by Tim Marquitz
“Oh my God.”
I sat my keyboard on the coffee table and moved to go to her, but she turned to me, dropping her hand from her mouth. I froze at the pale fear in her face. She seemed to have aged overnight, dark bags under her eyes, wrinkles scratched across her forehead where I hadn’t noticed before. My mouth opened but my throat had closed.
She stepped to me, collapsing onto the couch, her eyes turning once again to the screen. Her hands found mine and squeezed.
“What does it mean, John?” she said. “What’s going to happen?” She looked into my eyes. Her eyes glistened beneath a pool of tears. They blinked and the tears fell. My heart split to see her beauty racked with dread. “What’s going to happen to us?”
I pulled her to me, her head falling onto my shoulder, face to my neck. Her tears were cool as they ran beneath my shirt.
“I don’t know, baby,” I said, helpless. “I don’t know.”
On the screen, a time lapse video of the sun ran. From the right edge, a dark wide swath had begun to encroach across the churning nuclear fire of the face of the sun. It leapt away as the video restarted, only to creep back, again and again.
The shadow was coming.
~
Nearly five billion years old, Venus was now gone. One of Earth’s closest neighbors, the rising and sitting gem of millions of twilights, had been reduced to rock and dust in one single blow; a cosmic Kung Fu punch to the face, exiting the back of the head. Its remnants had become a spreading cloud, widening out along its former orbit and north and south of the sun’s equator. Over the weeks it lengthened, at first leaving us with a day of the sun’s shadow, then two, then three. Until, like a snake eating its tail, it connected, creating perpetual twilight. The nights became dark as pitch, with only the stars, and the barely visible moon. I wondered if it, too, had left, abandoning us with only its ghost pale face to look down upon us, the silent witness to Earth’s demise.
Just then the ground shuddered again, and Selena moaned from the couch. I touched her leg and she pulled it away to disappear beneath the blanket. Even awake, she can’t stand my touch, pulling away or sinking into herself, without a word.
~
It’s night now, and in the skylight above; meteors flash and scorch the sky by the dozens, streaking in every direction. For the last couple of weeks, bits of Venus have fallen into our atmosphere. Only a few have hit, landing in the oceans or in isolated places, most burning out. The lightshow is the only beautiful thing to come out of this.
Outside, beyond the reach of the floodlights, I catch glimpses of a smoky shadow occasionally poking out from the leafless bare trees, like it was testing the waters, pulling back at the touch of the light. If it is the same one or more, I can’t say. And what walks or crawls or slithers inside that blackness, I don’t think I want to find out.
Yesterday, as I walked the outside perimeter of the house, a loud rustling came from deep in the trees. Something was running towards the house and the light, crashing through the new layer of preternatural fallen leaves. I lifted my rifle, eyeing the barrel end to the sound, following it as it moved to the edge of the yard. I almost fired when a deer burst through the tree line, but my trigger finger froze. I stared transfixed by what happened next.
The deer froze in mid leap, it front hooves hitting the dirt, clacking as it tried to run. Its eyes were wide in terror. At first, I thought it had caught its hind legs in a twisted root, and then I saw the black smoke wrapped around the deer’s flank. Its legs were off the ground, lifting to its belly as if its ass was being sucked into a vacuum tube. The deer flailed at the ground and bayed like a dying baby. Then I smelt the thing gripping it; a fetid combination of shit and piss and acid; alien shit. My stomach lurched.
The smoke widened and with a gulping motion, lengthened down the deer’s body to close again at its chest. The deer’s hind end and legs disappeared into the smoke.
I shot into the black mist, filled the chamber again, and fired once more. No effect. No cry from whatever terror hid in that dreadful light-swallowing smoke. Only a pause, as if in consideration, and the smoke opened again, about to take another gulp of the struggling deer. Then, for the briefest of moments, the smoke cleared at the edge. It was quick, I know, hardly a second, but I remember it diamond clear. I see it now, and in my nightmares (when I do sleep) coming out of the dark to swallow me.
A round gaping maw, rimmed by a snake-like, rusty blood lip, with hooking talons turned inward beneath that lip, some digging into the deer’s flesh, pulling while others followed. No eyes loomed above that horrific mouth—if there were, they were hidden by the swirling smoke. Short, cupped tentacles reached out and slapped at the deer skin. The deer’s scream became high and gurgling, eyes bulging in animal terror.
Something in that scream squeezed my brain. I adjusted my aim and slapped the inside of the deer’s skull on a tree trunk. The deer went limp. The smoke widened and slipped down the deer’s neck, making its antlers snap like twigs and fall away, the smoke swallowing its head. Flailing tentacles slipped from the smoke’s tip, as if tasting for anything left, and retreated like jerked ropes. The smoke was gone like it was never there.
I keep a shotgun loaded with Foster Solid Slugs near me at all times now, a pistol on my hip, and shotguns at every door and in each room.
The weeks following the coming of the shadow, we thought we could survive it, Selena and me, at least the living part. The predictions varied in a timeline, but it was certain the ring around the sun would dissipate; a majority of Venus’s mass blown into the outer solar system or falling into the oven of the sun. The rest would disintegrate, torn apart by gravity and melted by solar winds. The sun would shine again on Earth, but when? Estimates ranged from three months to a year. I was prepared, not for this, of course, but I had built my house strong, and stored it fully with food, fuel, medicine, and protection. The rest of the world could go hang, and it certainly would. In the ensuing weeks I watched the riots—removed by pumped in video—and the panic of the world. It only confirmed what I thought of people. I was only concerned with one thing: Selena and I living.
Despite the constant darkness, I tried to keep my spirit up, hoping it would transfer to Selena. But the death of her father lay heavy on her, and I got the feeling her trust in me had faltered. She pulled away, as inexorably as the sun’s darkening face. Hardly eating, she slept much and cried alone. But on occasion, I would catch her watching me as I obsessively perused the web, watching the world fall apart. A small, wry smile would be on her face—I didn’t ask why—and it gave me a small hope. When the warm light of the sun returned, so would she, and all would be right again.
But Delano and the destruction of Venus was only the first act, the spectacular setup for the terror to come. I had hacked into Skylab, too, and had caught excited and terror-filled communications between the American astronauts and Houston. Their space home had gone dark outside, the stars and the dim Earth blinking out with no warning. A swirling smoke had enveloped them, and a deep moaning came through the hull. It left as quickly as it came. When they looked out a window onto Earth, a dark splotch covered China like a bruise. Then the pictures came. It looked more of a turning skin tumor, to me. It was growing. Infrared revealed the country-spanning cloud as cold; cold as space. Within it, something only slightly warmer squirmed like a cup of bait worms, as big as mountains.
I found myself staring at the screen, standing with my hands gripping my hair. I heard a choked cry and turned to find Selena sitting, her knees pulled to her chest, eyes peering at the screen. After that, she was gone mentally; wandering the house like a ghost, moaning and weeping, unable to affect the world.
Before the Web went dark and all outside communication was lost, the videos I watched (Selena never reentered the media room) were beyond imagining. More clouds arrived from space. From them fell skyscraper size tentacles, only seen from the cloud edge, laying and sweeping across the ground, scrapping up cities and forests in a cataclys
mic cloud of dust, smoke, and fire. Nothing and no one escaped from beneath the alien clouds and the behemoths that inhabited them. What did emerge were smaller black smoked clouds, moving across the land like meth induced slugs. These were the progeny of the cloud, I thought, out for tidbits of life that had escaped the tentacles.
Of course, there was a glut of speculation about what had invaded us, where they had come from. But I know. They are the maggots, the worms of the cosmos that nourish themselves at the graveyard table. They were Eaters of the Dead.
Outside, one of the spreading clouds grows nearer, and their children wander the woods just beyond my floodlights.
~
Today was my personal apocalypse.
I jerked awake having fallen asleep while writing. The yellow tablet and pen fell from my lap unheard, covered by the thunderous sound of distant destruction. I rubbed my eyes with my fists and turned to the couch. Selena was gone, only her slender impression on the cushions and the blanket crumpled on the floor remained. I looked outside and blinked my eyes, pushing back the fading nightmare I’d awoken to. The floodlights were dimming and brightening. I stood to go to the generator room, having forgotten to fill the gas tank, when I saw movement outside. It was Selena, naked and walking lethargically across the open yard toward the tree line.
I shouted her name and ran towards the door. My foot smashed into the step of the floor rise. I barely heard my toes break, pain exploding across my foot. I screamed, wanting to curl up in a ball, but scrambled for the gun in the dark until my hands found its cold barrel. Struggling, I stood, limping to the open door and out into the yard.
I turned my head, frantically looking for Selena, hoping the creatures hadn’t already taken her. And there she was, about thirty yards away. She stood too near the trees, turned to the now bright floodlights, her arms outstretched, her eyes closed as if she were soaking up an imaginary sun. Behind her, smoky shadows moved in the dark closeness of the trees.
I wanted to run to her, to drag her back to the house, but my foot was numb with pain, and I only managed a few clumsy steps. The floodlights dimmed again to a yellow glow and the lighted perimeter shrunk. I lifted my shotgun as an alien cloud extended from the trees, reaching for Selena. I fired into it, limping forward as I ejected shell after shell. The gun boomed over and over, until it was empty.
The smoke was nearer Selena, rising into the air like an enormous cut worm. Whatever was inside, the shotgun slugs had caused no damage. Selena stood there, the world around her gone as she soaked up imaginary sunlight. Hardly realizing, my pistol was before me gripped in both hands. My pain forgotten, I moved closer, gun sighted on the towering cloud.
I glanced at Selena. Tears poured down her face, her eyes open, looking into mine; the first eye contact she had given me in weeks.
Above her head, the smoke tip turned downward, opening to reveal the blood-lipped round mouth. Tentacles squirmed as its gaping hook-filled mouth widened.
I dropped the gun sights to Selena’s chest. My eyes filled with sadness, making her image distort; her skin seemed to glow. I took the shot and darkness enveloped me.
~
I’m back in my window seat now, crunching another Lortab, ignoring its bitterness. My foot is numb, wrapped just tight enough to have allowed me to build the kern of rocks I see outside, glowing white in the sun. Selena is beneath it.
A crack in the ring around the sun saved us from being devoured. It wasn’t soon enough to save Selena from me, though.
The alien cloud is gone from my horizon, its minions retreated. The end of the world was averted by some godless miracle, but not my world. My personal apocalypse is still here.
I’m looking at the shotgun leaning against the window, and wondering, with its barrel in my mouth, can my finger reach the trigger?
Out of the Black
William Meikle
Ten short years.
That’s how long we have. The ore that gives us light, keeps us warm, and runs the food plants has finally come to an end. Three hundred and fifty years after the dimming. A good run.
But not long enough. Not by my reckoning. I’m only twelve points short of my breeding merit. There’s no way I’m checking out of here before then.
So I volunteered. “Exploration duty”, that’s what they call it. “Suicide”, Tom Draper said. “Escape”, Linda whispered in my ear the night before I left.
As it turns out, all three were right in their own way.
~
It started well enough, despite my apprehension at heading out. The flyer they gave me hadn’t been upside for thirty years; nobody had. Too cold, too dark, no point. Until now. I had to wait for two days while the bots fitted an ore probe and a drill and that just gave me more time to fret. I was actually happy when I strapped in and took the flyer into the tube.
The five minute ascent to Hell soon put paid to that.
I felt cold before we got halfway up. Of course I knew about Hell. No light for three hundred years, thirty foot thick ice shelves and no life bigger than a patch of lichen. I knew that. I just didn’t realize what it meant in real terms.
At least the flyer had a heater. I pushed it up to Full and it still wasn’t going to be enough. We punched through to the surface a minute later and I immediately forgot about the cold.
They’d taught me about Hell. But they hadn’t mentioned the sky. A carpet of stars hung from horizon to horizon—a glittering jewel that had remained unseen for decades. I felt humbled in the face of such immensity. More than that, the open space filled me with such dread that I had to lower my eyes, unused as they are to looking at anything more than ten feet away.
I switched on the ore probe and let it run. I had nothing to do for hours now except hang there in the sky and try to ignore the stars that seemed to be falling ever closer, threatening to wrap themselves around me, engulf me and drag me off to the black beyond.
I say this to give you some idea of my thought processes in those early hours. I know I am speaking of things you have been taught, things you have seen on the holovids for most of your lives. But nothing has prepared you for what is out there, what must be faced if we are to survive the time that is left to us. It is vast, it is empty, and it does not care.
It just does not care.
~
I had music turned up loud for most of the next few hours. It seemed to help, to stop the oppressive sky from beating me down into the ice that lay everywhere below me. I almost didn’t hear the beep as the probe announced a finding.
I checked the coordinates, and my heart sank. It was a four hour flight away. I wasn’t sure my mind could take so much open space, so much desolation. Then I remembered.
Ten short years. And twelve points short of my breeding merit.
I set my eyes on the brightest star, and told the probe to go.
I tried to let my mind wander, to think of happier times in the warren, of solid walls and enough light to keep the dark at bay permanently. But my eye kept drawing me back to that star, a bright pinpoint. At first I thought it might be one of the planets, before I remembered that, without a star to light them, they too had gone mostly dark. I realized that I was looking at Sol itself … or what was left of her after the dimming.
You’ve all seen the history vids, you all know of the great golden ball that some days seemed to fill the sky. And I know that some of you harbor thoughts that it’s still up there, hanging above, and that we will walk underneath its heat again.
I wish I could show you that sad little point of light that is all that remains; I wish I could make you see just how far the dark has encroached since we went under. I flew over the desolation for hours. We know from our lessons that we went to ground where we hoped to be hottest. Iceland they used to call it, a place of hot springs and abundant thermal energy. Or so we thought. The dimming changed all of that; not quickly, but three hundred years without heat is a long time. And Iceland now lives up to its name.
There is no sea.
I’ll repeat that, for it is something we have forgotten. We see the pictures, of waves crashing on sandy shores, and smiling people walking hand in hand under open sky. Never again. There is ice, pack ice, and rock. Nothing else.
I headed south and west. Again the history tells of cities, tall mighty monuments to our past. They are all gone. The ice has eaten everything. The history of mankind has gone cold. More than halfway into my journey I crossed what had been the Equator, what had been lush greenery. All gone. The whole planet has gone cold.
That was my thought and I saw nothing to make me change my mind.
Until I reached my destination.
~
And here I must take more care over my words. There are no histories that mention what I must tell, no pictures I can show you. Only what I have seen with my own eyes, and if I am to impress you with urgency, I must be clear in my intent.
The flyer told me I was somewhere in the South Pacific. It looked little different to the spot where I had come upside, but as I descended I saw that the ice here was less compacted. Several darker patches showed. As I got closer, I could see there were stretches of broken ice and slush. I started to think there might even be open water available. The probe beeped a proximity alert warning as the flyer hovered ten feet above an island of rock, black against the ice all around.
There was ore here, and a lot of it. The scan showed a seam, some one hundred feet deep in the rock. I quickly spotted that I would have to land and drill to get proof, for if the deposit was as large as it seemed to be, then more flyers would be needed to carry it back below to where it was needed.
