by Amy Cross
No answer.
The room feels so still and quiet, like a grave.
I want to turn and run, to get as far from here as possible, but I know I have to stay. I have to at least check to see if he's alive, for my own sake. Stepping into the room and walking around the puddle of blood, I look down at his face. He's so pale, probably due to all the blood he's lost, and his eyes are open, staring down at the floor. One of his arms is reaching out beyond the puddle, the hand open as if he was reaching for something when he died.
I walk around and kneel next to the hand, and finally I reach down and take it in mine. His skin's so cold, it's hard to believe it's real; it feels more like I'm holding the hand of some kind of waxwork. Sitting in stunned silence, feeling as if there's some kind of damn building up in my chest, preventing me from crying, I feel as if the whole world has stopped for a moment.
Suddenly I feel something. The slightest pressure from his hand, as if he's squeezing my fingers to let me know he's alive. I lean closer, and finally I notice a flicker in his eyes.
"Henry?" I say, shifting toward him, my knees soaking in the puddle of blood. "Henry, can you hear me?"
His eyes open for a moment, just slightly.
"Henry," I continue, "it's going to be okay, I..." I stare at him, and I realize it's not going to be okay at all. Reaching over, I put a finger against his neck to check his pulse. There's a very faint beating sensation, but it's clear that he's only got a few minutes to live. Not knowing what else to do, I lean down and kiss his cold forehead. "I love you," I say, squeezing his hand tight.
We sit like this for several minutes, and finally I force myself to check his pulse again. This time, there's nothing. I reach down and close his eyes. All I can hope now is that somehow, by some kind of miracle, he was aware of me in those final moments.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper, kissing his forehead again. "I should have stayed. I should have found a way to..." My voice trails off, as I think back to all the chances I had to save him. Finally, tears start rolling down my cheeks as the full force of the moment hits me. My chest feels so tight and heavy, as if my whole body is going to burst, and I spend several minutes just sitting and sobbing, with my face against my brother's head.
Eventually, I look up and it hits me: I'm alone. I'm completely alone in New York, barring any sudden encounters with strangers. My family is gone, my friends are gone, and Mallory's group could be anywhere by now. Sitting back, with my knees soaked in Henry's blood, I try to work out what to do but, instead, my mind goes completely blank. It's as if I'm stranded and unable to move, and everything around me has stopped.
I have to get out of here.
I've never been so clear about anything in my life: I have to get out of New York. I have to go after Mallory, I have to leave this place behind, I have to -
Suddenly there's a huge boom in the distance, and the entire building starts to shake. Plaster comes crashing down from the ceiling, but the boom ends and the building comes to a rest. My heart's racing. I don't know what that was, but it seemed like it was very, very far away and very, very big.
Chapter Eight
Oklahoma
As the truck races along the dusty, deserted road, there's a sudden boom in the distance. Everything starts to shake: the horizon, the road, everything. I struggle for a moment to bring the truck under control, and finally the back-end flicks out, sending us skidding sideways to a halt as the shaking stops.
"What the hell was that?" I say out loud, glancing back at Joe.
No answer. He's barely conscious.
"Joe?"
I pause. I know I should go and check on him, but... It still might not be safe. I'll wait a little longer.
"Hey there," says a voice nearby.
Turning, I see a guy standing next to the truck. He's pretty weird-looking, and kind of scruffy. Although he doesn't look sick, I immediately tense up, fearing the worst.
"Where'd you come from?" I ask, reaching down to make sure the door's locked.
"I'm just making my way somewhere new," he says with a smile.
I glance over my shoulder, in case there's anyone else around. I swear I didn't spot this guy, not until the truck stopped.
"Who's the guy in the back?" the man asks. "Is seems hurt."
"I'm taking him to get help," I say.
"Then I shouldn't hold you back any longer," the man says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a large white feather. "This is for you."
I stare at him. The guy might not be sick, but I'm starting to think he's a bit strange in the head.
"Don't you want it?" he asks, frowning.
"Just leave it on the truck," I say cautiously.
Smiling, the guy places the white feather in the back of the truck, next to Joe.
"I'm not giving you a ride," I stammer. "There's no way -"
"I don't want a ride," he says, stepping back. "I'd rather walk." He pauses for a moment. " Shouldn't you get going? Your brother needs help."
Feeling kind of bad for leaving the guy by the side of the road, I put the truck back in gear and get us going again. I have no idea what caused that boom and the shaking, but right now I really don't want to stick around and find out. I glance in the rear-view mirror, but the guy already seems to have disappeared. Whoever he was, I don't need to get distracted right now. I just need to focus on the road ahead, and pray that there's a miracle around the next corner.
Epilogue
Two weeks ago
"You want another one?"
Looking up from his empty glass, Joseph finds himself face to face with the bartender.
"Uh... Yeah, sure," he replies. "Same again, or something similar. Whatever."
Seemingly unimpressed, the bartender grabs the glass and heads over to fill it with another whiskey.
Looking at his watch, Joseph does a few mental calculations and realizes that it's almost time. He's waited so long, and now the moment is about to arrive. It might be in a second, or a minute, or even an hour, but it's coming. It's coming today. The moment when all his plans come to fruition and the world finally learns what's coming; the moment when everyone dies.
"You want me to add that to your tab?" the bartender asks, bringing the drink back over.
"Yes, please," Joseph says, smiling. "Add it to my tab."
"Tab's getting pretty long," the barman grunts.
Joseph reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of notes, which he places in front of the barman with a satisfied smirk. "Take whatever I owe you. Add a tip, whatever you think's fair to compensate you for your extraordinary service."
Raising his eyebrows, the barman reaches out to take some cash, before pausing to clear his throat.
"Nasty cough you've got there," Joseph says. "Had it long?"
"Just came today," the barman replies, counting out his money. "Knowing my luck, I'm coming down with something. Don't worry, though. I'm washin' my hands plenty. You won't get nothing from me."
"I'm not worried," Joseph says, grinning as the barman heads over to the register.
Picking up his glass, Joseph pauses for a moment before taking a gulp of whiskey. He watches as the barman goes to grab some empty glasses from the other side of the room. Such a bland, dull little scene, and one that Joseph wouldn't normally notice; today, however, even the tiniest and most mundane of activities seems to carry a little extra poignancy, since everything is soon going to end. This barman, for example, will probably soon clean his last table, and serve his last drink.
"I'm closing in ten," the barman calls back to him.
"That's fine," Joseph says, finishing his drink and getting up from the stool. "I was thinking of heading home, anyway." He grabs the rest of his money and heads over to the door, pausing for a moment to glance back and watch as the barman suffers a brief coughing fit. "Get well soon," he says quietly, unable to stop smiling as he heads out into the cold night air.
COMING IN NOVEMBER 2013
Mass Extinction Event:
The Complete Second Series (Days 9 to 16)
Setting out from New York, Elizabeth is picked up from the side of the road by a strange couple who soon turn out to have certain unusual expectations. By the time they reach the remote rural home of a man named Toad, Elizabeth and her new friends have started to realize that hideous creatures are roaming the countryside. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Thomas tries desperately to save his brother's life, with shocking and tragic consequences.
Bonus Book:
The Grid
Note: The Grid was released in 2012 and is not intended to be set in the same story as Mass Extinction Event.
Prologue 1
Dr. Felix Ellinger of the United States Space Monitoring Service ran as fast as he could down the steps, hurtling along the next corridor and finally coming to a stop in the command room. Out of breath and almost collapsing, he immediately attracted the attention of the half dozen military officers gathered around the briefing table.
“Is there a problem, Dr. Ellinger?” asked General Kincaid severely, looking up from the laptop that he was trying (with no success so far) to connect to the base's Wi-Fi network.
Ellinger tried to speak, but he was breathless. He'd run at full speed all the way from the observation room down here to the command room, and his lungs were about to burst.
“Im...” he spluttered, “Im... Im...”
“Im?” Kincaid asked, a nervous smile crossing his lips. “Do we have a problem or not, Doctor?”
Ellinger nodded. “Impact in fifty seconds, sir,” he finally managed to blurt out.
“Impact?” Kincaid asked. “Impact of what?”
Ellinger looked up, knowing what was about to hit: invisible, unstoppable, devastating.
Prologue 2
The city shakes again. Looking up at the sky, I see plumes of thick black smoke billowing behind nearby buildings. Just as I'd expected, the attacks today are stronger and more focused; they're determined to take New York by whatever means necessary, and they're more than willing to inflict significant destruction in the process.
Someone screams nearby. A woman. I look around, but at first I can't see her. Finally, she runs into view, and I duck back down behind a trash-can. As I watch, the woman is pursued by three men – if you can call them that – who chase her across the deserted street and finally haul her down to the ground in front of what used to be a high-end fashion boutique.
Turning and scurrying away, I ignore the woman's cries for help and concentrate on making sure that I'm not noticed. I've found from bitter experience that there's no point interfering when anarchists are on the loose. At times like these, every second is a battle for survival, every move is a potentially fatal mistake.
Besides, they won't kill the woman. That's not what they do with their victims...
“Stop!” shouts a man, jumping out in front of me. He has an ax in one hand.
“Get out of the way,” I say. “There are anarchists back there”.
“I know,” says the man, raising the ax, ready to strike at me. “And we don't want you leading them up here”.
“I'm not leading them anywhere,” I say. “I'm just trying to get away. They didn't even notice me. Now will you fucking let me past?”
He shakes his head. “Back the way you came,” he says nervously.
“Not a chance,” I say. “I'm not gonna cause any trouble, just let me past”.
The man tries to stare me down. “No. Fucking. Way”.
I look into his eyes and see real fear, real determination. But I need to get past him. I need to get moving so I can find somewhere safe. Safer than this, anyway.
“I'm just going to walk past you,” I say calmly, maintaining eye contact. “And you're going to let me, okay?”
The man shakes his head, adjusting his grip on the ax
“You're not going to hurt me,” I say. “We're in this together. We're the same, you and me, yeah? We're the same. And I'm not gonna cause you any trouble, so you're gonna just let me get past”. I raise my hands. “Okay?”
I step forward, but the man instantly raises his ax and swings it at my head. I feel it slice against my neck and I fall backwards, banging my head against the wall before I hit the ground. I stare up at the guy, and I try to feel the wound on my neck to see how badly hurt I am. But then I notice something on the ground next to me: a headless body. Jesus Christ, this guy has killed someone else before he met me. He's...
I stare at the body.
Blood is spurting from its neck, its hand is twitching, and it's wearing my clothes. I blink a couple of times. As the ax-man starts to run away down the street, I keep staring at the headless body next to me. I try to scream, but I find I can't move my mouth. All I can do is blink, and even that is... becoming... harder... to...
Chapter One
Unable to locate server.
Below this text, a gray button: Try again.
The problem is, I've been hitting the 'Try again' button constantly for about ten minutes, but nothing ever happens. Fucking internet. Every site I try just returns an error message like this, as if the whole internet has just vanished. My parents have always been too cheap to pay for a decent connection, so we get down-times every other day, sometimes for hours on end. I sigh and stare at the screen. I should just go and do something else for a few minutes, but then what if the internet comes back on and I miss it?
I grab my phone and flick it open, but the screen is dead. Damn it, I must have forgotten to charge it. I sigh and look up at the computer screen, just in time to see the image blink off. The screen goes totally black and I sit there, staring at it, wondering what else can go wrong, when I suddenly realize that something is very, very strange.
I turn my head slowly and look at my bedroom door.
Silence.
In the whole house, there's silence. I don't hear the fridge humming. I don't hear the air conditioning doing its thing. I don't hear anything. Goddammit, I think this might be the first time in my entire 19 years that I've ever been in complete and utter silence.
It's weird.
I stand up and go to the door, and I look down the hallway.
“The fuck?” I say out loud. Are we seriously having a power cut again? This sucks. I swear, when I'm playing some crappy online game, I never have any problems, but whenever I actually have to do something important online – like email someone or look for a job – the damn internet just cuts out. Great timing again, Internet Gods.
As I turn to go through to the kitchen, I become aware of a sound in the distance. At first it's fairly low and faint, but it seems to be getting stronger. I stand there in the doorway, listening to what sounds like something falling. And then, finally, I hear someone shouting outside. Before I really have time to react, there's a huge crashing sound and the whole house shakes, knocking me to my feet and shattering all the windows. Glass flies over me and, as I lay there, the floor continues to vibrate for a few seconds before another loud explosion sets everything off again.
I sit up, and I can now hear in the distance lots of screaming and shouting. What the hell's going on?
I get to my feet and head to the front door, but I can instantly see that something's going on outside through the little window in the hallway, the glass of which has been blown out. People are running down the street, and there are sounds of chaos outside. It also feels like something else odd is happening, like... Yeah, it feels hot, like there's this wall of heat in the air.
I open the front door and head out onto the lawn. People are running along the street, but as I look in the direction they're headed, I can't see anything. What are they running towards? Confused, and feeling heat against my back, I turn and look the other way, and that's when I see it.
That's when I realize
They're not running towards anything.
They're running from something.
About 200 meters down the road, surrounded by the burning rubble of a dozen houses, there's a huge smoking
pile of wreckage sending thick black plumes into the sky. The heat is shocking, forcing me to take a couple of steps back, but I can't help staring. What happened? Where did that wreckage come from? And then I spot something in the flames, and I realize that I'm looking at a jet that just crashed into a bunch of houses.
“Holy fuck,” I say out loud, just before there's another huge explosion and I'm knocked clear off my feet, landing against a wall and collapsing to the ground while hitting my head and passing out.
Extract from the diary of Lydia Hoff
Because I'm an old woman, people often want to know what I remember from the days before everything changed. Their curiosity is touching, and I don't mind telling the same stories over and over. They gather around like children, and they ask me what things were like:
What was the internet?
Was tap water really available all day?
Did you ever go up in an aeroplane?
I always start by reminding them that when the power went, we all assumed it would be a temporary inconvenience. I was six years old at the time, and I remember my father coming into the room and telling us not to worry, that 'they' would fix everything soon. All he talked about was 'they' and 'them', and I suppose he meant the government, whom he assumed would have the ability to resolve the problem and save us all. But as time ticked by, even my father had to realize that 'they' were not coming and 'they' were in no position to help.
We never found out what happened to our government. I suppose that, without electricity, they had nothing to do. They couldn't make their voices heard further than they could shout, and any decisions they made would have to be enforced by them, themselves. They had nothing to offer, and the mechanisms of political power were broken. So they simply faded away, though I am quite sure some of them railed in anger and fury as they did so.