End of Gray Skies: An Apocalyptic Thriller

by Brian Spangler

  “But, Declan, what if it doesn’t work? How many times have they tried?” There was doubt in her voice. He’d missed it earlier.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, shrugging. And at once he regretted his answer. He could see her disappointment in the way she furrowed her brow. “I remember the last one, though.”

  “Maybe the sun isn’t really there?” Her voice was shaky and subdued.

  Declan was unsure of what to say next, which made his heart feel like it was shrinking. There was plenty of doubt to share. Many had already decided that today would be no different than any other day, End of Gray Skies or not.

  “Does it matter? Really?” he asked, hesitating and wanting to believe they’d see the sun. Maybe little Tabby from the front row had been right, after all. Maybe their world was enough for all of them. “I mean, is this so bad? This is all we know… it’s all we’ve ever known.”

  “I know… I know, but…” she started to say, and then lifted her chin, tugging on his sleeve and leaning in closer to him. “Don’t you want to see the sun? Don’t you just want to feel it, just once, even if for only a moment? I want to see and feel the sun on my skin. I want to know what it’s like to have to squint from the brightness of it. I want to breathe it in, like the plants on the farming floors do when the fluoro-phosphor lamps shine on them.”

  “Sammi Sunshine,” Declan blurted with a large grin. When she frowned at him, though, his attempt to show enthusiasm quickly faded. The name was a painful reminder, and he shook his head, apologizing.

  “Sammi Sunshine it is, then!” she exclaimed, punching her hand to her hip. “I’ll eat the sunlight, if that’s what it’s going to take.” She raised her face defiantly and then burst out laughing. Declan nodded, relieved.

  Without warning, Sammi pressed her body against his. She stretched high on her toes until he felt their lips touch. There were no words, and no sound. The surprise of her kiss took his breath, but only for a moment. Declan embraced Sammi, kissing her in return. It was a small and innocent kiss, but for him, it was the biggest moment of his life.

  “We can hope,” she said. Her voice was breathy and felt warm on his skin. “I think that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Declan held onto her, his heart racing. When he opened his eyes, the moment ended, and he saw that the fog had grown even thicker. It sometimes did that. Like the tidal waters of the great oceans, the heaviness of the fog needed only minutes to roll in and out, hiding or revealing everything.

  Declan shared the concern he saw on Sammi’s face. She motioned for them to move, but he wanted to be back in the moment of their kiss. And then he remembered to ask, “Don’t you have a secret to tell me?”

  Before Sammi could answer him, they heard the first footsteps. The shuffle against the ground was gravelly and quick. By Declan’s guess, at least three or four were near, circling them. They were in danger. They were being hunted. He forgot about the question, forgot about the secret, and even about the kiss they’d just shared. Instead, he took Sammi’s hand, and turned back toward the school.

  The entire building had already disappeared from their view. Declan knew the school was there, though; it was always there. Their visibility was down to five hands, maybe less. A hollow ache filled his gut. He waved his hand in front, losing his fingers to the fog. Unease and urgency grew; they needed to start moving. The fog’s tidal change might leave them with no visibility, crippling them. Nobody dared to venture outside when the fog became too thick to see your own hands. You were vulnerable. Everyone was vulnerable. Sometimes you were dead, or worse yet: taken.

  Both Declan and Sammi had heard the awful stories of people who’d risked the walks, reaching blindly into the fog, staggering. Some made it, but some were said to have been grabbed by the Outsiders. They’d become the property of molesters, kidnappers, and thieves. There was even a sect of Outsiders that favored human flesh: cannibal gangs. Declan shuddered at the thought.

  The Outsiders wanted the children more than anything else. Declan’s mother had told him about the young that had been taken, leaving hysterical mothers to pull back frayed tether straps. Some of the older kids said that it was the cannibal gangs in need of fresh meat. Others said that the Outsiders needed children because they could no longer have any of their own.

  Some in his class thought the stories were folklore: a scary tale parents made up to keep their children inside. Declan believed what his parents told him, though. The Outsiders were the darker side of what humanity had become: a group of men and women who were the worst of what the old world had to offer. They’d chosen to wander after the accident, crossing regions and territories, taking from Communes whatever they needed, and whenever they wanted.

  On days when the count of hands was less than five, it was the Outsiders’ cue to come into the Commune and feed. Hiding just a few hands from anyone’s sight. Declan placed his hand over Sammi’s, and held it firmly. Whether they could see five hands, or twenty hands, there were things to be afraid of in the fog.

  The fog settled, separating them. Sammi squeezed his arm—moving closer—and from the dense cloud, she came into his view. He watched gray mist lace in and out of her red curls before thinning away. She pressed against him until he felt her warm breath touch him again. He looked into her upturned face, seeing fear in her expression as she put a finger to his lips. They stayed still, holding one another, hidden in the pocket of fog. Silence was their only tool now. More footsteps shuffled around them. Declan’s legs began to shake. He was afraid.

  When Sammi motioned down, he saw their feet. Fog hugged the world, but most pockets never reached the ground. Declan couldn’t remember why that was, just that it had something to do with the mist condensing back to liquid.

  Today, he didn’t care. His heart lifted when he saw what Sammi was pointing to. They were standing on the morse lines: a collection of painted white markings. Well-maintained by the workers that wore one or two black bands, the morse lines gave them directions to just about anywhere they wanted to go.

  Bread crumbs, his mother had called them once, borrowing the name from a fairytale that she’d recite before bedtime. When he’d grown too old for fairytales, he’d begun to call them by their proper name.

  Every Commune was responsible for establishing and maintaining their own set of morse lines. And every Commune shared a set of styles in common: there was the solid morse line, which connected the Communes, and then the dash-dot-dot shaped morse line, which led to different food markets. Declan searched for the morse line that would take them to their dwellings. When he found what he was looking for, he let out a huge breath, motioning toward their home. Their dwelling was in the same building, an ancient concrete box layered with centuries of resin to protect it from the caustic salts.

  Sammi tugged his arm, pulling his attention back. His heart thumped in his chest as the hurried sound of footsteps surrounded them. His breathing stopped. Sammi stopped breathing, too, and he wondered if she might scream.

  “They know we’re here,” he whispered. Sammi gripped his hand, and Declan braced himself. Footsteps were closing in. He blinked down at the morse line, and stepped in the direction of their building. His vision had blurred, and he could hear his heart beating in his ears. Sammi followed, tightening her fingers around his. He shook his head, bringing some needed clarity. They pushed farther, faster, with each step. Beyond the fog, the footsteps paced theirs, moving closer, and stomping the ground without any care of being heard. The Outsiders were making themselves known.

  Sammi stopped, then jerked his arm, pulling him to his knees. He wrestled with the injury to his leg, and bit his lip, trying to hold his tongue. She pointed to the space between the ground and the fog, and then leaned forward. His eyes followed Sammi as long strands of her red hair splashed over the stony road. She moved her ear nearer to the ground, as though secrets were being whispered only to her. But she wasn’t listening to anything. Declan understood what she was doing, and knelt closer to th
e stony path. He leaned into the ground, feeling the wet gritty surface on his palms and cheek. He could see in every direction; there was terrific visibility. Sammi pinched him, and pointed to their left. It was there that he saw two sets of padded coverall shoes. He turned back in the other direction, and found another set of coverall shoes. The shoes were from their Commune—not from Outsiders. Though his arms were still trembling, he let out a sigh. They were safe—for now, anyway.

  5

  SAMMI WATCHED AS THE corners of Declan’s mouth curved up in a smile, hesitant and slow at first, but then broad and relieved. He stabbed the fog with his finger, pointing to the padded coverall shoes a few hands away. She pressed against wet pebbly stones, keeping her eyes beneath the gray canopy, and waited to see if the shoes were going to move. They were just like the ones that she wore; just like the shoes that everyone in their Commune wore. Before she could say anything, Declan was already on his feet.

  Standing, she suddenly felt tired of hiding, and stepped forward into the fog where their adversaries waited. Declan followed her, taking hold of her arm.

  “Wish we had some tether straps,” he mumbled jokingly. She nodded, and then locked her hand in his.

  “And miss this?” she answered, lifting their hands between them.

  “How convenient!” a familiar voice rang out. “Look at the two of you together like this.” At once, unease took Sammi’s attention.

  Do we have time to run? she wondered. But they were in a light patch of fog now. The heavier fog was behind them, and they now had twelve, or maybe fifteen, hands of sight. And she knew the voice. The sound of it filled her with a sickening dread. If another heavy patch came, she decided they’d run.

  From the fog stepped Harold Belker and his two sidekicks, Peter and Richie. Sammi’s hands grew clammy, and her heart leaped into her throat. More thoughts of hiding and escape consumed her; they needed to run. She didn’t care about the patchiness of the fog, or that pockets of gray might be hiding Outsiders. There was danger here, vileness, and they needed to be somewhere else.

  She glimpsed Declan’s face: his expression remained the same, unchanged by their new circumstance. He didn’t know of the threats Harold had made toward her, toward them. He didn’t know that Harold wanted her. Sammi knew the danger, though, and she was afraid for the both of them.

  Harold curled a nubby finger, and bounced it in a mock wave. She felt a sickness inside her, as if all the places that Harold had ever put his hands and fingers became poison, burning her, like the violations they were.

  “You missed the last class before the End of Gray Skies,” Declan said, turning an inquiring expression.

  “Don’t think we missed much of anything,” Harold began. He moved to within an arm’s length of Sammi, and raised his nose up in the air, smelling her. “Nope, nothing, yet,” he finished, and snorted a piggy laugh. Richie and Peter joined in. Declan’s expression turned to confusion as he glanced back and forth between the boys.

  “We need to get going,” Sammi interrupted, and grabbed Declan’s hand, stepping to the edge of the pocket of fog. Harold’s sneer and laughter vanished, and he jumped in front of Sammi, blocking their exit. Harold pushed his body closer until his face and piggy nose were within a hand of hers. She could smell his foul breath and feel the warm touch of it on her face. His closeness turned her stomach. She tried to step back, away from him. But fear played a coy joke, leaving her motionless, unable to move.

  She felt Declan loosen his grip on her hand and step in front of Harold. Panic took her breath. Before she could stop Declan, Harold surprised her by lifting his hands and backing away.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Declan shouted. His tone sounded alarmed, but baffled.

  Harold lifted his hands, palms up, and sneered, “Just didn’t want you two to leave… not until you saw my catch, is all.”

  “Your catch?” Declan asked, his voice calmer. Before Declan continued, Harold motioned to Richie and Peter.

  The boys weren’t alone, and what Sammi saw next made her knees go weak and her heart feel heavy. She reached for Declan’s hand, clutching at the air before finally closing her fingers on his. As if on cue, Peter and Richie pulled three feral cats from over their shoulders, dropping them on the ground, lifeless. The boys had missed Ms. Gilly’s class in favor of trapping wild cats. Declan stepped closer. While his expression remained cautious, Sammi could see that he was impressed by what was laid at their feet. Kneeling, Declan stroked the fur of the cat closest to them. Their coats were as black as writing stones, but they held a luster that gleamed in the gray light around them.

  Sammi covered her mouth, then gasped when she saw the milky white fur on the feet of the cat nearest them. While all feral cats wore a similar coat, this one had two white paws. He was different, like she was. A tear stabbed at her eye, and she was quick to swipe it away before Harold noticed. She loved the wild cats and, against the Commune rules, she’d often carried leftover protein crackers in her pockets, and tried to lure them close enough to touch.

  With the fog, nobody knew how close the cats actually were. While hunting without permission was prohibited, there were still those in the Commune who’d maintained a hunting tradition, permission or not. Hunting had been handed down over many generations, as was smoking the catch, and drying the fur, and then sharing, and sometimes trading the meat and pelts with other members in the Commune.

  Sammi recalled the day that she’d found the feral cat colony. While on the path to school, she’d been lured in by the mews that had come from the fog. For weeks, she’d made small piles of protein cracker crumbs, placing them just a dozen hands from the morse lines. Declan told her that she was wasting time, and that she was squandering good food. She ignored him. Hearing the feral cats meow, she’d told him that she also heard the mewling cries of younger cats, too. Weeks passed without her seeing anything, but the food was gone; it was always gone.

  By then, Declan had joined in the effort, and that day he brought with him a few protein crackers to share. Socks was the first feral cat to break from the fog’s cover. He’d appeared to them out of hiding, sidestepping as he approached, and keeping his emerald green eyes locked with Sammi’s. A petite cat, Socks stretched his neck and, with caution, gently took the food from Sammi’s fingers. It wasn’t long before Socks was a regular stop on their walks to and from school. He’d meet them near the old theater, purring and darting figure eights between their legs. Socks had been a feral cat, but had become their cat.

  Now here he was, dead. Socks had been caught by the same hands that had tortured Sammi. Declan looked back to Sammi, his expression slack, but his lips pressed with anger.

  Just then, Socks moved his leg, ever so slightly, reaching to place his forepaw on Declan’s hand. Sammi’s heart stopped. Socks was alive! One of Socks’s eyes stayed closed; a large swell pushed from behind his eyelid. His other eye was just a narrow slit, but the familiar green stared back at her. Blood coated the fur around his ears and head, some of it still bright and fresh. Socks was alive, and Sammi felt helpless. She hated that, and it killed her a little inside.

  Socks tried to mew, and a raspy sound broke the air. Alerted by Socks’s meow, Harold stood high on his toes and crashed down with his club, hitting Socks with a grisly thud. As Declan fell backward, Sammi screamed for Harold to stop. Tears blurred and twisted the image in front of her. The guttural sound of Harold’s club striking the cat filled her ears. She dropped to her knees, trying to protect the cat. Harold’s arm was in the air again, the sweat of an anxious hunter dripping from his brow.

  “Thought we’d killed that one,” he said. He spoke in a strong but breathless voice as his club connected again. The strike of Harold’s weapon sent a spray of blood across Sammi’s coveralls, and adorned her face with bright crimson freckles. The touch of the warm droplets on her skin left Sammi feeling queasy and defeated. She felt Declan grabbing at her, trying to pull her away from Socks. She was only vaguely aware of Dec
lan’s hold, as her eyes stayed locked on Socks. She screamed for Harold to stop, but it was too late: Socks was dead.

  When Harold’s bloodied club stayed down, she heard the snorting of his piggy laugh, and the sniggering exchange of satisfaction between the boys. Before Sammi could control it, the anger welled up inside her, and then erupted for what they’d done to her cat. Sammi leaped to her feet and clawed at the smallest of the three boys.

  Richie never saw her coming. Shock replaced the mocking smile on his gaunt face. A torrent of anger spewed from her body with each throw of her arms. His thin frame stumbled backward in retreat, while he tried his best to cover his head amid the blows that Sammi threw. When there was enough of his hair in her grip, she closed her fingers in a balled fist and pulled his head down, throwing her other arm in a wide swing. She felt the crunch of his nose against her knuckles, and the sound encouraged her. Richie let out a childlike cry. He jabbed one of his arms aimlessly forward in a feeble attempt to defend himself. Sammi had forgotten about Declan and Socks; she knew only that she wanted to hurt the boy who was backing away from her. The realization of what she’d witnessed consumed her. She was crying, and only when she saw the blood on her fist did her strength fade.

  A massive blow struck her in the back, throwing her forward. Against her will, she spat out all the air from her lungs. Her shoulders and back cramped, and writhing in pain, she was certain that she’d soon join Socks in death. Bright pin-lights danced in her eyes, and the images in front of her went pale and dim. She dropped to her knees and gasped absently at the air, struggling to fill her lungs with the stale salt that she so loathed. Sammi heard Declan yelling at Harold, and then turned her head in time to see that Declan’s feet were surrounded. Harold was swinging his club again, only this time it wasn’t Socks that he was aiming for. Sammi heard another sickening thud, and then watched as Declan fell to his knees next to her, gripping at his middle, his mouth furiously trying to pull in the same foul air.