The Doomsday Chronicles (The Future Chronicles)

by Samuel Peralta

  “God’s army,” Peter said.

  Tasha clutched his arm. “Shit.”

  They both hit the grass and covered their heads as, in a blue-white flash, the first object impacted. Its shockwave sent out an explosion of molten earth, knocked down trees and people, setting some ablaze, vaporizing others. Tasha and Peter screamed as heat and wind scoured their exposed skin. The ground rumbled as a fissure opened it, reached across the field, and shook the radar dome until it came to a stop at a precipitous angle. The wooden chapel groaned as the earth heaved beneath its foundation.

  But, just as quickly as they had blasted outward, the wind, heat, and quake died.

  Tasha peered out from beneath Peter’s arms. He’d pinned her to the ground, protecting her with his body.

  A crater smoldered in the middle of the field. Black smoke coiled upward from burning tents. Charred and shattered bodies were strewn across the muddy, bloody area.

  There was a blinding flash of light and something—an angel?—appeared before Peter and Tasha. Human-shaped, the creature was formed from glittering, mirror-like shards that stabbed outward and changed shape and color with its movements. Neither male nor female and unimaginably tall and broad, it had liquid mercury eyes that offered no remorse, pity, or love. Lightning crackled across its surface. And their reflected faces flashed and distorted in its jagged form.

  Tasha held her breath and tightened her grip on Peter as the unearthly creature stared, silent and unemotional, its arms poised overhead, ready to slaughter them.

  Peter pulled himself up to his knees. “Let go, Tasha,” he rasped.

  “No.” She’d just gotten him back. She wouldn’t let him slip away again. She sat up and raised a hand toward the angel. “Please. Judge us together.”

  It swelled and its shards darkened, like the orbs that had birthed it. The air swirled around Tasha and Peter. Dust and debris stung their skin and made them squint.

  “Peter’s sin is mine and my sin is his,” she shouted.

  The angel roared and exploded. Shards and heat lanced through them, cutting their bodies from chest to back, face to knees. They arched and screamed.

  But the agony and terror suddenly ceased, and they collapsed on the sodden grass.

  Having passed through them, the angel regained its form and stood over them. It spoke, and its voice was as quiet as the crunch of snow beneath boots. “To forgive is divine.”

  Then it turned, raised its hand, and the chapel’s front wall splintered and exploded inward. God’s soldier entered to the sound of screams and sobs.

  Forgiven and forgotten, Tasha shook uncontrollably and Peter vomited. He wiped his mouth then stood and pulled her away from the building. “C’mon.”

  They staggered toward the Stillman house, trying to ignore the terror emanating from the little white chapel.

  But there was no missing the gore that littered the grassy field. The acrid stench of burning flesh and fabric made Tasha queasy. She breathed through her mouth to keep from retching. Not even the emergency room had prepared her for this.

  Adults, dumbstruck with horror, clung to each other and to wailing children. They wandered aimlessly or crouched and cried.

  Tasha and Peter cringed at the thunderous beating of wings overhead. Screams rose all around them. Birdlike carrion creatures, as large and sleek as Dobermans, circled the field. Black-feathered and red-eyed, the beasts swooped down and seized the dead in their talons, lifting them into the sky. They didn’t spare a glance for the innocent few who wandered amid the smoldering tents.

  “Where are they taking the bodies?” Tasha asked.

  Peter shook his head. “The Bible only says that the birds gorge on their flesh.”

  “Oh my god.”

  He pulled her around, and they ran up the hill to the yellow Stillman house. Its porch was empty, and their feet thudded upon the wood and echoed back toward the field.

  “Evelyn? Ambrose?” Tasha called.

  A white curtain moved in a front window. Evelyn’s face appeared behind the glass.

  “We were judged and released,” Peter said.

  The elderly woman’s eyes, wary at first, widened with joy. The curtain fell. The door unlocked with a click and its hinges squeaked as Ambrose opened it.

  “Come in! Come in!” He ushered them inside as Evelyn emerged from the kitchen with another plate of cookies.

  “Hungry?” she asked.

  But Tasha hesitated as she reached for one, her hand hovering over the platter. Evelyn had removed her blue jacket. Tasha looked from the woman’s blistered arm to her sweet face.

  “Oh, no.”

  Ambrose took the platter from his wife. He, too, had sores on his arms. He looked from Tasha to Peter, then hugged Evelyn. “We’re ready.”

  As if an angel had been summoned by those words, the house shuddered and groaned. The front door rattled in its frame, pressed by an unstoppable force, its hinges squealing in protest.

  “But why?” Tasha whispered.

  The elderly couple exchanged glances. Then Evelyn said, “Some wrongs are impossible to right when you’ve outlived the people you injured and can’t even remember why you were angry.”

  “Don’t cry for us,” said Ambrose.

  The doorframe cracked. The door groaned. Its latch splintered. It swung inward and slammed into the wall. The house creaked and nails popped through the ceiling. Then the windows blew outward in a hail of glass. The angel that entered burned so brightly that Tasha had to squint at the floor.

  Heads bowed and fingers entwined, Ambrose and Evelyn stepped forward.

  “God is merciful,” the creature said. But, unlike the burning and bloodshed that had befallen the people in the field and chapel, when this angel exploded through the elderly couple, they disintegrated into shimmering atoms.

  As the soldier reformed, a breeze swirled through the shattered windows and carried away what was left of Evelyn and Ambrose Stillman. And, like its counterpart at the chapel, the angel turned its back to Tasha and Peter and left the yellow house.

  They stood in the doorway for a long time. Cleansing, sweet rain was falling outside, washing away the red stains, the horror, the ash. And the sin.

  She looked at him. “What happens next?”

  Peter grimaced and shrugged. He rested his arm across her shoulders and held her against his side. “I don’t know. My field guide’s kinda vague on some crucial points.”

  “Oh.” She stared at the survivors milling around the field. “I should help them.”

  “Yeah. We should.”

  As they stepped off the porch, Tasha said, “We’re still here, Peter. We didn’t go to Heaven. Does that mean we’re condemned to Hell on Earth?”

  “I don’t think so.” He grabbed her hand and met her gaze. “Remember what the angel said after it passed through us? ‘To forgive is divine.’”

  She nodded, squeezed his fingers, and led him into the field.

  A Word from Monica Enderle Pierce

  I’m not particularly religious. I was born into a Catholic family but haven’t belonged to a congregation since I was eight years old. I have my own beliefs and certainly my own strong spirituality, but I don’t follow anyone else’s doctrine. Yet religion frequently appears in my novels and stories, influencing my characters’ decisions and, in some cases, controlling their destinies. Many of my characters are devout believers or disbelievers.

  Religion, as a means of communicating, aiding, and manipulating, intrigues me. History repeats again and again because we, as a species, can’t seem to put aside Us and Them, and religious lines are convenient excuses, thick with certainty, sometimes rife with fear, and often stained by blood. How is it that humans can accomplish beautiful acts of charity and atrocious acts of barbarity in the name of the same god or gods? I don’t know. And that dichotomy is evident in my characters’ beliefs and doubts. They face the extremes of their religions and struggle to comprehend opposing messages: God is good. God is vengeful. God is,
I dare say, a mirror of our own confusion and duality. But what’s the cause?

  In “Red Rain” I pin it on us. Peter’s own disappointment and self-judgment drove him to punish himself and Tasha in the past. Now she faces the End of Days and must decide if she’s going to be good or vengeful. Will she mirror her ex-husband’s mistakes and destroy herself in destroying him? Will she be charitable or barbarous? We face the same decisions daily—albeit on not-so-apocalyptic scales—as we interact with loved ones, acquaintances, and strangers. And isn’t that why religions formed? To guide us through those decisions? Tasha’s lesson is simple and obvious—be good to ourselves and each other. Basic, right? So why do we still get it so wrong?

  Come explore these questions with my characters and me. You’ll find us via the following links:

  Website: http://stalkingfiction.com

  Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/SUYon

  The Peralta Protocol

  by Daniel Arthur Smith

  THE ‘HAVE ONE FOR AMERICA’ billboard across from the fertility center glowed lemon yellow through the third-floor window despite the beading condensation. When Troy thumbed clear a line across the glass, he found himself looking directly into the blue eyes of the sign’s giant smiling baby. He focused on them a bit too long. He always did, he couldn’t help himself. The fertility campaign promos were a reminder, a seed planted that he may never actually see another baby despite how far along theirs was. Even today, the due date, was no guarantee for him or anyone until the child was born. No guarantee. He pondered the word. The media had been reminding him and everyone else Though this is no guarantee, this would be the first successful birth in ten years if it… He caught himself ruminating and returned to the purpose of his trip to the waiting room window.

  He shifted his eyes to the protesters below.

  The heavy downpour hadn’t stopped the diehards from their months-long vigil. They huddled beneath the partial shelter of the huge sign, donned parkas crudely crafted from dark plastic garbage bags, and draped themselves in white banners decrying the birth of Baby Jane.

  “They’re still at it,” he said absently.

  “And the others?” Leana asked in the same drawl.

  He leaned close to the glass and peered toward the far corner of the block where the supporters of the birth, deliberately cordoned behind a high chain-link fence, held plastic-wrapped Bibles above their heads along with signs praising the new baby’s arrival.

  “Looks like they’re singing,” he said.

  “They’re putting a show on for the media.”

  Troy turned away from the window to his wife, Leana, on the sofa.

  They’d waited so long, he and Leana.

  He thought of their visits to this room over the past year and a half, cumulative hours spent staring at the pale wallpaper, the uncomfortable country blue sofa, the unchanged magazines stacked at the end, the synthetic fig tree, and the flat panel mediafeed up on the wall, all melded together into a stream of pedestrian news reports and conversations to match.

  Leana’s head swung toward him, and for a brief moment her green eyes met his.

  Regardless of her intent, they pierced through him. They always had. He fell in love the first time he met her. He drifted to the image of the beauty in sandals. On that day, she was wearing a heavy beaded necklace of the kind one finds in thrift stores and a long hippie skirt the tint of green that made her red hair glow, and of course there were those emerald eyes… She told him at the time he was hers because he’d stared too long. But years had passed, and the girl in the hippie skirt, the one he’d planned a life with, was far removed from the woman on the sofa who’d suffered the loss of two pregnancies, the mother of this child.

  Her jaw slackened and, without words, she returned to the news.

  The spell broken, his eyes withdrew from her to the screen.

  Reporters were covering crowds in Times Square and, as Leana said, the high-fenced ‘protest zone’ in front of the fertility center.

  “Can’t we turn this off?” Troy asked.

  “You know we can’t,” Leana said, shifting her gaze toward the fig tree in a way that told him she was restless. “It’s on for the duration.”

  A spectacular graphics package rolled across the screen with an ominous musical accompaniment, then the camera was back in the studio. It was Walt Duran’s show. Walt had risen from a career of multichannel obscurity by focusing on their baby. Through countless shows and interviews, he’d ascended the media ranks the last few months to become a celebrity himself. Their baby was the only news anyone seemed to care to watch, after all.

  “For those just tuning in,” the white-haired host said, “the big day is finally here. After almost ten years of no recorded births, Baby Jane is about to be born.” Troy rolled his eyes as the host went on. “Crowds are gathered for candlelight vigils around the globe.” On cue, the mediafeed flashed to wide panoramic shots of London, then in turn Paris, Moscow, Shanghai, Mumbai, Sydney, Tokyo, returned to Times Square, and then back to the newsroom and the older host walking across a brightly lit set. “And here in our studio we have two special guests with us to discuss the event, Professor Alastair Wright and Jonathon Bastion.”

  There was no more to say to Leana. Lately she only spoke to him in short bursts. But despite the tension, years together told him everything she wanted to say and when he was needed. He was her husband and still had a role to play when the newsfeed bothered her. He could tell it did. Then again, he thought, no mother would want the world discussing her child, this child, the first child to be born in ten years. No woman that psychologically imbalanced would have been given that opportunity. Troy’s place was by her side, and he played his part as each time before. Rather than hover, he sat down beside her.

  The first talking head, a large silver-haired professor from the university, spit out the facts they knew by rote. “As you know, Walt, the Peralta Protocol is groundbreaking. Since the pollution spike, the particulates in our atmosphere are simply too high for human reproduction.”

  “Well, that’s just one theory,” the other guest retorted. He was a gray-bearded man who Troy recognized as the spokesman for the Back to Earth agro movement. Jonathon Bastion was his name, and from what Troy could tell, he made his living as a contrarian. “There’s no proof that particulates cause miscarriage. That’s no different than the global warming propaganda of the last century. So fine, the seas rise and you build walls, the air goes dirty, you induce rain to cleanse the air, and then you want to build a dome to seal yourself in. But the seas rose because that’s what seas do, and there has always been weather, and there have always been particulates, as you call them, in the atmosphere. That’s God’s design.”

  “Mister Bastion,” the professor said, “I have to disagree. Ongoing studies have been conducted since before the births stopped. They provide evidence for an association between exposure to high levels of ambient particulate matter during the preconceptional period and early pregnancy loss, regardless of the method of conception, natural or in vitro, suggesting a threshold effect of this exposure on reproductive outcome. The results say that we’ve surpassed the threshold.”

  “You scientists can produce whatever results you want. That’s a fact for you.”

  “I assure you that miscarriage occurs after exposure to particulates, and there is no female of our species that hasn’t been exposed. That’s why the Peralta Protocol is so important. Without it the human race is––” His hands flew up and his expression went stern to punctuate his point. “Well, we’re finished.”

  Troy slipped his fingers into Leana’s. Neither of her two natural pregnancies had been carried to term. The Peralta Protocol medical trial was their last and only chance at becoming parents, but the pressure was more than that, this was an opportunity to save the entire human race.

  Bastion didn’t jump to retort. The camera held on the two, the professor and Bastion, and it was at the second that the professor glanced down, when the s
light hint of despair betrayed him, that the bearded man’s eyes went narrow.

  “Here it comes,” Troy said.

  Bastion spoke slow and confident. “Has it ever occurred to you that there is something greater at work?”

  Leana squeezed Troy’s hand.

  “Maybe no more children being born is God’s will.” Bastion continued. “And maybe this birth has nothing to do with your protocol at all. Maybe Baby Jane is something special.”

  The host seated between the two men took this opportunity to speak up, “Mister Bastion, you’re referring to the Guffer position, is that correct?”

  “That’s the media’s word for it, not mine. I say it’s God will.”

  The host’s eyes met the camera.

  “For our viewers, the Guff is thought to be a heavenly repository that contains all of the souls waiting to be born.” He focused on his bearded guest. “And according to your belief, the Guff is essentially empty. All of the souls have been born.”

  Bastion’s answer was smug. “That’s right, John. I stand with those that believe that the Messiah will not arrive until every single one of these souls has been born into the physical world. And since that has happened, the Messiah is coming.”

  “So Baby Jane could be the Messiah?”

  “God willing.”

  The professor ruffled in his chair, the despair overtaken by disgust. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “What has happened is that the Earth’s atmosphere has become toxic to human beings. We know what happened.”

  “Do we?”

  “Of course we do, and there’s nothing magical about it. Ultra-tiny, nanometer-sized, miscarriage-inducing particles seeped into every living female on the planet,” the professor said, his face going sour, “before we did anything about it.”