(No Current Title)

I had this crazy dream and so I thought I would try to turn it into a short story. It is sort of an apocalypse piece.

 

 

“How are you doing?” these four words she wished she would never have to hear again in her life; for the last 48 hours it seemed to be all anyone knew how to say to her.

“I’m fine. Thank you.” Of course, everyone knew this was a lie. She wondered to herself why people always say they are fine when they aren’t. She felt very uncomfortable and crowded, and she wanted every last damn person to leave and stop asking her if she was okay and stop pretending she was telling the truth when she said she was fine. The black dresses, black shirts, black slacks, black shoes, she wanted them all gone out of her family’s home. The awful smell of the mixture of pity flowers and the cards that stood by them, all stating “Sorry for your loss” in cursive handwriting, she felt like lighting a fire to it all, even the pictures of summer and holiday memories. What use did she have for any of this now that she was all alone? She had memories in her head of those photographed times that hurt badly enough.

“Scotch?” a tall man with black hair held out a glass of some random liquor. “I’d rather a vodka.” She said in a half monotone, half joking tone of voice. The man replied, “We can do that, but it seems your folks were fans of the dark stuff so we will have to go out to get what you want.” For the first time since the man stepped in front of her she made eye contact with him. She didn’t recognize him but assumed he was someone her brother or sister knew.

He put his hand not holding the glass of alcohol out and introduced himself. “James. I’m a friend of Michael’s.” Her brother. James continued, “You are Michael’s sister, Lizabeth, right?”

“Just, Liz. No one calls me Lizabeth, and yes, I am Michael’s sister.” From making eye contact with him she noticed James had the greenest of green eyes; she had never seen eyes so green. They took her aback. He must have noticed because he took a rather awkward sip of his scotch and looked around the room. She felt embarrassed to have been so transparent with her facial expression.

“Your folks were cool people, they let me stay here for a month last summer when I had nowhere else to go. They didn’t even ever ask for money, just…took me in.” His voice was so sincere it soothed her to listen to him speak, again she felt embarrassed, this time she wasn’t sure why. “Thanks” she said, not really sure how to respond to his statement. “Alright, well if you want to go get that vodka, let me know.” And James walked away.

She rolled her eyes to herself, “Can you be anymore awkward?” she thought. She wanted this day to be over.

Chapter One: Flea Market

 

The flea market was packed for it being such a scorching hot day. The many people filling the street made it feel even hotter, Liz felt like every time she rubbed against someone, accidently, her skin and theirs might create so much friction that a spark might be made. She wasn’t sure why she agreed to come out today when she knew it was going to be so hot; James must have been pretty convincing.

“Why are we here again?”

“I told you, to find some art work for the house. Are you going to complain the entire time?”

“Probably, since you picked the hottest day out of the year to go shopping outside!”

“I told not to wear jeans, I told you. It’s like 95 degrees out and you decide to wear jeans to go walk around in.” He stopped to look at some figurines on a table, and then continued walking.

“I just don’t understand why we had to come to a flea market in the summer to look for said art, we have the internet, you know?”

“The internet does not allow us to spend time together while getting a good quality sweat, though!” he smiled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders squeezing her in close to him.

“Don’t. It’s too hot for hugs.” She shrugged off his arm and ran her hand over her forehead wiping sweat away.

“Baby.” They both laughed.

Liz hated being outside, if she could she would never leave her house. She would have everything delivered right to her door; she was a bit of an agoraphobic. She knew why James picked the flea market, and it wasn’t for art, it was because he enjoyed watching her suffer. Of this she was convinced. He must have spotted an art stand because he grabbed her by the hand and began dragging her through the flea market street. What they came to, however, was not an art stand, it was a tent full of knives and other likenesses. She was beginning to become annoyed with this whole adventure.

While James looked at the many different knives and spoke to the retired Navy Seal who owned the tent, Liz looked at the sky. She noticed strange colors about the sky that must have been caused by the sun’s heat; she also noticed there weren’t any birds flying around. She looked around a little lower to the ground to see if she saw any birds flying around the market, but she didn’t. “How strange” she thought out loud, “maybe it’s too hot even for the birds.” James was still talking to the man in the tent, paying no mind to Liz and her observations. She looked up again, this time noticing several planes flying their direction.

“James, look at this! Look at all those planes!” no response. “James!”

“What!?” he snapped, and then he heard and saw the planes, too. “What the hell? Is there some sort of air show today?”

“Not that I know of. I have never seen commercial air planes fly like that, though. Why are they flying like that?”

There were at least 20 planes flying so close to each other that from ground view it looked like they were side by side. As they neared, their roar began to draw the attention of the other people walking the flea market. People began taking pictures and video with their phones, some cheering and clapping. A small boy near Liz was jumping up and down yelling, “Yea!” while his father, next to him, stood in awe with a smile on his face. The man in the knife tent said it must have been some government thing going on, and Liz couldn’t help but think he might be right. “What sort of government thing?” she asked.

The retired Seal replied, “Who knows! Those kinds of things are always Top Secret, usually no one ever knows what is really going on except for a select few. I’ll tell you what, that is for damn certain some sort of government activity. Maybe military!” He wasn’t wrong.

The planes flew over and then disappeared into the heat and everyone returned to their shopping, some making comments about what might be going on. The retired Seal began to pick up his belongings in a hurry.

“What are you doing?” James asked the man. “I am still looking.”

“Sorry kid, I am not sticking around to see what happens next. You guys should get out of here, too. Get to some sort of cover. If you don’t live far, I’d go home, maybe pack a bag or two of clothes and necessities. Whatever that was, it isn’t over.”

“What are you talking about!? It was just some commercial jet liners!” Liz could tell in James’ voice he was annoyed.

“Look, you can take my advice, or not, it doesn’t make much of a difference to me. Here…” the man handed both James and Liz their own military grade Kabar knives, “You are probably going to need this eventually. Good luck to you both.” And he picked up his packed bags, loaded them into his jeep parked behind the tent, got in, and left.

“James, something doesn’t feel right. I think we should listen to him, he seems to know something we don’t. Let’s just go, we can come back another day.” Liz felt her legs begin to tremble in anticipation to run, she wanted to sprint to their car with no hesitation but she didn’t want to go alone. James stood there with a puzzled look on his face. Liz looked down at the knife she was holding that the man gave her. What could she possibly need this for? She unsheathed it from its holder and rotated it in her hand observing the sharpness. She suddenly remembered the time her father took her fishing when she was younger. He had had a knife similar to the one she held that he used to gut a fish he had caught them for dinner. She remembered his hands, and his fingers, and how strong she remembered them being. She remembered the way she watched him shave the scales off the fish, and how for some reason it made her feel so safe; he always made her feel safe.

“Okay, let’s go. Walk quickly but not too quickly where people notice and try not to look scared or anything.” James grabbed her hand and led her through the crowded street back to their car they had recently purchased together as a couple. He opened the passenger car door for her and somewhat shoved her in, but not aggressively, it was a protective shove. “Put your seatbelt on.”

While buckling her seatbelt her diamond engagement ring caught her eye. She stared at her ring for a moment feeling that same safe feeling she felt that day fishing with her father, then she heard a familiar sound. James was still outside of the car. She looked up to the sky and saw, again, a mass formation of commercial jet liners but this time something was different. They seemed to be flying very slowly, and quite low to the ground with a greenish-yellow mist just underneath them.

James startled her when he opened the driver side door and got in locking all the doors. “Liz, whatever you do, do not get out of this car. Do you understand me?” His voice was assertive and commanding which scared Liz.

“Why? What’s going on? What are those planes doing?” she started to hear screams coming from the flea market street. She looked in the direction of the street and saw a crowd of people stampeding out of the entrance to the market, some were covering their faces with their hands, others tugging at their hair ripping out handfuls at a time. “What the f**k is going on!!??” she yelled at James.

He turned the key in the ignition, backed out of the parking spot and said to Liz, “Don’t watch. Don’t watch them, Liz.” But it was too late she was already staring out the window watching people fall to the ground; she couldn’t tell for sure but some looked like their skin was melting off their bones. “Close your vent on that side,” Liz couldn’t move, tears pouring down her face, “Liz! Close your vent!” James was yelling at her. She closed the vent in a frantic manner and looked at James who also had tears in his eyes.

“James?” no response. “James, what the hell did we just witness? Their skin, it was…falling off or something! Their screams, James, their screams. They were in so much pain. Why is this happening?”

“I don’t know. What I do know is when we get to the house you get inside as fast as you can. Go down to the basement there are two piles of ply wood under the stairs. You bring them up and I will start boarding up the windows and doors, then you go back down and you hide in the secret room. You don’t come out of there, do you hear me!?”

“No! I am going to help you with the…” but she was cut off by James’ look. She began to sob.

“Look, I know you are scared but right now I need you to just listen to me and do what I say. Calm down. Take a few deep breaths and calm down.” She did as he instructed. “I am pretty sure what is going on is a biogenic attack of some sort. You know, like chemical warfare. If we aren’t exposed to it we should be fine, I think, but we have to make sure every possible opening to the house is blocked otherwise whatever chemical it is can get inside. So if you want to help you can take towels and blankets, anything that you can use to block airways to the outside, and do that. I will use caulking and seal the windows. Okay? Can you do that?”

“Yes. Yes, I can do that.” She stopped crying and wiped her tears away with her hand. “Who do you think is doing this?”

“I don’t know.” They pulled into the driveway of their new home together. It was going to be a very long day.

 

Chapter Two: A Very Long Day

 

After she finished clogging all the openings to the outside, Liz went downstairs to the basement. The house was built in the 1970s by a paranoid man who was convinced the United States government would eventually start a sort of population control using bombs so he had built a secret room in the basement. A bomb shelter. While Liz had grabbed just about all the food from the kitchen, it wasn’t nearly enough to last them even a week and most of it had to be cooked. There was a small stove oven in the room and a fridge as well, but using the stove meant losing oxygen if it came down to having to keep the door to the room shut and sealed. She hoped it didn’t come to that. There was an old transmitter radio and box television with a VCR/DVD player. Under the television there were video tapes and DVDs the man who built the house had left in the room in case anyone ever had to actually use the room. The stack of movies consisted of war movies, apocalypse movies, and some comedies. Mostly the movies were meant to be used as a means of survival education; the comedies were just for entertainment. She sat down on the twin sized bed and took a moment to just think. She felt this might be the end of times, or World War 3. As confused and scared as she was she knew she had to be strong for James; it wasn’t fair to make him be strong for the both of them.

 

When James finished with the last window he grabbed the knives the retired Navy Seal had given both he and Liz and any forms of identification and went down to the basement to join his fiancé. He found her sitting on the only bed in the room staring at the wall. He sat down beside her, wrapped his arms around her to give her a hug, and whispered that it was going to be okay in her ear, though he wasn’t sure of his own words even as he was saying them. He looked around a moment and then got up to turn on the television. It took some maneuvering with the rabbit ears but he finally found a decent picture.

                “This is Channel 2 news reporting, I am Robert Matthews. We, the camera man and myself, along with only a handful of others who were inside the news station when the planes flew over, seem to have survived some sort of chemical attack on the United States. We can only transmit out, we have no way to get information from the outside world as our phone lines have apparently been cut off. If you are watching this, do not leave where ever you are. Stay indoors. There seems to be a full scale attack on the U.S., but again we have no means of communicating so we are not sure who is responsible. This is Channel 2 news reporting, I am Robert Matthews, stay safe America.”

He turned off the television when the picture when blank. “Let’s try the radio.” The radio wasn’t much help, either. He had found a police channel where obviously an officer had his radio on and didn’t know it because you could hear screams and cries for help. James felt completely helpless; he had no idea how long they’d have to remain in the bomb shelter, and no idea if they had enough food and water to actually survive that long. Since they had just moved in they hadn’t fully stocked the kitchen, whatever they had was just what they had brought from their last apartment and that wasn’t much. He turned the radio down but left it on in hopes of obtaining some sort of information on what was going on. He walked back over to the bed where Liz was sitting, said, “Let’s get some rest. I have a feeling we are going to need it.” He laid down on the wall side of the bed, pulled Liz in close, and hoped that soon they would have some information.

 

“Is anybody there? Please. Can anyone hear me? If there is someone there please respond. Hello?” a voice on the transmitter radio brought Liz out of her sleep. She sat up and looked around, forgetting for a moment where she was. She looked down at James sleeping to her right, he was snoring a bit and that made her smile.

“Please, if anyone can hear me please respond!” the voice on the radio said again. Liz got up out of the bed and walked over to the radio, turning it up so she could hear the voice better. She picked up the microphone piece and replied to the voice. “Hello?”

“Hello! Who is this?” the voice asked.

“I’m Liz, who is this?”

“My name is Jude. Where are you?”

“Why do you want to know? Where are you?”

“Why do I want to know? Don’t you know what is going on, lady? There was a full scale attack, people are dead everywhere. Everywhere!” Jude’s voice sounded afraid and Liz felt bad for being so guarded but at this point she knew there was only one person she could trust, James.

“Well, um, what is your location? Are you alone?” Liz asked.

“No, I am not alone, my younger sister is with me. She is twelve. We were at home watching the television when that guy from Channel 2 News came on the screen saying there was some sort of chemical attack. We went down to our basement to wait for our parents but they never came home. I turned the television back on but it’s just a blank screen so I went outside because it seemed pretty quiet. I didn’t die so I grabbed Mary, that’s my sister, and we started walking. We must have walked for at least an hour when we came across this police car and heard the radio on so we thought maybe someone could come get us and take us to somewhere safe.”

Instantly Liz felt like she was going to vomit. “Okay. Well, do you know exactly where you are? My fiancé and I will try to come get you. We have shelter.”

“We are in a Target parking lot. The Target right beside Highway 50.” Jude replied.

“That isn’t far from us, just stay where you are. Get into the car and close the vents and lock the doors, okay? Don’t leave that spot.” Liz really hoped this wasn’t any sort of trap.

It took a few minutes to wake James up; he was a deep sleeper. Once they were both awake they opened the door to the room and went up into the house. “Hold on.” James said to Liz and he walked into their bedroom and came out with a box. From under his shirt he pulled out the key that hung on a chain around his neck along with his dog tag from his days in the Army, he inserted the key into the box’s key hole and unlocked it revealing a 9ml Glock handgun and some ammo. He loaded the pistol and tucked it into the front of his shorts. “Okay, let’s go.”

The car ride to the Target was relatively quiet, neither James nor Liz knew what to talk about, and both felt like they would throw up each time they opened their mouth to speak. It was one of those moments when you didn’t have to say a word, but everyone knew what was being thought. They arrived at the Target parking lot and pulled up next to a police cruiser, assuming it was the one Jude and Mary were in. Warily, they both got out of their car and walked up to the cruiser. James knocked on the driver’s side window.

“Are you Liz?” Jude rolled down the window and looked up at Liz and James. He had light brown hair and brown eyes, he looked to be around the age of sixteen, give or take a year. He was wearing an army green jacket that had several pockets on the front over a black tee shirt, and jeans with rips in the knees. On his feet he wore a rather tattered looking pair of Converses. His hair looked as though it needed a good brushing, and possibly a trim since it hung in his eyes and in just the few minutes of standing there Liz had seem him brush the hair from his face with his hand several times. When he exited the cruiser he stood at a height of about six foot, equal to James.

Mary appeared a bit cleaner than Jude with medium length dirty blonde hair pulled back into a low ponytail, a pink and black shirt that read “Rock Star”, a pair of hot pink shorts that wore just above her knees, and white tennis shoes that looked brand new. She carried with her a back pack and a small cage with a hamster inside. Jude had told her to leave her hamster behind but she insisted on bringing it with them behind eyes leaking with tears; Jude couldn’t say no.

“Where were your parents when the attack happened, Jude?” Liz asked sweetly.

“They were out shopping, I don’t know where. You don’t have to talk to me like that, I’m not a kid.” Jude retorted obviously feeling slightly patronized.

“Sorry, I don’t really know how to talk to younger people, I am never around them.” Liz replied.

James interrupted, “Have you seen anyone else while you were walking? Anyone alive?”

“No. Everyone we have seen has been dead and their skin looks all burned up. We passed a park on the way here and…well…I tried to shield Mary from seeing it but they were everywhere.” Jude’s voice became solemn as he remembered all the bodies in the park.

“You don’t have to talk about it.” Liz said to Jude. “We saw something similar. I can’t imagine being her age and seeing that,” she looked at Mary, “I’m sorry you saw that.” Mary looked down at her hamster cage she held in her lap.

“Well let’s go. No time to waste we don’t know when the next attack might be if there is one.” James said in a commanding voice. Again Liz felt that safe feeling she had felt before and as a child with her father.

Before they could get into James and Liz’s car they heard a voice over an intercom, “This is the United States Army National Guard and we ask you to stop where you are and put your hands where we can see them.” They all turned around to see a Humvee with soldiers standing beside it, and one on top manning the .50 caliber machine gun, pointing their rifles at them. They did as they were told and watched as one of the soldiers began slowly walking up to them, still pointing his rifle at them.

Not wanting to cause any trouble James informed the soldier that he had a pistol tucked into his shorts and they also had knives in their car. He was asked to place the pistol on the ground in front of him while the soldier searched each of them for any more weapons. The soldier was polite about his task and when he was finished searching them handed James his pistol and asked them to follow the Humvee in their car. All four of them, and the hamster, got in the car and began following the Humvee to an unknown destination.

 

 

Chapter 3: The Destination

They drove for about an hour before arriving at a school. Outside the school were parked buses and more Humvees and people in uniforms walking around. There was a large white tarp covering some sort of entrance into the school’s gym with people wearing large white suits that resembled an astronaut’s suit walking in and out of the entrance. The Humvee they were following stopped just inside the gates of the school, a soldier got out of the Humvee and directed them to a parking area for privately owned vehicles. Jude, Mary, James, and Liz got out of their car and followed the soldier to a holding area for civilians who had not been decontaminated yet, there were about twenty other civilians in this holding area.

As Liz looked around at the others she saw fear in just about everyone’s eyes. The only ones she didn’t see fear in belonged to James and a few other men, but, she thought to herself, they were probably only masking the fear with bravery. A few minutes went by before a man in one of the large white suits came and asked the women and children to follow him. Liz didn’t want to leave James but she also knew one of them should stay with Mary so she and Mary followed the man. Jude stayed with James because any male the age sixteen or older was considered an adult.

The man in the large white suit stopped just in front of the entrance to the gym. There was a fan connected to the white tarp that was so loud Liz could barely hear the instructions the man was giving them. Liz put Mary in front of her and rested her hands on Mary’s shoulders trying to comfort Mary and herself. The women and children began to walk, one at a time, through a decontamination chamber and then into the gym. Once inside they were pointed in the direction of some cots and told to stay in the area until further debriefing. Liz and Mary found two empty cots sitting side by side each other and sat down. Mary placed her hamster cage under her cot hoping no one told her she couldn’t have him.

Soon Liz saw James and Jude come through the gym doors so she stood up and waved her arms. Jude saw her first and tugged at James’s sleeve and the two of them walked over to Liz and Mary. When they got to the cots Jude hugged Mary and James hugged Liz, even though they had only been apart about ten minutes it had felt like years to all of them.

A man walked into the gym dressed in a grey suit with a red tie and asked for everyone’s attention. “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is John Whitman and what we have experienced today was a biological attack on the United States by an unknown enemy. Each city has a shelter just like this one so please know we are not alone in our survival. The chemical agent that was dropped over each major United States city appears to only affect our species, but not every human has been affected, it seems some of us are immune to the agent but we don’t know how or why at this time. Once we determine the surviving numbers and who is responsible we will be launching a counter-attack in response and we ask anyone who is healthy and capable to please volunteer to help. There is a table over to my left where you can sign up and fight for your country. If you have previous military experience we ask you provide what your job was, and your rank, as you will be re-instated into the branch which you have previous experience with; you will retain your rate and pay-grade. Anyone not fit for duty will be asked to help in other ways such as preparing garments and meals and taking care of children. At this time I will take some questions, please be respectful to others and know I will try to answer as many questions as I can.”

People began shouting and raising their hands at the same time, a man’s voice became louder than them all as he asked, “Mr. Whitman, what about the President?”

“The President is dead, along with most of the White House staff.” John Whitman replied, and again people began shouting. “Please calm down! We have a chain of command that we follow in cases such as these and as soon as we know who survived, a president will be named.” Mr. Whitman answered questions for the next ten minutes until another man dressed in suit and tie entered and whispered something in his ear. “Ladies and gentlemen at this time I can take no more questions. I ask that those who are willing to volunteer to fight please line up at the table to the left. Your patience is greatly appreciated, thank you.” And he walked away through two double doors opposite of the entrance to the gym.

Liz and James looked at each other holding eye contact for what felt like several minutes, they both knew what had to be done. Liz kneeled down to Mary’s level, “Mary, wait here. Don’t move, okay? James and I will be right back.” Mary nodded in compliance. James looked at Jude knowing what Jude was going to say, “Okay then, let’s do this.” James said. Then Liz, James, and Jude walked over to the forming line to sign up to avenge their country.

Once they had signed the paper to volunteer they were instructed to sit and wait until everyone had finished signing and told training would begin immediately in an adjacent gym. The children were rounded up and put in the care of a few older women who would not be joining the fight. Liz was reluctant to just leave Mary with people she didn’t know, as she already felt responsible for the girl, but she had no choice. Mary gave Liz a tight squeeze that reassured Liz she was doing the right thing, Mary then turned to Jude and gave him a hug as well, then walked over to the group of children.

Only a few minutes later the volunteers were escorted into the adjacent gym and training began. For several days Army personnel went over all basics of using rifles and hand guns, First Aid, and how to survive on little to no food and water. On the fifth day John Whitman entered the gym and informed everyone that the attack was conducted by a group of rebels from Russia and it was thought they must have had some sort of government funding to be able to accomplish such an attack.

Something didn’t seem right to Liz. The way Mr. Whitman spoke and his body language told her he was hiding something. Liz had always been very observant of others’ body language and could easily tell when someone was lying; Mr. John Whitman was lying.

“Those planes weren’t Russian, they were American.” James said to Liz and Jude, “How did a Russian rebel group get a hold of several hundreds of American planes?” Liz and Jude looked at James and Jude replied, “That’s a good question, James.”

 

Chapter 4: Preparing for Attack

After John Whitman announced that they would be preparing for attack against a Russian rebel group the volunteers had one more night of sleep before they would be moving to another facility located at Camp Pendelton, a U.S. Marines’ base in California. There they would meet up with other survivor volunteers from around the country and begin the real training. They traveled by school bus to California which allowed Liz, James, and Jude three days to discuss their feelings about what the truth of the attacks might be; neither of them believed what John Whitman had said and all felt they were walking into a trap. 

Author's Note

It obviously isn't complete yet I just wanted to share what I had for some opinions on it so far. I am no expert writer or anything, no schooling so it is probably really elementary style writing.