OUT MARCH 5, 2022

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

Summary

It's been nearly seven thousand days since the world ended. Seven thousand days of devastation, seven thousand days of shifting wastelands and dangerous creatures, seven thousand days of a vicious fight for survival. Humanity has long gone silent, except for two voices.Lota's broadcast has served as the sole beacon in this time of darkness for years now, and she reports on everything from daily events to her own deepest fears in the hopes of connecting with another person. But these hopes begin to dwindle as time goes on, and it becomes increasingly evident that solitary survival under these conditions is unlikely at best.Rachel, meanwhile, lives on her own in the empty shell of her family's former home and place of work, a laboratory across the ocean, doing anything she can to get by. But when a mysterious disease ravages Rachel's crops and the ghosts of her past come back to haunt her, it becomes increasingly evident that she needs to leave. She has nowhere to go, however, until one night, the impossible happens: she uncovers Lota's broadcast.Then it becomes a race for them to beat the odds—to cross an ocean and hundreds of miles of radioactive land, outrun superhuman mutations and monsters of every kind, not to mention braving the elements—and for two of the last people on earth to find each other.

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A Vacation & the End of the World

Lydia O’Hara was a hard-working woman. At thirty-five, she’d ascended the ranks at her job, which was in an office building next to the convenience store. She had a stable income, a nice house, enough to support her kids without their father, who had left during her third pregnancy.She had graduated third-best in her class. She had volunteered at her church on weekends. She had played soccer, and, while she’d never been team captain, she’d been good.Lydia O’Hara was good at lots of things. Playing it safe was one of them.She met Yvonne Kunuk one summer while Yvonne was visiting family in town. For the first time in a long time, Lydia felt like a teenager again. They hung out at the edge of town, eating takeout in the woods, telling each other old ghost stories, returning long past sunset with the scent of wildflowers and fresh-turned earth clinging to their hair and clothes.The children liked her. Yvonne rode a sleek black motorcycle, and she had a leather jacket she sometimes let them take turns wearing, and she brought them candy whenever she came over to visit, and she was pretty. Really, really pretty.Lydia O’Hara liked to play it safe. Or, at least, she had. Until Yvonne.
Yvonne rented an apartment near Lydia’s house. Then she moved into the family’s guest room. She encouraged Lydia to try new things (the kinds of things Lydia had been too scared to try back in high school) and to look out for herself, every once in a while.The anniversary of the divorce was approaching quickly, and Lydia found herself… stressed. Work was difficult, and her oldest daughter was having trouble in math class, and her mother was sick, and there were a million tiny inconsequential problems that piled up and overwhelmed her.Take a vacation, Yvonne said. Go down to Florida and visit your mother. Have a beach day. Bring back some souvenirs.Yvonne helped her pack and promised to take care of the kids. It would only be a week-long trip. She could cook easy meals and pop on a movie each night, and she could swap shifts with her coworker at the convenience store so she’d be able to do dropoff and pickup.On the sixth of May in 1996, Lydia O’Hara boarded a flight down to Florida, planning to stay until the twelfth or the thirteenth. She did not return.Her last words to her girlfriend and three kids took place over the phone. “Don’t worry about what’s on the news. I’ll be home soon. I love you.”

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