Vaporized

by Simon Rosser

  “Shit,” Amber cursed, under her breath, as she inspected it from six feet away. The thing was stretched right across the street, back to the residential properties flanking the right side of the road, and extending all the way down to the Thames, which was just over to the left.

  The only good thing was the fact that the tendril wasn’t very large, just two feet or so in diameter. Amber looked around for anything she could use to form a ramp over the thing, but she couldn’t see anything. She was sure she could find some wood, or something equally suitable to use in one of the many gardens or properties around, if she spent long enough looking, but she didn’t feel safe hanging around. She considered one other option, which was slightly less technical, but potentially a lot more dangerous.

  Amber got back into the Porsche, reversed and drove back up the street two-hundred feet or so. She performed a U-turn, and drove slowly back towards the tendril, clicked her seatbelt into place, and then slammed the gear stick into second, whilst flooring the accelerator. “See if this hurts, you son of a bitch!” she yelled, as she sped towards the tendril.

  She closed her eyes just before impact.

  The low bonnet of the Porsche smashed through the flexible, gelatinous, tendril at 65 mph.

  The alien, water-based, fibre-gelatinous tissue had no time to react to the sudden impact. Normally, it would have been able to instantly adapt and reinforce itself, but it had no time.

  Amber braced her arms for the impact. It felt like she’d just driven through a line of wet sand bags. Light brown goo, and liquid, erupted around her, as the bonnet of the Porsche smashed through the tendril. The car kept going; thankfully no serious damage appeared to have been caused.

  Amber looked in the rear view mirror. Behind, both ends of the split tendril writhed about on the road, spewing brown fluid in all directions, like water erupting from an untethered garden hose, on full power.

  A pang of fear descended over Amber as she accelerated along the road, as she wondered if the creatures would come after her. So far, the alien entities had passively attempted to get her, but hadn’t appeared to have made any real effort.

  She suspected they considered her a minor irritant to their plans, much like an ant on a picnic blanket; a little annoying, but not threatening. If they really wanted to kill her, surely they could?

  Amber checked again in the rear view mirror. There was no sign of the tendril, or of anything coming after her. She continued along, reducing her speed slightly down to 30 mph, in order to manoeuvre around a stationary airport shuttle bus.

  She was now travelling along the A4, Heathrow lay to the northwest of her direction of travel, and it was clear the plumes of acrid smelling, black smoke, were getting denser.

  Amber continued through the desolate outskirts of London, towards the motorway, columns of smoke rising into the light crimson sky both behind, and in front of her. She wondered if the entire city would shortly be engulfed in fire. What would happen to the alien invaders then? Would they be destroyed? She suspected not, surely they would have the capability to neutralise any threat caused by fire. After all, they had the ability to control, and manipulate water, to their advantage.

  Since the first morning after the Event, Amber had noticed a slight change in the way the entities had evolved. First, it seemed that they were simply modelling, and controlling water, to function as they desired. But now, the tendrils were comprised of a gelatinous material, strengthened even, with something similar to cartilage. Not only that, but these things had the ability to somehow replicate the DNA of long since extinct animals, and mimic them. It was nothing short of bewildering. Amber shuddered to think how these things might evolve in the coming days and weeks ahead.

  Notwithstanding the horrors she’d witnessed, Amber began to feel a little more relaxed as she made her way out of London. The alien tendrils seemed to be mainly confined to the inner city, and Thames area.

  She reached the Hammersmith Flyover, slowed down to weave her way through a number of vehicles, haphazardly left by their deceased owners in the middle and sides of the road, and continued on.

  From the flyover, the columns of black smoke rising from the airport fifteen miles away, suggested that fires were still burning out of control. She assumed each column of smoke belonged to a single burning aircraft, and not the airport buildings, as a much larger conflagration would be visible.

  She counted at least 30 plumes, some of which had to be as wide as a skyscraper, perhaps made up from more than one burning airliner.

  Amber blinked tears from her eyes, as she thought about all the souls lost. She simply couldn't contemplate the fact that the entire population of London, 8 million people, had also simply ceased to exist, overnight.

  She had now given up any hope of finding her parents alive. She hadn’t originally appreciated the enormity of what had happened, but now, two days later, after having seen what was happening in London, and having experienced the extraordinary events in the museum, she realised her parents were undoubtedly dead. In fact, she considered that it was better that they had been vaporized. At least their lives would have been ended in an instant. It had to be better than surviving the Event and to live and see the aftermath.

  Amber found herself starting to get angry. First, just her jaw and hands clenched, but then, she began crying with anger, as she thought about all she had lost, her family and friends. What of her own fate? she wondered. The aliens, whatever they were, had taken everything from her. Life-forms from another world, which were completely oblivious to the life, in all its many forms, that once inhabited this planet.

  Before the weekend, she’d always thought that if aliens existed, and decided to make their presence known, it would have been for the betterment of mankind. To share knowledge, technology, prevent wars. Not to destroy humanity in its entirety.

  How could God have let this happen? She wasn't religious, but this cataclysm, now unravelling, confirmed what she’d really believed all along; that there can be no God. No Jesus, just nothing.

  Planet Earth was all alone, drifting through the Milky Way Galaxy, which was clearly a very dangerous place. Life may well be abundant in the universe, but this made human life unimportant on every level. It was all about evolution, survival of the fittest. It just so happened, that other life-forms, more intelligent and dangerous than mankind, had decided to destroy human civilisation, in the blink of an eye.

  Amber finally reached the Chiswick Flyover, again slowing down to manoeuvre around some abandoned vehicles that were positioned at various angles on the highway.

  As she drove over the flyover, she thought about her first trip to London with her parents, back in the 1970’s, and smiled, as she recalled her father telling her, with a twinkle in his eye, that the flyover had been opened by his favourite Hollywood movie star, Jayne Mansfield, in 1959.

  She hit the down ramp to join the M4 Motorway, and the West. The motorway was flanked, almost all the way home, by countryside. Her concern however, was that she had to pass by some major cities on the way, Reading, Swindon, Bristol and Cardiff, before travelling further west, to the western tip of Wales. She hoped she wouldn't have any problems getting past the major towns. If they'd been infected in a similar fashion to London, she would be in trouble.

  The black smoke rising into the sky became thicker, the closer she got to Heathrow. Amber reached over to the dashboard to shut off the car's ventilation system; the acrid smell of smoke from outside was becoming unbearable.

  The M4 Motorway was a mesh of vehicles, a mixture of London taxis, trucks and saloons, all positioned erratically over the three lanes of the highway, their owners driving them one second, then ceasing to exist the next. It was going to take her a good while to weave carefully through the stationary and collided vehicles. She feared she’d use up valuable fuel in the process.

  With Heathrow just over to her left, multiple large columns of thick black smoke, emanating still from the burning airliners, rose into the sky, reduci
ng visibility, and producing overpowering, acrid fumes, even with all the windows and vents shut. The sky above was a deep crimson-grey colour. In fact, it felt as if she was on an entirely different planet.

  Amber suddenly realised there was a radio in the car. She'd been so side-tracked with the stress and worry of getting out of London alive, she'd completely overlooked it.

  She turned it on. It was pre-tuned to Radio 2, but nothing apart from static drifted out the speakers. She tried Radio 1, again, nothing. Same for the other pre-set stations. She pressed the seek button and let the radio perform a scan, leaving it to trawl through any station that might still be broadcasting, as she concentrated on driving.

  A motorway signpost on the left side of the motorway confirmed she was now just 10 miles from Reading. The columns of acrid black smoke were now 15 miles or so behind her. The sky was still a light Crimson, but it looked lighter over to the west, the direction she was heading in. Shafts of sunlight were visible, breaking through the crimson clouds like spotlights over a theatre stage, reaching down to the fields on either side of the motorway.

  The only saving grace was that she'd seen no sign of the invading creatures. Apart from the vehicles that littered the highway, nobody would think anything was wrong. Could it be that only London and its outskirts had been infected? she wondered, optimistically. If she saw another moving vehicle, she’d have her answer.

  Amber didn’t see another living soul, either human, or animal, as she continued along the M4. The trees, either side of the motorway, were devoid of any foliage, and looked like the hands and fingers of rotten corpses rising up from the earth. The landscape either side of the motorway had a spooky, barren, feel to it.

  The fields were still green in places, but large brown patches had started to develop, and were eating away the green, as if the moisture was being sucked away.

  Amber passed the Reading turnoff without a problem, and so far, had seen no evidence of the alien tendrils, that perhaps were only confined to the inner cities. The time was now approaching 2 p.m., and she was getting hungry, and thirsty.

  She reached over to her backpack and pulled out a Snickers bar and a half-full bottle of Evian, unscrewed the top, and drank what was left. She now only had two bottles of water left. It was enough to get her back home, but then what?

  She pulled the wrapper off the Snickers bar using her teeth, and bit into the chewy chocolate and peanut bar. It tasted good, and gave her an immediate lift. With all the rubbish she’d been eating over the last few days, she craved nothing more than a tasty, hot meal. Whatever the situation was at home, she planned on firing up her parents BBQ, and cooking the tinned hotdogs she taken from the petrol station shop, and whatever else she could find to eat.

  The radio had been picking up nothing but static since she’d turned it on and it had begun to annoy her. She turned it off. She slid the window down. The air outside smelled clean and fresh now and she sucked in some deep breaths, filling her lungs for the first time in a while. The fires from Heathrow were now a good 80 miles away. Whilst she'd noticed a few columns of smoke rising up into the sky around Reading, it had been nothing like the smoke from the fires burning at Heathrow.

  The only sound she could hear was the low purr of the Porches' engine, perhaps the only man-made machine operating in the UK, possibly even the planet?

  The thought scared the hell out of her.

  Amber then remembered the cigarettes she'd taken from the garage. She looked at her backpack and the side pocket where she’d stuffed them. Oh, what the hell, she thought. In her current predicament, she really was lucky to be alive. The effect a few cigarettes might have on her health was no longer a concern. She pulled the packet of Camel’s from the side pocket of her backpack, tore off the cellophane with her teeth, and pulled out a cigarette. She lit it using the car’s lighter, and took a long drag on it. It actually tasted good, and, after coughing from the initial intake, a sensation of mild euphoria enveloped her.

  Amber opened the glove compartment, found some CD’s, and pulled them out. This guy had good taste, she thought, as she flicked through them on the passenger seat.

  Amongst the small collection was The Police’s 1977 album, Reggatta de Blanc, David Bowie’s Changesbowie album, and Bruce Springsteen’s The River.

  Amber opened up The Police CD, and pushed it into the CD slot on the stereo. She fast forwarded the tracks to her favourite, Message in a Bottle, and turned up the volume.

  Amber pushed the accelerator down, opened both widows, and let the wind whip through her hair, as she dragged on the cigarette, losing herself for the first time in days.

  For a few minutes, as she listened to the music, she forgot that the world had all but ended.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE CARNAGE ON the motorway, a short distance ahead, rushed towards Amber in a blink of an eye. With her senses slightly dulled from the cigarette she’d just smoked, and because she’d allowed herself to become lost in the loud music, she hadn’t been as alert as she should have been, and hadn’t immediately recognised what appeared to be a large collision, leaving vehicles, scattered about both carriageways ahead of her.

  Amber glanced at the speedometer, and the red needle, hovering at the 80 mph mark. She slammed her foot on the brake. The Porsche immediately went into a skid, the rear end fish-tailing as Amber lost control. The Porsche’s rear end then started to slide around, and the car began to spin towards the tangled wreckage of the pile-up, which blocked both carriageways, half a mile or so ahead.

  As the car careered towards the wreckage, the last four days of Amber’s life flashed before her eyes. Monsters, dinner with her friends, memories of her parents, and London burning, all came and went in a kaleidoscope of images. Her surreal existence played out in slow motion, like scenes from a 1950's science fiction movie.

  Then, in the final seconds before impact, time sped up, as the Porsche’s bonnet spun around, and collided into the side of something very large, square, and yellow.

  As the car hit, Amber heard an ear piercing pop. The impact slammed her into the right side door pillar, following which; everything went momentarily white, and then black.

  Amber opened her eyes. Her body was compressed into a tiny space, and she found herself enveloped in a white sack. The only sound was the purr of the Porsche’s engine, and the furious beating of her own heart.

  Am I still alive? Was Amber’s first thought, before quickly realising she still must be. She could still think logically, could still hear, and feel her heartbeat.

  A loud hissing sound brought her to her senses. She had crashed! The white sack enveloping her was the Porsche’s air bag, which started to quickly deflate. White then gave way to yellow.

  All around the car were yellow blocks, and bits of...straw!

  Amber opened the driver’s door and stepped out onto the motorway. Scattered all around her were large bales of hay. All she'd been able to see from half a mile back, was what appeared to be a vehicle pile-up, but she could now see that it was just one large truck, which had toppled over, spilling its load of hay all over the motorway.

  She'd been fortunate enough to hit one of the bales, at around 30 mph, instead of the back of the truck. Thankfully no real damage appeared to have been caused to the Porsche, apart from a large dent in the driver’s door, and front driver’s side wing.

  Amber cautiously walked through the bales of hay toward the truck, lying on its passenger side, in the outer fast lane, some fifty feet further along the highway.

  She was concerned she might be walking into a trap; such was the level of her justified paranoia.

  She reached the front of the truck. Decals on the bonnet confirmed it belonged to K Bacon and Co. Family Farm.

  As Amber walked around the front of the vehicle, pieces of laminated glass from the shattered front windshield crunched under her trainers.

  A chill suddenly shot up her spine, for no apparent reason. A feeling that she might not be alone washed over her.
Perhaps it was just the sight of the desolate motorway that gave her the creeps, she didn’t know. A strong gust of wind, which seemingly came from nowhere, brushed over her, blowing her matted hair away from her face.

  She turned to walk back to the car. As she did, from the corner of her eye, she saw something moving inside the cab of the toppled truck. Amber watched in horror, as a long flexible tube-like object, dropped from the driver’s cab onto the tarmac.

  “Oh, God, please no!” she shouted, as she turned to run back to the car.

  The object was only about five feet long, and didn’t appear to be connected to anything. Then, as she passed it, she realised that it was nothing more than a clear flexible plastic hose, which had fallen from the driver's cabin.

  Amber stopped and stared at the hose, now curled up on the tarmac by the side of the truck. She bent over, placed her hands on her knees, and caught her breath. Her heart was pounding furiously in her chest from the fright.

  She then started laughing at herself, laughing for being freaked out by a harmless length of clear plastic pipe.

  With the wind now picking up, she hurried back to the Porsche, her nerves tingling in apprehension, at what might have happened, if the harmless length of hose had instead turned out to be one of the alien tendrils.

  She reversed the car, slowly manoeuvred it around the bales of hay scattered over both the lanes of the highway, and accelerated off.

  Amber left the music on, but turned the volume down, and drove the Porsche at a more sensible 60 mph.

  After a short while, she reached over and pulled another cigarette from her backpack and lit it. If things continued the way they were, she’d need another few packs, just to get through the night.

  A motorway signpost confirmed that Amber was now within fifteen miles of Bristol. The Police’s album had finished a few miles back, and she ejected it and replaced it with Bowie. Despite the irony, she couldn't resist fast-forwarding through the tracks to her favourite one, Ashes to Ashes, and turned up the volume.