Final Dawn: Season 1 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series) (5 page)

7:15 AM, March 29, 2038

Rachel Walsh

When dawn broke, Rachel's eyes were red and she was shivering from the cold. The normally mild Georgia spring had given way to something cold and sinister. The sun was blotted from the sky by the ever-present clouds of dust and smoke that still hung high in the air. She had fallen asleep sobbing, a little girl whose heart was broken from the realization that her entire world had been torn from her. When she awoke, she was solemn and determined, analytical instead of emotional. For the last three years Rachel had spent most of her time away from her family working in a lab in Washington as one of the head researchers. Not normally given to emotional outbursts, her calm nature had finally taken over, helping her process her surroundings on autopilot while she tried to cope with the heart-wrenching devastation of what had happened. The new dawn brought a red tint to the landscape, illuminating the small pieces of the neighborhood that were left after— 

Wait a second. What happened here? A tornado? An earthquake?

She thought back to the weather report that was on the television before she went down into the basement.
Clear skies ahead for the next week, and temperatures hovering in the high 60's, perfect for that weekend getaway!
It couldn't have been a tornado, and Georgia wasn't exactly known for its active earthquakes. Something else had to have happened.

Rachel's mind worked faster now, processing the information around her, the scientist side taking on the lead and pushing her emotions back even farther as she began to walk around.
So it wasn't the weather, and it wasn't tectonic. Could it have been a meteor?
A big enough impact could have caused this type of destruction, but it would have to have been a massive asteroid, one that NASA or some other agency would have picked up on first. Rachel stopped, her eyes widening as she continued her thought process.
Not weather, not tectonic, not an asteroid impact. That only leaves... no, it can't be.

Rachel started yelling out again, panic setting in to her voice. "Hello?? Anyone? Is anyone there??" She began running from foundation to foundation, peeking under piles of debris and following what was left of the winding street down to the edge of the neighborhood, where it dumped out onto the local highway. Flattened trees, scattered debris and no sign of human life was the story throughout the neighborhood and the highway was no exception. Struggling against her dawning realization, she grappled for any type of rational explanation for this level of devastation. The only thing that came to mind was some type of massive gas leak, but even if that were possible, she couldn't imagine that there would be no first responders anywhere in the area.
Besides, there aren't any gas lines running under the highway.

Movement in the corner of Rachel's eye broke her from her musings and sent her crouching low to the ground. A faint shimmering appeared in the distance, traveling parallel to the wreckage on the highway. While her initial impulse was to call out and go running and screaming towards whatever it was, something about it didn't seem quite right. As it grew closer, she began to discern its features. Slightly transparent, yet shimmering and reflecting the light in a thousand points of silver and white, it was some type of amorphous blob moving along the surface of the highway. It was as tall as an average human, yet it had no readily apparent shape. Instead, it seemed to flow back and forth, moving between pieces of broken metal and crushed cars, speeding along much faster than any human could hope to run.

The movement was beautiful, like someone had brought a wisp of smoke to life and endowed it with a heavenly shimmer. As it grew closer, Rachel could feel a buzz in the back of her head. A few seconds later, she began to hear it, high pitched and whining, like the sound of a hornet's nest after being torn apart by a child's thrown rock. Rachel crouched down, pressing her body as low to the ground as possible while still keeping the object in sight. The sickening feeling she had at the first sight of the object was growing as she began to realize what it really was.

As the object passed in front of her, no more than a hundred feet away on the opposite side of the highway, it came to a sudden halt. It sat there for a moment, bobbing up and down, back and forth, shimmering and buzzing. Rachel eyed it coldly, betraying no emotion as the object held steady. She felt as though it was gazing at her through invisible eyes, even though there were no discernible features anywhere on its form. Then, as suddenly as it had stopped, it sped up again, moving back and forth between the highway wreckage on its original path. Rachel kept still, not daring to move until the object was long out of sight. Once it was gone she stood slowly, eyes glued to the horizon where the object had vanished. Rachel shook her head grimly, her worst fears confirmed.

"They did it. So that's it, then. Those bastards really did it. And now we have to pay the price."

7:32 AM, March 29, 2038

Rachel Walsh

Rachel sat down on the edge of the highway, her mind still reeling with the consequences of what she had just seen.

"I don't believe it."

Yet there it had been, plain as day, not a stone's throw away from her, proof that one of her deepest fears had come to life.

As Rachel’s mind churned through the scenarios and consequences of what she had seen, a noise from behind her made her jump, whirling around defensively. Sam, her dog, came slinking up behind her, his deep brown eyes staring off in the distance where the “thing” had disappeared. Sam was normally quite brave, unafraid of larger dogs and thunderstorms. Yet that thing had spooked him so much that he had stayed behind, cowering in the ruins of her house until long after it passed.

Rachel knelt beside Sam and stroked his head softly. "It's okay, boy. Nothing to worry about. They won't hurt you. They're gone now." Sam visibly relaxed as she comforted him and he eventually became his normal self again.

As Rachel walked back towards what was left of her house, she continued to take in the damage to the neighborhood — or what little of it still remained. The streets were half destroyed. Large pieces of asphalt were either cracked or had been torn from the earth and flung to who-knew-where. Aside from an even scattering of debris, the only evidence left of most of the homes were bits and pieces of foundations and basements. Her house, situated at the end of a cul-de-sac (better for defense, Jeremy had once claimed) had fared best of all.

When Rachel and Jeremy moved to the area, it was nothing like it had turned out to be. Instead of a neighborhood filled with homes, it was merely construction sites and empty lots. Though a neighborhood association was still being formed, Rachel and Jeremy had purchased their home before it was completely formed. This gave them certain leeway with how they built their home and Jeremy took full advantage of this leeway.

The foundation had been infused with a new space-age carbon nanotube variant which gave the concrete immense resilience against outside forces. The extra-deep basement had been built from this same material and enlarged to cover nearly double the floor space of the main floor of their home. Most of this work was against the neighborhood association’s guidelines, but they had managed to sneak it past thanks to some clever paperwork and more than a few dollars’ worth of palm-greasing.

Despite this and other unique building techniques, most of Rachel's house had been obliterated, but at least she was able to make out a complete outline of the foundation. After seeing the damage firsthand, she was convinced about what had happened. The sight on the highway, though, had pushed her over the edge, proving that what had occurred couldn't have been natural.

"Nuclear," she muttered to herself, stepping carefully through the remains of her living room as she made her way back to what was left of the basement entrance.

The only thing powerful enough to cause this much damage in such a brief period of time had to have been a nuclear explosion. Based on the damage levels (and the fact that she had managed to survive), it had most likely been somewhere to the south, directly over Atlanta. As Rachel began to turn over the significance of this fact in her mind, she stopped herself.
No, I’ve got to stop this. There’s no time. What’s done is done. I’ve got to get to Washington and set it straight.

5:18 AM, March 29, 2038

Marcus Warden

Marcus groaned as he came to, a sudden spasm arcing through his back to his lower legs. “What the hell happened?” As he opened his eyes, he blinked several times, struggling to see through the black haze that hung over them. After a few seconds, Marcus realized it wasn’t his vision that was the source of the problem, it was the fact that it was still dark. As another spasm shot through his back, he groaned again and tried to pull himself up. Through the murky darkness he could barely make out the outline of the rows of bus seats that he had been thrown on when –
Wait, what happened?

His memory was murky like his gaze, but as he moved around, pulling and pushing himself off of the seats, his vision and memory both began to clear. An image of some sort of mass rushing past him sprang into focus and he gasped as he remembered what had occurred, slipping off of the seats and falling once again. This time, though, he managed to catch himself, though a sharp pain shot through his arm and he heard the sound of broken glass. Marcus cursed loudly, screaming in pain and regretting his decision to rest inside the bus.

Marcus held his hand close to the window, taking advantage of what little moonlight was present. He winced as he saw the large piece of glass embedded in his hand. He held the wounded hand over his head in an attempt to stem the blood loss, then he reached into his backpack with his free hand. He pulled out some rags that he had grabbed from the convenience store and wrapped them around his hand, being careful not to shift the piece of glass that was wedged into his skin. He grabbed a bottle of off-brand vodka and gnawed on the cap, eventually twisting it off, then poured a liberal amount directly on the wound, gritting his teeth at the pain. Once the wound was sterilized as best as he could manage, he gently tugged on the glass, pulling it out slowly and deliberately.

Thankfully, although the piece was large, it wasn’t very wide and it hadn’t penetrated as deeply as he first thought. Once it was out, he poured another dash of alcohol over the wound and quickly wrapped it with the rags. Though he had an emergency first aid kit with him from his camping trip, he didn’t want to risk wasting it on the wound, given how minor it now appeared to be.

Marcus shuddered as he exhaled, his shoulders slumping forward and his head bowing down and resting on his chest. For the first time since waking up in the bus, he looked at his watch.
Nearly sunup.
Crud.
Whatever had knocked him out in the bus hadn’t gifted him with a very restful sleep even though he had been unconscious for a few hours. Still, dawn was still a couple hours away, so there was a chance he could rest for a bit before continuing on.

Marcus crawled to the back of the overturned bus and found an open space where a row of seats had been dislodged and flung forward, leaving enough room for him to curl into the fetal position and lay down flat. As he put his head on his arm and cradled his wounded hand, his brain finally began to churn and process what had happened. Whatever the thing in the bus was, he had never seen anything like it. The light from the lantern had given it some kind of unearthly shimmer as it rushed towards him.
And the noise. I’ve never heard anything like it. Some type of... buzzing or bass?
Whatever it had been, it had left him relatively unharmed, even though he had been knocked out again.
The stress must be getting to me. Two times I’ve blacked out in the last day is three more than I’ve blacked out the rest of my life.

Marcus continued to ponder the strange apparition, going over the few details he remembered in his mind as he slowly drifted off to sleep. Sheltered from the wind and chill outside the bus, he fell into a deep sleep, his body doing its utmost to recover from the day’s events.

5:48 AM, March 27, 2038

Leonard McComb

Cold, dank air hissed around Leonard as he stood silently on the catwalk contemplating his next move. He had tried to keep track of the time since he saw the mass disappear out of the top of the processing station but had quickly lost track amid the sounds of the underground. While the echo of the diesel generators had long since disappeared, gravity still pulled and pushed liquid through the pipes, causing all manner of noises to emerge around him. Sounds of water flowing, air rushing and the creak of the metal catwalk enveloped him, distracting him from counting the seconds.

Since his headlamp had died, he hadn’t dared move for fear of attracting the attention of the mass that had disappeared. While it had retreated once he saw it, the fact that its entry into the processing station’s control room coincided precisely with the failure of the generators filled him with dread. As his legs began to ache from standing for so long, though, he began to rationalize his fears, convincing himself to move forward.
What else am I going to do, stand here for the rest of my life?

While the processing station was pitch black, Leonard knew its general layout and that the door to the control room was just a few feet away. He began to shuffle forward, keeping the sounds of his boots on the metal to a minimum as he inched towards the stairs he knew were there. His toe softly impacted with the metal of the first stair and he flinched, half-expecting the mass to reappear. When nothing but the sounds of the station continued, he began to slowly climb the stairs, wincing with every creak and groan.

Leonard held his hands out in front of him as he approached the top of the stairs. He took the steps even slower now, not wanting to misjudge where he was stepping and fall backwards. As he finally approached the top of the stairs, he reached for the control room door and his hand fell upon the cold steel of the door handle. Taking a breath, he pushed down on the handle and swung the door inwards, one hand out in front of him as he walked into the control room.

While this processing station was newer than most that had been built in the underground system, it still conformed to certain safety standards. One of these standards was the mandatory requirement that there be battery-powered backup lights inside the control room and a small stash of emergency flashlights as well, in case of a total system failure. Leonard groped along the wall, searching until he felt what he was looking for. He grabbed the large metal handle with both hands and took a deep breath, tugging it downwards.

A bright spark near his hands made his eyes shut involuntarily and a soft beeping sound came from speakers in the ceiling as several emergency lights inside the control room powered on, bathing the room in red. Leonard blinked several times, adjusting his vision to the light, thankful that the newer stations were going with red emergency lights instead of white ones. Red lights interfered with night vision less than standard white lights did and made it easier and faster for his eyes to adjust to. Leonard shrugged his shoulder pack off and set it on the floor, looking around at the control room.

The room was in surprisingly good shape compared to what he had expected. There was virtually no interior damage aside from a few broken window panes and some shelves that had been knocked loose from their wall fittings. Overall the room was in excellent condition, and the place was tidy as well. A row of levers, buttons and computer screens lined the front of the station directly underneath the main windows. On the opposite side of the room from the door Leonard had entered through, a spiral staircase descended down into the maintenance room containing the diesel generators and other equipment that passed through the control room.

If memory served Leonard correctly, the emergency flashlights and headlamps were stored down in the maintenance room. As he understood it, the logic was that workers in the control room had emergency lighting that was sufficient to do their jobs, but the workers in the maintenance room below would need portable lights for any repairs that had to be carried out. Personally, Leonard thought this was a terrible system and had voiced complaints about the low number of emergency lights for years, but budget concerns outweighed most minor safety concerns.

Leonard walked over to the spiral staircase and carefully descended into the maintenance room, gripping the rail tightly as he walked, on guard for any structure problems. When he reached the bottom he squinted as he looked around, trying to make out any familiar shapes in the near-darkness. While there were a few emergency lights in the maintenance room, several of them appeared to be burned out. After a few minutes of looking, he eventually found his target: a larger white cabinet at the far end of the room. Leonard approached the cabinet and flung it open, a grin breaking out on his face as he saw its contents.