After The End

by Jamie Campbell

  I thought I hated the aliens before when I first saw them. That was back when I also thought the meteorite that ended our world was a sheer accident. I know better now.

  The alien race that has occupied our planet were the ones that also caused the meteorite. They schemed and planned until they had a way to wipe out most of the population here. They wanted what we had and now they’re taking it. All that’s left is to wipe out the few remaining humans and the planet we know as Earth will belong to them.

  They killed billions of people.

  I can’t bear to think of it. Our lives could have been so much different if it weren’t for those alien invaders. We could have been happy, not having to survive on the fringes from day to day.

  “We might be lucky enough to find some people alive,” Garlind comments as we stalk through the empty streets.

  “I think we’d have to be very lucky for that to happen,” I reply.

  The closer we get to the center of the city, the more damage we can see. The city was in ruins before the explosions happened seven days ago. Now, it’s completely obliterated. I get the feeling all we’re going to find down here is rubble.

  We wind through the streets that would have been bustling with traffic seventeen years ago. People would have been driving to work or school, thinking about the long list of things they needed to get done that day. They would never have imagined how things could change so much and so abruptly.

  It’s difficult to envision what the buildings and houses would have looked like around here. We got a small glimpse when we first arrived in Washington but even those final crumbling structures have been flattened.

  For all intents and purposes, this city no longer exists. It’s a wasteland of concrete and stone. I dread what it will be like closer to the bunker where the aliens really concentrated their attack.

  I don’t want to see it. An overwhelming urge to turn around and run in the opposite direction rushes through me. If it weren’t for Sarah and Rhys, I probably would act on it. But my friends might still be alive and I have to put aside my fear in order to search for them.

  I can do this.

  I can.

  I have Garlind and therefore I have strength. If he can continue putting one foot in front of the other, then I can too. We’ll search and search until we find our friends. We owe it to them. They would do the same for us in a heartbeat.

  That fear and dread never leaves me. Even as we pass the former White House building and get close to the Abraham Lincoln Memorial. If anything, it only gets worse.

  The bunker that held the president and his last remaining army was hidden underneath the memorial. I saw it crumbling as we fled but never imagined it would be completely flattened.

  A quarter of Lincoln’s head lies on the ground. His only eye still looks out and sees nothing. His body is in a million pieces, scattered in the wind.

  It’s impossible to tell there was a whole two-story structure underneath the memorial. Everything is just a mass of debris. The aliens must have really wanted the whole thing destroyed. There is no chance of searching the bunker and no chance of it ever being rebuilt.

  There were thousands of people that lived in the bunker. They thought they were safe. Indeed, they were for seventeen years. But all it took was one attack from the enemy and the whole thing was gone.

  Garlind and I stand on the pavers that would have led inside the memorial. We’re whisper quiet with only our breaths making an impact on the silence.

  Neither of us know what to do or say.

  There are no words that can make this right again. We were extremely lucky to get out and away when we did. Our lifeless bodies could easily have been lost underneath the tons of concrete and steel.

  A gust of wind washes over my face. It brings with it the scent of death.

  Bile from my stomach knocks at my back teeth. I don’t want to vomit but I’m not sure I have a choice in the matter. I clamp my teeth together and hope for the best.

  My hand shoots up to cover my mouth and nose. It doesn’t work to filter out the stench of all the dead bodies but it makes me feel a tiny bit better.

  The smell is the worst I’ve ever smelt. I thought I’d already achieved that milestone when I found a mass of dead bodies months ago. Little did I know then that it could get so much worse.

  Garlind staggers to the side and vomits over some bushes. It’s enough to set me off. I hurry in the opposite direction and lose the small amount of breakfast I’d managed to find and eat. I heave until my insides hurt from the effort.

  My mouth tastes disgusting afterwards. I sit on a piece of concrete that has steel rods sticking out both sides. It could have been the roof, walls, or floor of the memorial—there is no way to tell.

  I focus on my breathing and take as big a breaths as I can manage with the smell. I have nothing more to vomit but that doesn’t stop the churning in my stomach.

  If I look closer at the scene stretching out before us, I can see more than a flattened building. I can see pieces of the humans that were also destroyed. A hand here, a leg there. The people are everywhere, ripped apart and left to rot where they fell.

  I feel like I’m standing on the edge of the world and anything will tip me over. I don’t want to believe what I’m seeing but the smell keeps reminding me it’s real.

  So many people…gone.

  I knew the aliens were terrible. I’d seen the mess they’ve left behind before. They destroyed our entire freaking planet. But seeing their destruction on such a large scale with my own eyes—knowing some of these slain people—it’s a whole new experience. Something my brain quite wrap around.

  Garlind breathes heavily beside me. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  It is the first time I’ve ever heard him have doubts. That single fact alone sends a new cold shiver through me.

  This time, I’m going to be the strong one. “We’ll do a sweep of the area and look for Sarah and Rhys. Just focus on them and we’ll get through it.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we leave here and never come back.”

  He nods just once and takes a step forward. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can leave. I just pray we find some survivors here, especially the ones we’re looking for.

  I have to tread carefully so I don’t accidently step on a human remain. I’ve never seen a horror movie—my parents didn’t like them—but I imagine this is what they are like. Everywhere I look is more grisly things that I can never un-see.

  If I had a choice, I would immediately forget everything here. If I could erase the last few weeks and pretend none of this happened, I would be much happier.

  The only positive to come out of this whole thing is a strengthening of my resolve. I didn’t like the aliens before and now I absolutely loathe them with a red-hot and pure hatred. I want to stop them. I want to give all these slaughtered people some justice.

  Some revenge.

  It’s all I can do to make sure I keep going. I let the hatred burn deep in my soul so I can call upon that emotion to fuel my fight. If they think they can just take our planet like that, they’ve got another thing coming. They don’t deserve it, it’s ours.

  The humans of this planet will triumph.

  It’s a statement I never in a million years imagined saying. Aliens were supposed to be some kind of a conspiracy theory. Only kooks and shady government agencies were supposed to know anything about them. They shouldn’t be here, out in the open, destroying everything.

  I wonder what my parents would have thought of it? They were pure fact-based scientists. Unless they could see something, test it, confirm it, and replicate it, it didn’t exist. Their only regret with our bunker was the fact it didn’t have a laboratory for them to continue their work.

  If I keep my mind occupied, I don’t have to think about the squishy thing I just stepped in. I refuse to look down. Then the little voice in my head tells me it could be my friends and I have to look.

  It
’s a hand. There is no saying who it belonged to.

  I step off and berate myself for not being careful enough. These parts belong to people that were so very much alive a week ago. The least I can do is not step on them.

  Garlind searches about ten feet away. There is a frown on his face that never goes away. His brows are going to remain wrinkled for a long time.

  I keep my hand over my mouth and nose. I wish it worked better than it did to keep out the smell.

  Where the bunker was is an indent. The large structure under the ground has sunken in and managed to swallow up the remnants of the memorial that once sat atop it. From ground level, I can get a real sense of just how big it was. All those corridors that seemed to wind around and around amounted to some significant space.

  The aliens knew where to bomb. They could have made a large-scale attack like this anywhere but they chose the one place where the president lived? Where he controlled his remaining army? It doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me.

  Since learning the aliens were behind the meteorite strike, I don’t believe in coincidences anymore.

  Things happen for a reason and I plan to find out exactly how the aliens knew to bomb the Lincoln Memorial. Maybe there are humans amongst us that have turned into traitors.

  Or worse, what if the aliens can shapeshift into humans?

  I shake my head and try not to consider that possibility. If the aliens are capable of becoming anything they want, we’re all screwed. Completely.

  The few faces I find in amongst the debris don’t belong to anyone I recognize. Most are smeared with blood with their final expressions permanently etched along their features. I hate to think what their final thoughts were. I hope they didn’t suffer.

  We walk around the site for hours until our spirits are at rock bottom and the smell has wormed its way into our skin. “Did you find anything?” I ask.

  Garlind shakes his head sadly. “No sign of Sarah or Rhys. You?”

  “Same.”

  “We should get out of here. There’s no guarantee the aliens won’t return.”

  I hesitate. Leaving means we’re officially giving up on our friends. It means we’ll never see them again—dead or alive. I hate turning my back on them.

  “There’s one thing I want to do first,” I say.

  Garlind follows, hot on my heels, as I find the right place. I have a canvas and now I need some paint. I grab a handful of mud and then another until I have a pile of it at my feet.

  There aren’t many walls still standing but the base of the Lincoln Memorial has a portion of one that is big enough for a message. Just like I’d done for Garlind after we were separated, I scrawl a message for our friends across the wall with the mud.

  My hands are messy and my fingers scrape on the concrete but I don’t stop until I have the whole thing written:

  Sarah and Rhys, come find us. Maisy and Garlind.

  Garlind joins me as I stand back and watch the mud dry. It turns a lighter shader of brown. It probably won’t last past the next rainstorm, but perhaps we might not either. Everything is temporary in this world, it seems.

  We leave the city center behind and head off into the suburbs. We don’t have a destination in mind but decide not to backtrack the way we came. There is nothing left for us in the places we’ve already visited. Heading north seems like the right thing to do.

  The aliens have destroyed the outskirts of Washington DC too. There isn’t one building left standing—houses, offices, stores, everything is flattened.

  There are bodies out here too, but far less. They are probably the ones who managed to flee the bunker but were tracked down later on. I look at each one of their faces too.

  A rock falls off some debris to my left and makes me jump. It sets my heart racing.

  Garlind takes a step in front of me, holding his arm out so I don’t rush ahead. I hate to tell him, but I wasn’t planning on doing anything brave right now. I’ve used up all my courage for one day.

  We stare at the pile of concrete and tiles for a few moments before another piece falls away. That can’t be by chance. Something is behind it.

  “Who’s there?” Garlind asks loudly.

  I’m terrified to know the answer.

  Chapter 3

  I’m pretty certain it’s not an alien. I can’t smell their distinctive reek and they wouldn’t try to hide. They would likely just step out and kill us the moment they saw us.

  “We’re not here to hurt anybody,” Garlind says.

  Some dust falls away from the pile before a weak male voice replies. “I’m injured. Can’t move.”

  “Stay here,” Garlind whispers to me.

  Like that’s going to happen. I shadow him around the pile of debris and spot the man lying on the ground. He has a dark patch of dried blood on his leg and his face shows the strain of his pain. He has to squint to look up at us.

  “What happened to you?” I ask.

  He looks at us, his gaze flicking back and forth as if he’s not sure which one of us to trust the most. He eventually chooses me and meets my gaze. “I was hiding here and those blasted bastards destroyed everything. My leg got caught. I dragged myself out when they left but now I can’t move.”

  I do the math in my head. “You’ve been here for a week like this?”

  He winces. “No, just a day injured. I was hiding before. Feels like a week, though. Are you going to help me or what?”

  I rush over and crouch down, trying to see what kind of damage he’s done to his leg. “I’m going to have to rip your pants, okay? I can’t see a thing.”

  “Do whatever you need to do.”

  I look up at Garlind for reassurance. He kneels down and grabs one end of the man’s long pants while I grab the bottom end. Together, we tear at the material until it comes away.

  His leg is missing a chunk of skin but it appears to have stopped bleeding. As long as he doesn’t get an infection, he can probably make a full recovery.

  “You need some stitches,” I declare. “But we might be able to bandage it enough to heal. Do you have any supplies?”

  He gives me an ‘are you kidding’ look. “Girl, do I look like I have anything? I don’t even have a good pair of pants now.”

  I rock back on my heels. “I’ll see if I can find anything. We’re all out of bandages.”

  We don’t have any supplies to share but there has to be something around that I can use to bind his wound. I got a lot of practice with Rhys’s gunshot to kind of have a clue about what I’m doing.

  Garlind helps me to search. We rifle through piles of rubble in the hopes that something will stick out. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just a long strip of material will do.

  Unfortunately, the only thing I can find is a shirt that has a torso attached to it. No head, arms, or legs. Just a chest of a white male that lost his life in the most gruesome way.

  “Found something,” I say.

  There is no point in delaying the inevitable. We could search all afternoon and still not find anything better. I grit my teeth together and undo the dead man’s buttons. I only have to give it a good tug and it comes lose from around the torso.

  Some more blood seeps from the man’s neck. He couldn’t have died very long ago.

  Garlind helps me to tear the shirt into strips and I wind them around the survivor’s leg. He curses every time I accidently cause him some pain.

  I’m relieved when it’s over. “You’re going to have to stay off it for a few days,” I warn. “Otherwise, the skin might tear and you could lose your leg.”

  Garlind helps him to sit up so he’s not staring at the afternoon sun. “Thanks. I’m glad you came along when you did. I thought I was going to die out here. Do you have any food?”

  He looks so hopeful but I have to disappoint him. “No, sorry. We’ve been out in the forest since the attack. There’s a few berries growing in the wild but nothing substantial.”

  He shrugs, like he suspected that would be the answer.
“So you were here for the big attack?”

  “Yeah. We were lucky to get away when we did. You saw it too?”

  “I had a good hiding spot in the old science museum. But I was as hungry as hell. Thought I could make a run for it in the night. Only got this far before they started charging through the neighborhood. I ducked just in time. Bastards.”

  I think he was brave to move while the aliens were still crawling around, but it was also stupid. “Did you see anyone else make it out?”

  “Yeah, a few. It was chaos when they attacked.” He pauses, remembering. “But I don’t have to tell you two that. I saw a few groups run for the hills. Nobody was paying them much attention so I guess they made it.”

  “Why didn’t you go with them?” Garlind asks.

  He shrugs. “Thought they were insane. Best to hide when the aliens are around. Right?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  I want to ask him if he saw Sarah and Rhys among those who he saw run but I can’t. I don’t have any pictures to show him what they look like. It’s not like an eight year old girl and a teenage boy are unique enough to be a description. In the melee he probably didn’t take much notice anyway.

  I take a different tactic. “We came back looking for our friends. Their names are Sarah and Rhys. She’s only eight years old. If you see them, will you tell them we’re searching for them and to catch up with us?”

  His lips purse together. I don’t know what he has to think about. It’s not like I asked him for a kidney. I did just wrap his wound even though it was disgusting.

  He finally comes to a conclusion. “I doubt I’ll see anyone but if I do, I’ll mention it. Your friends are probably dead. You do realize that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I know the chances are slim. But I’m not going to give up on them.”

  He shrugs, indifferent. He probably thinks I’m just a stupid young girl. I don’t care. At least we got out of the city and away from the aliens without any injuries. He didn’t.