Apocalypse's Prelude

by Carl Damen

  He quirked an eyebrow. She turned for a moment to look at him, saw that he was offering no resistance, returned to her vigil.

  "Then, once the skies are clear, you're going to get as much FEMA support flying as is humanly possible. I know it's not really your purview, but you see it gets done. You land food and medicine in all the major cities, the ones with the worst fighting: Chicago, LA, San Antonio, New York. You get the idea. Pick a spot, somewhere large but defensible. Lock it down. Then, you start letting in anyone who wants to get away. Make sure they don't have weapons.

  "Here, you do it in Sky Crest. I know you've got some barricades already. Now, everything outside Kensington's a dead zone. Hell, even Kensington. You now have the tower, the mall, and the immediate surroundings. Pull back the troops. Anyone who wants can come in, but absolutely no one gets out."

  He slowly nodded, then ran his hands through his hair again. "You're suggesting concentration camps."

  She returned the nod. "Hostages. It'll mostly be women and children who come. Safety, food, and medicine. You said yourself we're a destabilized state. People out there are fighting for ideals, for the future. If you take their families, their futures, they'll have nothing to fight for. If you take the families hostage, the men have no choice but to give up and go home."

  They stood in silence for a minute, the last few soldiers descending the stairs and making their way to the elevator.

  "You realize he's not coming for you, right?"

  Amanda clenched her jaw. "How long ago did he choose the world over me?"

  Mistaren shook his head, shrugged. "I don't have an exact date; it's ancient history to me."

  "Just make sure you get it done. Then we can get back to worrying about those fucking E.H.U.D.s." Amanda turned from the window and stormed away. She approached Than, got his attention, gathered him in an embrace.

  Mistaren watched in the reflection, then looked beyond the shadow world into the darkness beyond... and smiled.

  4

  Chapter 23

  Part III: E.H.U.D.

  Chapter 23

  In the beginning was darkness. Jack opened his eyes, blinked, closed them again. There was no discernible difference. He pushed himself into a sitting position, felt concrete rasp against his bare legs. Where was he?

  The last thing he remembered, he had been driving home from a client meeting in Cherry Hill. He had... well, probably too many drinks. Oh, God, where was he?

  A sound, somewhere between a gasp and a sneeze, came from his right.

  He held still, waited for his heart rate to return to normal. Wherever he was, he wasn't alone. Groping in the dark identified an arm, shoulder, bare breast. Jack sighed and relaxed against the rough wall. Lauren. He must have come home a little drunk, must have ended up taking Lauren down into the cellar. God, what a horrible place to make love. She wouldn't be happy in the morning.

  But maybe tonight? Jack began to stroke her breast, leaned in, kissed her shoulder, worked up to the neck. She snorted and waved half-heartedly. Her ear, and— rough scalp. Prickly fuzz of freshly growing hair.

  He jerked away, shouted something.

  Whoever was there with him awoke, flailed around, scooted out of reach. "Oh, God!" she yelled. "Please, whatever you're doing, please stop!"

  "Me stop? Who the hell are you?" Jack crossed his legs, tried to hide his nudity, despite the total darkness.

  "You were—you were rubbing on me!"

  "No I wasn't! I mean, you were asleep—"

  "And that makes it okay? The fuck is wrong with you? Where am I?"

  "I—I don't—" The situation suddenly became clear to Jack. He was stark naked, in the dark, with a complete stranger. If she wan't Lauren, this probably wasn't his cellar. If it wasn't— A deep disquiet rumbled in the pit of his stomach, and he felt a tremor pass through the walls of his reality. Slowly, he reached up to the top of his head. Nothing but stubble.

  Now there was soft crying. "Oh, God, what is happening, what is happening... Please don't rape me, just let me go, I swear I won't tell anyone..."

  "Whoa, hey, slow down, no ones going to, um..." he cleared his throat. "What happened before, I... I thought you were my girlfriend, I just woke up, I don't know what's going on..." he trailed off. "I thought you were asleep."

  "I thought I was just dreaming at first..."

  "Huh."

  They sat in silence for what seemed like hours. "Um, I'm Jack by the way."

  No response for what seemed like hours. "My name's Suzanne."

  "Hi."

  "That's, uh, that's a bit of an accent you got there..."

  That brought Jack up short. He had never really thought about it before, but he guessed he did have a bit of an accent. Of course, so did almost everyone he knew. "It's not too weird."

  "It's just... I don't know, it seems really north-eastern. Where're you from? Originally, I mean."

  "Here. I've lived here my whole life. What do you mean, north-eastern?"

  "Like somewhere around New York, New Jersey, somewhere in there."

  "Pennsylvania..." Nausea was rising.

  "Right, something like that. But you say you're from Texas?"

  Jack lurched forward, fell to his knees, dry-heaved onto the concrete. How much had he had to drink? Where was he, what was going on, what was going on, what was—

  Harsh white lights burst on overhead, and both Jack and Suzanne yelled in pain, fell back to writhe blindly on the floor. What seemed like hours passed before Jack was able to blink away tears and look around. He was in what looked to be a concrete cube, maybe teen feet on a side, a large metal door imbedded in one wall. Overhead, barely discernible in the glare, where row upon row of halogen lights. His vision drifted down to the nude woman laying on the floor an arm's length away.

  There was no guessing her hight, but her build suggested she was no more than average. Her flat, broad-featured face was topped by a fringe of black fuzz, and her skin was a dull chocolate color, in contrast to his own milky paleness.

  That wasn't right. He had never been very dark, but the last thing he remembered, he had sported a tan. Now his skin was pale and papery-looking, a matrix of thin scars appearing here and there across his chest and arms. "The hell..."

  There was a dull clunk as Suzanne backed against the door. Jack looked up to see her trying to cover herself, to curl into a ball. "Don't look at me!"

  He quickly rolled over, tried to hide his unconscious reactions to seeing here; this was neither the time nor the place.

  "So," he said, trying to inject some cheer into his voice. "you're from Texas. You think this is Texas. I'm, uh, I'm from Philadelphia, and... Look, the last thing I remember, I was driving home from a business meeting. Um, what do you remember before waking up?"

  She sniffed, cleared her throat. "Um... I was just at my apartment. I was finishing up a paper for school. It was, it was the last paper for the term. Oh, God, I need to get that turned in. I need to... Fuck!"

  "Um... I hate to rock your boat, but isn't it a little late to turn in a term paper?"

  "What?"

  "It's... It's July."

  "No it isn't." Her voice was steely, and Jack didn't dare argue. "It's December."

  The pale skin, the scars— "You have plans for Christmas?" He couldn't keep a note of panic out of his voice.

  "My, uh... My parents died last year. I was just... just going to stay around the dorms, drink a lot... You?"

  "I'm Jewish."

  "Oh yeah, I saw that."

  Jack clamped his legs tighter. He needed to think.

  He played through multiple scenarios. Kidnapping? Most definitely. Someone who had access to people all over the country. That seemed to be outside the realm of the average private psychopath. Aliens? No. Just... no. The scars, the time jump... the night driving home, far beyond buzzed. There must have been a car wreck, he must have been in a hospital. Government? Had to be. Why?

  Didn't matter; he had to escape, had to get back to Laur
en. They were just months away from being married; she had already picked out baby names. Had to get back to Lauren.

  He stood, unconcerned now by his nudity. It was just a fact of life, just something he had to get used to.

  Suzanne looked up at him. "Um... what are you doing?"

  He gestured behind her. "We need to look at the door; it's our only way out."

  "What about the drain?"

  Jack quirked an eyebrow and turned. There was indeed a small circular drain in the middle of the floor, maybe two inches across. He looked back to Suzanne. She dropped her gaze.

  "I was just kidding..." She stood as well, and together they began examining the door. It was difficult to make out details, the light was so bright, but it seemed to be a solid piece of metal, with recessed hinges. It would be impossible to fiddle with the hinges as long as the door was closed.

  They were stuck.

  They sat in silence for what seemed like hours. The whole time, Jack continued to think of ways to get out, to get back to Lauren.

  "Hey, uh, Jack?" Suzanne said.

  Jack jolted, looked around wildly. He must have dozed off, despite the lights.

  "Look, I know we're uh, we're naked and everything, and we can't really be strangers, but I'd still like to ease into it, so... You think you could turn around while I use the drain?"

  Jack complied. He heard footsteps, the sound of pressurized liquid spattering against a hard surface, then—

  From somewhere behind the lights powerful jets of water blasted on, pelting them, bruising skin, spattering against the floor and walls and ricocheting around as a stinging spray. Moments later it stopped, and they lay curled on the ground, trembling and whimpering.

  "We're... we're being monitored," Jack gasped.

  "Could... could be coincidence. Two times, two times, we're monitored."

  "What the hell were you studying in college?"

  Then the light turned off, and they counted it as morning and evening of the first day.

  * * *

  Sometime later the lights returned, just as sudden and relentless as before. Jack stood and warily approached the drain. "Get ready, I'm about to test your hypothesis."

  Suzanne nodded and curled into the fetal position.

  He began to urinate, finished, waited, every muscle tense. "I think maybe you're—"

  Water. Jack fell back on his hells, held himself, tried to keep as much of his body as possible away from the stinging under-spray that reflected from the ground.

  When the water stopped, he looked up to see Suzanne staring back at him. "Okay," she said, wiping water from her eyes, "we know how the toilets work. Now, we find out how we get food. There was no food yesterday, but I'm sure they're not going to let us starve."

  "We don't know if the dark/light cycle was a full day."

  Suzanne almost smiled. "What the hell were you studying in college? Anyway, it doesn't matter if it was an exact twenty-for hours or not, what matters was we have something regular to measure time by.

  The lights shut off.

  "Okay, now they're just fucking with us," she continued.

  Jack sat, edged his way back to the wall. "So, uh, it appears we're trapped here for the time being. We should probably get to know each other."

  "I'm not telling you any more until we see another person."

  "What?"

  "For all I know you're a serial killer, and this is just how you get off; pretending to be a prisoner, gaining the trust of your victims. If there's someone on the outside, I'm more inclined to believe you're a prisoner, too. Serial killers tend to work alone."

  "What the hell where you studying in college?"

  He couldn't see her, but in the silence after his question, he could almost imagine a smile.

  "While I'm waiting on verification that you're not going to kill me, why don't you let me get to know you."

  "Um, well..." With all the talk of serial killers, he was having his own doubts about Suzanne. Still, thinking about normal life might help him to keep a level head. So far, this was all too strange to really accept, but he was sure that once it really did, he would well and truly panic. "My name's Jack Dolad, Jewish, age twenty-seven. I'm an architect living in Philadelphia. I'm... I'm engaged."

  Saying it aloud, acknowledging it in this strange place made it seem so distant, so impossible. He wasn't supposed to break this soon, his reality wasn't supposed to collapse after only a few sentences of his own biography. It was as if acknowledging what he had had before this cube only served to underline what was no longer his.

  He didn't realize he had been crying until he felt the warmth against him and his tears stopped.

  "If you really are a serial killer, you're doing a damn good job of getting my sympathy..."

  And there was morning and there was evening the second day.

  * * *

  The next time the lights turned on, there was food.

  "Did you see or hear anything?"

  "No..." Suzanne was starring at the gallon jug of water. "You could have slipped out while I was sleeping."

  "You were on top of me."

  She didn't hear him; she was busy chugging the water. When she had finished about a third, she returned the jug to the floor, then slid the jug to Jack. He too drank greedily, only to be suddenly pummeled to the floor in a spray from the ceiling. When the water stopped he turned to see Suzanne, hunched over the drain, water dribbling down her chin.

  "What the hell? That fucking hurt! Warn me next time, goddammit!"

  She retched then scuttled away, fear visible in her eyes.

  He sighed. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I... I'm sorry. Here." He placed the jug to the floor, then stepped away. "Just... just drink slower this time."

  She stood, half-bent, eyeing him warily, then picked up the bottle and slowly sipped at it.

  Jack turned to the small metal bowl that had been left beside the jug. It had turned over in the downpour, and whatever had been in it was slowly oozing towards the drain. He hastily scooped it up, shoved some in his mouth, nearly gagged. It was some kind of bean paste, unseasoned hummus maybe, that had mixed with too much water. He used the bowl to scoop up the rest, then set it aside.

  He and Suzanne took turns drinking the water until the jug was empty, then shared out the bean paste.

  "So," Jack prompted, licking the remainders of the paste off his fingers, "what's your story?"

  She frowned, then nodded. "Alright. I'm a sophomore at Texas A&M, studying psychology. Nominally Baptist. Like I said earlier, my parents died. Car wreck."

  Jack shuddered.

  "What?"

  "I think I was in a car wreck. That's how I think I got here."

  "Car wreck in July? Alright, I'll take a wild guess and say dorm fire in December. Smoke inhalation. Those fucking hippies down the hall were always burning something. We had three small fires in the time I was there."

  "You think we're dead?"

  Suzanne leaned back and regarded him. "Honestly, that seems a lot better than any of the alternatives I could think of."

  Then the lights shut off.

  "Shit, that happens at bad times."

  "You think they're controlling the lights based on what we're doing or talking about?"

  "You know one of those worse alternatives I mentioned?"

  "Yeah?"

  "I'm really hoping I didn't get wasted and sign up for some really fucking weird experiment. No amount of extra credit is worth this."

  And there was morning and there was evening the third day.

  * * *

  And so life continued. Lights would turn on, lights would turn off, food would come, all without pattern. Sometimes the light would last for mere minutes. Sometimes it would strobe on and off for... some unmeasurable period of time. Sometimes when the light turned on, there would be food. Sometimes, there wouldn't be.

  Once it became clear that there was not rhythm to the lights or food, they tried to measure time by bodily functions: nai
l growth, hair growth. They had even planned to use Suzanne's period if the time lasted long enough. Unfortunately, whoever was controlling their food and light was onto their plans. Every time they awoke, their nails were neatly trimmed, their fair freshly shorn. If it wasn't for their steady decrease in weight, they might have been able to believe that their bodily processes had frozen entirely.