by J. Axbridge
*****
After our fourth week of waiting came to an end, the showers were still ongoing albeit not many had come close to our home of late and the ones that did caused relatively minor explosions and even smaller quakes.
With the realization that the storms were finally slowing; I could feel the thought of exiting the basement grow stronger for my brothers and sisters, along with their hunger pangs. Of course that caused all of us to want out of our self imposed basement prison even more. Ethan being the youngest seemed to be antsier than the rest of us and created a makeshift ladder of milk crates to stand on and look out of one of the three small rectangular windows our basement had. This unfortunately was the only way for us to get a glimpse of the outside world. The window though being such a small size at about one foot by only six inches, gave only a very limited view of what it was actually like out there and it was what we didn’t see that frightened us even more than what we did see.
Our neighbor’s house which once sat directly to the south and was only about fifty feet away from our own home, was gone, burned to the ground weeks earlier, and beyond that more homes were still burning in the distance. Our partial view to the west and east if we looked left and right, gave us the same nightmarish view except for the distant horizon, it once only extended to just across the street but now extended indefinitely into darkness. It was as if everything, and I mean everything was gone except for our home, we could see no physical structures standing at all, but I knew that was impossible. I mean, we live in the middle of a suburban neighborhood; there should be thousands of homes still standing out there.
Ethan gingerly stepped down from the carefully stacked crates and looked to Arthur with a flicker of hope in his dark hazel eyes, “Arthur, do you think it’s safe to go upstairs yet? You know . . . just to have a quick look? We haven’t heard any explosions today . . . or yesterday, or even the day before that and most of the fires outside have really gone down.”
Victoria and Caelyn’s ears perked up, they stopped playing Monopoly, turned and looked at Arthur, their tired eyes pleading for a “yes” as their cabin fever had grown immensely in the past week.
Arthur reluctantly quit peddling the recumbent bike and its front wheel slowly hissed to a stop. Begrudgingly I watched him look my way as I was about to begin writing in my journal. I did this each day for what seemed hours and someday I planned on turning my words into a book. The look in Arthur’s eyes though, as he stared at me was the same as the others, whole heartedly expecting me to continue to disagree with venturing out of the so called safety of our basement.
“OK…, OK, OK!” I said, finally giving in at last. “I guess we can go up and have a look around,” my siblings burst into cheers and claps, smiles not seen in weeks were finally back, “But not as a group!” I stated strongly, “Caelyn and I will go first to make sure it’s officially safe and then, and only then, if it’s safe, we’ll yell for you three to come up and join us. That’s how it’s going to be, no arguments or no deal.” Everyone nodded in agreement, so I stood up and stretched ready to venture upstairs for the first time in a month.
In the course of hiding in our basement, we’d heard and felt many explosions close to our home that always led to the sounds of windows and glass breaking along with items falling and smashing. So it came as no surprise to me that when I tried to open the basement door, it was jammed shut and wasn’t budging no matter how hard I pushed.
“Addie, look through the cat door,” Arthur yelled up the stairs behind me holding one of our last lanterns that had power, watching with anxious curiosity. “Maybe you can see what’s blocking the door through there?”
Kneeling down on the hard and dusty wood steps, flashlight in hand, I pushed the six inch by six inch cat door but that too was stuck, unable to swing out. Carefully I slid my fingernail underneath the plastic latch and gently pulled it in towards my body. Lifting the cat door up as high as it could go I craned my neck down and looked through the small opening only to see solid wood.
Before I could even yell back to Arthur I heard him climbing up the steps behind Caelyn and me, “Excuse me, handyman coming through.” he said jokingly with a hop in his step, clearly excited at the prospect of finally getting out to fresh air and open space.
Carrying an old axe handle he scooted past Caelyn and I as we backed down a few steps. He then leaned down and pushed the axe handle through the cat door hitting the solid wood wall. With all his might he pushed hard, grunting until we heard a loud crash as whatever it was toppled over. That was all it took. Arthur stood and turned the handle, then pushed the door open finding there was now enough space for Caelyn to easily squeeze through. But for me it looked like it might take a little more effort.
“You’d think that after a month of rations I’d slide through as easy as Caelyn, but noooo…! Really, I couldn’t be more than 120 pounds now!” I grumbled as I wiggled my way through the door yanking my left leg out behind me and hopping on my right foot before spinning to a stop and looking out into our once beautiful and overly organized living room. “Holy shit, look at this mess!” I said, my eyes slowly adjusting to the faint light of the afternoon. “Mom would definitely not like to see this.”
The first thing Caelyn and I did was move the cabinet that had fallen in front of the basement door. Then slowly we shown light around the room and took in the terrible mess more closely, everything that had once sat on a shelf was now on the floor broken including our mother’s precious vases and artwork she’d picked up in her travels to England and Japan. What’s even worse was that every room was covered in a thick sludgy mix of caked on dust, ash and debris.
Unbelievably though from what I could see, our house was a terrible mess but had not been directly hit by a single meteorite in any way; I had envisioned walking out of the basement only to look up at a starry night sky, assuming our roof had been destroyed, but that too was intact except for crack lines going across the ceiling like interweaving spider webs. Still we had to be safe, who knows how much damage was done to the areas of the house I couldn’t see.
Seeming relatively safe, soon all five of us were upstairs having a look around our once orderly home; picking up what was still intact, tossing out what wasn’t. It seemed all of us peered outside each time we passed the broken windows fixated on the remaining fires in the distance. Even though we weren’t quite sure how bad our neighborhood was hit by the storm, we figured it must have been in a horrendous state from the little we could make out.
“OK, let’s clean up a bit more and then take count of the canned foods and bottled water we have up here. . . Arthur, make sure you create another inventory list,” I said evaluating our new situation, my head swiveling from side to side in concentrated thought. “Our first priority is still survival,” I continued. “So listen up! I know you’re excited to change and get to your rooms but stay down here, please. We don’t know if it’s safe on the second floor just yet. I know everything looks intact but there might be problems with the support beams with all the cracking in the ceiling and we don’t want anyone to fall through. So once this area is clean and safe we’ll head up one at a time and get new clothes and clean up properly . . . alright,” I said as I slid my fingers slowly across the once white granite kitchen countertop which was now covered in thick dark gray ash.
Chapter 7 - Life Still Exists
Adelaide
The second day away from the confinement of our basement didn’t bring much light or late spring warmth, almost identical to the first. It should have been a bright nine am morning with birds singing cheerfully and dogs barking eagerly as they jogged along with their owners. Instead the sky looked similar to thirty minutes before sun rise, the same sort of darkness Arthur and I used to float through on our early morning jogs before school.
“Grab your flashlights and let’s have a look outside,” I said staring into the distance through our large broken family room window.
Each of us grabbed a flashlight off the
ash filled countertop and shuffled outside one by one not speaking a word. The creaking of the screen door was the only sound heard as it swung open and shut slowly.
Almost exactly as a month earlier when the meteoroid showers first started, all five of us stood once again on our front porch shoulder to shoulder in shock. This time it wasn’t from the explosions and streaking meteorites, but from the haunting quiet that now engulfed our neighborhood. The nothingness, the darkness, the silence, the fires in the distance and the charred and scorched smells of earth, death and wood filled our nostrils and seeped into our clothing.
To our surprise the only thing left standing, as we swiveled our necks in every direction, was our two story red brick home. It was impossible; our house should have been destroyed. We should have been dead and buried like all our other unfortunate neighbors, but here it was standing proud and here we were standing confused on its porch. God had spared us, and as terrible as this world now looked, I was thankful to be alive and was sure there must have been a reason for it.
As the morning painstakingly broke, there weren’t any scurrying squirrels, joggers or retired couples meticulously landscaping their vivid green, prize winning yards. On this dimly lit morning there was only world ending destruction in every direction as far as the eye could see. The landscape seemed almost too flat, and except for the still smoldering fires here and there, it was sheer darkness in the distance.
“Where is everyone?” Victoria was the first to speak as she held Ethan’s shaking hand tightly.
“Wh . . . , where are all the houses?” Ethan asked looking at the twins for an answer, each of them shrugging their shoulders in uncertainty as they continued to glance around in disbelief.
“Where’s the sun? I think it’s nine am already,” I quizzically stated to no one in particular, gazing into the brown tinged sky above.
“It’s too quiet . . . I’m scared Addie. Can we just go back in the house?” Caelyn uttered barely above a whisper.
“That’s it; I’m not getting caught off guard, I want a damn weapon! It’s just too freaking creepy; it looks like a late night Alien Invasion movie out here,” Arthur turned and walked directly back into our house, the screen door slamming shut behind him causing a large cloud of dust to plume outwards.
Arthur’s words spooked me more than I wanted to admit but that didn’t deter me from keeping my feelings to myself. I knew I had to be the brave one, the leader no matter what. I’d made a promise to our parents and I had to keep my cool especially in times of uncertainty like this, at least until they were back home. Unfortunately, I knew the odds of them returning were slim to none but to keep going I grasped onto that hope each and every single day until I knew one hundred percent otherwise.
“Arthur, grab my softball bat too!” I yelled through the ash filled screen door. “Better safe than sorry because you never know if someone else is out here with us.” I said, turning back to the rest of my siblings.
“Or, something else,” Victoria added in a low voice still searching the horizon wide eyed.
None of us understood why it was still so dusk-like for nine a.m. but that didn’t stop us from sharing our theories no matter how crazy they sounded.
“Maybe we’re all dead?” Caelyn said softly, her eyes widening. “Maybe this is our afterlife and we need to cross this path before we get to the Gates of Heaven?”
“Whoa little sis, what have you been reading lately?” Arthur quipped, walking back onto the debris filled porch with my aluminum softball bat in hand. “This isn’t Heaven, it looks more like hell and since I don’t think we’d all end up in hell, especially not Addie, then we’re either in a very bad nightmare together or it’s as simple as a classic alien invasion,” Arthur patted Caelyn on the shoulder as he handed me my bat with a wry smile.
“Stop with the alien stuff Arthur,” I scoffed, yanking the bat from his hand, “You’re scaring them.”
“Hey, I just call it as I see it sis and this has Alien Invasion written all over it. Look around, am I the only one seeing all this devastation. Are you blind?”
“Oh shut up,” I shook my head then headed down our brick front porch steps gingerly so not to slip on the thick covering of ash and dirt, followed carefully by Arthur, Ethan and the twins.
Walking down our once beautiful suburban street that used to be full of gorgeous Victorian homes with primped and primed gardens and vivid green lush lawns and shrubs, we were in silent awe of the ash and dirt covered nothingness before our eyes.
In the pre-dawn like light the homes that once stood proud were simply, gone. Either crushed into nonexistence and replaced by large meteorite holes or burned down to the ground with nothing left except piles of ashes, some still smoldering. The gray smoke continued to waft into the air drifting over the empty landscape, enveloping us at times identical to a thin morning fog.
“Can you believe it? Our house is the only thing that’s left!” Ethan whispered loudly, looking around the street he played happily in only a month earlier. Squatting down he scooped up a pile of ash and let it sift through his fingers like a child playing in the sand, “Wow, we were super lucky. Do you think we’re the last people on earth?”
“Hey, it’s not the only thing left standing, there’s Jen’s stop sign . . . how did that survive your alien attack Arthur?” Victoria sarcastically said, as she walked up and shook the sign causing it to topple over, disappearing into a mound of earth and ash like we used to flop into snow mounds in the winter, “Oops, didn’t mean to do that,” she said apologetically.
Arthur realizing it was the stop sign by the bus stop looked left in anticipation, already knowing all too well what wasn’t there.
“Jenny!” He yelled realizing where we were standing, adding stark reality to our situation.
Arthur’s first crush, Jennifer Blessing’s home once stood proudly in front of the sign, it was the exact spot he had his first kiss after the bus dropped them off in 6th grade. He told us that story one too many times, but now Jenny’s home was just like the rest of the area, rubble and ashes.
“Looks like it could have burned down a while ago,” said Caelyn. “It’s not smoldering like the other ones around the area.
“Come on Arthur, there was nothing anyone could have done. She was a good person, I’m sure she went to a good place or maybe she’s alive just like us, searching for help,” I said, with hope in my voice as we stood silently in the debris covered ground looking at the empty space where Jennifer Blessing’s home once stood.
Suddenly, as if on cue, the somber moment was broken by a lonely howl in the distance.
“Well, at least we know there’s some life out here besides us,” Arthur glanced in the direction of the howl. “Let’s check it out.” He seemed glad for the distraction, giving him a chance to push back the memories of Jenny for the moment.
“Shouldn’t we think about this first?” I questioned Arthur’s back as he was already walking towards the howl. “We don’t need to go rushing off and get hurt for some dumb dog.”
“There’s nothing to think about Addie, let’s go,” Arthur waved for us to follow and continued to quickly lead the way walking past charred debris, our younger siblings following. My gut was saying this was a bad idea but I reluctantly pulled up the rear, resting my aluminum bat on my shoulder.
We walked cautiously over rubble and scorched mounds of unrecognizable junk taking detours around large craters to get nearer to the continuing lonely howl. After trekking at least half a mile down what was left of our deserted and destroyed street, the day not becoming any brighter and the view no different, the howling stopped.
“Arthur—come on, we can’t go much further today we only brought enough snacks and water for a short exploration,” I said, leaning on what looked like an overturned crushed minivan, taking a gulp of water.
“What about the dog Addie?” Victoria asked in concern. “We can’t leave it out here alone, it probably needs help. What if it’s hurt?”
“Vic, if it lived this long it’ll live another day. We’ll come back tomorrow on a mission to find it and we’ll bring some food for it, OK?” I looked at the others who were also tired, hungry, and thirsty. It was the most physical exercise any of us had in a month and breathing in the smoke and dust filled air wasn’t helping even with our shirts pulled over our noses. Begrudgingly we began to turn around and head back when Caelyn caught movement out the corner of her eye.
“LOOK! Over there, someone is coming,” Caelyn said in a semi-hushed voice pointing down the road to a shadow that was walking down a large debris mound of what could only be described as past life.
“Is he talking to us?” I said, straining to hear what the person was saying.
“No . . . no, I think he’s talking to himself.” Arthur slowly slid his hand into his sweat jacket pocket and I knew he was grabbing hold of his stainless steel hunting knife. “Maybe he’s crazy?” He waved his finger in circles around his left ear as the rest of us kept quiet, looking on with tense anticipation.
The stranger approached, clearly exhausted and in ragged clothing, stumbling over rubble rather than stepping over it causing dust and ash to fly and as he came nearer we could finally make out his words clearly.
“Hungry, so hungry, need to find food, something—anything! I need to eat!”
Looking up with a jerk as if sensing prey, the stranger saw the five of us and stopped dead in his tracks peering at us aggressively, now only ten feet away.
Before Arthur could get the knife cleanly out of his pocket he was knocked to the ground hard, hitting with a grunt. His breath had clearly been knocked out of him and his eyes blurred momentarily after his head slammed into a piece of concrete. The stranger had leapt far and fast in the blink of an eye to get on top of Arthur and to everyone’s shock the quick blur wasn’t human anymore; it was something leaner, stronger and a hell of a lot furrier.