapons,

He'd grabbed Brent's shotgun before the door was open, and now he'd shot Brent right in the ribs, barely missing his left bicep. Brent falls back and down to the floor, landing thankfully on his right side instead of the side with a few fractured ribs beneath his body armor as the red-eyed killing machine, formerly known as Chandler, pumps the shotgun again. And as he reloads, Cam runs to his father's side and unknowingly directly into the line of fire. Brent tries to scream at him to get back, but he can't. He doesn't have his breath back.

The slug misses wide right. The Chandler thing didn't have quite enough life left in him to properly aim and pull off the shot. Instead, after missing, with his vision fading to black, he finishes bleeding out and dies, unable to pump a third slug into the chamber or breathe any more air into his lungs. Brent now tries to speak and succeeds. Barely. "'Fuck! Damn! I told you to stay downstairs!'

I couldn't keep listening to them shooting, Dad. Cam responds defiantly. I had to try and keep you alive. Brent is so proud of his son, how he's been handling himself under the most extreme troubling of times. And at such a young age. But he can't tell him that in these moments. Brent's terrified that some of his son's best character traits will be what gets him killed. So instead of what he wants to say, he snaps. The best way to keep me alive is to do exactly what I fucking tell you. Help me up.

Cam feelings hurt but also so damn grateful his dad is alive and the would-be intruders are dead. Grabs his father's hand and helps him to his feet. Brent groans, but already his ribs are feeling a tiny bit better. The fractures are thankfully hairline, not nearly as bad as they could have been. Certainly not debilitating. Turns out that the extra 20 pounds around his midsection he's been talking about trying to lose for at least a decade might have just saved his ass. At least today.

He barks at Cam, "Go get everyone else and bring them to the top of the stairs while I make sure these guys are dead. We have to move now." Cam nods and hurries down the stairs, while Brent looks over the bodies on his front porch near the breakfast table, making sure not to get too close to any of them, while also avoiding any puddles or even noticeable specks of blood. He's heard that the virus, or whatever it really is, most likely spreads through contact with bodily fluids, typically through the air in little droplets expelled through sneezes, coughs, and the like.

but Brett thinks it's hard to trust any information these strange, strange days. The apocalyptic plague currently destroying the world might be spread by microscopic demonic monsters who are now crawling across the goddamn floor towards him for all he knows. The thought makes him shiver. And then the sounds of a large group of people marching down the street in the distance cause him to look and see a red gang made up of around 20 men and women, all heavily armed. Shit, he mutters. It never ends.

He and his family will have to act even faster than he was previously thinking. He turns to yell for his wife and kids to get their asses moving, but Cam and Rosie are already turning the corner and heading up the stairs towards him with Lori right behind them. Brent looks back down the street as he informs his family. Big red gang's coming fast. They'll be here in 30 seconds or less. We gotta jump in the car and go right now.

Lori and the kids hurry past Brent, the still-open front door, and through the kitchen into the garage, glancing at all the dead bodies and hearing whoops and other battle cries from the bloodthirsty Red Gang approaching them.

Brent notices that Lori has left her gun downstairs and is immediately irritated. He wants to say something, but what would be the point? He wishes he had time to run down and grab it himself, and more importantly, the precious ammo in his magazine. But there's just no time. They have to make a break for it. He thinks about at least grabbing his shotgun before he bolts out into the garage, but there's blood on it and all around it. Not worth the risk. So he follows his family into the garage, limping a bit and breathing a little heavier than normal, thanks to his busted ribs.

Lori and the kids are already getting into the Range Rover. They'd previously loaded up with everything he thought would give them the best chance to make it to his mom and stepdad's ranch near Whitebird, 200 miles away. 200 miles that feels like 2,000 under their current circumstances. Brent hits the garage opener on the wall and then jumps into the driver's seat before throwing on his seatbelt and yelling at his kids to do the same. Hang on, he shouts.

with the garage door just barely open enough for him to pass underneath. He punches the gas hard and the V8 slams everyone forward before slamming them back just a moment later, when Brent pumps the brakes while cranking the steering wheel hard to the right, then throwing the car in drive and pushing the gas pedal to the floor while cranking the wheel back to the left. He swerves down the road, around the corner, and away from the red gang.

"I can't believe they didn't shoot at us!" A shocked and grinning Cam yells from the backseat as they speed around the second corner and towards the freeway on-ramp just a few blocks away. "You and me both! Holy shit, that was fucking crazy!" Rent winces. "Are you okay, baby?" Lori asks her husband as he races them up the on-ramp towards an eerily deserted freeway. "Fine," Rent grits. He took a shotgun slug to the ribs, but the vest is keeping it from doing any real damage.

He looks in the rearview mirror as he talks, giving the kids a once-over. Everyone's scared as hell, but otherwise fine. And making sure no one's following them. It's clear for the moment. Everyone keep your eyes peeled for both red gangs and the military, he instructs before adding. See something, say something. His kids and wife all nod. Cam, Rosie, reach into the back and grab some more 9mm magazines and hand them up to me. And then load this empty one.

Brent hands him the magazine he unloaded back at the house. Lori thought he was nuts when he went to all the sporting goods stores in town the day he first heard about what was going on with the new and exceptionally far more lethal pandemic and spent thousands of dollars on guns and ammo. But she was grateful now, and so was he. Firepower had quickly become just about the only currency that mattered. Do you really think we can make it to Grandma and Grandpa's? Rosie asks her dad as she opens a box of hollow points. Yeah, Rosie, I do. We have to.

They've completely taken over the city, and there's no other place I could think of for us to go, he answers. Her eyes fill up with tears again. There's been so much heartache these past few weeks. With a tremble in her lip, she asks, And mom and Aaron? I think they'll be fine. He lies. And now before we find out what Brent is lying about, time for our mid-show sponsor break.

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Hannah, Brent's ex-wife and the kid's mom, lived in nearby Liberty Lake with the kid's stepdad, Aaron, and he strongly assumed that they were both already dead. The kids hadn't heard from them in two days, which wasn't all that surprising, since they'd called to tell the kids that the power grid there had gone out three days ago, and then he'd heard on Facebook that a bunch of cell towers were taken down the day after. The lack of communication wasn't what was bothering him, though.

It was the fact that the small city they lived in was completely overrun with red gangs. The police had been making progress there with eliminating the red eyes about a week earlier, but then like in so many other areas, a few officers got infected, and then they not only infected other officers, but also turned on them and started killing them. That led to the complete collapse of any police presence in the area, just like it had in so many other areas. The National Guard was still in Liberty Lake as of Tuesday, it was Thursday now, but they seem to have since pulled out.

or they were overrun, infected, and destroyed from the inside out. There were reports on Facebook of numerous red eyes being seen wearing military uniforms the past few days, and a few large red gangs seemed entirely composed of soldiers. If any of those gangs had come for Aaron and Hannah, they were as good as dead. Hannah hated guns. She'd once threatened to divorce him over guns, and her firm opposition to preparing for violence in an inherently violent world had probably sealed her death warrant.

She and Aaron not being armed was one of the many reasons he wouldn't let their kids go back to their house when the Red Plague first hit the area. As he, Lori, and the kids now drove past some abandoned military transport vehicles, Brent wondered if his small collection of arms would be enough. There were reports, similar to Liberty Lake's, of the collapse of the military from all around the country. A military who had been dispersed to enforce a full 24-hour lockdown curfew for the past three weeks. The nation had entered a period of martial law the last week of October.

and from what Brent and his family could tell, it was the same all over the world. A few places like Iceland seemed to be safe. They'd tightly sealed their borders when the first reports of a new and much more deadly pathogen than the COVID-19 virus began to emerge from China during their Golden Week celebrations the first week of October. But who knows if they were really safe? It was hard to tell what the current state of things were in many parts of the world.

Red gangs had already destroyed so much infrastructure. They'd taken out power stations, severed fiber optic cables, burned or blown up buildings, housing servers, all sorts of chaotic destruction. And still, no one truly understood why. Brent and his family had been reading and watching as many articles and videos as they could find about it all for weeks now.

They'd learned that when an infected person came down with what most were calling the red plague, they'd start to feel foggy and achy with a low-grade fever. There was a lot of speculation that you'd start to feel these symptoms within the very first hour of infection. It moved very fast, faster than anything medical experts had ever seen. The medical experts were who really scared the shit out of Brent during the early days of the pandemic.

Right out of the gate, whenever they were brought onto some news show as a talking head, they looked utterly petrified. Like they didn't care about what questions they were being asked. Like what they really wanted to do was start screaming, RUN! There's nothing we can do to stop this! Hide in the hills and hope there's something left to civilization when this is all over! It's the end of the fucking world as we know it! They reminded him of when he used to fly a lot for work, and the plane he was on would encounter some heavy turbulence.

He always looked at the flight attendants in those moments. And if they truly seemed calm and collected, he knew he'd be fine. He thought about those flight attendants when he listened to these doctors speak. They did not seem calm and collected. But what they shared was helpful. They said within a couple of hours after being infected, you'd get a runny nose, feel some chest congestion, and then start to sneeze and cough. And now you were actively spreading the infection. This would go on for around 12 to 16 hours.

Fever, achy muscles, fatigue, extra mucus in your sinus cavity and chest, sneezing and coughing, and an increasing amount of brain fog and confusion.

And then the fatigue would increase exponentially, and you'd start to fall in and out of consciousness, in your fevered state, developing a really nasty headache, and even further heightened brain fog and confusion. Within 24 hours of infection, you'd fall into a light coma, and stay there for several hours. And when you'd wake up, your eyes would be full of burst capillaries, looking blood-red. Hence the whole red-eye, red-gang labels.

But that wasn't the strangest part of this new sickness. Not even close. They said when you'd wake up with those red eyes, you would no longer be you. Your personality will have been entirely altered. Or at least, for most people, your personality will have been entirely altered.

If you were already some tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy nut obsessed with the Illuminati, Pizzagate, and satanic cabal notions of an adrenochrome-drinking, kid-torturing deep state, you wouldn't change nearly as much. The strangest thing of all by far about this sickness was that everyone who got it emerged from that coma with the same beliefs, lingo, and focus. Everyone became this highly aggressive, militarized QAnon type.

with extensive knowledge of how to use various weaponry, from military-grade weapons to domestic terrorist bombs made out of basic home cleaning supplies. At the risk of sounding conspiratorial himself, Brent thought it was like the same files were being downloaded into every infected person's brain.

And once they were downloaded, you now truly believed you're an important part of a revolution to overthrow some notion of a new world order. You knew all this weird lingo and started asking the same questions if anyone you weren't sure was against you to determine if they were on your team or not. And if you didn't think they were on your team, you'd kill them. You'd burn down their house, blow up their car, shoot every member of their family in the head, and then move on to kill more and more and more.

And then over the past few days, reports started to trickle in that some red gangs had started to turn on themselves and shoot each other. There were even a few reports of red eyes taking themselves out. And that left Brent and his family wondering, was this a virus? Or was it some type of highly sophisticated nanotechnology? Did someone invent a computer virus that could interact with biological tissue? Something that, instead of replicating in your hard drive and destroying your laptop...

It replicated inside your mind, reprogramming and corrupting it. But to what end? To destroy the whole world? Or to destroy most of it and then, would some group of hackers or some organization that actually is like the fabled Illuminati release a solution and then emerge from the shadows? Would they transmit some kind of antivirus update that would deactivate all this aggression and then rule what was left of the world? That's what Brent and his family had been hoping for the past few days, actually.

A horrible possibility, but better than the alternative of everyone continually infecting and killing until there was literally no one left alive on Earth. What kind of monster would want to do this to the world? Lori now wonders, looking out the window and seeing so many homes and other buildings on fire and so many murderous red gangs marching down so many streets. Elon Musk, Cam says flatly from the backseat without a hint of humor or irony.

I still don't think so. Brent responds matter-of-factly, What's the point of making all that money and getting all that political clout if you can't spend or use it? He asks. I still think it's Trump, offers Lori.

No way, says Brent adamantly. Again, what's the point of all that money and power if you don't have a civilized world to use it in? Besides, he just won the election. Why burn the world down before spending four years gloating? No, he loves to be loved too much to want to eliminate all of his worshipers. Biden offers Rosie sarcastically. He's so mad about being pushed aside, maybe he wants to burn the world down. I mean, what does he care? It's not like he's gonna be around much longer. Brent manages a bit of a laugh at that.

Feels good. There's been so little to laugh about for so long. Yeah, he muses. I don't really see him having, frankly, the mental faculties at this point to pull something like this off. You still think it was hackers? Cam asks earnestly. I mean, I think it's the best theory out there, he answers. Except, Cam counters, that a bunch of tech experts have said that some type of man-made artificial nanovirus is years away from even being a remote possibility.

That's what they say. But can we trust them? Brent asks. Maybe they don't really know what's possible. Or maybe they're in on it. Now you're starting to sound like a red-eyed dad, Rosie asserts. If you tell us the storm is coming, we'll have to shoot you. Brent smiles. I hope you do in that scenario, he says before remarking. I can't believe how quiet the freeway is. And it is quiet. Eerily so. They've yet to see a single other vehicle since getting on it. Or at least not one with a living driver inside.

and they've almost made it to the exit to head south on Highway 95. I was thinking the same thing, Lori says. So nice. Peaceful, almost. I wish we didn't have to get off the freeway to head to Papa Jim and Grandma Kathy's. Are you still sure that's the best place to go? She asks.

100%. It's the only place to go, Brent insists before listing off all the reasons for his decision. Reasons Laurie and the kids have already heard dozens of times now, but it still feels good to go over them out loud.

No large population centers nearby. They have two big diesel generators, enough diesel and storage to keep one of those jennies running for a couple years if you use the fuel sparingly, which shouldn't be hard to do since it doesn't get too cold in that canyon in the winter, and when it does, we can stay warm with their wood stove and lots of firewood.

And if we need more firewood, we don't even have to leave the property to get it. They've also got a ton of dry goods, their own well, a bunch of wild game around, a creek running through the property with a bunch of fish in it, and most importantly, a shit ton of guns and even more ammo, Rosie recites from memory. That's right, a shit ton of guns and even more ammo, her dad repeats. And then Lori starts to sob. What's wrong, baby? Brent asks. She's too upset to talk. Are you thinking about your folks again?

She shakes her head yes. We don't know that they're dead, baby, Brent says. But he doesn't believe that. They haven't heard from them in over two weeks. Not since the week before the power grid collapsed out in the area of Michigan's Upper Peninsula where they live. And the last time they texted, Lori's dad wasn't feeling well. He'd come down with a fever and a cough. And he was tired. Real tired. Brent hated to think about it, but he assumed that he had probably turned and then killed or infected Lori's mom and God knows who else.

Brent started to think about who else they knew who was certainly or probably dead as he pulled off the freeway. And then he shook the thought out of his head. It was beyond depressing. It was almost everyone not in the car with him. Okay, everybody, he announces solemnly. We got lucky on the freeway. Let's hope our luck holds while we try and get out of town. But be prepared for anything because it probably won't be easy.

Brent and his crew still have to make it roughly two miles through town and then cross a bridge over the Spokane River that was hopefully still standing before making it to a sparsely populated stretch of highway that should be free from red ice. He was actually more worried about the military stopping them between Coeur d'Alene and Whitebird than he was about the infected. Hopefully, the military hadn't blown up any bridges or destroyed portions of the road in some desperate attempt to slow down the spread of these monsters.

Dad! Cam suddenly blurts out, clearly alarmed. Do you see that truck? He asks. Brent looks up ahead and to the right, towards where Cam is pointing. He sees something straight out of Mad Max.

He stares at a modified Fort Raptor with some kind of machine gun looking thing in its bed with a bare chested red eye who appears to be covered in war paint on the trigger. Red plague messages are spray painted all over the truck. The storm is coming. I am the lion. Trust the plan. Soldier 17. That kind of shit. Yeah, I see him, Brent says. He quickly improvises a plan and relays it. Here's what we're going to do, he instructs his family.

She nods reluctantly. Everyone now rolls their windows down as they approach the first intersection off of the freeway.

And as they slow down, the man on the big gun notices them and swivels his weapon in their direction. On three, Brent coaches, slowing down further as they draw close. Luckily, the red-eyes truck is parked on the north side of the road, and they need to turn south. Three, two, one. The kids fire a few shots into the air as Brent honks the horn. Lori doesn't shoot the new handgun Cam had handed her, but she does join in on a chant of, We are the Storm!

Brent grips the wheel with a hand that now feels sweaty. If this doesn't work, they're probably all dead, and they haven't even made it five miles from home. After a few tense moments, the man holding the big gun tilts it up towards the sky, fires a few shots above them, and lets out some battle cries. "Woo-woo! Woo-woo!" He then takes his hands off of the gun and pounds his chest as they drive by. "Holy shit, it worked!" Cam exclaims before breathing a sigh of relief as they now drive south to 95.

Dodged a bullet, Brent says. Literally, Lori adds, dodged a lot of very big bullets. They now drive past what used to be the city's main hospital. It looks like it's been burned and bombed. Same for the Starbucks across the street. They hear gunshots in the distance, and they're not coming from the modified Mad Max truck they just passed. They can see smoke rising from multiple places in the neighborhood. In front of them is Brent speeds up to about 60 miles per hour in what used to be a 35 mile per hour zone.

Should you be driving so fast? Lori asks out of habit, momentarily forgetting just how much the world has changed. I don't think traffic laws matter anymore, baby. Rent replies, taking her hand in his. I don't think any laws matter. Cam chirps from the backseat. Pretty soon, nothing will matter, will it? Lori asks dejectedly to no one in particular, looking out the window with a hopeless thousand yard stare before lamenting. What's the point of even trying to stay alive if there's no world to live in anymore?

No one answers for a few moments. It's something they've all spent too much time thinking about already. Brent finally breaks the tense silence. "Let's worry about that later," he says without looking towards his wife. "All that matters right now is making it to White Bird. If we're lucky enough to make it that far and get situated there, we'll have the luxury of really being able to think about something almost no one, I'm guessing, gets to think about anymore: what comes next." They all drive the following 30 or so seconds in contemplative silence.

Their luck holds and no one comes for them. And then they find themselves approaching the bridge over the Spokane River on the edge of town. Miraculously, it's wide open. No cars. No red gangs. No one at all. Thank you, God. Brent mutters aloud as he increases his speed to 70, and then almost 80 miles per hour as he drives onto the bridge. Dad, watch out! Rosie screams. Brent pumps the brakes as he sees why she screamed and he yells in frustration. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

A red gang has run up from the riverbank beneath the bridge and onto the road. They've driven into a trap. There was too many of them to plow through. They'd total the Range Rover, and then they'd be sitting ducks. By the time their SUV grinds to a stop, the red eyes are only 30 or 40 feet in front of Brent and his family. Damn it. They'd almost made it. The leader of the group of around 30 of them. How do they always seem to have a leader? Brent wonders. Loudly and authoritatively ask exactly what he'd expected him to.

The storm is coming. Do you fear it? They're like a bunch of goddamn robots. Cam mumbles in the back seat. Dad, what do we do? Rosie frets. There's so many of them. Stay in the car and stay quiet. Brent says calmly while he feels anything but calm. Before anyone can object, he pops out of the SUV he leaves running, gun in hand, and starts shouting.

What the fuck are all you doing here? They have the children right there. Brent points emphatically at the big marina on the water to the left. What children? The red-eyed leader asks, concerned and stepping forward. He used to be a nice guy named Shane Lamb, a handyman and the owner of a popular cider bar on Sherman. Shane had three kids and a wife he adored.

The infected thing he's become no longer cares at all about his family. It executed his wife and their two youngest kids for being deep state puppets and traitors. And it turned his oldest, Noah, into another red-eye. A red-eye who was shot and killed just the week before in a shootout with the National Guard. This new Shane thing didn't feel a hint of remorse or sadness about any of that. It only felt anger towards the new world order when Noah's brains were shot out in front of him.

Brent continues selling his bullshit narrative to the shame thing and the red eyes who follow it. You really don't know, he growls, feigning a mix of fury and frustration. Twenty or thirty kids, down in cages inside a tunnel system, below the marina, below the lake, right there. He points again at the marina aggressively before continuing. Satanists have them. We have to free them. We cannot be afraid. Fear is for the sheep, I am the lion, and we are the storm.

The Red Gang stares at both their leader and Brent silently for what feels like an eternity, but it's probably no more than five seconds as they now wait for the Shane thing to speak. Fuckin' A! He finally says emphatically. We must free the children! Death to the Deep State! Brent cheers as he raises a fist in the air. Death to the Deep State! The Red Gang echoes with a cheer of their own.

This car is fully loaded with lions, Brent bellows. More of God's soldiers. Follow us. The entrance to the tunnels is not far. Brent starts to get back into the SUV as the group begins to shuffle around and turn towards the marina just past the bridge. But then the leader, the Shane thing, shouts to stop him. Wait, he barks, adding as he approaches Brent. I'm riding with you. The rest of you follow us. Brent's stomach sinks. He thought he pulled it off.

But now how is he going to keep himself and his family from getting infected? The Shane Thing was already close enough to infect him with a single sneeze. Are you strong enough to ride on the side? He asked the red-eyed man. What? The Shane Thing responds, confused. The vehicle is too full of ammo, supplies, and lines to fit anyone else, Brent explains confidently. But there's plenty of room for a line to hold onto the side as we roll in. We're only driving up to the gate anyway. They'll hear us if we drive any closer than that.

The red-eyed Shane Thing stands no more than three feet from Brent as he considers his response. It's the closest Brent has ever been to one of them. The Shane Thing's eyes are so intense. And not just because of the blood-red sclera. There's almost no iris. The center of the eye, nearly entirely pupil. They're so dilated, Brent can't understand how the guy can handle being out in the sun and not continually squinting. His eyes also look both laser-focused and dull somehow.

There's so much aggression behind them, but a very limited type of intelligence behind that aggression and zero humanity. After another tense moment with Brent worried that the bastard will cough or sneeze at any second or that just him speaking to him so closely will be enough to send a virus or an artificial nano virus into his mouth or eyes or onto his skin and then it'll burrow into his bloodstream and he'll be one of these things by the same time tomorrow. The red eye says no.

"'What are you waiting for? Hop in and I'll hop on and away we go!' "'Trust the plan,' Brent replies, relieved. "'Time to enter the tunnel and root him out!' "'Trust the plan!' the red-eye repeats, Brent still feeling nervous, with his family looking scared and silent while doing their best to hide all that and appear stoic and determined. He gets back in, shuts the door, waits for the red-eye to stand on the aftermarket running board and reach inside and hold on, and then he starts to creep the Range Rover ahead.'

They slowly drive right through the Red Gang horde. Cam, Lori, and Rosie scanning all the zombie-like armed soldiers around them. Such a surreal scene that none of them could have ever imagined less than two months earlier. Less than one month earlier, even. Soon they've made it all the way to the front of the horde, and now they slowly proceed towards the marina entrance. Brent is desperately thinking about how the hell they're going to get out of this.

If he slams on the gas and sends this asshole flying, he'll start shooting as long as he's not too hurt to do so. And even if he can't, the rest of the horde behind them will certainly open fire and obliterate them. If he instead tries to speed up just a bit to sneak away, this guy might quickly catch on and understand he's been tricked and then open fire. Right before he needs to pull into the marina, the best option hits him. His best and only real chance.

While the Shane thing is turned back and looking at his fellow red eyes, Brent puts his finger to his lips, motioning for his family to stay silent. And then with the red eye holding onto the vehicle by grabbing the oh shit handle fixed to the cab ceiling, Brent starts to slowly roll up his window. And just before it touches the man's skin, he stops. He now quickly grabs the man's wrist, pulls his arm down hard against the top of the window with everything he's got, and simultaneously pushes the gas pedal all the way to the floor. It works.

The Shane Thing drops his gun and cries out in pain as he slams back and into the vehicle and he grabs at the top of the window with his free hand. He's able to hang on but the window isn't open far enough for him to reach in, or breathe, or bleed in. Best of all, because he's still attached to the vehicle, the other red eyes are hesitant to fire. "Aaah!" The man continues to scream as the Range Rover picks up speed and moves, thankfully around the bend. They're mere seconds away from being totally out of shooting distance now.

As they motor around the corner, Brent lets go of the Shane thing's hand, but the red eye manages to grab onto the top of the window with it, and now he's holding on with both hands and grinning like the fucking maniac he is. You're no lion, he roars. No, I'm just scared, Brent says before tapping the brakes and instantaneously launching the man cartwheeling to his death on the side of the road. Yes! Cam screams victoriously. Oh my god, Dad, that was fucking awesome! Rosie adds, Holy shit!

Lori looks less excited. She's worried. "Baby," she says gently, "you touched him. You touched his skin." "I know, baby," Brent sighs. Any feelings of celebration quickly give way to concern. After a moment to process what just happened, Brent announces, "No one touches me until further notice. If I start to get sick in the next hour or two, we'll have to separate. There are bleach wipes in the back. You'll need to clean down my seat and hope that's enough." Lori hands her husband a surgical mask from the glove box.

He silently puts it on and worries that he'll forget to take it off if they're confronted by more red eyes. If they catch him wearing it, he imagines there will be no point in trying to trick or reason with them. They'll know with certainty he's not one of them. "Dad?" Cam asks. "How come he didn't kill you when he saw that your eyes weren't red like his?" "I don't know," Brent replies. "There's so much about all of this that just doesn't make any sense."

And with that, and with their brief victory over, the Collins drive down the highway in pain and silence. A highway that both feels familiar, as they've made this drive dozens of times before, and both completely unknown due to the whole world, including the highway, being turned upside down. Laurie, meanwhile, scrolls through the SiriusXM dial, trying to find a station still giving live updates on the crumbling state of the world.

The latest reports on Manhattan say the island is now almost entirely on fire. Explosions, thought mostly to be the result of homemade bombs, continue to rock the city. There is no longer military or law enforcement presence of any kind. If you are in Manhattan and you can hear me, which I realize is doubtful considering the power grid having been down for over a week and all cell phone towers in the area having been rendered useless, you are on your own.

If you are able to stay hidden where you are, and you have enough supplies to survive for the next few weeks, trying to wait this out is likely your best option. Sporadic fighting between red-eye gangs, vigilante groups, and a limited number of military and law enforcement personnel continue in the other four boroughs. I've been told all five boroughs are expected to fall within the next 48 hours. Because of that, there is a very good chance that today will be my last broadcast.

Although many of you know I record remotely, much of our infrastructure is in the New York City or Los Angeles areas, and LA is also expected to completely fall to the red plague in the coming days. It seems, and I wish I had better news, that the only real hope for all of us, no matter where we live, is to wait all of this out as the infected appear to begin to turn on themselves. More reports of eyewitnesses seeing red eyes attack one another have come in over the last 12 or so hours.

Additionally, just minutes before I sat down for this broadcast, we received several reports, one including video that I watched and can verify, of red eyes dying of suicide. I realize how morbid it may be to say this, as we all have lost loved ones to the infection at this point, but our best chance for the survival of the entire human race at this point may be the only chance is for the infected to take out themselves and others, before continuing to spread the infection.

It is not currently known how long the virus, or whatever biological or non-biological agent is causing this, can live outside of the host. As many of you heard from our medical expert correspondent Dr. Susan Blackwell last week, before she tragically was murdered, along with the other members of her household in a Red Gang attack.

If the virus or nanovirus, as more voices are calling it, cannot live outside a human host for more than 12 to 24 hours, which is what is currently believed to be true, and if all of the infected in an area are dead, within a single day that area will be clean and thus safe for the non-infected. At least, of course, until more red eyes enter the area. But if all of the infected in a large area have died, then it will be possible to begin to reclaim territory lost to this plague.

And we can hope that the end of this hell and the beginning of rebuilding a new world has begun. Moving on to Europe now. London, Paris, and other major... I think that's all I can take for now. Brent says as he lowers the volume to zero. Lori and the kids don't say anything. They just stare at Brent, looking for signs of infection. It's been almost exactly 30 minutes since the red-eye encounter on the bridge leaving town, and they're approaching the little logging community of Plummer now. Brent isn't feeling great. His stomach feels off, and he feels clammy as well.

But he can't tell if it's due to coming down with something, coming down with the only thing that matters at this point, or if it's nerves over possibly being infected. Or what if he's just coming down with one of the many little bugs that existed before all this began? It's not like the Red Plague was now the world's only illness.

He should know definitely, he thinks, if he has it within the next 90 minutes. And by that time, if he doesn't start to sneeze yet, and if they don't encounter more problems, he'll have driven his family just past Lewiston. They can drop him off, and he can feel good knowing he likely drove them to the most dangerous part of the trip, and now they'll have another 90 minutes or so to drive without him through very sparsely populated country.

Shit! He exclaims, his stomach dropping as he rounds the last little bend before the highway straightens out, heading into town. Adding as he points, looks like we might have trouble up ahead. Brent, Lori, and the kids stare down the highway and see a large gathering in the center of town between the hardware store and the Zips drive-in.

It's much too far to see the color of their eyes, but judging by the sounds of gunfire and messages spray-painted onto the sides of the vehicles and homemade don't tread on me and we are the storm type flags billowing off the backs of a bunch of jacked up pickup trucks and the sounds of gunfire, it seems fairly obvious that it's a red-eye gang possibly battling some local vigilantes or executing a large group of the uninfected.

Stop the car, Brent! Stop the car! Lori urges, sounding and looking like she's about to freak out. We can't, Lori! Brent counters. We can't go back. If we don't make it to Whitebird, we're dead. But Dad, we can't just drive through that! Cam objects. No, we can't, Brent agrees, scanning the area's side roads. We have to get around it. How? Lori asks. The highway is the only road that cuts through town.

Brent points ahead into the right and tells her, no, I don't think so. I think that little road by that big trailhead or whatever, it curves around town. And if it doesn't, she responds, then I guess we'll finally see if this thing drives off the road like it does on the commercials. Rosie deadpants. That's right, Brent agrees before his eyes catch movement in his rear view mirror. Fuck, he grunts. We've got more trouble behind us. Hang on. The V8 roars as he races it up to almost 80 miles an hour now before breaking hard to make the turn towards the trailhead.

Lori and the kids look behind them and see a Hummer, Dodge Ram TRX, and a pair of what look like an old F-150 and maybe a Chevy Silverado racing up behind them. The Hummer's grille on the passenger side is dented and bloody from where someone was clearly run down. A wild-looking man with long hair wearing ski goggles and a camo tank top hangs out the passenger side window holding a shotgun with a big grin on his face.

The TRX and the other two trucks have several men standing in the truck beds, even though they're flying down the highway at somewhere around 90 miles an hour. Self-preservation, clearly not a big concern for them. Do you think they know for sure we're not red eyes? Cam asks, trying to muster up a bit of hope. And then before Brent can reply, he gets his answer when the guy with the shotgun fires and they hear a few pellets rattle off the back of the Range Rover, just below the rear windshield.

Lori is crying now. She's been on the edge of a full-on nervous breakdown for days. Brent worries about her mental state as much as he worries about her getting killed or infected. Even if she makes it, she might not make it, so to speak. Rosie holds her 9mm tight. Brent still wonders if she'll be able to actually point and shoot it at anyone, but just holding it now clearly gives her comfort, which is progress. Cam has lowered himself in his seat to make himself less of a target, leading Brent to remind everyone else to do the same.

Get down, everybody! They'll be shooting again! Brent shouts as he cranks the wheel hard to the right and then pushes the gas down again. The front two of the four vehicles chasing them miss the turn completely, braking too late. The TRX sends a few guys in his truck bed flying out.

The two older trucks slam on their brakes as well and lose most of the men who were standing in the beds. "What the actual fuck!" Cam yells as he watches four or five red eyes die when they hit the road and several more get pretty mangled. Brent now flies down Annie Antelope Road past a little school of some kind before taking a hard right on A Street and then an immediate left on 15th, which looks like it'll take them all the way past the other group of red eyes in the center of town.

Cam! Rosie! He shouts. See if you can tell what's going on in town. They all hear gunshots and yelling coming from that area as they gain some distance on the older trucks behind them. The red eyes still on their tail can't navigate the corners like the Range Rover.

Too far away to see their eyes, but it looks like it's a bunch of red eyes fighting each other. Cam answers from the back. Thank God. It's all Brent manages to get out before having to slam on the brakes again and make a hard left on E Street. Oh my God! Lori cries out as she feels the vehicle's wheels on the left side come up off of the ground. Almost there! Brent yells. One more hard turn and we fly!

He and his family then catch a lucky break as the old Silverado-looking truck behind them, a truck that had already lost all of its men in the bed to previous corners, now loses control completely and crashes into a house as it tries to turn onto E Street. Only the old F-150 remains, and it's also now devoid of any truck bed red eyes. Hang on, Brett warns yet again as he once more slams the brakes and cranks the wheel to the right, skidding out onto the highway and then gunning it.

They did it. They fucking did it. They made it past the roadblock of fighting bodies and vehicles in the middle of Plummer. Cam, Lori, and Rosie all look back at the melee in the center of town in time to see one red eye wielding an actual sword and hacking away at a man who falls to the ground, while another throws what looks like a pipe bomb into a crowd of people shooting and brawling. They also see the F-150. It's still behind them.

Brent hopes not for long as he speeds past the town's lumber mill. Quickly accelerating to over 100 miles per hour as the V8 roars confidently. They speed up a hill south of town, driving still faster past the thick pine forest on each side of the road, putting more and more distance between them and the F-150. "We're doing it! We're fucking doing it!" Brent yells triumphantly. "Woo!" Cam cheers from the back. Lori and Rosie, while they don't appear celebratory, they at least look relieved.

Brent? Lori soon says, looking ahead and sounding nervous again. When Brent nonchalantly replies, yeah? She screams, Brent, look out! Brent sees the cause for concern a moment too late. Something metal is laying across the highway ahead. It looks like rows and rows of nails pointed up towards the sky. A spike strip. God damn it! Brent shouts in anger and frustration as he breaks and tries to turn around it. But he's driving too fast.

He veers to the right and his front and rear left tires both catch the strip and are blown.

At the same time, his right tires slide onto the gravel on the embankment and he loses control of the vehicle as he now finds himself speeding directly towards some big pines below the road. He tries to turn to avoid them but overcorrects and rolls the Range Rover while still driving at over 50 miles an hour. The heavy vehicle proceeds to roll several times, also falling down the bank before crashing to a hard stop against a pair of Western Whites. The airbag briefly knocked Brent unconscious.

When he wakes up, less than a minute later, he's upside down. He can groggily hear his wife moaning to his right. She sounds injured. Both his kids sound relatively unharmed and are yelling from the back. Dad! Dad, we have to get out! He can also hear a few men approaching from his left. One of them is yelling, The storm is coming! And we know you fear it, you fucking pedos! That's why you were running! That's why you all-

The red-eye's insane proclamation is cut short by the sound of a rifle firing, and then Brent hears his body dropping to the ground, dead from a headshot. The two other red-eyes with him, the last two psychopaths who had managed to keep chase with him to this point, now open fire with their semi-automatic assault rifles, shooting in the direction of the new gunman before another rifle shot is heard, and another red-eye drops to the ground.

And then a third rifle shot is heard five or so seconds later, followed by the last man falling down dead. Three rounds, three headshots. Someone took them out with a sniper's rifle. Someone who might actually be a sniper. Brent thinks to himself as he fiddles with his seatbelt and manages to unlatch it. He grunts as he slams into the Range Rover's dented-in roof. Anyone got any broken bones? He asks as he twists himself around and begins to crawl backwards out of the busted driver's side window. I'm good, Dad, announces Cam.

Me too, echoes Rosie. What about you, baby? Brent asks Lori. No response. He looks across the cab and she's no longer groaning. Blood drips down from a nasty gash on her head. She looks either unconscious or perhaps even dead. Lori! He yells, trying not to panic the kids. Baby, can you hear me? Lori! Rosie screams. Lori, wake up! Brent is able to finish crawling out of the cab and races around the smashed vehicle to the other side. By the time he's made it around, Rosie has been able to undo her seatbelt as well.

Help your brother get free! Hurry!" Brent shouts. "Lori, baby, wake up!" He yells as he starts to reach in and assess how hurt she is and how to get her out. "Lori, Lori, wake up!" Rosie and Cam both scream. "Silence!" A man's booming voice yells from the road above them following the gunshot. "Red eyes don't yell like that!" He continues as he approaches. "Any red eye hears you squealing like that is bound to come here running. And I only have so many bullets."

Brent looks up and sees a large, tall, muscular older man fully decked out in tactical gear, wearing camo with a sniper's rifle across his back and what looks like a .357 Magnum Desert Eagle in his bare paw of a right hand. He looks, at least to Brent, to be ex-military, probably special forces.

His thinning salt and pepper hair is cut high and tight. Five o'clock shadow covers his tanned and weathered cheeks above his strong jawline and thick neck. A large hand-carved wooden cross necklace dangles above his chest. "Sorry about the spike strip," he barks with an authority likely earned from commanding other soldiers. Looking sternly at Brent and scanning his children, he then explains and inquires, "That was for them, not you. Who's badly hurt?" and answer quietly,

"'My wife,' Brent answers. "'Lori, she was moaning a few moments ago, but now we don't even know if she's breathing.' "'All right,' the man states unemotionally, without introducing himself. "'Get her out as quick as possible. And don't any of you pick up a weapon. I don't know you. Red eyes aren't the only people we have to worry about these days. If she's alive, I have medical supplies back at the Ark. If she's dead, you won't have time to bury or grieve her here. Dead or alive, we're leaving fast.'

"Ark?" Brent repeats in his head as he exchanges a concerned glance with Cam and then nods at the sniper. The guy makes him nervous. Real nervous. Brent doesn't like his energy at all. And if he wasn't so damn good with the gun, he'd tell him how fucking pissed he was that he just wrecked their vehicle and possibly killed his wife.

Fuck! He silently screamed in his head. As he unbuckles his wife, worried she's dead, he's also worried that this asshole just killed any chance his family had at making it to Whitebird. He very possibly sentenced his whole family to die. Cam, help me pull her out. He asks as calmly as he can, trying not to break down. Cam nods and they get Lori out of the vehicle. Brent checks for her pulse and quickly breathes a sigh of relief. Oh, thank God. He smiles. She's alive, he tells the sniper.

"'All right,' he answers flatly. "'You and the boy can carry her to the Ark. "'What about our supplies?' Brent asks cautiously. "'We can come back for that tonight after the sun goes down.' The sniper responds coolly. "'If the Red Eye is looted before that, we'll still be fine. "'I have an arsenal.' Brent hates his plan but nods. This guy doesn't seem like the kind of man to argue with, especially not in their current situation. "'You and the boy can carry the woman,' the sniper states before looking at Rosie. "'You,' he asks.'

Have you ever been with a man? Brent's stomach sinks as his terrified daughter looks to him instead of answering. Are you deaf? The sniper now bellows, irritated. No. Rosie squeaks nervously, still looking at her father instead of the sniper. Then she looks at the strange, scary man and says nervously, I don't know what you mean. Are you a virgin? Do you understand that? He asks patronizingly.

Cam looks like he's about to interject when Brent grabs his arm and squeezes, telling him with just his eyes to stay silent. Answer him, sweetie, Brent slowly states to his daughter. With tears welling up in her eyes, she meekly replies, Yes? Good, the sniper beams, satisfied. What has happened to the world these past weeks is a direct result of man's sin and debauchery.

It has all been foretold by God. I have been studying Scripture for most of my life, and I understand it like few ever have. I have been blessed with the gifts of divine knowledge and wisdom, and I understand that we have been given the merciful opportunity for a new Eden, one we must populate only with the purest and most virginal of souls. A tear rolls down one of Rosie's cheeks as she looks again to her dad and brother. Brent forces a smile and answers,

"'The girl is pure. I've kept my house in order. This guy is far from stable and clearly lethal with a gun. Brent doesn't think he'll hesitate to shoot him and Cam and leave Lori for dead if he makes a wrong move, and then do God knows what with Rosie. "'Good man,' the sniper smiles approvingly while looking at Rosie lecherously. "'The girl walks with me,' the man says. "'You two will carry the woman ahead of us. Take the trail there,' he points. "'God's Ark is near.'

Brent and Cam now lift Lori, who begins to groan lightly, and prepare to start moving towards the trail. Before they turn and walk, Brent does his best to shoot Rosie a look of, stay calm, everything is going to be okay. He hopes he's right. He worries they've just escaped one previously unimaginable hell, and are walking right into one that's somehow even worse.

And that's it for this Nightmare Fuel. I hope you loved or were horrified by or at least entertained by today's tale of the storm.

The first in either two or three consecutive planned nightmare fuels. And maybe a new world we can also come back and revisit later from time to time after that. Let me know if you don't mind in a scared to death review wherever you listen to your podcasts or in Instagram or Facebook comments when we post for this episode on at scared to death podcast. If you'd like to see a full three episode arc before I move forward with any other stories. There's so much to explore when it comes to the Red Plague. I'm very excited to do so.

Today's tale was written by me, Dan Cummins, and scored by Logan Keith. If you enjoyed this story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic Productions catalog. Time Suck every Monday at noon Pacific time, with Little Short Sucks on some Fridays, and these new Nightmare Fuel episodes on some Fridays as well. And new episode to the now long-running Paranormal Podcast, Scared to Death, every Tuesday at midnight. Thanks so much for the recent reviews. They've been fantastic, and they definitely help us find new listeners and stay relevant.

Please go to badmagicproductions.com for all your bad magic needs, including all show-related merch, and stay scared. Bad Magic Productions.