Final Dawn: Season 1 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series) (18 page)

Rachel Walsh

8:09 AM, April 3, 2038

Though the grass and saplings that grew around the side track where the handcar was located were difficult to remove, they proved to be no match for Rachel’s determination. In the morning, it only took her an hour to get the handcar from the side track to the main railway. Once she checked and double-checked that it was as ready to go as possible, she climbed on and coaxed Sam up next to her.

She stood behind one end of the lever with Sam at her feet, bracing herself on the largest of the logs that she had used to replace the rotten floorboards. With Sam and Rachel’s backpack at her feet and her rifle still slung over her shoulder, she began to slowly pump the lever on the handcar. The wheels squeaked loudly in protest at first, then began to turn smoothly, lubricated by the application of oil the night before.

As the handcar began to pick up speed, Sam whined nervously. “It’s okay, boy, calm down.” Her words had little effect on Sam’s whines, but he stayed put on the cart, his nails dug deep into the wood for stability and support. The track was flat and straight, making it easy for Rachel to bring the cart up to speed. It took several minutes, but once she got it going, the work on the lever became significantly lighter and she was able to easily maintain their speed.

Rachel watched the wooden railroad ties pass underneath the handcar, counting them as they went. They were placed around 2 feet apart and were flying by quickly. Rachel estimated that they were going at least 9-10 miles per hour based on how quickly they passed over the ties. It wasn’t the quickest speed in the world, but it was over double what she was able to walk with a full load in her backpack and it gave her legs a chance to rest, too.

From what Rachel remembered from looking on the map before they left, she guessed that they were around a hundred miles or so from Raleigh, the only large city before Richmond that the track passed directly through. If she was able to maintain a steady speed for the rest of the day, there was a decent chance that they’d be able to get in to town by nightfall.
That is, of course, if my arms don’t give out first,
she thought. After an hour of steady up and down motions on the lever, she was growing weary. Rachel dared not stop or slow down, though, since doing so would mean losing the momentum that she had spent so much time building up.

Three hours later, Rachel’s arms had given all they could, and she dropped the lever wearily, letting the handcar coast to a slow stop. The view hadn’t changed much since they had started that morning and the only break in the steady flow of trees and fields on either side of the track had been a small way station. With nothing worth stopping for, Rachel had continued on without pause.

Rachel had kept count of how far they had gone by watching the mile markers. According to those, she and Sam had traveled for around thirty-four miles, getting just a bit farther and traveling slightly faster than she had originally estimated. There was no way Rachel was going to be able to continue pumping the handcar any farther until she gave her arms a break, though. She sat down next to Sam and pulled out some food and water from her backpack, her arms trembling as she struggled to open them.

She was thoroughly exhausted, especially in her upper arms, which were burning from the effort she had expended. Despite this, she didn’t want to just give up and waste hours sitting there. Sipping on a water bottle, she hopped down from the handcar, motioning at Sam to stay still. He had relaxed considerably since the morning and just stared at her as she walked around the handcar, his head resting on the wood.

The frame of the handcar was plain, with no handholds on any side and nothing else she could see that would make it easy to pull along the track. Rachel sighed and went to the back of the handcar, putting her water next to Sam. She braced herself against the back of the frame, behind where Sam was laying, and pushed on the handcar, gauging how much force would be necessary to push it along the track to give her arms a break.

At first, Rachel was met with heavy resistance, but as she continued to push, the cart gradually picked up speed, becoming smoother and easier to move with each subsequent step. She smiled as she continued to push it along, getting it up to full walking speed as she did. It wouldn’t be as fast to push it as it would be to ride on it, but at least she would be able to rest her arms without losing hours of good travel time for nothing.

Nancy Sims

11:43 PM, March 31, 2038

Another hour passed before Nancy replied to James’ story. “Was it silver?”

“Huh?”

“The thing that took your friend. Was it silver? Like smoke?”

James was shocked and nearly choked on his words as he responded. “H-how did you know?”

“I saw it, or, something like it, I think. It was close to where I crashed on the highway. I found a farmhouse and slept in their barn. The next morning, there was this buzzing mass of silver smoke that was near the house. It only stayed for a minute, though, then it disappeared. I don’t know why it didn’t attack me. I was scared to death when I saw it, but it just left me alone.”

“That… sounds like the thing that killed Jerry. I was helping him walk along and this thing just came out of nowhere. It was buzzing, too, real loud. He was closest to it and he sort of freaked out, trying to swat it away and stuff, but it was no use. It just… took him. Ate him, tore him up, I don’t even know how to describe it, really. It was like… eating him, from the inside out, though. When it happened, I didn’t know what to do. I tried to help him, but whatever this thing was kept pushing me away. I couldn’t even get close enough to help.”

A sound at the top of the stairs silenced James. Both he and Nancy glanced at each other and James blinked several times, putting his head down at his chest, pantomiming a sleeping position. Nancy nodded and they both closed their eyes and dropped their heads to their chests, feigning sleep.

The two brothers walked down the stairs, Joshua in front and Richard behind, both mumbling and whispering to each other. Nancy sensed Richard’s closeness to her and struggled to continue to pretend like she was sleeping as his warm breath blew over her face.

“Richard….” The warning came in a low voice from Joshua and Richard moved away from Nancy. “Leave those two alone.” Joshua’s voice moved a bit, closer to James and the other woman. “This new one, though... let’s take her upstairs, shall we?” Richard cackled and they both walked over to the woman who had been brought in and hung up next to James.

Nancy cracked one eye just enough to watch the brothers. Joshua leaned down close to the woman’s face and pulled out his knife. Grabbing on to the rope that the woman was dangling from, he held it still, then sliced through it with one quick motion. The woman fell to the ground in a heap, still unconscious from the blow to her head.

With a grunt, Richard heaved the woman over his shoulder and stomped up the stairs. Joshua followed behind him. He stopped, briefly, and leaned over to whisper in Nancy’s ear. “No sense in pretending, little missy. Watch all you’d like. You’ll be next.”

Leonard McComb

6:40 PM, April 1, 2038

As he made his way out of the city, Leonard was on guard for any signs of the silver masses he heard last night. Up until he reached the edge of the city, there were none to be seen. It was late in the day when he spotted the first swarm, when he was searching for a good place to park for the night. Up ahead, in the parking lot of a mall, a column of silver smoke swirled, circling around a group of vehicles.

Leonard hit the brakes on the Jeep, skidding to a halt. He shut off the headlights and ducked down below the dash in an effort to stay out of sight of the mass. A few moments passed and the buzzing didn’t increase in volume, so he peeked out over the hood of the Jeep to see what was going on.

A quarter mile away, in the parking lot, the silver mass still swirled, pulsating as it moved around the cars. As Leonard watched, he began to focus on one car in particular on the side of the group that appeared to have something moving inside of it. This vehicle seemed to get the most attention from the mass, as it would occasionally brush up against the vehicle only to dart away when the vehicle shook in response.
There’s got to be someone in there
, he thought.

Leonard remained in the Jeep, not willing to risk going out, even if there was someone in the car. The light of day was fading quickly, though, and he wanted to see more of what was going on. He sighed and rolled his eyes, cursing himself for his curiosity as he sat up in the seat and put the Jeep into drive.

The headlights of the Jeep were still off as it rolled forward, slowly moving towards the parking lot of the mall. The activity of the silver mass had picked up considerably, but didn’t appear to notice Leonard at all. Its attention was still fixated on the vehicle in the parking lot. As Leonard watched the vehicle, the movement from inside of it suddenly increased and he stopped the Jeep again.

From his new vantage point, Leonard could make out the shape of a person inside the car, thrashing wildly in the front seat as they appeared to fight with some unseen attacker. This intense movement went on for several more minutes before it stopped, abruptly. At the same time, the silver mass stopped moving and it slowly descended to the driver’s door of the car, hovering in place a few inches off the ground.

The car door opened, and through the shifting silver smoke, Leonard could make out the figure of a man stepping stiffly out of the car. The man was surrounded and enveloped by the silver mass as he staggered away from the car, moving with awkward, jerky motions. The man went in no particular direction as he walked, though Leonard noticed a thinning of the silver cloud. It rapidly evaporated as it circled around the man, revealing his body and face to Leonard.

The man’s body was bloodied and his clothes were torn and shredded. Bits of silver flakes were scattered across his skin, and over the span of a few minutes they quickly grew into larger pieces of metal that intersected and melded with the flesh. As the metal grew, the bruises and blood on the man’s body began to disappear, and Leonard could swear that the man gained twenty pounds of muscle and three inches of height.

The most disturbing part of the whole transformation, though, was the man’s face. From the moment Leonard was able to see it through the cloud of silver smoke, the man had an expression of agony painted on his face, though no sounds escaped his twisted lips. The pain in the man’s face grew in intensity as his body underwent its transformations, though he continued to stagger aimlessly in the parking lot, either unwilling or unable to do anything about it.

By the end, the man’s body was completely changed, except for his head. Even this, though, did not last long. Leonard saw new glints of silver appear, rising up from the man’s mouth, up and over his head. The liquid metal flooded the man’s face, erasing his expression of pain along with his eyes. As the silver liquid covered and consumed the man’s entire head, his movements increased in smoothness. Within a moment or two, it was all over. In place of the man that was standing in the parking lot not ten minutes ago stood the body of something new.

Leonard swallowed hard as he looked at the creature. The light was all but gone from the sky, though the sunken silver eye sockets and silver patches of metal across the creature’s body still reflected the small amount of light in every direction. It raised its head into the air, sniffing, then stopped, rotating to look directly at Leonard. A faint, grim smile appeared on the creature’s face as it stared at Leonard. Leonard stared back at the creature, frozen in horror.

“Oh fuck.”

Marcus Warden

2:18 PM, March 31, 2038

Interstate 64 was a major artery in the state of Virginia. Along with I-81 going north and south, the east to west route of I-64 served as a connector that stretched from Virginia Beach all the way to St. Louis. Inside the state of Virginia itself, one of its most frequently used purposes was to serve as a main travel route between Charlottesville and Richmond, along with the areas both around and between them. Due to its heavy use, I-64 was generally kept in good condition, with most repairs taking a few weeks or months to complete. Though the government had a bad historical record at performing upkeep, in the past few years most repairs only took a few weeks or a month at most to complete, and they happened infrequently enough that travelers didn’t notice much of an impact in their daily travels. Unfortunately, this heavy use had a distinct downside that Marcus didn’t quite anticipate.

For the first couple of hours of his ride, the going was smooth, if not a bit treacherous. Due to the high volume of vehicles that were wrecked and abandoned along both sides of the highway, though, Marcus was forced on more than one occasion to take precious time sorely out of his way. He was frequently forced to dismount and walk in the wide grassy center median, pulling the bicycle alongside him due to the impassability of the highway itself. As he expected, the few times he bothered to check, the vehicles were all dead, just as they had been throughout the trip, with no bodies to be found either in or around them. Keys were in all of the cars’ ignitions, and on a few older models he saw faint streams of light coming from the headlamps, but the engines and main electronics of all of the vehicles were unresponsive and nonfunctional.

When he wasn’t wading through ankle-deep water, climbing over wreckage or trying to make his way through waist-high grass, the journey was pleasant, and Marcus spent most of his riding time contemplating the new state of the world, imagining what it was like if the entire planet was as he had seen it so far.
Have all the world’s governments fallen? What about the people in those other countries, too? Were there any survivors like me? Hell, is there anyone left in
this
country besides me?

Marcus was involved in politics to some level by necessity due to his position in his company, but he abhorred both national and international politics and avoided them as much as humanly possible. Still, he was not completely unknowledgeable about the state of the world. With the last war nearly a decade behind them, most of the world had been at peace. It was only in the recent year that tensions had once again started to rise, precipitated by rumors that several factions in the Middle East and former Soviet states had acquired nuclear weapons technology. Through what little Marcus had followed on the news, nobody knew exactly where this information was coming from, but the three major world powers had already started posturing over it, despite its dubious nature.

Despite these tensions, seeing the world in this state confused Marcus, who never thought that it would come to this. Mutually assured destruction promised to be the end-all solution to all-out war between the superpowers, but something overrode it enough that it didn’t matter anymore. Whether it was a faction group, a disgruntled state, a rogue official or something more insidious, none of that mattered anymore now that the deed was finished. Somewhere, someone must have snapped, and set off a chain reaction that nearly destroyed humanity. As terrifying as the creature was that Marcus had encountered in the cavern and his dreams, the thought of the world’s population being destroyed in an instant was even more terrifying, despite its somewhat more abstract nature.

Aside from the clouds,
he thought,
it’s pretty nice so far, I must admit. I always figured the end of the world would be drearier
. Indeed, the weather was fair, and Marcus again noticed a distinct reduction in the amount of smoky black cloud cover that had hung low in the sky just after the bombs first fell. Though changes from moment to moment were impossible to perceive, when he let his thoughts drift for a half hour or more, there were unmistakable – though ever so slight – changes in the density and coverage of the clouds. After nearly failing to negotiate a tight turn around an overturned tractor trailer, Marcus suspended all lines of wandering thoughts and focused back on the ride.

A few hours later, in the mid-afternoon, Marcus noticed that signs marking the closeness of the city of Charlottesville were growing more frequent. Pulling over on the side of the road next to a mile marker, Marcus sat on the ground and laid out his map, munching on another pepperoni log he had stuffed in his backpack at the small market.

Looks like I’m about ten miles out from the 29/64 exit. That still puts me well outside Richmond, but it might be a decent place to make camp.
Marcus had considered diverting into the city of Charlottesville proper, but was hesitant to do so, even after he had obtained the bike. Facing the creature in the cavern had brought out a paranoid streak in Marcus, and he didn’t feel like wasting his time exploring a city when his goal was still another few days travel away.
Still, I guess I could just get off at the exit and check nearby stores for supplies.
Marcus sighed and folded up his map, sticking it into the side pouch of his backpack.
I suppose I’ll decide once I get there.
Fortunately for Marcus, this wait did not last long.