Final Dawn: Season 2 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series)

by Mike Kraus

  David’s elation quickly passed as he remembered what he had to do. Stepping back to his computer, he started a power transfer to Bertha, grinning widely as he saw the device’s power indicators begin to rapidly rise. A timer that was slowly ticking down began to move faster, the “time until charged” estimate changing from hours to mere minutes.

  With most of his critical data copied and terabytes more still streaming over, David opened a software radio connection to the satellite in orbit. In its current position, David had a few minutes left on the tail end of a window to reach Leonard and Nancy, if they would pick up. With the radio up on one side of his screen and a live satellite stream on the other, David tried in vain to get an image through the thick cloud cover that was spread for hundreds of miles around the small village in Iowa. Unsuccessful, he opened a line on the radio and began speaking into the microphone.

  “Leonard? Nancy? This is David; please respond.” The reply to David’s broadcast was the same as it had been every previous time he had tried for the last several days: dead silence.

  “Dammit, Leonard! Nancy! Are either of you alive?” No response.

  “Hurry up and answer; I only have another moment or two!”

  The usual hum of static changed and David heard the sound of cloth rubbing against a microphone, followed by a voice he had thought he might never hear again. “David, this is Leonard.”

  Crouching over the microphone as he watched a clock on the wall, David spoke as quickly as he could. “Leonard! Thank God! I was starting to think that wasn’t the two of you in the APC.” Leonard started to reply, but David cut him off, trying desperately to finish his message.

  “No time; listen closely. We’re close to getting Bertha up here, but Doe’s got some kind of crazy stuff going on inside the building. We have to go offline, but we’ll be back in touch with you two in the next day or two. Stay safe and keep going.”

  David closed his eyes as he shut down the transmission program, fighting the urge to talk to Leonard some more. There was no telling whether or not Leonard and Nancy were both all right or not, but David hoped he’d have time to find out soon. For now, though, he had to make sure everything was ready for when Bertha was activated.

  Pulling up the camera view of Bertha’s chamber, David saw that the door was severely dented, almost to the point of breaking. He froze as he watched the video, leaning in close to the screen as he watched the door. Unlike before, when the door had been moving from the impact of the creatures, it was still, making no movements whatsoever.

  David felt a cold chill race up his spine and he began to check other cameras in the building, ones that had previously been offline due to the power outage but were now back up and operating normally. A flash of blue whizzed by on a camera and David looked at its ID, trying to remember where it was located. That’s outside the generator room!

  Panicked, David scrolled through the camera list, pulling up the dozen that were mounted in the generator room. Rachel and Marcus appeared at the back of the room, moving toward the exit, undoubtedly heading back to David’s lab. Pausing near the door, they disappeared down a row of generators, no longer in view of the main entrance to the room.

  The door into the generator room swung open and several of the blue creatures crept in, moving quickly, any sounds they might have been making masked by the overwhelming noise of the generators. As the second hand of the wall clock swept past in slow motion, a small notification popped up on David’s screen, signaling that Bertha had finished charging and was now fully operational.

  David’s gaze flicked from the notification to the camera, and then to the equipment cupboard, the door to which was still open. David’s eyes grew wide and he leaped from his seat, stumbling as he made a mad dash for the cupboard. He slammed it closed, disconnecting the electronics inside from the outside world, then ran back to his seat and watched as the six creatures formed a semicircle around the aisle where Rachel and Marcus had gone.

  Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims

  10:00 PM, April 11, 2038

  Starting over from square one wasn’t an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. Every time Leonard glanced in the back of the APC, he was reminded of the hours that he and Nancy had spent filling it with supplies and gear for their journey to Alaska. Losing it all to Samuel made Leonard’s blood boil, but he tried to remain positive about their situation. He and Nancy had both escaped from the village without suffering serious injuries despite the attack by Richard.

  It had barely been a half hour since they had left the village and Leonard still struggled to think about what had happened between Nancy and Richard. Leonard had been just feet away from Richard when Nancy cut his throat, sending him to the ground with a veritable fountain of blood flowing across the dirty wooden floor. The look in Nancy’s eyes haunted Leonard and he was glad that she was sleeping. It wasn’t that Leonard wasn’t grateful that Nancy had saved him and killed Richard; it was just so entirely out of character for her.

  A glance down at the radio in the APC derailed Leonard’s train of thought and his eyes grew wide. He fumbled with his pants pocket, pulling out a small chip that he quickly inserted into a slot on the back of the radio. Leonard had forgotten about the radio and hadn’t realized that a communications window with David was just about to close. As soon as Leonard turned the radio on, a transmission came immediately through from David, who was speaking frantically.

  “—it, Leonard! Nancy! Are either of you alive? Hurry up and answer; I only have another moment or two!”

  Leonard fumbled with the microphone as he picked it up, trying to keep one eye on the road as he answered David’s call. “David, this is Leonard.”

  “Leonard! Thank God! I was starting to think that wasn’t the two of you in the APC.” Leonard started to respond, but David cut him off before he could get more than a syllable out. “No time; listen closely. We’re close to getting Bertha up here, but Doe’s got some kind of crazy stuff going on inside the building. We have to go offline, but we’ll be back in touch with you two in the next day or two. Stay safe and keep going.”

  Before Leonard could say anything, the transmission went dead and static filled the air. He slowly replaced the microphone back on the radio unit and stared out at the road, wondering what was happening in Washington.

  “Sounds like trouble.” Nancy spoke softly and Leonard turned to her, seeing her still sitting with her head against the door, her eyes half open. Leonard nodded but said nothing, averting his eyes from Nancy’s gaze. The madness that had shone in them when she had killed Richard was gone now, but Leonard couldn’t help but picture it. Noticing his discomfort, Nancy sat up in her seat and arched her back, stretching against the harness before she questioned him.

  “What’s wrong, Leonard?”

  Leonard kept quiet for a moment, trying to form the right words to describe to Nancy what he was feeling. When he finally spoke it was haltingly. “You… you killed a man today, Nancy. But you didn’t just shoot him or stab him. It was visceral. I’ve just… never seen you like that before. That look in your eyes.” Leonard turned his head briefly to look at Nancy. “It scared the shit out of me, Nancy.” Leonard’s careful wording didn’t distract Nancy from his real meaning. You scared the shit out of me was what he truly meant.

  Nancy didn’t hesitate in her response. “You’re not the only one, Leonard. I’m more scared of myself right now than I’ve ever been in my life.

  “When I saw him going for you, though, it was like a switch turned off in the back of my head. I felt nothing but this overwhelming rage, so I picked up the knife from the floor and just….” Nancy trailed off without finishing her sentence, waiting a moment before speaking again.

  “He kidnapped me, Leonard. He and his brother took me and James and that poor girl. They killed her and James, but not me. He tried to kill me again, before you came in. I was certain I was about to die before you walked in on him, and when I didn’t, that’s when the switch went off.
<
br />   “He had to die, Leonard. Some people in this world have no choice but to be put down. I never really believed this before, but I do now.”

  Nancy’s chilling words had the opposite effect on Leonard, who was relieved to hear Nancy explain herself. Caught up in a rage like he had been with Samuel, Nancy had done what was necessary. The fact that it was out of character for her no longer mattered and he took her hand, holding it tightly as they drove down the dark road. Leonard’s unease quickly withered, replaced with a sense of renewed hope and optimism in his traveling companion.

  “You did the right thing, Nancy.”

  “I know.”

  Minutes ticked past in silence and Nancy’s grip on Leonard’s hand grew weak as she began to fall asleep once again. Leonard rubbed his eyes, fighting away the exhaustion that tore at the edge of his vision, threatening to overwhelm and engulf him. They were still hours out from the nearest town where they could hope to find supplies, though Leonard kept his eyes open for anything closer along their path. A gas station or even an 18-wheeler hauling the right type of food could get them enough supplies to make it another several hundred miles. Leonard didn’t expect fuel to be too much of a problem since they could just siphon diesel out of a truck, but without food, water and warm clothing, he knew they’d be in serious trouble well before they got to Alaska.

  Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden

  10:05 PM, April 11, 2038

  With six blue, glowing creatures standing in front of them, Rachel and Marcus were cornered. The aisle they had gone down to get Sam was up against a wall, and the space between the generators and the wall was small enough that they couldn’t squeeze by. Going over the generators wasn’t an option either, both because of their height and because of the vibrations they were giving off. Rachel and Marcus slowly shuffled backward from the advancing creatures, knowing that any sudden movements to try to fight or escape would be met with a swift death.

  “What now?” Marcus whispered to Rachel, who was slowly trying to reach for the rifle on her shoulder. If she could take down one or two of the creatures before they killed her, she would be happy. Luckily, before she could carry out that decision, a sudden squeal from the ceiling cut through the noise of the generators, causing Marcus and Rachel to wince in pain. The creatures ducked their heads, holding their arms up over their ears as they looked around, trying to identify the source of the audio feedback.

  A voice followed after the squeal, blasting through speakers mounted in the ceiling. “EMP incoming in three… two… one….”

  As David counted down the seconds, the creatures in front of Rachel and Marcus grew increasingly agitated, finally breaking from their formation to run and jump the last dozen feet that separated them from Rachel and Marcus. A blinding flash of light erupted from both the ceiling and in front of the pair and they shielded their eyes, ducking low to avoid the incoming blows from the creatures. The first impact that Marcus felt as he moved in front of Rachel was softer than he had expected, with much less force than earlier in the hallway. Squinting, he cracked open his eyes to see that the room had gone dark, save for a rapidly diminishing blue glow from the creatures lying on the floor in front of him.

  The overhead lights in the generator room had completely burned out, overloaded by the electromagnetic pulse created by Bertha. Several of the generators had also died, coughing and sputtering as they slowly wound down, though a few of the older ones had indeed managed to survive the blast. As for the creatures, their blue glow was quickly evaporating as Marcus watched, fading from an overwhelming brightness at the height of the EMP discharge to a dull glow that was all but extinguished now.

  Crouching next to each other, Marcus and Rachel slowly stood up, wordlessly watching the room sink into darkness as even the few nanobots clinging to Sam’s fur were snuffed out. Though the room was somewhat quieter thanks to the loss of several generators, Marcus could still barely hear Rachel as she spoke next to him.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  Holding on to Sam with one hand and Rachel with the other, Marcus followed her down the aisle and toward the exit of the generator room, pulling Sam along behind him. Reaching down, he felt in the area where he’d dropped his pistol, relieved when his fingers met the cold metal of the barrel. The door was a short distance away and Rachel reached it without incident. She pulled it open and stepped outside into the dark hallway, followed by Marcus and Sam. Pulling the door shut, the three of them slowly sank to the floor.

  The low frequency vibration of the generators was felt more than it was heard, giving Marcus and Rachel a moment of relative peace and quiet. In the dark hallway, Marcus heard Rachel fumbling with her backpack, eventually pulling something out and sliding it across the floor toward him. He heard a click and a soft glow illuminated the immediate area, coming from the EL light Rachel had turned on. Marcus reached down and picked up the one she slid toward him and turned it on as well, adding more brightness to the hall.

  After catching his breath, Marcus stood up and walked a few feet away before turning back to face Rachel. “We should get back up to David.”

  Rachel nodded and rubbed Sam’s head before standing up, following Marcus down the corridor. The weak glow of the EL lights was barely enough to illuminate a space of just a few feet ahead, but they made quick progress thanks to the fact they had been down their path just a short time earlier. Moving closer to Marcus, Rachel whispered to him, gripping her light in one hand and her rifle in the other.

  “You know there might still be a few of those things out here, right?”

  After they had left the generator room, Marcus had come to the same conclusion, mentally tabulating the number of creatures that had been descending upon them. With a sighting of around twelve of the creatures previously and only six of them disabled in the generator room, there were at least six more still unaccounted for.

  “Wouldn’t the EMP have destroyed them? They were right outside the room where Bertha is.”

  Rachel shrugged, unable to give a solid answer. “If they were still outside, then sure, but if they were in a room whose shielding was still intact, then who knows.”

  Marcus gripped his pistol firmly, glad he had remembered to retrieve it from the floor of the generator room before leaving. Even if half of the pack of creatures were still active, Marcus felt slightly more comfortable in their current situation. The fact that six of them were dead on the floor of the generator room improved Marcus’s and Rachel’s odds of survival, increasing the likelihood that they’d be able to get Bertha out of the lab.

  First on their list was to get back to David and enlist his help in getting Bertha disconnected from the external power sources and loaded onto some type of handcart. From there, Marcus wasn’t sure where they would go to get it out of the building, but until they reached that point, there wasn’t any sense in dwelling on the subject.

  Thirty minutes—and an exhausting climb back up the elevator shaft—later, Rachel and Marcus found themselves in a section of the laboratory that was near Bertha’s chamber. Hurrying down the corridor and up a short flight of stairs, Marcus and Rachel prepared themselves. Outside the stairwell door, just a few hundred feet down the hall, was the room with Bertha inside. Marcus and Rachel both re-checked their guns, then slowly cracked open the door, listening for any sounds from the hall.

  Light tapping filtered down through the hallway, along with a few thuds and booms from the direction of Bertha’s chamber. Marcus and Rachel immediately turned their lights off, stiffening against the wall in the stairwell. Marcus held Sam back while Rachel slowly opened the door and peeked into the hall, motioning for Marcus to follow behind her.

  Down the hall, in the direction of the noise, a faint light was visible through the cracked doorway. Rachel scurried into the hall, followed by Marcus and Sam, and the three of them hid quietly behind a collapsed section of wall. Rachel leaned out around the side of the debris pile with her gun at the ready, trying to get a look at what was makin
g the noise. Though it was loud and clearly sounded like someone trying to get through a door, it had none of the ferocity that normally accompanied one of the creatures.

  With Sam and Marcus behind her, Rachel kept moving forward, running from debris pile to debris pile until they were within view of the door. Leveling her rifle, Rachel stood up and deliberately kicked a piece of tile across the floor, knocking it toward the source of the noise and light. As the tile skidded across the floor, the light source jumped and revealed a figure standing in front of the door. Rachel had the rifle to her shoulder in a flash, her finger hovering over the trigger for a few seconds before lowering the rifle.

  “Dammit, David, I nearly shot you!” Rachel hissed at David, who was standing nervously in the hall, trying to open the door into the room containing Bertha. Initially frightened by their noise, David quickly broke into a smile once he saw Rachel and Marcus switch on their EL lights. Seeing Sam trot into view behind Rachel and Marcus, David pointed, a questioning look on his face.

  “Who’s that?”

  Momentarily confused, Rachel forgot that Sam hadn’t been present when she and Marcus sought refuge inside David’s laboratory. “Oh, sorry, this is Sam. He was at the house when… well, he survived with me.” Rachel patted Sam’s head affectionately.