The Doomsday Chronicles (The Future Chronicles)

by Samuel Peralta

  “Eric?” he called. Eric didn’t move. He just stared at the light. Henry looked to his right and saw words stenciled on the wall there.

  RESEARCH FACILITY BRAVO - SOUTH WING OBSERVATION 0A

  “Eric, what is this place?” he asked.

  He crossed the room, moving his gaze across the rows of strange equipment. In one part of the room he saw racks of empty glass tubes, their bases stained different colors. In another, he saw a series of large glass cylinders, each filled with liquid and each housing a dark shape. When he got closer, he could make out rows of little legs that sprouted from each shadow.

  "What is this place?" he asked again.

  Eric finally moved. He turned away from the lit-up display to face his father, and the dull look that had so often clouded his eyes while under the chogg’s control was gone completely.

  “I remember now,” he said.

  “Remember what?”

  Henry moved closer, and he saw that the window didn’t just glow. It displayed an image, a moving image the likes of which he’d never seen before although, again, it felt somehow familiar.

  "They came from above," he said, looking at the window. He placed one finger on the display, and Henry leaned in to look.

  The screen showed a wide open space unlike anything in the mines. Inside of it, large structures had been bunched together, covered in what looked like windows. Staring at them, Henry thought that if each of those windows were large enough for a man to look through then the structures were bigger and taller than anything he ever could have imagined. Something lit them from above, from a ceiling Henry couldn't make out. It cast a pale, blue-gray light over the monoliths.

  Wherever the structures were, a breeze must have blown then because Henry saw movement on the display. Flags rippled, and long lengths of cables strung between poles swayed.

  "What is that?" Henry asked, leaning closer.

  Something else moved, out there. Long stretches of shiny strands moved as well, some inflating into sails of gossamer webbing. It hung from the highest points of the structures as if something, or a great number of things, had floated down on them from somewhere high up above.

  "I found this place years ago," Eric said. "Most of it doesn't work anymore, but some of it does. They kept records, and I was able to find them and read them. The chogg didn’t come from below. They fell from the sky."

  "Sky?" Henry felt confused, but Eric just nodded, as if it all made sense.

  "Men built this place underground, to study the chogg, but we used to live up there."

  "Up?"

  Eric fiddled with the panel's controls, and the image scrolled to one side. Then it zoomed in on something, a series of what looked like paper sheets pasted onto the walls of the structures. A word had been stamped on each that Henry didn’t recognize.

  QUARANTINE

  "It’s a warning to stay away," he said, pointing. "It means that wherever we are, it got too dangerous for people to come in, but there might be other places. If we can get out—"

  "Out?" Henry rasped. "Out where?"

  Eric turned back to his father.

  "That's where we belong," he said, pointing to the display. "Not down here. We can still leave. The chogg musk makes us fall in line and do what they want, but we don't have to stay down here. We can get away from them, we can—"

  Henry heard the footsteps seconds before Eric did, but it was still a second too late. A man shambled through the doorway and into the room, rock dust sifting down around him. The chogg mounted over the man's scalp glared ahead with its marble eyes, locked on Eric as it made the man lunge.

  "Aaron!" Henry barked, but his son didn't react to the sound of his voice. He grabbed his brother around the neck with both hands and pushed his thumbs into his throat.

  Eric staggered back, flailing with his one good arm as he fell back onto the tiled floor with Aaron on top of him. Henry approached the two overly muscled men, wanting to intervene but afraid to get between them.

  "Aaron, stop!"

  He raised his cane as Eric pushed at Aaron's face. It snapped in two as he brought it down on the chogg but didn't leave so much as a ding on the hard black shell.

  Eric's face had turned dark, veins bulging at his temples and his tongue sticking out from between purple lips. Henry kicked the chogg, then again, but it just dug its legs in deeper. Henry realized in that moment that if he did nothing, he would lose Eric for good and he would be alone. He would never find Mary, he would never get Aaron back, or Cole, or Flannery, or any of his friends. It had to be Eric.

  He slipped the utility knife from his belt and stepped behind Aaron, who still bore down on his younger brother. Before he could stop to consider what he was doing, he reached over his elder son's broad back and stuck the blade into the side of his neck.

  He jerked the knife back and Aaron howled, letting go of Eric and crashing into Henry hard enough to knock him down onto the floor. Aaron staggered in a circle, clutching his neck as blood burbled out from between his fingers. It sprayed onto the floor around him, pooling until he slipped in it and fell to the floor. He pushed his way up, failed, then tried again as the chogg juiced him. Henry could see the black fluid leaking out from around the stinger, but Aaron had lost too much blood and oxygen. Not even the chogg could make him go for much longer.

  A few seconds later, he fell facedown on the dirty floor and shuddered as the life began to leave him.

  The chogg realized what was happening and withdrew its stinger. It jumped down and began to scuttle away when Eric lashed out and seized it. His left hand pushed down, his fingers digging under the lip of the black shell as its spiny little legs scrambled uselessly against the floor.

  "Eric, let it go!" Henry shouted. Another few seconds and the chogg would—

  The thing's shell sprang apart to expose a quivering black bladder that swelled just above the long stinger. In a heartbeat, it ballooned out and then ruptured with a wet, explosive cough. Tarry fluid sprayed Eric's face and chest, and he screamed.

  He fell back, smoke streaming off of him everywhere the substance touched, but he didn't let go. Even as his eyes shriveled in their sockets, he held fast. With a holler, he heaved it up into the air, whipped it over his head and smashed it down on the metal corner of one of the consoles. The first blow cracked the shell, and the second broke it. The third sent a big glob of white and red bursting out of the exoskeleton, and a few seconds later, the legs stopped moving.

  He'd killed it, Henry thought, struggling to regain his breath. Eric dropped the shell onto the floor and then collapsed next to it. He'd killed it. When they went back, the chogg would—

  "Dad?" Eric moaned. He struggled to rise, but slipped and fell back down onto his chest. "Dad?"

  "I'm here," Henry said, going to his side. The boy pawed with one hand, blind, and Henry took it. As soon as he did, he realized there would be no reprisal for his remaining son. Already his grip, which had once been like iron, felt shaky and frail. The chogg venom would take him, and soon. He had mere minutes, if that, before both his sons were gone.

  "You can't go back," Eric wheezed.

  "They won't kill me," Henry said, patting his shoulder. "Don't worry about me, now. They won't—"

  Eric shook his head, the cords in his neck standing out. "No," he managed. "You have to…"

  The words choked off, and so he pointed with one trembling finger. He pointed toward the metal door at the far end of the room.

  "What?" Henry asked, leaning in close.

  "Go," he gasped. "Up."

  Henry stared at the door and realized what Eric meant. Aaron was dead, and Eric wasn't far behind him. Their plan to leave the mine would die with them, unless Henry went in their stead.

  "Eric, I can't."

  It wasn't as though Henry liked the mines, because he didn't. It wasn't as though he liked the chogg, either, but there was nowhere else to go. To suggest otherwise was nothing more than a dream.

  "Someone…has…to go hom
e."

  “We are home.”

  Eric shook his head and gestured back toward the panel with the glowing windows.

  “Is that what this has all been about?” he asked, but he could see then that it was. “Eric, look, that picture there, on the window, it might be real and it might not—"

  "It's…real."

  "You don't know that."

  "I do," he said, the words coming out in a long breath. Some of the pain seemed to leave him. "Dad, it's real. I promise you. Go to the surface. Find your way back to the others. We don't have to live like this."

  "Eric, there are no others. You have to face reality. Down here, in the mines, this is it."

  "It isn't. You'll see."

  "I can't," Henry said, his voice beginning to rise. "There's no place to go to. Jesus, this is why Aaron did what he did? So that you could go to some…fantasy?”

  “Not…a fantasy,” Eric insisted. “It’s real.”

  “What have you two done? It wasn't so bad here—"

  "Wasn't so bad?"

  "It could be worse! This is what got you grabbed in the first place! This is why Aaron's now…why you're now…why did you do this? Why?"

  "Dad!"

  Eric took Henry's arm, gently, but the old man pulled away.

  "Mary," he said, his breath failing him. "Mary is still—"

  "She's dead, Dad. Even if she's not and they did take her down below, we'll never get her back. Not by ourselves. You have to get out of here. It's our only chance."

  Henry tried to rise but without the benefit of his cane, he fell back to his knees next to Eric. He saw that Eric had meant to leave him. He saw that, in fact, nothing would have stopped him from leaving, and the confusion he felt threatened to take away what strength he had left. Anger bubbled up, but quickly turned to tears that made his eyes sting.

  "Why couldn't Aaron have left well enough alone?" he asked. He felt as though the room had begun to reel around him. Things had finally gotten comfortable, or as comfortable as they ever got. No more digging, no more being poked and prodded, no more threat of the chogg taking him, no more fear of being eaten, or worse…he'd earned his peace. After so many years and so much loss, he'd earned his peace. All he had to do keep his head down.

  He tried to tell his son this, but the words wouldn't come.

  "But…who will serve the drinks?" he asked instead.

  Eric managed a hint of a smile at that, lips curling on his blackened face. He let out a half-grunt half-chuckle, and then sighed. He reached out again, and Henry held the boy. He put his face near his son's, wincing as a smear of the venom stung his cheek.

  "No one, Dad," he said in his ear. "This place isn't worth saving. We belong up there. That’s our home."

  Henry hugged his son back. He held him until he felt a last, shuddering breath, and then the body went still.

  He held the boy like that for a while, until his joints began to ache and the body cooled in his arms. He couldn't bring himself to look at the remains of his son's face and so he turned him away, toward the wall. He managed to stand again, grimacing at the pain, and looked down at the figure on the floor. It seemed as though it were at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Both his sons were gone now. It had taken less than five minutes to lose the both of them. He took a shaky step backward, and the body seemed to tilt in front of him.

  He turned toward the lit display where willowy strands continued to ripple in the wind, drifting away from the towering structures. As he stared, he noticed that the debris near the bottom of the closest structure wasn't mere trash or rubble, but the piled shells of divided chogg. He continued to stare until the image blurred in front of him, and he felt warmth trickling down his leathery cheeks.

  Can I leave? he wondered. Could it be that simple? Could I just leave them all, and go? Go where?

  He thought about the last match at Arms, and part of him knew that his son was right. Not long ago he’d been ready to burn this place. It wasn’t worth saving, no. Maybe it couldn’t be saved, but it was all he’d ever known. He’d grown up in the mines. He’d met Mary in the mines, and helped raise two boys…

  More tears rolled down his cheeks, and he squeezed his eyes shut. His sons were gone. His wife was gone. Nothing would change that.

  He took a deep breath through his nose, letting the chogg musk fill it. He exhaled slowly, then took in another long breath. He held it until spots began to swim behind his eyelids.

  Then Henry turned and left the room. He headed back to the crevice, and the tunnels, as fast as his stiff knee would let him.

  When the darkness enveloped him again, he used his helmet's candle to burn both the note and the map. As they smoldered on the dirt in front of him, he breathed in deep, again and again, until the chogg's musk dampened the panic and sadness and shame.

  It could be worse, he told himself, although in spite of the spreading numbness, his mind failed to conjure any way in which it might be.

  "It could always be worse," he said, his voice small and dry as sandpaper.

  He limped back toward the guiding ropes, and from there, back toward home.

  A Word from James Knapp

  I knew very early on that I wanted to be a writer.

  In the fifth and sixth grade I had a teacher who would have us write short stories. She'd issue rectangles of that cheap recycled paper, which we'd fold in two so that we could copy our stories onto the pages. We'd sew the pages together at the spine and bind them in cardboard covers, which we then covered with wallpaper samples. Once assembled, we titled them with stick on letters. These were, at least in my young eyes, my first “published” books and once I'd created one I lost interest in doing much else (to the dismay of my teachers and parents, although in spite of that my mother always supported it, taking the time to type the pages for me at her work on an honest-to-goodness electric typewriter). I became completely obsessed. That was when I first realized how much I loved to write (and yes, I still have the little wallpaper books).

  I continued to write throughout middle school and high school, and eventually learned to type myself. I carried around notebooks and Trapper Keepers full of handwritten short stories, writing weird science fiction and horror stories that did little to ingratiate myself with my peers. Later I tried my hand at writing one-act plays, then full-length plays, then even a musical (though I hired an actual musician to write the music), and even had one of them produced at a local theater before I got disillusioned with the process and shifted back to my first love, Science Fiction.

  The idea for what became my first novel came to me when I was in college. Initially I imagined it as a television series and wrote it as a teleplay, but it ended up evolving quite a bit over the years. Years later, I turned it into my first novel, State of Decay. which I credit with getting me both an agent and a publisher. I wrote two other books in that series, then I wrote a second series under the pseudonym James K. Decker before going back to my real name and writing my first Young Adult novel, Alice in No-Man's-Land.

  I never stopped loving short stories, though, and so I was thrilled to be tapped for this anthology. I hope you enjoy my tale of doom as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you'll swing by my site www.james-knapp.com to check out my other works.

  The Slip

  by E.R. Arroyo

  THE SCHOOL COUNSELOR CLEARED HER THROAT. Dean’s eyes darted up from picking at his bleeding cuticles, a torn off piece of skin still between his thumb and index fingernails.

  “Did you hear my question, Dean?”

  He pressed his finger against his jeans to stop the bleeding, the pressure also stopping the pain for a moment. “Hmm?”

  “How’s Maggie doing?”

  Dean’s body tensed at her name, but his face and heart simultaneously softened. He felt a lump begin to form in his throat. “I don’t know. She doesn’t come home from college.”

  “Not for holidays or summer break?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m sorry to h
ear that.”

  He finally looked up at the counselor, making eye contact with her for the first time since he’d walked into her office. She really did look sorry. He hadn’t expected that.

  “What would you say to Maggie if you had the chance to see her?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t really know her. Not anymore.”

  “But you miss her.” She leaned forward in her seat, crossing her arms on the desk. Dean peered over at the name plate identifying her as Ms. Claire Bellamy.

  “I need to get back to my lunch period. Thanks for changing my schedule. I’m sure I’ll do much better in Mr. Rodriguez’s class. Thanks again.”

  He grabbed his bag and started for the door. He wasn’t looking for a freaking intervention, he just wanted out of that class with Dr. Horrible.

  “Take care, Dean,” Ms. Bellamy said.

  He rushed from the room and made a beeline for the cafeteria. They would be shutting it down soon, and Dean was starved.

  With his pizza slice and soda in tow, he found a seat. He took two bites before unlocking his phone and checking out his handful of social media accounts, not that he did anything social with them. He mainly kept himself informed of the latest happenings with schoolmates and all kinds of news outlets, some upstanding ones and others questionable—conspiracy nuts and the like.

  His sister’s happenings were never posted online. Around a month into her freshman year, she had stopped using the Internet. Which didn’t make much sense to Dean, because Maggie was the social butterfly between the two of them. With Dean being at the lowest possible tier, that put Maggie somewhere in the upper-middle. She had friends. People knew her…people who missed her now, just like Dean did.

  His thumb hovered over the title of an article from his sister’s college town. Yeah, so maybe Dean was a little more bothered by her absence than he admitted. He followed media stations from where she lived, in addition to her college press and campus social media pages. Then Dean’s breath hitched, and his pizza caught in his throat.