by Sean Platt
Brent pushed the door open with the gun, and prayed his son wouldn’t run out.
He’d never been so glad not to see his family.
“Whatever was here is gone,” Luis said.
As if on cue, his radio beeped.
“Yeah?” Luis asked.
“Wh ... where are you?” Stan asked, his voice at a whisper, packed with fear.
“Across the street, why?”
“They’re in here.”
“Who’s in there?”
“The creatures. I heard them in the hallway, making this God-awful sound.”
“You have the guns, right?” Luis asked.
“Yes,” Stan said, “Can you see anything outside?”
Luis and Brent rushed to the window in Ben’s room and were met with wisps of white fog brushing the window panes.
“Can’t see shit in this fog,” Luis said.
“How many are there?”
“I dunno, sounds like a lot,” Melora said.
“Wait, wait,” Stan whispered loudly, “I think they might be leaving. Hold on, I’m gonna try and look through the peephole.”
“No,” Luis said, “Just stay put. Do NOT make a sound.”
Too late, no answer.
Brent and Luis listened as silence seemed to stretch to eternity. Brent was pretty sure he could hear Melora’s breathing over the light static.
And then all hell broke loose.
“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” Stan screamed, as something pounded like thunder.
Melora screamed.
Stan’s next scream was followed by the sound of ripping flesh and a rising chorus of “Click, click, click, click” sounds.
“Stan!” Luis yelled into the radio.
“They’re eating him!” Melora screamed, but from a distance, as if she’d dropped the radio and was running into a room.
She fired two shots, three, and then screamed.
More flesh ripping, followed by what sounded like the splashing of blood and Melora’s gurgling death cries.
Then nothing but silence, except for the clicking, like animals celebrating a kill.
Brent’s heart felt like it missed every other beat as the drama played out over the radio, just a couple hundred yards and another world away.
“Stan!” Luis screamed, and suddenly the clicking stopped.
Brent’s eyes shot wide open, waiting for what would come next over the radio as if he would see, not hear it. But they were met with silence.
They heard us!
And then footsteps.
Then the sound of a hand fumbling with the radio, followed by a ragged racket of breathing as it pulled the radio closer to its mouth.
Brent stared at Luis, as both men waited for the next sound.
“Click, click, click, click,” from one, at first, and then many.
Twenty-Four
Mary Olson
It looked more like demolition than disaster.
The debris was centralized in a towering core, piled skyscraper-high in the center of the blackened tundra. Power lines, cars, splintered lumber, slabs of concrete, even cracked airplanes, and what looked like an entire freeway were laying in massive, oversized chunks.
Mary’s voice was a prisoner in her throat. Jimmy’s, as usual, wasn’t. “Holy shit balls, this is some Roland Emmerich shit right here.”
“Who?” It was amazing Paola cared.
“He’s a shit director,” Jimmy said laughing. “Crap movies, but cool looking most of the time. Aliens must’ve been looking at his storyboards.”
John turned and glared at him, then pulled to the side of the road. All four survivors stepped from the SUV, wordless. Desmond was already out of the van.
The destruction gathered in the middle made no sense. It was as though the area had somehow imploded and exploded at the same time. Impossible, sure, but the reality was giving them the stink eye all the same.
It looked like the world had exploded before a massive tornado came and picked everything up then deposited it in a single location. No bodies were there, but no rubble was there either. Not exactly. The gravel and detritus that should’ve carpeted the ground wasn’t there. Instead, they were ankle deep in some sort of charred rock, surprisingly uniform and each roughly the size of a golf ball, though the debris was angular, not round — volcanic looking, and almost beautiful.
“Do you think this is Ground Zero?” Mary asked.
John picked up a chunk of debris. “Looks like obsidian, feels like glass, but seems like ... wood. I don’t think this is Ground Zero. If this is what caused it all, the forest wouldn’t have been so green just a few miles back.”
“He’s right,” Desmond said. “Stuff would be scattered away from here, not gathered here if this were the point of origin. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Paola stared past the horizon. Mary wondered what kept her from crying. Her father cried like a baby when touched the right way. She’d seen it happen during commercials and sporting events. Especially when a player he liked did something historic.
“How long do you think all the black goes for?” Paola asked Desmond.
“No way of knowing,” Desmond rose from his knee, dropped the hunk of rock, wood, or whatever it was, into the pile with a glassy thud, then looked at Paola. “But if I’m telling you what I think, I bet black crashes into green again just a few miles up the road.”
“Do you think the Army Base will still be there?” Paola asked, her voice surprisingly strong. Mary was proud.
“You’re old enough for me not to lie to you, so I won’t say yes. I think the base and the people in it are probably gone like the rest of everything. I figure it’ll be empty or worse. Whatever happened was probably something the Army couldn’t have prepared for even if they knew it was coming. Might even be something we can’t fully understand. What I do know is that it’s our best hope at the moment. Even if there’s no people, there may be supplies. And it could offer some safety.”
“Safety from what?” Jimmy asked.
“Every environment has its predators, and predators like easy prey. We need to stick together. Our number is already too small, and we can’t afford to let it shrink.”
“Mr. Desmond,” Paola said, “Can we find someplace to sleep? I don’t want to drive after dark.”
“Great idea,” Jimmy said.
The sun was already a mean shade of orange, and it felt just a few feet away. It would be gone in minutes, even though it couldn’t have been later than mid-afternoon. Desmond’s chest rose and his nostrils flared as if he were going to let loose with a decisive NO. It was clear he wanted to keep driving. He opened his mouth, but closed it quickly. He opened it again, but before he could speak John interrupted.
“It’s not a democracy. If the guy with the guns and supplies says GO, then around the board we shuffle.”
Desmond smiled. “No need for that, John. Yes, of course, Paola. We’ll stay at the first safe place we can find. Might as well take advantage of the full End-Of-Creation discount.” He offered a wan smile at John and got into the van.
The Suburban followed Desmond for seven miles, then chased it down the first off-ramp with a bank of hotels waiting. Just as Desmond predicted, total devastation had ended just three miles past the pileup, meaning the obsidian rubble and mammoth pileup was definitely the evil eye of something.
The hotel was a Drury Inn, a nice one. And to their rather wonderful surprise, the electricity was working, with all locks set to “open.”
They chose four rooms, next to and across from one another, all on the first floor. The five weary travelers took a much-needed three-hour rest, then showered, dressed in clean clothes, and met in the lobby bar for drinks. Four hours later, everyone was drunk, including Paola in a virgin Shirley Temple sorta way. Everyone was still wearing the shock, but the last few hours had stretched the fabric.
Mary sat with her daughter and Jimmy, but her attention was on the bar, a few feet away, where Desmond appro
ached John.
“How’re you doing, man?” Desmond placed his back to the bar and looked into John’s fully toasted brown eyes with his slightly tipsy green ones.
John shrugged. “What can I say? We stared into the soul of absolute emptiness, and it just stared right back.” He poured some fire down his throat, then emptied the rest of the bottle into an oversized glass.
“I won’t tell you to stop, just remind you once more that every one of us matters right now. I’m sure I speak for the group when I say I’d prefer to not leave the hotel one man shy in the mañana.”
John’s face softened. “I’ll be fine. A man has a right to grieve without the entire world getting in his way.”
Desmond poured some of John’s drink into his own glass, nodded at John, swallowed the fire in one large gulp, then set his glass on the bar and approached Jimmy, Paola, and Mary. The kids were cracking up.
“What’d I miss?”
“Paola says I smell like a marijuana skunk.”
“She has a point,” Desmond said.
“She always does, whether I like it or not.” Mary laughed. Her wine glass was near empty, so she went to the bar to fill it. “It’s getting warmer in here,” she said walking back. “Do you feel that?”
“I do,” Paola said. Jimmy nodded.
“Might be five degrees,” Desmond said, “but the difference is definitely there.”
They ignored the climbing thermostat and fell deeper into their drinks. Eventually, Paola made herself a bed by pulling two lounge chairs together. She was asleep seconds after her head touched the pillow they’d grabbed from a room. Jimmy managed a few minutes of small talk, then offered to pass the peace pipe with the rest of the grownups. When they declined, he smiled and slipped away to enjoy his stash, saying, “More for me,” with a giggle.
Mary smiled at Desmond and said, “So, we’re all alone, and it’s the end of the world where money doesn’t matter. Will you finally tell me how you made all yours?”
Desmond laughed. “I’ve told you before.”
“How about telling me in a way I understand?”
“I use the Internet.”
“So do I, so does everybody. My cards were wholesaled across the world on my own dot com. I know how I do it. How do you do it?”
“Well, there’s no easy answer. Cool thing about the Internet is it’s still mostly frontier. There’s plenty of treasure for anyone who knows how to dig. Best part is, you can even learn how to make the treasure yourself.”
They’d been down this road before. His answers, no matter how thorough, usually left her more confused than when he started, and sounded more like a rousing speech about online potential than a solid business model. “You make it sound like magic.”
“It is, sorta. Just like any illusionist, Internet entrepreneurs can make the impossible look like downright inarguable.” Desmond took a drink. “Money isn’t hard to make. You just need to find a river and dip your bucket. But the Internet makes finding the rivers a whole hell of a lot easier.”
“I don’t care what you say. It’s not that easy.”
Desmond blushed. “Okay, it’s not that easy. But it’s easier than you think. People go online to look for stuff, right? If you have what they’re looking for, can lead them toward it, or help them keep it organized once they get it, then there’s good money to be made — and a neverending supply of leads.”
“But what do you do?” Mary figured it had to be shady if he couldn’t say what it was in 10 words or less.
“I don’t do anything illegal, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Mary laughed and shook her head, “I never said that.”
Desmond smiled with a blush, “I make a lot of stuff. I have a company that builds ‘roads’ that help users get from A to B quickly, software that helps people organize the growing assault on their digital lives, and a publishing company that releases heavily-researched white papers and reports. It used to be mostly Buyer Beware-type consumer lists we wrote for,” he looked at Mary seriously. “People will pay to be informed, so we used to do a lot of work at the consumer level, but we’ve moved into science and alternative research. The dollars are exponentially larger, and some of our papers have commanded ... well, staggering fees.”
“So what do you do all day?”
“Look for and evaluate new information, talk to my team, read, write, watch movies. Sometimes I play Call Of Duty.” He smiled.
“Why don’t you live someplace else? New York, Los Angeles, Sydney even! Why Missouri?”
“Missouri’s where I grew up. It’s my home, a great place to disappear and get lost in the quiet. But I love to travel, and fly out often. I get my fill of adventure, then come home to space and silence. My mom and dad lived over in Festus, close enough to visit, but far enough to leave me mostly alone.”
Desmond noticed the final swirl sitting at the bottom of Mary’s nearly empty glass. “May I?”
“No,” Mary said. “Terrible idea. I can’t believe I’m still standing as it is. But I’m glad we did this. Thanks for letting us stay here. It’s nice to get off the road, and get some sleep in a decent place. And I think I might actually sleep.” Paola snored loudly. Mary and Desmond traded a quiet smile.
“I didn’t ‘let’ us do anything. We’re a team, and I’m sorry about the democracy comment.” He looked over at Paola. “Just know you’re doing great. I can’t imagine how hard it must be, worried about another life full-time like that.”
“Thanks. It’s the uncertainty that makes it so hard. I just want to know what she’s thinking. It kills me to have no idea, and to feel so powerless to help her.”
“She’s doing great, too. You should be proud. She’s strong and smart, just like her mom.” He yawned, then said, “Ready for tomorrow?”
“Only if I get the sleep I need tonight,” she said, following his cue again, and quietly thanking him for making it so easy.
Jimmy had his head against the wall, asleep in the corner. John was passed out, his cheek against the polished wood, fuel leaking from his open mouth. Paola was asleep in the middle of a row of chairs. Desmond made a bed to Paola’s right; Mary stayed on her left.
“Good night, Mary.”
“Good night, Desmond.”
They were asleep in less than three minutes.
When Mary woke, her daughter was gone.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
::Episode 3::
(Third Episode Of Season One)
“THINGS THAT GO BUMP … ”
Twenty-Five
Paola Olson
Oct. 16
Early morning
Belle Springs, Missouri
Paola jolted awake as if she’d been falling in her dream. Only it wasn’t gravity that snapped her back to reality, but rather the sound of her name being whispered in her ear.
She woke expecting to see somebody standing over her. However, nobody was there. The voice must’ve been an echo of her dream world that followed her to her waking life.
She strained to listen, in case someone had actually called her name. The only other sound in the eerily still hotel lobby was a low growl rolling from her mother’s open mouth; a baby soft bark so familiar it was more lullaby than irritant to Paola. The world was a blur, and her mother was barely visible in the shadows that floated through the room like a dark cloud.
She blinked her eyes, trying to figure out which side of the dream she was on.
Must be a dream, the real world isn’t so … murky.
Paola laid her head on the pillow and closed her eyes. Ninety-nine … 98 … 97 … 96 … 95 ... On other nights, she rarely made it past 65 or so before sleep claimed her. Ninety-four … 93 … 92 … 91 … 90 ...
“Paola!” This time the voice was louder, and she had no doubt she’d heard it.
Paola sat up straight in bed. It was her father’s voice, coming from the far side of the still-murky lobby.
“Paola, are you in there?”
Th
is has to be a dream!
“Paola, please! Are you there?”
This was definitely a dream. She was sure of it now. Her father wouldn’t be able to find her out here in the middle of nowhere unless it was a dream.
“Paola!”
Paola pushed the cushions aside and rose to her feet. It would be nice to see the real him, but that was okay if it wasn’t. The Dream Daddy would have to do for now. Though the shadows scared her, she knew she had nothing to fear. When bad stuff happened in dreams, all you had to do was wake up. And she knew how to do that well; she did it all the time. It’s how she could sometimes dream about the stuff she wanted to dream about, without having to dream about the stuff she didn’t.
“Paola? Shortcake?”
Paola stopped at the side of her mom’s makeshift bed. Up close, she could see her better through the shadows. Mary’s eyes fluttered beneath their lids as she pulled the fat pillow in her arms and cradled it to her chest. Another low rumble came from her throat. It flirted with leaving her mouth but ended up whistling through her nose instead.
This is like the hide-n-seek dream. That was a good one.
Paola tiptoed toward her father’s voice, past her mom and Desmond, past John, his face still pasted to the bar, then past Jimmy and into the dining room.
Paola loved the hide-n-seek dreams. She looked forward to them, even tried to make herself have them sometimes as she lay in bed counting down to the possibility, starting from 100.
She always played this in her dreams with Daddy, just the two of them. And in the dreams, she always felt a few years younger, before she began to feel too old to call her parents mommy and daddy. Before good feelings were replaced with the realization that her parents weren’t the perfect people she used to idolize.
He’d usually call for her while she did her best to stay hidden. The longer she was gone, the more desperate he’d get to find her. He would call and call and chase her through the house, looking through windows and opening doors. “I love you, Paola. Please let me find you so we can be together. Don’t make me wait any longer. As soon as I find you, we can go and find Mommy together!”