Last Days (Last Days Trilogy #1) by Jacqueline Druga

rubble. Those still standing were on fire. Bodies were everywhere, and the rats were feeding.
    Bonfires burned in the park and beer cans were scattered on the ground. Men ran about making oddly muted sounds.
    Marcus’ foot hit an empty Pepsi can, causing it to scrape loudly against the concrete. He was drawn to voices cheering in the distance. The voices grew louder. He turned into a dark alley no more than twelve feet across.
    Toward the end, the alley opened up to a fenced park. Marcus walked toward the park but was almost immediately cast down as a motorcycle roared past his left shoulder. The driver skidded to a stop, turned toward Marcus and smiled, his hair long and black, his face dirty. “Welcome,” he said. With a deep laugh, he drove off.
    As the bike vanished, Marcus heard sobbing, familiar, but still distant. A woman knelt at the top of a small hill, hunched forward, sobbing uncontrollably into her hands.
    Marcus walked toward the woman, her cries growing louder as he approached.
    “Hello,” Marcus spoke, and then crouched down next to her. He bent his head as if in prayer, his eyes catching sight of a diluted blood-red stream, flowing down the gentle incline that separated them.
    Marcus dipped his finger into the stream, amazed to find that it was, in fact, blood.
    He lifted his eyes to the source of the stream. He saw male legs crossed at the ankles, an iron spike driven through the feet, pinning them to a wooden cross.
    Marcus tried to make out the man’s face, but the rain was too heavy. The man’s features appeared as though part of an oblique sculpture; nothing definite, nothing certain.
    Perhaps the woman would stop crying, Marcus thought, if she knew this was all a dream. He placed his hand on her bent back. “Stop crying. It’s all right. None of this is really happening.”
    “No.” She shook her head, “it is.” Slowly, she lifted her face, pulling aside her baby-blue veil. She looked directly at Marcus.
    The blueness of her eyes took a hold of Marcus. Only one woman had eyes that blue. “Reg?” Marcus asked, astonished.
    “Save him, Marcus. Save him,” she cried.
    “Who?” Marcus asked.
    “He is our only hope.”
    Confused, Marcus wiped the rain from his face. He looked ahead, but the ankle-spiked man was gone, replaced by a pair of demonic green and yellow eyes on the horizontal cross bar. A beastly baritone voice accompanied the eyes and instructed him, “Leave!”
    Marcus forced himself awake. “Shit!” he muttered, as he opened his eyes.
    After realizing he was still on the airplane, he closed his eyes for a second and tried to slow his heartbeat. But the taste of blood in his mouth recaptured his focus.
    Marcus jerked to a sitting position as a beam of light lit him from his left.
    “Are you all right, sir?” a man asked, holding a flashlight.
    “John?” Marcus blinked his eyes.
    “Yes, sir. It’s me, sir. Are you okay?” John responded.
    “Yeah. Wow, what a dream,” Marcus said. He straightened himself in the row of the chairs, only then realizing that he was at least fifteen feet from where he’d originally fallen asleep.
    “Sir?” John looked at him oddly. “The plane crashed, sir. The right engine exploded on descent and we had to make an emergency landing. The pilot lost control at the end of the runway.”
    “We crashed?” Marcus asked, eyes wide open. “Tell me no one was killed.”
    “Fortunately, only injuries so far, but there are some really bad ones, sir.”
    Marcus exhaled slowly, and then panicked. He checked his wrist and saw that the case was still attached. He then checked the vials. They were still intact.
    “Let me help you off the plane, sir.” John held out his hand.
    Marcus stood up, and looked around the plane. Windows were displaced; debris was everywhere. He was amazed and grateful that he slept through it all.
    Inching his way through the crooked seats, Marcus gazed around the plane in a daze, subconsciously dreaming of Reggie and