World of Dead | Vol. 1 | Issue 1

by Johnson, Broderick

  Issue 1

  The silence by the lake was something Kyra would remember forever, but at this point she was becoming frustrated with it. Her parents had brought her to their lake house, hundreds of miles from the city, located in upstate New York in order to be safe. Kyra kept finding herself asking what they needed to be kept safe from. She wasn’t even sure her parents knew.

  The world was at war, but nobody knew what the war was for, who it was against, or whether we were winning or losing. Kyra heard her parents mention the Battle of Earth before, but whenever she asked about it they would just shush her or respond by saying it happened before she was born. None of the teachers at school wanted to talk about it either. All Kyra knew was that whatever happened twenty years ago cut deep enough into the human spirit that it got locked away forever.

  Even then, as Kyra stared at the lake with her light brown eyes, she didn’t fully understand what the world had gone through. Nor did her parents, as both of them were young when society began to fall apart. However, despite all of the negatives that the world was going through, it was seeming to come back together.

  The Global Union was finally getting a control on crime and homelessness. The schooling system was better than it had been for hundreds of years, or so Kyra always heard. Most importantly, the world was more connected than ever before. That was all before The Fall.

  Three months ago, Kyra was in her room at the families townhome in Manhattan watching television when she heard her mother scream at the top of her lungs. Kyra’s heart dropped. She feared that something had happened to her little sister, Kassidy, who was just five-months-old at the time. She swung her door open, racing her dad down the hallway to the living room.

  “Karen?” her dad shouted in fear. They both lunged around the corner to find Kyra’s mother, Karen, staring at the television screen. The news was on and there was an image of a mushroom cloud expanding into the sky on the screen. The caption below read, Bomb Goes Off Over Indian Ocean.

  “Oh my god,” Kyra’s father muttered under his breath. He slowly approached his wife, but refused to take his eyes off of the television.

  “Once again, for those of you who are just joining us,” the newscaster explained, “you are witnessing a mushroom cloud bigger than any in recorded history. The Global Union is issuing everybody to remain indoors as they expect the explosion to have severe medical hazards contained within the blast.”

  Kyra could feel her heart beating heavily in her chest as the fear rose to conquer her emotions. She was only sixteen and now suddenly her entire life had changed. Her world was coming to an end. If only she knew then just how bad it would become. Over the next week alone, the whole community had crumbled. There was constant honking and yelling. People were trying to get out of the city as fast as possible.

  One day, her father came rushing into the town home with sweat dripping down his forehead. He had gone out for some groceries and supplies and now looked as if he had been attacked by animals. He stood there with a crazy look in his dark eyes and his back against the door as if he was creating a master plan.

  “Dave, honey?” Karen asked and Dave responded by shaking his head very slowly, “What's the matter?”

  “Pack your things,” he answered, “Get the kids into the Jeep. We are going to the lake house.”

  Karen opened her mouth in an attempt to ask another question, but her husband walked passed her without another word. Kyra looked at her mom for the answers, but watched as her mother stood their pondering in her own thoughts. Finally, Karen looked at her daughter and asked, “Will you please go pack your things for dad? He wouldn’t be acting this way if it wasn’t something serious.”

  Kyra nodded, but all she wanted to know was what was happening. Over the next few hours of trying to get out of the city, Karen was asking Dave nonstop about what he had seen, but he continued to refuse to answer. It took them four and a half hours to reach the lake house and upon arrival, Dave had everybody unpack their things and lock themselves in the house.

  Kyra and her mother would watch the news every night to continue hearing the stories, but that didn’t last long. Within a week, all television networks were either down or they were stuck on a repeat from the previous night. Kyra’s father stopped at a small grocery store, thirty minutes from the lake house, and grabbed months worth of pasta and soups, along with whatever meats and veggies he could afford. Karen was not supportive of the spending, but Dave didn’t care.

  A few weeks later, Kyra heard her father assuming that electricity was down in the city, but they couldn’t be certain because they had a generator powering the lake house. The last news update Kyra and her mother heard was informing everybody that a virus had indeed spread and was airborne. It went on to say that if you weren’t already feeling the effects then you were probably safe because every victim was severely sick within days.

  Months went by and Kyra was beginning to master board games against her mother, who was barely holding her emotions together. Kyra’s father was constantly out collecting wood and other objects from the surrounding woods, or so he claimed. He never came back with much though so Kyra was suspicious as to what he was really up to.

  So there she sat, at the end of their dock that extended down to the small lake. There were other houses around the lake as well, but literally none of them had had a single light on since Kyra and her family got there. The sun was setting and Kyra watched the clouds turn pink and orange in the reflection of the water. She had no idea what to do anymore. She felt as though her father was losing his mind and her mother was becoming depressed.

  Suddenly, a cold hand gripped Kyra on her shoulder and she spun around with a yelp. It was her mother. Kyra let out a sigh and stood up to give her mother a hug. Karen apologized to her daughter and asked if she could sit with her. They sat there, staring at the water in silence. A silence that was becoming too silent for their tastes.

  “My mother must be torn apart,” Karen whispered to her daughter, “If she’s even alive, I mean.”

  “I’m sure she’s alive, mom,” Kyra responded, placing her hand on Karen’s back. Kyra knew that her mom was going through a lot. She had tried to call her parents, friends, even her coworkers just to find out if the people she knew were still alright. Most of them didn’t answer and then after a few weeks, there was no cell service or internet connection at all. No phone calls out, or in, leaving them in an even deeper silence.

  “I remember when the Battle of Earth happened,” Karen explained, as tears began to form in her grayish eyes, “My parents were heart broken. They knew that their entire world was about the change forever.”

  Kyra was hesitant to ask any questions, knowing that the subject was touchy, so she kept it simple, “How old were you?”

  “Twenty-one,” her mother answered, “Your father was already working while I was trying to finish school. Of course, that never happened with how big of a mess the government became.”

  “What do you mean?” Kyra asked. From her perspective, the government was great. It provided safety for the citizens of the world and made sure that everybody was connected like never before.

  “Before the Global Union, the world was much different,” Karen explained to her daughter, “New York was a state in the United States of America. The greatest country in the world. Although, it felt very divided, the United States provided its citizens with the best opportunity to succeed. The more you succeeded, the more you were rewarded.”

  “I know, mom,” Kyra interrupted. She had learned about governments of the past in her history class, “But that system didn’t work. The richer got richer and the poorer got poorer.”

  “You’re right,” Kar
en agreed with a little giggle. She was proud of her daughter’s intelligence. She continued to explain, “I’m not saying the Global Union didn’t help the world overall, but unfortunately for your mother and father, it did us no favors.

  “I could not finish school without redoing a bunch of things and your father had to suffer from changing tax laws. It took us years to figure out how to successfully work in the Global Union’s system. That’s why there’s such a big difference between you and your sisters age. I got pregnant with you and it became even harder to support the three of us without really knowing the boundaries. Not to mention that at that time, the Global Union was issuing a curfew to protect from more attacks like the Battle of Earth.”

  “Who attacked us?”

  “I honestly don’t know, dear,” Kyra’s mother said as she met Kyra’s eyes, “They call them the Grey. Your father thinks it’s some sort of terrorist group. I’ve heard some crazy theories on what the Grey are, myself. All I can say is that, whatever the Grey are or whoever they are, they created a threat on a global scale that forced nearly two hundred different countries to unite and fight against them. The Grey created the Global Union of Earth.”

  Kyra was dumbfounded. She had never heard so much information on the Battle of Earth. The only things she ever heard about it was that it was an attack on humanity and that the Global Union was still at war with whoever they were fighting against during the Battle of Earth. After being at war for twenty years, it seemed like it would never end.

  “Does this mean we lost the war?” Kyra asked her mother. Karen looked down at the water and tears began to fall from her eyes. Her daughter reached over and pulled her in for a hug. They really did look like mother and daughter. They had the same long and straight dark brown hair which they both liked to wear up in a bun or ponytail most of the time. They had the same skinny nose and small lips. The only difference in their appearance was their eyes. Karen had lighter, gray like eyes while her daughter got some of Dave’s brown in hers.

  “I don’t know,” Karen let out in between sniffles. The mother and daughter duo sat there, at the edge of their dock watching the sky go from pink and orange to violet and blue as the stars, one by one, appeared. For a moment, life didn’t seem so screwed up because they had each other.

  “Is dad crazy, now?” Kyra asked quietly and her mom broke out into laughter. Kyra joined as she realized how her question must’ve sounded.

  “No,” Karen answered her daughter, “He’s just trying to keep us safe.”

  “I wonder what he saw in the city that day,” Kyra responded, “He hasn’t been the same since.”

  “Me too, Kyra,” her mother replied as she sat there in her daughters arms, “Me too.”

  Kyra and her mother made their way back up to the lake house to begin cooking dinner. It was already beginning to get cold outside, which was nothing new to the family having lived in New York. The feeling of the breeze reminded Kyra of playing in the snow up there at the lake house. The thought quickly faded, however, as she remembered that their world was going to be much different moving forward.

  Dave and Karen cooked a small, pasta themed dinner, once again for the family. Kyra was becoming a great babysitter of her eight-month-old sister, Kassidy. As her parents cooked, Kyra enjoyed playing peek-a-boo or even a small game of hide-and-seek. She thought it was humorous how Kassidy would crawl around in circles and then eventually give up and start playing with one of her baby toys instead searching for Kyra, but what can you expect from an eight-month-old.

  The family gathered around with the television on a network that had its night loop cycle on. Having been like that for two months, the family had pretty much seen every loop on every channel, but having the television on was better than the godawful silence. There was never much to talk about at dinner; Karen would ask Dave how the search for wood and supplies went that day and if he saw anything strange and Dave would keep his response short.

  Kyra tended to ignore her parents small talk and focus on her little sister as she helped feed her whatever baby food they had left. She overheard her dad say that he didn’t come home with anything on this particular evening and it made her think. She remembered him leaving in the late morning and returning just before the sun began to set. That means he would’ve been out there for seven or so hours and didn’t bring anything back? Her mom let the response slide, but Kyra wasn’t going to.

  “Dad,” she said in a firm voice. Dave looked up at his daughter, surprised by her tone. His eyes narrowed as she opened her voice to ask, “You were gone for seven hours and you didn’t bring anything back?”

  “I’m not sure it was seven hours, Kyra,” her father argued as he lowered his head and went back to eating.

  “I am,” Kyra fired back. Quite frankly, she was a bit annoyed with his distant attitude, “Look, I know that this isn’t necessarily easy for you, but it’s not easy for any of us. We’re locked away in a house in the middle of nowhere with no connection or knowledge of what’s going on in the world.”

  “Kyra, that’s enough,” her father said, keeping his head down as he refused to engage in conversation. This just seemed to anger Kyra more.

  “No it’s not enough,” Kyra argued back, “Why are you disappearing for seven hours a day and why are you lying about it?”

  Kyra’s mother leaned across the table and grabbed Kyra softly by the wrist as she said, “Your father said that’s enough.”

  Karen watched her daughter’s eyes widen as she stared back at her. Kyra was in disbelief that her mother was protecting her father like that. When Kyra looked back at her father, she found that he was already glaring back at her. His eyes could have easily been confused with anger, but Kyra saw the truth. He was scared.

  “Finish your food,” Dave said to his daughter. His tone was strong and unforgiving. He had had enough of the conversation, “And when you finish,” he said, “take out the trash.”

  “Take out the trash to where?” Kyra replied, “Our dumpster is full and nobody is coming to empty it.”

  “Kyra!” her father shouted, “I will not ask you again!”

  She stared at her father and suddenly, she was the one that was scared. She had never seen her father like this. It was as if he was unwilling to listen to anybody at the moment. And all Kyra could think about is what he could have seen that would cause such a drastic change in attitude. His hair looked dirty and crazy, as if he hadn't showered in days. His dark brown eyes were always lowering to the ground. Her father was a big man, with wide shoulders and enough muscle to show he could handle himself, but on this night he looked weak and tired. His slumping shoulders would even give you the impression that he was smaller than he was.

  Kyra dropped her silverware onto her plate and stood up. She marched to the trash bin and pulled the bag from within before making her way out the front door. She made sure that when it closed behind her, it was louder than they would want it to be. She wasn’t sure why they’d care anyway because it wasn’t like they had any neighbors to piss off.

  She made her way down the driveway and to the dumpster. It was stationed about fifty yards from the house on top of the gravel driveway that made its way to the pavement of the carports. The house had a single light above the two car garage that would be on for most of the night. In fact, Kyra wasn’t sure if it ever shut off.

  Kyra turned and tossed the bag to the top of the pile, but because the dumpster was already overloaded with trash, the bag rolled down and back out of the dumpster. It crashed to the gravel and Kyra let out a groan. She made her way to pick the bag back up, but that’s when she noticed something off in the distance.

  Looking up, she narrowed her eyes to see into the shadows. The single light, coming from the garage, was hardly enough to illuminate whatever she think she might’ve seen. Kyra looked from left to right as she could’ve sworn that she saw something move. Shaking it off, Kyra dropped down and grabbed the bag. She turned and jammed it into the corner of the dumpste
r so that it was pinched by the other bags.

  Suddenly, the sound of gravel moving behind her caused Kyra’s heart to drop. Could it be a bear? A mountain lion? Maybe even wolves? Kyra had never seen any of those threats up here before, but maybe the lack of people around the lake would attract them, she thought. Very hesitantly, she turned back towards the driveway to see what the violator of noise could be. She wasn’t sure if what she was seeing was better or worse than what she thought of before. Making its way towards her, about twenty yards away in fact, was not a bear, lion, or wolf. It was a person.

  The shadow of a man or woman was becoming more and more visible as it took step after step. Kyra decided to step back and bumped into the dumpster behind her. She wasn’t sure what to do. If it was a man, chances were that he was probably faster than she was, but if that was the case then why was he just walking slowly towards her. In fact, his posture was awful as well. It looked as though he was sleep walking.

  “Hey!” Kyra decided to shout, “Don’t come any closer! My dad makes me carry a gun at all times!”

  It was an old trick that her parents taught her to use whenever she was out in that area. Kyra had never used it before, though, because she had never seen any threat from a person out there. It wasn’t working, either. The shadow just continued to walk towards her and as it got closer Kyra could begin to see features.

  The creature was, indeed, a man. He was wearing a jacket and jeans with some boots on, but he looked like he was limping for some reason. Kyra instantly began to worry about if the man was harmed in some way.

  “Are you alright?” Kyra shouted, “Do you need some help?”

  The man did not respond. He just continued to move towards her, one step at a time. That’s when Kyra noticed the blood. All down his dark jacket was a liquid that could be hard to tell just exactly what it was, but once the man got close enough it was crystal clear. The dark red color started on his sleeves and abdomen and then made its way up his neck and all the way to his mouth.