by E S Richards
“Am I alright?” The man with the shaved head laughed, looking back over his shoulder as two more men and a woman appeared. “You ought to be asking yourself that question, old man.”
“What?” Len was genuinely confused; though he grew more apprehensive the closer the other man came to him.
“What’re you doing wandering around here by yourself? Don’t you know the city’s not safe anymore?”
“I know,” Len’s voice threatened to break, but he gritted his teeth and held himself together. “I’m just trying to get home.”
“Oh yeah and where’s home?” The man questioned suspiciously, “Live around here do you?”
“N-no,” Len faltered, “I’m going to South Haven.”
“Hell of a trip!” The woman, also with a shaved head, laughed from further away. “You must have some money to be able to make it there!”
“No,” Len shook his head. “I’m just walking.”
“What do you take us for?” The man with a rifle scoffed, taking another step toward Len. “Idiots?”
“No,” Len started again, but the man was too quick for him, leaping forward and grapping Len by the scruff of his shirt collar. “Give us your wallet and we’ll let you live.”
“I don’t have anything, I swear!” Len couldn’t hide the panic in his voice now, forced to rise to his tiptoes as the man lifted him slightly with his fist. He was telling the truth. His wallet and phone had both been discarded in his car and that had probably been blown to pieces by now.
“You know what,” the man sneered in Len’s ear, so close Len could smell his breath. “I don’t think I believe you.”
Before Len could react the butt of a rifle hit him in the back of the head, another member of the shaven head group sneaking up behind him. Len crumpled to the ground; his arms automatically moving up to clutch his head. It didn’t help. Within seconds more people were surrounding him, kicking at his body as he curled up into the fetal position.
He cried out in pain, a fierce kick catching him hard in the ribcage as another nearly tore his ear from his head. He didn’t understand how people had succumbed to such base instincts only a few hours into such an apocalyptic event, the roots of human nature escaping Len’s comprehension.
His beating lasted for only minutes, Len taking several aggressive kicks over his body and a few to his face. His nose dripped blood into his mouth as someone—the initial aggressor with the rifle—bent down and shoved his hands into Len’s pockets. Finding nothing he spat at the ground beside Len, turning away and walking back the way he came.
“Wait!” A woman’s voice sounded behind Len, “There’s a baby over here!”
Len’s body stiffened on the ground. His muscles coiling as he grew ready to leap to his feet. They could beat him, but surely they wouldn’t hurt a baby?
“Leave it,” a man’s voice sounded from further away. “Just let it die like that useless fool.”
Scuffling of feet followed in what Len prayed was the woman walking away from the baby. He didn’t dare move until silence filled the street once more, the pain in his body growing more with each passing second. When he eventually uncoiled and looked back to where he’d laid the baby boy, tears sprung to his now swollen eyes for the third time that day.
Chapter 8
“What the hell?”
“What?”
“My phone’s just switched off—I was supposed to text Tom and let him know when we got here.”
“Oh, do you wanna use mine?”
“Yeah if you—”
“Ah crap, mine’s dead too. Battery overheated, it says. Hey, Vic? Is your cell still working?”
“It was a minute ago. Wait, what the… the battery has just overheated apparently, what’s going on?”
“I’m not sure, mine and Claire’s have cut out as well. This summer is just too hot man, nothing works in this heat.”
“Yeah I wouldn’t mind a bit of rain you know, getting a bit fed up of drowning in sweat the minute I walk outside.”
“Haha gross.”
“Nah you’re always sweaty Claire, it’s just who you are.”
“Ha, so true.” Maddie grinned; this summer was too hot, although she was really trying not to complain. University was finally over and now they had three long months of relaxing, drinking and doing nothing until work finally started in September.
The beer garden where the three of them sat was filled to capacity. The queue for the bar took about half an hour and even then the drinks were warm before anyone could get them back to their table. Maddie only lived about a five-minute walk away, but the apartment was just too hot to be inside of on a day like this. Issue was, every day was turning out to be a day like this. It was the hottest summer on record, every news bulletin just saying the same thing: more hot weather, more power outages and more excuses to spend every day at the pub.
“Tom knows we were coming here anyway,” Vic spoke up across the table, the condensation from her pint steadily dripping down to form a wet patch on her top. “It’s not like we ever go anywhere else.”
“Yeah true,” Maddie laughed, “we’re really making the most of this summer.”
“Rather this than start work early,” Claire cut in, “I’m dreading being stuck in an office when the weather’s nice. Bet half of them don’t even have air conditioning.”
“Ew,” Vic laughed, “I’m so glad I decided to go traveling.”
“Aw I’m so jealous, is your route planned yet?”
“Yeah,” Vic’s face lit up, she was already counting down the days until she flew out to Mexico. The hot weather was actually a blessing for her, any excuse to work on that base tan before the big trip. “We’re flying into Mexico City, then going to work our way down the coast to Cancun, hop over to Belize, Guatemala…”
“What the hell was that?”
Maddie cut Vic off mid-sentence as a huge crash rocked the beer garden where the three of them sat. A giant plume of smoke billowed up into the sky and suddenly car alarms started blaring out, the sound of screeching tires and more cars slamming into one another quickly following.
“Sounds like a massive car crash.”
“That sounds really close as well!”
Tens of people rose from their seats around the beer garden and rushed over to the fence, peering out into the road to see what had happened. Maddie was just rising from her seat to join them when the TV screen above her head cut out to static, one of the wires snapping off in a rage of sparks.
“Jesus!” She jumped up from her seat and moved around the other side of the table, standing behind Vic and Claire.
“You alright Maddie?”
“Yeah,” Maddie ran a hand through her hair, her fingers shaking slightly. “This is a real moment of—”
The other screens around the beer garden quickly silenced Maddie as each one of them followed suit, cutting to static and then sparking completely off.
“That one’s caught fire!” Claire joined Maddie on her feet as she pointed to the television in the far corner of the beer garden, now engulfed in flames as it hung precariously off its mount.
“What’s going on?” Vic’s voice was laced with fear, her eyes darting around the beer garden as more and more people rose to their feet and scattered away from the precarious television screens.
“Excuse me!” A voice boomed out from the entrance of the beer garden, and all eyes turned to look. “We’re closing the pub guys, sorry about the screens. If everyone could make their way out of the garden as quickly as possible please!”
“Ah man,” Vic mumbled, “what do you think’s caused this?”
“I have no idea,” Maddie shook her head, “come on, let’s just go back to my place.”
The three of them edged away from their table, following the hoards of people who’d also been told to evacuate the beer garden. Maddie was barely down the steps when another loud crash sounded out on the road, this one even closer than before. The people behind her pushed forw
ard, curious to see what had happened when what sounded like a bomb going off suddenly erupted and the crowd was thrown to their feet in shock.
Screams and frightened voices started to make their way through the crowd as half of them pushed back into the beer garden while the other half fought to get out onto the road.
Maddie couldn’t see what was happening, her view each way obstructed by everyone around her. Vic and Claire were just in front, slowly somehow making their way forward as Maddie struggled to follow them. A minute later she was on the sidewalk, standing beside her friends as they clutched each other’s hands in fear.
Three cars were piled up in a heap in the middle of the road about fifty yards away, each of their hoods blown off and now ablaze with flames. People were standing around the perimeter watching, while a couple of courageous men tried to see if anyone was still inside the vehicles.
Maddie had just graduated from medical school and her training told her to go and help, to see if she could save anyone. But something else kept her rooted to the spot, the real-life disaster draining all the color from her face.
“What do we do?”
“Maddie?”
“Can we still get back to your place from here?”
Claire shook Maddie slightly; bringing her back out of the daze she’d found herself in. She couldn’t help but stare at the accident, much like everyone else around them.
“Uh, yeah, shit,” eventually Maddie spoke, “we can go around the back, come on.”
The three girls started moving slowly away from the accident, all of them still very confused by what had happened. It was believable for one car to malfunction and cause an accident, but two, three? Something didn’t seem right about it. Combined with the TVs in the beer garden fusing and all of their phones dying, Maddie started to feel like something was happening to the electronics. Could it really just be a result of the heat wave, or was something else to blame?
The short walk to Maddie’s apartment was relatively uneventful compared to what had just happened. Traffic was gridlocked as a result of the crash and a couple of cars had broken down, smoking aggressively on the side of the road, but nothing seemed dangerous.
Pulling open the door to her building, Maddie didn’t even try to call for the elevator, opting for the stairs instead. As the three of them entered the apartment they were hit instantly by how hot it was, the air conditioning broken and the windows only cracking open at the top.
“It’s like a sauna in here!”
“Yeah remind me again why you haven’t got your AC fixed yet?”
“I have!” Maddie sighed exasperatedly, “I’ve had it fixed twice this summer it just keeps breaking again, something to do with the wiring.”
“Do you think that’s the same thing that happened with the TVs at the pub?” Vic questioned nervously, wringing her hands together as she looked up at the electric device. “You don’t think your AC will catch fire, do you?”
“Chill out Vic, it’s hot in here but it’s not that hot. Don’t think we need to worry about any fires!”
Maddie laughed away her friend’s comment, but a part of her was still cautious about trying to switch anything electronic on. Even moving to put her phone on charge made her hold her breath, but nothing happened. Literally nothing. Either her charger had stopped working as well or the power was out. Five seconds later she’d confirmed it: the power was out.
“So what do we do now?”
“Err, I’m pretty sure I have a deck of cards somewhere?”
“Wow life is exciting without electricity, I wonder what people used to do in the olden days?”
“I’ve definitely got some beers in the fridge?”
“That’s more like it!” Claire sprung to her feet, closing the distance between her and the fridge in seconds. “Oh, the power’s out on this as well. Looks like we’re gonna have to drink it all!”
Claire laughed, handing a now only slightly chilled bottle of Bud over to Maddie and then Vic. The three of them settled down on the couch, Vic shuffling the deck of cards as they quickly realized there was very little else to do. The power has to turn back on soon, though, Maddie sighed, technology can surely do better than this.
“I’m so bored!” Vic whined from the floor where she lay, the playing cards now abandoned in a mess beside her. “Why don’t we go back outside? There must be something we can do out there?”
Claire chucked a pillow across the room at her, “Yeah, and we’ve run out of beer…”
“Excellent point,” Vic grinned in agreement. “Come on Maddie, it was just a couple of freak car crashes and a power cut, nothing to be scared of.”
Maddie looked from one of her friends to the other. She supposed they were right. Nothing else had happened since they’d got back to her place, except for them slowly being roasted alive like chickens.
“Screw it,” she sighed rising to her feet, “maybe we should…” Maddie paused, listening for a moment. “Did you hear that?”
“What?” Vic and Claire both questioned in unison, each tilting their head to the side to listen.
“It sounds like…”
In an instant the noise became unbearable. It was like a crescendo of wind and engines, heading straight for them. Looking down at the street, Maddie couldn’t see any cars or anything in the distance that looked odd; nothing seemed to be out of place.
“Where is that coming from?” She shouted over the noise, it was almost impossible to hear her own voice as the sound continued to increase as whatever it was grew closer and closer.
“What is it?” Vic shouted back, now on her feet and frantically moving her head around the apartment, trying to figure out what was going on.
“It sounds like…” Claire started to repeat her earlier statement when a huge crash followed by a large explosion shook the building and the three of them were thrown to the ground.
Maddie looked up from where she lay on the ground to see the smoking wreckage of a plane—a Boeing 777 by the looks of it—lodged in the side of the building opposite hers. It had plummeted from the sky and smashed into the side of the apartment block, tearing a hole in the side of the building about the size of a delivery truck.
The plane had already caught fire, violent flames ripping through the metal shell and consuming everyone inside. As a doctor, Maddie knew there was nothing that could be done for the people trapped inside; some would’ve already been killed in the crash and sadly, they were the lucky ones. She’d dealt with burn victims while she was training and had heard stories from patients being trapped in burning buildings or even those who had been unlucky with kitchen fires. Every single one of them had said the pain of burning flesh was the most unbearable feeling they’d ever encountered and with every story she’d had to listen to Maddie grew slightly more afraid of fire. Now the building opposite hers was catching fire quicker than she could believe possible and despite the rapidly increasing temperature around her, the only thing Maddie could feel was the icy grip of fear that encompassed her heart.
“Maddie, come on.”
Slowly Maddie realized someone was shaking her and she looked around to see Vic and Claire on their feet, looks of terror etched across both their faces.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Vic sounded panicked, “I think something hit this building as well.”
Taking a deep breath and trying to push the idea of being burned alive from her head Maddie pushed herself to her feet and nodded to her friend. “Okay.” Together the three of them walked quickly out of the living room, Maddie glancing back over her shoulder to see more of the identical apartment block collapsing under the heat of the flames and crumbling to the ground.
As quickly as they dared they exited Maddie’s apartment and moved down the corridor, all three of them desperate to get outside and find somewhere of relative safety. A plane crash didn’t just happen, there would be emergency crews in the area any minute now and each of them wanted to be somewhere they could be saved.
Walking down the stairs Maddie saw dust swimming in the air and rubble on the floor downstairs. She slowed her pace slightly as they approached the final corner on the stairs and poked her head around the side of the wall. The sight ahead of her made Maddie go weak at the knees and she was forced to grip the banister to stop her legs from giving way. A part of the plane, what looked like an engine, appeared to have come loose during the crash and smashed through the wall of her building. The wall and ceiling had broken apart from the impact and now lay in a heap on the floor, blocking the exit.
Looking around the wall once more Maddie noticed distinct sparks spitting out of the powerful engine and threatening to catch fire on the rubble surrounding it. This couldn’t be happening. Her worst fears had been realized. They were trapped and it looked like the fire was about to spread.