End of Gray Skies: An Apocalyptic Thriller

by Brian Spangler

  A minute was all they had—less really, when taking into account the delays that occurred while relaying the messages around the world. The messaging isn’t instantaneous, she reminded herself. Don’t forget to account for the communications delay. After all, just one misstep and the affected machine could turn the machine closest to it back on, tripping that machine to turn the next one on, repeating until they were all back on. Isla shook her head at the complexity of the timing but loved the risk and excitement, too.

  As she swiped around the animated knobs and switches, watching the translucent white dial-marking move from position four to position six, the machine suddenly groaned and heaved like a mountain waking to cough out volcanic ash. Isla pulled her hand back—unsure if she had caused the piercing sound. Vibrations came next and sent a shudder through the room, throwing the lab equipment into a frenzied dance atop the tables and from the storage shelves. Glass fell, shattering in a rain of tumbling pebbles. Any remains of her lab from the zombie attack was quickly lost. She pushed both hands up into the air, terrified of touching anything else.

  “Was that supposed to happen?” she asked. But Phil didn’t answer. His face twisted in a morph of excitement and confusion. “Phil! Is that us?”

  “Yes! It’s working,” he answered her. “Six is the correct number, but warn the others about the potential for a huge shudder.”

  She warned the others. And as they made the change, they reported back that their machine’s tempo slowed. But they also reported that there was no shudder felt.

  “They didn’t get the shudder,” she relayed and raised her voice, fearing their machine was different, jeopardizing their plan. Phil turned, darting glances, placing his hands on the metal floor to feel the vibrations. He closed his eyes, moving his lips, but said nothing.

  “The machine is slowing, but the shudder wasn’t from us, not like before.” Phil told her as he sat back down. “Must be the boy, Declan and his friend. I think they’ve reached the soul of the machine and destroyed it.”

  “No turning back now,” she said. A small, dying reservation caused her to pause and consider what it was that they were going to do. After all, this had been her home for more years than her own Commune. She let the sadness hold her for just a moment and then shook it off, turning back to her terminal’s screen to check the progress reported by her sisters.

  “No turning back,” he repeated her words, putting his hand on her back. She leaned against his warm touch and continued turning the dials and flipping the switches.

  “Now what?” she asked, having exhausted all the changes. Her mind wandered to what she thought would be next. “It’s the lights. Correct? We have to disconnect them too.”

  Nodding, Phil smiled at her. “Now you’re getting it.” She liked that he said that and then moved to the next set of internal system, sending new instructions to her sisters. A few reported back that they had already applied the change, realizing what the next logical step had to be. Isla had underestimated her sisters and felt a sense of pride. She pressed her hand on the terminal, comforted by their confidence.

  The door to the lab opened, blowing in a strong wind of commotion. The smell of burnt air came with it as a smoky figure fell into the room. Isla gasped when she saw the charred shadow of Declan. Smoke streamed in behind him and clouded around him as if resting when he stopped. His coveralls were mere cinders, still burning with stray embers shooting off as he dropped to his knees. Phil leaped from his chair, patting down Declan’s burning coveralls.

  “It’s done!” Declan yelled, but his voice was nothing more than a gravelly wheeze, and he seemed oblivious to what was happening to his coveralls. Isla continued typing instructions but found that she could not turn away. “The soul… the machine’s soul… destroyed it!”

  Black soot covered his face, extinguishing his features in a way that looked inhuman. His hair had been singed from the heat, curling and matting in spots with wisps of smoke continuing to float about as he stood back up to move across the room. As he passed her, the stench of burnt flesh carried with him, causing her to choke. Beyond the smoldering odor, it was his face that was the most frightening. The whites of his eyes beamed like lights—surrounded by skin that had darkened and bubbled until it peeled back, cutting red tears through the ashy soot.

  “What happened to your friend?” Isla asked. “Phil mentioned you brought someone to help.”

  “Died,” Declan answered and then hesitated. “He took the bomb to the bottom. Did it work? Is the machine dead?”

  “I’m sorry about your friend—” Phil began to say.

  “Wasn’t a friend,” Declan interrupted. “He wasn’t anyone’s friend. Did it work?”

  “It certainly helped,” Phil said. “This machine won’t function anymore, not for mining and recycling anyway. We’re trying to break the restart cycle now. How are we doing Isla?”

  “Good,” she answered, realizing that she was staring at Declan. It was his ears. She had never seen anything like them. One was nearly completely gone, burned away to just the lobe. The other had fared better—blackened and split open—fresh blood dripped from the open wound. Hadn’t been cauterized, it will become infected soon if left alone, she thought. “There’s some water and a first-aid kit.”

  “Thank you,” Declan wheezed and almost at once wavered, leaning forward and then back as though he would collapse. He shook himself and focused past her, staring at the terminal’s screen. “You can see the other machines from there?”

  “Not just see them, but talk to them too,” Phil answered. “We’ve made contact with each of them and we’re just about ready to shut the core systems down.”

  “Why not shut it all down?” Declan argued. “I mean, turn it off. Turn everything off.”

  “We can’t,” she exclaimed. And while she had thought the same, Isla also considered what would happen next. How many people were awakened? How many were put to work year after year, for centuries? “We have to take care of everyone who will become aware like us, like Sammi.”

  “Will the clouds lift?” Declan asked, faltering again while he tried to wash some of the soot from his face.

  “You’re talking about the End of Gray Skies?” she asked, realizing that she hadn’t heard the words, let alone speak of them, in decades. “If I’m understanding what we’ve done here, then yes, we’ll see the end of gray skies.”

  “Do it!” Phil screamed, startling Isla. She saw something then—deep in his eyes—a crazed unrest that she initially thought might be exhaustion. But when he stopped helping Declan and shook a fist in the air, she realized it was more. He had waited a millennium for this moment, and he would not wait a moment longer. Tremors erupted across his body and huge patches of red blotted his cheeks as he began to yell, “Do It! DO IT!”

  Without hesitation, Isla punched in the last of the codes, confirming the plan with each of her sisters. Together they set into motion what would end the machine’s hold on their world.

  Declan screamed and grabbed at his head, trying to hide from a sound that seemed to come from everywhere. Isla cried out, but her voice disappeared in the noise. She dug her fingers deep into her ears and felt her insides begin to shake apart. The room tipped to one side, and the lights on the wall shattered in a silent glassy rainfall. Her equipment was next—the remaining test tubes and beakers cracked in a blink, covering the glass with a laden mosaic of geometric shapes. She watched as one bled its contents before finally disintegrating into a crumpled pile.

  Something warm and wet kissed her cheek, turning cold almost at once. The same sensation kissed her other cheek, and Isla brought her hand back from her ears. A bright red blood stain blossomed like a flower in her palm.

  The blood vault, she wondered, and pushed herself up, holding onto the lab tables. She made her way to the round window and peered inside the room. The articulating arms had stopped moving. It’s working.

  Blood oozed from the thousands of vials, seeping through the cracked
glass, puddling beneath the shelves. Her heart sank when images of Nolan’s smile faded from her mind. A distant thought had come to pass, one where Nolan came back like the others, like her, and was aware too. But the sound proved too much, and any hope of using the machine’s computers to resurrect her lost love disappeared into a bloody puddle. As if confirming this last thought, the round window splintered and exploded, spitting shards of glass in a tantrum. Isla tumbled backward, falling into Phil’s outstretched arms. He had followed her, catching her before she hit the floor.

  Maybe he knew, she questioned. Maybe he knew about my Nolan.

  She turned to thank him, but stopped. In his expression she saw a kind of relief that she had known once a long time ago. It was the relief that ended her pain, and opened her eyes to a world she could never have known existed.

  “You’re free,” she mouthed, hoping he understood. She cried for him then, and felt the stabbing pain of a memory cut into her wrists. “You’re free, Phil.” And when she found his eyes, she saw a thousand years of turmoil begin to melt. She hitched up onto her toes, kissing the tears away from his face before placing her lips on his and embracing him. His chest tightened and then became loose as sobs riddled his breathing.

  “It’s over,” he managed to whisper past the ringing in her ear. “I can feel it.”

  When the sound ended, she and Phil stood in the quiet, searching the room for to take measure of the remains. They waited. Isla scoured the walls, tentative and nervous like a guilty child hoping that her parents didn’t see what she had just done. Once she spied the light on the wall, trying to catch an accusatory glance. To her relief, the lights stayed dark and empty, dimmed for the first time in centuries, and maybe forever.

  40

  EXCITEMENT OF WHAT PHIL and Isla started kept the pain away. But when the lights went out forever, and the blood vault ceased to function, Declan began to feel the burns on his face and ears. He wanted to scream, but held it in. His lungs felt like the fire had scorched his soul—a retaliation for having destroyed the machine’s soul.

  Sammi and the baby will be safe. With this last thought, he dismissed his injuries.

  Declan carefully peeled his hands away from his ears and realized that one of his ears was gone. Blood crept through the sooty stains on his arms and hands, and he began to wonder how badly his face looked. Carefully, he touched his cheeks and then his mouth.

  The lab had been nearly destroyed. Piles of glass puddled with liquids of all different colors—some of it still dripping to the floor. Isla and Phil stood by the blood vault, hugging and crying together, finding one another in the success of their system attack. The need to be with Sammi became strong and replaced all other urgencies. His heart swelled at the thought of being a father. He glanced at the shattered lights, and his heart swelled even more, knowing that his chosen was back and safe—forever. The machine had tried to take away their world, and in stopping it, they had brought her back to him. He watched Isla and Phil, grateful for what they had done.

  How can I ever repay them?

  “Come back with me,” Declan blurted, breaking the silence.

  “It sounds funny, now,” Isla answered, ignoring what Declan asked of them. She motioned to the ventilation system above her. Phil and Declan followed her hand, looking to the ceiling. “The air exchange is on, but something is missing.”

  “No more mining,” Phil exclaimed, nodding aggressively. “It’s truly shut down.”

  “We blew that up,” Declan added. Wiping at the black char on his hands. “I don’t think it is possible that the soul will ever work again.”

  “That is part of it, but the rest is tuned off,” Phil said. “For good this time too. Any signs of the other machines looping back to reset?”

  They made their way over to the terminal’s screen. Declan picked up a chair, placing it at the table for Isla to sit. Every part of him had become stiff as the sudden feeling of burned skin stretched and peeled apart. He screamed, dropping the chair.

  “Let me,” Phil said, offering another chair for him to sit down. “You need to get some of the burns looked at. We’ll gather some supplies for you to take with you.”

  “You’re not coming?” Declan asked. “And you?”

  “I may,” Isla answered. He heard a reservation in her voice. “But only to visit our Commune, to see if there is anyone that might remember me, or to see if my younger brother is still alive.”

  “And then?” Phil asked her.

  Isla took Phil’s hand and fixed her eyes on him. Declan saw a gleam that sparked and shined in her expression. He saw a beauty that he had overlooked before. She was more than an odd young girl; she was a beautiful woman.

  “My place is here,” she announced, glancing at Declan and then back to Phil. “We have a responsibility to everyone who is waking up. Someone needs to help them.”

  “The zombies?” Declan asked. His voice rose with disgust. “Leave them.”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” Phil told him. “They are going to become aware. Like us. Like Sammi.” Declan understood. More than that, he recognized the daunting task ahead of them.

  Isla turned back, tapping against the terminal and at once the screen lit up. The panel filled with characters streaming across it, windows popping to the foreground that Declan tried to read, but couldn’t. Isla traced the text messages with her fingers, reading each of them, her lips moving in a silent exercise as she raced from message to message and window to window.

  “There is a lot of talk from me… I mean from the others,” she told them. She continued tracing the text messages, a satisfied grin emerging and becoming broad. A laugh slipped, which she was quick to catch, pressing her fingers to her lips. “They’re all talking to one another. That didn’t take long.”

  “Like sisters,” Phil added and rubbed her back. Isla’s expression slowly changed then, her smile drawing downward and firm like a tight line. “What? What is it?”

  “There’s someone with them,” she said.

  “Which one?”

  “All of them.”

  Angst volleyed in Declan’s gut. “We’re going to lose the end of gray skies, aren’t we?” Phil’s hand shot up into the air to hush him before he could say another word.

  “Who is there?” Phil asks calmly. Declan could sense the fear as Isla tried to answer Phil’s question.

  “It’s… it’s you.”

  Phil’s body became rigid as he straightened himself and brushed his hands over of his front, clearing away nothing. “I suppose that does make sense,” he explained and continued to primp his coveralls as if readying to meet them. “That makes complete sense, having the lead architect at each of the machines.”

  “He’s helping!” Isla quickly added “He’s working with each of me, keeping the machines off.”

  “Good! That’s good.” Phil said.

  “Come with me,” Declan interrupted, repeating his earlier offer and struggling to understand the sense of obligation Isla spoke of. “Come back to the Commune.”

  Isla and Phil exchanged a brief glance, but Declan could see it was only cursory and with little consideration. They had made up their minds to stay, and nothing he could say or do would convince them to leave. As if to confirm this, Isla was the first to begin shaking her head. Phil followed, extending his hand toward Declan.

  “I’m grateful to you for what you’ve done here today,” Phil began, choking up and swiping at his cheek. “You take care of yourself and Sammi and your baby. And come back to visit. I think there is much here that can be shared.” Declan nodded, pulling the strange man into his arms, thanking him.

  “We will,” Declan told him. Isla waved, and then turned back to the terminal, tapping away at one of a half dozen conversations with her sisters.

  “Take care of that,” Phil added, motioning to his burns. “Don’t want you to get sick after all this.”

  Declan left the room, never to return, but in his heart he knew that he would see Isla
and Phil again. Maybe a picnic on the beach with Sammi and there yet-to-be-named child—Phil if their baby was a boy, Isla if their baby was a girl.

  41

  THE MACHINE WAS DIFFERENT. The corridors were filled with a thousand confused stares—chins pitched up, searching the empty lights on the walls. The outside of the machine looked different too. The skin was no longer an animation of color, forever looking fresh; it had dulled like the skin of an apple past its time. To Declan, the machine looked less alive. But there is life inside, he reminded himself.

  The sun had begun to peer through a break in the sky, hinting that more of it would show soon. And to the furthest left and right, breaks of blue sky rippled in between the gray and white, expanding and moving as if dancing to a silent tune. A breeze stirred from somewhere deep offshore, tipping the edge of a breaking wave and sending the briny smell to waft past Declan. But it was different now—like a soothing cover, and no longer riddled with an acrid coat that chapped his skin.

  He shuddered in the cool breeze, the burns on his arms and face playing a fickle game of pain and chills. He dug his foot into stand, stepping forward, covering his eyes against a glare that was truly alien to him. In the distance, the air shimmered atop the beach, baking from a heat that had not reached the Earth in a thousand years. And past the shaky images, Declan found the small party that he had left behind.

  Sammi waved and pointed up at the sky, her slender body dancing in the playful light. He waved back to her and quickly pushed his hands down when he saw the Outsiders. The leader waved, throwing his arms upward in a quick snap and screamed the word victory. Declan raised his hand up, matching his, and then watched as they took leave of the group. He wondered if anyone would ever miss Harold or notice that he was gone? Or if anyone even cared?