Dark Apocalypse: A Post-Apocalyptic Family Saga

by Gabriel Alexander

  The stairs were to their right. Next to them, a broken vase was sitting on top of a dusty set of drawers. There was no carpet on the floor. By some miracle, the chandelier didn’t fall yet, even though it was barely hanging by the electric cables. To their left, a fallen chair with a broken leg was welcoming them.

  “Not the Plaza at all,” Thomas said. “But not bad for a former mining town.”

  “Okay, let’s find our rooms,” Sophie said.

  They went upstairs, where they found two doors, one in front of them and one to their left. Bill opened the door in front of them, and they went inside.

  The room was pretty small, with a bed for two facing the window, next to which two chairs were sitting. The only other furniture piece inside was a wardrobe in front of them. Other than that, the room had a mirror above the bed and four art prints on two of the walls, depicting dogs playing poker, a cowboy riding a bull, a much smaller copy of Mona Lisa and an earless Van Gogh self-portrait.

  “This is ours,” Bill said.

  “Thomas, take your sister and go to the other room,” Sophie said.

  “Got it! Come on, Julie!”

  Thomas took his little sister and went to the other room with her. When he opened the door, they saw the same things like in their parents’ room. The only difference was that instead of paintings, there were cartoon stickers on the wall.

  “Well, this belonged to a kid,” Thomas said.

  Julie jumped on the bed and started playing with Teddy. Thomas went to the wardrobe, but when he opened it, he didn’t find clothes, but toys.

  “Hey, Julie, I’ve got good news for you. You’ve got tons of toys in this wardrobe at your disposal.”

  “Really?” Julie said, excited.

  She immediately jumped out of bed and ran toward the closet. Her eyes sparkled when she saw the amount of toys inside.

  “Yay, yay, I can finally find a friend for Teddy,” she said, while jumping.

  “Okay, I’m going to go outside for a bit. You stay here and introduce Teddy to these guys.”

  “Okay!”

  After saying that, Thomas closed the door behind him and went outside, to explore.

  ***

  Bill was sitting on the bed, while Sophie was lighting the candle inside the dusty lamp sitting on the wardrobe. After doing that, she extinguished the match, threw it on the floor and sat next to Bill. Suddenly, she started rubbing his penis.

  “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a week,” she said.

  “You and me both,” Bill said, before they started kissing and undressing each other.

  It was already dark when Thomas went outside for some fresh air. The sky was cloudy. There was no moon or stars. The only things illuminating the settlement were the barrels in which people lit fires to keep warm.

  Thomas started walking on the muddy trails. He was hoping to find a street cart. He was starving. He could eat a whole cow.

  After about two minutes of walking, his prayers were answered. He found a street cart. He went to it and greeted the beautiful blonde sitting behind it. She greeted back:

  “Good evening!” she said, while smiling. “What will it be?”

  “What’s today’s specialty?”

  “Steak and French fries.”

  “Then I’ll have that.”

  “Ten minutes, please.”

  About ten minutes later, his food was done. The fries and the beef looked pretty decent, but the plate could have been washed a bit. But his enraged stomach told him to ignore this minor detail.

  After eating and killing his hunger, he went out in the prolonged night. He should go back to his room and spend some time with his little sister. But as he was walking home, he heard a voice from behind him:

  “Excuse me, young man…”

  He stopped and turned around.

  “What is it, Preacher?”

  “May I talk to you for a moment?”

  “What do you want?”

  The preacher approached him.

  “Have you repented, young man?”

  “Repented?”

  “Yes, you know…admitting your sins?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about redemption, my son. You must redeem yourself and you must do it quickly, for His second coming is near. And only those who will repent from their sins and accept Him in their hearts will be accepted in His Kingdom. Those who won’t will be cast in the eternal fires of Satan.”

  “Give me a break, old man. People have been expecting this to happen for two thousand years and so far, nothing. Ever since your savior rose to heaven, charlatans or lunatics like you have told people that Jesus will come again during their lifetime, hoping to take a buck or two from the pockets of those more stupid than them.”

  “Yes, my son, that is true. But this time, I know I’m right. His Kingdom is near. The Alignment is an obvious sign of that.”

  “Really? How come?”

  “The Apocalypse says that the lamb will break six seals, which means God will give us six torments to make us suffer on this Earth, before the lamb will break the seventh seal. When the seventh seal is broken, the supreme torment will come upon us, to test our faith in the Lord, so that Jesus can separate those who accept Him in their hearts from those who don’t.

  The Alignment, the event which brought the world to its knees, was the seventh seal being broken. All the evils that God can cast upon us came in just one day, the day our solar system aligned with our galaxy. And now, after the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tsunamis have gone, an almost permanent night has engulfed our planet. Isn’t this a sign enough that God sent upon us a test to see who is worthy of His Kingdom and who is not?”

  “Listen, old man. The moment I see Jesus coming on a cloud to ask me if I love Him or not, is the moment I confess my sins. Until then, I’ll live my life the way I want. How is that?”

  “No, my son! You must do it before he comes to judge us. Not during, before. And you would better do it now, because you don’t know when He will come. He could come a day, a week from now…”

  “Or a century from now. I could be dead and buried for a long time when He will finally decide to make His appearance. So, right now, instead of buying your wild goose chase, I will go to my room and take care of my little sister. Then, I will go to sleep and I will dream about a beautiful girl rubbing her enormous tits on my face. And if I’ll ever see you approaching me, you old lunatic fart, I swear to God I’m going to take that Bible from your hands and flatten your head with it.”

  After saying that, Thomas turned his back on the prophet and started walking home.

  “Scoffer!” the old prophet started yelling behind him. “Scoffer! The Bible warns about those like you in the final days. You will be among those who will burn in the fiery pit. Sinner! Sinner!”

  ***

  The door opened. Julie looked to see who it was. Nothing to worry about. It was just Thomas.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I went to eat something. You should too.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  She was sitting on the floor, playing with some of the toys from the closet. Thomas lay on the bed.

  “If you don’t mind, play quietly, okay? I would like to get some sleep.”

  “Sure, Thomas. No problem,” Julie said.

  He then closed his eyes and left for the dream world.

  ***

  The door slammed. Lucille entered the room.

  “Wake up! Wake up, both of you!”

  Bill and Sophie opened their eyes with difficulty.

  “Get out of bed and get dressed quickly. Hurry up!”

  “What’s the matter?” Bill asked.

  “What’s the matter? You’ve got company. Lots of it.”

  Sophie and Bill looked at each other with confusion in the eyes.

  “No! It can’t be. I made sure they weren’t following us,” Sophie said.

  “Well, it seems you didn’t
make sure enough,” Bill said.

  “Come on, you two!” Lucille said. “Get dressed already. You have to get out of here and you have to do it fast.”

  “Wake the kids, Lucille!” Sophie said.

  “I already did. They are waiting for you downstairs.”

  The two got dressed and went downstairs, where Julie and Thomas were waiting for them.

  “Mommy, daddy, what’s going on?” Julie asked them, clutching her toy.

  “The bad men who were chasing us are back,” Sophie answered. “And we must go right now.”

  Lucille joined them. She pulled a key ring out of her pocket and gave it to Sophie.

  “Go to my house. You will see a gun cabinet next to the door. These are the keys to it. Your guns are inside. Once you take them, go to the southern edge of the wall, where there is a second exit, and get out through it. And after you do that, run as fast as you can and don’t even think about looking back. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Lucille!” Bill answered.

  “Good! Now go! Now!”

  Thomas opened the door and they started running toward Lucille’s house. It was still night outside, but they were lucky. The torches were still illuminating the pathways.

  About two minutes later, they reached Lucille’s house. They jumped on the porch and just when they were about to get inside, they heard someone yelling from behind the walls:

  “Citizens of this fine community… we wish you no harm. We believe

  that you are housing four people inside your walls. One of them killed my brother. All we want is for you to give me my brother’s killers. Once you do that, we will leave and you will never see us again. I give you my word. “

  “Damn. Let’s hurry up!” Bill said.

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Sophie said.

  They opened the door and saw the gun cabinet to their right. They opened it, grabbed their guns and got out. But when they were about to run, Bill had other thoughts.

  “Sophie, wait! We can’t let these people suffer for something we did.”

  “Are you saying we should surrender? They will kill us the moment we do.”

  “No, I’m not saying we should surrender. I’m saying we should fight back.”

  “Four of us against five hundred of them? I thought you can do better math than this, Bill.”

  From behind the gate, the voice yelled again:

  “The four people we are looking for look like this: the woman is about thirty to forty years old and she has short, black hair. The man is about forty, wearing glasses. The other two are an adolescent boy and a young little girl. You have exactly five minutes to deliver them to us, or we will take them ourselves.”

  “Look, we have no choice. We must run.”

  “These people shouldn’t suffer for what we did.”

  “I couldn’t agree more with you. But do you want Thomas and Julie to die? Because this is what’s going to happen if we surrender.”

  After about ten seconds of silence, Bill said:

  “Okay, let’s go!”

  All four started running toward the second gate that Lucille told them about.

  ***

  Lucille climbed the walls with the gun in her hands. When she made it up, where she joined the rest of the people, now forced to protect their houses, she was struck by a scary sight. Hundreds of rebels with cars prepared for war were waiting outside the walls for the killer of their leader’s brother. They were armed with assault rifles and even a 50 CAL machinegun.

  “Your five minutes are up,” their leader said. “Well, what’s your answer?”

  “I don’t understand why you didn’t just hand them over,” the man next to Lucille said.

  “Trust me, it would not have saved our community. Guys like them… they always take the hand when you offer them a finger.”

  Everybody on the walls pointed their guns at the punks.

  “Here’s our answer,” Lucille yelled. ”Fuck you!”

  After that, they started shooting at the rebels with everything they had: machineguns, pistols, even crossbows. They hit some of them, but not enough.

  The rebels started firing as well, claiming even more victims than the settlers, especially when they put the 50 CAL to work.

  “Break their gates!” their leader said.

  An armored Humvee entered the scene, gathering speed and breaking the gates. The people above the walls shot those inside, but it was already too late. The rebels started pouring inside, slaughtering everyone they encountered. Not even women or children were spared. They shot, stabbed, and sliced everyone they encountered inside. The townsfolk did put up a good fight, but it wasn’t enough.

  After they killed absolutely everyone inside, they burned the walls and absolutely every house inside of them. Nothing was left standing.

  ***

  From a distance, Sophie, Bill, Thomas and Julie watched the rebels’ message for anyone who dared to defy them. They had tears in their eyes, and all they could think about was that they will have one hundred people on their conscience until the day they die.

  “We did this to them,” Bill suddenly whispered. “We did this to them.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The four were on the road again. They put some good miles between them and what used to be Lucille’s community. It was 2:45 PM, which meant they had about fifteen minutes before sunrise.

  They were walking on an empty road, filled with debris. The silence around them was making them gripp their weapons more tightly.

  Finally, the sun rose. They noticed a huge building about five hundred feet from them, to their right.

  “Are my eyes playing tricks on me?” Bill said.

  “No, Bill, they aren’t,” Sophie said.

  “Is it what I think it is?” Thomas said.

  “It’s a supermarket!” Julie said, excited.

  “Food, decent clothes, new weapons, here we come,” Bill said.

  All four approached the building cautiously. Anyone could be lurking inside and outside.

  Thomas looked up and he read the letters above: Walmart. The place was huge. And if Thomas was remembering correctly from his childhood, when his parents used to take him to such places, you could find anything your heart desired in them: food, clothes, toys, gadgets and many more. “This is indeed my lucky day,” he thought to himself.

  They got inside, with their weapons ready. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as empty as they expected. A part of the roof collapsed, which spread dust and rubble everywhere. Some of the shelves collapsed, which made some of the areas inaccessible.

  “Okay,” Sophie said, “go grab some bags… Thomas, you take Julie and go to the clothes department and look for some pants and shoes for her. And a new jacket for you. It won’t hurt. Bill, you go to the weapons department and I will go to the food department, see if I can find something to fill our bellies with today.”

  “Got it!” Bill and Thomas said at the same time.

  They took some bags and split up.

  When Sophie reached the food department, all she could find on the shelves were some cans of beans. Even though they expired a long time now, it was all they could expect to eat on the road for about a week or so. Of course, hunting was not out of the question, but this saved them from the trouble of having to chase and then kill a deer or rabbit.

  She took all the cans and went to the entrance.

  Meanwhile, Thomas and Julie entered the clothes department. The few clothes that remained looked anything but new. They were all dirty, and some were even shredded. Some were still hanging by the hangers, some were on mannequins which were even more damaged, and some were lying on the floor.

  “Well,” Thomas said, “it’s better than nothing. Take your pick!”

  Julie went to a shelf in front of her and picked a green jacket and blue jeans.

  “What do you say? Will I look good in them?” she asked her big brother.

  “You’ll look like a princess,” Thomas told her. “And now i
t’s time for my pick.”

  He turned around and went to a shelf behind him. He found a blue jacket and brown pants.

  “So, will I look like a prince?”

  “Absolutely!”

  Bill expected to find the weapons department absolutely empty. He figured that everybody needs a gun in these dangerous times, and they will be a rarity.

  But contrary to his expectations, he found the department to be full of stuff. He was in shock when he saw all kinds of weapons, from the humble Berretta to the venerable AK and even some crossbows and bows with arrows still attached to their shelves. He didn’t wait for an invitation; he opened his bag and started filling it with three Kalashnikovs, three Berettas and lots of ammunition for them.

  Just as he was filling his bag with goodies, he heard a gun cocking behind him and a woman’s voice saying:

  “Don’t move! Drop them!”

  He dropped the bag.

  “Now put your hands up and turn around!”

  “Look, lady, I just…”

  “Just do as I fucking tell you!” the woman yelled.

  Bill turned around to see a young girl in her mid-twenties, with red hair and blue eyes. She had an old hat on her head, and she was dressed in a blue jacket and a short shirt that exposed her midriff. She was also wearing shorts and boots. She had an M16 pointed at him and she didn’t look like she was going to hesitate to use it if she had to.

  “What are you doing on our turf?” she asked Bill.

  “We had no idea this is your turf. We just wanted to re-supply, that’s all.”

  “Who is “we?”

  Sophie was coming toward him with the bag filled with food.

  “Bill, what’s going on?”

  She saw the girl.

  “Oh, shit!”

  “Gun down and hands up, lady!”

  Sophie complied. But then, Thomas and Julie came to them.

  “Mom, dad, what’s going on? Why did you put your hands up?”

  When they turned the corner from behind the shelf, they saw the girl too.

  “Well, we have the whole family here,” she said.

  “Let us go. We did nothing to you,” Bill said.

  “You came to our territory and started stealing from us. You call this nothing?”