Bleak

by Jacqueline Druga

“No, I mean like really fiction. When the school told us to do the essay, I just lacked any and all creativity so I merged two different science fiction novels and made them look like my theory in essay form.”

  Sandra stopped walking. “You plagiarized the essay that got you here?”

  “Yeah.” Rey grimaced. “I mean, who would have thought, right? Tens of thousands of essays. Why would mine stick out?”

  There was a brief pause and then Sandra said, “Oh my God, that’s hysterical. Still though, if you think about it, it was your theory in an essay form based on stuff you had read. Fiction or not.”

  “That’s one way to look at it.”

  “You’re here. We’re here. Whether it is a good or bad thing for us remains to be seen.” Sandra sighed. “You know, when I was a little girl I would look up to the sky and stars and think … each of those stars was a sun, and out there was a little girl just like me, on a planet just like Earth, staring up to the same sky.”

  “Did you ever think you’d be up there?”

  Sandra nodded. “I did. I always knew it was what I dreamed about, even though I went into medicine. I was so shocked when NASA accepted my application. Then again, I do have perfect qualifications, I had no one.”

  “It sucks. I’m sorry.”

  “Me too. How about you, did you want to go to space?”

  Rey laughed. “Hell no. I didn’t even want to go to Canada. I hated traveling.”

  “You ended up on a hell of a …” Sandra stopped. They were near the crest. It was no longer an optical illusion of being close, it wasn’t more than a hundred feet. “We’re here.”

  Rey lifted her shoulders as she heaved in a deep breath.

  They both stood there, pausing before going forward. They had no idea what lay beyond that crest. It could be a huge drop-off and they’d be unable to go down, it could be nothing.

  They both started walking again at the same time, picking up the pace the nearer they drew.

  “Since learning this was Earth,” Sandra said, “I want there to be life beyond this cliff.”

  “Me too. Nate said life is possible the further we go from the sea.”

  “Maybe there’s a big green valley, with people and a town.”

  “Children. Life.”

  “There has to be, right?” Sandra said. “I mean we as mankind cannot be extinct.”

  They arrived and Rey looked at Sandra. “Or can we?”

  It wasn’t a drop off, it was a slope, but the top of the crest was high enough to see that at one time there was a city, a bigger one, too.

  The green that Sandra wished for was there, only it was growth and trees that surrounded the buildings. Some of the structures were intact, some partially crumbled. It was hard to tell if an event caused their demise or if time was the culprit. Vines and moss grew over everything. But more heartbreaking than the city was the long slope that led to the ruins. Tops of a few buildings emerged from the hillside along with part of a truss bridge, its bracing poking out from the ground like spikes. It was as if the earth rolled in swallowing everything in its path and stopped short of wiping out the city.

  Without saying anything, they headed carefully down the slope, they didn’t have much time remaining before they had to head back, but they knew, if anything else, they were going to find out what city it had been.

  <><><><>

  Curt didn’t know what to make of him. Finch kept walking away from the module to watch Rey and Sandra … walk. What was he afraid of? Why was he being so protective?

  “They’re fine, you know,” Curt said, grunting as he struggled to open a hatch on the top side of the module.

  “I know.”

  “Sandra’s tough,” Curt yelled down.

  “I know.”

  “Rey, not so much.”

  Finch only looked up at him.

  Taking a break, Curt climbed down and walked over. “They made it.”

  “Yes, well, we don’t know what’s over that hill.”

  “Why are you so worried? The planet is barren.”

  “Is it? We don’t know. We’re only a couple hundred miles inland and according to Nate, about twenty miles from where the ocean used to be.”

  “Yeah, how about that?” Curt walked back to the module. “So when were you going to say something?”

  “About?”

  “About us being on Earth. Clearly, you knew.”

  “Not much longer than you did,” Finch said, joining him. “I started picking at the crust on the coin and it became clear to me this morning when we headed back. I don’t know when I was going to say something. I’d hoped it wasn’t true.”

  “I’m still hoping. I mean …” Curt began the climb. “Look at this thing. It’s rusted, yes, overgrown … sure. But there is not a single sign of crash damage. No sign of fire, it didn’t break up.”

  “It broke up upon entry.”

  “But if it landed here,” Curt said, arriving at the top portion. “It would be destroyed. It’s not.”

  “I don’t think it landed here.”

  “How the heck do you explain it then?”

  “I think something happened. A tsunami or something. Something that caused the ocean to push everything this way. I think it was carried in. I don’t know. I’m guessing.”

  “It does sound logical. Any guesses as to what happened?”

  “I think this … right here, what we are seeing is what we were headed toward. This is the aftermath, and the reason we were leaving Earth.”

  With a clunk and a hiss, the hatch opened. “Yes … ha. I got it,” Curt said.

  “Good job.”

  “Wanna check it out?”

  “We should.”

  “I have a question. If we are hundreds, if not a thousand years in the future, then the ARCs left, right? They had to have left and had to of landed here.”

  “If that is the case then your barren planet comment is moot. There would be people here.”

  “And if there are people who remained then your worrying is warranted. Unfortunately, unless we run into those people there’s no way of knowing what happened here, or when.”

  “That’s not true,” Finch said. “We have this, what’s below the ridge and the cliff building. The answers are here. We just have to find them.”

  <><><><>

  What was he a child?

  Ben felt like it.

  “Wear a life jacket,” Finch said to Ben and Nate.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Ben asked with a laugh.

  “No, I’m not. I want you to wear a life jacket. Both of you.”

  “I’m an excellent swimmer,” Ben said. “I won medals in school.”

  “I don’t care. Life jackets.”

  A life jacket was just another thing to lug around. But not wanting to argue any further with Finch, Ben agreed. That wasn’t the last of him being babied.

  Ben was certain he could have made it down the ladder, but Finch insisted he be slowly lowered using the pully for specimens. He still had to hold on, and he felt badly for Finch and Curt when they lowered him. He wondered if they thought about how he was going to get back up.

  Climbing would be a slow process.

  Overall, though, going with Nate was the best option. Even hurt, he wasn’t useless in the weightlessness of the water. He swam with ease, and was finally moving without pain. He even carried tools with him as he followed Nate to the waterfall.

  The life jackets made it difficult to move quickly, but the jacket did remove some added pressure his body was feeling.

  Despite that, Nate kept pointing to the building, though Ben didn’t see it. When he did think he caught a glimpse, the rippling water and mist of the waterfall made him dismiss it as an optical illusion.

  Until he was there under the fall.

  He didn’t even need to tread water once he got behind the falling water. There were large stones, or something that made it easier to stand.

  Whether or not the building was evident w
ithin the entire cliff, the section behind the water was clear as day.

  “My God.” Ben ran his hand over a portion of a window frame. “This is an office building.”

  “Or apartment. It’s hard to tell.”

  The windows were four feet high, all of them identical and uniform. Behind the waterfall they were able to clearly see about a thirty-foot wide section of a three-story building. Other parts were buried deep beneath rock, fused with the earth.

  While it was clear there were windows and frames, it was unclear whether the glass was actually there. It was possible the inside of the building had been hollowed out from time and filled with dirt, rocks and mud that filled in the gaps, like placing Play Dough in a mold.

  “Concrete building or brick,” Nate said. “I’d scan it, but I didn’t want to bring the instruments in the water.”

  “You mean scan it to see if it has any hollow openings?”

  Nate nodded. “If it does, I want to get inside.”

  “Yeah, me too. Well … one way to find out.” Ben pulled out a pry bar. “Pick a window.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  There was a stench of old and stale that pelted Curt the second he popped his head into the module. It had been air tight and popped like a vacuum-sealed can. He extended a light inside and looked. Gravity and tumbling had had its effects. If it hadn’t been tied down or secured then it collected in one large heap at the bottom of the almost erect module. A heap that came a third of the way up the length.

  “Was there anyone in there?” Finch asked.

  “Not that I can see. She looks empty. But it’s hard to tell.” He hooked the light onto the interior wall and stepped in carefully. “Seems odd to be in here and not floating. It’s like a tin can.”

  Finch leaned into the hatch. “How does it look?”

  “It looks good. There’s a lot of salvageable parts in here that we can take if we need them. This whole thing can be salvaged. I mean …” He checked out the controls that dangled. “Not sure what we would need. Who knows?”

  “How about logs, they should be secured?”

  “I’m not seeing one, but more than likely”—Curt pointed down—“it’s down there.”

  “Should we start that pile?”

  Curt checked out the time. “We have forty minutes until the others get back. Might as well.”

  “Do you think the others are finding anything as good?” Finch asked.

  “Nah, I think you and I … we hit the jackpot.”

  “Whoa. We hit the jackpot,” Nate said as soon as he stepped through the window.

  “What’s going on? What do you see?”

  Nate stomped his foot to feel for stability. He had chosen the lower floor, feeling it would be best. “It’s solid. Come on in.”

  Cautiously, Ben climbed through. He paused as soon as he was fully beyond the window. The look on his face all but told Nate he was shocked to see the room.

  “Still intact,” Nate said. “Sort of.”

  “It’s an apartment. Someone’s bedroom.”

  “That’s what it looks like … sort of.”

  In the room was a bed, dresser, and television stand, all covered with a thick gray dust. Half the walls were warped and green while the exterior facing walls, along with the floor, looked like they belonged to a cave. Rocky and firm with some loose dirt. The furnishings were cemented into it.

  Nate walked to the dresser and opened the top drawer. “Empty.”

  “Try the second one.”

  Nate did. “Empty as well.” He turned to face the bedroom door, it was open. “Let’s look around. There has to be something in here that will give us a clue.”

  <><><><>

  “Baltimore,” Sandra said, as they sat around the fire. “We didn’t find much, there wasn’t enough time. It started getting dark and time was up. But we know for sure it’s Baltimore. We’re in Baltimore.”

  “The module is a lot of work,” Curt added. “Everything that was in it is gathered at the bottom. But it is still viable. We just have to sort through it.”

  “The building in the cliff,” Nate said, “is an apartment building … or was. We made it into one of the apartments, the corridor was solid rock. Most of the apartment was just … it was like the rock molded around it. Anyhow, it was empty and it looked like the person left and took all their belongings.”

  “An evacuation,” Finch said.

  “They knew it was coming,” added Curt. “Which means, people got out.”

  “Did they survive this massive event though?” Nate asked. “Did humanity overcome it?”

  “So … the cliff building probably doesn’t have any answers,” Finch said. “The module will take some work. Our best bet is to collectively explore Baltimore.”

  “Baltimore?” Ben asked. “It doesn’t make sense. That was near the ocean. We flew inland a hundred miles, at least.”

  “Yes, but remember?” Nate asked. “The oceans shifted. Everything shifted; I truly believe there was some sort of massive flood. Something which pushed millions of tons of dirt inland.”

  “Like a giant mudslide,” Finch said.

  “Yes. Yes,” Nate said with a snap of his finger. “Exactly. That would explain the encased apartment building in the waterfall. Mud just rolled in over everything.”

  “And that would also explain all the buildings that were partially buried,” Rey said. “There’s a slope after the crest. There are buildings in the slope. It looked like something rolled over them. The equivalent of a mud snowstorm. The buildings at the bottom of the slope, some are destroyed, but a lot can be checked out.”

  “So we can find out what caused this,” Curt said. “Do we know?” He looked at Nate.

  “I think we all do,” Nate replied and pointed to the night sky. “That. The number one thing that immediately caused us all to not even consider this was Earth.” He indicated to the blue moon. “It wasn’t there when we left. Somehow that … that planetary object obviously came close to Earth, was slowed down by the gravitational interaction of the moon, or Earth, and was captured into the Earth’s orbit.”

  Finch lifted his views to the sky. “It’s huge. It came really close.”

  “Yes, it did,” Nate said. “And we all know how the moon affects the tides and the oceans, plus the gravity. That extra body, as big as it is, threw everything off. The tides, the oceans, the rotation of the earth. Everything.”

  “So how did the continents all come together?” Curt asked.

  “They didn’t,” Nate replied. “The continents were definitely drifting when we left. In order for them to all come together in some sort of reverse Pangea, it would, as you suggested, Curt, take millions of years. They didn’t come together. The oceans receded and changed, and basically buried the other continents. Not all. Those dots of land mass on the satellite imagery are probably what is left of the other continents.”

  “This is your theory?” Finch asked.

  “It is,” Nate replied. “A theory which can’t be proven unless we find evidence in Baltimore, or we find people. Which I believe we may if we keep going west.”

  “The human species is resilient,” Curt said. “I believe that.”

  “I do, too,” Nate said.

  “So we look to Baltimore,” Finch said. “Then we go west.”

  Ben asked. “Is it possible, that if we do find humans, they have evolved?”

  Nate half laughed. “No. Because it hasn’t been that long.”

  “What?” Curt asked with a ridicule laugh. “How can that be? We have to be thousands of years in the future.”

  “If true, do you think the ruins would look like they do?” Nate asked. “No. Walking into the apartment was like walking into a museum. Everything was preserved. Even at that preservation level with windows sealed, contents inside, they would have broken down if thousands of years had passed. Remember how I said when we landed the ocean had only receded about a hundred years earlier?”

  Everyone nodded. />
  “I didn’t base that on a guess,” Nate said. “I based that on ecological succession. There are three stages. Primary, secondary, and climax. Like going from an empty field to a full-blown forest. Granted, it does repeat and start again, but again it would be only if a hundred thousand years had passed. If an ecological succession had occurred, multiple times in this area, the ruins wouldn’t be as preserved as they are.”

  “How long?” Finch asked.

  “None of these trees have reached full maturation. With that being said, we are under a hundred and fifty years since this event occurred,” Nate said. “I am basing that on the fact that I have seen primary and secondary succession only.”

  Curt lifted his hand. “So whatever happened, finished happening a hundred years ago.”

  “In most places, yes. With the bizarre weather and earthquakes, I’d say it is still on going and hasn’t settled,” Nate said.

  “So that”—Ben pointed to the blue moon—“caused shit to fall apart a hundred years ago, roughly, from right now? That doesn’t mean it was a hundred years ago that we left Earth. Hell, we could have been gone a hundred years before it happened.”

  “True,” Nate said. “We don’t know when the massive event occurred.”

  “But we will,” Finch said. “That’s our first priority. Tomorrow morning we go into Baltimore, we start searching. We not only try to find out what happened …” He looked to each face around the fire. “We try to find out when.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Being on the plateau, wide open and with little coverage from nature, Rey found herself on the verge of a sweat from the morning sun that beat against her tent. She had to be doing something wrong with the tent, there just didn’t seem to be any air flow. Ben assured her they each had a climate control device. Hers couldn’t be working.

  Then again, the previous night, everyone but Finch was hitting the bottle. Slightly drowning the woes of finding a destroyed Earth. Finch didn’t frown too much upon it considering the circumstances.

  She stumbled from the tent, only the second one awake. She could hear the clink of tools, a crack of a wrench, so she followed the sound to see Finch at the side of the Omni.