Chapter 41: The Splintered Mahogany
The sound of shattering glass and splintering timber carried down the snowdrifted corridors of Blackwood Crest like the death rattles of an army. With the ambient temperature lingering below negative fifty degrees and the municipal infrastructure wiped out, the grand architectural monuments of the coastal elite became mere wood and plaster quarries. The veneer of polite restraint had burned away completely, leaving only the primal mandate to find combustible fuel before the heart stopped beating.
Down the avenue, inside the modern glass estate owned by a retired commercial banking executive, two men used steel crowbars to rip decorative molding and tongue and groove cedar straight from the hallway ceilings. Drywall crumbled under the impacts, dusting t
