Cold Front

 cold front (definition): The boundary of an advancing mass of cold air, in particular the trailing edge of the warm sector of a low-pressure system.  

 front (definition): the foremost line or part of an armed force; the furthest position that an army has reached and where the enemy is or may be engaged.  

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The snow fell and covered everything with a new coat of frost as the sun shone. The sun was out, but it was not hot. The snowfall reminded him of ash. It was around midday that he would come out and put the lawn-chair on the bus. It wasn't going to move, because it was cemented in the snow. The frost was thick, and there was no thaw in sight. The cold was piercing to the skin; it was so cold it burned. He was heavily undercoated — but no matter how cold the day, he would always come out and sit on the bus and stare at the once high roofs of the buildings and gaze towards the clouds in the distance. The clouds were always gathered such that he could never see a horizon past the buildings, but he knew it was there. It had to be. He would sit there with a book sometimes. But most of the times he sat there, gazing up at the snowing sky. He wondered if they were still there. Or if they had left. He had no idea, but he knew that if he pondered on it long enough he'd end up like somebody else—paralyzed with fear and unable to run when they came. And they would come. They came to their last home, too. He had watched as his own family was slaughtered. He remembered seeing a hole in his sister's jacket and wondering how she'd gotten Kool Aid on her jacket. He hadn't seen Kool Aid in ages, but when she flopped lifelessly to the ground like a piece of meat in a cold storage facility, he knew that life from now on was different. He was thinking about his sister's frozen face of horror when he heard his name hissed from below.

"You up here?" he called.

"Yup," he said back.

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Yeah."

"Dunno. Cause I like it?"

"Well, c'mon back down. Freezing my ass off just standin here."

"Why'd you come out naked?"

"I didn't!"

"Then how are you freezing your ass off?"

"You really are a smartass, aren't ya?"

He smiled and then realized David couldn't see that, so he said: "Yup."

"Amanda's lookin for you."

"No she's not."

Silence.

And then, "Dammit. How'd you know?"

"Cause we're married, David. She knows I like to come out here. She wouldn't be wondering."

"It Tuesday?"

"Yup."

David said, "Five."

"Gotcha."

Thud. And he sat back and lounged in the seat because that is what it was built for, and he hooked his hands behind his head, and he dreamed a nightmare.

He opened his eyes and Amanda's eyes were in his face. "Are you OK?" she screamed. He looked down and saw the Kool Aid on her chest. He looked up at his wife. "She's dead." Amanda nodded, she was holding a gun in his open-palmed hand.

"They need you!" she screamed. Why was she screaming? And then the dream remembered, and there was constant shelling and the rattling and shaking of their safety of the den. It was a small basement that connected with other basements in the once-suburban area. They had created a burrow that they used to travel around so that their infrared devices wouldn't see their heat signatures. He held the gun and cocked the hammer back. It was a man's gun. A .357-Mag. He flicked it open and checked the cylinder and grabbed from the shelf eight of the Mag's shells and loaded them.