Tomorrow We Rise

by Daniel P. Wilde

  We all sat there quietly for a few seconds. I pondered the implications of John’s words.

  Seeing that we had nothing to say, John continued. “As the Skins continue to multiply, rather than killing all the remaining human survivors, they’ll simply transform the humans into Skins. Those that have already changed join the budding throngs of workers. They have the same dangerous propensities as those who have been injected with Toronto’s vaccine. They take directions from the older Skins—the overlords—as Mike has begun to call them. Your old friend Cain is one of those overlords, and his army is growing quickly. He has a couple hundred followers, at least.”

  “Wow,” I whispered.

  “So,” John continued, “it seems that the Skins must have a way of smelling human scents or something. Or maybe it’s some other sense that we don’t understand since we don’t really understand any of this. But in some way, they’re finding survivors much faster and easier than we are. They seem to just walk right up to places where humans are hiding. Sometimes they knock and appear to be speaking. Other times, they break through walls and doors and rush in for the attack.

  “And, the Skins have become much more aggressive. They’re attacking vehicles and buildings where humans are hiding, in daylight now. We’ve been watching it happen. Apparently, they don’t care that the sun is out any more.”

  “Maybe, as they continue to mutate, if that’s what’s happening, their eyes are adjusting to the brightness of the daylight hours,” Angel said.

  “Well, that’s a comforting thought,” I replied.

  “But this whole thing sounds like a zombie movie,” Street said quietly. “Zombies don’t act like that. They’re not rational. They don’t think and make decisions.”

  “Zombies aren’t real Street,” Angel said. “You’re trying to fit the Skins into your pre-conceived idea of what a fictional zombie acts like. That won’t work. The Skins aren’t zombies. They’re humans. Granted, they’re humans with extra-sensory abilities and inhuman strength and skills. But this isn’t unprecedented. I’ve been studying this type of thing for years.”

  “Angel,” John said with exaggerated patience, “your studies are very likely irrelevant here. I don’t say that to be mean or inconsiderate, or anything like that. I actually believe most of what you’ve written on the subject. But what may exist within the human genome is not what we’re seeing here. This is something different. We’re not talking about a human who is born with genes that make him stronger than his friends. We’re not talking about a person born with the ability to read minds or leap tall buildings or detect a coming tornado. We’re talking about regular humans who have been infected by a mutated form of E-rase. The vaccination is causing them to change.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, John,” Angel replied testily. “I think you’re right. My point was, these aren’t zombies. They’re humans with abilities that normal humans don’t possess. I wasn’t arguing that these humans fit the classical mold of my prior test subjects. I’m just saying that they’re living humans, not zombies.”

  “Good, and I agree,” John said a little more calmly. “What we need to know is how to beat them to the remaining survivors. The race is on to find, vaccinate, and warn as many humans as possible before the Skins get them. But that’s going to be tough. The Skins look to be gaining ground.”

  “What about those we’ve already vaccinated?” Anta asked. Her face betrayed her concern. “Have any of them been bitten, and has the vaccination protected them?”

  I suddenly felt the same anxiety.

  “Great question Anta,” I said, proud of her for thinking of a question that had completely eluded me.

  “Yeah, many of them have been bitten, and yes, they’ve turned too. That means you are also in danger—in case you didn’t already know that. The vaccination doesn’t stop someone from becoming a Skin.”

  “Shite,” Anta said loudly. It wasn’t a funny situation, but hearing her curse made me smile inside. Her speech is usually so proper.

  “What about those wonderful people in Shediac—Agatha, Blossom and the others?”

  “I’ll check on them after we hang up Anta. I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”

  “If everything you say is true,” Street said, “then the Skins probably won’t stop until they’ve bitten, or eaten, everybody on the planet. So we’ve gotta bust our asses, right?”

  “That’s right,” John replied. “But no matter what you do, I’m worried that you won’t be able to do enough, quickly enough. There’s a group of inoculated folks from western Canada that crossed over the Bering Strait a couple of days ago. They vaccinated a large group of people a few miles from the town of Stansk. That’s the town that was covered with HMP Foam back in March. So, the Skins, or the future Skins anyway, have arrived in Asia.”

  “I assume all the bunkers around the world know about this problem with the Skins, right?” Anta asked.

  “Of course. Dr. Shevchuk has talked with the head of every bunker that has answered his coms. They’re trying to coordinate a joint response to the problem. But ultimately, anything they come up with may be too late in coming or unfeasible. Most bunkers no longer have access to even a semblance of governmental support and weaponry. It looks like we are in for another fight for our lives. After everything we accomplished to get to this point, I hope it hasn’t been for nothing.”

  “I . . . Wow.” Great, that sounded real intelligent.

  Street seemed to be thinking this through. He mumbled “. . . leading to two separate and distinct races of human. A war is coming . . .” Then his voice trailed off into a whisper.

  “John,” I said, “you’ve gotta watch us tonight, and probably every night from here on. Can you set up a team to monitor 100 miles around our perimeter? Otherwise, we won’t know whether we’re safe tonight in this motorhome. If the Skins approach, com us and give us a chance to escape, okay.”

  “Got it boss.”

  As the com ended, Anta leaned into me and whispered, “All of those wonderful people we’ve met, dead. Or worse.” Then she began to cry. I could feel her body shaking, so I pulled her closer with my arm around her waist. With my other hand I brought her head to rest against my chest.

  Angel stepped over to the other side of Anta and sat down. She put her arm around Anta’s shoulders, bowed her head, and let her tears join Anta’s on the floor below.

  Street looked at me briefly. I could tell his eyes were red. He quickly turned away and pulled his blanket over his head. That’s what finally got to me . . .

  I couldn’t hold back my feelings any longer. As we sat there holding each other, I said a quiet prayer for those of us still alive. Whether we would get any sleep tonight, I surely didn’t know.

  June 29, 2093, 7:45 AM—Shift

  “Get in the hover, fast,” Anta whispered, waking me. “John called.”

  “What is it?” Street asked.

  “Get. In. The. Car.” Anta punctuated each clipped word. She was serious. We’re learning to trust each other out here. Anta said move, and we moved.

  “Look!” Anta said after all the doors of the Fluxor were closed and locked.

  Off to our left, coming directly toward my window, was a lone Skin. She was rapidly approaching the Fluxor. It was frightening to see the speed at which she approached. Even though her movements were less than fluid, her speed was faster than any human I’ve ever seen.

  “Shouldn’t we leave?” Street asked.

  “She’s alone,” Angel replied. “Let’s see if she’ll talk to us.”

  I thought that idea was crazy; but, it was an interesting proposal and I kept the hover where it was. Each of us checked our guns. I flipped off the safety on mine and assumed the others did the same. Then I cracked the window half an inch as the Skin slowed her speed on approach. Then we waited. It seemed like a very long time.

  The “woman” was thin, but muscular. Her head was bald; but a couple small clumps of blond hair were hanging on around
her left ear. It looked like her hair had probably fallen out in patches. The woman was naked except for a thin pair of underwear, stained with blood. She looked to be about 40 or 45 years old from the few wrinkles around her face and torso, which were also streaked with dry blood.

  Finally, she opened her mouth, slowly. Her voice was eerie, but human. “Your kind is not welcome here. We have come to destroy you, and you must know that your death is for the greater good. Would you continue to foul this Earth with your presence? You are unwholesome, filthy abominations and perversions of nature. Your lives must be taken from you.”

  “Huh?” Street said from the back seat near the Skin.

  On hearing Street’s voice, the Skin slowly turned her head. She reached her hand up to her face and tentatively removed her sunglasses. Street shifted uncomfortably in his seat and she quickly turned back to me.

  I noticed the eyes were dark and colorless, like Cain’s, and wanted to turn away from them. They seemed to peer into my soul. I was scared. But her words were much more worrisome than her stare.

  Again, she said, “You are abominations and perversions. You must die.”

  “She thinks we’re abominations?” Angel asked quietly from the back seat, farthest from the Skin. Then her voice raised as she became more upset. “We, the humans, who have inhabited this earth for millennia, are unwholesome and filthy? We’re abominations—not her? Is she crazy?”

  “Obviously,” Street growled.

  As Street and Angel discussed the Skin’s statements in the back seat, the woman turned her head slightly to the left and stared at Anta sitting next to me in the front of the Fluxor. Her pupils grew in size, and the corners of her mouth turned up as she glared at Anta. She looked as though she were trying to figure something out.

  We all sat there, very still, for several seconds. Then, without warning, the Skin smashed her bald head into my window. The window stayed intact, but the Skin fell backward, landing hard on the asphalt at the edge of the road.

  “Ouch,” Anta said quietly. I turned to look at her. She was holding her forehead as if she too had felt the pain that the Skin had felt. Her eyes registered both pain and surprise. I put that thought on a back burner as I turned back to the woman on the ground outside my window.

  The woman had placed her hand on her now-bleeding forehead. She looked dizzy and confused as her pupils dilated and contracted. She shook her head slowly back and forth for several seconds. It was as if she didn’t know what had happened.

  I didn’t know what had just happened either. Maybe she was overcome by some emotion—anger perhaps—and tried to do something about it. She acted after what appeared to be a deliberate and conscious consideration of Anta sitting next to me. But her action clearly didn’t have the desired result. What it did do, however, was give us further evidence that the Skins are more human than the archetypal, albeit fictional, zombie.

  While the Skin sat on the ground, I lowered my window a couple more inches and asked her what her name was. I hoped that she wouldn’t be able to give me a clear, cogent response. I thought that, if she was unable to give a name, she may not be as human as she appeared, perhaps clearing my conscience of the guilt I had felt since our “murder” of the Skins a few days ago in Amqui. I also wondered whether we could have a real conversation and learn a little about what was going on in her mind.

  “Sarah,” she replied. Then she stood, and, wobbling on her feet, stumbled away from the craft.

  Anta, calmly, but with difficulty, said, “Sarah? She still knows her name. How can we kill them if they still know their names?”

  “I don’t think I can,” Angel replied. “Her name is Sarah?”

  After a few seconds of silence, during which we each pondered this circumstance, Angel asked, “Why did she smash her head into the window? After she did it, she seemed to know how stupid it was. She was thinking, and reacting to pain, and acting, mostly, like a human being.”

  “I felt her pain,” Anta said quietly.

  “You what?” Street asked.

  “I felt her pain.”

  “That’s not possible, is it?” I asked. Nobody answered.

  As I began to think about how that could possibly be true, I heard the quiet, but unmistakable sound of a large number of footsteps pounding on the pavement. I raised my eyes from Anta and turned back to my window. A very large “herd”—for lack of a better word—of Skins was approaching from the direction in which “Sarah” had staggered away. They were moving very, very fast. Just before I hit the thruster, I observed a familiar face at the front of the rapidly-advancing herd.

  Cain.

  We were off. In hindsight, it might have been interesting to see what Cain had to say, but sticking around to hear him could have cost us our lives. Several minutes later, after traveling nearly 50 miles, I slowed down and pulled the Fluxor into a service station. We needed to eat.

  “Let’s get some grub and get out of here, fast,” I said.

  We grabbed sandwiches and chips from the wall machine of the service station. As we ate, we discussed what we had just experienced. It seemed—if we were correct in our understanding of Sarah’s words—that the Skins wanted us to die, but not just because we are—or were—food. There is apparently something wrong with us that must be dealt with, and they intend to deal with it.

  After debating it for some time, Angel posited a theory that Toronto’s E-rase did more than just alter the Skins’ physical state. She theorized that it must have also altered their cognitive state. It has made them believe that they are “normal”. It has made them believe that we, those who actually are “normal”, are perversions of nature. Perhaps they’re right. How do we know that we aren’t the ones who have been negatively affected by E-rase? Perhaps our minds lead us to believe that we are normal and the Skins are abnormal?

  Even the physical characteristics of the Skins, while appearing abnormal to us, might actually be normal, but our minds won’t allow us to see that. Perhaps it is us that have changed, not them.

  “I’m not buying it,” I said after a few moments thought. “If we were abnormal, somehow modified by E-rase, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation, right? We probably wouldn’t have been capable of developing such a theory and rationally discussing it.”

  “Everyone thinks of themselves as ‘normal’,” Angel countered.

  Street barked out a laugh. “They are not normal, period!”

  “I’m with you, Street,” I added with a smile. “So, until I’m convinced otherwise, I’m normal, and my friends are normal.”

  “Well then, here’s another possibility,” Angel suggested. “What if they think they are an improved version of human? And since we haven’t evolved as they have, we are now sub-human, therefore an abomination . . . in their way of thinking.”

  We all stared at her, dumbfounded. I couldn’t think of a response. And obviously neither could Anta or Street.

  “Ok,” Angel said, shrugging her shoulders, “I’m ready to go now.”

  I turned back facing forward and stepped on the accelerator. We shot forward.

  June 29, 2093, 11:10 PM—Anta

  We’ve just spoken with our friends on the moon! Hasani is alive and well! Their attempt to create E-rase was successful! The others have now all been inoculated against AE. They’ll be leaving their shell in a few hours, as a group, to explore the major moon colonies, searching for survivors. I’m so excited for them!

  The five moon survivors have decided that they’re going to attempt to secure and prepare a ship to return to Earth. They’re pretty sure they’ll be able to find a good ship, but I’m not sure they should come back to Earth. We spoke with them for a long time about the Skins. Hasani promised that they won’t attempt a launch without first contacting us to receive word that it’s safe to do so, given our current problems with the Skins.

  My relationship with Shift is getting serious. He kissed me last night. With all of the stress and fear, I haven’t felt much desire
to get close to anyone, even Shift. Every night I lie down and fall to sleep. I rarely think of romance. But that kiss . . . wow! It wasn’t the first, of course. But it was much more . . . passionate than any others. I hope it won’t be the last.

  July 2, 10:03 PM—Shift

  I’m so tired, laying here trying to sleep. Street’s on watch and Mike is monitoring our position from Boston. But I still can’t sleep.

  We’ve spent the last three days traveling around Georgia and Alabama, visiting abandoned, desiccated bunkers and other alleged safe-houses. Both Georgia and Alabama are riddled with destruction and debris, along with hundreds of thousands of dead bodies in the streets.

  Upon examining some of the bodies, it’s clear that all the bodies have succumbed to AE, but perhaps, not all of them were actually killed by the disease. Many of the bodies have crushed skulls, or bullet wounds, or other signs of physical violence. What a difference between these southern states and the northern states and Canada.

  In any event, despite the overwhelming destruction around us, over the past three days, we have inoculated 21 additional people and helped them arm themselves. We have also been forced to avoid several large groups of Skins who certainly outnumber the remaining non-inoculated souls in these southern states.

  It is incredibly sad and frustrating that the Skins, with their speed and their likely increased senses are able to find and lure so many survivors out of hiding before we have a chance to vaccinate and warn them. We are certainly losing the battle with the Skins. Our “human” population is decreasing every day—as much from the Skins as from AE.

  The scariest part of this problem is that the living humans are still supposed to be in hiding. Weeks ago, and even days ago, people only come out of their safe houses when Mike contacted them and told them we had arrived, or when we called them out and explained who we are and what we’re doing. If they came out before then, they certainly ran the risk of contracting AE. But now, before we even arrive, Mike is watching these people come out of hiding at the beckoning of the Skins.