by J. S. Carter
For my family
Contents
Aperture 3
Death 6
Pretense 12
Wounded 21
Paranormality 32
Awakening 39
Orientation 46
Murder-suicide 56
The Red Orchestra 69
Crash Course 79
Practice 88
Resurgence 98
Juno 106
Secrets 112
The Last Revenant 120
Truths 124
Tent City 132
Oh, Emma 145
Fight or Flight 156
Human Resources 169
Family 175
Prospects 182
Negotiations 194
The Arbiter 198
The Maryville Massacre 203
False Prophets 212
Moonlight's Edge 224
The Crash 228
Aperture
The great Calamity of the 21st century was never seeing it coming in the first place.
My uncle, of dearest and constant, musty, pine-needle scent, would swear that the world would always end with a bang. Of course, he was right, but not in any way that he might have imagined. The culmination of years of bloodshed and disorder throughout the years gave way to the slow decent of an iron embedded rock blotted out by the glare of the sun as it gradually built up speed and hurdled towards the little blue marble that we called home.
Romantic?
Maybe.
Deadly?
Also a slightly more affirmative maybe.
The Cataclysm was never being able to admit that we had made a mistake. By the time the first bits of rock began to glow and frozen pockets of gas burst into flames as they rubbed against the outer layers of our atmosphere, a series of preplanned events had already been put into motion by a shadowy cult working behind the scenes. Years of dedicated deceit and concealed manipulation by organizations across the world had done more than our best to stop them, however our planet never ceased to exist. The Earth didn't stop spinning. Life went on.
We were the ones that had changed. For all intents and purposes, the world as we knew it had come to an end because our fate had been sealed, because we had failed to guard against malignancy during the most valuable pieces of time that had ever come to pass. And none of it could have been done without her.
Zoey was the Catastrophe of the second millennium. She became a tragedy that no one would ever be able to forget. Her face, forever preserved as a picture frozen in time, burned itself into the retinas of every man, woman, and child. The details of her life became ingrained on the surface of each beating heart, pulsating so deeply as to sink a gut feeling perfectly designed, pruned, manufactured and delivered to serve a single purpose: Fear.
For little Zoey, the day that started it would have begun like any other, but it wasn't until her mother slowly cracked open the door and tiptoed into her bedroom that all life was set to change. Had the woman known the truth of what lied ahead, she might not have ever pulled the blinds open and let the morning sun spill over onto her only daughter, the single best thing that had ever happened to her. She might not have leaned over the small shape underneath the covers and kissed the porcelain cheek of the greatest love of her life and embraced her delicate form, whispering over her ear.
“Wake up, sweetie. Do you remember what day it is?”
Zoey merely stirred and let out a gentle breath while her mother ran a hand through her dark hair, pulling a wisp away from her face.
“Go ahead and get dressed... I'm making your favorite.” She gave her arm one last squeeze and made it back to the door when Zoey called back for her.
“Mom...”
She stopped in the doorway and turned to stare at the cute little girl now sitting up, barely conscious as she rubbed the last of the night from her dreary eyes.
“Happy birthday.”
She couldn't help but smile. “You too, sweetie.” It was easy for her to wonder what the odds were to have gotten the best present year after year, but that wasn't something that Zoey paid any special attention to.
After just turning eleven years old, the fresh smell and sight of blueberry pancakes slid just beneath her nose as she took a seat at the kitchen table was much more interesting.
Her father joined soon after, hugging her from behind. “Happy birthday, pumpkin.” He kissed the top of her head and happily accepted the cup of coffee that was handed to him by his loving wife. “And you...”
Zoey absentmindedly watched the two lean over the counter for each other.
“It's good to have you home.”
“Not as good as it is for me...”
She watched her mother smile and they kissed again, her father taking a moment to sit and sip from his mug with a new sense of ease about him. She couldn't understand why he hadn't stayed home more often. Everything was always better when they were together. Why couldn't they see that?
The thought slowly faded away like her breath of warm air against the cool window of their sedan as it sped down the highway in the dew-filled morning. Her father caught a glimpse of her in the rear-view. “Do you remember where we're going, honey?”
This year they had promised to take her to the city. It was as good a place to die as any, really. She wouldn't know until the very end, of course, but the idea of being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of other human beings during the last moments would have been comforting. If she could have just seen the souls of those around her, felt their distant warmth and reassurance press in on her own, maybe she wouldn't have felt so alone.
The time finally came as her parents waited in line in the heart of the sprawling metropolis. Zoey looked towards a crowd. Her fingers passively slipped away from her mother's and she slowly drifted towards the commotion, only stopping to peer up and gaze at a square block column of compressed steel and concrete reaching into the sky above her. She peeked back at the men and women next to her, but couldn't quite figure out what everyone was looking at. Finally, one of them pointed and she traced the line into the clouds above her neck.
The first undeniable sign was the intense flash of light. The sudden intensity blinded her for a moment and burned a colorful blob into her eyelids that she had to blink away furiously. Then she saw it. Just above the horizon, a small speck of dust grew larger. It shimmered as it drew closer, the entire sky seeming to vibrate as it was pulled towards the ground. Another abrupt explosion burst the first light into smaller pieces that rained down from the original, but the crowds were star struck. They were powerless to do anything except watch.
Until the sound hit them.
The massive wave of pressure slammed into every building and bored down into the streets below like cracks underneath a storm surge. Zoey immediately threw her hands against her ears and dropped down onto her knees, screaming as the pain in her ears reverberated through her body and punched a hole inside of her chest.
She looked up to see the sudden anarchy that began to unfold around her in complete silence. She could see bodies scramble over each other in an attempt to get away, anywhere from the source of their new agony. She could see mouths open wide as others screamed for attention, for help, for warning, but nothing made it past the hands around her head. She had been thrust into a completely new world of her own, where the only sound she felt came from the vibrations within her bones.
Bodies knocked into her. They tripped over her and she began to cry. All she wanted was the relentless bombardment to end. She wanted her mother to hold her hand, to feel her embrace, but it never came. Instead, the ground shook and viciously tossed her forward as her hands met the concrete. She looked up and could see th
e source as ripples of tension exploded out of each floor in the building above her.
Suddenly, as each beam began to collapse under the weight of the immense strain, a green flame tore through the side of the structure and perturbed its delicate balance. An engulfing shroud of debris bellowed outwards and covered her last sight of the sky as metal, rock, and glass began to fall towards her. Her head immediately swung as she struggled to find some sort of protection: a larger rock, a car, a body, anything.
The building.
She sprinted and took off after the crumbling shelter. If she could just get out of the street, any piece of the lobby would be safe enough from the missiles that started to crash and splinter into the ground around her. She kept running even when a man covered in soot crossed her path and reached out for her. She held out her hand and could feel the cold texture of steel as an entire lattice brushed against her knuckles and forced his existence to expire in an instant.
The impact threw her away and she doubled over on to all fours. Her hand and arm began to burn, but she fought on. She looked up and struggled to blink the grime past her blurry vision. The lobby was just in sight. She could see a small crowd gathering inside behind shattered windows to stare at the scene in disbelief. She could see the cameras trained on her body.
The footage rolled.
The pictures were taken.
Zoey stood up and took a step, yet no sooner had her body moved than it stopped abruptly. She tried again, but nothing worked. She fought to breathe and the only air that had been left inside of her lungs heaved out from her in an uncontrollable sigh. She was so close, yet she was kept still. Why couldn't she move? She reached a hand out to see blood trickle down her arm in streams of ebony, but it wouldn't go any further.
Then she knew.
The numb realization began to dawn on her as a paralyzing agony ebbed its way throughout her entire chest and down into her abdomen. She still couldn't breathe. She couldn't even stand, but something kept her upright. She leaned forward and could see the opaque, subtle reflection of glass in front of her face as she stared into the shard that had pinned the entire core of her body into the ground.
The survivors in the building, only a matter of feet away from her, began to watch her die, and she watched them. She saw a few started to cry. Others forced themselves to look away while a small patter of blood began to drip from her lips onto the screen below. Even as her lungs continued to burn and her vision slowly faded, she finally managed to catch the eyes of the one she had been looking for, and she started to cry—not only because she was afraid—but because now she could see that her mother was too.
Death
I closed my eyes and let the sun spill over my face. I could feel the harsh warmth bore through my skin, each pore splitting open under the pressure of the light, every single stream forcing its way down like pin pricks in a cloth held up against a bulb in a scorching hot room, a bone dry, soot covered prison that went on for miles in every direction.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I dropped down onto my knees and let the rest of my body slouch over limp. I knew that there was nothing left in it. There was no energy to speak of. It was just an empty shell that had gotten me so far, but that was it. I was done. I was letting go. I cracked my eyes open to peer down at what was left of me and I realized that everything could stop. I wouldn't have to fight it anymore.
“Tess...”
Nothing.
“Jessica.”
I nearly flinched as Zach put a hand on one of my shoulders. Out of the sunburnt pair, he really couldn’t have picked a better one.
“You gotta get up.”
I peered ahead to see the horizon again, everywhere. It never ended. It was either a rolling hill or a flat plain void of anything that had even dreamt of moisture, a perpetual machine lined with lifeless blades of grass that cut and blistered and followed us everywhere we went. “And go where?” My voice cracked. It felt just as dry and cynical as I how I’d made myself out to be. I grabbed a handful of the parched dirt that was slowly killing us and watched it cascade effortlessly through my fingers.
“Forward...”
Dumb answer.
“Just keep going forward.”
Fine. Don’t mind the kneeling corpse. Please tip as you pass by.
“Tess, come on.” He grabbed my arm, twisting the sensitive red skin that I refused to deem possible, and I shoved him back.
I wanted to scream at him, to tell him that this wasn’t fair, to tell him that every square inch of skin felt like boiling water, but I couldn't. The words caught themselves in my throat. They were easier to think than to say out loud, admittedly, but they finally managed the struggle “I can’t...”
He grabbed me by the arm again and I shrugged him off.
“NO, I CAN’T.” I stared right at his dumb, tan face and stupid, baby-blue eyes and darkening stubble.
Handsome bastard.
I would’ve cried right there in front of him if my body could have managed it, yet he only stared right back, his eyes slightly narrowed. If he was trying his best to be patient, then he’d lose.
He glanced at the horizon before looking back down at me again, this time worried. “How are your feet?”
I looked away. I didn’t want to do it again.
He unslung his M4 assault rifle from his shoulder and set it on the ground. “Let me take a look.”
I gave in as he gently sat me down so that I wouldn’t have to put any weight through my legs. I watched him kneel in front of me and I couldn’t help but shut the world out again. I didn’t want to see. It was always worse once I saw it. I could have sworn that my imagination was supposed to get the best of me, but somehow reality always found a way to make it worse.
Always.
I could feel him trying to slowly pull off my slip-on shoes and I tried not to shake. They would have started out as simple strips of canvas as they rolled off of a factory line halfway across the world run by starving kids, but now they were hundreds of miles past their prime. I couldn’t even remember what they had originally looked like. I sneaked a peek to see him stop at my socks colored charcoal and blotted with red, when it dawned on me that those at least were supposed to be white.
He took a slow breath as soon as I caught his stare. “This is probably gonna hurt.”
He was right.
I automatically winced and jerked my foot back as he accidentally grazed the heel with the tip of a finger, the pain quickly diminishing as it shot up through my skin.
“Sorry.”
I thought he might have expected me to yell at him. I hated when he looked at me like that. He seemed so sad. It made me wonder what I must have looked like.
He started again, this time slower. “One more time?”
I gave him a nod as he began to roll up the sock from the base of my ankle, careful not to press too hard and stopping for a moment every time I pulled back. I tried not to fixate on the notion that he might as well have been rolling up my skin, but after baring my teeth and a few more excruciating seconds, he finally managed to pull the last piece over my toes and held on to a wet inside-out piece of fabric with a blank look.
I couldn’t wait anymore. I had to ask while I pretended the ground next to me was much more interesting. “How bad is it?”
He took a moment to think about it. “Can you feel it?”
I should have hit him. “Yeah, I can feel it.”
Jerk.
“So how bad is it?”
He stopped staring. “I’ve seen worse.” I couldn’t tell if he was lying or not, but it didn’t matter, because he asked for the next one, patting his knee. “Number two. Come on.”
We quickly got a handle on the pair and somewhat air dried my feet, his hands only pausing to reach into his pack to pull out two tea-sized packets of sugar. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“You’re not gonna eat me with that, are you?”
He shook the packets at my face. “How c
ould I, Tess? You’re already so sweet, like... all the goddamn time.”
Bastard, again.
He propped my foot up and tore one of the packets open. “Sugar’s a natural antiseptic. It’ll help you heal faster and fight off infection. And take some of the pain away.”
“You’re making that up.”
“Sure, because I’ve always wanted to do this...” He dumped the packet on my open sores and held my foot down while I tried to yank it away. “But,” he added. “It’ll still sting.”
I tried not to dwell on that as he moved on to the next one. “Thanks.”
Once he finished seasoning my feet, he went back to scavenging from his pack and pulled out a white undershirt, getting to work ripping it into strips.
“You’re not gonna need that?”
I was surprised to see him smile and even manage a short laugh. “No, Tess, I’m not gonna need it.”
I wondered how that worked and tried not to stare at him again, but even that proved to be too much work. I finally gave up and tossed my head back against the ground, closing my eyes. I couldn’t understand how I had gotten so far, so I assumed it only meant that the end must have been close. I thought about it while he wrapped me up. “You should just leave me here.”
“You know,” Zach started, tightening the knots around the soles of my feet and forcing me to catch my breath. “I would, but now you’re wearing my favorite shirt.” He got up again, slung his pack and M4 back onto his shoulders and left me lying in his shade. “Come on.”
I opened my eyes. He wanted my hand. He wasn’t gonna get it.
“We have to get out of the sun.”
“What’d you have in mind?”
He didn't say anything, so I assumed that I wouldn't enjoy it. He grabbed my arm without warning and pulled me up onto his back, holding my legs so that he could give me a piggyback ride. I felt like I should have expected him to do something like that, but his tenacity to put anyone else first was always surprising.
I tried my best not to let go and we set off like that, Zach carrying me on his back while I inevitably dozed off on his shoulders. We began repeating the familiar motions to make the best time, but the effort seemed almost pointless as the hot ball of death continued to rise up into the sky and twist over us, hours on end.