The Remnants of Yesterday

by Anthony M. Strong

  “They can just follow our footprints instead,” Emily replied, pulling her own foot out of the muck.

  “I’m trying not to think about that,” I said. “What I’m more worried about right now is finding some shelter until this thing passes. I’m not sure we’re safe out here.”

  As if to punctuate my observation, a mighty crack of lightning lit up the sky, followed by a boom and the sound of splintering wood.

  “Christ that was close.” Darwin exclaimed.

  “It must have hit a tree,” Clara said. “The storm is right over us.”

  “I hate lightening.” Emily looked worried.

  “It’s fine. The chances of being hit are one in a million.” I soothed her. “Besides, there are plenty of trees around us and lightning always goes to the highest conductor.”

  “Is that right?” Emily asked, her face relaxing a little.”

  “Actually, no,” Darwin said. “Given a lifespan of at least eighty years the chance of being struck by lighting is about one in twelve thousand.”

  “That’s much worse.” The panic was back on Emily’s face.

  “Good going slick.” I glared at Darwin. “I guess tact is not your strong suit.”

  “How do you even know that?” Clara asked.

  “Discovery Channel.”

  Another flash lit up the sky, followed by a second crash as the lightning touched down.

  “That was much closer.” Now Clara looked concerned.

  “Don’t worry about it. We just need to keep on moving forward.” I was drenched, the rain soaking my clothes, which stuck to me with every step. My sodden shoes, now half filled with mud, made walking a misery.

  “Easy for you to say,” Emily replied. “You don’t have a–” She never finished the sentence.

  Without warning, the air was split by a blinding spear of electricity. It slammed into a nearby tree sending charred splinters flying in all directions.

  “Holy crap.” Darwin swiveled away from the blast, stepping in front of Emily to protect her from debris.

  I pushed Clara forward just in the nick of time, as a large branch crashed down between us, thumping into the soft earth and sending a spray of mud into the air.

  “What in hell?” Clara looked down at the branch, visibly shaken. After a moment of reflection, she glanced up at me. “If you hadn’t pushed me out of the way I would have been dead.”

  “Look, the tree is on fire,” Emily said, pointing.

  “Why does it seem like everything is out to kill us?” I grumbled. The tree was engulfed in flames despite the downpour. Fire licked at the trunk, which was ripped into two halves by the bolt as if a meat cleaver had separated it. An odor of ozone and soot hung in the air.

  “That was too close,” Emily said.

  Another crackle of lightning flashed across the sky followed by a rumbling roar of thunder. Somewhere out in the woods came a ripping, rending sound as the powerful bolt went to ground.

  “I think that was another tree.” Clara stepped close to me. Her clothes were so wet they clung to her, highlighting every curve. “I’ve never seen a storm like this.”

  “Me either.” I put my arm around her, feeling her shiver as I did so. “Let’s push on. We have to find shelter.”

  I took a step forward, but before I could take a second one the sky erupted in a deadly light show, streaks of electricity fanning out in all directions at once, then arcing down, smashing through the trees in a cacophony of bursting wood, swiftly followed by a rumble so loud it felt like my eardrums would implode.

  38

  “THIS WAY.” I PULLED Clara forward as the world collapsed around us. We ran through an onslaught of branches and fire, lightning bolts smacking into the earth one after the other without even the time to tell where one ended and the next began.

  It was chaos.

  I dodged a falling tree trunk, skidding sideways in the nick of time to avoid being crushed. Behind me, I could hear the others as they followed, each new explosion eliciting a shriek of fear from Emily and a curse from Darwin.

  “Look out!” Screamed Clara as the air buzzed with a fork of lightning that hit so close I could feel my hair stand up.

  Then the hail came. Golf ball sized chunks of ice that punched into the ground leaving wet muddy holes. They ripped branches, tore through the canopy and devastated the forest floor. One hailstone caught me on the shoulder sending a wave of pain flaring up my arm. I grunted and pressed on, all too aware of the cries of pain as the frozen balls of water bombarded my companions. Only what was left of the woods afforded us any protection at all.

  An absurd thought came to me; a verse dredged up from Sunday school years before.

  The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth.

  The verse from Revelation seemed ridiculous to me back then, old dusty words written by people trying to make sense of things they didn’t understand and could not comprehend. But at this moment, right now, we were living through that very event.

  “It’s no good.” Darwin caught up with me and shouted the words over the roar of thunder. “We’re never going to make it out of this.”

  “Just don’t stop. No matter what happens, don’t stop.” A tree fell somewhere to my left with a creaking, cracking moan. All around us fires raged, consuming the woodlands.

  Then, all at once, as if we passed through some invisible curtain, we emerged from the devastation and destruction and found ourselves back in quiet normality.

  I pulled up short and stopped, bewildered. I could still see the fires raging in the woods, still hear the thunder, and the cracks as lightning tore through the trees, but here, in this one spot, we were safe. A Hailstone bounced and hit the ground, rolling toward us and coming to rest in a bright patch of unlikely sun.

  “Oh thank God.” Clara leaned over, catching her breath. “We outran it.”

  “I’m not sure that we did outrun it. I think it just stopped.” I looked up past the trees, at the ragged wall of angry black clouds stretching upward toward the heavens, and the expanse of deep blue sky that stretched away from it.

  “It’s like the storm can’t come any closer,” Emily said, her eyes fixed on the odd spectacle of the forest burning, the rain still falling, just yards away from us. She voiced what we were all thinking. “Weird.”

  “Reminds me of Florida. One minute it’s raining, the next you drive out of it into dry sunshine,” Clara said. “Only so much worse. I’ve never seen a storm this violent.”

  “Well I for one don’t care how weird it is,” Darwin replied. “I’m just happy that nothing is trying to kill us, at least for a few minutes.”

  39

  WE PRESSED ON through the woods, which by now seemed never ending. After a while, the terrain took a sharp turn upward and the going got tougher, especially since we were all dog tired and physically battered. The strange storm, which had seemed to come out of nowhere and end just as abruptly, did not seem to have advanced at all. Soon the rumbling thunder and sharp booms as lightning touched down became ever more distant, until we could no longer hear them at all.

  Finally, deciding it was safer to stop than to keep pressing forward in our wet and weakened condition, and coming across a small glade surrounded by dense undergrowth and tall trees, I made a suggestion to the group. “We should stop here until morning.”

  “The sun is going down anyway.” Clara glanced up at the sky, which had taken on dusky, pastel blue tones, a sure sign of the approaching sunset as the sun dipped low in the sky. “Plus, I’m not sure I can walk for much longer. I have a blister on my foot that feels like walking over needles every time I take a step.”

  “Are you sure we should stop?” Emily looked concerned. “We’ll be awfully vulnerable out in the open like this.”

  “I haven’t seen a road, or a building, since we left the motel,” I told her. “The only other choice is to keep walking, and pretty soon it will get dark and that
will be impossible.”

  “I wish we had a tent.” Darwin dropped his pack on the ground and sat down. He pulled his shoes off and rubbed his feet. “Or at least a sleeping bag.”

  “We can clear some space on the ground and pile leaves up so it’s not so hard.”

  “And we have blankets,” Clara said. “I was able to stuff a couple into the packs.”

  “Good.” I shrugged my pack from my shoulders. ”It’s agreed then, we stay here tonight and press on in the morning. First order of business, let’s build a fire.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Darwin stopped rubbing his feet and looked up at me. ”If there are more Crazies out there, or worse, if any of those monster things are roaming around, we might draw them to us.”

  “Well, if there are Crazies close enough to see the fire, they will probably find us anyway. Most animals are afraid of fire, they stay away from it, so that should take care of those creatures. Besides, I don’t particularly want to spend the night in pitch blackness.”

  “Plus I’m freezing,” Emily said. “If we don’t light a fire we might all catch our deaths. Getting pneumonia out here would not be good.”

  “Which leads me to my next suggestion,” I said. “We should get out of these wet clothes as soon as possible.”

  “But not before we have a fire going.” Clara looked around. “We should collect wood before it gets too dark to see.”

  “Good idea.” I looked forward to getting warm. “Clara and I will gather the fire wood.”

  “What about us?” Darwin asked.

  Before I could reply, Emily spoke up. “I need to take a look at that wound again and apply more antiseptic.”

  “Great.” Darwin looked glum. “I can’t wait.”

  40

  WE GATHERED WOOD in silence for a while, venturing as far from the clearing as we dared, but making sure never to stray too far. We also kept within eye line of each other. The last thing I wanted was to lose anyone, especially Clara.

  Incredibly, it didn’t seem to have rained at all here. The branches and twigs were bone dry, which came as a relief. If they had been wet, we would have been in trouble. I selected several fat limbs, figuring that they would take longer to burn, and left the smaller stuff for Clara. When we each had an armful, we made our way back to the others, deposited our wood, and went to collect more.

  I had no idea how much we would need to keep us going through the night, but I did know that I had no intention of letting the fire burn out. If we found ourselves under attack, as seemed to be happening regularly, we would need to be able to see our attackers. Given the surprises of the last few days, who knew what would come at us next. It wouldn’t have surprised me to find a dinosaur charging though the woods at this point.

  By the third trip, our pile of wood was fairly large, and I guessed one more would do it. The light was waning fast and we still had set up camp and start the fire. We made our way back out, skirting the perimeter of the clearing and picking up what remained of the ground wood. Whatever we had managed to scavenge would have to suffice.

  Returning to the makeshift camp, we found that Darwin, his wound freshly dressed, had taken it upon himself to scoop out a hollow of earth and pile it high with wood, kindling and twigs on the bottom, along with handfuls of dried leaves, and some of the larger chunks above. The newly created fire pit looked every bit as good as anything I’d ever made during my days in the Boy Scouts. I wondered where Darwin had learned to be so outdoorsy.

  “Looks good.” I dropped my last armful of wood onto the pile. “We still need to light it though.”

  “Shit.” Clara looked disappointed. “I hadn’t thought about that. How are we going to get it going?”

  “We could rub two sticks together,” Emily said.

  “Does that even work?” Clara replied, the skepticism in her voice clear.

  “I don’t know. It does in the movies.”

  “No need for that.” Darwin looked pleased with himself. He dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. “We have this.”

  “You are just full of surprises.” Emily beamed from ear to ear.

  “Perk of being a pothead.” He grinned.

  I rubbed my hands on my trousers to clear the dirt and bits of bark away. “So what are we waiting for. Light it.”

  41

  THE FIRE CAST LONG shadows over the clearing, the flames providing some comfort against the onslaught of night. For all I knew, we were drawing Crazies to us by the dozen. Somehow I didn’t think so, not this far into the woods, and the fire would surely keep away most of the nocturnal wildlife.

  I felt like crap. My clothing, soaked through hours ago, was now just damp and cold against my skin. My shirt, I suspected, was ruined. Large stains smeared the front of it, and there was a tear below one shoulder where I’d snagged it pushing through the fence. I peeled the shirt off and discarded it. There was no point in bothering to dry it by the fire, since I had no intention of ever wearing it again.

  Clara followed suit, stripping off her shirt, and unbuckling her pants.

  “We’re just going to undress here?” Emily asked.

  “Right out in the open?”

  “I think circumstances outweigh modesty,” Clara said, dropping her pants and kneeling, wearing just her undies, to find some dry clothes in her pack.

  “I agree,” I said. It would be a bad idea to split up and change clothes out of sight. We had no idea what may be lurking in the woods, if anything, but I didn’t want to take any chances. “It’s better if we stick together.”

  “Fine.” Emily didn’t look happy.

  “We can turn our backs if you want?” I ventured.

  “No. It just feels odd, undressing like this.” She pulled her tee up and off. “I mean, I didn’t know any of you a few days ago. I don’t even like undressing in front of my boyfriend.” She paused a moment, then spoke again. “Still, after what we’ve been through together, it feels like I’ve known you forever.”

  “You have a boyfriend?” Darwin glanced sideways at her.

  “Used to. We broke up a few weeks back,” She said. “He said he wanted different things.”

  “What did he want?” Darwin found a clean shirt, pilfered from one of the guest rooms, and put it on.

  “Mainly, he wanted Amy Clements. The bastard.” She slid out of her jeans and draped them over a nearby branch to dry, then pulled on a fresh pair. “Funny, he’s probably dead now, or crazy. I should feel sad about that, but somehow I don’t.”

  42

  WE SAT AROUND eating cold baked beans out of cans with the lids pulled back, and soaking up the juice with sliced sandwich bread. It was not an ideal meal, and one I would never have imagined myself eating just a few days before, but tonight it tasted like heaven. We could have pushed the cans into the bottom of the fire to heat up, poking holes in the top to prevent them from exploding, but we were all so hungry that we decided to skip that step for the sake of swiftness and go straight for the eating part.

  A moment of panic set in when I realized we did not have a can opener, a stupid oversight. Luckily, the beans were pull top so we dodged a bullet, at least this time.

  For the longest time nobody said a word, the only sound around the campfire that of us devouring the oddly satisfying meal and the soft crackling of the wood as it burned. After a while, with our bellies full, we dissected the events of the past few days.

  “What do you think they are?” Clara asked.

  “What?” I shoveled a spoonful of beans into my mouth, scraping the bottom of the can to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Food was suddenly precious.

  “Those things back at the motel,” She said. “Those vile creatures that attacked the Crazies, that came after us.”

  “I don’t know.” It was the truth. I had never heard of any beast matching the description of the ones we encountered.

  Darwin spoke up. “Maybe they escaped from a government lab.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on h
is knees. “You know, mutants or something.”

  “I hardly think so,” I replied. “Is there even a government facility anywhere around here? Besides, that doesn’t explain the Crazies. It all has to be linked somehow.”

  “Have you got a better explanation then?”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I just don’t think they are mutants.”

  “Well they sure as hell aren’t pussy cats.” Emily picked up a stick and stoked the fire, sending a ribbon of flames leaping into the air.

  “My money is on aliens,” Darwin said.

  “Oh, come on. Really?” That seemed to be pushing things too far. I took another piece of bread and bit into it.

  “Why not aliens?” Emily countered, leaping to his defense. “There are plenty of theories that extraterrestrial life has visited Earth. The History Channel is full of that stuff.”

  “Well, they will have a field day now,” I muttered. “Assuming things ever get back to normal.”

  “I think aliens are a long shot,” Clara said. “But they must have come from somewhere.”

  “They didn’t seem to like the Crazies, that’s for sure.”

  ”They didn’t like us either.” I pointed out. “And the feeling is mutual.”

  “So that brings us back to the big question,” Clara said. “Where did they come from and why?”

  “A zoo?” Darwin waggled his spoon. “They looked a bit like panthers.”

  “Yeah. Panthers with really huge jaws, and teeth that would make a Sabre Tooth Cat cry,” I retorted.

  “And let’s not forget those muscles. If they were Panthers, they were on steroids,” Clara said.

  “Right. I think we can safely rule out escapees from a zoo, and while we’re at it, lab mutants and aliens too.” Now that the crackpot theories were out of the way, I hoped we might have a reasonable discussion regarding the origins of the beasts. It seemed I was out of luck.