Ping - From the Apocalypse

by Susan Lowry

  Ping – From the Apocalypse

  By Susan Lowry

  Copyright © 2011, 2013

  By Susan Lowry

  Revised Edition

  October 2013

  Books by Susan Lowry:

  Ping — From the Apocalypse

  Ping Two – Across the Valley

  Vegan Occasions — Vegan Recipes for Special Occasions

  ping@susan-lowry.com

  www.susan-lowry.com

  Susan Lowry’s Blog

  Dedicated to:

  Gerry, Aaron, Amanda, Mom, Dad, David;

  Karen, Rick, Dave, and Chris

  Ping — From the Apocalypse

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One — The Blackout

  Chapter Two — In the Upstairs Bedroom

  Chapter Three — The Rash

  Chapter Four — Husband on the Couch

  Chapter Five — As the Crow Flies

  Chapter Six — The Phone Call

  Chapter Seven — Beside the Fridge

  Chapter Eight — Treasures Abound

  Chapter Nine — Blanket of Snow

  Chapter Ten — The Hole in the Ottoman

  Chapter Eleven — An Amazing Lesson

  Chapter Twelve — The Journey Begins

  Chapter Thirteen — Trouble at Customs

  Chapter Fourteen — The Grove of Palm Trees

  Chapter Fifteen — Out on the Bench

  Chapter Sixteen — Hot on the Beach

  Chapter Seventeen — A Shift in Priorities

  Chapter Eighteen — Desperate to be Rescued

  Chapter Nineteen — The Good, the Bad, and the Impossible

  Chapter Twenty — Impulse Shopping

  Chapter Twenty-One — Accusing Fingers

  Chapter Twenty-Two — Hovering above the Flight-Deck

  Chapter Twenty-Three — Birds of a Feather

  Chapter Twenty-Four — Red Rain

  Chapter Twenty-Five — The Hotel Parking Lot

  Chapter Twenty-Six — Proof of Life

  Chapter Twenty-Seven — The Burial Grounds

  Chapter Twenty-Eight — One Talking Bird

  Chapter Twenty-Nine — Space Pilot

  Chapter Thirty — Ben and Rose

  Chapter Thirty-One — The Last Cabin

  Chapter Thirty-Two — Laying Down the Law

  Chapter Thirty-Three — Nightmare Resort

  Chapter Thirty-Four — Cinnamon Buns

  Chapter Thirty-Five — The Fawn

  Chapter Thirty-Six — Christopher and Lucy

  Chapter Thirty-Seven — The Ping Factor

  Ping — From the Apocalypse

  Chapter One

  The Blackout

  (January 5th)

  (Northern Ontario)

  It was strange how it drew her attention: a tiny speck of red where the snow had not held on her car. The colour glinted at her from under the streetlamp, glowing out from the vast white. It was a white that whirled and tossed against the blackness of the sky and tumbled down to earth; a white that stretched across the landscape as thick as an enormous eiderdown — silencing everything beneath it.

  Curious, after the lights flickered, Kate had gone to the window to peer outside. Ice pellets clattered against the frozen glass as she massaged her throbbing head and swallowed, painfully.

  She’d half-expected the blackout. The furnace clanged, and an electrical snap left her standing in darkness, listening to the wind howling through the trees. Even the streetlights were out, and the clouds blocked the glow from the moon and stars.

  “I knew it,” she said.

  Her tiny house rattled sporadically as she felt her way to the kitchen. She fumbled with a wooden matchstick, striking it against the flint side of its small cardboard container. A soft halo of light curled around her and she touched the flame to the wick of a candle. Shadows stretched across the wall as she crept to the end of the passage.

  “Jon?”

  She nudged the office door inward peering into the room, which was washed in an eerie, blue tint from the computer screen. Jon was in his office chair, wisps of blonde hair fanning out from the tall back of it, and he appeared to be sleeping. She raised her candle, leaned in for a better look and a long shadow wavered across the desk.

  “Is that what you’ve been doing all this time? You must be exhausted, honey.”

  She waited.

  “Jon, there’s a blackout. And you’re going to fall off the chair in a minute.”

  A major deadline for a project was approaching, which had been obviously stressful, keeping him working all hours; he’d been up since the early hours of the morning. The client was waiting anxiously for some completed code, but he had to be completely drained. And on top of that, he’d complained of feeling ill earlier, like he had the flu. Now, she was certain she had it too.

  “I made us some soup sweetie, but I don’t want any now,” she groaned, feeling the glands in her neck. “I’m feeling horrible.”

  He didn’t budge.

  “Jon, are you okay?”

  Stepping gingerly between the heaps of documents on the floor, wondering how he ever made his way around the room, she grumbled, “If this is your idea of joke, I am not laughing — in case you hadn’t noticed.” A powerful gust shook the office window.

  “Jon?” She raised her voice this time, feeling a little concerned. He must have been more worn-out than she had even imagined. Most of the time he would wake at the sound of a pin dropping, and he could even hear what people were saying at the other side of a large room. It was clear that he was pushing himself way too hard lately. His damned client would just have to be more patient, this wasn’t worth his health.

  Trying to get over to him between all of the stuff on the floor, she accidently knocked over the pile of papers in front of her which cascaded across the rug; her foot slid, her legs splayed and she screeched on the way down, falling with a hard thud so the wind was knocked out of her.

  By the time she had collected herself, a smoky glow was curling along the edge of a crumpled piece of paper where the candle had landed. She quickly grabbed a nearby dictionary and dropped it on top of the flames, smothering them. Then she peered over at him. With all the noise he still hadn’t budged.

  “Jon?”

  She crawled on her hands and knees through the mess over to her husband’s side, grabbing his hand and squeezing. But his jaw remained slack, sagging open; in the cold-blue light of the computer his skin was ghastly white. He appeared dead.

  Now Kate’s heart was pounding as she probed for a vein in his thick wrist, finally feeling a weak pulse.

  “Okay, now just open your eyes, Jon!”

  She could feel the warm pants from his mouth — weak and too fast — which was hardly reassuring, and her focus switched to his overflowing desk. “Where on earth is the phone? How can you function like this?”

  Her fingers searched between the mounds of papers, beneath various pieces of hardware scattered around them, around several books and spare monitors, feeling up and down and over the top of things, until finally she dragged a cellphone from below a couple of file-folders. She gaped at the buttons and pressed 9-1-1.

  “Come on,” she mumbled.

  The ringing seemed to go on forever and the emergency workers should have responded, there had been plenty of time. “What the hell is going on?!”

  Even after calling back twice, not a soul answered.

  “Jon!”

  She lifted his head which had fallen forward, cradling his face in her palms. “What’s wrong with you?”

  To her relief, he let out a long, pathetic moan.

  She gulped. “Are you okay?”

  He blinked.


  “Jon? Please say something honey.”

  His eyes were sick and unfocused, but they finally met hers. Then, he screamed, “Ahhh… the pain!”

  Hooking his heavy arm around her shoulders, she heaved him up. Carrying a man as large as Jon, when he was barely conscious, was not an easy feat. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here. Help me, okay?” she groaned.

  They stumbled into the pitch-black hallway, then on to the living room, nearly falling over the coffee table. Jon collapsed on the sofa pulling her down with him though she was unable to make out even the faintest outline of him. She felt his legs dangling over the edge of the cushion and lifted them so that he was lying flat and perched on the edge beside him.

  “Christ, you’re burning up,” she said, stroking his forehead and holding his arm tight, for her own comfort. “I dialled 9-1-1, but there was no answer. It — it must be the storm. Too many accidents… or something.”

  “I—I need some water.”

  “Of course sweetie, I’ll be back in a second.”

  She stumbled through the darkness to the kitchen and located the box of matches, another candle, and a glass.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were this sick?” she said, handing him his water while she placed the flickering candle on the table in front of them. Jon gulped it down as if he’d been in a desert for days, coughed, and then gasped, giving her the drained glass. “It hit so fast. I think I passed out. This isn’t normal pain, Kate.”

  She was fighting an increasing amount of pain herself, and struggled to stay calm. Her entire body felt like it was on fire. “I’ll have to shovel that damned driveway and get you to the hospital myself, since I can’t contact anyone. This is too creepy Jon—”

  Suddenly Jon began twisting in agony and a bizarre groan emerged from deep inside him — like a large dying animal. He lurched over the edge of the couch retching violently and Kate leaped to the side just in time. When he had stopped, she watched him disintegrate with a quivering moan into the cushions.

  “Oh Jon,” she said weakly, placing her palm on his forehead trying to be soothing, but the wind was raging outside and the window trembled so violently that Kate couldn’t help glaring nervously toward the darkness beyond the frosted glass. She combed her fingers through his hair. She didn’t feel well enough to shovel their lengthy driveway and besides, the roads would be impossible to manoeuvre.

  She suddenly noticed blood, dribbling from his lips. It made her heart begin to race again. She didn’t want to upset him. “I — I’m just going to get a cloth for your face sweetie. I love you.”

  The shadows wavered nauseatingly as Kate went back to the kitchen. Squeezing water from a towel at the sink she had to stop abruptly and grip the edge of the counter, overcome by the pain. But then she heard Jon vomiting again and she rushed back to him.

  He was out again — not moving an eyelid as she wiped his face. She examined the dark stain on the cloth close to the flame, her insides twisting in horror. Then she peered down at the floor and gasped at the pool of blood.

  “Oh Jon!” she shrieked, racing to the front of the house, tugging on her boots and her coat and charging out into the bitter cold.

  Chapter Two

  In the Upstairs Bedroom

  (January 5th)

  The wind ripped past Kate’s ears with such a force she could barely hear her own voice. But her banging on the neighbour’s door would surely get their attention. They had to be home — she had collided with their car in the driveway. She began to kick her boot into the door.

  “Where are you?!” she cried, shaking the handle and pushing down on the latch a third time. The sting of ice-pellets hit her face as she turned to the street, gazing into the pitch-black night. “Somebody help me! Isn’t anyone out there?!!!”

  She slid down the snow-covered steps and landed beyond the shelter of the veranda, her long hair lashing her face. Burrowing into the collar of her coat, she felt her way past the neighbour’s car and climbed up into their yard, where — keeping close to the bushes beneath the window — the house provided some shelter from the wind. But, she’d forgotten about the border around the garden.

  Her boots hit a small boulder and she tripped into the low-lying shrubs, the sharp, bare branches sticking up in spikes. She staggered back to her feet, rubbed the melting snow from her face and hurried on, toward the adjacent home.

  Past the brick wall on the far side of the window, she walked out into the wide, open gap between the houses, waving her arms in front of her, hoping to avoid a collision with one of the many mature pine trees. She descended an abrupt hill, wading through deep snowdrifts and then started the climb up the other side, gasping to catch her breath as the ground finally leveled.

  Reaching out, as she stumbled along blindly, she brushed a garage door and then, at last, the steps to the porch. “My husband’s sick,” she said faintly, hitting the door. But her body was succumbing, it was too weak to go on — pain radiated throughout her everywhere, and a terrifying feeling of helplessness was seeping into her.

  “Why aren’t you answering?” she sobbed, shaking the handle and pressing the latch, stunned when it opened. She staggered into the darkness and the wind sucked the door to a slamming shut behind her. She stood in the foyer where the muted sounds of the chaos outside punctuated her gasping breaths.

  “Is anyone there?” she panted, her body trembling and her legs so wobbly she could barely stand.

  “Hello?”

  She searched along the walls, her fingers sliding up at last to the light-switch, toggling it futilely. Lingering in the darkness until her breaths slowed a little and her heart pounded less harshly, she noticed, as her eyes adjusted, a vague glow at the far end of the house, down the long hallway.

  “Anyone there?” Her voice was a mere whisper.

  Her boots clicked over the wood floor as she started walking towards the back of the palacious home, following the light around the corner and through two rooms, to the kitchen, where a laptop was still glowing on a chef’s desk. But her gaze went immediately to the phone, beside it. She lifted it from its charger and with frozen fingers pressed the buttons.

  “Please God,” she bleated, dropping into a chair at the kitchen table. The ringing droned on and she collapsed into her arms across the table, eventually letting the phone slide from her grasp.

  “Answer me,” she muttered through chattering teeth. But while she shivered uncontrollably, her skin and muscles were being torched. She let her heavy coat fall to the floor and closed her eyes. “I know you need me Jon… just give me a minute,” she mumbled, determined not to pass out. But her head was so dizzy and the pain in every part of her body, excruciating.

  She needed an ambulance, or they were both going to die.

  With her head still on her arm she slid the phone close and remembering to start with a one, pressed a familiar number.

  “Please answer me, please…”

  The ringing began, and she feared it would go to voicemail, but there was a click, a string of laboured breaths, and then finally, “Hello?”

  Tears ran down her cheeks. She could barely speak. “Dad?” Her voice came out as a barely audible whisper.

  “Katie… is — is that you, dear?”

  Her mouth was too dry to speak.

  “I — I tried to call you, Kate.”

  “Dad — Jon’s unconscious!!!”

  There was a long pause. “Did you hear the news Kate?” he said in a dark tone.

  “No… I—I, there was a blackout. He needs an ambulance,” she slurred.

  “Sweetheart… ”

  “And. I’m sick too. Dad. Very sick…” She let go of the phone. Everything was going dark.

  Flat on her back, she blinked up at the ceiling. Although she wanted desperately to check out the horrifying sound, she would have to wait for her strength to return. Her body was like a dead weight. She drifted off again and it was impossible to determine how long.

  It was such an alarmin
g sound and she found herself sitting up on the floor beside a pool of vomit. She managed to pull her body up, stagger to the sink, and fill a glass with water. She pressed her lips to the rim, craving the cool liquid so desperately that she gulped it. Her heart was thumping far too fast.

  Her legs buckled and her knees smashed into the ceramic tiles. She crawled past the broken glass, through the water, over to the cupboard door. She leaned against it, hyperventilating, and glancing upward. There was something she had to check out on the upper floor.

  Eventually, she stood up again and waited for the buzzing in her ears and the faintness to diminish enough that she could walk without falling. The laptop was her only source of light. She took it with her and staggered from the kitchen to the hall, and then, to the stairs by the front door.

  Grasping the railing, she began to ascend — one step at a time — waiting until she could handle the next. At the top, she lowered herself down to sit on the landing, grateful for a place to rest — moving around had brought the throbbing, searing pain back. She collapsed against the railing, barely hanging on to consciousness, her perception growing more distorted.

  Then, she heard faint stirrings near the end of the hall — soft swishes against a rug. She swung the computer around like a wide flashlight. Staggering to her feet, she shuffled toward a window at the front of the house and then stood before it, swaying, ready to collapse. There was an overwhelming buzz in her ears.

  Her gaze went through the doorway of a bedroom. There was something on the floor in the far corner. She stumbled backwards, knocking the clanging, metal blinds and suddenly, it was as if she was at the bottom of the sea, viewing everything through a wavering current.

  She tripped forward across a floor that had tilted downward like a funhouse at a carnival, gravity dragging her down into the bedroom until she crumbled to her knees in front of the dreaded slice of reality on the floor. She had hoped it was only a doll, yet deep in her core she knew it was a child.