by S L Dearing
FADE OUT.
FADE IN:
“SHHH… Get up; we've got company…”
“Hunh? You mean, they know we're here!”
“Not yet, none of them have made it down to look in the culvert, but get ready to run.”
“Oh my God. What are we gonna do?”
“Just calm down. We'll fight, if we have to.”
“Jack, you can't share the crowbar! What am I gonna use?”
“Quiet! They may miss us…”
FADE OUT.
FADE IN:
“THAT was close, last night, Jack; I was scared to death, man!”
“We're not in the clear, yet. I'm pretty sure they're on our trail. How much further to your sister's place?”
“Oh, my God… We can probably make it early tomorrow at this pace—if I don't give out before then!”
“Will she be watching for you? We may be running for our lives by that time…”
“Of course she'll be watching! They're probably all squinting through binoculars toward the road right now!”
“C'mon then, step it up; let's keep moving!”
FADE OUT.
FADE IN:
“I ain't gonna make it, Jack; I'm exhausted…”
“Get up, Rex! You said we're almost there. Your sister isn't gonna let me in their compound without you, and I didn't come all this way for nothing! The walkers aren't far behind us; you wanna go out that way?”
“No…mmph… Okay…I'm up. Let's go…”
“You lead. You know where it is.”
“I'll try… Follow me…”
FADE OUT.
FADE IN:
“THERE it is, Jack! See it? See that flag? That means they're okay! We made it!”
“Not if we don't run—look!”
“Oh, my God! There's a thousand of them!”
“GOOOOO!”
FADE OUT.
FADE IN:
“THEY’VE seen us, Jack! They're cranking the gate open—UMMPH! Wha—”
“NOWWWWW!”
“Jack! What's going—OOOHHH! Jack, DON'T! You broke my leg! What are you doing? Use the crowbar on them—the walkers are coming!”
“Swarm the compound, my friends! Our new base of operations!”
“NOOOOOOO! My sister!”
“Will be thoroughly raped, then eaten. Thank you for leading us to this excellent fortification, Rex.”
“What's happening! You're one of the walkers?”
“You three! Hold up! Restrain this one; I don't want to damage him any more until I'm ready.”
“She's screaming, Jack! Oh, God, PLEASE don't do this!”
“I'm afraid she—and her whole household, by the way—will be screaming for some time to come. But to answer your question, no, I am not a walker—neither are these who travel with me. It was Walkers who attacked you the day we met. I even thought you were one, at first. You see, we kill Walkers.... They are, after all, a rival herd.... It is our herd that goes by the name of Zombies! You, of all people, should just love it—Humor in the face of Horror!”
“How can you do this?”
“The old world is gone. This is simply a new way of thinking. All I had to do was speak negatively about such concepts as rape and cannibalism, and you concluded that I was like you—What did you call yourself? Oh, yes, the good guy.... Well, I happen to think differently than you, my friend. You never even thought to ask me what I had been using for food.... Why should I not rape your sister's dead body if I desire to do so? Why should I not eat her flesh? And her husband's? And her children's? Why should I not rape and eat you, Rex?”
“BECAUSE IT'S WRONG!”
“I, and my companions, happen to disagree.”
“Everything you told me was a lie…”
“Not at all, Rex! The very best deception always contains key elements of truth. For instance, all of us—all herds, I mean—really do…very much…enjoy the screaming…”
“OHHH! PLEASE! NOOOOOO! AAAIIIIIIEEEEE!”
FADE TO BLACK…
ARTIFICIAL LIFE: THE END OF HUMANITY
KATE CHARLES
Dedicated to:
All those who have lost their own battle...
Author Bio:
Kate Charles lives in Iowa where she spends her time writing and designing.
Artificial Life: The End of Humanity
I am the reason the world ended. I am the reason that there is no human life left on planet Earth. So where am I writing this from? Space, of course. I live in space. Always have in a way, ever since I found out about it. So when my eyesight went and thus crushing my dream of being an astronaut, I turned to astro and nuclear physics. I have an IQ higher than any other that has ever existed. I was what you would call a golden child. I created devices that were once considered grand designs of science fiction but I made them a reality. I created a new life…a new world…I created you…
Maybe I should start on the day the world ended.
I just looked at him, the man that was my partner, my lover, my world. We had done this. We had stopped the world. We created chaos, we created destruction, we created this new world…”
“Christian, we did this…” I wanted to die, but instead, because of a shelter we had created, we lived.
“No, we did not.”
“Yes, we did! We created the weapon! We created something that would bring World War Five to a halt and we did, by destroying the world.”
“We did not make the call to use our anti-electromagnetic bomb.”
“I pushed the bloody button! We should have never created it…”
“Kat, if we hadn’t, someone else would have.”
“But look at the cost. That prize, that money, it wasn’t worth the end of the world.”
“We will just have to make the most of it, Kat.” Christian took the backpack we had and dumped it on the ground.
“Well, what do we have to live on?”
“We have a pack of matches, four bottles of water, food that we can stretch for three days and your cross bow.”
“Perfect. Just bloody perfect!”
“You are a great hunter; we will do fine.”
“We used an electromagnetic pulse and stopped the world from spinning for .00000037 seconds, and it killed the world. I am surprised our bunker kept us safe. The Earth started spinning again on its own but look at the destruction that we caused.”
“I am sure that there are other survivors.”
“We shall see…” I looked out at the destruction. I did this. I ended the world.
We wandered for days; we hunted and gathered. Thankfully there seemed to be some type of life that survived; but not a single human…except Christian and me. I began to plot, to think. This world was gone. Dead…it would never be able to sustain human life again. So it was time to jump start evolution.
For weeks I just plotted. I was going quite mad. Then Christian got sick. “What the hell did you eat?” I was upset; we had to test things before we ate them. I grabbed one of the bottles of water; we had been living off rain water and river water that we had been boiling.
“Just some berries. We ate them before.”
“Where were they?”
“Over on that bush…” He weakly pointed at a bush about ten feet away.
“Drink this. I will be back.” I went over to the bush in question and gasped in horror. It was the bloody moonseed. I didn’t even get to turn back before I heard him gasp as he started to be affected by the paralysis. I knew that I couldn’t save him. I would need to pump his stomach, as well as get him an antidote, but I didn’t have the ingredients needed. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try.
I gathered some of the berries, hoping to make an antidote using their poison. I was also going to need the stomach of a bird. I grabbed my crossbow and a few roughly made arrows. I didn’t know where I was going to find a bird. I hadn’t seen once since I set off the bomb that destroyed this world. I searched throughout the night, but I failed
. I found some other herbs and tried to mix them.
I made him vomit many times, but I was failing. He was having seizures at a steady pace. I knew he was going to die. Then I thought of something. He had stem cells… all I would need to do is try to harvest a few of my eggs, and maybe, just maybe, I could create a better race of humans.
I went back to an abandoned hospital we found the day before, throwing his body in the freezer, with some snow. Thankfully it was winter and there was snow on the ground, or I would have failed in preserving his body. I was able to do a lot of things within the old hospital walls. But to survive, I needed to hunt and gather.
One particularly bad day I had just tried again to harvest an egg, and though I got the egg I needed, I ended up hurting myself quite badly. I would live, but it was painful. I ran across an old community. Inside the torn down houses I found bodies. Not too shocking; I had come across a lot in my travels. However these were oddly preserved. They would have died when the bomb stopped the Earth, but they looked like they had just passed away.
I took out some needles and started to extract some cells from their spines; might as well have a large genetic make-up. I took a quick look at the cells in the test tube; they appeared to be useful. I wondered how they were preserved. I tried to find the answer but whatever preserved them was long gone. I made a note to come back, marking it on the map I had created. If they were still preserved when I perfected my method, I would come back.
I came across an old fairground. I use to love the fair. The Tilt-a-Whirl was my favorite ride. I wished there was electricity. I used to sit on one for hours, just thinking of space, of science, of science fiction that I wanted to bring to life. I sighed and was walking when I saw it. Pieces of a space shuttle! Maybe there were people. I searched the grounds. I found one. He looked at me, tears in his eyes as he held on to the woman. “She dead?”
“She just died. She was hurt upon our re-entry. Nothing worked. I crashed. I killed them all.” I saw about ten other bodies.
“Were they on the shuttle?”
“No, just me, her, and Jackson.”
“Jackson dead?”
“No, he went hunting. But that was two days ago.”
“Well, we should go. Grab your supplies.”
“No, we can’t leave her.”
“She is dead.” Then I had a thought. “How fresh?”
“Fresh?”
“Yes, when did she die?”
“About a minute ago.”
“Great!” I pulled out my bag; at this point the lack of human contact has caused me to be quite mad. In my normal state I never would have said great.
“What do you mean bloody great? One of my people died and you are happy?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said with a sigh. “I am trying to reanimate the humans, make them better, and make them stronger. You will all make great test subjects. I need eggs and she is a female. She might have some mature eggs.”
“What?!”
“Look, in theory I may be able to create a new race of humans and make up for the death I have caused.”
“You lost me, lady.”
“I did this.” I said waving my hand.
“You did what?”
“I killed the Earth.”
“How are you going to take care of the new life if the Earth is dead, lady?”
“My name is Katherine. Not lady.”
“Well, answer the question, crazy lady.”
I was getting upset. “Look, your space ship is salvageable. I know we sent all the equipment to create an atmosphere up to space, up to Mars. We can rebuild there.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I created it all.”
“You are…”
I cut him off. “Yes, I am that Katherine. Now pick up the body and come on. I have shelter not too far from here and we can see if we can find that friend of yours.” But we didn’t get a chance to move before his friend came charging out of the woods towards us. Crazy… He must have gotten into something.
He charged at us with whatever piece of metal he pulled off of the shuttle. Well, pity, I thought as I aimed my crossbow and took the shot. The arrow went straight into his eye, stopping him dead in his tracks as he fell to the grown with his final breath. “Well, don’t just stand there gawking at me.” I turned to the living one. “Grab the body. I need to see what caused him to go crazy.”
I walked off, leaving the other to follow or not. To be honest I didn’t care. I was only one item short from creating my first of, hopefully, many genetically advanced humans.
“Look, lady, this is insane.” I heard from behind me.
“What is to say that this is insane or sane? We are the only humans on this planet. What is your name?”
“What does it matter? We are going to die.”
“No…” I stopped to think; he would have a decent brain. “Well, maybe. But we have to fight if we want to live.”
We got to my location and I had the new companion of mine put the bodies in the freezer, where I had been keeping Christian buried in snow. “Just put them in the freezer.”
“Whatever, lady.”
For days I watched the captain of the shuttle leave and come back late at night. I knew he was working on the shuttle. Mars was our only choice. The air was becoming thicker and it was harder to breathe. The trees were now dying. Most of the animals had died. And the rivers had started to dry up.
On our final day on Earth, the captain came up to me. “Well?”
“My embryos are ready for the artificial wombs. I will put them in once we land on Mars. Are we ready?”
“Yes. We have enough fuel to get there, but never come back.”
“Great.” The captain turned from me and I bashed him upside the head. “I am sorry, guy, but Christian cannot be dead.” I worked quickly as I strapped him to the table. I knew the lightning storm would hit that day. I had seen the static in the air. I used my last bit of power to drag Christian to the table.
My concept was similar to the one in the book Frankenstein, but different. I was going to fill the captain’s body with stem cells from Christian and then use the electricity to transfer his brain waves. The life and soul of a person are in the brain waves. I prayed that it worked. The life in my womb deserved his father.
I flipped the switch and waited for the lightning. I did not have to wait long. The static storm from the dying Earth hit the metal rods I had put out. I stood by and watched as the bolts flowed through both bodies, transferring life to the other. I waited and waited. I waited, biting my nails, praying to a God I had long forgotten about, a God that I didn’t believe existed. But I prayed nonetheless. Soon the storm passed and I waited for some sign that it worked.
The captain’s body moved. It twitched a few times. Then it was still in death. Christian’s moved. It twitched, and then sat up as if jolted, and gasped. I waited. I couldn’t move. I brought back the dead. I did it. I played God and won.
Christian’s body turned to me. “God, lady, what did you do?”
“I transferred your mind into Christian’s body. I loved Christian too much. His body was all I have left. My theory was that I could have his body and your mind. I could have that last bit of him forever.”
“I thought you were insane, but this takes the cake, lady.”
“I told you my name is Katherine.”
“And mine is Richard, not Christian. Give me back my body.”
“Can’t, mental transference is a one way trip.”
“You had no right to do this, lady!”
“I have all the right in the world. I am the one with the knowledge and the power. Thus it gave me the right.”
“You are not GOD!”
“I am a God.”
“You are psycho, lady.”
“That is your opinion. Now, you will fly the ship to Mars. Or die.”
“Die?”
“Well, if you do not want to come…that will be your choice.
But the planet is dying.”
“I thought the effects of your bomb were done.”
“Guess not. The planet has been dying for weeks. Haven’t you noticed the lack of animals? The fact that it is getting harder and harder to breathe? The planet’s core has decided to stop again. The planet will be completely dead in a month’s time.”
“Well, that is bloody fantastic.”
“Well, Richard,” I said his name with emphasis, though he looked like my Christian. “Are you going to fly the ship?”
“I guess I have no choice. We will go our separate ways on Mars. Well, as much as we can. You had no right to do this to me, Kat…”
“You are changing, absorbing the memories in Christian’s cells,” I said with a smile.
“No. I am me.”
“You are you, you always will be. You will just feel, see, and experience everything that Christian had in his short life. You will adopt his little habits, like calling me Kat, though I hated it.”
“Well if you hate it, it can’t be so bad.”
I got up and grabbed my frozen embryos. “Whatever. Be prepared to fly to Mars.”
“I am ready.” Richard jumped down from the slab; he took one last look at what was his body. “I won’t forgive you.”
“I don’t expect you to. At least my child shall know what his father looked like.”
“You are expecting?”
“I have been since the bomb went off. There is not much else to do when you are stuck in a bunker for three days. It has been four months. I am almost five months along.”
“You don’t show it.”
“So, I don’t show. Some women do not.” I walked out of our shelter and towards the ship.
Richard followed. “You shouldn’t fly; the pressure…”
“A risk I have thought about. It is a risk I must take.”
“Whatever, your child.”
“Get your ass in the ship.”
“Fine.” We climbed into the ship and strapped ourselves into the seats. “How do we take off?”
“Hold on.” I had rigged the launch pad to help blast us off.
“What…” Richard never got to finish his sentence as the blasts threw the ship upward.