Children of the After: The Complete Series

by Jeremy Laszlo

  With unimaginable force, the door flung wide, ripping free from his grasp as he was flung bodily out from the vault, crashing into some unseen object beyond as light exploded before his eyes. Howling wind roared through the darkness as the metal door groaned on its hinges and smashed back into the outer wall of the vault over and over, before breaking free altogether and falling to the floor, its hinges having failed.

  Jack scrambled to his feet, dizzy from the blow to his head, and leaned into the wind whipping all about him, as the darkness was momentarily replaced by dazzling light. It was night, not day as they had presumed. With the familiar smell of rain in the air, an image of his surroundings was temporarily etched into his vision as the light vanished, only to be replaced by peals of thunder that shook everything around him. Gone. Their home was gone, and in its place a desolate nightmare remained.

  Reaching up to his head he felt the cut and warm blood near his temple and staggered back towards the vault, small arms and hands reaching out of the darkness to grasp at him and drag him within once more. It was a ruin. A wasteland.

  Collapsing within the open doorway of the vault, Jack looked up with defeat in his face, his shoulders sagging as another flash of light played across the horrified faces of both Sam and Will. They had the same glimpse of outside that he did. They knew it was gone. Though none of them knew the extent of the damage, they each had had hope destroyed and it showed plainly on their faces. Seeking more information would have to wait until morning, or at least until the storm abated. Jack leaned heavily against the wall next to the now open door.

  “I’ll get some bandages,” Sam half yelled over the howling storm outside before vanishing into the darkness.

  Will kneeled closely and looked at him with an odd stern expression on his face, seeming to be working out some inner turmoil before he spoke.

  “No alien monsters is good, but I don’t think I’m gonna get my candy,” he said matter of factly.

  Jack couldn’t help but smile in the light of the situation. Their shelter was no longer secure. Their home outside appeared destroyed. They had no food. Yet Will was concerned about candy he had hidden in the pantry months ago. Perhaps there was still some kid in him yet.

  It was only a couple of minutes before Sam returned with a small first aid kit in hand that Jack recognized from the wall of the meager bathroom within the security vault. Jack watched her carefully open the container as she selected a small pump-style spray bottle of disinfectant which she cautiously sprayed over his cut, before wiping away both blood and the spray with a piece of sterile gauze. Just like their mother had done when he skinned his knee as a child. Sam blew softly upon the wound to ease the burning from the antiseptic spray, before opening a package of adhesive butterfly strips which she used to pull the cut closed before covering the whole thing with gauze and medical tape.

  Not wanting to disrupt her work or distract her, Jack sat still in silence as she finished up, watching Will, who was watching them both in return. When Sam finished she sat back, looking at him and their little brother, before her look of concentration faded to once again be replaced by worry. Jack knew her expression was much the same as his own but now, more than ever, they needed a plan.

  * * * * *

  Sam felt his arms squeeze around her and Will tightly, and opened her eyes in time to see Jack press his lips to Will’s head. Just like Dad did. Her eyes began to water. He was telling them goodbye. She could not, no, would not believe that this would be the end, and as such she only watched, keeping her mouth shut firmly as he turned quickly to hide his own tears that threatened to escape him. She knew he was trying to be strong for them. He was trying to do what Dad would do, and she was proud of him for it.

  Listening as Jack punched in the code that would unlock the door, she gasped slightly as the lights went dark, the last of the battery reserve finally failing in an effort to release the locking mechanism. With a loud clank, she felt more than saw Jack shove the door open as a wall of air blasted her in the face causing her to close her eyes. When they opened again, Jack was gone.

  Clinging to Will’s hand she dragged him to the side of the doorway, as again and again the great metal door slammed into the wall of the shelter with no sign of Jack in the darkness beyond. Cold wind howled as a flash of blinding light illuminated the portal through the wall, and she saw Jack fighting to stand as blood trickled down from his head. Beyond him, nothing but an ominous sky filled with angry clouds and lancing rain, and then it was all gone.

  Flinging herself into the doorway, releasing Will’s hand to grasp at both sides of the door frame, she screamed Jack’s name into the darkness, her voice becoming lost in a thunderous boom that made her knees quiver. But she didn’t give up.

  Seeking with her eyes in the darkness she noted a variance in the blackness, like a shadow moving among the dark abyss, and reached out to grab its advancing form. Grasping at Jack’s track sweatshirt, she narrowly stumbled backwards over Will, who also sought to drag their brother in out of harm’s way. Vaguely she noticed that the LEDs had illuminated once more, though scarcely so.

  Once inside, Jack crumpled to the floor, whether in pain or defeat, she couldn’t be sure, but noting the ragged cut on the side of his head, Sam acted without hesitation. Stating her intentions, she spun and carefully picked her way back through the dark and now deafeningly loud vault into the adjoining chamber. Once through the narrow doorway, she traced her fingers along the steel wall until she found what she sought. Pulling the small metal box from its place upon the wall, Sam returned through the wind and relative darkness to both her brothers’ sides, and began tending to Jack’s wound. She remembered he was always a big baby when it came to the burn of antiseptic spray and blew on it, just as Mom used to, before bandaging him up. When her task was finished they shared a look, and she knew they needed to talk. Nothing was as expected.

  “Can we get this closed somehow?” Sam shouted above the howling wind outside.

  Without a word Jack nodded and made to rise. Not knowing what he intended, Sam simply watched as Jack crossed the narrow room and began removing the pins that secured one of the unused bunks to the wall. A bed meant for their mom or dad. A mom or dad that it was now quite obvious wouldn’t be coming for them.

  Noting his intentions she rushed to help him, and together they unfastened the frame and removed it and the mattress from the wall. Dragging the bunk across the steel floor, Sam watched as Will picked up the first aid kit and moved out of the way for them. Struggling against the wind surging through the door, they hefted their makeshift barricade into place. Within minutes the mattress was covering the open doorway, and the frame was wedged into place, temporarily securing the mattress. The storm outside was little more than a muffled growl.

  Sighing loudly, Sam turned to face her older brother but her gaze fell upon Will instead, and her heart broke a little at the expression on his face. Freezing mid stride, her eyes locked with Will’s and for a moment it felt like the world paused around them as everything slowed into infinity. Etched there on her younger brother’s features was a mix of pain, disappointment, fear, and horror. None of them had known what to expect, and all of them had come to their own conclusions as to what would lie outside their door. Even so, neither Sam nor Jack had considered Will’s reaction to the devastated home outside. Prior to the security vault, their home had been the center of Will’s world.

  Home was where he felt safe and by extension why he felt safe in the vault, but now that was gone. Home was not just walls, but was Mom and Dad too, and now all three were taken from him. His world, as he knew it, was broken, and Sam could see clearly through the expression on his face the realization of his childlike perception of a world in turmoil. He was in a familiar place, yet lost. He was with those who loved him, but alone. Poor Will had just seen beyond the meager horrors of his imagination to the real horrors of the world, and was destroyed because of it. Sam did the only thing she could think of.

  Like
their mother would have done if she were there, she rushed to his side and scooped his small body up off the floor and into her arms, coddling him close to her chest and held him tight. That act alone triggered something within him, and his stalwart painful expression broke like the sobs that exploded from him as tears began to run unchecked from his eyes down Sam’s neck and chest. She knew in that instant that nothing would ever be the same with him. With any of them, for that matter. Mom and Dad weren’t coming back, and it was up to her to do what was right for Will and teach him right from wrong. It was up to her to comfort him, and the realizations brought tears to her own eyes as she herself was once again wrapped within protecting arms as Jack came to join them. They only had each other.

  * * * * *

  Will watched as Jack opened the big door and was nearly toppled off his feet as wind gusted through the door. The only thing that kept him on his feet was the fact he was holding Sam’s hand. Leaning into the wind he blinked his eyes, realizing that Jack was already out there somewhere. Lightning flashed and he caught a glimpse of his brother not far outside the door, but Sam blocked most of the view as her grip grew immediately more firm and stance more rigid.

  Again the darkness came as thunder shook the vault. Sam ushered him to the edge of the doorway hurriedly and he realized that she had screamed during the thunder, though Will hardly heard it. Instead, he focused on the image ingrained in his head, scorched there momentarily by a single flash of lightning somewhere in the distance. He had expected the house to look the same outside the vault as it had when they came in. Perhaps dusty, but the same. Outside the door would be the bookcase that hid the entrance to the vault and beyond that would be the living room with the grey leather furniture Mom liked so much. Antique hardwood floors that were great for sliding in his slippers would turn to tile at the kitchen, and spanning the length of both rooms would be a wall of giant windows where Will could look out over the city. Up here he felt like a super hero. At least he used to.

  Instead of the luxury custom apartment their dad had designed, there was a great black void into nothingness. Just beyond where Jack sprawled against what appeared to be the overturned book case, was a great hole where once had been the living room. Had Jack ventured just a few steps further, he would have fallen into its depths. The wall of windows appeared to be missing and everything was dark and dirty. Then it was gone. The image fading from his vision.

  Empty blackness returned and with it Jack came into the vault again, but he was bleeding. Something had got him out there in the dark. Looking to the door, Will watched for Jack’s attacker and was forced to witness the destruction to their home again and again as lightning flashed somewhere in the beyond. Nothing was as he remembered it. No longer were their pictures on the wall. No longer was there a home at all. It was gone. All of it.

  Will didn’t know whether to be hurt or angry as the doorway was sealed closed once more with a mattress and metal bed frame, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. If it were aliens, monsters, or anything else wasn’t important now. Will knew they weren’t safe. Mom and Dad weren’t here to take care of them. The police weren’t coming like they said they would in an emergency at school when Officer David visited his class. No one was left. Nothing was left. He couldn’t breathe.

  Chapter Three

  It had taken quite some time to get Will calmed down, and hours further until the storm quieted outside. Even then Jack hesitated more than an hour before working up the courage to open the doorway again. But the case remained the same. They couldn’t stay in the vault. Especially now that Will didn’t feel secure and the door was torn off. There was no helping it. They needed to find supplies and possibly a better suited place to stay. He hadn’t expected the impact on Will of seeing their home destroyed. In all honesty he hadn’t even considered that their home would be destroyed.

  With a dull ringing in one ear and a mild headache, Jack rose from his bunk to see a small sliver of light shining through the doorway beneath the mattress. It was finally morning outside. Rising, he noted Sam’s approach and turned to face her. Will had exhausted himself from crying earlier and had fallen asleep more than an hour before. As such, Jack barely whispered to his sister as she came nearer.

  “You should really think about brushing your hair once in a while. I mean really? What will all the boys think at school?” he teased, trying to relieve the tension.

  “Ha ha, dork,” she said, striking a pose with her best duck face. “I still got it.”

  Smiling at one another, they each spent a moment in self-reflection thinking of the days when school had seemed a nuisance. Jack wished now that he could go and hang out with his friends, or even take an algebra exam. Instead, however, he focused again on his little sister and began whispering anew.

  “I think I should look around before Will wakes back up, just in case.”

  “Ok, I’ll stay near the door, but I’m not going far. I don’t want Will to wake up and both of us be gone. If he panics and has an attack, there isn’t anything we can do for him. We got lucky earlier.”

  “I know, Sam. You did really good with him. He needs you.”

  “He needs you too, so be careful out there. OK?”

  “I will,” Jack replied, before turning back towards the makeshift door.

  Stepping through the hole in the wall, where once stood the only door to their steel home, Jack found himself in a world that was both new and vaguely familiar. Angles and corners were recognizable, but to every surface mold and mildew clung, entwined with rust stains and other filth. Broken glass covered nearly every inch of the floor, and girder beams and piping jutted down from the ceiling and out of the walls where great holes and cracks devastated the structure. Where before had been their kitchen, a great hole had collapsed, taking not only the kitchen, but also half of the living room with it when it fell away. That whole corner of their apartment was obliterated, and missing altogether, Jack was able to look out through the gaping hole in the building. What he saw beyond was even more appalling.

  From the thirtieth story of their building, they used to have a nice view of the Chicago skyline, but such was not the case any longer. Out from the great hole in the wall, Jack looked upon a twisted shadow of the city he remembered. Where once stood great buildings of gleaming steel and glass, now remained little more than twisted and gnarled steel skeletons, some leaning into their neighbors for support. Below them, where once communities and neighborhoods had sprawled endlessly like an ocean of rooftops, was a blackened wasteland of burnt ash and charred husks. From his vantage the entire city had been obliterated, and nothing remained but the tortured carcass of a once living and breathing metropolis. The whole scene spoke of death and desolation. There was literally nothing left. At least, not that he could see.

  Looking out, he located the ruins of the school he had attended, the school where most of his classmates would have been when he was locked in the vault with his siblings. Now nothing remained of the building but blackened piles of bricks.

  Swallowing the lump in his throat, he turned and traced along the side of the wall shared with the vault, wanting to see something different. Anything. Rounding the corner at the end he was surprised to find the hall to their bedrooms more or less intact. There was a wide crack up through the drywall on each side of the hall, and a girder supporting the floor above had collapsed near the end of the hall where their parents’ bedroom was, but otherwise it was fairly clear of debris. Cautiously, he entered the hall.

  Carefully testing each step, he worked down the passageway to the first room. Opening the door he found the bathroom almost untouched from the damage. There were two cracked tiles in the shower and the mirror above the sink was cracked as well, but otherwise only a layer of dust showed proof of months of neglect. Smiling to himself he pulled a drawer open upon the vanity and plucked from it a hairbrush for Sam. Though he wanted nothing more in that moment than to brush his teeth, even without water, he did not want to worry Sam by keepin
g her waiting.

  Stepping cautiously back out into the hall he approached Sam’s door next. Here the crack in the wall was its widest, and trying the door he found it jammed. Taking a risk, he pressed his back against the wall opposite the door and gave it one solid kick. The door exploded inwards, coming dislodged in its frame to swing wide and collide with the wall within. Again, Jack was surprised. Inside, not only was Sam’s room almost flawless, but her posters still clung to the walls everywhere, and her most prized possession, her laptop, still sat open in the center of her bed as if she had just left the room. The whole thing was surreal.

  Inspecting the room from the hall, he watched as the curtains blew, proving that the glass there was broken as well, before he moved on to the next room. Trying his own bedroom door he found it easy to open and swung the door wide. Here the surprising lack of damage ended, as a large section of his bedroom wall was missing where the window had once been. From the hall he could see the mangled fire escape outside, and an idea occurred to him. Crossing the room cautiously, he paused each time the broken glass crunched beneath his shoes, afraid the sound might be the floor giving way beneath him. Reaching the damaged wall, he leaned out to inspect the damage. Where before had been a row of six solar panels that powered the vault, now only three and a half remained. Even those remaining, however, were badly cracked and damaged. Pieces of glass and a foil-like substance hung here and there from their shattered surfaces, and several wires hung out into the day air, severed from whatever connections no longer existed. Jack could not believe the vault’s power had lasted this long with such extensive damage, but was thankful it had. It looked like the panels were one stiff wind away from crumbling altogether.

  Leaving the ruined wall behind he turned back the way he had come, and within seconds he was moving along to the next room. Pushing this door open, he admired the large superhero cutouts that adorned the walls and the brightly colored paint. Smiling in remembrance, Jack recalled the day he painted the room with Mom before Will had been born. She had been so excited, and he had been a proud expecting brother to help. How his role had changed from that time when he was nine until now was amazing. To think that it had been more than seven years already was almost unbelievable.