Aftermath

by Mark Lukens

  They were quiet for a few seconds. There were no more words now, nothing left to say. He pulled the keys out of his jacket pocket, trying not to jingle them.

  She pulled the keys to her car out of her jacket pocket. She saw the key fob, the metal plate with her university engraved on it. She thought about pulling that piece off so she could save it, hold on to it, have some kind of memory of her old life. But her old life was gone now, nothing left from it but what she had in her suitcase. But there was still a part of her old life she could get back, a part she never thought she’d ever want again, her family.

  They exchanged keys.

  “Thank you for everything,” Kate said and kissed Ted on the cheek.

  For just a moment she thought he was going to reconsider his idea about staying in the city and living on his roof. For just a moment she was sure he would decide to go with her. But he didn’t offer to go. He just nodded at her, indicating that she was welcome.

  Kate rose up a little, still half-crouched, looking around at the street. Ted had told her that he would cover her as she got into the truck, cover her as she drove away. But she wasn’t so sure of that; not so sure that he would give his position away with a gunshot. She was sure that once she was in the SUV, she would be on her own.

  It took a few moments for her to work her way to the driver’s door, to unlock it and get inside, to shut the door softly, to slide the key into the ignition.

  But she was ready now. The day was getting brighter, the morning almost here. This was her chance to get away. She had her map from her car in her jacket pocket, the route still drawn on it, her way to Foster Road, and then out of the city. She wasn’t too far away from Foster Road right now.

  Maybe she could make it.

  She twisted the key, wondering if the SUV would start. It started right up, the truck loud in the driveway. She shifted into reverse and backed out of the driveway, then she shifted into drive without a look back at Ted, gaining speed quickly as she drove down the road through the tree-lined sidewalks, the one and two-story homes beyond those trees.

  No rippers so far, but they would be coming any minute now.

  If she could just make it out of the city, she was sure things would be better, just like she’d told Ted.

  PART 2

  CHAPTER 17

  Oct. 29th

  Three days later Kate was running for her life in a small town that she didn’t know the name of, and in that moment she was really regretting her decision to leave Ted’s rooftop. Maybe she should have stayed for a few more days. Maybe she could have worn Ted down and convinced him to leave with her.

  But she hadn’t done that. Instead, she’d left on her own to travel across the state to find a family she hadn’t spoken to in months; she’d left, chasing a phantom from her dreams, a blind woman who pleaded with her to go west and find her and her companions.

  She had lost her SUV moments ago, the vehicle sputtering, out of gas. She’d had to abandon the truck and look for something else. She left her suitcase of clothes and supplies behind, carrying nothing else with her. She had no weapons, nobody else with her, no help of any kind.

  And now a group of rippers was chasing her down the street toward a line of brick buildings at the edge of this now-forgotten town in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. She thought there would be fewer rippers once she got outside of the city, but there were still plenty of them.

  The five rippers chased her, beginning to catch up to her. But Kate was sure she could outrun them. As long as she stayed in front of them, she could keep on running for miles nonstop. She was so thankful she had jogged four times a week for the last ten years—if there was one thing she’d done to unknowingly prepare for the apocalypse, this was it.

  Kate got to the buildings and turned a corner.

  Just keep running. Just keep running until you find somewhere to hide.

  She’d run halfway down the alley between the buildings before she realized that it ended in a dead-end, just a wall of bricks. She stopped in her tracks. She couldn’t climb the wall. There was no way out.

  And the rippers were coming.

  There were two metal doors, one on each side of the narrow alley, garbage bags ripped open, trash all over the alley floor. She banged on the door to her right, the metal sounding hollow yet strong.

  No answer from inside.

  She tried the other door, pounding on it, screaming for help. “Please! Open the door!”

  The rippers were at the mouth of the alley, all five of them standing there. They weren’t running after her now, but approaching slowly, like they knew she was trapped and they could take their time.

  Had they herded her into this alley? Were they smart enough to do that?

  Kate was still breathing hard from her run, nearly hyperventilating as she looked around for some kind of escape, or some kind of weapon to fight back with.

  There were no weapons. There was no escape. It was all over now.

  She looked at the five rippers coming toward her, the three men in front, shoulder to shoulder, the two women in back. They weren’t screeching or screaming now—they were all breathing heavy from the run, but silent, like they didn’t want to alert any other rippers about the food they’d found. Their mouths were open in what could possibly be called a smile, their eyes narrowed and focused on her. Their hair hung down, matted to their foreheads and necks from the freezing rain that was drizzling down, their breaths clouding up in front of their faces, their wet, soiled, and torn clothing sticking to their skin.

  Kate had heard that when a person was confronted by a grizzly bear that they were supposed to play dead, but that wasn’t going to work with rippers. She’d heard that if a black bear attacked, you should scream and yell at it, try to act bigger and braver than you were. That probably wasn’t going to work on these rippers, either. But she couldn’t think of anything else.

  “Get out of here!” she yelled at them.

  Her shouts didn’t slow them down at all; they kept moving forward, getting closer and closer to her. One of them sounded like he was actually growling at her, the sound rumbling from his throat. One of the women let out a low howl that reminded Kate of a cat getting ready to fight another cat. One of the men tried to speak, trying to form some kind of words, but nothing but gibberish came out.

  “Stay away from me!” Kate screamed. She looked around at the garbage all around her, at the metal dumpsters and plastic trash cans, searching for something to defend herself with, a stick or a piece of metal, something.

  She could feel her mind buzzing, her muscles both tense yet also loosening a little as the reality of the situation hit her: she was going to die. Many others had already died since the Collapse, so many had been ripped apart and eaten. She would only be one more casualty in the grand scheme of things, like an ant being run over by a car tire, the driver unaware he was snuffing out a life as he drove by. This was just that cosmic roll of the dice, a bad hand dealt with no meaning behind it.

  The rippers were getting closer, the growls getting louder; one of the women behind the men still making that strange howling sound.

  Kate knew she was going to die, but she swore that she wouldn’t make it easy for them. She wasn’t going to collapse to the ground and cry—she would fight to the death.

  “Come on, you motherfuckers,” she yelled.

  And they came. Running now, covering the last twenty yards quickly.

  Kate heard a screeching sound from right behind her, from the metal door in the brick wall. Someone had just opened it a little. It had been locked before, but someone had unlocked it and opened it for her.

  The rippers were only steps away.

  Kate ducked inside the door and pushed it closed. She was inside the pitch-black darkness, holding the door shut, her fingers scrambling to find some kind of way to lock the door. It had been locked before; there had to be a way to lock it.

  The rippers were at the door, pounding on it, pushing against it.
>
  Her fumbling fingers found a deadbolt. She twisted it, the deadbolt thumping into place in the door frame.

  The rippers pounded at the door even harder, pushing at the door; it was rattling in the frame.

  Kate took a step back from the door, afraid that it was going to be slammed open any second even though the deadbolt was in place. She froze when she realized that somebody was in the darkness with her.

  CHAPTER 18

  Kate stood there for a long moment in the dark, feeling vulnerable, feeling like someone was about to grab her any second now. Her skin crawled with dread as she waited. She tried listening for sounds in the dark: footsteps, breathing, someone whispering. But the banging of the rippers beating and clawing at the metal door was drowning out any other sounds in the room.

  Calm down, Kate. Think of things rationally. You’re a scientist. Obviously someone opened the door because they wanted to save you. They must have heard you yelling out there in the alley.

  Kate took another careful step into the darkness, her arms out, her hands ready to feel her way through the dark. Her breathing and heartrate were beginning to slow down a little. She turned around, her back to the door now. She felt a little better, sure now that the rippers weren’t going to get through the door.

  Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark a little. Objects, big and bulky, were beginning to take form. Whoever had opened the door could probably see her.

  “Hello?” Kate called out.

  No one answered.

  She took another step forward and then froze. She heard a sound, the shifting of cloth, the slight scuff of a shoe on the wood flooring, the exhale of a breath.

  “Hello?”

  The person in the room still wouldn’t answer.

  “Hello?” Kate said again. “I know you’re in here with me. Thank you for opening the door. You saved my life.” She smiled. “I guess you heard me yelling out there in the alley. I didn’t know what else to do. I tried to yell at them. Tried to scare them off.”

  Kate heard footsteps, quick and light. She swore she saw movement in the darkness, a shifting of the dark. For just a moment she thought of the dreams she’d been having about the shadowy man, the Evil One, as she called him. She thought of the Evil One in her house, hiding in the dark, watching her. And then she thought of the small town she’d seen in her dreams, the place where the Evil One ruled, and maybe even lived; the town with all the dead people in it. She could imagine the Evil One in this room with her now, getting closer and closer to her in the dark, taking his time and relishing her fear, drinking it in, because she really had nowhere to go now, did she? What if his eyes were closed right now and he was waiting to open them so she wouldn’t see his yellow eyes appear in the darkness, shining like two pinpoints of light, until he was right in front of her? And then he would grab her.

  Stop it, she told herself. It’s not him. He’s not here in this room. I would know it.

  She didn’t know where that thought had come from, but she sensed that it was true; she sensed that she would know if he was near her.

  He isn’t even real, she scolded herself.

  There were more sounds deeper in the room, those light footsteps again.

  Kate moved forward in the darkness, taking a few small, hesitant steps, bracing herself if she bumped into something. “Is there another way out of this building?” she asked. She was sure there had to be another entrance, but she was just trying to get the other person to talk, to say something. “I don’t want to bother you. I just want to leave.”

  She made her way through the dark, feeling her way around a corner and into another room.

  A light flickered at the other end of the room. The light was small, but because the room was so dark, the light was like a beacon, illuminating the vast room she was in, which was some kind of storeroom with stacks of boxes, rows of metal shelves that held more boxes. A few pieces of large machinery stood in a far corner off to her right. The place reminded her of (and smelled a little like) the building that Ted lived in.

  This storeroom led to another smaller room, where the light was coming from through an open doorway.

  Kate hurried forward, walking a little more quickly now that she could see better. She got to the doorway and waited there for a moment, looking around at the inside of the room. It was some kind of office with filing cabinets lining the walls, a desk with a table to one side of it with a coffee machine and a dead plant. There were books and papers stacked everywhere, posters on the walls.

  She stared down at the light on the floor, a flashlight laid down on its side, the light beam pointing at an open trapdoor in the floor, the rectangle of darkness waiting for her.

  Kate entered the office, walking the few steps toward the open trapdoor; it was made of wood with newer-looking hinges. There was a brass handle on the inside of the door so she could pull it closed once she descended the wooden ladder.

  She stood right next to the open trapdoor, staring down into the darkness, the flashlight pointing the way.

  “You want me to go down there?” Kate asked.

  No answer from the darkness below.

  Kate looked around at the office again, wondering if the person who had opened the door for her was hiding in here somewhere, or even out in the storeroom, waiting for her to go down the ladder so he or she could shut the trapdoor on her and lock her down there.

  A slamming noise sounded from somewhere else in the building, from somewhere beyond the storeroom. Then a screeching noise and a howl. The rippers might have gotten in through the metal door. But no, she thought these noises were coming from deeper in the building. There were rippers in the building and they were coming this way.

  CHAPTER 19

  Kate froze for a moment as she listened to the screeches and howls of the rippers echoing through the darkness. She wasn’t sure what to do. The rippers were coming and she needed to hide. The trapdoor looked like the best place, she looked down at the rectangle of darkness, about to pick up the flashlight, but then she froze again.

  A little girl’s face stared up at her, materializing from the darkness below into the light created by the flashlight beam. The girl stood a few feet down the ladder, waiting. She looked to be about eight years old, her face smeared with dirt, her blond hair tangled and wild, her eyes wide with fear and so blue in the light beam of the flashlight. Her pale arm shot up out of the hole and she grabbed the flashlight. Obviously the little girl wasn’t going to wait a second longer for Kate to make up her mind.

  “I’m coming,” Kate whispered.

  The girl disappeared down into the darkness, taking the flashlight down the ladder with her. Kate was suddenly swallowed up in darkness, but she felt her way down the ladder a few rungs, and then she grabbed the trapdoor by the handle, closing it as she went down the ladder.

  A light shined up on the underside of the trapdoor like a spotlight, shining right on a large brass bolt and clasp. Kate realized that the girl wanted her to sink the lock into place. She did, and then continued down the ladder.

  At the bottom of the ladder the light went out—the little girl had turned the flashlight off. Before the light had gone out, Kate had seen that she was in some kind of large brick walkway, the ceiling rounded overhead, almost like it was some kind of tunnel.

  Scurrying sounds came from the darkness, the sound of the girl moving away, and then maybe sitting down against the wall.

  Kate reached her hands out, finding the wall on the other side of the tunnel, her fingers running over rough brick, guiding her as she sat down on the floor.

  Seconds later Kate heard the rippers right above them, moving around in the office, pulling at drawers in the filing cabinet, flipping the desk and chair over, grunting with the effort. The desk sounded like it had landed right on top of the trapdoor, and Kate felt a moment of panic. But what could she do about it now? Nothing.

  The rippers kept moving around, screeching and yelling, two of them fighting, their howls so loud it
sounded like they were down in the tunnel with them. But the skirmish was over in thirty seconds. Kate knew those rippers up there were humans once, humans who went to school, who went to work, who owned homes, who created art and had dreams. But the way they sounded now, it was almost easy to believe that some new alien race of bloodthirsty beings had invaded Earth.

  But at least she felt somewhat safe down here in the darkness, hiding with the little girl who had saved her life. Kate was exhausted from escaping her SUV, running through the town, running from the rippers. Now she was out of the rain and cold. She found herself closing her eyes, the darkness all around her blending with the darkness behind her eyelids. And she prayed again—she had prayed more in the last few days than she probably had in her entire life. She prayed that she wouldn’t dream.

  *

  A light shined in Kate’s eyes, waking her up. She opened her eyes and sat up a little straighter, squinting and bringing a hand up to shield her eyes.

  The girl moved the flashlight’s beam of light out of her eyes, scurrying away.

  Kate blinked and rubbed at her eyes. She’d been asleep for a while, but she couldn’t tell how long. She had slept a dead sleep without any dreams.

  Thank God for that.

  At least she couldn’t remember the dreams at this moment—maybe she had dreamed something.

  The little girl was back on the other side of the tunnel, the flashlight beam off now. But Kate found that she could see. The girl had two push-button lights on, the kind from a dollar store that were supposed to stick inside of closets or underneath cabinets for extra light. The two little lights gave off a surprising amount of light.

  Kate looked around and saw that the room they were in was much larger than she had thought at first. The walls were constructed from brick and looked old. The floor was made up of flat stones that almost looked like patio pavers. The ceiling above them was low, but high enough so that Kate could stand all the way up. Wires crisscrossed the ceiling with bare lightbulbs hanging down every twenty or thirty feet.