Final Dawn: Season 3 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series)

by Mike Kraus

  “This is Leonard McComb on board the Russian submarine Arkhangelsk transmitting for Rachel Walsh on shore. Message is as follows: the launch is ready in two hours. The launch is ready in two hours. Do you copy?”

  Leonard leaned back, tilting his head as he listened for a response. The voice that had come through hadn’t sounded like Rachel, but there was so much static that he wasn’t sure if it was her or not. Seconds later, though, he had his answer, and this time with slightly less distortion than before.

  “This is David ***** Rachel and Mar ***** the nexus! ***** Do you copy?”

  Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry

  4:23 PM, April 27, 2038

  The relief that came over David when he saw Rachel and Marcus successfully make it to the base of the tower without being spotted was like a flood, and he suddenly realized how exhausted he was. Sitting down next to Sam, he stroked the dog’s head as he considered his next moves. The first locomotive was far in the distance, and while the creatures it had distracted were still following it, there was no denying the fact that they would soon come after the train again once they realized that it too was emitting a radio transmission just like the single locomotive. Safe for the moment, though, David put his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than a few moments of rest before he had to start moving again.

  Reality intervened, though, and just a few seconds after David closed his eyes they snapped open again as the radio in the train burst to life.

  “This ***** onard McComb on ***** ssian submarine Arkhangel ***** Walsh on shore. Message is ***** launch is ready *****. The ***** two hours. ***** copy?”

  His eyes wide open, David sat in shock, still rubbing Sam’s head as he stared at the radio, wondering if he had fallen asleep and was dreaming. A launch? The submarine? They’re close enough for radio transmissions… my God, they’re close enough to launch a nuke!”

  David stood and reached for the microphone, glancing out the window as he prepared to respond to the transmission, when something more pressing gave him pause. Working as a pack, the creatures at the distant locomotive had managed to reach it and climb aboard. David watched as they ripped the doors and windows apart, then started pulling the metal and wood out of the walls, looking for any sign of someone hidden inside. As the locomotive lost speed and ground to a halt, the creatures disembarked, looking back up the track to where the rest of the train was sitting idly on the track before they started to move towards it in a slow, deliberate fashion as they had before.

  David turned back to the microphone and held down on the transmit button on the radio controls as he spoke clearly, hoping that the message wouldn’t be too garbled for Leonard to understand. “Leonard! Repeat your transmission! We’re in some serious shit over here!”

  David waited several seconds, and the radio came to life again, with the same message, though slightly clearer.

  “This is Leonard McComb on ***** submarine Arkhangelsk transmitting ***** Walsh on shore. Message is ***** : the launch is ***** two hours. The launch is ready in ***** hours. ***** ”

  David looked at the creatures as he listened, a sense of urgency growing in his stomach as he saw them continue to march towards the train. “This is David Landry for Leonard McComb on board the Russian submarine. Rachel and Marcus have entered the nexus! Do not launch anything yet! Do you copy?”

  Another glance out the window and David knew he couldn’t wait any longer, not even to see if Leonard was going to send another transmission. Bounding towards the front of the locomotive, David jumped out the door, moving between the locomotives until he reached the lead one. As he entered, he ducked low, keeping his body hidden out of sight of the creatures, who were now close enough for David to start making out details on their faces and bodies. After disabling the radio and rigging the engine and horn, David hurried back out to the next locomotive in line, pulling the bolts on the coupling between the two engines so that the one he had just exited would be free to move.

  Just as he got back to the rearmost locomotive, the blast of a horn came, accompanied by the sound of the train’s engine revving to full throttle as it slid forward, working to gain the friction vitality required to speed down the track. The creatures split into two groups, one on either side of the track as the locomotive moved towards them, angling themselves to leap on board the locomotive as it passed by. Watching out the window of the locomotive that was next in line to be released, David shook his head as he watched the creatures tear the vehicle apart with greater efficiency and in less time than they had spent on the first one. Shit… time to throw another wrench in the mix.

  Instead of waiting until the creatures were done tearing apart the locomotive to send another one towards them, David quickly set to work preparing the next one, repeating the process from a few minutes earlier. From inside the third-to-last engine compartment, he watched as the third locomotive roared toward the crowd of creatures that were still tearing apart the second one. Unnoticed by the creatures thanks to David’s decision to not engage its horn, the newly released locomotive slammed into the one that the creatures were riding on, crushing a handful of them and throwing the rest off to the ground. The force of the collision had been enough to injure the majority of the creatures that had survived, and they went into a frenzy, circling the pair of locomotives as they howled and screamed at it and at one another. A cold smile crossed David’s lips as he watched the creatures, feeling a sense of elation at his accomplishment. Though the number of creatures he had harmed were like specks of sand in a vast desert, seeing them writhe on the ground as they struggled to regroup was satisfying and another reminder that, as strong as the creatures were, they were still vulnerable.

  The disorientation of the creatures, while a helpful distraction, did not last for long. Within a few moments of the initial impact, those that were still able to walk were back on their feet, moving swiftly toward David’s train. Prepared for this eventuality, he let loose the next two locomotives in line, retreating into the last one as he watched them steam away down the track. Unlike the other cars, which had distracted the creatures, the two locomotives attracted zero attention from the creatures that were moving toward David, and he realized that his time was up.

  No longer concerned with the pretense of stealth, David slammed the locomotive’s engine into full reverse, making the wheels squeal loudly against the tracks as the train struggled against the weight of Bertha’s boxcar and the additional two half-filled boxcars behind it. The noise from the locomotive starting to slowly move backward only antagonized the creatures, and they screamed as they charged forward, rapidly closing the gap between themselves and the man they saw standing inside, frantically trying to get the train up to speed. While the creatures had been able to catch the individual locomotives that David had released as distractions, this was largely due to the fact that the throttle speed on them had been set at the halfway point. At full speed, there would be no chance of the creatures catching the train, or so David hoped. Scrambling around in his bag, he pulled out a pistol that Rachel had left with him, along with two extra magazines. He held it nervously as he went through the checklist Rachel had demonstrated to ensure that it was loaded and ready to fire.

  David slid open a window on the locomotive and leaned out, gripping the pistol in both hands as he closed one eye and tried to look down the gun’s sights with the other. The movement of the train made it impossible to get a good aim, and after a few seconds of trying, David’s nervousness got the better of him as he squeezed the trigger slightly too hard, discharging a round in the process. The loud crack of the gun nearly made him drop it in surprise, but the howl of pain from the closest creature gave him hope as he saw it drop to the ground, having been shot through one of its knees and no longer able to walk or run. With only a handful of creatures left, David took a deep breath and fired several more rounds, His luck with the first shot, though, had seemingly vanished as all of the next shots missed their int
ended targets, landing harmlessly in the gravel and dirt instead.

  “Shit!” David pulled his torso back in through the window and hastily dropped the empty magazine from the pistol, replacing it with a fresh one before racking the slide to bring another round into the chamber. As he prepared to lean back out the window and fire again, he realized that the creatures were slowly losing ground as they were unable to keep up with the locomotive, which had finally reached a fast enough speed to outdo them. Looking in the opposite direction, from where he, Rachel and Marcus had originally come, David followed the course of the track, realizing after a few seconds that something was off.

  David’s realization proved true a few seconds later when the train jolted to the side, having been sent down one of the side tracks at a much greater speed than it was designed to handle. David’s back slammed up against the edge of the window, sending cracks shooting through the glass as he nearly toppled out. A string of curses burst from him as he barely pulled himself back into the train and rubbed at his back, feeling a thin trickle of blood from a long, shallow cut that stretched across from shoulder to shoulder. A quick look out the opposite window verified that the train had diverged from the original track, no doubt—he thought—as a result of the creatures activating some type of electric switch on the rails, forcing him to remain in the area long enough for them to catch up to him. Looking out in the direction he was traveling, he saw the track run around the side of the nexus where it vanished at some unknown destination.

  “Rachel or Marcus, this is David.” He wheezed into his handheld radio, still recovering from nearly falling out of the train. “Get on the radio if you can hear me. We’ve got some bad problems out here.” Static was the only response he received, but he continued to rebroadcast the message, hoping that as the train moved closer to the nexus, the signal would penetrate the walls and reach Rachel and Marcus, wherever they were inside. Assuming, of course, I manage to make it that long.

  Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry

  4:28 PM, April 27, 2038

  As Marcus and Rachel continued up the ramp, they paid special attention to stay as far away from the exterior walls as possible, not wanting to stumble upon a creature who might be awake instead of slumbering like it was supposed to do. Several minutes of brisk walking rewarded them with a view of the top of the ramp, along with a choice to make. The corridor in front of them was dimly lit compared to the ramp they had just ascended, and Rachel could barely make out a fork in the path a hundred feet away. Both paths looked identical as they drew closer, until she switched off her flashlight, allowing their eyes to adjust to the ambient lighting. At that point she noticed that the path along the right was illuminated ever so slightly more than the left, a fact which Marcus picked up on as well.

  “Light or dark, Rachel?” Marcus squinted, trying to somehow pierce the darkness and see what was ahead down each hallway. She shook her head in response, pacing back and forth in front of the split as she tried to decide which way would be better.

  “We need to get to an exterior wall of the structure, to see if we can get a signal out to David. If we can get at transmission through, that’ll mean this place isn’t completely bulletproof against an EMP.” Rachel stretched her head back, looking at the high ceiling that ended in either darkness or a ceiling far above their heads.

  “Sounds good, except for one thing. How are we supposed to know if we’re near an exterior wall?”

  Rachel stopped pacing and looked at Marcus for a second before shaking her head and mumbling to herself. “Shit.”

  Marcus shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot, suddenly aware of how cold it felt inside the structure. “Here, hand it over. I’ll take point; we’ll go down this way.” Marcus took the rifle and flashlight from Rachel and started walking down the right corridor, hoping that the more illuminated area would yield some clues about any potential weaknesses in the structure. The plain walls were dark gray in color, though there was an underlying glow to them not unlike the walls of the ramp leading up into the structure. Rachel briefly considered touching the wall but decided against it, given what was most likely lurking behind it. As the corridor stretched forward, a gap in the floor appeared ahead, and Marcus slowed down, wondering why the unbroken corridor was suddenly divided. The gap was only a few inches across, but when he shone the flashlight downward, it was impossible to tell how deep it was. On the other side of the gap the corridor made a sudden turn, and it was impossible to tell what was around the corner without stepping over the gap.

  “What do you think, Rachel? Some sort of vent shaft?”

  Rachel looked at it for a moment before stepping across to view it from the opposite side. Marcus half-expected something to reach up from the gap and grab Rachel’s leg, and he let out a small sigh of relief when nothing occurred.

  “No idea. There’s no airflow coming from it, or at least nothing powerful enough that I can feel it.” Looking forward down the corridor, she started running forward and waved for Marcus to follow her. “Come on, quick!”

  The end of the corridor arrived much faster than Marcus had anticipated, though Rachel had stopped well short of it, and was crouched in the center of the hall, her chin in her hand as she watched the far wall. Marcus slowed to a stop just behind her and aimed the flashlight at the wall, until Rachel put her hand up over it. “No,” she whispered, “just watch. I caught the tail end of it a second ago and it just happened again.”

  Marcus watched the wall at the end of the corridor expectantly for several seconds with nothing taking place. “I don’t see—” As he spoke, the ambient light in the corridor seemed to intensify, though it took on a different, more natural color. The far wall seemed to melt into itself, turning to a sort of mesh as the exterior world was revealed, briefly, though this sight was quickly followed by the sight and sound of a silver cloud of nanobots. They passed through the openings in the wall easily, spinning and churning together en masse inside the corridor before they themselves melted away, seeming to vanish as they touched the interior walls, adding themselves to the countless nanobots already present.

  “Looks like we found our exterior wall, eh?” Rachel grinned as she stood up, and cautiously approached the area where the nanobots had appeared. Retrieving the radio David had given her from her pocket, she twisted a knob on the top, turning it on while keeping the volume at a bare minimum. Even as low as it was, David’s panicked voice came through loud and clear, with only the faintest hint of static in the background.

  “Marcus! Rachel! These things are keeping the train stuck down here! I’m trying to find a way out, but I can’t lose them! If you can hear me, hurry up in there!”

  Rachel spoke softly into the radio, glancing around in the empty corridor as she tried to remain as quiet as possible. “David, this is Rachel. We’re done here and are heading back down. Do you copy?”

  David’s reply was immediate. “Thank God! Yes, I hear you! I’ll try to get back around to the front of the tower base, but these tracks are like a fucking maze.”

  “We’ll figure something out. Be down in ten.”

  Rachel switched the radio back off and stuck it in her pocket before turning to address Marcus. “I think that gives us our answer. We can definitely get a signal through, so an air strike should wipe these things out while leaving the structure intact. Let’s get back down to David and get the hell out of here before the Russians take this place out.”

  As they backtracked along the corridor, a lingering question came to the surface which Marcus vocalized. “If the sub launches a missile at the tower, what if the AI detects it? Could they stop it before it detonates?”

  Rachel shook her head back and forth, oscillating between a yes and no answer. “Maybe. If it was a direct strike, the nanobots could have a lot more chance of recovering from it simply because of the radioactive material that would be right here for them to feed on and reproduce with. An EMP from a midair detonation should, in theory, wipe more tha
n enough of them out for that to not be a problem by the time the radioactive material comes in contact with the area, but might not penetrate fully into the structure.”

  Marcus hopped back across the gap in the floor, taking care not to touch it with his feet. While it didn’t look or act threatening, he didn’t want to take any chances with it considering it was the only one they had seen so far inside the structure. As soon as Marcus’s body finished crossing the line marked by the gap, the atmosphere in the room electrified, and a shimmer appeared in the air between Marcus and Rachel, directly where the gap in the floor was located. Marcus instinctively reached his hand back for Rachel, but was blocked by the shimmer, which rapidly solidified from the outer edges toward the center, taking on the same appearance as the gray featureless walls of the interior of the structure.

  “What the hell?” Marcus pushed against the wall, expecting it to retreat like the interior wall had done when they were walking up the ramp, but it remained cold and solid as it quickly changed from transparent to opaque. “Rachel!” Marcus yelled as the wall finished solidifying, no longer able to see her on the opposite side. Instead of Rachel, the gap in the floor, or the rest of the corridor being visible, the room seemed to stop with the wall, as though it had always been that way. Marcus pounded on the wall, first with his fist, then the butt of the rifle as he screamed Rachel’s name several more times before pressing his ear up against the wall to listen for a response. Very faintly, Marcus could hear something hammering against the opposite side of the wall, followed by a distant yell from Rachel.