Children of the AFTER: AWAKENING

by Jeremy Laszlo

  Chapter Five

  Helping Will from atop the steel girder, Jack sighed loudly before taking a deep breath to calm himself before talking.

  “Let’s just get our stuff and get out of here, like yesterday.”

  “Agreed,” Sam said.

  Within minutes they had Will’s stuff all packed up into his backpack and were ready to descend. Wanting to test the girder’s ability to hold their weight, Jack went first to assure himself that Sam would be safe. Sitting upon the edge of the hole ripped through their caved-in floor, he placed his feet on the girder and carefully shifted his weight onto it. Though it swayed slightly upon the wires that suspended it, it seemed to hold. Reaching out to grab the wires for balance, he moved all of his weight to the beam and began to half climb, half slide down its steep surface.

  Once at the bottom he watched as Sam dropped all three of their bags, which he caught one by one before placing them out of the way. Next it was Will’s turn. Looking up and blinking as dust fell into his face, he watched as Sam helped Will to step across the gap and onto the beam. Sitting down, Will shuffled down the steel like some sort of caterpillar, moving his feet, then sliding his bottom, before repositioning his hands and repeating. It was slow, but he made it down without mishap and once he was low enough Jack lifted him off the girder and lowered him to the floor.

  “You OK?”

  “Yup,” Will replied with a nod.

  Next came Sam, as she reached out with a toe to begin transferring her weight as well. The girder swayed, causing her to shift uneasily as she made the transition from floor to angular steel, but she maintained her balance after squeaking oddly and, sitting, she duplicated Will’s method nearly perfectly.

  Taking her hand to help her off the girder, Jack turned to look upon their surroundings for the first time, to discover an apartment he had never been in before.

  Here and there cracks split the walls, as doors hung crookedly in their jambs. The floor was buckled in places and like above, the northern corner of the apartment was missing altogether. Shards of glass lay scattered everywhere, making some surfaces dangerous to cross as the pieces slid easily beneath their feet. Though much below was the same as above, this apartment had a totally different floor plan. Where the kitchen had been in their home, Jack guessed a bedroom or two had been ripped away when the corner of the building had collapsed. It only took them seconds to find their way into the still largely complete kitchen and begin digging through the already open cabinets.

  Looking across the island in the center of the kitchen, Jack watched as Sam stood upon her toes, looking into the cabinets above as Will clawed his way like a rampaging puppy through those below. Assured that they would find any and all available food, he began searching through drawers, digging and discarding anything he did not need. On the third drawer he found what he was looking for. It was not ideal. The blade was narrow and flimsy, designed for filleting fish, but it had a case to protect him from accidental injury. Unfastening his belt, he threaded it through the knife’s case before buckling it once more. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to his siblings to see what they had discovered, only to find a pair of disheartened faces staring back at him.

  Will was totally and completely empty handed, and Sam held up a can of beanless chili and a small jar of spaghetti sauce. Hardly what they had hoped for. And then it struck him. If the city had been destroyed almost instantly, then likely the people that lived here would have had more in their cupboards than this. Wouldn’t they? But the cabinets had already been open. Someone had already gone through them. Another scavenger? If it had been, then that meant that after the event, but before now, there had been a way up to this floor. He already knew the area that led to the corner of the building where the stairs and elevator were was missing. Back-tracking through the apartment to where the fire escape should be, Jack stuffed his head out of the curtains, careful not to brush against any of the broken glass that still clung to the window frame. Sure enough, the fire escape was still usable here. Looking down, it appeared it still spanned several floors before damage again made it inaccessible below. Jack pulled his head back in the window.

  “Bag it and let’s look down below,” he said to his siblings, before sticking a leg out the window.

  Pulling himself outside, he stood and looked across at the neighboring building. It was burned, nearly in entirety, its empty windows staring back at him like the empty eye sockets of a skull. Shuddering at the thought, he turned to lift Will through the broken window before helping Sam as well. Cautiously they began to climb down the rusted stairs.

  * * * * *

  Following Jack down the fire escape with Will in between them, Sam watched as Jack disappeared into the window on the next floor. After a moment to look around, he returned and she helped Will climb through into their brother’s waiting arms before she too carefully passed through the shattered maw of glass and metal. Once inside they were forced to circumvent half of the apartment, only to double back through a broken wall in order to find yet another kitchen. A quick search revealed only a can of tomato paste and three boxes of corn muffin mix, all of which they bagged up before leaving.

  Down another floor they climbed before repeating the process for no food at all, and then back to the fire escape again to descend yet another floor. Here the fire escape ended, as for several floors below it had fallen away, taking some of the brick siding of the building with it. They would have to find another way down.

  Once inside what was left of this apartment, it was readily apparent that they would not have any luck seeking food here. With a near identical floor plan as their own, minus the security vault, the area where the kitchen should have been had collapsed into the floor below. No longer was that particular corner of the building missing, however, and as such she wondered if they could make their way to the building’s staircase. Much of the apartment here was charred, showing proof of the fire that nearly claimed it from below.

  “Do you think we can get to the stairs?” she asked Jack.

  “I was wondering that too. I don’t think we can on this floor, but it looks like we might be able below.”

  Looking down, she saw what he meant. The collapse of the kitchen here had piled lots of debris in front of the exit door in the apartment below. Wind blew up through the void in the floor and the musty scent of an old fire filled it as it swirled about them. Looking around, she saw no way to climb down in the room beneath them, and held fast to Will to be certain he stayed away from the edge. Looking to her older brother, she could tell he was trying to work out the same problem without any luck.

  Feeling her hand tug several times, she looked down to see Will testing the floor by bouncing up and down. Though it did seem to move with his motions it held, thankfully, and she gave him a pair of eyes that quickly stopped his actions. And then it hit her.

  Looking up, not down, she found the answer to their problem. In the previous floor there were several bedrooms surrounding a great void that went two floors up. In the floor above that was the same. In those rooms were mattresses that could easily be tossed down through the floors which they could then use to drop down onto without injury. It was genius! Though she wouldn’t mention that it was Will’s bouncing that gave her the idea.

  Explaining her plan, it was less than an hour later when they stood in the same spot looking down upon a mound of various mattresses sprawled throughout the kitchen below. Again it was Jack who went first and Sam watched, holding her hair back tight with both hands, nervous beyond belief.

  Sitting himself on the edge of the hole, Jack used his hands and pushed himself off the edge to plummet down several feet before landing atop the mound and half rolling, half bouncing to the bottom. Standing with a wicked grin, he gave a thumbs up and quickly made some adjustments to the mattresses. There was no guiding Will this time. As soon as he saw that Jack was done making adjustments, over the edge he leapt to land upon his back below giggling and laughing as if it were an am
usement park. Next it was Sam’s turn.

  Tossing down their bags, she looked over the edge nervously, picking out the spot she wanted to hit. Taking a step back to ease her nerves, she closed her eyes and hopped over the edge in a seated position, hoping to land on her bottom. Unfortunately she overshot her mark.

  Hitting the mattress below, her eyes popped open as she bounced forward, not up as Will had done, and rocketed into Jack’s legs who toppled over her. In a mass of twisted arms and legs Sam fought to disentangle herself from Jack when Will, thinking it good fun, jumped atop them both yelling “Weeee!”, as he tackled them. Sam wanted to berate him for it, but was simply happy he was being a kid. He hadn’t mentioned Mom or Dad a single time since they began this little journey, and she was glad his expectations had not been destroyed.

  Finally free after a short bout of tickling Will, Sam climbed to her feet as Jack shoved their little brother, who fell backwards to bounce upon the mattresses once again with a squee of delight. Then it was back to business. As Jack crossed the room to inspect the door and clear what debris he could, Sam took to the cupboards, to be quickly joined by Will. Pulling open one small wooden door after another, it was obvious that once again they wouldn’t be finding much in the way of food. Even so she was sure to look thoroughly, locating two cans of mixed vegetables. Once the cupboards were exhausted, Sam looked to Jack as he pried the door open for what must have been the twentieth time. Apparently having better success than on previous attempts, he shouted in victory as he kicked a wide piece of wood into the doorway to hold the door open before plunging his head through.

  Rustling Will’s straw colored hair, she motioned towards the door and together they joined their older brother expectantly.

  “How does it look?” Sam asked.

  “From here it looks good. We’ll just have to see how far it will take us,” Jack replied.

  “Do you think we’ll find a good spot to stop for lunch?” Will asked with wide eyes.

  “We’ll try, little man, but let’s get outside first,” Jack said.

  With that they each took turns ducking through the door and climbed atop the debris outside. From the door they had a fairly unobstructed view of the stairwell which circled the elevator shaft all the way to the ground floor. From the apartment door it looked accessible and structurally intact, and nearing it, Sam’s opinion didn’t change.

  Though the old subway tiled walls surrounding the stairwell were cracked, and the steps were littered with broken tiles, dust and other small debris, it appeared that at least the first flight down to the floor below was fine. She hoped they would have it easy from here on out.

  * * * * *

  For the first few flights of stairs, Will bounced down with both feet until he realized that the stairs just kept going and going. Stairs sucked big time. In all his years he could never remember having taken the stairs. Mom usually took him down the elevator, and Dad always said he didn’t have time to take the stairs. Now Will could see why. What a pain in the butt!

  Floor after floor they climbed down, but after the first two there was nothing really to look at. Once they reached each new floor, all they could see was the steel beams of the building and dangling wires with bits and pieces of floor or wall here and there. Everything was charred black and every surface, even the stairs, was coated with a thick black, almost slimy residue that reminded Will of his water color paints for some reason. The whole place stunk like Will’s track bag, but overall they didn’t run into any major obstacles.

  Nearing the ground floor of the building, there was a section of the steel and concrete stairs that had fallen away that they had to jump to cross. Then one full rotation down the staircase they were forced to climb over the broken pieces of stair that had fallen from above.

  Finally reaching the ground floor, they passed what was left of the wall of metal mail boxes and stepped right through the still closed, glass front doors of the building.

  Outside was even worse than inside, and Will shivered at the sight. He used to walk this road every morning with either Mom or Dad to catch the bus to school at the corner, but now it was almost unrecognizable. Glass from the buildings surrounding them covered the sidewalk and street and everything in between, in a glittering and shimmering layer of jagged edges. The trees planted at regular intervals along the road were nothing more than gnarled, charred posts rising up from blackened earth. And cars littered the streets and sidewalks at random, burned to useless lumps, the metal and plastic of their structures having crumpled and melted under whatever heat had burned them.

  Everything in all directions was laid bare and burnt black. It was colorless. Lifeless. Nothing and no one moved upon the street. No cars passed or honked in the distance. There weren’t even any pigeons. It was silent. Too silent. A shiver ran up Will’s spine and his breathing felt labored. It was the scariest thing he had ever seen, and they intended to walk through it.

  Chapter Six

  With every step the glass crunched beneath their feet as Jack led the way down the road. All around him evidence of destruction set his mind on edge as questions paraded through his brain that he did not have the answers for. Where had the people gone? There were no bodies, no bones. The cars crashed into the sides of buildings were empty too. The only proof they had existed were the crumbling buildings and streets around them. Beyond that, what had caused all the glass in all the buildings to shatter?

  Everywhere he looked there was broken glass. The lamp posts along the streets no longer had decorative bowls covering the bulbs. Even the bulbs were broken. Had it been the heat from the fire or whatever it was that had burned the city? Not a single building they passed had a single pane of glass remaining in any of the windows. All glass was broken. Every. Single. Pane. How was that possible? Explosion? Heat? Shockwave of some sort? Jack had no idea. He wished he had paid more attention in science class.

  Moving along the street, he focused primarily on the main question that kept him in a constant state of wonder. In all the kitchens they had scavenged through, the food was all but gone. If everyone had been lost at once, their food would remain. This led him to believe that there were, if not now, then at some point shortly after the event, other survivors in the city who scavenged the food. But where were they? Had they moved on, striking out from the city like Jack planned to do with his siblings? Had something else happened to them? Perhaps as a result of whatever primary event had taken place here? Was it safe to be in the city now, or were there some lingering biological or radiological hazards that would slowly drag them to the same death that had overtaken the city? He hated the unknowns. More than that, he hated that the whole world was now an unknown. All they could do was keep moving.

  Though he had never paid much attention to the street signs, he knew the way to Grandma’s well enough without them. Good thing too, as most of them were either black or missing altogether. He knew, however, that they continued heading south until they passed under the interstate. Then he needed to go right until they crossed the low bridge, before taking the next left and following it two streets before Grandma’s road. It was a long way to walk, though he didn’t dare guess how many miles, he supposed it would take the whole day and most of the night to get there. Sad when it only took about an hour by car.

  Mile after endless mile they walked until they found the remains of a small roadside diner. It was hardly recognizable, but the cast iron tables and stools cemented into the patio remained seemingly untouched, minus the fact that any paint that had graced their surfaces in the past had burned away. Guiding his siblings to take a seat, he rummaged through their supplies, pulling out the small camping stove, cookware, their can of chili, and a box of the corn muffin mix. It was experiment time.

  Turning the knob and pressing the small red button the camp stove burst to life with a circular ring of flames atop which he sat the small folding pot. Digging out the can opener he had retrieved from the vault, he opened the chili and poured it into the pan. Hitt
ing the already hot metal of the pan the chili sizzled, and the sound accompanied by its scent made his mouth water uncontrollably. Looking at both Will and Sam he could see it was having the same effect on them.

  Scraping every bit of chili from the can he watched as it warmed, stirring it occasionally. The hotter it got the thinner it became, and just before it began to bubble he poured a little blue box of dry muffin mix into the pot and stirred it in. Waiting just a few seconds, he turned off the stove and handed Will and Sam each a spoon. Watching them both eagerly dig into the steaming pot, he hesitated to take his first bite, letting them be his guinea pigs. Not that he wouldn’t eat if they hated it. Of course he would. He was starving.

  Jack watched as Will’s eyes widened, taking his first bite, as the corners of his mouth turned upwards.

  “Mmm,” Will said, with both the spoon and food still in his mouth. “It’s yummy!”

  “It really is,” Samantha added with a grin of her own.

  He couldn’t wait any longer, and digging in with his own spoon he hefted a heaping spoonful of the steaming brown, thick substance into his mouth and closed his eyes to savor the moment. It had been more than two months since they had eaten a hot meal. It probably could have been a can of dog or cat food and would have tasted amazing, but nonetheless, something so simple as this was spectacular.

  * * * * *

  Sam blissfully ate her fill of Jack’s dinner, and sat back as Will stuffed himself. Helping Jack put their supplies back in their packs, they sat and watched as Will polished off what was left of the dinner, both of them grinning at his progress.

  “Do you think Grandma’s house is still there?” Sam asked Jack.

  “I don’t know. I was hoping we might have a better idea when we get out of the city. You know, see if all this…” he paused to gesture at the destroyed buildings around them, “…continues on outside the city,” he concluded.

  “If it does,” Will began unexpectedly, “Maybe Grandma’s root cellar is still OK.”

  “You’re a tiny little genius, Will,” Sam said. “I bet it’s still stuffed with canned goodies either way.