After The End

by Jamie Campbell

  The man stares as he chews on something. His jaw is working hard as he sizes us up. “We don’t appreciate visitors in our city. You could be bringing all kinds of trouble with you.”

  Garlind holds his hands up as a sign of surrender. “I promise you, we don’t want any trouble either. We’re on our way to—”

  He doesn’t get to finish his sentence.

  The people swarm on us on the man’s signal. It was just the tiniest flick of his head but it was all they needed. We have nowhere to run and there is no way we can win against so many people. It has to be five of them to every one of us. We don’t have time to get the guns out and absolutely no time to aim and shoot them.

  “Don’t fight them,” Garlind says. “We don’t want any misunderstandings.”

  A woman grabs my arms and another yanks my hands behind my back. Rope is twined around my wrists tightly. I can feel the nylon digging into my skin.

  I’m led away from the others and swallowed up by the crowd. I’ve never seen so many people in one place before. I would be in awe if I wasn’t so scared. How have so many managed to survive for so long? I’d hoped we’d find this kind of population in Washington. I never expected to stumble upon it in Raleigh.

  “Why are you taking me away from my friends?” I ask the woman with her fingers biting into my elbow.

  “Shut up,” she replies.

  “Where are we going? Are they going to be okay?” I keep asking questions, hoping she’ll answer at least one of them. Yet she just shoves me a little harder so I keep walking.

  A group follows us through the streets and down an alleyway. At the end is a garage with a closed door. We wait there while one of the men pulls open the roller door. It’s dark inside when I’m pushed in.

  I think this is it, this is where they’ll keep me tied up until they decide what to do with me. But we don’t stop. Another door at the end of the garage is opened to reveal a staircase that leads downwards into darkness.

  So they’ll keep me in a basement, even better.

  It’s so dark I can’t see a thing. My feet have to feel for every step before I take it. The woman holding me becomes a shadow as she sets a gruelingly fast pace. I just know I’m going to slip and fall right down to the bottom.

  “Walk!” she orders when I hesitate for only a second longer than she likes. She’s going to leave bruises on my arm but that will be the least of my concerns.

  The stairs seem to lead down to the center of the earth. We keep going down, down, down. My eyes adjust to the pitch black so I can see the wall but there is nothing more discernible.

  Finally, the staircase levels off. The woman pushes me forward. A white strip of reflective tape is stuck along the bottom of the wall. It’s the only thing I can see down here and must be guiding the woman toward something. If this is a basement, it must be a very big one.

  My captor holds open a door for me and we follow more reflective tape. I don’t like the fact that I’ve been separated from the others. I can’t protect Sarah when I’m not with her.

  I throw more and more questions at my guard but she doesn’t say a thing. Apart from ordering me around, she doesn’t want to interact with me. I may as well be a sheep to the slaughter for the way they are treating me.

  After turning yet another corner and going through another door, there is finally light. Wall sconces glow with yellow bulbs as they lead the way down a corridor. At the end is a room with a sturdy door. I’m pushed inside and locked in—alone.

  I pound on the door with my feet, one at a time. My hands are still secured behind me so they are useless to me right now. I kick and scream for them to let me out. To take me to my friends. To let us all go.

  All to no avail.

  The only thing I achieve is exhaustion. I turn around and lean on the door, taking in the room for the first time. It’s a rectangular box with no window and only the one door. There is no furniture or features, just a bucket and a single light bulb that hangs from the ceiling. The entire room looks like it was carved from stone.

  This is obviously a cell and the smell of human filth makes me think it has been used recently. I’m a caged animal with no way out. Panic starts to build to an overwhelming crescendo. The room is so small and I think the walls are closing in to make it even smaller.

  I can’t breathe. They’re going to leave me to die in here. I’ll starve to death if I don’t run out of oxygen first. Is that what happened to the last person who was locked up in here? Did they go insane and then keel over from panic?

  If they took me down here, what did they do with the others? Did they kill them up above? I can’t remember seeing what happened to them. I was swarmed so quickly when we were on the street. These people made a point to crowd around me so I couldn’t see.

  If they’ve hurt any of my friends, I am going to kill them. I don’t know how or when, but I will. They are going to pay for any damage they’ve done. God help us all if they’ve killed them. My wrath will be worse than anything they can do to me.

  Having some focus makes my heart calm down. The walls aren’t going to close in on me until I’ve had my revenge. I can’t panic until then.

  What I need to do is formulate a plan. If they return to my cell, I need to have a course of action already worked out. If I can somehow convince them to untie my hands, I can lash out at them. I can put my fingers around the closest neck and squeeze until there is no life left in them.

  I slide down the door until I’m sitting on the floor. Just in case it does open again, I crawl around to the wall closest. The stone is cold against my back. We’re underground by at least one floor level. Maybe more—the staircase seemed to go on for a long time.

  The group must live down here. It’s the only really feasible explanation for how they have managed to survive for this long. If the aliens knew about a group this size, they would surely decimate them immediately. They wouldn’t want that many humans banding together in case they manage to fight back.

  I don’t understand enough about the aliens to know if my theory is right, but it seems logical. If I was taking over a foreign planet, I wouldn’t allow the locals to have an opportunity to overwhelm our kind. I would want them all running scared.

  Which is exactly what these people are going to be doing if they’ve hurt a single hair on Garlind, Sarah, or Rhys’s head. I’m going to find out the truth and then I’m going to take action.

  I sit so long on the ground that my bottom goes numb and my fingers tingle. I’m hungry, but that is nothing new. They took my pack from me up above and I doubt I’ll see it ever again. I hope they choke on my measly amount of food kept inside.

  Noise outside my door wakes me from my thoughts. I stand up quickly as somebody unlocks the door and pushes it open. A man takes up nearly the entire space. “Get out here,” he orders.

  I run through the myriad of plans I had formulated earlier but nothing useful comes to mind. I can’t do anything with my hands tied behind my back and certainly nothing will have an impact on the giant of a man.

  He pulls me out of my cell when I don’t move quick enough. “Walk. Now.”

  As if his gruff instructions weren’t sufficient enough, he pushes me in the middle of my back. I stumble over my own feet before he yanks me back upright. He gives me another push and I start walking.

  Every time I slow down, he’s fast to correct my error with a sharp tap on my shoulder. I try to take everything in along the corridor he walks me down. There isn’t much except more stone walls but a few doors break up the space along the way. There is no writing or signs to let me know what hides behind them.

  We wind around the corridors until I’m shoved into another room. There is already a man waiting for me here. Inside the room is a table with two chairs. He stands and looks at me. His gaze makes me feel completely naked.

  “Take a seat.” He smiles but it’s not kind. “We’re going to have a little chat.”

  Chapter 12

  “Do I need to keep yo
u restrained?” the man asks. He’s older than I’ve ever seen—maybe in his sixties or seventies. The amount of wrinkles that line his face betray his many years on this planet.

  “No,” I reply. I would say anything to get the feeling back in my fingers. My shoulders are aching from being in the uncomfortable position for so long. It has to be hours since I was first pushed into that cell.

  The man stares me down. I meet his gaze without flinching. I’m not going to let him know how much this whole thing scares me. I’m not going to show any signs of weakness lest they take advantage of it.

  He nods to my burly guard who then steps closer to untie the rope around my wrists. The relief is instant and then agonizing as the blood rushes through my hands again. They tingle and feel cold while still managing to burst with pain. I rub them until the ache subsides.

  “Sit down,” the old man orders. “My name is Philip. And yours is?”

  “Maisy.” I sit and continue rubbing the delicate skin on my wrists. They are red raw from chafing against the nylon rope. Perhaps I shouldn’t have struggled against them so hard back in the cell.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Maisy. How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “That’s quite young. You must have been born around the same time as the meteorite struck. What happened to your parents?”

  “My mom was pregnant when the meteorite hit. They both died a while ago.” I don’t want to talk about them. He has no right to know anything about my past.

  “How did you survive?”

  “An underground bunker.”

  He purses his lips as he nods slowly, taking it all in. I want to ask him the same question but I don’t really care. All I want to do is find the others so we can get the hell away from here.

  In the silence, I take my opportunity. “Where are my friends? There were four of us. I need to know what happened to them.”

  “All in good time. Right now, you’re answering my questions. If you do that successfully, I’ll answer yours. Is your bunker nearby?” He stares at me expectantly, just waiting for me to comply.

  If I don’t answer his questions, I won’t get any time to think up a plan to get out of here. For now, I’ll play along. “No, it’s in South Dakota. I haven’t been there for a while now.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Where have you been?”

  I shrug. “Around. Travelling. Trying to find a good place to stay, I guess.”

  “And it’s brought you all the way to North Carolina? That’s a long journey. You must have seen a lot in your travels.” I don’t know where he’s going with these questions but they feel like a trap.

  I don’t know what the right answer is. “I’ve been looking for food, mainly. Nothing exciting there.”

  “Seen anything strange?”

  “Define strange.”

  He shrugs nonchalantly but he must be headed somewhere with these questions. Just what does he think I’ve been up to? I’m a scrawny teenager that’s walked halfway across the country. I’ve hardly been up to mischief.

  When he doesn’t answer, I feel the need to fill the silence. “I haven’t seen much at all, let alone anything strange. I’ve met some people and they weren’t really interested in being friendly. Mostly I’ve just seen lots of trees and vines.”

  “That all?”

  Seriously? I wish he would ask me straight out what he wants to know. I’m not good at interacting with people at the best of times, let alone when they want something from me.

  “Yes, that is all,” I reply and really try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. He might be pretending to be nice but I can tell by the stiffness in his posture that he can turn on me at any stage. It might only take one wrong answer.

  He leans back and worries his bottom lip in his teeth. He’s got to be leaving this gap in our conversation for me to fill. He probably thinks I’ll say something I don’t mean to. Which is very possible.

  But I’m not going to fall for it. I can be comfortable in silence too. Maybe he’ll let something slip so it’s not so awkward in this tiny room.

  The silence is deafening.

  So very, very awkward.

  If he’s dragged me all the way here just so we can stare at one another I’m going to be annoyed. I would rather sit in my cell than endure this—whatever it is.

  I clasp my hands together on the table so I don’t start fidgeting. If he knows I’m uncomfortable, he’ll think he won. I’m not going to play that game.

  When he opens his mouth, I get a little jolt of that winning feeling. “What do you know about the spaceships?”

  Ah, that must be it. If he hasn’t left Raleigh, it’s possible he’s never seen one land. They wouldn’t fit their ships right in the middle of the city. They need more space, some flat ground for their egg-shaped ships to perch.

  He might not even know they hold aliens. I have about two seconds to work out how much I should tell him. I have information he would be interested in, but would it benefit me to hold it back and negotiate? Or should I just tell him now so he can see I’m cooperative and not a threat?

  What would Garlind do? I know the answer without having to think about it. He would tell the old man everything and then try to recruit him to the fight. He wouldn’t hold anything back.

  I’m not Garlind and I might never see him again because of these people. They don’t deserve all the information. Just bits and pieces until I know my friends are safe and sound.

  “I’ve seen them in the sky,” I finally reply.

  “So have I. What do you know about them?”

  “I’m guessing more than you.”

  He pauses again, sizing me up. I could be bluffing, he doesn’t know that I’m not. Desperate people say desperate things. “There’s only one way somebody could know much about those spaceships. Are you one of them?”

  “One of who?”

  “Them. Those aliens that fly those spaceships.”

  I involuntarily let out a laugh. “You think I’m an alien?”

  It was the wrong thing to say. He crosses his arms over his chest as he loses any sense of friendliness he might have had before. “I think you could be anything. If those alien people were smart enough to build those spaceships, they can be smart enough to pretend to be human. So tell me, girl, are you one of them?”

  “I’m definitely not an alien. One hundred percent human, right here.”

  “That’s what they’d say. That’s how they work, isn’t it? You pretend to be all human so we’ll trust you. And then you kill us all from the inside.” He sneers the last of his words, leaning in just so some of his disgusting spittle can reach me.

  “I’ve been hiding from the aliens for months now. As soon as I knew what they were, I’ve avoided them. Those aliens are only interested in wiping us out. There is no way I’d help them with that in any way,” I reply calmly. It’s not about what information to hold back now, but making sure he doesn’t kill me because of some mistaken identity.

  “What about your friends? Were they aliens too?”

  I don’t like the way he said ‘were’ instead of ‘are’. Using past tense could be his slip up. “What have you done to them? If you’ve hurt them in any way, I swear I will take you all down.”

  “It’s none of your business what we’ve done to them. I want to know who exactly I’m dealing with.”

  “I told you, I’m human. I’m just like you.”

  “Tell me what you know about those spaceships, then. Everything. Now.” He taps a finger on the table to make the point.

  I really don’t have much leverage here. The information I do have isn’t really much. If he knows about the existence of aliens, then he probably has the same knowledge as I do.

  I guess it’s time to spill all in the hopes he’ll believe me. “They dock down in Charleston. They have the town surrounded in a wall and take anyone who comes over the boundary. They hunt in packs and go through towns until there is nobody left. What they do to humans
make me think they are savages. To see one is to write a death warrant. They are not friendly in any way.”

  Philip nods as I talk. “Charleston, huh? You’ll been all that way south?”

  “I initially thought the ships were here to rescue the remaining humans left on earth. I thought if I could get one to see me, I would be able to live onboard for the rest of my life. I just didn’t realize that my life would be immediately cut short if they were to notice me.”

  “How many have you seen?”

  “Ships or aliens?”

  “Both.”

  I try to recall all the times I’d had an encounter. The number is too big to tally up. “Lots. The ships fly overhead regularly, almost daily. I’ve seen the aliens go through towns maybe a dozen times. Each time I thought they would find me and it would be all over.”

  “They’ve been in Raleigh a few times too. Gone through the town like a pack of hyenas,” Philip says. I might be doing something right for him to offer up information too. Maybe there is a right answer he’s looking for.

  “Did they find any of your group?”

  “None,” he says proudly. “As soon as we see a ship, we come underground. They don’t think to look for us down here. We’re too good at hiding.”

  “You’ve been lucky. I’ve seen them destroy dozens of people all at once. I’ve stumbled over their killing fields where they have left bodies torn limb from limb.” I shudder at the memory and try to push it away again. Somethings are better left in the black abyss of my mind.

  “Makes me wonder how you managed to survive out there for so long, with so many of them out there. Are you sure you’re not one of them?”

  I think he’s doubting this ridiculous notion but still feels like he has to make sure. “I’m really good at hiding too. The friends I’ve been travelling with know to be careful. We don’t take any risks where the aliens are concerned.”

  “You didn’t hide too well from us.”

  “You’re human. We tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Not everyone left is a savage.”

  “Sounds like you haven’t met a lot of people.”