Dark New World (Book 1): Dark New World

by Henry G. Foster

  “You didn’t gas up before leaving Philly?” Cassy asked, incredulous.

  “I tried to, but the pumps all need power to work, so I was just hoping I’d make it home. I would have, except I had to drive slow and stop to move cars, and so on. I wish I had thought to siphon some gas before, but I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t think of it. I just hoped I’d have enough to make it home.”

  Cassy agreed it was better, and safer, to wait together until morning, and they settled in for the afternoon. They talked about small things like parents, schools, and work to pass the time, and Jim shared a box of granola bars with her in exchange for half a bottle of water. How foolish to doubt him, she thought, because he’d been friendly and now shared his food with her. Although, she noted, he hadn’t really said much about himself, apparently preferring to listen to Cassy talk.

  Without electric lighting, at dusk she became drowsy again. As darkness came in full, they both reclined their seats and settled in for the night. Cassy dozed off into dreams of her kids watching movies and eating microwave popcorn.

  Something small and solid pressed painfully into the back of her head. She opened her eyes, but in her sleep she had curled up facing her window. All she saw was darkness outside.

  “Don’t move, bitch.”

  “God, Jim, what the hell are you doing?” she cried, flinching away from the pain and fighting the urge to put her arms over her head—he had told her not to move.

  “Can’t be too careful now, Cassandra, so I checked your bag while you slept. Guess what I found?”

  Cassy realized it must be her own gun pressing against the back of her head, and let out a little whimper of fear. “Don’t kill me,” she pleaded.

  “Not only did you have food—and yet you had no problem eating my food—but you also had a gun. You didn’t tell me you had a gun. Not nice, Cas.”

  “But Jim, I traded water for the food, I didn’t take it,” she exclaimed. “The gun is just something I carry, I didn’t even think about it. Please, I swear...”

  James pressed the barrel against her head even harder and cut her off. “Shut the hell up. Yeah, I traded because I didn’t think you had your own food. Now I know why you didn’t say anything about the gun. You were going to kill me in my sleep and take my car, weren’t you?”

  Cassy realized he wasn’t asking her a question. It was a statement. Her mind went numb with fear. “No, Jim, I wouldn’t do that, I swear.”

  “Here’s the thing. This is a brave new world, now. I would have called 911 like always, but no power and no phones, and no cars for cops to get here in. So I think I have to handle this myself. Get out of the fuckin’ car.”

  She reached slowly, very slowly, for the handle with trembling hands, and opened the door. James pushed the barrel into her head even harder, forcing her out of the car and into the night. “Don’t kill me, I have kids,” she pleaded as she exited the car.

  He got out too, and kept the gun pointed at her. “So does everyone else. Most will be dead in a few days or weeks, I imagine.”

  James moved around the car to where Cassy stood, and grabbed her by the hair. He wrenched it hard, forcing her to move to the front of the car, and threw her face-forward over the hood. “Hands on the hood of the car, spread ‘em,” he commanded.

  Cassy, still in mental shock at the situation, did just what he said. “What are you going to do,” she cried out, fear in her voice. “Don’t kill me, please!”

  “I can’t call the cops to deal with you. So, I’m going to deal with this myself. You basically stole my food, and you were going to steal my car, leaving me out here alone. For that, I’m going to take everything you have; your food, your bag, your water, your gun.”

  Cassy froze in place and her throat closed up. She tried to argue, to beg, but she couldn’t make the words come out. Eyes wide with fear, she looked back over her shoulder at the man and saw him standing behind her with the gun inches from her face. He smashed the barrel across her face, cutting her cheek and lip with the front sight of the gun. Cassy cried out in pain and crumpled onto the hood. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. Oh god, she thought, don’t let me die like this...

  James snarled, “Don’t look at me again, or I’ll put your brains all over my windshield. As for your plan to kill me, well, I can’t put you in jail. And I don’t want to kill you—the world ain’t that bad, not yet. But... Well, I can’t just let you go without punishment you’ll remember the next time you wanna rob someone. Can I?”

  Cassy didn’t reply. She couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead, she cried in terror.

  “Cry all you want, Cassandra; it won’t help you escape justice. No, you do have to be punished. Something that’ll put the fear of God into you. Punishment equal to the crime. You were going to kill me, after all. You wanted to take my life.”

  Cassy started to protest again, but he smacked her in the back of her head with the pistol, dazing her. There was a moment of silence. Then Cassy felt his hand on her back. The hand moved smoothly and lightly up to her neck, then down her spine to the top of her pants. There was a crack and she felt a stinging pain on her buttocks. For a moment, she was confused, but then it dawned on her that he had spanked her. Amidst the inky blackness of fear, a tiny light of anger began to burn in her mind.

  Crack. Crack. Crack.

  “Well now,” said James, and Cassy heard something new in his voice, something she’d heard before from other men, a husky edge to his tone. She knew where this was going now, and the flicker of anger grew larger.

  “I do believe I know how to punish the criminal for her crime, now,” James said, and it didn’t escape Cassy’s notice that he referred to her in the third person. “The criminal wanted to take a life. Justice demands that I take something from the criminal, something just as irreplaceable: her dignity. She should remember this lesson in the future.”

  Jim squeezed her right hip roughly, and then pressed the barrel into her head again, pinning it to the hood of the car. “The criminal should take the punishment without struggling, and without crying out,” he said. “Justice must be done, here.”

  Cassy felt his hand slide around her waist and then down, between her legs. He grabbed her painfully down there and then moved his hand up towards the button of her pants. He didn’t fumble with it, but rather, grabbed the corner of the flap and ripped hard, popping off the button and tearing the zipper apart. She cried out in pain as the canvas waistline dug into her skin. She would have a terrible bruise from that, some part of her mind decided. And again, the anger grew, but she was still helpless.

  James moved the barrel to her back and yanked her pants down around her knees. “Oh my,” he said. Crack. Pain. Crack. More pain. He continued slamming his palm across her buttocks until she began to cry out.

  “The criminal will now suffer her punishment,” James said, voice rough and raw with excitement, and she felt his hand grip her underwear.

  Nononono... How dare the bastard do this to another human being, she thought. Her anger flared into a fiery rage, driving away the darkness of the fear that had overwhelmed her. And she made a decision.

  Cassy then waited until she felt James pulling her underwear down. He would be distracted then, she knew. As they slid down her legs, she slowly moved one hand over towards her body. She reached between her breasts and felt a mix of rage and joy when she found the knife there. It was just a folding pocket knife, but it only needed one hand to open.

  Cassy heard the rustle of James’ pants as he struggled one-handed to get his own belt undone. She felt the pressure of the gun against her back lift, then it was gone entirely, and she heard the jingle of his belt buckle. He was, for a second, using both hands to get his pants down.

  And Cassy knew it was her time to strike. With a faint snap she opened the knife and turned the blade around into a hammer grip, blade pointing down away from her thumb. She twisted as hard as she could and brought the point of the blade whipping towards her attack
er. The rage within her turned into a song of savage joy as she watched the point of the blade strike him, gliding deep into his bicep.

  James screamed in pain and stepped back, but his loose jeans tripped him up and he staggered. He dropped the gun as his arms flailed for balance.

  Cassy bared her teeth and snarled at James as she swung the knife at him again. She aimed for his crotch, but struck his inner thigh instead, and she relished the feel of warm blood gushing over her hand.

  James cried out again and fell to the ground whimpering. “Ohfuckohfuck,” he said over and over, staring at disbelief as the blood spurted from his wound.

  Cassy pulled her pants back up frantically and, with huge relief, found the button still attached. She buttoned back up and only then, after a deep breath, did she look down at James bleeding on the pavement. She picked up her gun and tucked it into her waistband.

  “Motherfucker,” she screamed, and stared at him; he looked back at her with terror in his eyes. Then her features relaxed and she smiled prettily. “Well, James, it seems your ruling has been overturned on appeal due to lack of any fucking evidence. You’re just a piece of shit, James. You think because the lights are out, you can take what you want? Maybe the world will go that way now, I don’t know. But right here, right now, you’re going to die. You’re going to bleed to death, James. Even if you somehow manage to stop the bleeding, we’re still ten miles from anything. Think you can crawl ten miles with a tourniquet on your leg? Good luck.”

  Remembering that the car was out of gas, she walked to the car, got the keys, and angrily threw them over the railing and into the woods by the side of the road. Rummaging through his car, she found another box of granola bars and stuffed it into her bag and into the cargo pockets of her pants. He had nothing else of value in the car. Cassy put her bag on, and walked back to where James lay, frantically trying to get his belt off for a tourniquet.

  “James, you piece of shit. If you somehow survive, remember that this is a brave new world. Very soon, either the lights come back on or the survivors get tough. There won’t be any more soft targets to plunder or rape. Remember that. And if you die, well, c’est la vie. Too fucking bad for you.”

  She slung the bag over her shoulder and walked on down the road, leaving James screaming for help behind her. She made sure he did not see her tears as she left.

  * * *

  As Cassy walked, the shock began to wear off and soon she caught her breath. She found herself shaking from the adrenaline letdown, and her spine and head ached from its sudden absence. She considered what just happened with no less horror than when it had occurred, but without the clouding of the mind that came with extreme fear. It took a while to process the event and her feelings about it.

  After a half hour or so, she got off the freeway and found a hidden place to rest in the brushes of the off-ramp circle. She fixed up her pants as best she could, then tried to nap. Her mind wouldn’t stop racing, and she finally gave up and pulled out her pocket journal. She flipped past the pages of now-dead dayplanning, none of which mattered now, and found a blank page. Writing often helped her clear her mind when she couldn’t relax, letting her thoughts slow so that rest could come.

  Aug. 4th 5th: I fear the world ended yesterday and we just don’t know it yet. But my mind is on something else. A man came who seemed nice, wanted to help, and I trusted him. But he was terrible, maybe crazy. I don’t know. Woke me up and held me at gunpoint with my own gun, said I wanted to rob him and kill him. WTF? Said he was going to take my gethome bag because I was going to rob him, and then it got crazier still. He spanked me. SPANKED ME! Like a kid. And it gave him ideas. I think he rationalized wanting to rape me, cuz he said it would be punishment for trying to kill him. (In my sleep? How?) And he almost did it. Almost.

  But right before, I got mad. Not scared, mad. Now I’m scared of the madness. It wasn’t me, couldn’t have been me... I wanted him dead and gone. Got pocket knife out of bra, and waited calmly for him to slip up. He needed both hands to take off pants and then I swung for his heart, hit his arm. He backed up and I tried to cut off his raping little dick. God, still so angry... I missed tho and got his leg, hit artery. Blood all over me, felt good. Felt like power, when I was powerless.

  But I’m such a coward. I wanted to kill him so bad, but couldn’t do it. Maybe Im just soft. I should have done it. But now Im disgusted w/self—how could I want to murder a man? And how could I enjoy it?! Am I a monster?

  Well part of me wants to not trust anyone anymore. He seemed nice but wasn’t. What about next time? But I know plenty of nice people are out there. What would it be to go thru life not trusting anyone? No, I think I’d rather die now than go thru life like that. Maybe I can just be more careful in the future. Esp when I get my kids back! No chances w/their safety, right? Gotta keep 1 eye open from now on, that’s all. The world isn’t as bad as it feels right now. Can’t be, can it?

  More later. Have to sleep, have to keep going. Kids and mom waiting for me to come save them. I wish hubby were still alive, he would know what to do. I can just do the best I can, I guess, and try not to lose my humanity. Someone has to keep civilization civil...

  Having written down her thoughts, her mind finally quit racing and Cassy slid into a fitful, exhausted sleep.

  - 6 -

  0545 HOURS - ZERO DAY +1

  JENNIFER ROUGE WOKE up just before dawn. She looked around her mangled apartment in a nice, rehabbed building in what used to be called Hell’s Kitchen, New York. It was now was full of people like her: upwardly mobile, young, and with more money than common sense. And, she knew, that was true because her expensive apartment was full of empty bottles, half-naked men and women, and sushi boxes. When the power went out, she and her friends had thrown a huge party and it got out of hand, but, of course, no police had come to shut the party down. No cars to get there and bigger fish to fry, she guessed.

  She wrinkled her nose at the spill on her couch—a white leather couch that cost more than some people made in two months, but that wasn’t out of her price range. She’d have to pay someone to clean that mess off.

  Then she realized that she was half-naked too, except for a pair of black boyshorts. She found a shirt—not her own—and threw it on while flipping off Chad, who was groggily staring at her chest (as usual). She stepped onto the balcony to smoke. Jennifer felt relaxed, warm and fuzzy, after the night she’d had with Mark, her ‘best friends with benefits’. Like many of her other friends who’d partied at her crib, she and Mark were on a roll last night, she remembered with a smile. Definitely a superior effort. Maybe he’d even ask her out after a performance like that...

  As she lit her cigarette, she heard the sounds of cars and trucks far below, and planes in the air, and smiled. “Finally, those dipshits got the lights back on,” she muttered, and gazed out at the beautiful view of the Hudson River and the distant Upper West Side of Manhattan—a morning ritual—but then her jaw dropped and she froze, disbelieving.

  The city was on fire. Far across the cityscape, she saw more buildings ablaze than she could count, and the air over the Upper West Side was black. In the river were strange ships, ships with guns, and those guns were going off—and with each shot, more of the city burst into flames. She heard the roar of a jet engine and looked up, but couldn’t grasp what she saw. Three small jets that looked nothing like what she saw on the news during the Gulf War raced overhead and then launched missiles into Central Park, which was ablaze.

  “What the fuck,” she said over and over, unable to understand what was happening.

  She heard what sounded like strings of firecrackers going off below, and she looked over the railing. Down on the street were tiny people in green on one side of the street, and tiny people in gray on the other, and they were shooting at each other. A huge truck came around a street corner and let out a puff of smoke. An explosion that shook her building, even from across the street, engulfed the tiny men in green, ending the firefight. Yet, she heard m
ore gunshots from all around.

  Then she knew she had to wake everyone. They had to get out of the building while they still could, before what happened to the Upper West Side reached them. It was already coming towards them, and it might already be too late. She had to hurry. But as she turned to run inside, the whole building convulsed and swayed, knocking Jennifer off her feet. She landed on her back on the patio, looking up, and saw a huge orange and red blossom of fire burst from the building high above her.

  To Jennifer it appeared that a sort of crystal rain began to fall from the blossom of fire. Part of her thought in a detached sort of way that the rain was utterly beautiful, seeming to drift down towards her like snow in winter. One of the snowflakes landed on her, but instead of icy cold, it was burning hot and she felt it slide, sizzling, through her cheek and out the back of her neck. Glass, she realized, and watched in sudden horror as the rest of the crystal rain floated down over her.

  Bloody and hurt, Jennifer screamed in pain and terror, and struggled to get to her feet. On her knees, hands on the railing to help lift herself up, she saw a terrible, menacing helicopter rise into view from below. In the cockpit, the pilot smiled and then the twin chainguns on either side of the helicopter spun into life, a moment before they spit fire at her.

  Jennifer’s last thought in this world was, “This can’t happen here, can it?”

  The thought was cut off as a seemingly solid stream of bullets reached her, and her apartment; all that remained of her party was fire and a pink mist.

  - 7 -

  0600 HOURS - ZERO DAY +1