End of Gray Skies: An Apocalyptic Thriller

by Brian Spangler

  “What’s happening?” Sammi asked, and cupped her hand to her mouth. “What’s going on?”

  Hadley looked down at the ground, seemingly embarrassed, as though she were hiding an adolescent blemish. Sandra only sighed, shaking her head, and then took Sammi’s hand back into hers. By now, the lights in the corridor were blinking, catching the attention of Declan’s family. Hadley was already walking toward them, receiving their instructions, listening to them. Sandra shielded her eyes from the lights.

  “Tell Declan nothing. Tell him nothing of what you’ve seen. This is part of who we are now. We’ll all go through this. Okay? You’ll understand when it’s your time too.” Before Sammi could say another word, Declan’s mother snapped her hand from Sammi’s and turned her eyes to the lights as she entered the corridor.

  “Who was that?” Sammi heard from behind her. Terror coursed through her as she tried to understand what had happened to Sandra and Hadley. Sammi wondered if the same thing might already be happening to her. She pushed her fingers over her lips and eyes, searching to find what wasn’t there.

  “Sammi? You okay? Who was that?”

  “Nobody. It’s okay. Go back to sleep,” she answered, closing the door behind her. Declan rolled over onto his side, and within a minute, she heard him breathing heavily again.

  Sammi went back to the portrait, where the light cast down onto her hands. She looked for age spots and wrinkles, but her skin was smooth and young. The portrait was changing for her, drawing her attention like the lights in the corridor had drawn Sandra’s.

  The Earth was larger this time: she could easily make out the oceans, and an orbiting moon. Sammi laid her hands on the glossy surface, and soon the tingling sensation of electricity was running through her again, raising the hair on her body. All around her, the room filled with the details of the map, rotating and revealing new mysteries. She was lost in the images, and the question once again arose in her mind: Who made this map?

  13

  100 YEARS EARLIER

  ISLA STOOD AT THE opening of a massive laboratory, her mouth agape, her eyes wide in wonderment. She couldn’t explain why she was at the lab; she only knew that she was supposed to be here to work. That was what she did best: work.

  Leaning into the room without yet committing to that first step, a lively giddiness filled her. Her heart raced with excited frivolity, making her feel silly, as though it were her birthday and she had a table full of gifts just waiting to be freed of their parchment wrappings. Her eyes moved to the table closest to her, and to the untouched lab equipment sitting on it. She spied the samples in the beakers and test tubes; some were filled with liquids of differing amounts and colors, while others held powdery or chunky compounds. Like her birthday presents, the samples were waiting for her to pick them up, to prepare or synthesize them: to work with them. It was glorious. She pressed a palm to her cheek, smiling widely at the room, and then she stepped into the room.

  Closing her eyes for a moment, she listened to the sound of an agitation table gently rocking. Concentrating on the sound, she turned, finding the collection of small flasks, and watched the fluid’s rhythmic motion. There was more lab equipment in front of her than she’d ever been able to scrounge together for the Commune’s lab.

  Isla’s old lab had been a paltry room. Humbling. She and a few others had worked hard, rebuilding old tables and covering the tops with their own manufactured resin. Over time, they’d collected and repaired ancient medical instruments, and put together whatever else they could. Slowly at first, the Commune lab came together; and then, one day, it was functional. For the few short years after Nolan’s death, putting the Commune’s resin lab together was a high point, an achievement.

  Isla’s eyes darted to all the corners of the room, as far back as she could see, taking it all in. She even searched the shadows for more gifts to be unwrapped. She smiled, a small, joyful one, as her fingers tingled with anticipation. What kind of lab work would she be doing? She quickly decided that she didn’t care, as long as the lab was hers to play in. She was ready to get started.

  A volley of colors stretched across the room, beaming from high up on the wall. There she found a series of round lights, similar to the ones in her room. And like before, she nodded, and a calm feeling settled over her: understanding. The sequence of colorful flashes told her everything she needed to know about the lab and the equipment. The light’s revolving colors changed tempo, showing a brighter range of hues, flickering on and off. Isla nodded again.

  A different glimmer of light interrupted her. Seeking out the faint wink, she found a large steel door, standing alone at the back of the lab. In its center, a small oval window, ringed in black, kept watch over the room like the guarding eye of an attentive parent.

  Unlike the rest of the lab, the door was unfamiliar to her. Pressing her lips together, searching her thoughts, she found no recollection, no memory of it. Unsettled, Isla sought answers from the lights, but they’d become quiet, dormant, saying nothing. Left on her own, she turned back to the door. Had she seen something move?

  For a moment, she thought the window-eye had blinked, winking at her, as though knowing what she’d done, knowing about how Nolan had really died. Emotion squeezed her heart, and she laid her hand against her chest, taking a breath until the painful reminder passed. In her mind, she searched for Nolan’s face, for the memories of him smiling at her, telling her that he loved her.

  She shrugged off the sense of being stared at: being judged. It was just an oval window, nothing more. But there was motion on the other side: she was certain of it. A set of dark shadows waved back and forth, and then up and down.

  Curiosity got the better of her and, without realizing it, she approached the door. The eye watched her with a cautious gaze, as if she were an intruder breaching its domain. She briefly caught a glimpse of herself in the steel reflection. She had expected to see her old gray coveralls, but instead, she saw a woman dressed in tight-fitting, pristine white coveralls with a fresh sheen that caught the lights in the room. She flushed, admiring what she saw. Caught off guard by the unexpected image, Isla turned, smiling, and then continued forward.

  With her fingers stretched wide, she touched the strange door, pressing her palms against the steel. The metal was cold and empty of any motion or vibrations. Her eyes were lower than the bottom of the window, so she could only see upwards into the room on the other side. Other than its pitted gray ceiling, there was nothing more for her to see. She heard the muffled sounds of movement, but they weren’t the sounds of something alive. They were mechanical, and reminded her of the low thrumming sound generated by pedaling the Commune cycles. Annoyed by her blindness, Isla pushed up onto her toes to peer inside.

  Through the window, she found a long mechanical arm swinging from one side of the room to the other. The arm moved quickly, humming a mechanical song as it passed in front of her. Instinct told her to duck below the window’s rim, but she only laughed at the impulse.

  What she saw next changed every thought she’d had about her lab.

  The hidden room was larger than her lab, and squared with the same silver steel on all sides. From the floor to the ceiling, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of shelves—all of them filled with vials that numbered a dozen rows deep. In each vial, Isla saw what looked like a dark red solution. Blood was her best guess. Actually, it was her only guess.

  But whose blood? And why so many? She thought of school then, and how much her classmates had admired the way she worked numbers in her head. Guessing the count of rows on one of the shelves, and then sizing up the room, Isla’s breath caught, and she dropped back to her feet. She turned around to face her lab. By her estimate, the hidden room contained over one hundred thousand blood samples. But why?

  Motorized sounds from behind the door whirred, stopped, whirred again. Jumping back up on her toes, Isla turned in time to see another large mechanical arm flying back and forth, cutting in all directions. Extending from th
e tracks in the floor, the two arms turned and twisted their square mechanical elbows, rubber tips rotating at the ends of their open jaws.

  An arm near her moved up, then turned, placing its fingerless rubber tips on a vial of blood. The tips closed gently on the glass and lifted it from the shelf. The same was happening across the room, as other arms picked up other vials, moving them up and down, back and forth. Some vials went to other shelves, others disappeared on a journey into the furthest shadows of the room. Still others had their pink and lavender rubber stops pierced by a needle that extended from the mechanical hand; after a sample was drawn, the vials were put back down.

  A sharp light bounced off the window, breaking her study of the activities. The lights were talking to her again, and at once she dropped to her feet, turning away from the door. She was there to work, and her work was critical. At least, that’s what she’d been told.

  How are the lights telling me anything? Isla clasped her hand over her mouth, uncertain whether it was okay to have such thoughts. She dipped her chin and waited. Afraid to look up, she listened to the eerie silence of the lab, expecting something to happen. But the room remained quiet.

  Isla slowly raised her head, finding the lights, and a sudden myriad of flashes startled her. Squinting, she shielded herself from the shouting brightness, and an ache tumbled clumsily somewhere deep inside her head. Slowly the pain began to fade, and the lights softened; they were now once again soothing, like a parent’s voice, comforting after a scolding. Their sequence of colors told her the next task. Without hesitation or question she nodded, knew what she was there to do.

  The lights filled her with urgency—the kind she associated with earnest work that used to get her excited. She went to the middle of the lab to the one table that differed from all the others: her table. It was clear of any lab equipment, and was more desk than work surface. She knew it was her station, and it was where she’d sit to think, to document and plan.

  Isla turned to the lights on the wall. This was her lab, and details meant everything. The lights were quiet, and she offered back a reserved nod, understanding they’d already told her enough. She rubbed the side of her head, easing the faint pain that surfaced just behind her eyes.

  Pressing her waist against the desk, Isla leaned into it, resting. Her room and its food dispenser was what she really wanted right now, but the lights flickered, telling her differently. It wasn’t time to leave yet. Reluctantly, she began to pick through the contents of her desk. She stopped when her hands fell upon a lab journal.

  Isla pulled the journal in front of her. The pressed pages were bound by heavy thread, and the pages were protected by what felt like sheepskin leather. Running her fingers along the binding, she was intrigued: she’d never touched an actual book. In school they’d been taught about books, but hadn’t had any. Over time, most books had become lost, or had been eaten by the salty gray air, disintegrating into a powdery dust.

  She opened the thick cover and smiled, admiring the flat and smooth pages. The edges were stiff and sharp; not at all soft or pulpy, like the writing parchment she’d grown up with. At once, she wanted to write something down. She searched for a writing stone, but then understood that a lab journal like this wouldn’t be written in with a crude writing stone. In the drawer of her desk, she found a pen, and fumbled it, trying to figure out how to hold it. She corrected the lay of the pen across her fingers and scratched in her name. After all, it was her lab, and her lab journal.

  Some of the scrawling letters were tall with loopy swings and low rounding arches. She stopped a moment, looking at her first words, and her heart sank. What she’d written was a jaggy mess. How long had it been since she’d written anything? Isla continued the effort, though, slowly gaining control over the letters. And within a few sentences, her words and form looked better.

  After a full page, she wrung out the tight knot building in her hand; her unused muscles complained. She finished the day’s journal entry, admiring how much she’d written.

  “It’s the details,” she said, and then leafed through the remaining blank pages.

  Without thinking, Isla pinched the corner of her completed page and tore it away. She winced at the sound of the tearing parchment and felt a sudden panic. Why did I do that? she wondered, and sought out the lights on the wall. But they were dormant again, giving her nothing. Guilt came next, as though she’d just broken something new. Flicking the scrap from her fingers, she watched it flutter down to the floor.

  But rather than let the guilt continue to lie there, Isla decided to take the torn corner with her. And when she knelt down, she discovered more than just the parchment. She found a shelf under her desk. Excitement made her want to scream, but she held her voice. She clutched her fingers, eager to take hold of what she’d found. Standing upright, and in perfect order, the set of lab journals had been carefully placed there, waiting. And from the creases in the binders, she could see that they’d already been written in.

  With her outstretched hand, she bounced the tip of her finger from journal to journal, counting them. As she reached the thirtieth journal, delight filled her belly. Her lab was more than thirty years old! Before her arrival, there’d been other lab technicians, entering their activities onto the pages of their journals. She wanted to read the journals, and wondered if she’d be allowed to take any of them back to her room. Just a few at a time was all she’d want. Who did she need permission from? It was her lab. Without another moment’s hesitation, she pulled the first lab journal from the shelf. It was the first, so it must be the oldest.

  Straightening up, she found relief in the darkness of the lights. She was free to go to her room and begin reading. Isla closed her lab journal, placing it alongside the journal she’d just found. Side by side, they were identical; if not for the one looking older, she wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart.

  Restlessness played a coy game, and Isla flipped open the old journal. On the first page, scratched across the smooth parchment, she found a name. The penmanship displayed swings that were far and tall, and arches that dipped low. The writing was familiar. Clearing her throat, she felt a pang of skepticism as she read the name aloud.

  “Isla Jenkins,” she said, and slammed the journal closed. Shaking her head, she searched the lab—looking for someone, anyone. What kind of joke is this? Whose idea was it to play with her? She pushed her eyes to the lights on the wall, frowning when she again found them black. With her fingers nestled between the pages, she opened the old journal again. A tear wet her cheek and fell onto the page. She didn’t like being teased. Reading the journal, she found the penmanship forced at first, awkward, but farther down the page, it had become smooth and practiced. Her teardrop blossomed where it landed, taking with it some of the ink, creating a budding flower. Isla’s hands tensed when she saw what was next to the flower: the corner of the lab page had been torn away. And it wasn’t just the first page; the corner had been torn from all the pages.

  Isla quickly fanned the pages; the air turned her cheeks cold. She continued until she got to the first blank page. Its corner was still whole. She raised her brow, understanding. The practice of tearing the corner of a completed page helped her to find the next blank page. Torn corners were completed days. She put her hands together, raising them so that her fingers rested on her lips. How could she know that? How could this be her journal?

  She considered. If this thirty-year-old journal was really hers, then the torn piece from the new journal would be the same size: no bigger, no smaller. Losing patience and needing to know, she pushed the torn piece into place. While the old journal’s pages were yellowing, the torn piece was a near-perfect fit. Isla put the back of her hand to her mouth.

  “This can’t be!” she gasped.

  Shuffling her feet, Isla felt a bitter taste fill her mouth, felt heat rise from under her collar. Her heart was beating hard, rapidly, causing pain in her chest. Her head became heavy and her ears were ringing. When the room tur
ned on its side, she was sure her heart was going to stop. It was happening again, and she couldn’t stop it. Her reality was slipping from her—she didn’t know what was real, and what wasn’t. She turned once to the lights, finding them quiet, silent, and she wondered if she’d ever heard anything from them at all.

  A tear dropped to her chin. The cold touch on her face, alone, reminded her of what the blade had felt like the night she had pressed it onto her skin. Isla searched her thoughts for Nolan, her chosen, hoping his face would help her, but the images of him were fleeting, leaving as soon as they came. Instead, she saw his death. She saw what she’d done, and then she fell to her knees, gasping against her tightening throat. Isla gripped her hands together and cried into them.

  Her lab was suddenly too small. Its walls and ceiling were closing in on her, trapping her in a never-ending cycle of nightmarish repentance. She was losing her mind again. It was the simplest explanation; the easiest explanation. She was still mourning the loss of Nolan, and her mind wasn’t going to let her forget what had really happened to him.

  “I’m sorry. Nolan, I’m so sorry for what happened.” Her words echoed as she curled herself into a ball on the metal floor. She shut the light from her eyes, welcoming the touch of the cold against her body. She let the exhaustion take hold of her, and she stopped trying to understand what was real and what wasn’t.

  Maybe I’m still on the steel table, and the mortician is standing above me. Maybe that would be best. The smothering heat on her face and neck began to recede, and the thumping in her head quieted to a dull ache. She didn’t want to understand; not anymore. She only wanted to disappear, even if it was for just a short while.