2028

Life returned slowly to the neighborhood surrounding Murder House. The first living things to resettle the area were the crows. A handful came at first but within a few months their raucous caws could be heard for miles during the day. Flocks settled in trees and along rooftops, jostling for the best position.

Tate loved the birds. Most other people found them unsettling but not him. He loved that they sat all over the roof. He could open the window and reach right out and touch them. They weren't afraid of anything, not even him. They didn't particularly like him either: One snapped at his fingers when he tried to pet it. After a few days of his company, though, they ignored him unless he had food for them. They could eat other things, but they preferred meat. It had to be real, though. They didn't care about phantom food.

In the beginning the crows fed primarily on the carrion left behind. They devoured the truly dead first: The carcasses of dead beasts and people. Then, when those were nothing but bone, they went after the zombies. The putrid flesh had no effect on the demonic birds other than to temporarily sate their restless appetites for flesh. In a few months, there wasn't an undead thing left moving for miles in the foggy region.

By then, other living things had started to surface. Some migrated back once the zombie threat was gone. Others came from the fog, strange new breeds of florae and faunae never seen before. A whole new ecology was forming: Hell on earth.

Then people came, with the first arriving in the form of a group numbering nearly 100. The caravan consisted of families and individuals who had heard about Michael and believed him to be the reincarnation of Christ. They were led by a man who called himself Buck. Despite the steady decline of personal communication with the collapse of global capitalism, the man had managed to rally and organize the people into a convoy that traveled across four states to get to California. The group had been much bigger at the outset but they'd suffered losses on their way.

Arriving in the fog-shrouded suburb of Los Angeles was much the same as any other engulfed area they'd been through except for the extraordinary amount of birds that flocked around the immediate neighborhood. They were thickest around the Montgomery Mansion.

As soon as Buck recognized the imagery from his dreams—the crows and the house—he knew they were in the right place. He ordered his lieutenants to scout the area and it wasn't long before the travelers were settling into the abandoned homes in the immediate neighborhood.

Reclaiming LA required work and more bloodshed: The houses had to be cleared of wildlife and monsters, then the whole area had to be fortified. They built a wall that encompassed all of the settled homes plus several more, as they planned ahead for expansion and future municipal needs.

At the center of it all was Michael. Once he got past the awkwardness of having grownups reporting to him and asking him questions, the seventeen-year-old started to take an interest in the group. With Mother Constance and Father Jeremiah acting as his personal liaisons, he started to tend the flock, starting with healing those who needed it.

His healing came at a price, they'd discovered in the marketplace mass healing. He needed blood. He could handle one person but more than that made him ravenous, something he mistook at first for a desire for rare steak since he ate it by the fistfuls from the meat vendor between healings.

At home though, he quickly found drinking the blood directly from the plate was far more satisfying than the meat itself. After that, Constance always kept fresh containers of blood in the fridge. She insisted on warming it up, though, and seasoning it. Michael could've taken it straight from the Tupperware plain, but she needed to feel like she was cooking for him. The process made feel it less gruesome to her.

And the process to acquire the blood was monstrous, until someone in the settlement who owned a small herd of goats gave three of them to Michael. Father Jeremiah and Buck rigged up a machine that could bleed the animals regularly without killing them. And added benefit was two of them were nanny goats, so they had fresh milk as well. Jeremiah showed his insular roots by teaching the settlers how to make butter, cream, and cheese. Dependence on the market at the Hollywood Hills compound dropped more by the week as the people integrated their skills.

For many, it was beginning to look like the worst had passed. Despite the hardships the faithful cult had endured to make it there, being by their Savior's side was every bit the reward Buck had promised. They were safe and prospering in the fallout of the end of the world.

When his birthday came around, Michael's followers surprised him with a community celebration. There was lots of food that took whole days to prepare and they brought a whole pallet of gifts to Constance's house, decorated with flowers and colorful fabric ribbons. The gifts ranged from simple, to weird, to amazing.

His personal favorite was a card drawn by a child that showed a stick figure family, all smiling and covered in blood. The blood was from a big pink thing they apparently stabbed to death with their triangle knives, because it also had blood all over it and it had big X eyes. The card said: 'We killd a mostar for you HPPAY BDAY.! Cole age 7'.

Michael put the card in the corner of the mirror above his chest of drawers where he could see it every day.

...

2029

The year of storms was rough on everyone, even the carrion crows. When it wasn't hailing, it was raining. The rain came in sheets of water and occasionally in acidic blood-red liquid that stung the flesh of anything it came in contact with. The stuff corroded paint on cars and buildings but had little effect on plants other than staining their leaves with red as they drank it from the soil. The crows sought shelter as best they could but many died.

One morning, Tate looked out his window and saw the street below was strewn with black bodies. An overnight freeze had brought golf-ball sized "blood" hail that caught the birds by surprise and killed them in droves. It was almost as bad as the aviary at the zoo. No. It was worse. He would have to clean them up unless he wanted to look out the window every morning and see them decaying.

It took a long time to clean up the dead birds; all day. He didn't ask for help and no one came to offer any. He moved them all to the garden in back and hid them behind the honeysuckle bush his mother had planted near the back fence. It was one of his personal hiding spots, where he used to go when he was a kid. He hadn't been behind the bush in years but it still looked mostly the same except for the brick-red leaves. The way the stem grew made an umbrella of free space beneath the vine-like branches where a boy could easily sit.

There were so many dead birds, Tate had to resort to hiding bodies behind the hollyhocks, too. Constance wouldn't like it but he figured she wouldn't see the garden anytime soon. By the time she did, hopefully they would be just bones.

He went back to his room after he finished moving the birds, with a quick stop by the bathroom to wash his hands. He was pretty sure he couldn't catch anything from them, but they weren't normal birds, so it couldn't hurt to be cautious. Not that it could have done much good, washing: The water had been turned off to the house for a while. The water he saw coming out of the spigot had no more substance than the hands it hit. He believed his hands were clean, though, and had to wipe them on the seat of his jeans to rid them of that residual damp feeling.

Tate flopped on his bed once he got to his room and wondered how many birds were left, or if any of them would survive. It made him really sad. He loved birds. He wasn't sure he wanted to exist someplace where there were no birds.

He lay there a while, feeling sorry for himself and the world, then he noticed a small sound. A creaky, squeaky sound. It was coming from somewhere near the window. Curious, he got up and closed in on the noise. It sounded like it was in the wall. He opened the window and could hear it louder. Sticking his head out, he saw some sticks behind the drainpipe, jutting out at a weird angle.

He crawled out onto the shingles and scooted closer. The sticks turned out to be part of a larger pile of debris, including grass, string, paper, and a few bones and feathers as well. It was a nest. Inside sat five baby black birds, bulgy-eyed and homely. They got quieter when they first saw Tate but when he didn't attack, they started making that weird sound again. They had really big mouths when they made the noises and they flapped their featherless wings unhappily.

Tate looked around but saw no adult bird anywhere nearby. He looked back to the nest and frowned. It was possible the mother was out gathering food; the babies were obviously hungry. But it was just as likely she was among the crows in the back yard, rotting in the bushes.

He didn't want to move the nest prematurely but he also didn't want another fit of bad weather to kill the babies. He couldn't stand the idea of putting their nest in the pile of dead birds. He made an executive decision and carefully peeled the nest out of the corner. One of the birds tried to bite him but he ignored it. Sheltering the ugly nest close to him, he went back inside with it.

Looking around his room, he found a spot where the sun shone most and bolstered the nest there with rolled up t-shirts. The baby birds sounded a lot louder inside. He needed to feed them but he knew they wouldn't find ghost food sustaining. He needed real food. He needed meat.

Fortunately, there was plenty of carrion in the back yard, behind the bushes.

...

December

"I don't want her here!" Tate asserted.

He and his mother were in the great room, and their postures were almost identical: Folded arms, set jaw, stubborn stance.

"She needs a place to stay," Constance said. "And there's plenty of room here. It's too dangerous out there for her, on her own. She's converted to Jeremiah's faith. She'll be safe here, if you leave her alone."

Tate's sulk darkened. "Why does she have to live here? There are other houses! What about your house?"

"We've got a full house already."

"You just have three people!" Tate objected, not about to be snowed. "We've got tons!"

"Billie Dean can tune out the lot of you... IF you let her," Constance dismissed. "She's stayin'. That's all there is to it. And you're gonna leave her alone. Understand?"

"I don't WANT her here!" Tate exploded. He wanted to hit something but anything he broke in the room would bring Chad down on him and that was the last thing he needed at the moment. Frustrated, he flopped on the sofa as hard as he could. "I don't like her! She hates me!"

"She doesn't hate you," Constance said.

She could tell he was near tears. The worst of the storm was over. She sat down next to him, primly tucking her knees together before reaching to sweep his bangs out of his eyes. He gave her a broody look .

"She does hate me," he sulked. A tear sneaked out but he hid it by pretending to scratch his face.

Of course his mother noticed. She hoped to take advantage of the moment. "She's just afraid of you, sweetheart. If you show her you're different now, she'll stop being scared. She can't do that if you act like this every time you see her!"

Tate folded his arms loosely and sulked some more. She was making sense and he didn't like that. "Will she leave me alone? And stay away from my part of the house?"

"Which part's that?"

"My bedroom," Tate said. He thought about it some, then decided: "I don't want her on the third floor at all. Okay? Nothing above the second floor."

Constance thought about it then gave a nod. All things considered, it was actually a reasonable request. "I'll tell her. I'm sure that'll suit her fine."

She wanted to hound him more about behaving himself but didn't want to risk undermining the rare truce they'd reached. So she just kissed him on the head and left it at that. A week later, Billie Dean did something she never would have thought possible: She called Murder House home.

...

2030 - Early spring

Buck's group—now over 300 strong—combined forces to start building the First Coastal Church. They called themselves the Followers of Michael and they spent the better part of the next year laying the foundation and putting up walls. The process required a lot from everyone but produced a lot. They got a fresh water well dug and a large wood-fueled generator up and running. A man in the settlement had recruited a couple of people to work on solar power next. Civilization was slowly returning.

The church was finished close to Michael's nineteenth birthday so the congregation decided to wait and consecrate the building then. It would be a joint celebration.

Naturally, many wanted to help. The day before the big day, the place was alive with activity as people hung decorations. A man came to hang hand-woven tapestries while three ladies adorned the brand new pews with fabric ribbons in black and red and gold, the colors Michael selected. He and Constance were up in the front of the chapel, on the dais near the podium. A woman was there as well, stringing a garland of red flowers around the base.

"Next birthday, I'm going to wear the rubber suit," he told Constance as they watched the progress.

She looked at him, perplexed. "Is that thing still around? Why on Earth would you want to wear that?"

He shrugged and smiled, showing a dimple in his left cheek. "I want to do a Black Mass and it's black. It looks really wicked, too. And I want red banners with big black dragons on them."

"Black Mass." She leveled a flat look at him. "You want to do a Black Mass for your birthday, in a cursed bondage suit."

He raised his brows at her, sensing she didn't like the idea. "Yes. I'm going to be twenty, Mother Constance. I want it to be a special occasion."

She shook her head. "No. Absolutely not. We're not makin' a mockery of one of the only real powers out there. It's too dangerous. We're just getting on our feet here! We can't go throwin' it all away just because you want to have a night of fun."

Michael frowned. "I'm going to do Black Mass."

Constance laughed sharply. "No. You're not."

"Yes, I am!" he snapped, suddenly mad. "I'm a grownup now! I do what I want!"

She looked unimpressed. "You're actin' like a child."

"No, I'm not! I'm acting like I'm mad!"

"You're throwin' a tantrum in public," Constance rejected. "People are watching." She shot a meaningful look at the woman nearby who was hanging garland and taking discreet glances their way.

Infuriated, Michael stomped his foot and the whole dais shivered. The garland lady screamed and dropped the flowers. She grabbed at her face.

"I'm blind!" she cried. "I can't see! Help me!"

"There," Michael declared imperiously. "She's not watching anymore."

Other people in the chapel hurried to the woman, to try to help, but no one could do anything for her. Her eyes were gone as though they'd never been there. Constance looked from the distressed volunteer then back to Michael, unnerved.

"I'm having Black Mass for my birthday next year," the young man repeated, drawing himself up. "At Murder House. Come or don't. I don't care."

He waved a dismissive hand at the panicking woman and she shut up immediately, dead from a heart attack. He was tired of hearing her scream.

xxx

...

Author's Note:

End Ep. 1 of the new Murder House season. Song cue: Strangelove by Depeche Model, off of the "For the Masses" album. I'm thinking with this season, I'm just going to keep adding chapters to this story rather than starting a new one per Episode. It'd save me a lot of time on image manipulation and you guys wouldn't have to keep track of as many stories. If you have thoughts either way, let me know.

In Apocalypse, the grew Michael up overnight. I suspect it was their solution to wanting to work with an adult character without having to make such a huge leap of time. It was definitely work, figuring out what all happened in 12 years without actually writing it. I have extensive notes and lots of snippets that will probably surface later as stand-alone stories.

Starting next ep, things are slowing down to daily life. Michael's finally coming into his full power and is ready to assert his dominance. What has that got to do with Tate and the Harmons? Only everything.