After Days

by Salina Anderson

  Looking up to the sky, Matt quietly said “Okay God, please take me now. Everything I’ve ever cared about is gone, please make the pain stop.”

  A large explosion ripped through the sky behind Matt and he reflexively bent his body over Ryan as he looked behind him. Large dark bursts of cloud and orange fire balled into the sky in the middle of the city. Just as Matt spied the nuclear power plant next to the city, the explosions reached it and a white flash of intense white swept across the landscape. He heard the crush of the cars behind him as the nuclear blast hit them and he took his last breath, collapsing on top of his brother’s lifeless body as the wave of nuclear heat incinerated their bodies.

  Chapter 6 – We can build our own eden! – Present Day

  Derek walked the hallway of the living area and checked in each room as he passed, noting the progress of packing and preparing that each of his people were completing. It had taken over a week for the survivors to settle down enough to begin discussions about leaving the compound. The realization that they had been exposed to the virus was enough for the remaining to understand that they were immune and could survive in the outside world. His secret of how the virus had made it into the system remained between him and John and he was willing to go to any length to keep it a secret.

  During the week of waiting for the dust to settle, he had put together a plan with some of his trusted members of where they would travel and what was to be accomplished.

  Before they had lost contact with the other centers, he had written down their locations and kept the information hidden. Now he shared that information with the others and they mapped out their route to get to each location. They would round up the survivors and continue their journey to each location until they had checked them all. After that, they would head west to where he knew Maya had run off to and also to the area that he was most familiar with so they could rebuild.

  He had been based in Colorado Springs when the virus had started its spread and he knew the city and surrounding areas well enough to recreate what they had lost. His only concern was how contaminated it still was from the nuclear plant blast nearby. The group would take their time making their way across the country to the other facilities to give the mountains more time to cleanse and heal.

  Their biggest hurdle in the beginning would be finding enough vehicles to transport everyone. The few that had been hidden in an underground garage on the property would need some maintenance to get running again and wouldn’t be able to carry everyone. They would need to send out scouts to find more vehicles and gas before they could truly begin their journey.

  Derek hadn’t realized that he had stopped in front of his room and was staring in at some of Mayas things while he had let his mind wander. John touched him on the arm, startling him out of thoughts.

  “Sir, A few of us are heading outside to the underground garage to assess the vehicles conditions. Should we leave the main doors open when we leave?”

  Derek turned and looked back down the hallway at the people bustling about. There was a buzz of excitement in the air now that the survivors had something to look forward to, a new life and the promise of a new beginning.

  “Yes John. Leave the front doors wide open and I’ll make the announcement over the PA.”

  John merely nodded before he walked away and Derek made his way back to the control room.

  “People of Station 5, we have commenced Operation Eden. The doors will be opened shortly and I ask that everyone begin opening windows and doors in the areas that they are in. We will begin assessing the vehicles today and ask that all of you begin the tasks that you were assigned so we can prepare for our voyage. Please come to me with any questions about your responsibilities.”

  Derek leaned back in his chair and watched the activity on the monitors, the slight smile on his face the only indicator of his excitement for their upcoming journey.

  Chapter 7 – The Mountain Life – Present Day

  The first rays of sun broke through the window next to the couch and shone across Mayas eyelids. It took a few minutes before she remembered where she was and she snuggled back under the afghan savoring the quiet and comfort of her long lost home.

  There was a lot that she would need to accomplish before the snow started to stick so she only allowed herself a few more minutes of bliss before swinging her feet to the floor.

  She began by doing an inventory of the house and making a list of all that she would need to gather in order to be comfortable through the long winter. As much canned food as she could find would be the priority since she no longer had the huge stash of frozen soups that they used to prepare before every winter. She went through all of the cupboards in the kitchen but they only held the standard spices and seasonings and a few canned goods. The fridge and freezer were equally as empty in the fancy electric fridge as well as the old propane one. A Funny thought struck Maya and she threw her jacket on and went outside, walking over to the large propane tank installed at the side of the house. Tapping the gauge on the top of it, it showed that it was half full. Easily enough to get her through a few months using the propane refrigerator if she wanted to prepare extra food and keep it from spoiling.

  Another big hurdle would be running water. With no electricity, she couldn’t run the well pump and have running water in the house, let alone be able to take any kind of showers. She had taken for granted the ability to have a hot shower while living in the compound. The abundance of solar panels and wind towers had kept everything fully operational. Then a thought struck her, she remembered several of the fancy homes that had been built in the area before she left with their solar arrays in the yard for power. Despite electrical lines being out this far, the city folks wanted the true mountain feel for their “cabins” and would build these huge log shell homes with all of the equipment needed to keep them off the grid. She could surely figure out how to dismantle a few systems and bring them back here to use.

  Her excitement began to bubble over as she began to think about the prospect of having hot water and lights and also not having to use that old cooking stove that required a wood built fire!

  First, she would needs lots of firewood to keep the house heated. Despite her constant protests, her grandma refused to install a modern heating system and instead continued chopping wood every winter until a huge stack nearly filled half of the covered porch. There was a small amount of it left now so she would need to work hard to replenish it quickly.

  Maya ran back into the house, her mind whirling with everything she needed to do and she began rummaging around in the drawers looking for some pen and paper so she could keep her thoughts straight. She wandered into the bathroom and wrote down some toiletries on her list, then into the bedrooms. Her nearly new queen bed sat in the first bedroom taking up nearly the entire space. When she had returned home after her grandma had passed, she couldn’t bring herself to keep the bed on which her grandma had passed and instead had gone out and bought herself a big fancy bed to replace it. The second room still held the daybed that she had slept in until her grandma had passed. Linens sat tucked away in the closets and seemed to be clean enough for use. The rest of the house had a layer of dust on everything. No one had lived in the house for some time but someone had definitely been maintaining it. The water had been drained from the lines and the propane to the fridge had been turned off properly. Had Matt really been coming back here all this time? Waiting for her, keeping the place ready for her? Tears filled her eyes as she considered this possibility. All the years that she had wondered where he was and what he was doing, he had been coming back to the place where they had been so happy together and kept it from falling into complete disrepair. She had always tried to imagine that he had moved away, met some beautiful woman and they were raising a bunch of beautiful children together. Never in her wildest dreams would she have thought that he had stayed in this small mountain town waiting for her.

  She wiped her hand across her face and set her mind back to the ta
sk at hand. She would need to be out every day getting supplies while the weather was still favorable.

  The old hand pump well down by the river would supply her with the water she needed until she could rebuild a solar system at the house so her first priority would be food and wood with food being number one on the list.

  After preparing herself a quick can of soup using her “old” wood-fired stove, she headed into town to see what was left at the mini grocery store that had also served as the post office.

  It was so quiet outside. A slight breeze blew through the pine branches as she drove the dirt roads with her windows down. The town was only about 10 minutes away and she pulled into the grocery store parking lot noting the few vehicles that still sat, empty and deserted. She steeled herself for the inevitable skeletons she would find inside the store.

  As she reached for the door handle, she was distracted by the jingling of a bell in the coffee shop next door. Her sense went on high alert and she froze where she was straining to hear any other sounds. A gentle clink clank sounded again and again. Slowly walking towards the coffee shop, she kept her back against the walls, sliding her way towards the door. Opening the door, it hit the bell above it with a loud clanking and she was instantly transported to the past and the time she came to that coffee shop and her world was changed forever.

  Everyone always looked up when someone entered the coffee shop. Being a small town, they all knew each other and a friendly face meant some company for a few minutes. Maya had scanned the room as well as she had walked in that day but had stopped when she saw the unfamiliar man in the corner glance at her briefly from the side of his lifted newspaper. He glanced up again at her when he realized she was looking at him and smiled slightly. The electricity was instant and she was sure he felt the zap as well when their eyes met. Walking quickly over to the counter, she kept her head forward in an attempt to not stare at him any longer. While she stood waiting her turn, she could feel him come up behind her, the electricity preceding him. Turning slightly Maya realized he was standing right behind her, he smiled and asked “Care to join me?”, and that was how it all started. She had sat at his table and they had drank their coffee together while introducing themselves and every day after that they spent together until it ended. She blinked and came to her senses when she realized that the bell above was still jingling. She could feel a slight breeze as well and looked over to see the window behind the counter wide open. Sitting in one of the chairs but head down on the table was a skeleton with clothes falling off of it. She recognized the standard aprons that the employees wore there. One of them had succumbed to the illness while working their shift.

  She backed out of the coffee shop, leaving her memories behind and walked back over to the grocery store.

  The aisles still contained quite a bit of supplies and she began filling a cart with all she could find that was still edible. Lots of canned soups, fruits and vegetables, some boxed items that she could make on the stove, ramen noodles. She felt like she was back in college grocery shopping when she grabbed several boxes of twinkies with a grin.

  As she passed through the aisle with feminine products, she threw several boxes of tampons in her basket before she came to the pregnancy tests and stopped in her tracks. When had her last period been? She couldn’t remember. It had been common for her to not have a period for several months at a time but she had begun to level out over the last year once their diet had gotten better. She grabbed one of the tests and threw it in her basket before she could over think it.

  Her cart was full by the time she had grabbed everything that she could conceivably need that the store still had on its shelves and as she shoved it all into the jeep she noticed the little library across the street was still standing.

  Maya walked across the street to the library and began sneezing when she opened the door and a wall of dust hit her. All of those old, dirty books had turned the tiny building into a dust bowl! She scanned the shelves until she found a few books on solar systems, electrical wiring and plumbing. She would need all the help she could get for what she planned on doing!

  On the way home, she veered onto one of the newer dirt roads and stopped in front of a large log home. She remembered when the house was built and the stuck up wife of the couple that had built it had hired Matt to complete some of the finer touches of the home. The woman had tirelessly attempted to seduce Matt the entire time he worked there to no avail and when he had completed his work, he had brought Maya back over to show off his work much to the chagrin of the wife. Matt had been a very skilled carpenter and could turn a mere log into a complete work of art. He had built the interior log stairs and railing in the house as well as an intricate tree house in one of the children’s rooms. Maya wandered through the house remembering the day he had brought her there. He had been so proud of his work and they had discussed so many ideas of what they would do when they built their own home.

  She came to the master bedroom and began looting the woman’s closet. She recalled that they were close in size and she was rewarded with many high end jeans, sweaters and shoes. She also grabbed several jackets out of the hall closet and cleared the kitchen cupboards of anything useful. She could get a lot of supplies this way and she decided to put together a map of the area so she could mark off houses as she checked them.

  It was pitch black outside by the time Maya got home and had stowed all of her new goods away. While putting the clothes in the dresser and hanging them in the closet, she found several items that she had left behind in her haste to leave. She had always wondered what had happened to her favorite college sweatshirt and here it had sat all these years in the bottom drawer of the dresser. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, a small part of her was disappointed that she hadn’t come across any of Matts belongings. He had to have been the one that had fixed up the house and kept an eye on it all of these years but he obviously had not been staying here, at least not any time recently. She wondered idly how long he had stayed after she had left. She had told him to stay as long as he needed and had figured that he would head back to the city and stay with his brother eventually.

  Finishing up in the bedroom, she went into the bathroom and finally faced what she had been avoiding all day, the pregnancy test. She had grabbed several large jugs of water at the grocery store that she could refill to use for flushing the toilet and she took advantage of being able to use the toilet as she yanked the pregnancy stick out of its wrapping.

  Maya contemplated bringing in water from the hand pump and heating it on the stove for a bath but decided to wait until after she had spent herself chopping wood tomorrow. No use cleaning up now when she would be getting plenty dirty first thing in the morning.

  She decided to sleep in the living room again so she could build a small fire and stay warm without having to sleep in all of her clothes. The crackling wood and dancing flames quickly mesmerized her into a deep sleep.

  Getting up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, Maya noticed the pregnancy strip sitting forgotten on the bathroom sink. She couldn’t see it in the dark bathroom and carried it out to the couch to use the light from the moon coming in the window. As she sat back on the couch, her mouth opened in disbelief as the stick slipped from her fingers. The pink line was dark across the top of the stick. There was no doubt about it, she was pregnant.

  Chapter 8 – The first facility was a wasteland – Present Day

  The others had stayed behind hidden down by the road while Derek, John and a few others went up to the facility doors to check it out. No use alarming whoever was left inside by having a large group of people pounding on their doors, although he wasn’t sure that anyone was left here after the last transmission they had heard from the group.

  This was the facility where the majority of the higher up government officials had been hidden. An underground bunker that you wouldn’t know was there unless you had been there before. The facility doors were tucked inside a deep building that had se
rved as a storage area for several military vehicles and huge pallets of supplies.

  As Derek and the others wound their way to the back of the building, he saw before the others the mummified hand that stuck through a couple inch opening of the facility doors. Someone had tried to get out.

  Using a crowbar, John and a few of the men pried the door open the rest of the way and the corpse plopped to the ground as its arm was released revealing a large gap in the back of its skull. An ax sitting on the floor nearby next to a blood splattered wall told the tale of what had happened in the facility when people began getting sick and others had panicked.

  They made their way from room to room cataloging the number of bodies along with the supplies that they could take with them. Derek estimated that a majority of the people had gotten sick based on their white hair and the president was clearly recognizable lying in a bed in the only definable bedroom of the compound. The chaos was apparent in the broken furniture, destroyed computers, and blood stains covering nearly every surface. Derek was very glad that he hadn’t chosen this facility to be sent to although he knew that he would have been able to protect himself better than some of his colleagues that he now recognized from their uniforms.