Maybe I should go looking for you. Maybe I meant it when I said, don’t die.
Don’t die, and maybe someday I’ll come back.
I could leave here. Slip away in the night. I could find you out there, huddled in the woods or in a cave or in the shelter of a decaying mall, mannequins watching over you while you forage for supplies in the camping store and gnaw at stale candy bars from a long dead CVS. That would be another miracle, but everything’s a miracle in this new world. A man saw the apocalypse on the horizon; a boy listened to the word of God and built an Ark; I came to them because I thought I deserved to die, and because of that, I lived. This new world is taped together with miracles. What’s one more?
I know you’re dead. It’s possible that if I leave this place, I’ll be dead soon, too. I’ll be the one chewed up by zoo animals in an overgrown forest or falling in a sinkhole and journeying to the center of the Earth, gang-raped by a merry band of anarchic survivors or shot in the back for my shoes and my canteen. But before it happens, I’ll get to see the clouds again, and stomp around in the rain. I’ll get to taste grass and sky, and I won’t have to imagine ruined cities and rotting corpses because I’ll see them for myself. I won’t have to imagine and dream and wonder and wake up tasting blood and ruin, and maybe, if I return to the world, I can stop dreaming about it. Maybe I’ll even find it’s not as bad out there as we think. Maybe the world hasn’t left us at all, not entirely, not yet, and there’s still time to say goodbye, or build another miracle.
Maybe I don’t have to be the girl who stays, because she’s afraid of facing what’s out there on her own. Maybe I don’t have to say yes, okay, whatever you want, just don’t leave me alone, just don’t leave. Maybe I can be the one to leave, or the one to return, the one to decide. Maybe forever together is worse than being alone. Maybe forever is beside the point.
Love,
Dear Isaac,
I’m sorry.
If I’m still alive when the world really ends, maybe I’ll come back. Sometimes people do.
Love,
Robin Wasserman is the author of The Waking Dark, The Book of Blood and Shadow, the Cold Awakening Trilogy, Hacking Harvard, and the Seven Deadly Sins series, which was adapted into a popular television miniseries. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in several anthologies as well as The Atlantic and The New York Times. A former children’s book editor, she is on the faculty of the low-residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University. She lives and writes (and frequently procrastinates) in Brooklyn, New York. Find out more about her at robinwasserman.com or follow her on Twitter @robinwasserman.
Acknowledgments
Agents: John thanks his agent Seth Fishman, who supported this experiment and provided feedback and counsel whenever he needed it, and also to his former agent Joe Monti (now a book editor who he plans to sell lots of anthologies to), who was very enthusiastic about this idea when it first occurred to him, and encouraged John to pursue his idea to self-publish it. Hugh likewise thanks his agent Kristin Nelson for all of her support and for constantly playing out his leash.
Art/Design: Thanks to Julian Aguilar Faylona for providing wonderful cover art for all three volumes of The Apocalypse Triptych, and to Jason Gurley for adding in all the most excellent design elements that took the artwork from being mere images and transformed them into books. These volumes would not be the same without them.
Proofreaders: Thanks to Rachael Jones, Kevin McNeil, Tiffany Hughes, Mandy M. Earles, and Andy Sima.
Narrators/Producers: Thanks to Jack Kincaid for producing (and narrating some of) the audiobook version of this anthology, and to narrators Tina Connolly, Anaea Lay, Kate Baker, Mur Lafferty, Rajan Khanna, Lex Wilson, Norm Sherman, Folly Blaine, Scott Sigler, Stefan Rudnicki, Windy Bowlsby, and Stephanie Grossman for lending their vocal talents to the production.
Family: John sends thanks to his wife, Christie, his mom, Marianne, and his sister, Becky, for all their love and support, and their endless enthusiasm for all his new projects. He also wanted to thank his sister-in-law Kate and stepdaughter Grace who had to listen to him blab incessantly about this project as it was coming together, ruining many a dinner. Hugh thanks his wife Amber, who co-edits this wonderful life they have together. His chapters would be boring and lonely without her.
Readers: Thanks to all the readers and reviewers of this anthology, and also all the readers and reviewers who loved Hugh’s novels and John’s other anthologies, making it possible for this book to happen in the first place.
Writers: And last, but certainly not least: a big thanks to all of the authors who appear in this anthology. It has been an honor and a privilege. As fans, we look forward to whatever you come up with next.
About The Editors
John Joseph Adams is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, such as The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been nominated eight times) and is a six-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of the digital magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare, and is a producer for Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Find him on Twitter @johnjosephadams.
Hugh Howey is the author of the acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel Wool, which became a sudden success in 2011. Originally self-published as a series of novelettes, the Wool omnibus is frequently the #1 bestselling book on Amazon.com and is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller. The book was also optioned for film by Ridley Scott, and is now available in print from major publishers all over the world. Hugh’s other books include Shift, Dust, Sand, the Molly Fyde series, The Hurricane, Half Way Home, The Plagiarist, and I, Zombie. Hugh lives in Jupiter, Florida with his wife Amber and his dog Bella. Find him on Twitter @hughhowey.
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