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allow an ample supply of oxygen.
    He lit a small kerosene lantern and hung it from the display above the hardware counter and then returned to the truck to wait for the reappearance of his tormentors.
         They came shambling out of the fields and woods; at first just one or two at a time but later in groups of five or ten. All of them eventually found the open door and entered the store.
         He counted fifty two individuals in all; he waited to make certain that there were no stragglers. Cautiously and silently he opened the truck door and stepped outside. He paused for a few moments; he could hear the monsters inside the building over the sound of raindrops on the tin roof above his head. A sudden apprehension infringed upon his thoughts, what if they sensed what he had planned and rushed him when he got to the door? What if he were to slip and fall or was not able to get the screen closed quickly enough?
       But he had to do this now, he had to act. He ran into the rain, mud and water splashed at his ankles as his feet hit the sodden ground. Through the window he saw some of the creatures turn, they had seen him! He focused all of his attention on the door but it seemed as if it were receding from him as quickly as he was advancing.
         He saw a shadow appear in the doorway, and then another and another. He reached out his arms and felt the metal screen in his hand. He pushed into it with all of his weight and the door slammed shut.
         The fiends rushed the door as he clicked the padlock closed and he backed quickly away. They hurled themselves at the barrier but it held fast. Suddenly they became silent and slowly moved away from the entrance.
         They formed a line on either side of the doorway. At the back of the column stood his mother, her figure in silhouette against the light cast by the lantern. She slowly moved toward him, as she approached the door her arms spread out, she beckoned to him and she called out his name.
         She pressed herself against the door and he took a faltering step toward her. Her mouth formed the words he had yearned to hear from her all of his life, “I love you.”
         His eyes fixed on those of his dead mother and the two locked their gaze on one another. He took another a step towards the door, “I love you too mom,” he said, his lips trembling as he spoke.
         He glanced down at the battery sitting on the sidewalk and then connected the jumper cables to the terminals. He stood and looked again at her, his tears mixed with the raindrops on his face, “goodbye again mother,” he said.
         He sloshed back to the truck and then turned and looked behind once more. A flash of light erupted within the building growing in intensity until it detonated in a volcanic fireball.
         Flame and smoke burst through the screen where his mother stood and she was enveloped in fire. An anguished cry erupted from the demons inside the store while a second explosion blew the glass out of the windows.
          The heat from the conflagration quickly became intense and he jumped into the pickup, started it and spun out onto the pavement. He stopped and glanced back at the building which had once been his sanctuary as flames belched through the roof. He knew he was stepping out into an uncertain future, but hadn’t the future always been so? It was only the past that was a certainty.
         He pulled an atlas from the bag beside him and opened it to New Mexico. He turned his flashlight on and closed his eyes. Putting his finger high in the air he brought it down on the map and then once again opened his eyes.

   It seemed appropriate, almost as if it were preordained, maybe at times the future is not completely ambiguous. His digit rested on a place on the map in the high deserts of North America, Resurrection, New Mexico.
       He shifted the truck into drive and headed off into the night.

 
    Resurrection: Desolation
    Chapter