In the Aftermath:
(Part 1)
Burning of the Dawn
In the Aftermath: Burning of the Dawn
Written by Coleman Thompson
Copyright 2016 Coleman Thompson
Smashwords Edition
Cover Art by Magdalena Adic
“It’s too dangerous to go out there unarmed, Jodelle! Now, what’ve you done with your gun?”
“I haven’t done anything with it.”
“No? Then where is it?”
“The same place it’s always been, my Sweet Marie... in my mouth.”
V–Day + 1
The sky was mostly clear that day; yet it appeared to be drearily overcast. It was the smoke coming from the lake that was fabricating the appearance of dark clouds. A frightened survivor, named Andrew, had little time to properly observe the sky as he fled through the city streets. Others were with him, but where were they now? He could still hear some of them screaming in the distance. The war is over. We won. Why is this happening? What IS happening? Andrew deliberated over these questions before he tripped over something in the street. Just someone’s spare tire left behind; not a body this time. He had his tablet computer in his hand. Was he still recording? He didn’t remember shutting it off. Those terrible creatures were all around him. How do they move so fast? Nothing can move that fast. That strange sound they made: Andrew could not tell if they were growling or purring. It was just as horrible either way. The creatures looked almost like children: shadow-children, with scorpion tails, that crawled upon the walls. Andrew quickly surveyed his surroundings as he ran. They’re still crawling on the buildings – they’re too fast! They’ll catch me, I know it. They have a weakness though; I remember their weakness: they can only see in the shadows. I have to stay in the light. The screaming soon ceased; only the strange sounds of the shadowy creatures lingered. The people with vehicles had already fled the city. Where was everybody else? They couldn’t be hiding. How do you hide from something that can see you in the dark? The sunlight won’t last forever. An even more disturbing question plagued Andrew: how do you run from something that can’t be outran? The creatures had managed to get ahead of him, forcing Andrew to change his course more than once. Some of them would have made it to the trees by now and the forest was full of shadows. They’ll be able to see me there. Andrew stumbled his way into an empty parking lot and fell to his knees; he was exhausted. He waited quietly, listening to the encroaching dangers all around him. Finally he spoke aloud, “There’s nobody left… they’ve all gone, or they’re all dead.” It was some sort of shopping center; Andrew recognized where he was. Running was not an option, so he would have to try to hide. They’ll see me in the shadows, but when night falls the whole world will be a shadow. His small tablet was still recording; Andrew switched it off after gauging his surroundings. He then ran for one of the stores. The shadow creatures were everywhere. Hiding was his only choice. God save us all.
December 16: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration detect unidentified objects approaching the Earth. The strange entities show intelligence; their presence is kept silent.
December 18: Contact is made with the approaching entities. The nature of the communication is unknown, but military installations around the world are put on high alert. The presence of the alien entities is still deemed confidential.
December 19 – 22: Independent astronomers and civilian stargazers begin spotting the strange objects in the sky. World governments attempt to keep their presence quiet. They are not successful.
December 23: The number of alien spacecraft increases to more than ten-thousand. The International Space Station is destroyed, along with all satellite communications. The Earth is surrounded.
December 24: The alien aggressors launch an invasion of Earth. More than eight-hundred million people are killed within hours.
December 25 – 31: More than five billion people are killed as the extraterrestrial invaders continue their attacks. World militaries, militias, and civilians unite in an attempt to fight back.
January 1 – 3: A large scale battle in the Northern Hemisphere delivers the extraterrestrials their first true defeat.
January 4 – February 13: Fierce fighting across the globe results in many more victories for humankind. Interstellar nuclear rockets destroy the alien motherships still orbiting the Earth. Hundreds of long, narrow, alien spacecrafts are known to be hiding in the moon’s shadow. Too rudimentary to be effective battleships, their exact purpose is unknown.
February 14: Victory for Earth (V–Day). The alien aggressors are defeated.
February 15 (V–Day + 1): The strange alien ships hiding in the shadow of the moon enter the atmosphere and crash into the Earth. Each ship is nearly a mile in length and heavily fortified. Their hulls are seemingly impenetrable, but upon nightfall they are opened by something from within. There are creatures inside – each ship is holding hundreds of them.
February 16 (V–Day + 2): The end begins.
V–Day + 575 (September 12th): Western Pennsylvania.
The road was mostly empty. Some occasional debris littered the way, but there were no deserted automobiles congesting this two lane highway which meandered through the rolling hills and green fields of the Pennsylvanian landscape. The quiet road did contain one inhabitant: a light green, estate vehicle. It moved at a temperate pace silently making its way to an unclear destination. Fuel was scarce, but this vehicle ran on twin lithium–titanate batteries, and on its roof was strapped a bulky, steel crate that housed a portable solar panel. The hatchback was packed to near capacity with an assortment of supplies, including: clothing, food, water, bullets, LED lanterns, and other things more personal. Driving the vehicle was thirty-six-year old Clarissa Hannigan: an Italian immigrant whose husband had died in the war. In the car with her were her twin fifteen-year old daughters, Vita and Maria. Both daughters slept idly; Vita more-so in the back by herself than Maria in the passenger seat next to her mother. Clarissa remained attentive; though soon she, too, would need to stop and rest. Sleeping at night was not an option. On the dashboard lay a Benelli M1014 twelve-gauge shotgun; Clarissa wanted it easily accessible. Their current location seemed safe enough, yet nowhere was ever truly safe anymore. The balance was delicate: too far from the cities and she and her pretty daughters would be contending with other bands of people who were not always friendly; being too close to any city after dark was a far more dangerous alternative.
The sky was spotted with random dark clouds and a late summer storm seemed likely. Eventually, a ray of sun forced its way through as Clarissa came upon a clearing just off of the road. She examined it prudently and upon establishing that her car was not likely to get stuck, she pulled off into the clearing and stopped the vehicle. Maria was awake and aware now. This was a common occurrence for her. Every day between nine and ten in the morning they would recharge the car (whether it needed it or not) and her mother would rest for a few hours. Clarissa reached into the back, brushed her other daughter on the leg, and spoke, “Vita-bella, wakeup.”
Vita stirred with an assortment of odd noises as she stretched her body as best she could – knocking a few small items into the floor in the process (to which she took little notice of). Her mother and sister had already left the car and were setting up the solar panel upon the roof. Vita soon joined them. The panel was unboxed, unfolded, setup and hooked-up within minutes. Within a few minutes more, the twin batteries were completely charged and the solar panel was put back into its box. During this process, the sisters spotted a small structure towards the end of the field. Whether it was a house or a barn was unclear, but the girls wanted to explore it. Alth
ough she was a little reluctant, Clarissa allowed her daughters to go, but first she retrieved a Ruger .22 Mark III hunting pistol from the car’s glove compartment and gave it to Maria. Vita obtained her knife from the backseat. It was a black, tactical knife about thirteen inches long – eight of which belonged to the partially serrated blade. The knife was placed in its sheath, which Vita then attached to a belt-loop in her shorts. There was another gun buried in the back somewhere, a 30-06 Remington 783 rifle, but the Hannigans currently possessed no ammunition for it. Clarissa sat on the ground against her vehicle as she watched her daughters set off across the field. Her shotgun lay close by; in the past year the weapon had never once been more than a few feet away from her.
The tall grass of the field did not bother Maria due to the dense jeans she was wearing. Vita, on the other hand, wore shorts, so her bare legs were persistently being pestered by the uncouth weeds and ill-mannered grasses. Both girls wore thick, dark, water-proofed, workman boots, so their feet were adequately protected.
“Ugh, I should’ve changed first,” Vita yowled. “Oh man, you think there’re ticks out here?”
“I don’t know,” Maria answered. “Probably.”
“Gross… God, what I wouldn’t do for just one more warm shower!”
“Washing with creek water and rain-runoff builds strength of character, didn’t ya know that?”
“Right, I’d give all that character for the feel of warm, running water on my skin again.” Vita spoke as she smacked some wayward insect off of her knee. “Seriously, if there was just one last warm shower left in this world I would totally knife fight a freakin’ nun for it if I had to.”
“Temperance, diligence, kindness, and charity are all heavenly virtues, my sister,” Maria preached. “Be one with the virtuous.”
“Yeah well, so is cleanliness, is it not?”
“In a sense; it’s called Chastity.”
“I can live with that… it’s not like there’s a whole lot of temptation in our lives.”
“Amen,” Maria spoke in a hushed tone as she approached the old structure at the end of the field. She quietly walked up to a busted window and peered inside. It was not a barn; it was actually a small hideaway once used by hunters. Somebody had turned it into a residence. Whoever they were they were not here anymore. “It looks okay.”
Maria pushed against the door. The wood from the door and the floors was warped causing the door to fight being opened, yet Maria soon prevailed. She entered vigilantly with her sister right behind her. The small house was swathed with shattered glass, shards of wood, and other debris. The place was badly water-damaged and black mold had taken over most of the walls and ceiling. Maria reached into one of her back pockets and pulled out a rag; she ripped it in half and gave a part to her sister. Maria cuffed hers over her nose and mouth, while Vita rolled hers up and held it between her lips via her teeth. The place was enveloped with a heavy musk that coagulated the air inside. The dense atmosphere made it seem much warmer inside than it was outside. Even though all the windows were shattered, trees and high shrubs surrounded the place and drowned out much of the airflow from the outside world. There was a variety of shirts, pants, towels, cloths, and other clothing lying around, but none of them were worth trying to salvage. Vita spotted a handle of some sort underneath the rubble; she took hold of it and lifted it from the pile of rubbish. It was an ash rowing oar that was in remarkably good condition.
“Cool,” Vita muffled through her rag. “Shall we go sailing now?”
“Sure,” Maria replied. “You can paddle us all the way to Hawaii.”
“No, but maybe across the Mississippi?”
“Hrmp, I think we’d be more likely to circle the Great Lakes before that happens.”
To the right of the entryway was the kitchen and bathroom; neither of which did Vita nor Maria want anything to do with. To the left were two bedrooms. The first had no door and the room itself was empty save for a couple of rotted mattresses, a few cleaned out dressers, and some scattered coat-hangers. The door to bedroom number two was closed. This one put up little fight as Maria opened it. The room was very cluttered; some of it was decaying boxes and bags of clothing, but much of it was toys. This was once a child’s room.
“Wow.” Maria decreed in a low tone as she made her way to the center of the room.
“Yeah really,” Vita spoke through her rag as she made her way to an old, miniature desk under a small, broken window. “This is a little depressing.”
Maria trudged her way to the closet and opened the sliding door. There was not much inside. What little there was consisted of an old hamper, a pile of linens, and a collection of board games stacked upon an upper shelf. The twins, like their mother, were fairly tall, so Maria reached the high shelf with little effort. She was not after the games; she only wanted to check amongst them to see if anything was hidden. In her ungainly search, she knocked over a few of the games and some of them crashed open on the floor below. One of which was full of money – real money.
“Well, somebody was saving up for something.” Maria commented as she sifted through the money.
“Very nice!” noted Vita, who was much less successful in her search of the desk drawers. “Finally found some hidden treasure.”
“I would’ve preferred some batteries or an old phone actually.”
“Take it anyway.”
“Why? What are we suppose to use it for?”
“For when we play cards, of course.”
“… Okay, good call…”
As Maria gathered up the money, Vita spotted a large sheet of paper hidden behind the desk. She reached over and gently pulled it out. It was folding in half, but Vita could see that something had been drawn on the inside. She unfolded it and an uneasy chill resonated throughout her body as she gazed upon the image within. Her rag fell from her mouth as she spoke, “That is just too goddamn creepy…”
“What? What is it?” Maria implored as she quickly rose to her feet and began making her way over to her sister. Her curiosity enthused, she plowed her way through the rubble and promptly ended up banging into Vita – who was still morbidly rapt by the large piece of paper in her hands. As Maria collected herself, she, too, caught sight of the strange drawing and instantly fell victim to the same resonating chill that had possessed her sister. “Shit… that’s scary… did a little kid draw that?”
“It looks like it,” Vita answered. “Why would… ugh, that’s just too damn weird.”
Clarissa had joined her daughters in the old house. The longer they were out of her line-of-sight the quicker her concern would mount. No matter how safe a place might seem, her anxieties never failed to flaunt their presence. “What’s weird?” She asked from the doorway with shotgun in hand.
“Oh, hi mama,” Vita replied. “We found this… it’s really creepy.”
The girls went to their mother and handed her the drawing. She looked it over, but wasn’t as troubled by the image as her daughters were. The picture was of a monster. Clarissa knew the creature well, as did her daughters. It was a female, humanoid-like being. The real versions were usually between four to five feet long with a tail equal to its body in length. While it could function as a biped, its preferred method of traveling was on all fours. Its hands had five digits each—just like a human’s, but more webbed—with small, sharp, protruding nails. Along its elongated forearms and the palms of its hands were hundreds of small, thorn-like appendages which proved exceptionally useful when climbing, or grabbing a hold of its prey. Its back legs were slightly shorter as a whole, but with longer feet that possessed only three webbed toes. The creature also had what resembled long, thick, matted, coils of hair. In actuality, they were dozens of tentacles with a retractable barb in each tip. At some point in time these creatures were informally given the name Sayona.
“The three deaths – the teeth, the tail, and the hands. The venom in her fangs attacks the blood (a hemotoxin); she has a mouth full of great needles, good for h
olding her prey, but the two forward-facing fangs at the back of her jaw are what truly devastate. If the bite is severe, death is eminent. Your organs will fail, or your life-blood will spill out. Death is slow, but splendid. The tip of her tail ends in a club-like fashion and it can definitely be used in club-like ways, but its true purpose is to house and protect a powerful weapon. In the crux of her claw-like club is a delicate, retractable stinger that can inject a venom that paralyzes and asphyxiates (neurotoxin). Death comes within mere moments, and death cannot be avoided. A dark crevice runs between the scales from her palm to her upper wrist. This secret stash of terrible death can be ripped open as a meter-long, translucent tentacle is ejected out! This jellyfish-like appendage contains millions of cnidocytes that fire harpoon-shaped injectors that deliver a horrific venom. Its only purpose is to cause unrelenting and excruciating pain. She does not use this venom often, only when she has to.”
The Sayona also possessed a fearsome defense. From their jawlines to the tips of their tails, they were covered in thousands of scales that were lightweight, yet practically impenetrable. This powerful armor still enabled the creatures to move extremely fast. Their two eyes were normally a solid glowing-green with black, slit-like pupils. The monster’s night-vision was exceptional – seeing in the dark better than any human could see during the day, but their extreme sensitivity to light also left them vulnerable to bright lighting, especially sunlight, making the beasts predominately nocturnal.
In the Aftermath: Burning of the Dawn Page 1
