The Days Alive - Time of Doors Season 1 Episode 3 (Book 3): Post Apocalypse EMP Survival - Dark Scifi Horror (Time of Doors Serial EMP Dark Fantasy Apocalyptic Book Series)

by Eddie Patin

  Ramon scoffed.

  “I don’t have any gold in my eyes. They’re just brown with some grey in them.”

  Megan looked at him levelly. “Yes, I know. But they’re not like that anymore. Now there’s gold in them.”

  “What are you talking about?!” he replied, moving with an awkward, gangly dash toward the driver’s side mirror on the outside of the car. Ramon ducked down at looked at his eyes in the mirror. “Hey!” he said. “I do have gold in there! What the hell is that?”

  Megan rolled her eyes and did looked over her larger pack once more. When it became evident that they might be here for a little while, and maybe even have to take shelter in the Zion Lodge, she moved her Camel-bak bladder and most of her normal hiking and emergency gear into the soft-framed weekend pack she always brought with her on trips like these.

  She never knew when she might be inspired to take a longer hike up into the higher ridges, or into the narrows, or whatever suited her at the time. Megan had been coming to Zion almost every weekend for a long time now, and she didn’t always stay at the normal tourists’ campgrounds.

  Everything looked good. She made sure that the one working flashlight was in the small pouch on the waist belt. With all of her other lights dead, she wanted to make sure it was accessible if she needed it in a hurry...

  “Okay, let’s try it,” she said, taking the pack over to the driver’s side door and throwing it behind her seat.

  “How does this work again?” Ramon asked.

  “We’re gonna bump start the car. If the starter is dead, we can still start the car and get back to town, since it’s a stick-shift...”

  “How?”

  “Well, I’ll steer the car and hold the clutch in on second gear. You push it enough to get a little speed going, down that road, and when I’m going fast enough for second gear, I’ll pop it, and it should start on its own.”

  “Pop it??”

  Megan sighed. “Jeez, Ramon. Don’t you know how to drive a manual? You’re older than me.”

  Ramon shrugged and pulled at the dark, sweaty locks of hair stuck to his forehead. “Sure, but I’ve never done that. What if it doesn’t start?”

  What if it didn’t? she thought.

  Megan honestly didn’t know what that would mean for the car if it didn’t start from a good push. Maybe the alternator was fried or something? Did the car even need an electrical system to run once it was started? She had no idea.

  “I guess we’ll find out,” she said, sliding into the seat. The old springs groaned. Megan lowered the manual window and closed the door.

  She looked at Ramon. He stood in the gravel just outside, his long, slender arms folded, a frog-like frown on his face.

  “So you want me to just ... push?” he asked.

  “When I say, yeah,” she replied. “The car’s pretty small. I’ll aim for the straightest part, so really try to get it going fast.”

  “And when you ... pop it or whatever ... you’ll just take off? What about me??”

  Megan let out a little chuckle that threatened to become a scoff. What kind of man needed so much handholding in times of stress?

  She smiled at him.

  “I’ll have to keep going for a little bit, but I’ll circle around and pick you up once the engine’s running, of course.” She smirked. “Think I’ll leave you here, Ramon?”

  “No,” he replied, wiping the sweat off of his palms. “Okay. Tell me when.”

  Ramon’s long running shoes crunched on the gravel as he walked around to the back of the car. Megan felt the slight push of him settling his palms against the hatch door above the brake lights.

  She turned the car on with her key. Nothing happened. No surprise, of course—she expected that. Megan then pushed in the clutch and the brake, released the emergency break, put the shifter into second gear, then grasped the steering wheel with both hands...

  Looking back to her boyfriend in the rear-view mirror over their pile of stuff in the back, she realized that Ramon was also looking at her. The sunlight lit up his eyes, and she thought for a moment that the mysterious golden flecks reflected back at her.

  The image of the golden monolith in the field outside the lodge slipped into her mind like oil invading a pool of water...

  “Okay, go!” she exclaimed through the open window, taking her foot off of the brake.

  She heard Ramon grunt when he got the car rolling, and in the fairly quiet campground, she listened to the small wheels of her car crunch and pop through the dirt and ground-up granite of the unpaved road. The car picked up speed to almost a walking pace as she pulled hard against the dead power-steering, aiming the vehicle to the main campground street. Ramon let out a sound of exerted frustration behind her when the car slowed down a little in the turn. Megan’s eyes flashed up to him in the rear-view mirror, and she expected him to give up, but he kept on pushing...

  “A little faster on the road! Almost there!” she called back to him.

  When she was done turning and straightened the wheels, Megan’s car picked up in speed until it was at a walking pace again, then started gaining momentum.

  “That’s it!” Ramon cried out from behind her. “Can’t keep going!”

  “Keep going, Ramon! Doing good—a little faster!”

  He growled, and kept pushing. The car was moving briskly now, and would soon outpace him. The tires rolled faster and faster.

  Watching Ramon in the rear-view mirror, Megan saw when the car was finally going faster than he was, and just as her boyfriend gave a final push and broke away, sinking down to rest his hands on his knees behind her, pouring with sweat, she looked down at the speedometer.

  “That should do it,” Megan said to herself, then pulled her foot away from the clutch as fast as she could.

  The car lurched violently with a thud, then ... the engine sputtered to life!

  Mechanical sounds came alive all around her, the dashboard lit up, and Megan could feel the power steering restored! The radio came to life, playing “Love Bites” by Def Leppard...

  “Yes!” she exclaimed, feeling herself smiling wide.

  It worked!

  Now to just circle around the campground, pick up Ramon, and they were out of here—away from the panicked masses and heading back to St. George!

  She drove around the circle, heading back for their campsite from the other side. Tourists scowled at her from all around as they struggled with their own vehicles, sourly packing their gear as kids ran wild around the trees and remaining tents.

  Are you wild ‘n’ willin’, or is it just for show?

  Ooh ... come on!

  I don’t wanna touch you too much baby...

  As Megan rounded the bend, seeing Ramon standing at the edge of the campground dirt road, grinning with his black hair a soppy mess and his backpack over one shoulder, she smiled at him.

  ‘Cos makin love to you might drive me crazy...

  I know you think that love is the way to make—

  The radio suddenly cut out, leaving Megan hearing only the constant crunching of the dirt road under the car’s tires. The lights of the dashboard dimmed then went black, and shortly after, the engine choked and died...

  “Shit!” she cried.

  Megan pushed the clutch in to coast a little longer, and the car moved silently along the road, crushing dirt and gravel while she tried to think about what to do next.

  She checked that she was still in second, then popped the clutch again, and the engine caught on the gear and lurched the car hard to a stop ten feet from Ramon.

  He frowned.

  Megan sat, looking at the dead dashboard. She fiddled with the key in the cylinder a little, then pulled it out when nothing happened.

  They were stuck.

  “Now what?” Ramon asked from outside her window.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t know why it died...”

  “I guess we’re going to the lodge, maybe?”

  Megan looked up in
to Ramon’s face—into his brown and gold eyes. He looked so deflated and sad...

  “Yeah, looks like it...”

  They arrived at the Zion Lodge less than an hour later.

  With her big pack on her back, Megan didn’t bother running this time. She made sure to lock up the car—just in case—then led Ramon back to the lodge by the same path they took running that morning. The bearded guy’s broken-down car was still there, but he and his family were gone.

  The parking lot of the lodge was still full of cars, and the tourists were all over—more than she’d ever seen here before, really.

  That’s because almost everyone in the whole park is here, she thought. Not just the people staying there already; there were people who were previously at their campsite, people who were just passing through when the monolith appeared and killed all of the cars, and everyone else who got the invitation to take shelter in the rugged hotel—all bustling around this one location.

  In the distance of the large green field to the north, where she used to see the massive Centennial Cottonwood tree standing tall in the sky, towering over the area, Megan saw a crowd of people.

  They were all standing around the golden monolith.

  She couldn’t see the weird thing from the Lodge entrance, but it had to still be there; floating solidly above the remains of the great tree’s stump, metallic gold like a shining skyscraper, mysterious and dangerous...

  Megan and Ramon made their way to the entrance to the rustic hotel, and stood in line at the front doors of the stained timber building. They waited behind other confused and stressed-out people all dressed in vacation and outdoorsy clothing, all carrying backpacks or suitcases, some clutching at pillows and the occasional blanket. The refugees’ children whooped and hollered and ran in circles, chasing each other and playing all around the red sand, grass, and dirt paths.

  The kids didn’t care. They had no idea that something terrible and weird happened in the field over there; that people were dead and everyone was stranded in a state of emergency...

  “Hey, you two,” a female voice said, friendly and familiar.

  Megan looked up from the two small children she was watching, into the face of the lady ranger who had invited them to the shelter over an hour ago. The woman’s face was flush, and her eyes were still blue, flecked with gold like before. She smiled at Megan, sweet and shy.

  “Hi,” Megan said. “Couldn’t get the car started.”

  The ranger was seated at a make-shift check-in table near the front door, was depending on the daylight coming in from outside, taking notes on a legal-sized yellow pad.

  “No problem,” she replied. “So sorry about the issues. We’ve unlocked all of the doors here so you don’t need a key—they’re actually not working anyway.”

  Ramon walked up behind Megan and put his hand on her shoulder.

  Megan didn’t know why, but she was becoming less and less tolerant of his touch. She must have bristled at his gesture, because he quickly pulled his hand back to himself.

  “Hi there,” Ramon said. “So what do we get? One of the rooms or something?”

  “Kind of,” the ranger responded. “There are a lot of people, so everyone is sharing, but you can head down to the left and set yourselves up in ... Room 140. Um ... what are your names?” She smiled again, holding her pen to the paper. Megan could see that she was keeping a loose organization of rooms to names. Room 140, scrawled on a new line, had no names next to it. The previous room had eight names.

  “Uh ... Ramon Silva.”

  “Megan McKinney.”

  The ranger scribbled their names onto the paper, smiled and wished them well, then Megan led Ramon through the crowded hall to the room. Tourists of all shapes, colors, and ages returned Megan’s gaze. Several of them looked her up and down, then moved out of the way—nothing Megan had come to know as unusual. She was wearing tights, after all.

  There was something unusual, though, in many of the men, women, and even a few children—something wrong with their eyes. Through the lights of the large windows, until the dark hallways made it too hard to tell, she could see those same gold flecks mixed into several sets of eyes—many of them, really—scattered like careless pieces of glitter in blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes...

  And some of the people had eyes even more gold-laden then that! Those with more—especially the men with particularly predatory glances—had so much gold in their irises, that the new color overpowered whatever their natural colors were originally. Their gold was absolutely metallic, reflecting the light like brand new and shiny pennies!

  How did these people not notice all of the weird eyes?

  What was going on?

  4 - Kayleen Lugo

  Portland, OR

  “Come on!” Kayleen whispered to Hannah, who was standing in the mist, gawking at the approaching patrol of figures, cloaked in the thick, white fog.

  She grabbed her roommate’s hand, and Hannah’s fingers almost slipped out of her grip because of the coating of slime from the air.

  Hannah’s purple and blonde Mohawk was heavy and droopy in the dense air, and her eyes were wide open as she stared at the oncoming soldiers. The girl pressed her dark lips together, and looked very pale to Kayleen in the white light.

  Then, Kayleen’s stunned roommate turned with a start, and nodded, running quietly with her toward the dark SUV sitting dead in the middle of the street.

  Kayleen’s old vans padded lightly at the slippery asphalt as she darted around the right side of the older-looking Suburban, and she immediately grabbed at the chrome handle of its back door.

  She yanked on it a few times.

  Locked.

  “Damn it,” she whispered, then moved to the front door.

  Kayleen pulled, and the big, heavy door swung open with a clunk.

  Looking back to make sure Hannah was still behind her, Kayleen climbed into the passenger seat, then scrambled over the center console into the back.

  The windows were dark. They were tinted almost black.

  How could anyone drive a car with windows this dark?

  Hannah scrambled in behind her, struggling to get her legs into the seat beside her. Kayleen looked back to the front. The pale light of the weird, misty day still poured in.

  “Close the door!” Kayleen hissed at her roommate. “Quietly!”

  Hannah responded with surprised eyes and turned around, writhing over the console between the front seats and nearly kicking Kayleen in the face with one heavy boot.

  She closed the door.

  “They’re gonna see us!” Hannah whispered, climbing back to hide near Kayleen with the grace of a bull.

  “Shh!” Kayleen responded. “Stop moving so much—they’re coming!”

  Through the dark windows, the white concealment of the mist seemed to intensify, and Kayleen could hardly see the huge DMV building across the intersection. Crouching low under the plastic sill of the window, she peered into the mist where they had seen the group of figures stalking in formation toward them.

  And then she saw the first of the creatures...

  Emerging from the fog like a ghost was a tall, lean figure—taller than a normal man, but slender. It had two arms and two legs, and only one head, but it moved with a slow, easy grace, and blended into the mist like it was made of frosted glass. The creature’s limbs and body were covered with a strange, smooth plates of armor—Kayleen couldn’t tell if it was its weird, alien skin, or some kind of suit. The sweeping curves of plastic were translucent—milky, almost—connected by clear joints that swirled and ran together like waves. The creature’s head—or helmet—was tall and swept back, extending behind it in a long, smooth point.

  The thing was beautiful...

  The figure’s entire makeup was partially clear, blending into the odd, white mist as if its skin was made of plastic and glass bent into lovely, curved shapes that Kayleen couldn’t entirely be sure were solid.

  Was the foggy background of the buil
ding and sidewalk behind it showing through?

  And the creature was dangerous, too...

  There was no mistaking that the long, elegant weapon held in both of its slender, armored hands was some kind of battle gun—an alien rifle of some kind—smooth and reflective and somewhat translucent just like the rest of the creature’s body.

  It moved like a shadow with the fluid grace of a cat.

  “What the fuck is that?!” Hannah asked a little too loudly.

  Kayleen shushed her, ducking a little lower in the dark window.

  After the long and graceful alien creature stepped into sight, it continued moving south on Sixth Avenue, heading in the direction of Kayleen and Hannah’s origin—the college dorm...

  Another figure, identical in appearance to the first, stepped out of the fog into sight.

  Then another.

  The next alien soldier Kayleen saw had its blaster-type-thing on its back, and was carrying a long spear topped with a slender blade—more like a sword than a spear head—seemingly made of slightly cloudy glass.

  She heard Hannah groan quietly next to her.

  “I feel sick,” her roommate whispered.

  “Be quiet!”

  Kayleen noted that at least a dozen of the otherworldly soldiers passed them by like a squad of ghost troopers in the fog. She was so busy looking over all of their forms, the details of their skin/armor, and their slender alien weaponry, that she lost count!

  At one point, a trio of the creatures paused to speak to each other a little too close to their hiding spot for comfort, and Kayleen strained to listen, but heard nothing but the faint sound of a bell-like drone whining softly from their direction...

  Hannah slumped down to the floorboards, wrapping her arms around her head.

  “Just tell me when they’re gone,” her roommate whispered.

  Kayleen glared down at her.

  What would happen if these creatures noticed them hiding in the vehicle, just on the other side of that darkened glass?