The Last Exodus

by Paul Tassi

  He motioned toward Noah who had fallen asleep.

  “I figured as much,” said Lucas.

  Alpha fled to the engine bay to continue installing the core. Lucas had attempted to ask him where exactly they were planning to escape to, if his own kind wanted him dead, but Alpha deflected the question, claiming he had no time for further explanation. The long-range core needed to be installed as soon as possible to avoid the demise of the entire group. He instructed them to return to the village to scavenge for supplies, as the journey ahead of them, should they escape, might require certain items they didn’t yet possess.

  They attempted to leave the ship but were caught by a wave of fatigue. They hadn’t stopped to rest since the cannibal assault and the race to the core, and their bodies were shutting down. Lucas, taking a seat for only a moment, fell fast asleep in his captain’s chair. Asha curled up in the rear of the room, using her pack as a pillow, a half assembled submachine gun on the ground next to her. Noah, conversely, was awake, but still mercifully refrained from screaming.

  They woke some hours later, and on the monitor Lucas saw Alpha hard at work in the engine bay. They let him know of their departure, and he claimed that he would watch Noah after they left via a holoscreen in the bay. They doubted how much attention he would actually devote to the child, if any, but with unknown amounts of cannibals still lurking in the town, they figured he was safer on the Ark (the name had caught on) than strapped to one of their backs as they prowled through the streets.

  There was an assortment of items they were hunting for. Obviously food would be the most welcome find, but they didn’t expect to find any of the non-human flesh variety. Additionally, Alpha said if they wanted anything resembling “quarters” they’d have to furnish it themselves. He postulated that long-term “hyper sleep” in the pods might drive them insane or kill them, as even short-term stints seemed to already have adverse effects. Their trip into the unknown was going to take an indeterminate amount of time, depending on the functionality of the new core, but they would want to prepare for a long haul. Furniture, bedding, things of that nature would be useful. They were also keeping an eye out for anything that might benefit Noah, though Lucas imagined the cannibals weren’t big on stuffed animals and diaper changes.

  Exiting the ship, they walked past the shallow grave where they’d hurriedly buried the woman whose final act was to save the child. It was an admirable deed in a world beyond redemption, and she deserved better than to rot in the heat. They moved through the fishing boat graveyard and crept back through the splintered wall, guns always at the ready. It was daybreak; they’d slept through most of the night. But much like the first time they entered, the village was deathly quiet.

  They already knew where their first stop would be. Quickly moving through the shops, Lucas and Asha reached the town square. It was time to increase their arsenal, should they end up running into Omicron and the rest of Alpha’s pursuers. Sure, they might just be blown out of the sky immediately, but there was always a chance they’d have a more personal skirmish.

  They managed to locate a relatively large wooden cart with metal wheels. It was empty, but the blood caked on the bottom implied that it had been used to transport more than a few bodies across town. It took each of them grabbing one of the outstretched poles to move it, and it wasn’t easy to drag over the uneven cobblestone street. Placing it near the grisly pile of corpses, they began to sift through the mess for intact weapons.

  Asha picked up a blood-soaked assault rifle and locked it into firing position. She discharged a bullet into one of the fallen men in front of her, and the noise echoed around the square. Lucas jumped out of instinct and swung around to find the perpetrator.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled.

  “We need to see if these actually work. Some of them might have parts that were melted by the blast.”

  “Don’t you think we’re giving away our position a bit?”

  “To who?” She flung her arms out and spun around. “There’s no one left here.”

  “We know a few of them got away.”

  “Yeah, with serious injuries and no medical treatment.”

  Lucas supposed anyone in the surrounding buildings could see them anyway if they were looking, as the square was visible from practically all of sections of town. They just had to hope there were no more snipers lurking behind the dark windows. He picked up a long shotgun and fired it into a nearby body. Satisfied, he threw it on the cart.

  Soon they had it loaded up with a dozen or so guns of various size and caliber, along with reams of ammunition loosely scattered around that they’d have to sort through and match up later. Asha loaded up her pack with grenades of all shapes and colors, and Lucas managed to extricate a few of the electric stun batons buried in the gore. A rocket-propelled grenade launcher was not test fired, but added to the pile regardless. They excavated a number of bladed weapons that could prove useful: a machete, several hunting knives, and what looked like a medieval short sword. The final addition was the chief’s energy rifle, which lay a short distance away from his headless body. It hadn’t worked when he fired it at Lucas, but could possibly still be salvageable. They hauled the entire load back to the ship and brought it into the armory, which had been stripped bare long ago. The new weapons joined the three sets of power armor they’d taken from the mothership.

  They dragged the cart back through the sand, which was an exhausting processes, and the bumpy cobblestones almost seemed like a break afterward. Their next destination was even further away, but they knew it was their best option. Rather than go house to crumbling house in the main residential block, they headed to the mansion, where they knew many pieces of ornate furniture and supplies were for the taking.

  After rolling through the barren courtyard under the watch of the three stone angels, they released the cart in front of the door and caught their breath. Lucas’s back ached, and Asha was vigorously rubbing each of her thighs to get feeling back into them. And this was when the cart was empty. They were thankful this wasn’t back in the States, where the temperature was sure to be at least twenty degrees higher.

  Lucas approached the door but stopped when he drew near. It was ajar, and he specifically remembered closing it when they left a day ago. Further inspection revealed half of a bloody handprint on the oak. Pointing it out to Asha, the two advanced into the mansion with weapons drawn.

  Blood droplets led them to the large staircase in the main foyer, and red smears on the gold hand railings let them know they were going the right direction. Each step was made with caution, and they kept absolutely silent. When they reached the top, a blood mark on the wall told them to turn left, dried droplets stained the varnished floor. It creaked underneath Lucas’s toes and he cringed, stopping to avoid further noise. They probably should have employed Asha’s earlier tactic used to sneak up on him and walked across the floor barefoot. But it was too late now.

  Ahead, there was a large set of double doors with one slightly open. More blood indicated they’d found their prey’s hiding place. Lucas slowly pushed the door inward with his foot and peered around the corner into the room, Natalie’s barrel leading the way. They’d apparently found the master bedroom, as a giant four-post king size lay in front of them. The covers were strewn everywhere and the silk sheets were stained with a large amount of blood. Someone had clearly rested there.

  The someone flung himself out from behind the door and swung at Lucas with a large bronze axe. Lucas raised Natalie just in time and the blade crunched into the middle of the rifle as he was almost bowled over from being caught off balance. They wrestled for a moment with the two stuck weapons, but behind him, Asha quickly fired a revolver shot into the man’s kneecap, which disintegrated instantaneously at such close range. He dropped to the floor and howled in agony, his lower leg held on only by a few sinews of muscle fiber. Lucas tossed Natalie to the floor, with axe still embedded, and drew the knife from his belt. He dropped to one k
nee and plunged it under the man’s jaw. Blood erupted from his mouth and spilled over an old scar on his lip. He twitched, then when Lucas withdrew the knife, collapsed back and lay motionless as blood pooled out of his throat and leg onto a very nice oriental carpet. His original injury appeared to be a gutshot, as the stained bandage wrapped around his midsection indicated.

  Lucas fell to the floor and lay on his back, his heart pounding furiously. Above him, he could see the red sky through cracks in the ceiling. An open first aid kit lay next to him, and he could see several others under the bed. The chief had apparently been in charge of dividing up the important supplies, and this man tried to find some for himself. On the wall to Lucas’s right was a round shield with an axe jutting out of its left side. The axe meant to go on the right was now firmly lodged in Natalie near his feet. He immediately sat up and grabbed his wounded companion.

  “Damnit, Natalie,” he said out loud as he cradled the gun in his arms. He pulled the axe out of it and threw it across the room where it took a chunk out of a dresser and clattered to the floor. The blow from the weapon had cut deep into the center of the gun, and the entire barrel was now bent up at an awkward angle. He ran his fingers across the torn metal. It didn’t seem like this was an injury that could be healed.

  Asha holstered her own weapon.

  “Natalie, huh?” but her tone wasn’t mocking. After all, she’d expressed her own attachment to her revolver on the ship earlier, practically willing to put a round in Lucas’s head to have it back.

  Lucas looked down at his broken friend. It was silly to be so attached to an inanimate object, but they’d had a long journey together.

  “What, was it like your first weapon out of basic or something?” Asha asked.

  Lucas pulled himself to his feet and lumbered over to a nearby leather chair. He sat down and put Natalie on a small ottoman in front of him.

  “I was never in the service. I’m not a soldier.”

  Asha appeared confused as she looked down at his ripped camouflage pants, dog tags, and combat boots. Raising her eyebrow, she pressed him.

  “Go on . . .”

  “I’ll tell you how I met Natalie,” he said, as he rested his head on his hand in the chair.

  It was back in the days when humanity still thought it best to stick together for the common purpose of travel and survival. Yes, they’d suffered losses. A few members of the group had turned on each other, there were several suicides, and Carl the mechanic had tried to murder Lucas in his sleep not too long ago, but outside of that, the community was still relatively strong and full of many folks willing to have each other’s backs.

  Lucas had been appointed de facto leader for reasons he couldn’t quite understand. The eleven of them left spanned many ages and cultures. Bryce, the youngest, was fifteen, and could kill a rabbit at a hundred yards, though there weren’t many left to shoot. Lois was the oldest, probably sixty, though she’d never tell. They’d been through a lot so far, and survived much that others hadn’t. Many started out soft but were being tanned into tough leather, Lucas perhaps more than any of them.

  They still had some food and water, as they’d been on a lucky streak raiding gas stations and grocery stores lately. But the heat was starting to get unbearable, and Lucas knew they should change their direction to go more north than west, though that would make his trek to Portland even longer. Most of the group had family along the coast, which was why they were sticking together. They’d lost six so far, and Lucas was hoping the wheat had now been separated from the chaff, and there’d be no more turning on one another.

  Lucas wasn’t exactly sure where they were. They hadn’t seen a road sign in some time, and the last time they came to a bridge that had been blown out, they’d had to take a detour around that took almost a full day. It was hard to get any bearings when at any moment there might be no more road to follow. Every automobile they’d come across for a hundred miles had been dead, the batteries wiped clean by some sort of EMP blast. Whether it was mankind’s or the creatures’, they couldn’t be sure. Even if they were still functional, there were so many chunks cleaved out of the road it was impossible to drive for more than a mile at a time without having to abandon a vehicle. He’d attempted it back in Florida. His stolen Range Rover got about three miles up the coast before its tire exploded on a piece of shrapnel from a downed F-22.

  The war had been over for about a month, and Lucas had seen the last giant creature ship ascending into the clouds about three weeks earlier. He’d had no contact with his wife since the hotel room, as the phones and Internet were the first things to stop working. The official word from the military had been it was a widespread malfunction of the networks, but Lucas suspected the creatures had purposefully decimated known means of communication to cause widespread panic. And it worked.

  After taking down their camp from the previous night, the group had set out without incident in the morning down a stretch of interstate that was surprisingly untouched. There were the usual cracks and potholes, but no huge swaths torn out of it and only minimal amounts of abandoned vehicles to navigate through.

  They walked for about two hours, drinking tiny amounts of rationed water as they went. It felt at least a few degrees hotter than the day before, and Lucas knew they had to get out of the south as quickly as they could. He didn’t understand what had happened to the sky, the sun and moon replaced by constant red cloud cover, but it was heating up the area like a pressure cooker. He wondered if it was a localized effect, or if this could possibly be the case worldwide. Even if the crazies had been expelled from the group at this point, the rest were starting to murmur about the changing weather and increasingly hostile conditions.

  In the distance ahead of them was a shimmering mirage. Figures approached over the rise of the horizon, and Lucas squinted to try and make them out. They were mere abstractions, but as they drew closer, a larger shape appeared behind them. A vehicle. They hadn’t seen one mobile in a week. The group began to talk amongst themselves, and Lucas kept his hand on the trigger of his long-barrel Remington shotgun—pilfered from the back window of a pickup truck. They were too short to be creatures, were they . . . soldiers?

  As they came into focus, Lucas saw that was indeed the case. At long last! There were about twelve of them along with the vehicle, and Lucas saw it was an armored transport with a .50 caliber turret mounted on the back, manned by another soldier. There were sighs of relief within the group. Who knew what they had? They needed food, supplies, but more pressingly, information. Was the war truly over? What was going to happen now? Questions flooded through Lucas’s mind.

  As the two groups came within a midrange distance of each other, the transport stopped, and the troops with it. The passenger door opened and a man stepped out. He looked to be about Lucas’s age and his bars indicated he was a major? A captain? He wasn’t quite sure about the exact rankings of military brass, but the man certainly looked like he was in charge of this brigade. His face was surprisingly clean shaven for the current conditions, and he walked methodically toward them.

  Lucas shouldered his shotgun and told the group he’d ask all their questions for them. He approached the Captain and the other soldiers turned to look at him. Their faces were all smeared in black, presumably to reflect the heat, but they had a gaunt, desperate look to them that unsettled Lucas. His eyes met the Captain’s. He had an intense gaze, but smiled warmly.

  “Good to see you, citizen, we haven’t come across a group of this size in days. Glad to see you’re weathering the storm.”

  Lucas broke into a smile himself, relieved at the man’s pleasant demeanor.

  “Yeah, the same. I haven’t seen a soldier in weeks, much less a whole squad. Where are you guys coming from?”

  “Laughlin Air Force Base,” he said. “But it’s gone now. Those damn things wiped almost every one of our southern installations off the map. I’ve heard similar things out of the east. Nothing from the north.”

  “What
’s happened to the government?” Lucas asked.

  “DC is a crater, but reports are that the secretary of education was sworn in as president, and cleanup is beginning worldwide. We were sent out here to try and find survivors and tell them to go to designated population reestablishment zones.”

  “But I need to get to Portland. Most of us have family along the West Coast.”

  “Oh, the coast wasn’t hit nearly as bad as around here. They’re probably already in zones themselves.”

  The Captain looked over at the group, who were nervously awaiting Lucas to come back with information.

  “How are y’all for supplies? We have some we could spare,” the Captain offered, his Texan accent a bit more pronounced. Lucas lit up.

  “We have some food and water, but not much. Anything you could spare would be appreciated,” he said.

  “Absolutely, the zone is only about forty clicks just outside of Baton Rouge. It should be enough to get you there.”

  He put his hand firmly on Lucas’s shoulder.

  “Take some rations from the transport. We should have enough for the lot of you.”

  “Thank you, really.”

  The Captain guided him through the soldiers toward the rear of the vehicle. The .50 caliber gunner eyed him cautiously as he passed. Lucas imagined a vehicle of this size could hold quite a bit of cargo and was curious as to what he would find.

  What he found was a sharp crack to the back of his head and his vision exploded into stars. The Captain had slammed his rifle butt into Lucas’s skull from behind and he reeled to the ground. After ripping the shotgun from Lucas’s back and landing another blow across his forehead, the Captain turned to his men.