After The End

by Jamie Campbell

  “Thank you, Senator Delroy,” Garlind replies. He continues to explain about the dead alien we found and how we suspect they can be killed. The senator continues to school his expression with impassivity.

  Senator Delroy says nothing when Garlind is all out of explanations. He seems to curl in on himself mentally, weighing up the words inside his mind without giving away his thoughts.

  Finally, his body goes rigid as he looks up at us again. “Do not leave this room.”

  He walks stiffly to the door and dismisses the soldier with a few words. They both disappear out the door, leaving us alone for the first time since they pointed their guns at us.

  “Do you think they believed us?” I ask.

  “No idea,” Garlind replies.

  With his tied hands, he manages to reach over and wrap his pinkie finger around mine. It’s the only reassurance I need. We’re in this together and we’ll face whatever is about to come at us together.

  I keep telling myself that the US Army won’t execute us like Philip’s group. They have laws, a code of conduct, someone to report to. Surely, they will have to treat us like proper human beings while we are in their custody.

  There’s a little voice inside my head that scratches out a warning. Maybe under normal circumstances all those things apply to the US Army, but this is far from a normal situation. The world ended, and with it went all those protocols of the Geneva Convention. They can do what they like with us.

  For now, I’m going to choose to think positively. Whatever Senator Delroy and the army are deciding on the other side of the door, it has to result in us walking free at some stage.

  Maybe I’m delusional.

  After a few hours of watching the clock, the door opens and a female soldier enters with a cart. There are four trays of food stacked on top and smell delicious. My mouth salivates as the hot food hits all my senses.

  “Hold out your hands and don’t try anything funny,” she orders us with a stern voice.

  We do as she says and the soldiers works her way down the line, cutting our zip tie restraints. Blood instantly rushes into my hands and starts to tingle in a painful way. I place my hands on my knees to prove that I’m going to obey her every command if it means we get to eat whatever is on those trays.

  When we’re all free, she hands us a tray each. They have hard plastic covers on them so I can’t see what’s inside. They are warm though and it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a hot meal. I will devour anything that is underneath by this point.

  “Eat up and I’ll be back to collect the trays in one hour,” she says before leaving.

  We tear off the covers in a split second. Underneath there are foods I have only ever seen pictures of before. Two fried eggs, a couple of rashers of bacon, and three different kinds of colorful vegetables sit on the plastic plate.

  I don’t know where to start. I want to savor all these smells and tastes for as long as possible. But I’m also starving hungry and ready to fill my stomach as quickly as possible.

  We don’t speak while eating. We’re all focused on experiencing this feast on our own. Talking would only distract us from the event itself.

  I start with the bacon.

  Then move to the eggs.

  The vegetables are last. First the peas, then the carrots, and finally the potatoes.

  It’s a taste explosion in my mouth. I literally don’t want this moment or plate of food to end. I will happily eat myself to death if given the chance.

  When I face a completely empty plate, I want to cry. It’s such a horrible sight and I wanted it to go on for far longer than it did. Food never lasts as long as I need it to.

  I stand and place my tray back on the table. I’ll show the soldiers that we are good, clean people. We can follow directions, we can look after ourselves. We can fit in here, they don’t need to kill us.

  When I sit down again, I’m comfortably sated to a degree. More food would be ideal, but the amount I had was enough to fill my belly.

  I could use a nap.

  “That must have been dinner,” I say to the silence. “What do you think they’ll give us for breakfast?”

  “Probably the same,” Rhys replies.

  “I could eat that all day long,” Garlind adds.

  “Bacon is my favorite thing ever,” Sarah says.

  The food is our hot topic for the better part of the next hour. We’re never eaten anything worth talking about before. To have a proper meal, like they would have had back before the world ended, was a delicacy. A real, serious treat.

  At the end of the hour, the soldier returns and collects our trays and trolley. She gives us each a pillow and blanket. “Get some sleep. There’s a bathroom through there.” She nods toward a door on the opposite wall. “Make yourselves at home until morning.”

  There is an audible click when she locks the door after herself. They’re being civil to us—almost kind—but they still don’t entirely trust us.

  I can understand that.

  We take it in turns to use the bathroom. I want to stand underneath the hot water for hours but limit myself to twenty minutes. I yearn for a fresh change of clothes but their hospitality didn’t extend that far. I dress in my dirty clothes and brush my wet, clean hair.

  The pillow smells fresh and the blanket is soft. The floor is hard but I barely notice. With food in my belly and my skin tingling with cleanliness, I drift off to sleep easily.

  I rest peacefully all night long. I haven’t felt this safe and secure since being inside the bunker with my parents. The four walls around me are solid, nothing can come in during the night and hurt us.

  We’re safe.

  I have to repeatedly tell that to myself because I still don’t truly believe it. That stupid little voice keeps telling me it’s a false sense of safety, but I don’t want to listen to it.

  We’re safe.

  I like how those two words sound as they roll around inside my head. I’m going to keep saying them until I’m proven wrong. Being positive is a choice and I’m grasping it with both hands this evening.

  Night passes quickly and steadily. Having the clock on the wall and hearing it’s constant ticking is reassuring. They’re civil here, they have a clock. Nothing bad can happen when they have a clock.

  Right?

  We’re woken in the morning by a new soldier delivering food. It’s only six a.m. and I could use a few more hours of sleep but the offer of food is too much to refuse. I’d get up a two a.m. if it meant eating.

  Breakfast is scrambled eggs—so Garlind explains. There are pieces of green which I think is parsley. It adds to the flavor but is hardly needed for us to enjoy the meal.

  When they take back our breakfast trays, they also deliver khaki uniforms. They are just like what the soldiers wear except there are no patches for ranks and names. The material is stiff against my skin but it’s clean so I happily change.

  At nine o’clock on the dot, yet another soldier enters and stands before us. “You are to come with me. Will you behave, or do I need to tie your wrists again?”

  “We’re good,” I reply quickly.

  “Glad to hear it. Follow me.”

  He leaves without looking back, fully expecting us to stick to our words and follow him. We go in single file with Garlind in the lead behind the soldier.

  The corridors here are lined with metal and the fluorescent lighting so bright I try to avoid looking at it. The passageway may look modern but they are narrow and busy. We pass a seemingly endless stream of soldiers all going about their missions.

  Nobody gives us a second look. Either they’re used to seeing visitors here or they are trained to mind their own business and ignore everyone else’s.

  We go down a floor in the elevator to B2. Another set of corridors ensue until we are led into a large white room. An older man—probably about sixty, if I had to guess—sits in front of a computer at the end of the room. He spins around in his office chair when he hears our presence.
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br />   The soldier addresses him. “Sir, these are the visitors we spoke about. They are all yours.”

  He stands with a smile on his face. His hair is completely white and his glasses are so thick I’m surprised he can see anything through them. “Thank you, Corporal. I will take them off your hands.”

  The soldier salutes and marches from the room. The door closes with an ominous thud. I’m not sure I feel as comfortable with this guy as with the soldiers. He is wearing a white lab coat and has eyes that look twice as big through his glasses.

  He eyes us with that same weird smile on his face. “Welcome to my lab. I don’t have any other chairs so you can either sit on the floor or stand, I don’t mind which.”

  We stand.

  “My name is Ricardo, I’m the head scientist of this little operation. You can call me Rick. You’ve spun quite a tale to the Senator. Dead aliens and all that.” He shakes his hands to emphasize ‘all that’. I’m not sure I’m following him.

  Thankfully, Garlind understands him a little better. “Yes, sir, we came across a dead alien. We thought this information was important to share with the US Army.”

  “Oh indeed, it is. We’ve managed to capture only one of the blasted things since they invaded. It killed itself within seconds so we couldn’t get much out of it.” Rick shrugs. “What are you going to do? Nothing, that’s all you can do when something like that happens.”

  He chuckles and I’m not entirely sure this man is not insane. For a head scientist, he doesn’t seem to act like it. My parents were scientists and they took everything very seriously. Rick is a little…less formal.

  Garlind proceeds to recount our experience with the dead alien again. The more he speaks, the bigger Rick’s eyes grow.

  The scientist sobers up a bit as his smile falters. “It’s the information we needed, actually. I’ve been working on this situation for seventeen years now and have made no progress. Every time we get close to thinking we know how to beat them, it turns out we’re wrong.”

  “So you haven’t managed to kill an alien yet?” I ask. I don’t think first, just speak. It surprises me that they haven’t made any inroad on this before.

  Rick shakes his head dramatically. “Alas, no. We’ve tried bullets, swords, knives, garrotes, grenades, and bombs. They seem indestructible. They get cranky when we try to kill them too, we’ve lost many good soldiers that way.”

  “You can start the real fight now?” Garlind asks with so much hope in his voice that it twists my heart.

  “Baby steps,” Rick replies. He holds up a finger as if a thought just occurred to him and he needs a few moments to think it through. I’d really like to have an insight into this man’s brain. I’m sure it will be like looking into the sun.

  “Is there a way we can help?” Garlind starts.

  Rick shakes his head, still preoccupied. “No. No. I need to think about this more. Show yourselves out.”

  He gestures vaguely to the door before sitting at his desk and furiously typing on his computer keyboard. We don’t exist to him anymore now. We’re just white noise.

  I’m not sure if we’re allowed to just leave the lab and ‘show ourselves out’ but we don’t really have a choice. We head toward the door and step out into the corridor.

  There are no soldiers down this part of the labyrinth. Strip lighting leads us away with only a few other doors dotted along the way. If I knew I’d have to find my own way back to our room, I would have paid more attention earlier.

  At least there is only one way to go at the moment. We walk down the corridor at a steady pace, peeking through the windows of the doors we passed. It seems most rooms have their lights off or the windows are covered for privacy. Anything could be happening down here and nobody would ever know.

  We find the elevator and return to level B1. There are many more people in these corridors so it doesn’t take very long for one of them to stop us.

  “What are you doing here?” a female asks. A closer look at her features and I recognize the soldier that brought us dinner last night. She probably thinks we escaped and have gone rogue.

  How do I convince her otherwise?

  Chapter 19

  Perhaps the truth is our best weapon right now. I reply, “We were taken down to see Rick and he dismissed us. We weren’t sure where to go next.”

  The soldier’s blue eyes look at us with suspicion. Surely if we were up to something nefarious, we wouldn’t have been walking around in the open. We’re not that stupid.

  Her stance relaxes. “I’ve got orders to show you to your new beds. Looks like you’ll be staying for a while. Just try not to get in the way. We have real work to be done here, okay?”

  We nod like bobbleheads.

  The patch on her chest says Taylor, which I guess means her last name. I can’t decipher her rank from the patches on her shoulders. She seems young but I’m a terrible judge of age. If I had to guess I’d say mid-twenties.

  Taylor marches us further into the belly of the underground level. I’m just not getting a sense of how big this place really is. It isn’t just two levels of corridors, there are large meeting rooms, huge offices, sleeping quarters, and even an impressive gym which is packed full of people.

  We are shown to a dormitory with eight rows of beds from one end to the other. We are shown two bunk beds and each claim one for ourselves. Garlind and I both take the bottom bunks. The beds are too narrow for two people to sleep on but at least we will only have a small space between us in our individual beds.

  Our backpacks which were confiscated the day before are piled at the end of the room. We retrieve them, only to find all the weapons missing—of course. Apparently, their trust in us only extends so far.

  At least it appears we are no longer prisoners. We’ve been accepted and given a place to sleep, freedom to move around. Perhaps this will be a good place to stay for a while. It seems safe enough.

  “I will show you to the restrooms and the cafeteria,” Taylor says formally. “They will be the only places you will have access to unless told otherwise.”

  A hot shower and some food sound like the only two things I could ever need in my foreseeable future. This place is like a luxury hotel compared to what we’ve been experiencing these last few months.

  I think it’s even better than the bunker.

  My parents come to the front of my thoughts. I hope they can rest easy now and see that I’m okay. No more running, no more fearing for my life every day. I’ve found a place I can stay and rest. Somewhere there are real adults in charge.

  I can let the people in high ranks make all the hard decisions while I shower, eat, and sleep in a real bed. Nothing could be better than the warm and cozy image that brings to mind.

  Taylor gives us each a wristband made out of soft plastic. “These will give you access to the areas you need. Press them against the computer panels next to each door handle. If the green button flashes, the door will open. If you get red, it means you are not authorized to be there.”

  I slip on the wristband which feels so light I can easily forget I’m wearing it. It probably gives us the least amount of access out of them all. I wonder if it also opens the door to the outside? I’m curious to find out.

  “Come on, I’ll take you on the tour so I can get on with some real work.” Taylor turns and marches on. We follow closely behind.

  This time, I pay attention to our route. I note the sequential numbers on the doors, the coded signs on every corner we turn as I try to commit them to memory.

  The fact there are no windows anywhere doesn’t bother me like it might do most people. I’m used to being underground. Steel walls are comforting, they represent security. I’ll never suffer claustrophobia.

  The restrooms are our first stop. The male and female ones are separated and we’re told they each have shower and toilet facilities. We are to use them at off-peak hours where possible so we don’t get in the way of the ‘real’ soldiers.

  I wonder about our
future here. Do they intend on training us as new recruits so we can join their ranks one day? Or are we just an inconvenience they will tolerate for a few days until they can be sure of our ability to keep our mouths shut?

  Maybe they haven’t really given it any thought at all. They do have much bigger problems to contend with than three teenagers and a little kid.

  Our tour concludes in the cafeteria. I’m not sure what I expected, but it definitely wasn’t this. First off, the place is massive. Rows and rows of fixed tables and chairs run off into the distance. The food is just a speck on the other side of the room.

  Secondly, there have to be hundreds of soldiers here. A loud din echoes off the walls as they all eat, talk, and be merry. I never expected the US Army to have this many surviving members.

  The ages of the soldiers are all varied. There are many older ones that would have seen the world before the meteorite struck. A lesser number of younger ones that would be like me and have little comprehension of what it was like to live here before.

  “Help yourself,” Taylor says before leaving.

  I feel very small in this big place. Everyone here is a contributing member of the army. They all have a purpose, a place. I’m nothing but a speck. Someone to drain their supplies and who really has no idea what she’s doing.

  Sure, we had some information, but what else can we offer our country? We have no training, no special skills. Maybe Garlind, Rhys, and even Sarah would make good recruits, but me? All I know how to do is spout off facts about history and cook a can of beans to the right temperature.

  I shouldn’t get too comfortable here. Until I know my place, I will assume this is all only temporary. They are being nice to us for now bit I will be ready to leave if they no longer extend our welcome.

  “Something smells good,” Rhys says and heads in the direction of the tantalizing aroma.

  Sarah hurries to follow but Garlind hesitates next to me. “Everything okay, Maisy Rayne?”

  I focus on him so my thoughts don’t explode inside my head. “It’s just a lot to take in.”

  “Yeah, it is. But we’ll get used to it.”