Her Viking Wolves

Chapter 1

Avery

People used to sit around and amuse themselves by predicting how the world would end.

Nuclear war. Biblical apocalypse. Super volcano. Solar flare. Global pandemic. Rogue artificial intelligence. Climate collapse. An earthquake so devastating the only name they could come up with for it was The Big One.

Turns out, whoever had meteor on their Doomsday Bingo Card was right. Guess what they win for being right? Nothing. Just front-row tickets to the end of the world, same as the rest of us. They don’t even need reservations.

“Who wants another round?” the bartender calls out, and the response is nearly deafening.

My voice is just one among many asking for a refill, so I slide my glass across the bar and wait for him to get to me.

It’s been three years since the meteor was spotted.

Two years since the world governments admitted they couldn’t slow it down, much less stop it.

It’s bigger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, and with all our so-called advanced technology, it wasn’t spotted until it slipped past the sun’s glare.

The giant fireball that keeps us alive also hid what will destroy us. Some people consider that poetic.

There were riots in the beginning. Mass chaos. Several world governments fell, and anarchy reigned. Still reigns, as far as any of us know. The media has stopped covering things now. The only thing on television is a countdown clock.

“Two hours,” I mutter, glancing at the countdown, then forcing a half-hearted smile when the bartender makes it to me. “Make mine a double… or a triple. Just fill my damn glass to the top.”

“Sure thing, miss,” the bartender sighs, pouring whiskey into my glass until it’s almost to the brim. “I said I’d stay behind this bar as long as I could, because I don’t have anyone to go home to, but time is almost up, so that may be the last drink you ever get. Enjoy it.”

“I’ll try,” I say, picking up my glass.

Our government didn’t fall. No, they just got stricter. Curfews, arrests, and when things got really bad, public executions. With less than a year until an extinction level event, there is no reason to throw criminals into prison. Every sentence is a death sentence with so little time left.

The executions tempered the chaos. Turns out, most people aren’t in a hurry to die.

We want to wring the last second out of our existence, even if we spend it in a dingy bar, downing drinks as we wait for the world to get blown apart.

Even the bartender. Glad he’s one of the few who decided to keep working.

The man next to me gets his drink and walks away from the bar.

Another man immediately takes his place.

He looks like he hasn’t taken a shower in a few days.

Smells like it too. Stale cigarette smoke clings to him, his scraggly beard hasn’t felt a razor in weeks, and he didn’t even care enough to comb his greasy black hair before stumbling into the bar.

I probably don’t look much better. Just… cleaner. I took a shower and combed my hair, but said fuck it to the Maybelline and the cherry-red lipstick my friends used to say is my trademark. No need to get done up for the end of the world.

“Hey. Shitty day, huh?” the man next to me asks, cocking his head in my direction.

“The worst,” I reply, some humor in my voice, despite what is going on around us.

“Well, less than two hours left,” he mumbles. “What do you say? Finish that drink and come back to my place? I got an apartment on the top floor. We’ll have good seats for the apocalypse.”

I look him over, my nose wrinkling. “Um, no, thanks. I’ve decided to die a virgin. Feels like a solid life choice at this point.”

“A virgin? Really? Come on, little girl,” he says, reaching over and grabbing my arm. “I’ll take good care of you. Show you what you’ve been missing before we get blown up.”

“I said no, thanks!” I say a little louder, as I yank my arm out of his grasp. “I’m not a little girl. Seriously, leave me alone.”

I lean back from him, my hand immediately going into my purse where I keep my father’s revolver. It’s loaded, and I won’t hesitate to use it if I have to. My fingers find the cold steel, and I curl one around the trigger.

His move. I know what my next one will be.

“Fine. Whatever. Bitch,” he mutters, walking away from the bar.

He’s not the first guy who thought I should take my panties off for him because the world is ending. I’ve only had to pull my gun on one of them, and he changed his tune as soon as he was staring down the barrel of a loaded 38. Guess I’m not worth dying for.

I was sixteen when the first story about the meteor rattled everyone.

On the cusp of truly beginning my life. But hey, at least the news story broke about the meteor before I had to bother with college.

Some people still went, if you can believe that.

Right now, there are students sitting in the classrooms, trying to absorb knowledge they’ll never even be tested on before the world ends.

Just like some people kept going to work, if they had a job they could go to.

I suppose it’s easier to stay numb to reality if you just ignore it.

I sip my whiskey, feeling the burn, and then I pick up my disposable vape. I take a hit and barely even taste the nicotine before the screen lights up. My batteries are dead.

“Fuck,” I mutter, tapping it against the bar a few times and trying again. “Ugh.”

Now a guy who smells like stale cigarette smoke wouldn’t be the worst companion for the end of the world. But there are plenty of guys here like that. I see a guy lighting a cigarette several seats away and lean down the bar toward him.

“Hey!” I yell, my voice one octave higher than the noise. “Can I have one of those?” I glance at the countdown. “Or… a couple? Please?”

He nods, taps a few cigarettes out of the pack, and tosses it down the counter. “Help yourself.”

I started vaping not long after the meteor appeared.

My mom found my stash in my room a few months later and gave me a really long lecture about how it would kill me.

I argued that it didn’t matter if the world was going to end.

My mom still had hope, but it was just another lecture among many that are as meaningless now as the time I have left.

Half the people in this bar are smoking, so I light one up, and exhale into the haze floating above all of us.

I immediately grimace and down some of my drink.

I’ve never liked how harsh cigarettes are.

I prefer my nicotine coated with French vanilla cream.

But it’s the end of the world, and beggars can’t be choosers.

The countdown keeps going while I drink and smoke. Some people are going outside, so they can watch themselves die. I’m fine right here. I don’t need to see it. I’ve already seen enough to haunt me much longer than the little time I have left.

“Last call, if you’re empty,” the bartender calls out. “Either let me pour it or help yourself. I don’t give a fuck at this point.”

I’m not empty, and if I down what’s left in my glass, I’d probably vomit. Several people wait for the bartender. Others lean across the bar and grab bottles for themselves. I get shoved around some as people reach past me, but it isn’t long until the shelves behind the bar are completely empty.

“Guess this really is my last drink,” I sigh, downing some more whiskey and lighting another cigarette.

I lost my parents during the first wave of rioting and looting. They were shopping for groceries when the store was overrun. Since then, I’ve lost several friends. Most of my family. It’s been a damn nightmare just surviving long enough to die here.

But this seems like the best place to die, considering everything.

The bar my grandfather used to own before he died and my parents sold it.

I don’t know the new owner, but my grandfather’s picture is still on the wall, right across from me, now slightly tilted from the rush of last call.

I used to love this place when I was a kid.

If I close my eyes, I can still picture him behind the bar, telling stories about the good old days when life was affordable and doctors still told their patients cigarettes were healthy.

“Miss you, Grandpa,” I sigh, raising my glass to him. “If there’s anything after this, I guess I’ll see you again soon. Tell Mom and Dad I’m on my way. Not long now.”

I watch the countdown as it hits fifty-nine minutes. Less than an hour left. More people leave the bar, but I stay where I am. It’s quieter now. So quiet you can hear the beep every time another minute vanishes from the countdown clock.

There’s a flicker on the television screen. Just a tiny blip that looks like static or interference of some kind. Then another. And another, until the screen fills with static.

“Seriously, we don’t even get to see the countdown clock?” a woman groans.

“I’ve got it!” a man yells. “I synched my watch to it several hours ago.”

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that we’ve lost the signal.

Everything has been a mess since the news broke about the meteor.

Rolling blackouts. Water shortages. The internet has been gone so long I don’t even look at my phone anymore, unless I need to check the time.

The only reason this bar has power right now is because it has a generator.

Time ticks away. How many minutes, I’m not sure. It barely matters. I just zone out, drink, smoke, and listen to the chatter around me.

“Thirty minutes!” the man calls out.

Suddenly, the static on the television starts crackling, a voice booming out of it, silencing the room.

“Citizens of Planet Earth. I am Thek’lak, General First Class of the Intergalactic Alliance,” the voice says, and the static dissipates until there’s a face on the screen.

“What the fuck?” a man asks.

“Yeah, seriously!” a woman says, rushing to the counter. “Is that an alien? Is he going to stop the meteor?”