The chem clouds were circling high above and getting thicker and darker gray by the second. The sun, blotted out by the incessant cloud cover and struggling to break through, remained but a memory in the minds of man. The wind was a colossal force of nature, as pitilessly remorseless as a punch in the face from a mugger.

Alex Garland had no problem with most types of weather in that he had been raised in the wastelands and come to expect it. The wastelands were dangerously radioactive, insufficiently populated, and filled with strange mutated animals that roamed and attacked humans at will. Alex had studied the mutant animals until he came up with a way to defend himself. Armed with a silver knife, he was able to dispatch the worst of them because of their allergy to the metal.

Because Toronto was nuked, and because the United States had been hit with a bio-bomb that quickly infected and killed the majority of its citizens, the Europeans were the last remaining power on Earth. In Holland, at the urging of the far-right political party “Golden Dawn,” which had seized power in the last election, measures had been taken to limit the environmental destruction. The chem clouds from North America were thinner, weaker. Alex Garland’s goal was to move from Canada to Holland and secure a new life. There were boats in Halifax, Nova Scotia, waiting to take people across the ocean to safety. It was Alex’s mission to get there.

Riding a bicycle on the Trans-Canada Highway as best he could, and weaving between stalled cars — there were thousands of them on this stretch — Alex Garland made his way to Nova Scotia. The danger was so great that he felt his heart in his chest all the time. His hands on the handlebars, he pedaled faster whenever he reached an intact, small town, half expecting to be ambushed by barbarian survivors. There was a granola bar package stashed in his backpack, but that was all. He had no other food or drink.

Garland hunched over the bike, keeping up a steady, ground-eating pace while thinking furiously to himself about what he would if he were attacked. The thought of being outnumbered was terrifyingly real, wonderfully attention-concentrating, and a part of his regular life now. There was a stalled black BMW ahead of him. Garland had been daydreaming and didn’t notice it. He struck it hard enough to warp his front wheel and flew off his bike. With a grunt of pain, he crashed into the back windshield of the Bimmer, starring it in cracks. He slid down the windshield, rolled off the trunk, and landed on the highway in a miserable, pained heap.

His eyes were glazed shut. The chem clouds were on the march, as acidically loaded as a chemical factory in olden times. Alex Garland had few options in that if he didn’t get up, he would die here. The highway, which led straight into the horizon before disappearing, was bleak and forbidding. Struggling to his knees in fitful bursts of energy, and shrugging his backpack neurotically — it slipped off him almost of its own volition — Alex managed to stand up. His bike was ruined. One tire was crushed to the right side and the back tire had deflated of all its air. Feeling a wave of despair come over him, Alex hung his head. There was no way out of this mess. He would have to walk, despite the chem clouds threatening to dump poisonous toxins all over him. He began to make his way.

His pain was so intense that every step seemed like a visit to hell. Alex Garland limped, trying to conserve energy. His eyes were at half-mast, hooded, dark, like a man sentenced to hanging at the next day’s noon. He left the car and the bike behind, arms swinging at his side methodically while trying to think of nothing at all.

It began to rain. At first, the rain drops weren’t so bad. Then the downpour became more intense and filled with acid contents. Pouring out of the heavens, the rain deluged him and made him burn in a thousand spots. His skin began to peel and curl. The Trans-Canada Highway was desperately lonely, unfathomably long, and filled with broken-down vehicles. How was he ever going to get to Holland now?

His feet were so wet that they squelched with every footstep. Alex thought of his brother, Kyle. Kyle, who had been killed by a barbarian in his twelfth year, when he was just entering puberty, and whose love of life was cut short by the cruelty of the world, was a part of Alex’s daily thoughts. Burned into his memory, Kyle Garland remained a smiling, young face, chased away only by the necessities of daily survival.

Up ahead, there was an empty stretch of road. Alex was exhausted, as hopelessly worn out as a hobo in the Great Depression years. Despite the acid rain falling on him, he gradually slowed down.

The rain kept pounding down on him with ever-increasing intensity. Alex kept his hands in his pockets and trudged forward.

After half an hour, Alex was relieved because of the slackening of the rain. It wasn’t hammering down quite so bad anymore. The acid burns on his hands and forehead were the only things that remained of his time under the chem clouds. Alex Garland walked onward into oblivion, maintained his steady pace, and hoped for the best.

As the afternoon wore on, Alex began to see signs of habitation along the way. There were occasional farms here, well preserved despite being clearly abandoned. He had a feeling that he was coming up to a major town. Maybe he could get a new bike there?

Picking up the pace made him feel better. The highway, wet and gleaming from the rainfall, began to curve slightly to the right. In the distance, a few buildings stood out. Alex began to feel hopeful.

The situation was preferable now to the last half hour in that the acid rain had stopped coming and a prospective town was up ahead. The winds swept down from the north, drying him while chilling him to the bone. As Alex put foot down one after the other, he drew closer to the abandoned town by the highway.

The immensity of the landscape was so overwhelming that Alex closed his eyes for a moment. In the years before the war, at the urging of his father, who had never gone to university, Alex attended Queens University in Kingston. One of the lessons he’d learned was that you do better when you keep a steady pace and stick with it rather than trying to surge ahead in bursts. So that was what he did. He walked steadily and without concern, his hands in his pockets. After a while, the wind stopped blowing. The chem clouds had disappeared from the skies and the sun was out.

Alex was steadily gaining on the town.

The road was less ruined here, as pristinely preserved as an antique in a museum. Curving to the right and leading inexorably toward the nearby town, the path promised a way out of the mess for Alex. Garland, who knew only that this was his last hope, felt tired and worn out, but suddenly hopeful. The signs were looking good in that there were no people around, working or walking, and the town appeared unscathed, untouched by the nuclear war.

He picked up the pace despite the self-knowledge that steady and moderate was better. The day was suddenly so beautiful that he felt like he was going to live forever. Alex smiled to himself while keeping his hands in his pockets. When he got to the town, he let out a whoop of triumph and jumped once in the air.

There was a sign posted by the highway that said RIVERHILL, POP. 1,282. It was pocked with tiny marks left over from the titanic wind storms that had blown after the nuclear holocaust, hurling micro-rocks everywhere.

Alex, who felt a wave of relief that overcame his despair of moments ago, when suicide seemed like a good idea, and whose feet suddenly felt strong and capable of striding forever, pushed past the sign that said Riverhill and entered the town proper.

The town was laid out on a grid, with the main street bisecting it and crossing a body of water that was more a creek than a river. There was a bridge there that seemed to be in good shape. Alex crossed it, entered the downtown area, and craned his neck around. Things looking pretty good so far. As his elbow brushed against the brick wall of an alley, he felt an electric shock. He stopped and looked around. Tentatively, he touched the brick wall again. There was that same shock, slightly weaker in force now. Pressing his hand against the wall with force, and containing his feelings of fear and dislocation — he was driven by instinct now — Alex felt an intense vision come upon him. In his mind’s eye he saw a nuclear mushroom cloud, rising up to the heavens in momentous majesty. The mushroom cloud faded out to be replaced by a single metal anvil on the ground in which thrust a sword. Alex blinked and the vision was gone.

But there was a door set in the brick wall and he went to approach it. He turned the doorknob forcefully enough that it fell out of the portal. The doorknob lay on the alley street like a memento from the past. Alex shoved his way inside the building while narrowing his eyes against the sudden dust cloud that was blown up.

As the door swung shut behind him, plunging him into darkness, Alex lit a single, solitary match. He was in a church, and there were candles all around. Bending forward, he lit one of the candles. Then he went from candle to candle, quickly lighting them all. There was a heavy layer of dust here obscuring the floor. In the newly lighted church room, his footsteps left deep imprints in the dust.

When the room was full of blazing candle light, he realized there was a sound coming from another part of the building, sealed off from him. Alex was curious. He heard a quiet pounding noise, more a tapping than a hammering, and resolved to investigate it. The building was hypnotically soothing and filled with a quiet sense of urgency. As he approached the door, he felt a trepidation assault his nerves. He began to sweat subconsciously, aware that there could be danger here.

Reaching out a hand to the small, brown door, and touching the wizened bronze doorknob that awaited him patiently — it was impossible to know how long it had been since a person had opened the door — Alex began to get a sense of the mysteries of the universe and all it contained.

He turned the doorknob until it was at its maximum extension, and pushed.

There was a burst of light all of a sudden. Alex realized to his shock there the electric lights were working in here! Slim rods of fluorescent lighting stretched along the ceiling, their glass lengths emitting a strong, clean, antiseptic light. Cool, welcoming light slanted on the dark, uncrowded floor. Alex’s heart began to pound harder as he stepped farther into the room.

A table had been set up carefully at the far end of the room. On it, a glass aquarium sat stolidly. There was something inside it. Alex moved closer to see what it was.

A snake, curled in a mound on a pile of sand, rested in the cool light of the room. Alex touched the glass side of the aquarium and the snake moved infinitesmally. It was impossible to know how the thing could still be alive. Protected by the insulated room and waiting through the eons, the snake was a symbol of a dead past.

Alex lifted up the top of the aquarium, set the glass lid down, and extend his hand into the snake’s chosen environment. Moving quickly, he seized the snake just behind its head. The snake writhed in his hand with an explosion of motion. Alex held on tight until the creature stopped struggling.

The feelings he was experiencing were curiosity, creepiness, inspiration, and a sense that this snake was a sign from the universe. He cradled the snake in his arms, constantly sensing its sleek skin and wondering if another person had put it there. Mirrored in the snake’s eyes was the knowledge that this was a dangerous and unruly universe, a place of Darwinian struggle. The aquarium, which had been sheltering this strange reptile, was reflecting light back from the fluroescents. Alex faced the twin problems of holding the snake and getting a bike for his journey onward.

Reluctantly, he put the snake back in its habitat. There were no other doors out of this room other than the one he had entered in. Rather than search every building one by one, he decided to go out on the street and call out loudly to see if anyone would answer.

Leaving the building quickly, Alex found himself in a city with the sky darkening for twilight. He cupped his hands around his mouth, pursed his lips, and shouted, “Hello! Is anyone there?“

Captured in the moment was a sense that he was being watched by hostile, alien eyes. Alex adjusted his backpack for comfort, then strode down the alleyway to a large intersection. Night was gathering. The town was dim, as poorly lit as a whorehouse in a power outage. Alex was confronted by the possibility that this as a ghost town, but he kept on shouting out, hoping someone would hear him. At last a voice responded to him.

“I’m here,” said a quiet boy’s voice. Alex, prepared for this response, did not jump or make any other motion of surprise. Looking around the darkened town center, and seeing a blurry white shape by a bank building — the building was closed and locked to the world — Alex saw the shape detach itself and approach him, becoming more visible by the second.

It was a teenager. The stranger stood 5’8″, with locks of long brown bangs falling over his eyes. For a moment, puzzled by the enchanting connection, they stared at each other. Alex spoke first. “Are you the only one in town?”

The teenager nodded. “My name’s Barney Thompson. I’m stuck here. Where are you going?”

Attached to the question was the unspoken assumption that the teenager wanted to travel with Alex. Alex considered it for a moment, then shook his head. A companion would only slow him down.

Ignoring the questinon posed by the boy, Alex asked, “Is there a bicycle nearby, do you know?”

The teenager shrugged. The light, which had weakened remarkably fast, was fading now. Alex could barely make out the boy’s face.

Alex decided the townie was too young to help him. With mild regret, he turned around, shrugged his backpack straighter, and left the boy behind.

It was nerve-wracking to test the houses on the next street. Alex experienced irrational fears of being attacked by surviving dogs or electrocuted by home-made security defenses. House after house, he went into the backyards and searched for a bike. Finally, he found one lying on the grass by a shed. It was unlocked and useable.

After he picked up the bike and examined it for defects, Alex wheeled it out onto the street. The darkness was complete now. The teenage boy was nowhere to be seen. Hounded by a feeling that he had to get back on the highway as soon as possible, he climbed onto the bike seat and started pedaling as fast as he could. Soon he left the town behind and was back on the road to the Maritimes.

Over the next several weeks, Alex rode his found bike across Quebec and New Brunswick, usually pedaling fast and keeping an eye out for ambushers. He made steady progress without encountering anything untoward. When he finally reached Nova Scotia, he was worn out but satisfied. Things were finally going his way. He had found canned food at various spots along the way and was well-stocked with all the other supplies he needed.

At a small Nova Scotia town called Mumford, he saw the rotting body of an old man. He stopped pedaling abruptly and stared. Covering the body was a blue tarp, taken from the back of a pickup truck. The tarp fluttered gently in the wind.

The corpse’s face had been chewed off by wild animals. The nose and one of the eyes were missing. Alex, who was not disgusting by death these days, when anything was possible, and whose survival instinct was strong, dismounted from the bike and approached the corpse. The town was so still that he could practically hear his hear beating slowly and quietly in his chest.

It was clear that the man had been murdered. The tarp had been moved from another location and draped over his body. The killer was still loose. There was nothing to be gained from staying here, so Alex mounted his bike and pedaled onward.

When he got to Halifax, he was jubilant. He rested for a while in an abandoned hotel on the outskirts of town. On Wednesday, in response to the Dutch-speaking voices on the ham radio, who occasionally threw in an English phrase or sentence, Alex abandoned his bicycle and found a small freighter in the Halifax harbor.

The boat was pristinely preserved, wonderfully loaded up with fuel for a long Atlantic journey, and moored in an easily accessible part of the harbor. It was not hard to figure out how to pilot the thing, though it did take a few experimental tries. Alex set out for Europe on a Saturday morning, excitedly watching the clouds break overhead and keeping on an eastward sweep across the placid waters.

Although the controls of the boat weren’t hard to master, there was always a nagging worry that a storm might rise up, endangering him and the boat. Alex, grounded in the real world, determined to face his fears head on, did not let his imagination affect his actions. He made steady progress across the ocean, slept soundly for eight hours as night fell, and resumed his journey in better spirits.

After an interminable time on the water, he saw the coastline of England ahead of him. There were deep craters, radioactive and dangerous, where mid-sized British cities had been. Alex avoided them and steered along the north shore of the Continent, always angling toward what his navigation tools told him was Holland.

It was useful to compare the digital maps on the ship’s computer with paper sea charts resting on the counter of the bridge. Alex saw that the digital maps were a bit vague in points, quickly consulting the paper versions and discovering that he had gone off-course. He course-corrected while whistling through his teeth.

He refueled the boat in Belgium, struck by how silent the place was. Belgium had been seeded with deadly viruses which had killed all the inhabitants. Brussels, the seat of the European Union, was majestic and lost. Painted on one wall was a red graffiti message in English: WE ARE DOOMED. This sign of desperation filled Alex with sadness. Completing the refueling job, and clambering back on the boat — he was in an ornery, pissed-off mood for some reason — Alex began to cruise out of the Belgian harbor on his renewed trip for Holland, where he hoped to find survivors of the war.

The boat, which had performed so well for so long, was malfunctioning.

For some bizarre reason, the navigation computer showed scrolling lines that obscured the data and the maps, making it hard to know where he was going. Alex was forced to resort to the paper sea maps. It got cold. Strong north winds from the Arctic were penetrating the hull of the ship, making him shiver abominably. He bent down to pick up a thicker winter jacket, and put it on.

To stay awake as long as he could, he took modifinil pills he found in the captain’s locker. That enabled him to stay awake for the last 24 hours of his journey straight. Finally, Amsterdam, his destination, came into sight.

There were multiple boats plying the waves back and forth! Alex was thrilled. A giant coast guard-type ship came to his port side. A loudspeaker hailed him in Dutch and English. Alex waved frantically at the crew, who were staring at him curiously from the side of the Dutch vessel.

The coast guard ship extended a ramp, watched it touch down on Alex’s small boat, and allowed three tall officers to set foot on the visiting boat.

Alex hurried to where the ramp was disgorging the Dutch men, waving to them while shouting out that he was a Canadian seeking asylum.

After getting their bearings on the new boat, the Dutchmen looked to their senior officer for guidance. He was a tall blond with mellow brown eyes who looked intelligent. He said, “Hello there. Welcome to Holland. Are you in need of assistance?”

Alex fell to his knees in relief and desperation. With tears streaking down his face, he clutched at the senior officer’s white pants and spasmodically flexed and unflexed. “I need help,” he said. “Please take me to shore.”

The three Dutchmen brought him to Holland proper. There was a dinner held in his honor and he was given documentation and directions to a small apartment he could stay in temporarily. Alex adjusted quickly to life in Holland, with life-decisions coming swiftly and surely to his thoughts. In no time, he forgot about the war, convinced it was all a dream.