Final Dawn: Season 1 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series) (6 page)

10:05 AM, March 29, 2038

Nancy Sims

Nancy peeked over the edge of the barn window and peered into the yard. She had laid motionless in the hay for what felt like hours. Even though the “thing” had long since departed, the hairs on the back of her neck were still raised and she was still concerned that it was out there, somewhere, waiting for her.

Her gaze darted back and forth over the yard, house, corn fields and highway beyond. There was no sign of “it.” After several more minutes of watching, she crawled to the ladder leading down into the barn, cautiously looking over the edge. Below her she could still hear the cows moving about in their stalls. Nothing looked or sounded amiss, so she began a slow descent into the barn, pausing after each creaky step to make sure there was nothing coming after her. Reaching the bottom of the ladder, she began to relax, feeling safer since she hadn’t seen anything or anyone.

Unsure what to do next, Nancy walked back across the yard to the house, glancing around as she went. She knocked on the door again, softly at first, then louder. There was still no answer. When she had arrived last night, this seemed a bit odd, but explainable. Today, though, after what she had seen, she was more suspicious. Weighing the odds of facing down a farmer with a shotgun versus standing around in his yard, Nancy opted for the more proactive approach. She reached for the door handle and turned, half-surprised when she was met with no resistance.

Nancy swung the door open, the smell of mothballs and apple pie greeting her as she took a step into the home. “Hello? Is anyone there?” she shouted. She didn’t hear a reply, or anything else for that matter. Taking this as permission to enter further, she walked through the doorway and closed the door behind her.

The house was well lit thanks to a large number of windows with shades that were all open. Directly in front of her was a wooden staircase leading to the second floor, while the living room lay to her right and the kitchen to her left. As she became used to the smell in the house, the mothballs were gradually replaced by a well-used and lived-in scent, clear indications that this was in no way an abandoned home. The aroma of food, the smell of bath products and even the scent of diaper cream all leapt out. Whoever lived here couldn’t have been gone for long. Where they went and where they were now, though, was a good question.

Nancy stepped cautiously into the kitchen. It was relatively clean with a few dirty dishes piled in the sink. Glass-paneled cabinets hung from the walls and a pie sat on the counter in a glass baking dish wrapped in plastic wrap. While the smell had made Nancy’s mouth water when she first came into the house, the sight of the pie caused her stomach to grumble loudly as she realized just how hungry she was.

Forgetting all about her initial fears, Nancy rushed to the pie and tore off the plastic wrap, grabbing a piece of it with her hands and devouring it greedily. As she ate, she realized that she hadn’t eaten in…
How long has it been? A day? It feels like it’s been a week. Who knows how long I was unconscious, though.

After the third slice, Nancy opened a cabinet above the sink and took out a glass. She filled it with water from a pitcher on the counter and drained it, then sat down at the kitchen table with her pie and continued eating. When she finished devouring the entire pie, she leaned back in her chair. Hunger satiated, she looked around the kitchen and noticed a sheet of paper taped to the front of the refrigerator across the room.

Edgar – Thanks for looking after the place while we’re away. Help yourself to anything in the fridge and enjoy the pie. – Helen

Once she finished reading the note, Nancy felt bad for eating the entire pie, then she grew puzzled. There hadn’t been a single slice of the pie missing and she hadn’t seen anyone else around the house or barn, either. The note certainly explained why the owners were gone, but that mystery was now replaced with wondering who “Edgar” was and why he wasn’t at the house.

Nancy continued to scan the kitchen when she spotted a phone hanging on the wall. She virtually sprang from her chair and grabbed it. She hurriedly dialed 911 on the keypad and held the phone up to her ear. Her face slumped when she realized that the phone was dead. She went to the refrigerator next, an old relic that looked like it would be more in place in the 1990’s than now. She opened it and grimaced at the food that was already beginning to spoil due to a lack of electricity.

10:07 AM, March 29, 2038

Marcus Warden

The sounds of crows squawking loudly atop the bus woke Marcus from his sleep. Light streamed in through the dirty, broken windows, making him squint as he began to stir. As he pushed himself up, the pain returned to his hand and he winced as he clutched it to his chest. Once in a sitting position, Marcus peeled back the bandage and looked at the cut, breathing a sigh of relief. While it had crusted over and was still slightly red, there was no sign of any infection. Being careful not to pull any of the scab off, he removed the bandage, doused it with the last of the open bottle of vodka and wrapped it up again, more firmly this time.

Time to get moving
, he thought as he began to crawl along the overturned seats towards the door of the bus. As he passed over the pieces of the broken lantern, he sighed.
Damn shame. At least I still have matches.
Marcus had been in a rush when he passed through the last convenience store and hadn’t thought that he would need to take more than one lantern with him. The decision made sense at the time, but in retrospect it seemed quite foolish.

After climbing out onto the side of the bus, Marcus pulled a map out from his backpack that he had found at the convenience store and stretched it out across the bus windows. He sat cross-legged in front of it, comparing his location to where he needed to go. By his estimations, he was between five and seven days away from Richmond, assuming that he would have to walk the entire way. If he could find a working car or even a bicycle, though, that would cut his time down drastically.
Hell, a skateboard or pair of rollerblades would do the trick, too
.

Marcus smirked at the thought and looked at the next day’s travel route. From what he could tell, there were a few gas stations along the way, so he could stock up on supplies and hopefully replace the lantern. The bigger worry would be getting over the Appalachian Mountains in the next day or two. Once he was past those, though, it would be relatively flat going all the way through Charlottesville to Richmond, and on a highway, no less.
Might be some folks still left that way, too… doubtful, but worth a shot to check it out
.

While the highway Marcus was near led him straight through Staunton and Waynesboro over the mountains, the more direct route was to cut through farmlands until he reached the outskirts of Charlottesville and then take the highway to Richmond. This meant missing out on two larger cities, but it would save him a day or so of travel time.

Marcus looked up at the sky and then down at his watch. After a few seconds, he realized that the second hand had stopped moving. He let out a yelp and quickly pulled out the stem, giving it several swift turns and waited for it to start moving again. Most people used purely digital watches (if they used them at all), even if they were made to look like mechanical ones. Marcus, though, much preferred the simplicity of a pure mechanical watch, one made without wires or circuits. While this old-fashioned decision had meant that his watch had survived the EMP, it also meant that he had to pay close attention to it to make sure that it didn’t wind down. He sighed as he reset the time, trying to estimate to the closest hour based on the position of the sun.

After fiddling with the watch for a few moments, Marcus folded up the map and jumped down from the side of the bus, landing with a grunt. He folded the map up and stuck it in his back pocket, then gave the bus a final look before heading down the highway, marching East at a brisk pace.

7:07 AM, March 27, 2038

Leonard McComb

Half a dozen flashlights, a box of MREs, a dozen gallons of water and four hard hats with fully charged headlights greeted Leonard as he opened the cabinet. Along with them, there were various and sundry medical supplies, spare tools, wire and safety harnesses. While the emergency lights in the maintenance room may have been neglected, someone had clearly paid close attention to safety regulations when stocking the supply cabinet.

Nearly a decade ago, emergency requirements for processing stations and maintenance rooms consisted of nothing more than a few flashlights and spare helmets. However, that all changed when a large system failure triggered the collapse of part of the sewer system, trapping seven workers for five days until they were rescued. While none of them suffered serious injuries, the lack of food and water – save for what they had brought in themselves – had triggered a change in the emergency management operations. This led to new regulations about how much food and water was required to be stored in key locations in the system, as well as things like spare tools and other potentially life-saving accessories.

Leonard tore open the box of MREs, realizing upon seeing them that he hadn’t eaten in quite a long time. He was thankful for the improved regulations that meant he wouldn’t starve or die of thirst. He grabbed several MREs from the box, along with a gallon of water, a flashlight and a hard hat. He flicked the switch on the hard hat’s headlamp, smiling broadly as the darkness retreated in the face of the bright beam.

As Leonard started to ascend the stairs to devour one of the MREs, he happened to glance over at the large diesel generators across the room. The smile he still wore from finding the supplies slowly waned and he dropped what he was carrying on the stairs. Leonard walked over to the diesel generators, circling them and staring at them in the light of his newly-acquired headlamp.

The twin diesel generators were massive, nearly as tall as he was, but they looked like they had been through a warzone. The steel casing on the generators had gaping holes in it that made it look like it had taken a trip through a metal press. Underneath the casing there were more holes torn directly through the generators themselves, ripping straight through the solid iron blocks clear through to the other side. Unlike damage done in an explosion, though, these holes were cut with laser-like precision in clean, concentric circles in one side and out the other. “What the hell?” Leonard whispered, kneeling down to peer through one of the massive tears in the generator.

No way was this caused by the quake,
he thought. Another thought popped into his head.
Wait… if these were running when I got here….

Leonard’s thoughts trailed off as he put together the timing of the events that occurred shortly after arriving in the processing station.
Son of a bitch, it was those things. But how?!

The only explanation for the damage to the generators was that the mass he saw outside the control room door was responsible.
But how could that possibly be true? It was some kind of smoke or bugs or something.
None of this made sense to Leonard. In his decades of engineering experience he had seen and repaired his fair share of catastrophic equipment failures. He had even witnessed the immediate aftermath of a generator nearly exploding, causing half of it to rip apart, embedding thick chunks of steel and iron into nearby walls and ceilings. To have a set of diesel engines ripped apart with clean and orderly holes going straight through them in a matter of minutes, though, that was a new one on him.

Whatever had caused this to happen, Leonard concluded, was exceptionally dangerous. Nothing he had ever heard of could cut through steel and iron so quickly, yet here was the evidence in front of him, plain as day. Why the mass he saw at the control room went after the generators instead of him, though, was yet another mystery stacked on top of a growing pile.

8:07 AM, March 29, 2038

Rachel Walsh

Rachel pulled an ALICE pack from a storage shelf in the basement and began collecting cans from the ground. Beans, ravioli and tuna fish were jammed into the bottom of the bag. She hefted it once, judging the weight. Satisfied, she turned to a metal locker in the corner and opened it, pulling back the copper mesh that lay inside. A row of flashlights and batteries stared back at her. She grabbed one of the pocket flashlights, opened it and inserted the batteries. She clicked the button on the back and smiled grimly as the bright beam of light pierced through the shadows of the basement.

You thought of everything, darling, even the EMP.

When Rachel had finally agreed to the building of the basement “bunker,” she had done so under one condition: if it was going to be done, it was going to be done right. There was enough food and fresh water stored in the basement to last their family for five years. An internal heating and cooling system had been set up with filtration to the outside. Redundant plumbing had been installed. Even the electronics had been carefully double-shielded from potential electromagnetic pulses by encasing the basement in a copper mesh and storing the electronics themselves in copper mesh coated lockers. The expenses had been high and the likelihood of them ever needing any of it had been low, but still they did it anyway.
Thank God.

Rachel grabbed handfuls of batteries as she mused, sticking them into the side pouches of the ALICE pack. She clipped a flashlight onto her belt and stuffed three more into the bag, making sure they had batteries installed and were functional first.
Light, food… water, right.

Rachel walked into a back room of the basement, shining her light ahead of her. The damage back here was less than the main chamber, but it was still full of rubble and a thick layer of dust. She took the flashlight in her mouth and grabbed several liters of water in her arms, bringing them back out and arranging them in the pack on top of the food. The pack was nearly full now, and she guessed it was up to nearly fifty pounds. She grabbed a few more items from the shelves, sticking them into the pack, doing her best not to forget anything vital. An empty CamelBak, a first aid kit, some survival tins, a tightly wrapped length of paracord and an assortment of survival knives finished off the pack. She closed it tightly, ensuring it was fitted properly to its metal frame, then hoisted it onto her back.

She shifted it slightly, adjusting straps here and there until it was comfortable. Once she was satisfied, she took it off again and lowered it to the ground.
Can’t forget the most important thing of all
. Rachel ducked back into the side room again and put her flashlight on a shelf illuminating a large metal locker. It was nearly seven feet tall, four feet wide and four feet deep, with a thick padlock on the front. Climbing on a nearby shelf, she reached around on the top of the locker until she felt a key. Rachel jumped down from the shelf and opened the padlock, pulling on the heavy metal doors as they slowly swung open.

As the locker doors swung open, Rachel smiled grimly again as she looked over row after row of firearms. Dozens of long guns, a heavy assortment of pistols and a pair of Barrett M82A1 .50 caliber beasts smiled back. Rachel had shot most of the weapons that the locker held, but she knew that taking anything heavy with her would be a mistake. She was already going to be hauling over fifty pounds of food, water and supplies, and she couldn’t let anything big weigh her down.

Rachel scanned the handguns first, finally settling on a Glock 19 and 26, both chambered in 9mm and equipped with laser sights. She stuck several magazines in her ALICE pack along with the baby Glock, then attached a leg holster to her right thigh and put on the 19. After looking through the rifles, she settled on an AR-15 and several magazines of 5.56mm rounds. The rifle would add a lot of extra weight to her gear, but the trip from Atlanta to DC was potentially life-threatening and could take a couple weeks or more if she wasn’t able to find a working vehicle. She knew that the food and water wouldn’t last her until she reached Richmond, but with a weapon and some scavenging at various stores along the way, she was hopeful that she’d be able to make it.

Rachel shouldered her pack and rifle, adjusting everything one final time before she began to climb out of the basement. At the top of the stairs, Rachel looked around her at the remains of the house for one last time. She thought of Jeremy and Julie and a single tear ran down her cheek, the only evidence that her emotionless barrier was beginning to break down. She whistled for Sam and he came bounding up after her, panting and wagging his tail excitedly as though he knew they were setting off for a long trip. She patted his head and smiled sadly, imagining what might lie in front of them.

Of course, even if we do get there, then the real challenge begins.