The Sword of Saint Michael

view. His worst fears were confirmed—each of the five zombies attended to separate victims nearby. People were running away, but many people milled about, knowing something bad was going on but not understanding what, and when they saw people running away in one direction, many started to follow. Most seemed to be running into the ski rental area to Alexander’s left.
Alexander had other plans. Once he was only ten feet above ground, he pushed up the crossbar and dropped onto the field below. He tumbled and felt a sharp pain in his left wrist, wasting precious seconds while he grimaced and recovered enough to get moving. He ran to the right up the road that led to the back entrance of the hotel, grateful his eyeglasses were intact, though his smart watch glass was cracked, and the display didn’t work.

Day Two
Jocelyn awakened the next morning mildly refreshed, despite her inability to get the fire in the wood stove going again. Her lighter gun had stopped working, her two spares were duds, and she’d run out of kindling. But enough heat had remained in the cabin so that inside her sleeping bag she was not too cold, despite the temperature reading of twenty-seven degrees. She hoped today the storm would pass, and the air would warm up.
She meditated but was distressed to find that none of her spirit guides, including Saint Michael, would appear when she asked to see them. Not even Skunk. That had never happened to her.
She had a bad feeling about all this. First, the spirits of the Earth garden, and now her spirit guides had vanished.
After emerging from her meditation, she felt her heart racing, and she had trouble breathing.
She was having a panic attack.
Fortunately, she recognized the signs. Many people with panic attacks wound up in the emergency room, confident they were dying. Instead, she took a drug that would erase her anxiety and stop the attack.
Although her training allowed her to remain calm in most situations, part of that training was reliance on her spirit guides, like Skunk and Saint Michael. It seemed contradictory, but they were her anchor to reality.
Once she lay on the bed and settled down, she glanced at the nightstand. The Saint Michael candle continued to burn. He wants me to know he’s here, despite not being here.
She recalled the timing of the “radio silence” from her guides—the next meditation after initiation. The “radio silence” could be part of the training, but she knew, deep down, that something had gone terribly wrong. Skunk’s ominous “all too soon” statement, and Saint Michael’s statement that she would need her new skills reinforced that notion.
Despite her consternation, she had to remain in the cabin until the entire month had passed, initiation notwithstanding. Leaving prematurely would undo everything, and she’d have to do the vigil all over again.
Finally, the time came, and she fixated on the seconds-hand of her watch, counting down the seconds in anticipation as 1:06 p.m. approached. Within an hour or two, George would plow her car out, and she could leave this place behind her. She waited an hour in case of a miscalculation. She put on her snowshoes and stepped outside. It was still cold with a light snowfall. Several inches of snow blanketed her car and the driveway. George hadn’t come to plow yet.
A half-mile walk through a plateau of pine trees brought her in view of the canyon. As she viewed the sweeping snow-covered valley from above an outcropping, she admired the dusting of snow on the cliff faces. She looked specifically at George’s property and spotted his river, feeding into the deep blue lake at the far end. The road along the lake and George’s driveway had vanished under the snow. Someone should have plowed them by now, shouldn’t they? Jocelyn struggled to understand why the plows were so late. What was everybody busy doing?
Here she was, stranded in the Colorado Mountains. Her vigil complete, all she wanted was to get the hell out of there and go home. But she couldn’t drive through this mess. Getting stuck in the snow with her car would be a huge mistake.
Well, maybe it would warm up and all melt by tomorrow. But by then she would run out of meds.
One step at a time. Don’t panic. You’ve been trained to handle crises.
She walked over to the outhouse and relieved herself, and while she did that, she thought more about the lack of plowing. The amount of snow was probably unexpected, so the plows were too busy, and this road was a lower priority. And George wouldn’t bother plowing his own property before someone plowed the road. Right?
Don’t panic. George will explain it all to her.
Jocelyn snowshoed down the trail that led to George’s house, hoping for a reassuring answer. She carried her backpack full of survival gear, including a multi-tool. Why she carried the sword in its scabbard she wasn’t quite sure, though probably because it made her feel more comfortable given the state of things.


Day Zero
Jize Chen smiled, taking in the scenery of the Colorado Mountains while his son-in-law drove the Ford Explorer rental. Jize hated driving. It was 2025, and the industry of fully self-driving cars had collapsed. Sure, there were some great features in these cars – right now, his son-in-law was monitoring traffic rather than driving – but still, there were the lawsuits. And then the investment bubble burst. Tech companies abandoned it like the plague. Car manufacturers kept the effort going but only through incremental improvements.
He thought about how this area would look tomorrow in the late summer snowfall—the first of the season—but the sun was warm today. He wished his outdoor concert (he was to perform a Chopin piano concerto), sold out as usual, could have been scheduled for today. The forecast for Denver was rain tomorrow.
He liked Beaver Park—a typical ski town, very progressive. Even in conservative Utah, the liberal ski areas had voted overwhelmingly for the new female Democratic President, formerly