After The End

by Jamie Campbell

  Garlind reaches the gate first and attempts to tug it open. The hinges are so rusted it refuses to budge. We only have a split second to make a decision.

  “Go over it,” he orders. He plants his feet and crouches down to give us a boost. I lift Sarah up first and she grabs the top of the fence to pull herself over.

  I go next, then Rhys. Garlind jumps a few times before his hands find purchase on the top of the fence. He swings his legs up to the side and then hoists himself over. This is why we have to stay fit and limber.

  Over the other side, we’re faced with the back of another mansion. We hurry to break in and then go upwards until we find a small bathroom on the second floor.

  We sit on the floor and wait.

  My heavy breathing makes my lungs expand and contract painfully. I’m never going to be fit enough for this lifestyle. It’s always going to expect more than I have to give.

  This time, I stay away from the windows. The marching is still loud here too and I don’t dare look outside to see whether the alien following us has indeed found our hiding place.

  It was all my fault. No amount of apologizing to the others is going to make up for my stupid, stupid mistake. And so soon after I promised myself I’d be especially careful.

  Stupid, Maisy. Reckless. Ridiculous.

  Garlind places a gentle hand on my arm in the silence. His eyes seem to reassure me that it will be okay but I can’t believe him. If I’m the reason these remarkable three people end up dead, I am never going to forgive myself. I will never rest in peace in the afterlife.

  We sit on the cold, moldy bathroom floor for a very long time. The marching does eventually get quieter and then stops completely. The alien that spotted me must have lost our trail. Does that mean they don’t have a good sense of smell? It seems to support my earlier theory.

  Rhys makes a move and looks out through the small window. The image is distorted by a bubble effect on the pane, probably for privacy. When he can’t get a good look, he very slowly slides the window open.

  He gasps.

  That’s all it takes for the rest of us to scramble to his side. We all look through the small slit he’s made.

  There is no more marching but there are still a group of aliens in the street. They must have looped around from the other road and come through this way too. They’re probably checking every single road for humans to kill.

  And, it seems, they’ve found some.

  A male and female human are kneeled on the ground. Four aliens stand around them with their weapons focused on their heads. The couple couldn’t be more than thirty years old each.

  I don’t want to watch but I can’t tear myself away either. I should have learned my lesson with the basement window but these aliens seem solely focused on the couple, they aren’t looking around for more victims—yet.

  As if someone has cued them, all four of the aliens attack the humans. They don’t use their weapons, their hands are enough to tear them apart.

  They go into a killing frenzy, pulling off the humans’ limbs in turn and tearing their insides out. Blood sprays in a million different ways. The only saving grace is that it was a swift death for the couple. Nobody could withstand that attack for more than a few seconds.

  The aliens don’t stop until the humans are in a thousand pieces. They are barely recognizable as people once they’re done. Chunks of their bodies splay across the road, the bright red blood in stark contrast to the black tar.

  My stomach roils but I bite down hard so I don’t vomit. I’ve never seen them actually kill a human before—only seen the aftermath. It’s a scene that I am never going to be able to un-see. I’m sure it will plague my nightmares for many, many nights yet.

  When the aliens form a square and march off down the road, I finally sit back down on the floor. The room spins a little as I try to piece myself back together.

  Sarah is crying silently to herself. I pull her against me and just hold her. I need the physical comfort too.

  I’m numb as I think about how easily that could have been us. What did that couple do to be discovered? Were they taken unawares? Did they not hear the marching, or did they not know what it meant?

  One little mistake and that could have been us.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper so my friends. It’s the absolute least I can do to atone for my mistake.

  Garlind rocks back on his heels on the floor next to me. “It could have been any of us.”

  Hot tears slide down my cheek. “I’m so sorry,” I repeat. They are the only words that I can seem to say.

  I don’t deserve their forgiveness so I don’t ask for it. All I can do is apologize until the end of time and promise I won’t make the same mistake again. Next time, we might not be so lucky so there can never be a next time.

  Garlind holds me against him until the tears dry up. I don’t deserve his comfort either but I will take it nonetheless. He is my rock and I could have got him killed.

  Torn apart.

  Obliterated.

  The scene plays in my head again and again. Except, this time, it’s not the couple being destroyed by the aliens but my three friends. I’m never going to be able to atone for this.

  Never.

  “We should leave town before dark,” Garlind whispers to me. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I pull back so I can look him in the eyes. “Maybe you should leave me behind.”

  “Never going to happen.” He directs his next question to the others. “Right? We don’t hold grudges.”

  Rhys and Sarah both nod.

  Garlind stands and holds out his hand for me. “Coming?”

  I place my hand in his. If they can be this kind to me, I’m never going to be able to walk away from them. I know of my promise to them and I’m not going to forget it. I’ll never put them in danger again.

  When we leave the house, we scan the area very carefully. We avoid the street where the pieces of that couple are still spread. Nobody wants to see that again.

  We avoid the streets altogether and stick to the yards—somewhere the aliens won’t readily spot us if they are still around. The afternoon is silent and the air smells like leaves instead of the aliens’ scent. Hopefully they have swept through town in the opposite direction to the one we’re going in.

  The road that leads out of town weaves through more residential neighborhoods. I know we should be checking them for supplies but there is only so much we can carry. At the moment, our backpacks are full so that will have to do until we can make room for more.

  Or until our packs are stolen for a third time.

  The others banter in quiet voices as we hit the highway but I don’t feel like talking. We came too close to being captured today and I’m not going to forget about it for a long time.

  Garlind walks beside me, so close our shoulders occasionally touch. I want him to hug me again, tell me everything will be okay and take back everything we saw today. Maybe later, I’ll get my wish.

  I make sure to keep up the brisk pace so I’m not also responsible for slowing down the group. I share all my food and wrap a sweater around Sarah’s shoulders when it starts to get chilly.

  We walk.

  We stop and eat.

  We sleep.

  The days blur into one another as we do the same thing every morning, afternoon, and night. My overwhelming guilt subsides a little every day but never the lesson it taught me. I’m the most conscientious member of our group—always on the lookout for potential danger so we can avoid it.

  I lose track of the days but I know every step brings us closer to our goal. Every stretch of the highway looks just like the last mile. All the towns start to merge together until I can’t remember which ones we’ve been through.

  Finally, we reach the outskirts of Washington DC.

  We made it.

  But it’s not what we were expecting.

  Chapter 17

  I’ve seen big cities before. We’ve gone through Chicago, Indianapoli
s, Columbus, and Charlotte, all places bigger than I can comprehend.

  All those cities were nothing like Washington DC.

  It’s a ghost of a town. The buildings are little more than rubble, piled high with debris and just a shadow of what they once would have been.

  Trees that are probably thousands of years old are bent and broken, dying in the middle of overgrown parks. Stationary cars are flipped onto their roofs. Signs are bent and twisted as they lie in the middle of the road.

  It’s like a destructive tornado has ripped through the city and not spared anything.

  As we walk in, I play a game in my mind. I predict how tall a building was by the size of the debris pile it’s left behind. Some of them have to be dozens of levels high, their crumbled forms still taller than most of the other piles.

  I have no idea what has caused this level of destruction. It can’t have been the meteorite or there would be nothing but a gigantic crater here.

  The aliens are a good suspect, but why do this much damage? They certainly haven’t done that to the other towns we’ve seen. So why start here?

  Humans are also a suspect but how would they destroy these large buildings? It would take them hundreds of years to methodically obliterate all these structures. Plus, why would they bother? Food and shelter are much more important these days than willful destruction.

  There are no answers for my questions. I’m terrified of whatever it was and I don’t know what it all means. Adrenalin runs through my veins as I fight the urge to turn and run away. I don’t like any of this.

  Not. At. All.

  Garlind steps closer to me, his wariness showing in the tick of his tight jaw. We’re all on high alert and off kilter in this strange landscape.

  “Stay near,” I tell Sarah. She must be feeling it too because the kid doesn’t argue. That’s probably the most frightening thing of all.

  To avoid tripping over loose bricks and pieces of concrete, glass, and tiles, we have to walk in the center of the road. Vines and foliage has tried to reclaim the construction materials as their own but there is so much of it that it’s a difficult fight.

  Everything is trying to trip us up. If I don’t concentrate on where I’m walking, I’m going to fall flat on my face. Several times my foot snags on loose items and sends me rushing to regain my balance.

  “Is there anything still standing?” Rhys asks.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Garlind replies.

  “Does anyone have a theory about who did this and why?” I pose.

  Rhys shrugs, as does Sarah.

  “A giant?” Garlind ventures. “With a really, really big baseball bat.”

  “As good a theory as any.” For the first time in days, I smile. This might not be what we were expecting by any means, but at least we’ve made it to Washington DC. We’ve accomplished something which seemed impossible back in North Carolina.

  It’s around noon when we stop for some lunch. We found a stash of Raman noodles a few days back and have been enjoying the flavor ever since. They might still be bland, but at least it’s a change from crackers.

  We stop in the middle of the street to eat. The road is warm underneath me. It would be easy to drift off and take a nap for a few hours before having to deal with any more of this city. Maybe once we’ve found the people we’re looking for, then we’ll be able to rest.

  After we eat, there is no luxury of napping. We get up and continue on into the city. Washington is full of wide roads and intersections. The traffic must have been chaotic before the world ended. I can imagine the place crowded with people, all keen to see the country’s capital.

  It’s difficult to tell now what the buildings were really like, but I’ve seen pictures in the books in the bunker. Large white buildings that were built hundreds of years ago by our founding fathers. Fountains that shot water high into the sky before it danced back down again.

  It would have been majestic.

  Now, it’s just a mess. It’s such a shame the whole world has lost so much. They seemed to have it all and one act of nature took it all away with one strike. I can’t begin to imagine what that would have been like.

  My parents tried to describe it when I asked them, but I’m sure they protected me from the worst of it. They were intentionally vague so I didn’t get upset. There’s no avoiding it now.

  It’s difficult to find our way around as all the signposts and billboards are scattered along the road. Some are so twisted they are impossible to read. We want to find the White House, the last known place of the president, but it could be anywhere in the vast array of debris.

  Worry creeps over my thoughts as I continue to see so much destruction. What are the chances the government is still here when everything has so clearly been destroyed? I know our theory was that all the most important people would have gone into hiding, but there is no saying their hiding place wasn’t destroyed too.

  My heart sinks a little deeper every time we turn down a new street and see nothing still standing. If we don’t succeed here, I don’t know what we’re going to do. We can’t keep wandering around the country, hoping for help.

  But, then again, nor can we spend our lives hiding.

  If this doesn’t work out, we’re going to be clueless. It’s the hope of fighting back against the aliens that has kept us going for all these long miles. Take that away and what do we have? How long can we live without hope? The four of us certainly can’t take on the legion of aliens by ourselves.

  The roads we walk down seem to lead us where we need to go. We only venture down a couple of dead ends and have to backtrack. After a few hours, the sun is getting low in the sky and so is our energy levels.

  That’s when we find the White House.

  It feels like we’re spot on in the center of the city. A tall fence of black iron once stood around the building but is now flat and buried beneath long grass.

  The only reason we know it’s the White House is because of a sign nearby. It’s really just a pile of white bricks and concrete now. It’s barely a shadow of what it once was. If I hadn’t seen the picture of it in the bunker, I would have no clue about what once stood here.

  This landmark used to be a very important place. The entire country was run from here, the president lived here, and they passed laws that governed for decades here. Now, it’s nothing. It seems symbolic that it’s now so destroyed.

  I walk in between the fence gaps until I’m standing on the ground once so sacred and protected. There are no security guards or secret service operatives to arrest me for getting to close. This is no longer a place of reverence.

  “There’s nothing here,” Rhys says. “We should keep searching the rest of the city.”

  “I want to take a look,” I reply quietly, without stopping.

  Something is drawing me near the building. Maybe it’s morbid curiosity but I want to see the wreck up close. I want to place my hands on the bricks and see what secrets they can tell me.

  I take a straight line to reach the main part of the building. Much of the structure has been torn apart but it seems the ground level is still largely intact—just buried beneath all the debris.

  The bricks and steel are loose under my feet as I climb over it to get closer. I’m only one little slip away from falling flat on my face. My hands scrape against concrete as I steady myself for the umpteenth time.

  “Be careful, Maisy,” Garlind calls out.

  None of the others have followed me. They obviously don’t feel the pull toward it like I do. It’s inexplainable, but I have to get closer and peek inside. I’ve read too much about the White House to merely walk away.

  Finally, I’m close enough to reach the ground level. I wiggle through a window with no glass until my feet land on the carpeted room.

  ‘Room’ is a kind description. It’s a hole, really. The roof is barely holding up and the carpet is covered in mold spores that will probably kill me if I stay around too long. Mushrooms grows in random places. No win
dowpanes remain and any decorations that may have graced the walls are now lying on the ground in a smashed heap.

  Graffiti is spray painted on one of the walls with bright neon pink paint. It’s messy and spotted with spores but I can still read it:

  Useless rats. Abandon your people and leave us for dead. You deserve to die.

  It takes up an entire wall. I can feel the anger behind it in the sharp strokes of the letters. Someone wasn’t happy with the government. I remember my parents saying there was a lot of civil unrest in the lead up to the meteorite striking. Maybe some people blamed those in charge for not doing enough.

  Didn’t Philip say the government didn’t do anything to help their people? That in the end, it was up to the individuals to save themselves? It must have been horrible knowing everything was about to change—for those lucky enough to survive.

  I spin around slowly and take everything in for a second time. I look closer, analyzing everything lying around as if seeing it with new eyes.

  This building wasn’t destroyed like the other ones in the city we’ve seen. They looked like a controlled demolition—like a big piece of machinery has torn through and broken the buildings into pieces.

  This…this is different. It’s more deliberate, with the damage more thorough. The windows have not only been broken, but the glass smashed into tiny pieces. The brick walls don’t lie in chunks but in hundreds of pieces.

  It looks like the White House has been destroyed piece by piece. This destruction was personal. Targeted. Deliberate. Warranted?

  Emotions would have been riding high. Humans like having something to blame for their problems. We need a common enemy to fight against. It wouldn’t surprise me if they saw the president and his party as the obvious target.

  When I was little and I first learned about the event that ended the world, I would always ask my parents why didn’t someone stop the meteorite. How could there be movies made about that very thing and yet in real life they didn’t do anything.