First Light

by Kody Boye

  “It’s wild. Few people, lots of natural resources. And water—lots and lots of water. The park itself is absolutely phenomenal, and the lake…” She closed her eyes. “There’s a piece of land on it that’d be perfect. Just the two of us, our family… it’ll be like our own little—”

  “Utopia,” Rose said.

  Martha nodded. “Right. But this is all rumor right now. We might have to land before we even make it there.”

  “We’re going to make it there,” Bobby grunted, the rise and fall of his shoulders evidence of his disdain.

  “Bobby. I thought you had your headphones—”

  “I do. Right side’s gone out. Remember?” The man tapped the earpiece. “It’s been dead for years.”

  Martha closed her eyes, the pull on her 50s-esque movie-star face drawing her lips into a tight line.

  Rose wasn’t sure how to respond.

  As if sensing this discomfort, the woman sighed, turned her head to face Rose, and offered a pleasant, if obviously-forced smile.

  At least she’s trying, Rose thought.

  “Everything will be all right,” Martha said. “Get some more rest now. It’s going to be a long night.”

  Rose couldn’t sleep.

  Even with the darkness and the surety that their shelter would not be breached by the ravaging hands of the living dead, the constant rattling across her spine and the omnipresent cold tugged at her consciousness in ways no mortal blow ever could. Tossing, shaking, constrained by the binds across her chest—10,000 feet above the world, she felt a prisoner now more than ever.

  Regardless, she didn’t open her eyes.

  She waited.

  Rest was a luxury she had not been afforded for a while. The days upon the ocean, within Fort Hope, in the close and quartered confines of buildings whose safety she’d been careful to ensure… always, there had been a lingering presence: a slip of consciousness and a ray of doubt that made her question what might happen should something go wrong.

  Will you drown? it had often said. Or will you get eaten by sharks?

  Will the zombies break in while you’re awake? they had added. Or when you are asleep?

  She figured such trivial doubts would never reach her up here. Stranded ashore, they’d merely spread their arms—mouths gaping, throats moaning. They would say, ‘Why are you there, where we could not reach you?’ and then they could only reply, ‘You will only see us if we fall.’

  Fact of the matter was, she’d die instantly if there were a crash. The chances of surviving were so slim she’d probably win the lottery, thirty years after the world had recovered and the apocalyptic economy had been lain to rest. To even think she could die—here, now, when she’d been so lucky—was impossible.

  She dozed.

  Martha and Robert remained quiet for most of the night. Occasionally speaking in tones hushed and forced, the casual vacancy made prominent in their relationship, she’d offer an inquiry to see if he was awake and he’d reply with a grunt. The words thereafter ranged from all sorts of things, though the man’s penchant for grumbling kept Rose from making any sense of it.

  When finally it came time for her body to succumb to fatigue’s unrelenting pull, she awoke with a start.

  The calm here was deadly.

  “What’s going on?” Rose said.

  “The engine’s gone out,” Martha said, in a voice so plain it didn’t seem real. “He’s trying to get it back now.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t say anything. He needs to concentrate.”

  The flashing lights and dead silence gave rise to the most incredible high. The lights pulsing, the blood throbbing in her ears—she was on top of the world and they could do nothing about it.

  Fuck.

  Beeping started.

  Reality rushed to her head.

  Then the nose—which Bob had somehow managed to keep so steady—plummeted toward the ground.

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” Martha said as the noise inside the cockpit swelled to a fever pitch. “We’ll make it through this. It’s all in God’s hands now.”

  Rose’s chest seized up.

  She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

  All she could see was the world rushing toward them, and the man trying to make it right.

  There were no screams, no wails, no plaintive cries for mercy.

  “Don’t look, honey,” Martha said. “Close your eyes.”

  She did.

  Then everything was over.

  Chapter 10

  The world was a dark and lonely place.

  There was no light, no sound, no endless plain on which to run.

  There was nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing but silence.

  When she became conscious of it all, she stopped to wonder if she happened to be in Hell.

  Aren’t I supposed to burn? she thought.

  She felt nothing but cold.

  The monotonous ringing that appeared to originate from some distant location gave rise to the idea that she might be somewhere else. Was it not said that all men were blind to profound grace—that to look upon the face of something so unimaginable was to strike fine within one’s eyes the undeniable daggers of truth?

  It would explain her blindness—or even the weight of the world upon her body—but the fact that she’d yet to rise and face whatever her destiny had allowed for her…

  Slowly, sensation began to return to her—the telltale awakening of flesh exposed to the atmospheric climates of a real world.

  Her skin began to prickle.

  Her body became burdened.

  The coppery taste of blood was found on her lips.

  Blood?

  It didn’t make any sense.

  She was safe.

  She’d just been in the plane.

  She’d—

  A tsunami of emotions overwhelmed her.

  If she wasn’t dead—and if she wasn’t in Hell—then that meant…

  Rose opened her eyes.

  Jagged pinpricks of light burrowed into her skull and all the nerves within them.

  The unbearable pain at her temple immediately thrust her back into darkness.

  She waited—first one, two, then three. The lull that came after allowed her the slightest moment to brace herself before she opened her eyes once more.

  She couldn’t tell where she was. Not in the plane--that much was certain. Perhaps at chance during impact, the vessel had been shredded, and as a result she’d been freed from her seatbelt and allowed, with some dignity, to land almost unscathed.

  Already she’d made the distinction that she’d suffered a cut somehow on the way down, and her arm—she caught sight of the jagged cut as she pushed it away from her. Though it didn’t seem deep, the amount of blood that had come out of it was enough to give her pause.

  How could she have survived a plane crash?

  Was it all a dream?

  No. It couldn’t have been. It—

  Her adjusting vision took note of smoke rising from the nearby wreckage.

  She turned her head and dry-heaved until she felt no living person could manage any more.

  The plane was a wreck.

  That she’d managed to survive—

  She stumbled to her feet on uneasy limbs, grimacing at first, not due to unknown injuries, but more for muscles racked with tension. She set her sights on the twisted hunks of metal. The first step brought her bum knee to light, but she pushed through the hindrance.

  Beads of aluminum and machinery dotted the ground.

  She’d kept expecting a scorch, but instead found deep grooves in the sand, extending all the way from where she’d woken right to the scene of the crash.

  There wasn’t any blood.

  Rose instinctively reached for the pistol on her hip.

  Shit.

  It wasn’t there.

  If anything had survived the crash, she’d need whatever she could get her hands on.

&nb
sp; She approached the passenger’s side of the vehicle and lifted her arm to shield her nose from the acrid odor rising from the accident.

  The state of the cabin was horrifying.

  The front end crushed, windows shattered on all sides—

  Martha’s body, lying forward, neck broken.

  She saw Bobby’s body laying some ten feet away and paled.

  His head was gone.

  It’d been cut clean off.

  A grating whir and then a series of pops sent Rose stumbling away from the downed vehicle. A bout of smoke resulting from whatever had happened inside the plane made her turn on her heels instantly.

  What she’d feared would take her life happened.

  The plane exploded.

  Rose jumped and allowed momentum to roll her body down the opposite side of the incline.

  At the bottom, she trembled—drawn tight, hands and arms shielding her face.

  When at last the debris stopped falling, she rolled over onto her stomach and half-clawed, half-dragged her way to the road.

  She reeled as the burning inferno flared with another explosion.

  Rose closed her eyes.

  She didn’t have time to stand around.

  She had to go.

  She broke a window and clambered into an abandoned house just in time for the zombies to show up. Drawn instinctively to her presence, they flocked from locales Rose didn’t bother to interpret as she scrambled to pull an empty bookshelf into place.

  There was no telling what could be in here.

  She had not examined the area.

  She could’ve just led herself into a death trap.

  Unless—

  You’re safer in here, she quickly told herself. Alone. In here. With them out there.

  They’d eventually leave. Once they decided that there was no human presence, they would simply wander off, drawn inexplicably by the nomadic nature that was life after death. The smoke, while another matter, would not last forever.

  Eventually, it’d fade away.

  Anything drawn toward it would turn to better prospects.

  And she, she could get the hell out of here: keep going wherever the hell it was she was going.

  But where?

  Right now, that didn’t matter.

  She’d entered a place she’d been unable to scout.

  There was a very distinct chance she wasn’t alone.

  But wouldn’t they—

  She spun—spooked recklessly by the pass of shadow in the hallway in front of her—and grimaced as her throbbing knee nearly buckled out under her.

  The press of teeth into her lower lip was the only thing that kept her from crying out.

  She managed to stay a tremor that vibrated along her right side and brushed a bead of blood sliding from her lip away with her thumb.

  Regardless of her situation, one thing was clear.

  She had to get out of this room.

  She was too vulnerable, too exposed, with an unhindered opening to the outside world. And with a congregation of dead outside…

  In the midst of panic that she kept trying to rationalize as shock from a near-death experience, she patted for her pistol and then reached for the machete she’d forgotten wasn’t at her side anymore. Scanning the room, taking note of every detachable object, she pulled a broom she found leaning in the corner into her hands and started forward with the bristle side facing out.

  Her footsteps felt monstrous in such a small place—as if any slight echo would bring the ceiling down upon her head.

  She glanced down one hall to find nothing more than a dead end, then immediately hurled herself into the room across from her upon looking the opposite direction.

  It figures, she thought, breathless as she tried not to laugh.

  The entire front of the house was a massive display of windows.

  She couldn’t have been any more fucked if she’d tried.

  Calm down, calm down. You’re safe. You’re the only one in here.

  So far as she knew.

  She took one glance at the blinds covering the only window and realized she was as safe as she was going to be.

  After locking herself in, she settled down atop the bed, briefly gazed at the Boy Scout’s uniform hanging on the closet door, and closed her eyes.

  The broom never left her grasp.

  She wasn’t sure what woke her up. Maybe it was the subtle tremor that vibrated along the headboard whenever she shifted her weight on the mattress, or maybe it was because of the incessant throbbing in her knee that’d begun sometime during the night and only eclipsed upon her conscious realization of it.

  Either way, she didn’t give it much concern. Half-asleep and only just beginning to feel the tolls of the crash on her body, she couldn’t care less about what had woken her. At that moment, all she wanted to do was go back to sleep.

  With her doubts tucked away and her inhibitions released, she curled up beneath the blanket and waited for sleep to reclaim her.

  For a long while, there was no sound, merely peace undisturbed by the reckless abandon of doves.

  Eventually, though, that bliss gave way to complete and utter terror.

  She jolted at the sound of something crashing in the other room and immediately reached for the broom that had barely left her side. Heart pounding, mind racing, her lungs contracted and then expanded as for the next several moments she relied on oxygen reserves to keep from passing out.

  No one could’ve gotten into the house so quietly. It’d come from somewhere deeper, further away from her careless entry and even hastier attempt at a cover-up.

  Which could only mean—

  Rose swallowed.

  The person hadn’t broken in.

  They’d been here the whole time.

  She struggled to maintain resolve as she tightened her hold on the broom and listened to the sound of shuffling footsteps echoing down the. She’d thought she’d be safe—so safe, in fact, that she hadn’t even bothered to scout her surroundings before bedding down for the night. Yet this whole time…

  She swung her legs out and set her feet on the floor.

  The only thing between her and potential death was a three-inch door.

  If that thing was even partially preserved—if it had even the slightest amount of determination—then nothing—

  A second crash broke her trance.

  The thing was moving—forward, into the hall she’d taken refuge in.

  She didn’t have much time.

  Using the broom for support, Rose pulled herself to her feet and tried to determine what in the child’s room she could use as a weapon. His aptitude for Boy Scouts should’ve leant to her a multitude of tools, but instead she saw nothing of the sort. No ropes, no compasses, no pocket knives, chisels or even lengths of shoelace. There didn’t even appear to be a pellet gun—which would’ve served little purpose, but might’ve offered her the incentive to continue searching.

  The only paraphernalia she could find were the badges behind their glass case.

  Why hadn’t she seen them before?

  You were tired, she thought. Not thinking. You—

  Rose’s eyes darted toward the doorway.

  If she were fast enough, and if she could lift the display case without dropping it, then maybe she’d have a chance.

  She limped toward the display that hung above a small desk and reached forward to test its weight before turning toward the doorway.

  The footsteps were getting closer.

  If she wanted to do this, she had to do it now.

  The Boy Scout mug full of pencils would be the perfect distraction.

  Edging forward, she extended the broom, then craned her arm to take hold of the door handle.

  The abrupt halt in movement outside spelled true her action’s consequence.

  Rose tapped the broom’s bristles on the floor once, then twice.

  Footsteps shuffled.

  She stole a breath and braced herself for what was to co
me.

  To be, a dishonest voice within her head said, or not to be?

  That, Rose had yet to finish, she’d yet to question.

  With little more than a glance to ensure the pencils were still in easy reach, she threw the door open.

  The creature screamed.

  The mug shattered upon hitting the floor and all pandemonium broke loose.

  She’d intended the confrontation to be as silent as possible. With the possible threat of the undead still lingering in the aftermath of the explosion, any slight mishap could result in her death. Thus the need for discretion, and a silent kill.

  She’d expected its state to be decayed—for its vocal cords to be all dried out.

  Instead, it’d screamed.

  And now she was battling to keep it from regaining momentum.

  Her ploy to subdue it with the mug had in part been successful. Initial entry had sent it sailing to the floor—head impacting with the far wall, a shelf hinge snapping and slamming down onto its skull—but what higher ground she’d managed to achieve was lost when her bum knee gave out and she stumbled into the desk. A quick parry with the broom kept the creature from launching itself at her, teeth and screech galore.

  She upended anything she could find, to keep the creature in its place.

  The desk chair, a series of books, a laptop computer that had long since survived the dinosaurs—the creature, whose mottled features only just barely kept Rose from distinguishing its sex, reared its head back and howled just as Rose shoved the broom handle into its mouth.

  Teeth shattered.

  Breasts heaved.

  A gargled mess of hate came forth as Rose used her body weight to shove the woman into the wall.

  The crack of her skull would’ve been reassuring, had she not already been dead.

  The zombie screeched, flailing recklessly at her.

  Rose gulped a breath.

  Pushing her feet against the ground, she applied pressure against the broom with one arm, then craned back and stretched the other.

  The jarring sensation sent pinpricks of pain along her elbow and shoulder.

  Her fingers—so dangerously close to the shelf—just barely scraped its surface.