Fog City: A Short Story (Voices of the Apocalypse Book 5) Read Free

and I lost touch with my main contact about a month ago. Not sure what happened, but he’s off the grid. He’s the one who told me about the real rollout plan, which is why I was stationed in San Francisco––to keep an eye on the firm. The project we’ve been working on at the firm is not some gala event, or fundraiser, or whatever horseshit they’ve been saying. It’s a mass genocide. Starting with Los Angeles.”
    I laughed because he sounded nuts. “This isn’t the holocaust, Crow. We’ve moved beyond that brainwashed mindset. We’re a little more civilized than that.”
    “You think?”
    I wasn’t sure what I thought. I had just lost my job and I was sitting on the CEO’s sex slave bed, while the office and possibly the entire city crumbled around me. “It’s all so fantastical. Why would the elites want to kill off everyone? They need us.”
    “What do they need us for?”
    “To buy and sell their products. It’s called capitalism.”
    “You think they give a monkey’s tit about capitalism? They don’t need us. We’re vermin to these people. Just a bunch of unruly rats that need to follow the Pied Piper into the Weser River. The Repatterning is the Pied Piper, and we’ve entered the river phase of the plan.”
    My stomach twisted up and I needed a drink. I didn’t want to listen to his paranoid ramblings. I walked over to the tray of crystal bottles containing various types of alcohol and poured a tall glass of vodka. I drank down a few hard sips. “What the hell does that even mean? The river phase of the plan? You sound insane.”
    “They begin the final phases of the Repatterning in Los Angeles tonight. They’ll start with the low-income neighborhoods. Taking them out one by one. They’ll collapse what’s left of the local economy, and by the end of the week, the whole grid will be burned to the ground. They’ll say it’s for the greater good. That they’re cleaning up the mess the virus left behind. But they’re just clearing out the remaining people. They’ll keep a handful of them to finish working on the Los Angeles City Center. Some will be shipped off to plantations to work for the elites. And then they’ll start rolling out to other major cities and all the places in between.”
    “And you’re planning on fighting these bastards?”
    “They’re too powerful to fight, but there are groups going underground. We’re hiding in the woods and staying put until the worst of it is over. Eventually, we pool together our resources and fight back. I’m offering you a spot.”
    “In the underground?” I glanced at my black pencil skirt and high heels and laughed. Not exactly the underground type.
    Crow pulled out another weathered cigarette from his jacket and lit it up. I walked back over to the bed and took the cigarette, taking a long drag. I would’ve rather kissed him, but the timing felt off. Sure, we were all alone, sitting on the most exquisite bed I had ever seen, but we were talking about the end of society and rats jumping into a river. Kissing seemed inappropriate.
    The sky had shifted to black as the fog rolled in over the city. Crow leaned over and stubbed out the cigarette in one of the nearby candles. Then, without even asking, he pulled me toward his body and kissed me, easing me back onto the bed. I wanted Crow more than I wanted anything. More than I wanted to live to see another day. I didn’t care what was happening in the world, or that Los Angeles was going to burn, or that every city would eventually topple to the ground. I just wanted Crow.
    But he stopped.
    “Why?” I muffled into his ear.
    “We need to focus.”
    “You just made that impossible. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. You can’t stop now.”
    But he stayed stopped.
    “We have to get ready. Prepare.”
    “Can’t we just stay here until it’s over?” I kissed his neck, wanting him to finish what he started.
    “None of this will be here much longer. The whole city will go