End of Gray Skies: An Apocalyptic Thriller

by Brian Spangler

  “I know, weird right,” she said. “But I like a clean screen—can’t work on it otherwise.”

  “I understand,” he told her, feeling a little vindicated for some of his own idiosyncrasies. “Get comfortable, we’ve got some work to do.”

  The chat-box cursor continued to blink, waiting for a reply to the latest message.

  H—E—L—L—O A—R—E Y—O—U S—T—I—L—L T—H—E—R—E?

  “What do I tell her… me… the other Isla?”

  “I’m not sure,” he answered, uncertain of how the other Isla would react once learning the truth of who she was talking to. “Maybe it is best if we say nothing? That, instead, we just tell them my name, any name.”

  “No,” Isla answered, surprising him. “No. I don’t think that will do. I want them all to know. It’s the best way to get them to go along with what we’re doing. If they are me… I mean, if they are the same as me, then they’ll want to end this too.”

  Isla leaned in, nearly touching the terminal’s screen with her nose. She glanced at him through the reflective glare, waiting for him to share any objections. He said nothing but shrugged and hoped that she was right about how they would react. He took to his seat to help. Isla tapped furiously on the screen, reaching out to Isla from each machine and telling them everything. Phil watched her work, mesmerized by the efficiency in which she was able to correlate the stories and gather momentum. Soon, two of the others were working with each other, and then soon after that, there were three and then four, all working with one another to coordinate the system attack.

  She’s right, Phil thought. They’re going to follow what she tells them and we’re going to shut this down.

  38

  HAROLD PEERED OVER THE edge—his lower lip twitched and his mouth opened, but no sound came out.

  “We have to climb down there,” Declan instructed. “It’s the only way to make sure that Andie does the job.” But Declan could see that Harold was lost by the cavern’s depth and the maze of conveyors and dying bodies.

  “What is this place?” he finally asked. The color in his face disappeared and for a moment Declan was certain Harold was going to pass out. “We, uh, we can’t go down there.”

  Declan took a step but saw that Harold’s legs were fixed to the floor, motionless. He punched Harold in the chest, pushing him back a step. Harold shook awake from his trance and at once his eyes were on fire with a bullying anger that Declan knew.

  “There you are,” Declan said. “Need you for this, so don’t get hung up on what’s down there.”

  Harold lurched forward, his fist high up in the air and ready to swing. Declan held his place, expecting the punch, but refusing to flinch.

  “You’re pushing it, you know that,” Harold said, his sneer more sinister than ever. He motioned a mock punch, tapping Declan’s jaw. “Fucking push me and see what happens.”

  Before Declan could stop him, Harold jumped from the corridor and crashed onto the metal landing—the sound of his feet sent a metallic chime into air. Declan quickly followed, and they both walked across the grated floor to the farthest edge. The sound of chewing was a constant, like a ringing in his ears.

  “The last time I was here, I only found one way down—climbing,” Declan said, pointing at the cavern’s wall. The rock face jutted moist stony lips, glistening like teeth.

  Had it been this humid before? Declan realized that the tempo of chewing was faster. He faced the corridors and then the conveyors and noticed they were moving faster too. The machine is eating more.

  When he turned back, Harold had already lost attention. Leaning over the railing, Harold launched one of the largest wads of spit Declan had ever seen. He followed the globby mass fifty hands or more where it splattered onto a woman’s face.

  “Splash!” Harold roared. “First shot too.”

  Without warning, Declan slapped Harold hard in the face, immediately stifling his laughter. “Are you through?” he asked. Blood trickled from Harold’s nose, bringing a subtle sense of reward. But at the same time, the memory of childhood terrors came to him as Harold reared up and towered over him. Declan cleared his throat. “We’ve only got one shot at this. Understand?”

  “Warned you already, but I’ll give you that one for free,” Harold spat. “Next time, expect something in return.”

  “I hear you,” Declan answered impatiently. His voice shook as he spoke. “I need you. We’re out of time.”

  As if to answer him, Harold worked another throaty rumble from deep in his chest and hocked up another wad, launching it over the rail. The second one followed the same path as the first, hitting the genitals of an old man. And like the woman before, the zombie remained still, never moving.

  “Bingo!” Harold roared. “Naked Freak! Now you’re limp and sappy, too.”

  “Down there,” Declan said, ignoring Harold’s antics as he pointed to the next landing.

  “That’s right… I hit limp ‘n sappy down there!” Harold continued to roar.

  “Enough!” Declan yelled, and then tried to compose himself. “We’ll move from landing to landing so that we can get to the bottom. That is when—”

  “Kablaam!” Harold screamed, startling him.

  “Yeah… that’s right… kablaam.”

  “You first,” he told Harold, encouraging him with the wave of his hand.

  But when Harold took to the edge of the rail, wrapping his fingers around the round metal, he stopped. “That’s too far of a jump,” Harold confessed.

  “The wall!” Declan said, raising his voice. “The only way is to climb.”

  “Climb?”

  “I did it before,” he half lied. “Use the wall. Climb across, above the other landing, and then drop down.” Declan squeezed his fist, feeling the painful aches from his last attempt.

  “But—”

  “What! Don’t tell me that you’re scared.”

  “The fuck I am!” Harold spat, but his words trailed as he leaned over and searched for the bottom of the cavern. “Already gave you a free pass earlier. Better stop pushing me.”

  And with that, Declan watched Sammi’s murderer climb atop the rail and stretch his leg until it cradled a lip of wet stone jutting out from the cavern wall like an inviting step. The sudden sight of seeing Harold so vulnerable made Declan’s heart race. He felt the beating thrum inside his skull. His hands twitched with the flood of excitement.

  “That’s it,” Declan mumbled like a parent encouraging their child to take their first steps. Harold moved, and the detonator appeared from Harold’s front pocket. Declan gasped. “Wait! The detonator!”

  Harold backed away from the wall just enough to search the large pockets in front of his coveralls. When he touched the short black box, Declan’s eyes narrowed and focused on the familiar green button. A pang of sadness dropped in the deep pool of excitement, sending a ripple through him as he instantly recalled the years with Andie in their classroom. Declan shook it off and reached over the edge of the balcony, stretching to take the detonator.

  “No way,” Harold said, throwing his free hand high up into the air, waving the detonator back and forth. “My find, my build, and my pleasure.”

  “Fine,” Declan said, but he’d already known that Harold would never give up on pressing the button. “Put it back in your front pocket. Tucked in so that there is no way it will fall out while we’re climbing down.”

  Harold considered what Declan suggested and then nestled the detonator in the short front pocket. Declan motioned to the wall and made his way up the side of the metal landing. He glanced down once. The grave distance took his breath and knocked his knees.

  Damp and wet, the chasm’s hot breath left water droplets forming on the surface of everything. There was something different, confirming his earlier thoughts that the machine was eating a lot faster.

  The conveyors? He searched them out, following their paths over and under one another, leading to the death machines. And they weren’t just mo
ving faster, but there were more bodies packed on them. He had missed seeing that earlier. The whirring sound of the death arms sang in unison, delivering death with single taps. Like the chewing, the sound had become rapid like someone panting—faster, one body after another.

  “What is that?” Harold yelled. Declan searched out what Harold asked about, seeing that he had finally taken notice of the mechanical arms. They stopped climbing just as the mechanical arm’s long gray finger tapped the head of a naked woman. Color spiraled out of her body. A moment later, her body slumped down, falling when the floor beneath her opened. And like before, Declan watched the woman slide off the conveyer and disappear into the black depths of the cavern.

  “Holy shit!” Harold yelled, grinning from ear to ear. “Did you see that?”

  “Let’s keep moving,” Declan said glumly. He couldn’t be certain what sickened him more, the machine’s appetite or how Harold reacted. Harold remained still, staring as two more bodies were disposed of. Declan nudged Harold’s middle, poking just below a rib to jibe him into moving.

  “Watch it!” Harold yelled, sending his foot across Declan’s face. The bottom of Harold’s shoe grazed Declan’s head, leaving behind a scrape that stung when the briny air touched it. “I gave you a warning, didn’t I? And the next one won’t just scratch your pretty face.”

  Declan moved back to the safety of the landing as the cut on his face began to bleed into his eye. He’d clean it up and then continue his climb. As he worked a makeshift bandage, he was surprised to see how well Harold took to the wall. He climbed with efficiency, seeming to know exactly where to place his feet and hands. But when Harold took his eyes off of the wall to watch the mechanical arms deliver more death, he misplaced a hand and slipped. Declan launched himself, pressing his middle against the railing, clutching it with one hand and grabbing Harold’s arm with the other.

  “Help me,” Harold pleaded. Declan strained, feeling the muscles rip in his arm as he tried to pull Harold back to the landing. But Harold was too heavy and had begun to slip.

  “You’ll need both arms. If I can reach the bottom rail, then I can pull myself up.” Harold pawed at Declan’s arm with both hands, climbing him like a rope. But his weight and strength were too much, and Declan felt his feet slipping from the grated floor—he was going to topple over the rail.

  “Wait, I’m falling over!” he screamed, and pinned one of his legs between the railing bars to brace himself. “I can’t pull you up.”

  “I’ll pull you down if you don’t,” Harold screamed at him, his voice breaking in raspy gasps. “I’ll pull us both down! Now give me your other arm!”

  Declan hesitated, but then saw the detonator perching on the lip of Harold’s pocket.

  “It’s time,” Declan told him, and in a single instant, he decided Harold’s fate.

  “What?” Harold asked, his bemused expression becoming a plea.

  Declan ignored Harold, and pinned his other leg behind the rail, securing himself to the landing. He leaned over, swinging his free arm and slapped Andie’s large gray button one last time.

  “Hi everybody,” Andie sang. Declan wept when he heard Andie’s voice.

  “What are you doing?” Harold cried. “What do you think you’re doing!”

  “Fuck you Harold!” Declan answered flatly and plucked the detonator from Harold’s pocket.

  “No! No, you can’t do that!”

  “You killed Sammi!” he told him, fixing his eyes on Harold’s piggy face. He stared into the evil that he had known all of his life. He looked for the promise of anything worthy but found nothing. “You killed her!”

  “Please, Declan,” Harold begged. “Oh please, it was an accident, I swear—”

  But Declan never let him finish, and loosened his grip just enough to feel the last of the evil slip from his fingers.

  “Andie—projector!” Declan screamed and watched the bulbous orb rise out of Andie’s head. He heard the faint echo of the droid’s voice but couldn’t make out the words over Harold’s screams. And as they fell, Andie’s orb beamed an arrow of brilliant light that circled around and around, painting everything it touched in a beautiful array of white light.

  When Andie’s projector was at its brightest, Declan wished his mechanical friend a final goodbye and then pressed the detonator.

  There was one other time in Declan’s life that he had seen the sun. Today he saw it again in the form of an enormous ball of fire racing to consume everything in the cavern. The shockwave came first, causing bodies to tumble and fall mercilessly from the conveyors. Arms and legs spilled over the ledges, careening toward the volcano erupting below them. Declan held onto the platform—his head thrown back as the heat came next. In an instant, the air was like an oven and impossible to breathe. Declan pulled himself back to the landing, falling to his knees and tried to secure himself to the grated floor.

  He dared a look below, but the brightness was too much. The cavern’s black depths had suddenly become alive as a monstrous fire crawled up the walls, consuming everything.

  A blink. Declan had nothing but a single blink before he knew that he was going to turn to ash if he didn’t get off the landing.

  “Climb,” he tried to yell, but his throat had scorched in the heated air. He blindly reached up, searching for the opening. His hands and feet found exactly where they needed to be as though some kind of magic helped push him out of harm’s way.

  When he saddled the cavern’s opening and crawled into the corridor, the flames of the explosion rifled up from behind him and careened over his head. The force of the massive fireball threw the parade of zombies onto their backs and shattered the lights on the walls. Declan covered his head, feeling the heat burning his hair and scalp. He shut his eyes, pressing them and then covering his face, fearing that his eyeballs would melt. The heat was enormous, and the air remained too hot to breathe.

  A sip, he told himself. Just a sip or you’ll pass out. But the air burned his throat and his lungs. He forced himself to breathe, and his throat instinctively began to close.

  I‘m going to suffocate. A notion of dread swam through his head as a thankful rush of cool air blew over his face. He opened his mouth to breathe it in. The fire pulled on the air, sucking it in from all corners of the machine. He dared another sip of the cool air, taking in just enough to stay alive.

  Declan crawled along the floor as blackness crept into his eyes. But he pushed, gulping at the burnt air. The flames danced along the walls and ceiling, burning and melting everything it touched. As he reached the machine’s great hub, black smoke billowed upward, filling the enormous chamber and hiding the lights. When the fires finally crawled back into the cavern like a dragon to its lair, the air began to return. Declan eased up onto his knees, choking and vomiting. Soon he knelt forward and was able to get to his feet. A rumble came from the cavern.

  A second explosion? he wondered and realized that the Andie-bomb may have had more energy cells left to explode. His only other thought was to run.

  39

  EXCITEMENT FLUTTERED DEEP IN Isla’s gut. The frightful essence of it born the moment she met the strange man named Phil. He’s aware too, she thought cheerfully, and shuddered as a wonderful notion ticked inside her. An ancient notion, she considered jokingly, and then tried to remember the last time she looked at a man the way she looked at him. Isla caught herself staring again, but then forced herself to turn back to the terminal and to follow his suggestions as she navigated a hundred different systems at the same time.

  Her sisters—that is what she decided to call them—were doing the same exact maneuvers as she, mirroring every move in near perfect synchronization, guaranteeing a unified system attack.

  “The programming is easy enough,” she mumbled. “Just a simple relay, tripping one component and then another, all in series so that only a few vital systems remain on.”

  “Life support,” Phil added, but the reference did not sound familiar to her. Many of his reference
s were unfamiliar, but like any puzzle, she could figure out the meaning. “Forever?”

  Isla nodded, a smile slipping as she glanced in his direction. The idea of the machine not running anymore felt as strange to her as sharing company with another person.

  “Yes, forever,” she confirmed, but then added. “That is, if we want it to be. Once we control the machine—the machines—we’ll be able to turn any of the systems on and off.”

  “That one!” Phil interrupted. “I know that one. Select it.”

  Isla swiped her finger across the screen, tripping one of the animated switches. An animated dial appeared. Phil instructed her to rotate the virtual knob clockwise twenty degrees and not a degree more. She followed his instructions, all the while watching the six other open sessions, making sure her sisters followed her lead. One at a time, the dials turned the twenty degrees that Phil instructed. When each of her sisters typed that they were ready, Isla knew it was time.

  Anxiety ticked deep inside her, causing her shoulders to stiffen and her mouth to go dry. She swallowed nervously, uncertain of their outcome. The anticipation made her feel both giddy and scared at the same time.

  “We’re all set,” she told Phil, putting his hand in hers. She searched for assurance from him about what they were doing. He looked at her steadily but then raised his brow. She sensed that he was equally unsure of what was going to happen. “Ready?”

  “I’m ready,” he answered and signaled to her to forward the remaining set of instructions. Isla took a deep breath but then hesitated. Her finger hung in the air—an inch from changing their world forever. Phil cradled her hand and moved it forward, touching the screen. “We’ve come this far. It’s time to finish it.”

  Like before, they watched the latest set of directions reach one of her sisters. The instructions were then passed on to one of the others, who passed it on. She tried to blink, but froze, watching, as the cycle repeated until all of them had applied the changes. She sighed and lightly clapped Phil on the shoulder, celebrating their accomplishment. Phil raised his hand, quieting the moment, and then pointed at the screen.