The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World

Eventually, the doors opened, and the line rushed forward. Don was swept up with them, and managed to cop one more glance at the blonde’s ass before she vanished into the crowd.

He got his hand stamped so that he wouldn’t be sequestered with the under-21 crowd, and then made his way to the bar. He sipped a cold beer and watched the women. None of them had anything on his wife, Debbie. Don missed her. He wished she could have come along, but she wasn’t into Necessary Evil’s music, and had stayed home with the kids. He’d kissed her goodbye before he left. She’d been watching the evening news, something about an accident at a government research facility on the east coast.

A local disc jockey came out on stage and tried to warm up the crowd. He was met with boos and jeers. When he was done promoting the station’s lame, Howard Stern rip-off morning show, the opening band, Your Kid’s On Fire, took the stage. Don had never heard them, but it was clear that the younger kids in the club had. A mosh pit erupted in front of the stage as the band launched into their first song.

The music was typical Nordic black-metal; growly metal is what Don called it. He watched in amused disgust as one kid leaped into the air and landed on another’s back. The unlucky individual crashed to the floor and disappeared beneath a wave of swarming bodies.

Don spied the blonde from the line outside. She was standing at the edge of the circle, laughing with her friends and watching with excited interest. Suddenly, a guy with an eight ball tattooed on his forehead lunged forward, grabbed her arm, and pulled her into the pit. A fist crashed into her jaw, and the gum flew from her mouth.

“Hey,” Don shouted, rising from his seat at the bar. “That’s fucked up!”

He slammed his beer down on the bar and waded into the fray. Blood streamed from the girls head, and then she vanished from sight, bobbing helplessly in the frantic sea of moshers. When Don spied her again, her nose was a swollen, spurting, crimson bulb.

He shoved people out of the way and entered the eye of the storm.

The girl collapsed to the floor, and somebody landed a solid kick to her head with their steel-toed boot. Don slammed into the attacker and knocked him sprawling.

The band stopped playing in mid-song, and the lights came up. Groans of dismay and angry shouts gave way to silence, and a hush fell over the crowd Don knelt beside the girl, cradling her head in his lap. “Call an ambulance!” he yelled.

He checked for a pulse, and found none. Her skin was pale, and Don was shocked at the amount of blood. It was everywhere—on her clothes, her face, the floor. He put his ear to her mouth, but she wasn’t breathing.

“Yo,” a concert-goer behind him asked. “She okay, dog?”

“No,” Don said. “She—I think she’s dead.”

“That’s fucked up.”

Don checked her wrist again, but there was no pulse. The warmth was leaving the girl’s body. He laid her down on the mosh pit floor, just as two beefy security guards pushed their way through the crowd to him.

“Clear a hole,” one of them shouted, eyeing Don with suspicion. “What happened?”

“Somebody kicked her,” Don said. He looked around for the guy with the eight ball tattoo, but the attacker had melted into the crowd.

“Hey,” one of the bouncers suddenly shouted.

“She’s alive. She’s moving!”

The blonde sat up, her blood bright and garish against her alabaster skin. She grinned, and then sank her teeth into Don’s crotch.

Surprisingly, there was no pain, just a dull, cold sensation. He looked down and saw her burrowing into the streaming wound, like a dog burying a bone.

His last thought was one of quiet dismay. He’d never get to see Necessary Evil’s mosh pit for himself.

FAMILY REUNION

The Rising

Day Two

Ghost Island, Minnesota

Terry Schue yawned and said, “Where are they?”

“Maybe they got delayed,” Chip suggested.

“Traffic could have been bad.”

“No.” Terry shook his head. “They would have called.”

“This is your family we’re talking about,” Chip grunted. “Do you really expect your mom or stepfather to pick up the phone and let you know they’re running late? That would indicate common courtesy on their parts.”

“What are you saying?”

“I mean your mom was mentally abusive to you all these years, and your stepfather used to beat the shit out of you both. Why would they feel the need to call and let us know they’re late?”

“Okay,” Terry replied. “But they’re still my family, and I do love them, despite everything. My step-dad has been trying to make up for all of that ever since he got diagnosed with prostate cancer. And Mom has mellowed with age.”

“They’ll have to prove it to me. We’ve been together eighteen years, Terry, and I’ve seen just what your family is capable of. I hate the way they treat you sometimes. Just because Bob has suddenly been humbled by his own mortality, doesn’t excuse the fact that he’s a bully.”