After The End

by Jamie Campbell

I can’t shake the ookey feeling sitting in the pit of my stomach. We’ve walked into too many places where we’ve been treated terribly. Perhaps we should have learned our lesson by now. It certainly feels like we’re repeating history in some way.

  “I’m gonna talk to Bruce,” one of the men says to the other. He branches off so we’re just following the one guy. The same one that made us strip down.

  He leads us into a small building that is long and thin. Both the walls to our right and left sport a row of cubicles with desks and computers in them. None of them are on and nobody sits behind them. Nothing here tells me they have electricity like they did in Washington DC.

  Nothing tells me we’re safe here.

  Or that they’re part of the US military.

  The man knocks on a door and waits for an invitation before he opens it. We’re shuffled into a small office. The American flag covers almost an entire wall. An older man sits behind a desk. He’s lost most of his hair and what does remain is white. He leans back in his chair and places his hands behind his head.

  “So what do we have here?” he asks, his gaze flicking between the three of us before settling on me. “You want to introduce us, Mars?”

  The man—Mars, apparently—seems to lose confidence now he’s in front of this white-haired man. “I found these two out in the woods. Claim they came from Washington DC base. They seemed harmless enough so I thought you might want to talk to them.”

  White-Hair leans forward, more interested now. “How long ago were you in Washington?”

  “About four weeks ago, sir,” Garlind replies. “We were there when they were attacked. We were very lucky to get out with our lives.”

  “They suffered a lot down there. Lost many people.”

  “It was chaos, sir. The attack from the aliens came completely out of the blue.”

  “And what were you doing there? You don’t seem like military types.”

  Garlind recounts the same story we’ve told before about our activities in the military base. He comes across as polite and honest, hopefully these men see the same thing I do. If they decide to do something bad to us after this, I guess I’ll have my answer.

  The white-haired man eventually stands. He’s shorter than I expected him to be. The skin around his jowls and arms hang loosely, like he used to be a lot bigger than he currently is.

  “I’m sorry you’ve come all this way,” he starts, “but there isn’t much I can offer you. We’re not doing as well here as our southern counterparts were. Before, anyway. You’d best be on your way. That’s my advice to you both.”

  Garlind and I look at each other, unsure what to make of his admission. We came here for a purpose. We can’t just be turned away and shown the door. There are things that must be done, hopes we’ve placed in these people.

  I can’t remain silent. “With all due respect, sir, you have exactly what we came here for. We need people, lots of them. We know the aliens can be killed and a fight back against them needs to begin. We’re not here for your supplies, but help defeating the enemy and taking back our planet.”

  The man laughs. At first just a scoff, but then it turns into a full belly giggle. I shrink down to the size of an ant standing before him. I thought he would take me more seriously. Obviously, I was wrong.

  My face burns with embarrassment, like I’ve just said the most stupidest thing in the world. I know it may sound ridiculous, but this is our world now.

  “Young lady, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this is not the army you were looking for.” He catches his breath and calms himself down. His eyes are watery as he meets my gaze.

  “Is this not a US Military base?” I ask.

  “It is indeed. But we can barely look after ourselves, let alone wage a war with those…creatures.”

  I’m lost for words. It feels like all our plans are crumbling like paper and blowing away in the breeze. We put everything we had in this place.

  I’m still not ready to walk away from it yet. “If you’ll listen to us and really hear what we’ve got to say, then you can make a decision for yourself. But please don’t turn us away without giving us some of your time.”

  He stops and considers my words. At least he’s not laughing at me anymore. My blood pounds in my ears while we wait in silence for his verdict. We’re standing on the edge right now and his next words could tip us either way.

  “Mars here will show you to a bed for the night,” he finally says. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll have some time to hear you out.”

  It’s not a no, that’s something. He’s not kicking us out for good so I’ll take that as a win.

  Mars is chewing on his lip, like he wants to say something but thinks he shouldn’t. He probably wants to object to us staying here a moment longer. He most likely thought his boss would send us packing and this whole thing would be over.

  Our escort doesn’t say anything as he leads us from the room. He hurries to one of the cabins at the very back of the camp and uses his shoulder to open the stuck door.

  There are cobwebs hanging from every nook and crevice inside the little cabin. Bunk beds are lined up along each wall—about eight in total. Everything is under a thick layer of dust.

  “Make yourselves at home,” Mars says sarcastically. I’m sure he chose this particular cabin on purpose to send us a message. He doesn’t want us here and will give us no reason to linger for a minute longer than we have to.

  “Thank you,” I say sweetly, hoping to win him over. It’s not like we’re here to get up to mischief. We are trying to do a good thing. We aren’t the enemy.

  Garlind stops him before he can make a hasty exit. “Is there a food hall where we can get something to eat? It’s been a while since we’ve had anything substantial.”

  Mars lets out a laugh. “Good luck with that.”

  “We won’t take much, just enough to get by,” Garlind says. “We don’t want to be a burden on your supplies.”

  The man levels him with a gaze. “There are no supplies. Everyone’s on their own here. Make sure you don’t make a nuisance of yourselves. Everyone has work to do.”

  He gives me a pointed look before stomping out of the cabin and slamming the door behind himself. For a moment, there is nothing we can do except look at each other.

  “What kind of an army doesn’t have supplies?” I ask. I know he won’t have the answer but it’s burning too hot on my tongue not to be spoken.

  Garlind goes to the window and pulls back the curtain. A shower of dust falls away and gets caught in the sunbeams. They dance around in a silent waltz.

  “I don’t know,” he replies.

  “I guess we’ll find out if we stick around.”

  “Do you think that’s wise? They might not be the military. We might have made a terrible mistake by coming here. If they aren’t who we think they are, we’re giving them extra time to deal with us in a way we don’t want them to.”

  I can see Garlind’s point but I don’t want to leave right now. It would be giving up and accepting that our fear is bigger than our hope. I’m not ready for that yet. The boss here let us stay, unguarded, and free to roam. That speaks a lot to me.

  “We should reserve judgement until after we meet with their leader again. It will convince us either way,” I reply. “They don’t seem too concerned about our presence here. That says something.”

  He stares out the cloudy window for a long time after that. I know he’s thinking everything through because that’s what he does. Garlind doesn’t do anything without assessing its merit a million times over.

  I sit on the mattress of a bottom bunk and send dust flying everywhere. There are no blankets or sheets on the bed but I’ve slept on much worse before. The dust mites get up my nose and make me sneeze.

  As the sun starts to go down, we grow restless being cooped up inside the cabin. All the questions we have about this place are eating at us. Neither of us want to sit around and do nothing when there could be knowledge to be gained outside.
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  “Let’s go for a walk,” I suggest. Walking for pleasure isn’t actually something we do but it beats the slow passing of time staring at the walls.

  Garlind agrees and we step outside into the night. There are a few clouds around in the sky. They could be heavy enough to hold some rain. At least we’ll be safe from the acid droplets if they decide to fall tonight.

  That’s one good thing about the cabin.

  A few people are still working around the camp. One man is hammering nails on a loose plank of a cabin. Another is lowering the American flag down the pole.

  Noise of people talking drifts on the wind. It’s not loud enough to be coming from a party, but there are multiple different voices all speaking at the one time.

  We follow the noise to a covered picnic area. Wooden tables are lined up underneath a metal roof. Some people are eating but most are not. It’s like looking at a cafeteria without the food and drinks.

  There are about a couple dozen people sitting around in small groups. Nobody looks particularly friendly enough to join. Unfortunately, we’re not going to find out anything just by standing by and watching.

  One woman makes the mistake of looking at us. We catch her eye and invite ourselves over to her table. She’s holding a bottle of water in both hands on the tabletop. She’s very thin with gaunt cheeks.

  “Hi there,” I say brightly as we sit. Two men are also at the table. “My name is Maisy and this is Garlind. We came in today, been travelling around for a while.”

  “Maggie,” the woman says. “That’s Frank and Jim.”

  The men nod their greeting, as does Garlind. I guess they don’t use excess words if they don’t have to. Both the men have dark circles underneath their eyes. Perhaps they don’t have the energy to speak to strangers.

  Nobody else seems like they’re going to start the conversation so I guess it falls to me. “It looks like you have a nice place here with all the cabins and everything. How long have you been here?”

  “Too long,” Maggie replies.

  “Have you been here since the meteorite?” She seems to be about forty, if I’m guessing. Old enough to have lived in the world before, anyway.

  “Yeah,” she says with a sigh. “I was stationed here a few years before all that shit went down. Been here ever since. As far as I know, there ain’t much left out there for me.”

  “You’ve never left?”

  “Only on missions and haven’t had one of those in years.”

  Everything she says only makes another dozen more questions pop into my mind. “Isn’t the military still operational? When we were in Washington DC, they seemed very organized and very active.”

  She laughs sardonically. “That maybe the case down in Virginia, but not here. We haven’t been active for years. I think we only stay here out of habit. We’re all too scared to leave in case the big, bad aliens get us.”

  “Mags!” one of the men, maybe Jim, chastises her, as if she’s just revealed something she shouldn’t. “These are outsiders. They don’t need to know all our business.”

  Maggie just waves him away. “I’ll say whatever I want to say, Corporal.”

  He glowers but doesn’t retort. These two obviously have a history that is most likely long and complicated. They could even be a couple for all I know.

  She turns her attention back to me and ignores the men again. “You heard what went down in good old Washington DC?”

  “We were there when the aliens attacked. It was…horrific to say the least. We lost some good friends there,” I reply, surprised she knows anything about the attack.

  They must have a way of communicating to the other bases, even if they aren’t on active duty. I tuck that piece of information away for later.

  “Sounds like you’re bad luck walking,” the other man, Frank, adds.

  “Leave her alone,” Maggie scolds. “She ain’t do nothing to you. And it’s only a matter of time before those stinking, goddamned aliens make their way here. We’ve been expecting it for seventeen bloody years.”

  “They haven’t found us so far,” Frank argues.

  “Then we’ve been real lucky, ain’t we?”

  Frank slams his palm on the table and gets up, only to storm off into the night. Maggie shakes her head and mutters to herself until he can’t be seen anymore.

  “Some men think their shit don’t stink. But anyone with half a brain knows we’re living on borrowed time. You two look too young to remember the meteorite that started this freak show,” Maggie says.

  “I was just a baby,” Garlind says.

  “I was born just after it hit,” I add. “My parents built a bunker and we lived in that for a very long time. I didn’t even know about the aliens until recently.”

  “You’re very lucky then. I would do anything not to know about those blasted beasts. I hate what they did to us and hate that they destroyed everything. I was a young cadet when it started. I thought I had the whole world at my feet. And then one day, boom, it ends just like that.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  “Not your fault, sweetheart. It just gets me so angry sometimes.” She clenches and unclenches her fists, staring at them. “We all thought the military would look after us. We thought they’d planned for this kind of thing. But every year it just kept getting worse until the whole thing went to pieces.”

  A picture of this military base is starting to form in my mind. Perhaps it did function like the one in Washington DC did initially but has been in decline for many years. There definitely feels like an atmosphere of giving up around here.

  People don’t just wake up jaded one day. They learn it over a long period of time through experience. Losing faith in an establishment they had dedicated their lives to would definitely be enough to squash someone’s hopes.

  “How many people live here?” I ask, boldened by her apparent openness.

  Maggie shrugs. “Don’t know. We don’t exactly have a daily rollcall here anymore. My best guess would be maybe a hundred. Many people thought they’d be better on their own and have left over the years. Others have died.”

  It doesn’t sound like it’s nearly enough to form an army that would be able to take down the aliens. Perhaps we were too optimistic coming here.

  I plaster on a smile and hope my disappointment doesn’t show on my face. I don’t want them to see how completely deflated I am after coming so far to see this base.

  I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be difficult rallying again to work out what we can do now. There’s only so much hope you can keep alive in such a horrible world.

  Maggie and Jim excuse themselves shortly afterwards and disappear into the night. Garlind doesn’t suggest finding someone else to talk with and neither do I. Right now, I just want to curl up on my dusty mattress and sleep for hours on end.

  We wander back to our cabin past many others that don’t seem to be occupied. These were probably all full at some stage. I get the feeling they’ve been through a lot here. They may not have encountered an alien attack, but that doesn’t lessen their suffering. It’s just different.

  Garlind chooses the bunk next to mine. I rollover to face him as my nose twitches from the dust motes floating in the air.

  “I’m a bit nervous about meeting with that guy,” I confess. A lot hinges on how open he is to helping us. Even if they don’t have many resources here, there are at least a few people that might want to join us.

  “I don’t think there is much he can offer us, by the sounds of it,” he replies. There are creases of worry on his forehead. I can read him like a book tonight.

  “But we have to try.”

  He leans onto his back and stares up at the top bunk. “Or maybe we cut our losses and leave at first light.”

  “Where would we go?”

  He shrugs in response.

  “I think we at least have to try here before we go anywhere. We’re running out of places where we can try to get help.”

&nb
sp; “He doesn’t have enough people to make an impact like we’re planning on needing.”

  I hate hearing this negative talk coming from him. He hasn’t been completely himself since we left the Precinct. I think the fight took more of a toll on him that he’ll admit.

  “We don’t know until we try,” I say. “We’re not in a hurry. And we seem pretty safe here. It won’t hurt to stick around and speak to the leader.”

  “We’ll see what happens.”

  I wait to see if he’s going to elaborate but he just stares at the mattress above him.

  “Goodnight,” I say.

  “Yeah, night.”

  All my remaining hope hangs on this meeting. Hopefully it will be tomorrow so we can make a decision about our next plan of attack soon.

  I fall into a restless sleep.

  My dreams are all over the place. They switch from crazy scenes where I’m constantly running to being back in my parents’ bunker where everything is safe and sound.

  I’m awoken suddenly in the morning by a knocking at our cabin door.

  It’s following by a deep male voice. “Wake up! The Colonel wants to speak with you.”

  I guess it’s show time.

  Chapter 12

  Colonel Hanson looks tired and frustrated when we step into his office. He stops mid-pace and takes a seat behind his desk. His face is red which highlights the bags underneath his eyes.

  Considering he’s in charge of a non-existent army, I guess he has a lot to be frustrated about. What power he once had seems to have diminished now—if Maggie’s comments are anything to go by.

  Garlind and I sit in the tattered chairs that have seen better days. For a few moments, we all just stare at each other. This is a conversation none of us really want to have right now. I’m too scared to hear what he says and he’s probably figuring out a way to let us down so we’ll leave peacefully.

  I decide to start, otherwise we’ll be here all day without saying a word. “Thank you for meeting with us. I know it’s difficult to trust strangers these days but we appreciate the curtesy.”

  He dips his head in a nod. “Why don’t you start by telling me what you want.”