by Tim Marquitz
The Theophany of Nyx
Edward M. Erdelac
Everyone remembered exactly where they were the day the moon cracked open and Selene slid inside. It was like 9/11, or the Challenger, or as the elderly said, the day President Kennedy was shot.
The establishment of the lunar colony had been the biggest event in the past hundred years. It had taken a decade to excavate and build, and every waxing night all of mankind looked up to watch the construction progress, growing slowly but steadily like a little gray spider web on the far south end. People talked about how it was before there was a mark on the moon. They showed their children pictures, because the little ones didn’t believe it.
The waiting list for resettlement had begun months before the project was even officially announced. Hundreds of hopefuls died on that list without ever seeing it completed.
They were the lucky ones.
When the moon cracked and Selene collapsed into the hole, it took the cream of the wealthy elite with it. Who else could afford to settle there?
The participating governments garnered a lot of positive press holding lotteries for anyone in the public willing to move up there. Even a couple third world nations were graciously included. The International Lunar Homesteader Project, they called it. Qualified winners got to live on the moon in Selene’s Personnel Quarter. Qualified, meaning entrants were required to garner the approval of the International Lunar Relocation Committee, and approval came from having useful occupational experience. Not just engineers and geologists, but maintenance and waste disposal, even domestics. The Lunar elite needed a class to rule, a work force to maintain that chrome, Kubrickian wonderland after all.
Most of the initial colonists were well-connected, or wealthy, or celebrities, and despite all the talk in the media of the moon being a new, unblemished, uncorrupted land, members of the fledgling colonial government were all of the above. The moon’s first governor was a popular ex-American president, who had been a Hollywood A-lister before that, born a daughter of an international hotel tycoon with relatives in several different European noble families.
Shackleton Base was the closest NASA outpost. They beamed the first grainy images from the disaster site, and in the first week they were inescapable, if somewhat underwhelming. Just an impenetrable cloud of slow-moving black smoke pouring from a hellishly huge hole, the news tickers scrolling NASDAQ numbers beneath it twenty four seven. Despite a brand new jagged crack in its face, from the earth, it looked like a pen had exploded in the moon’s pocket and was steadily spreading across its southern hemisphere, darker than the usual splotches of gray mare.
The rescue effort was stymied by the thickness of the cloud. It was impenetrable. The images probe cameras transmitted were no help, and something in its mineral makeup interfered with remote signals. After three multi-million dollar drones were lost, the powers that be elected to wait until the dust settled before going in to haul out bodies and salvage equipment, particularly the costly radiation shield array.
But the dust didn’t settle.
It lifted like a huge plume, ever increasing.
Then they lost contact with Shackleton.
It was two weeks after Selene had fallen that the plume began to drift into Earth’s atmosphere. Whether it came on solar winds or what, nobody knew.
Walter Coombs surely had no idea.
He only knew he had the bad luck of having been replacing yet another faulty pressure vacuum assembly outside one of the old barracks at Fort Sill when the base went on lockdown, and now he couldn’t go home and walk his dog.
Whoever the army had contracted to lay the plumbing for the base must have pocketed a third of the budget, because Walter had been out every night since the Selene disaster dealing with backflow issues of the worst sort brought about by corner cutting.
Up until now, being part of the base’s Department of Public Works labor pool had been nothing more than replacing the odd gasket or providing regular preventative maintenance service. Nothing too challenging; a cush job with a regular paycheck.
But heavy Oklahoma rains, all last week, had caused the toilets in several of the older barracks to back up. They’d closed them off and moved the soldiers to temporary accommodations. He had to break out the hip waders and trudge through the base sewer line. That was when he started uncovering more and more problems. Sure it meant more hours, but it also meant a hell of a lot more work, and all this had hit while he happened to be on a late night call to stop a backflow problem in one of the barrack latrines. Now he was the sole plumber on site.
When Shackleton had gone quiet, the DPW duty sergeant, Timms, had come and informed him that all military installations were on lockdown worldwide until the nature of the Selene disaster had been better assessed, whatever the hell that meant.
Walter had tried to phone his neighbors about walking and feeding the dog, but apparently lockdown even meant no outside communication.
So he resolved himself to fixing the backflow problem as best he could with what he had on hand, and hoping the dog didn’t tear up the house too bad.
The morning after the cloud hit the earth’s atmosphere, well, there was no morning.
Walter woke up in his bed at Lodging and drove the DPW car up Ferguson Road to get a donut and coffee from the mess. The sky was still dark.
Thinking he’d just gotten up early, he yawned and went back into his room only to see the digital alarm clock read eight a.m. He turned the TV on but got no reception.
Sun should’ve been well up.
He went back outside again. He realized then that he hadn’t been woken up by the morning bugle call or the PT cadences either.
The sky was black as night. There were no stars. He remembered something on the news the night prior, about the debris cloud from Selene maybe coming down.
He ambled over to Sergeant Timms’ office, whistling an old Doobie Brothers tune that was stuck in his head. He found Timms on the land line with somebody, speaking quickly, in clipped tones. Behind him, his television screen was entirely blue, NO SIGNAL in the upper left hand corner.
“Yes, sir,” said Timms. “Understood, sir.”
He hung up and looked up at Walter as he came over and plunked down in the chair.
“TV out?” Walter asked tiredly.
“Satellite’s out,” Timms said. “All satellites. Wherever that shit is,” he said, pointing out the window. “It’s spreading across the whole damn country. Maybe the planet. Winds are carryin’ it.”
“Maybe the planet?”
“Yeah. It’s FUBAR. All the airports are grounded till the shit clears. All the airports everywhere. Even us.”
“That’s a bitch.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Moon dust,” said Walter, squinting his eyes out the window. He couldn’t even see the sun, where it was supposed to be.
“Yeah. Atmosphere should’ve burned it all off. Weird. So hey, Walter. What’s the situation with the north barracks? Guys still gonna get their feet wet after they take a dump or what?”
“I’m doing my best with what I got. I’m just one guy. I installed five new pressure vacuum assemblies. I need seven, but I only have one more on hand. You want the rest fixed, I need to order the parts.”
“Alright, forget it. You need anything?”
“Yeah I need help. When are they gonna give the OK to let those schlubs in Lawton come in? More importantly, when can I go home?”
“No telling,” Timms said. “Orders are nobody in or out till we get the all clear.”
“Listen, I got a dog.”
“Orders, man,” Timms said, holding up his hands.
Walter blew through his lips.
“My phone don’t work, and I haven’t been able to reach the neighbors. He’s probably shittin’ all over the place.”
Timms rubbed his eyes.
“Yeah nobody’s cells are working. Something to do with the cloud. Look, what I can do, and don’t let this get around, tomorrow, we
got a couple trucks headed into town. They’re going in to garrison the airport. Sergeant Mackey’s drivin’ one. Your place is on the way. Maybe I can ask him go in and get your mutt, bring him back, but he’ll probably be at the airport till Friday at least.”
“That’s fine, as long as somebody’s takin’ care of him. I’d appreciate that, sarge.”
“Alright, Walter. You had breakfast?”
“I was just going over there. You wanna come?”
“Nah, I gotta stay by the phone.”
The phone rang then, and he picked it up.
“I’ll see ya later,” Walter said, getting up.
Timms waved him out.
It was good of Timms to send Mackey to get his dog.
The next two days came and went, and Walter marked their passing by the clock. The sun didn’t shine through the black cloud.
The nights were cold, and the grass browned. Birds chirped in confusion all night. Walter had to put a pillow over his head to shut out the racket. The leaves on the trees grew sickly pale.
Walter had nothing to do. He gamboled around the fort, seeing all the touristy stuff he’d never bothered with. He walked through the ancient green steel guns of Artillery Park. Though it was noon, a family of possums scurried by in the open, running for who knew what.
He had to take a flashlight to read the inscription on the stone pyramid under the eagle that marked Geronimo’s grave, and the Apache prayer cloths tied to the bare limbed trees, the dead flowers, the pale white tombstones of the guerilla leader’s daughters creeped him out. He thought about the story that the Skull and Bones guys had come and stolen the old Indian’s head, and his mind dwelt on that headless skeleton down there. It might not have been so bad in the day.
But of course, when he went, it had been day.
There was a bad smell in the air. Like sulfur, but by the third day everybody was used to it.
Walter woke up in the middle of the third night to see the MP’s dragging some stir crazy kid off to the stockade. The endless night had probably got to him. You never could tell about some of these guys. They might be total hardasses by day but afraid of bunny rabbits or something.
A lot of the guys he saw had a hollow, wild-eyed look, their irises wide to adjust to the dark. He wondered if he had it too, but he’d been seeing himself in the mirror everyday so he figured he wouldn’t notice if he did.
Nobody knew anything about what was going on in the rest of the world. No TV, or radio. It was weird. The cloud cover showed no signs of blowing away. You couldn’t even see it move or anything. It was exactly like night.
Four days, five days in, and nobody could sleep much. The plants were dying.
Walter spent his time in Timms’ office. There was a bit of a breakdown in discipline by then, and they shared a bottle of Jack and played cards for cigarettes like a couple of convicts.
“What do you think’s going on, sarge?” Walter asked over a pat hand.
The sergeant’s eyes were red rimmed and ringed.
“I can’t say, Walter. I mean, I don’t know. Nobody does. Not even the brass. It’s like the end of the world out there. You believe in God? Jesus?”
“Not really.”
“I guess I do. I mean, I’m a Christian, but I don’t go to church or anything. I’ve been talking to the chaplain though … ”
His voice trailed off when Walter laid down his cards.
“You motherfucker!” Timms said snickering and throwing down his hand as Walter pawed the cigarettes across the table.
“You know I been thinking?” said Walter. “That shit is in the upper atmosphere, so we gotta be breathing it right?”
“Yeah.”
“You think it’s all over the world?”
“Yeah, I do,” said Timms. “We’d be hearing shit if it wasn’t.”
“All the grass and the trees are just about dead around here.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So, what about all the cattle? What about the birds?”
“I guess we’re gonna start findin’ them dead too. Anyway, price of burgers’ll go up.”
On the sixth day of darkness Walter awoke to a gunshot. The paymaster had gotten into the armory and deep throated an M-4. Walter didn’t see the body till it was under a sheet, but he saw two grunts mopping the brains off the wall. They were like strands of uncooked pork. Only six days. Jesus, what did he think was happening? The guy didn’t really believe it wasn’t going to end, did he?
Walter noticed he felt pretty dry, though it was cool enough to see his breath. His nostrils were crusty, and he drank more water than usual. Everybody did.
“Trucks are supposed to come back tomorrow,” Timms said over cards. “Maybe Mackey’s got your dog.”
It was the only news they had.
That night it rained.
It was such a change, the whole base woke up to watch it. Walter saw lights going on all over.
He went outside and stood under the awning in his underwear and smoked, watching a bunch of the young guys running out in the middle of it laughing, getting a game of football going.
He smiled at their antics, but the smile fell after about a minute, when their skin started to turn black.
The rain was black.
The guys out in it, there were maybe a dozen or more, they noticed it too, and pulled their shirts up over their heads, those that had them, and started to run for cover.
They didn’t get very far before they started collapsing. Walter had seen it happen once at a fight. A boxer got knocked out on his feet and his legs actually undulated like in the cartoons before he fell like a sack of bones.
These guys all started skidding to the pavement, splashing in black puddles.
A couple idiots ran out to try and get them and the same thing happened to them.
Then some guys in ponchos and hoods went out and dragged them out of the rain, under cover.
Walter heard a lot of yelling, a lot of shouting, and the phones ringing all over the base. The loudspeaker crackled on, warning everybody to stay indoors.
Walter went back inside and watched through the window.
The black rain came down hard, pattering on the roof and gushing out the spouts. It made the discarded football bounce around on the ground like it was forlornly looking for somebody to play with it.
He tried to see the guys lined up on the ground across from the barracks. The medics were working on them, but he couldn’t see well through the dark rain. There was some kind of a commotion. He heard yelling.
His phone rang and he jumped.
It was Timms.
“Hey, Walter, you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, sarge. Hey, these kids were out playin’ football … ”
“I know, I know. Look, just stay where you are, okay? Don’t go out in the rain.”
“Yeah I heard.”
Timms hung up.
Walter went back to the window and jumped again as he heard automatic weapons going in long bursts, saw the protracted muzzle flashes jetting across the way.
Then they went quiet.
He tried to see, but couldn’t through the dark rain.
Walter sat down on the cot, listening to it.
He didn’t know when he finally went to bed, but when he woke up it was about five in the morning and the rain had stopped pattering.
He heard a lot of engines going and looked outside to see a line of guys in green Level A Tychem suits walking ahead of a fleet of vacuum trucks, sucking up all the black water pools.
Walter chewed his lip a little, then went and put on his hip waders and slicker and opened his door.
Nobody seemed to take any notice of him. The hazmat guys were even up on the roofs with industrial shop vacs sucking the roofs dry.
He went to Timms’ office.
“Jesus, Walter, I told you to stay where you were.”
He had on one of the hazmat suits, the cowl off.
There was an M-4 on his desk.
; “What the hell’s going on, sarge?”
“That shit, that rain, is toxic. You didn’t get any on you, did you?”
“No. I saw a buncha guys playing football last night ... ”
Timms opened his drawer, the bottle there clinking.
“They’re fucking dead, man.”
Walter had figured that out.
“What happened? Why were they shot?”
Timms looked sharply at Walter.
“They were poisoned. They were dying. It was a mercy killing. Listen, you can’t tell anybody you saw that, okay?”
Walter nodded and started to sit down in the chair.
“Wait! Don’t sit there, man. Look, go take that rubber shit off. I got a Tychem suit you can have.”
When he’d changed, Timms was drinking right from the bottle and the rifle was under his arm.
“Is it gonna rain again?”
“I don’t fucking know,” said Timms.
“Anything about the trucks?”
“The what?”
“The trucks. Are the trucks coming back today?”
Timms looked at Walter as if a second pair of eyes had just opened where his nipples were supposed to be.
“I don’t think they’re coming, Walter.”
“What the hell is happening?”
“I don’t know. I thought the rain would get rid of the cloud at least. But look at it! Just look at it!”
Timms went over to the window and splashed it with whiskey.
“They’re saying the fuckin’ lakes and the water tanks are full of that shit. All we got is bottled water from now on.” He sighed. “I hate the taste of bottled water. Tastes like plastic.”
There was a flat clip clopping of automatic fire from across the post.
“Shit!” Timms said, dropping his whiskey and picking up his M-4. He shoved past Walter and went outside, digging out the keys for a hummer parked out front.
“Hey, sarge,” Walter said, jogging behind. “How about you let me drive?”
Timms turned around, wild-eyed, thought about it, and nodded.
“Yeah, okay, we’ll take your car. But let’s fucking go. Key Gate. Step on it.”
Walter drove until they’d reached the Key Gate, the west entrance of Fort Sill. He wasn’t the sort of guy that usually drove towards gunfire. When they rounded the corner and burned up the road, they could see two Army rigs blockading the gate with lines of soldiers on top firing down. A pair of lights were set up on either side of the blockade angled down at the entrance, and a couple more were sweeping the fence, beams cutting the darkness.