In the Aftermath: Burning of the Dawn

by Coleman Thompson

  The remaining Sayona of the trio had taken a position high atop a church steeple (the same church the Doniphan family had used to hide their car) in an attempt to gain a premier vantage point over the whole neighborhood. From up here she witnessed the lightshow from the house where her sisters would inevitably butcher Louis and his daughter. She was just about to join them when she spotted Joseph. He came running out from behind the house and headed down a street leading further into the neighborhood. The Sayona on the church top watched Joseph intently to gauge his abilities and to gather a sense of his direction. He was not heading in her direction, so she leapt from the church and landed onto the roof of a nearby house. She continued to leap across the rooftops of buildings and former homes until she reached a position ahead of the boy. The Sayona could see him clearly, but in the dark and at that distance, Joseph had no idea she was there. She jumped down into the street and took off instantly at a full run to meet him head-on.

  Joseph did not dare look back to the house where he had left his father and sister to die. There was no chance for them and there wouldn’t have been any chance for him either had he chosen to stay. Joseph was far beyond frightened. His family was gone and now he was alone. He didn’t know where he should go, or whether or not it was better to keep running or to try to hide. For now he kept running. Joseph saw the glowing eyes of the Sayona coming in his direction, but he did not have the time to determine what they were. The Sayona could reach a top running speed of 180 feet per second – more than 120 miles per hour. This one slammed into Joseph at around 90 mph. His ribcage was obliterated as the charging Sayona nearly tore him in half. The Sayona rolled along the street a few times after crashing into him, and eventually came to a stop on her feet. Joseph lay motionlessly in the middle of the road; he was mercifully killed on impact. The Sayona gamboled gleefully towards the boy’s body. He was not the biggest of meals, but he was an easy kill and the beast had him all to herself, much to her delight.

  “To know death is to become death: as silent as a whisper; as cold as a winter moon. Do not segregate; do not hesitate; embrace the shadows that crawl upon the walls and kiss the flames that birth them. Do not fear the Black Fire, it does not burn. It only devours everything that has ever existed in this kingdom made of ashes.”

  V–Day + 576: Western Pennsylvania.

  As the sun crowned the eastern horizon it painted the sky with hues of orange and red. It cast long shadows and sinister silhouettes all across the countryside, but still it brought the light. Another long night was over and the morning had come again. Vita Hannigan awakened to the sounds of an energetic horned lark singing its praises to the rising sun. Her sister lay quietly next to her, still sleeping peacefully. They had spent the night in the garage of an old gas-station. It was a dreary, little place that had been around, and out of commission, for a long time. It possessed a large garage door, which the Hannigans were able to open high enough to get their vehicle inside. Vita and Maria had spent the night sleeping on a wooden workbench while their mother remained their ever vigilant sentinel. A pair of hoary, metal chairs was placed in front of a large, murky, plate-glass window. Clarissa sat dolefully in one of these old chairs, silently watching the morning sun through the misty windowpane.

  Vita rose from her tawdry bed. She eyed her mother sitting in the morning light holding her disreputable shotgun in her lap. Clarissa looked melancholy, but not tired. Vita approached and took the seat next to her mother.

  “You’re up early.” Clarissa spoke tenderly.

  “Yeah, I was dreaming.” Vita replied.

  “Anything good?”

  “I don’t know, I guess not,” Vita yawned. “I don’t remember any of it.”

  “Must not’ve been too bad then.”

  “True. Do you have many dreams, momma?”

  “Not really. They’re more like memories, good and bad, replaying in my head while I sleep.”

  “Maria says she can control her dreams, you know, like influence her surroundings and do whatever she wants in them. I wish I could do that.”

  “Lucid dreaming,” Clarissa stated with a near smile. “Your father claimed he could do the same.”

  “Lucky them; I wonder how they do it.”

  “Your sister use to keep a little diary of her dreams. She would write them all down so she could remember them in the morning. Maybe that helped her. Though your father never wrote anything down. He didn’t have to… he could remember everything.”

  Vita and her mother sat quietly for a moment. The old garage was slowly filling with light as the sun continued its ascent into the sky. The outside world was blurry through the thick, dusty glass, but the light of the sun was always cherished. Soon, Vita spoke again.

  “I kinda hate myself sometimes,” she said, despondently. “I miss dad more than anything, but I’m also glad he isn’t here. I don’t think he would’ve lasted very long in this world.”

  “Maybe.” Her mother replied.

  “I mean, I know he’d never do anything to put any of us in harm’s way, but like that family yesterday: there’s no way dad could’ve left them like we did. That’s not meant as a slight against you, momma; you did the right thing, but I don’t think dad could’ve done that.”

  “No, I didn’t do the right thing, and it’s a shame I had to do it, but I’ll do it again if I have to. The only things that matter to me in this world are you and your sister. I will not risk your safety for any reason. Also, you’re not fooling me. You wish your father was here as much as I do, and you’d have him back in a heartbeat if it were possible.”

  Vita sat in quiet reflection for a moment and then replied dotingly, “Dad always said you were the strongest person in the world. I guess he wasn’t exaggerating, was he?”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  Mother and daughter talked for about an hour more before Maria woke up. Usually they would be on the road at this time of the morning, but Clarissa was more tired than usual and decided she would rest now instead of later. This garage seemed as safe a place as any other, so she took her resting place on the old workbench to get what sleep she could. She had another reason for this early nap: to avoid eating with her daughters. Their food was running low and Clarissa had made a silent vow to not eat again until she had found more. She knew her daughters would go into a frenzy if they found out about her abstention from food, but that was the way it had to be. Her daughters were good, obedient girls for the most part. However, they were also half Italian and half Irish – passionate and stubborn. Winning the two-on-one argument would not be an easy feat, if even possible at all, so for now Clarissa gladly avoided the confrontation.

  Clarissa normally slept a few hours at most, but today she had already been asleep for six hours and was still out. After they ate their breakfast, Vita and Maria stayed in the garage for a few hours doing whatever they could do to quietly occupy their time. Eventually, they made their way outside. They were well aware that if they strayed too far away their mother would scalp them on the spot, so they kept their curiosity near the gas-station. Currently, they were both standing out in the middle of the street. Vita had used her knife to cut one of the nozzles off of a gas pump. The sisters then took turns throwing it down the barren road in an attempt to see who could throw it farther. Even though Vita had a slight strength advantage, Maria had better technique due to her being a former pitcher in her softball/baseball days. The match was too close to call officially, so no winner was declared.

  The game they played did not last very long, as neither girl’s heart was really into it – particularly Maria’s. The family her mother had terrorized the day before still perturbed her thoughts. Clarissa was the pinnacle of intelligence, beauty, and strength in her daughters’ eyes, but she occasionally lacked in equanimity and often made up for it in startling brutality. Vita had learned to accept this fact as an effective means of survival, but it still troubled Maria. The girls had moved the two rusty, old, metal chairs from the inside of the garage
out into the open world. They placed them just in front of the large, plate-glass window and took their respective seats.

  “Wow,” Vita spoke as she tried to adjust to her unpleasant seat. “Mom has been asleep forever almost. You think we should wake her?”

  “No,” Maria answered. “Let her sleep.”

  “If she sleeps too much longer we might end up staying another night in this place.”

  “We’ve stayed in worse places. And it beats being cramped up in that damn car.”

  “Well, that bench is pretty comfy, considering… maybe that’s why mom’s resting so well.”

  “No, that’s not why.” Maria spoke despairingly as she picked specks of grime from beneath her fingernails. “As a wise man once said: if you would sleep soundly, take a clear conscience to bed with you. Our mother, she’s the opposite of that. I think that’s how she copes with the things she does sometimes. When she does something she knows is wrong, she just kind of sleeps it off like this.”

  “She’s kept us alive this long without any help from anybody,” Vita fervidly retaliated. “I think she’s done a pretty amazing job.”

  “I know that; amazing is an understatement for what she’s done, but she’s done it all just for us. We aren’t the only decent people left in the world – we can’t be. Sooner or later we’re gonna have to trust someone.”

  “I still hurt from losing dad; “Vita replied. “If anything happened to you or mom, I don’t think I could handle it. I miss people; I miss people a lot, but not enough to risk losing either of you.”

  “I feel the same, but you know why we feel this way? It’s ‘cause we have no one else. And that frightens me. If something were to happen to me, what would you and mom do? Mom would die, and you would be alone. Just the thought of that scares me more than death.”

  “Wow… that’s too painful and frightening to even fully comprehend.”

  “Yeah I know, I’m sorry, I just… there’re dangers all around us all the time: humans, monsters, aliens, disasters. Yesterday got me worked up, you know? Our mother’s an archangel – nothing of this world can stop her. I just worry too much sometimes.”

  “Well, there’re things in this world that aren’t actually from this world nowadays, and it’s better to worry too much than it is to worry too little, I say,” declared Vita. “And wasn’t Satan an archangel, too, at some point?”

  “I think Satan was anointed as a cherub – which is arch-ish, I guess.” Maria replied. “I don’t know; my biblical knowledge has fallen on hard times.”

  While Vita and Maria conversed outside, their mother slept within. She did not sleep soundly, however, as one of her dreaming memories arose to chastise her conscience (or lack thereof). The memory she was reliving took place just after the defeat of the alien aggressors. She and her daughters were being escorted through a suburban neighborhood just outside of Philadelphia. They were not alone. Along with them were a family of four, a husband and wife with their two young boys, and a young couple in their early twenties. Their escorts were a pair of crass soldiers from a localized militia; one of which had lost his weapon and was currently armed with only a pick-head axe and a combat knife. The other militant was still in possession of his weapon – a Benelli M1014 twelve-gauge shotgun.

  The axe carrying soldier was fairly young, quite haughty, and exceedingly overbearing. The other soldier was nearly a decade older, slightly stouter, and just as officious. The Sayona had been released two days prior and military rule was in full effect throughout the state, even though it had never been officially sanctioned by any governing bodies. As Clarissa, her daughters, and the other survivors made their way through the city streets, they were spotted and taken into protective custody by these two soldiers. They demanded that any weapons be relinquished into their more capable hands; no one claimed to have any. Although Clarissa and the others were making their way west, the soldiers demanded that they head east instead to an alleged rallying point that might or might not still be there.

  V–Day + 3. Clarissa claimed not to be in possession of any weapons, but she did actually have one: the Ruger .22 pistol that she would later give to Maria. That weapon, however, was currently void of any ammo. It was well hidden beneath the black, sheer, long skirt that Clarissa was wearing. The soldiers were anxious and frightened, and also overly assertive and somewhat inept. No one in the group had much faith in their abilities, but they all kept their silence. It was midday, so the Sayona were now in hiding. Still, the surrounding areas were full of them and being caught here after nightfall would mean certain death.

  The farther they traveled with the soldiers the grimmer their surroundings became. Bodies of the dead were scattered throughout the streets – most of them exsanguinated with bite marks. The Sayona were not fond of leaving scraps behind, but with an overabundance of sustenance in their new habitat they simply hadn’t had the time to eat all of the carrion. As Clarissa and her group continued on through the carnage, she spotted something beneath the body of an eviscerated man. It was the barrel of a gun. The two soldiers were at the front of the group and were presently staggered by the sight of all of the death around them. Clarissa made her way over to the weapon, undetected, with her two daughters closely in tow. It was a Winchester bolt-action rifle. Clarissa removed the weapon from beneath the dead man. The gun was messy, but still very much operational. She pulled back the rifle’s bolt to reveal a single, unfired 7mm bullet. There were no other bullets to be found. Clarissa glanced over towards the others in the group; none of them seemed to be attentive to her actions. She then looked back to her daughters.

  “Vita, give me your knife.” Clarissa steadily instructed.

  Clarissa gave thought to shooting the militant with the shotgun, but his partner would reach the firearm before she could. That idea was insufficient. Vita handed over a small, unfixed, serrated knife as her mother removed the single bullet from the chamber of the rifle. Clarissa flipped open the knife and then closed it again on the tip of the bullet. She then placed the butt-end of the bullet case between her teeth and twisted it forcefully. The bullet soon broke loose; she then removed it from the case and poured out all of the gun power. She then swiftly screwed the bullet back into its case as the elder soldier took notice of her distance away from the rest of the group.

  “Hey!” He yelled. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

  “I found a weapon!” Clarissa called back. Vita and Maria were both confused, and also frightened. They knew their mother was planning something and that it wasn’t going to end well for somebody. Both the soldiers rushed to Clarissa’s position. She was kneeling down next to the dead body with the rifle and the defunct bullet in hand when they arrived.

  “Hand over the rifle.” The armed soldier demanded.

  “I only found one round.” Clarissa stated as she showed him the bullet and then placed it back into the rifle’s chamber; she then cocked the bolt behind it. The armed soldier raised his shotgun in her direction and repeated his demand.

  “Hand it over, now!”

  Clarissa calmly handed the rifle to the axe-wielding soldier standing nearby. He eagerly grabbed the weapon away from her. While useless against the Sayona, having another gun on hand did give the soldiers more confidence in controlling their civilian charges.

  “I do know how to use that thing,” Clarissa declared, charmingly. “And I’m a very good shot.”

  “I think we’re better, lady.” The soldier with the shotgun replied. “Now get back with the others and don’t wander off again.”

  Clarissa took her daughters and did as she was instructed. The two soldiers stayed behind a moment more to deficiently check the dead body for more ammo, of which they did not find. As Clarissa and her daughters gained an adequate distance from the others, Maria spoke up.

  “Mom, why’d you do that?” She asked in a very worried voice. “What are you going to do?”

  “What I have to, daughter,” Clarissa replied indifferently. Her eyes were emp
ty, yet her face reeked of rage. “These fucking fools are leading us to our deaths. If we get too much deeper into the city we’ll never get out by nightfall. Just do as I say, girls… I’ll deal with them soon enough.”

  Clarissa awakened from her sleep. She sat up and looked around the quiet garage; she could see the silhouettes of her daughters through the window and hear the muffled sounds of their voices. Clarissa had no idea of the current time, but she knew she’d slept much longer than she had anticipated. Her daughters were nearby and safe, so she did not concern herself too much for oversleeping; but it was still best that they depart as soon as possible.

  Vita and Maria stood promptly as their mother joined them in the outside world. Clarissa took in the brightness of the day and the warm breeze of the afternoon; it was nice. However, clouds were forming in the southwest sky, which could possibly bring another rain. Clarissa informed her daughters that it was time to depart once again. She debated whether or not to recharge the car batteries; ultimately she deemed it unnecessary. She really wanting to get moving and had little time to spare if she wished to accomplish anything before nightfall. Within minutes the girls were ready to go. The three of them raised the garage door to release their vehicle and the old gas-station was soon left behind.

  The Hannigans did not drive far before happening upon another town. They followed a road that traveled alongside a creek for a short ways before entering the northeast side of this new town. The road they followed took them past some residential homes, a pizza parlor, an antique shop, a library, and eventually right up to an imposing, late eighteen-hundreds style hotel at the edge of the creek. Clarissa pulled into the parking lot and eyed the ominous structure meticulously.

  “Wow,” spoke Vita from the backseat. “This place looks totally haunted. Hey, can we stay the night here ya think?”

  “I don’t think so,” her mother answered. “Too big; too conspicuous.”