Arkadium Rising

by Glen Krisch

  They kept moving. Kylie couldn't take her eyes off the wreckage. As the edge of the burn skirted back toward the tube, she saw a dead passenger wearing a business suit. His eyes were either open or his eyelids had shriveled with the heat. His eyes were white empty sockets, melted to their constituent elements and open to the vagaries of Mother Nature.

  She felt woozy and looked above her to try to steady her vision. Dozens of birds wheeled overhead, silently arching through the rising thermals.

  "Vultures," RJ whispered.

  The sight of carrion birds circling over the bounty of human corpses was enough to send Kylie over the edge. She fell to her knees and heaved hot bile from her empty stomach, burning her throat with acid. She welcomed the burn, focusing on a pain that was measurably better than the burn of jet-fuel-burned-forest in her throat and nostrils. The forest of her carefree youth. The forest where she could lose herself for hours on end.

  "It's okay, Kye." RJ kneeled by her side and rubbed her back. "Just take a deep breath. Steady now."

  She breathed slow and steady, just like he asked. She focused on his voice. No harm could come to her as long as his voice was the only input reaching her senses.

  She heard Dawn's feet as she walked away from them. She wanted to yell at her, not necessarily for leaving their tiny group, but for pulling her away from the sound of RJ's reassuring baritone.

  Dawn gasped and Kylie opened her eyes and looked up at RJ. He shrugged, and before they could do anything else, something metallic clanged to the ground. They both stood. Dawn had lifted a small section of the plane's fusillade away from where it had been leaning against a tree. And under the tree, there was a bulky shape. A human shape.

  She wanted to believe the t-shirt was blackened from the fire, that it hadn't started out that way, that she didn't recognize the discernible pattern of white lettering across the back of it.

  But it wasn't just the t-shirt that was recognizable. It was the width of his shoulders, the familiar salt and pepper hair that nearly reached his shoulder, the tear up the left pant leg of his favorite pair of jeans.

  "Dear, God…" It seemed to take forever to reach her father. When she closed in on him, she saw the scorch marks on his Rolling Stones shirt, the singed arm hair and blisters transitioning to blackened flesh. And underneath him, in his protective embrace until the very end, a little girl with blonde curls tarnished by black smoke and vacant green eyes that would neither blink again nor ever leave the darkest depths of Kylie's worst nightmares.

  "You… promised… me!"

  All she heard for an unknowable time was her heart beating in her ears. She felt submerged in water, and her mind became sluggish with it, as if her brain were under an ever-increasing pressure. Then a noise broke through the morass; after a few seconds she recognized it as her own voice, and that she was screaming until it felt like she tore something in her throat.

  When she stopped long enough to catch her breath, she heard another voice, one that was distinctively unknown to her.

  "Well, well. Look what we have here!"

  "Some volunteers, huh, Adam?"

  "That's what I was thinking."

  Dawn and RJ held their hands up as a group of rough-looking men approached with their guns leveled at them.

  Chapter 18

  1.

  Jason hadn't seen the drone since back at Ivy & Tim's apartment, but that didn't stop him from searching the sky whenever the tree cover allowed for it. He was beginning to doubt his memory. Sure, he'd had a couple of beers before he saw the wispy angular plane cut across the sky, but he hadn't been that far gone. Despite all other evidence to the contrary, he had to keep reminding himself what he'd seen and what it meant—modern technology still existed.

  He walked along the shoulder of a dirt road he would most likely never know the name of, hoping to soon find a town full of sane residents with news about what the hell was going on in the world. Even with the midday sun beating down on him, he'd never been so in the dark in all his life. The scale of the world had changed. The distances traveled by foot loomed ahead like the mountain Sisyphus faced for all eternity. Nightfall without electricity shortened the day by a third, perhaps even more. In his life before the EMP, information access had been ubiquitous, instantaneous. His life as a journalist had been centered on accruing verifiable facts and reporting them to the public. Now, his only knowledge of the world around him had been passed on to him by Marcus.

  He felt dislocated from civilization. Before the rise of the Arkadium, he had outsourced many of life's basic functions to technological platforms. From his financial balance sheet, to his marginal social life, to even accessing tomorrow's weather forecast—he had siphoned all of it (oftentimes subconsciously) from his forebrain to be nurtured and stored in the internet's temporal cloud.

  He tried to remember how many days had passed since the EMP, but couldn't nail it down. Eight days? Ten? This simple fact scared him. He was beginning to lose his sense of time, and time had been so recently the measure of all things.

  As he tried to mentally tally the passing days, his foot rolled awkwardly over a deep tire rut and he nearly fell over when his overburdened pack shifted on his back.

  "Ah, God damn it," he muttered, feeling embarrassed even though he hadn't seen anyone for an equally incalculable time.

  Kat meowed and dug her claws into his backpack to remain rooted to her little nest. After readjusting the weight on his shoulders, he focused on the road ahead.

  "Sorry about that, Kattywampus." His voice felt frail from disuse. He cleared his throat and took a sip of water from a bottle he'd filled back in Kettle Creek.

  The road ahead led to… he had no idea. Even if he had a folding map of the area, he doubted this barely-there dirt road would garner a faint squiggle of a line. God, he missed his iPhone's GPS app. He hadn't seen much more than a few isolated modular homes in the hills leading away from Kettle Creek and the relatively quiet of Ivy & Tim's apartment. It looked like the road wound around a curving downhill before doubling back on itself. He could see the switchback through the woods to his right.

  He sighed, resigned to having to zigzag his way to something resembling civilization. Before he started walking again, movement caught his eye. Through the hundred yards of woods, he saw people walking up the hill. A lot of people. A few dozen at least. And as soon as he saw them, he began to hear their tired footfalls and occasional sighs.

  He felt a surge of utter relief. He wasn't alone! Others had survived besides his brother and his looney friends. Too excited to take the road all the way around the bend and down the hill, he jogged toward the woods, finding a rough deer path in the underbrush.

  "Hold on, Kat. We're about to have company!"

  He wanted to shout, wanted to drop everything and sprint. Despite his excitement, caution now ruled his every decision, his every stride. He made steady progress, halving the distance in little more than a minute.

  The procession walked four or five abreast. He never expected to see refugees in the U.S., but he could think of no better term for what he was witnessing. Everyone carried packs similar to Jason's and they all moved in such an orderly fashion. At first he assumed their silence was a result of not being accustomed to daylong exercise. But he soon grew wary; something wasn't right. The people looked like a random sampling of any town in America—people of all ages, races, and sexes—but they moved like they were penned in by an invisible fence.

  Jason slowed his approach and took shelter behind a large beech tree. Sure enough, the only people who appeared to be armed were a bunch of guys wearing leather and denim. They carried an assortment of handguns and semiautomatics. They held them casually, without the precision he'd witnessed in Hector and Austin. They could be bikers, or some kind of militia, and were spread around the perimeter of the refugees.

  Kat meowed at the fact that he had stopped. Jason felt ill at ease. There was tension in the air, and he was sure that Kat was feeling it as well.

&
nbsp; "It's okay, girl," he whispered. "Shh…" He patted Kat's head. She calmed down, at least temporarily, and pressed her face into his hand.

  "We need water." A brunette woman leading a boy by the hand approached one of the gunmen. The boy, who was no more than ten, appeared to be suffering. Even from a distance Jason could see his shirt was sopping wet from sweat, his face was pasty white, and he had brown bags under his eyes. "People are going to start passing out. My cousin, he's diabetic, and—"

  The gunman cut her off. "Get back in line."

  "Please. I know your canteen is full." The woman tried to pull the canteen's strap from around his neck. "He just needs a little bit…"

  The gunman slapped her hand away and then raised his handgun at her.

  She flinched and cried, "You can't do this to us!"

  "No!" Her cousin stepped protectively in front of her and raised his hands as if he could hold the gunman at bay. "Don't you hurt her!"

  The crowd slowed to a halt and turned to watch. The man placed the gun's barrel to the boy's forehead. The crowd let out a collective gasp, as did Jason. For a split second he felt certain he would be discovered, but he realized he could've started shouting and no one would've noticed.

  "Drew, don't! Just get back in line. It's not worth it." The girl grabbed her cousin and tried to steer him back in place.

  "That's what I thought." The gunman laughed. "Bitch."

  An elderly man who was still fit enough to sport ropy muscles in his arms and shoulders stepped away from the frightened crowd. "All she did was ask for some water. We all know who's in charge here so there's no point in pulling out your prick to show us all how big it is. We get it, but that doesn't mean you can treat us like this. We're not cattle."

  "Yeah!" a woman said.

  The crowd began to stir and draw closer to the gunman.

  "Fuckin' A," a young man added.

  "That's your last word, old man. Not another," the gunman said. "Right, guys?"

  The tone of the crowd had changed. No longer were they cowed and skittish. These people were angry, and they all sensed it too. And that was a powerful thing.

  A few of the other gunmen came over to help their buddy. They raised their weapons at the people and grouped closer together in a semicircle.

  The old man pointed at the gunman, stabbing his finger in the air. "You think you're so tough, pointing that gun—"

  A gun went off cleaving away a good chunk of the old man's skull. Gore spattered the nearby people. Screams issued from the crowd and everyone began to scatter. One of the denim and leather-clad gunman looked at his smoking gun in surprise, shrugged, and then fired at the nearest bystander. A handful of people went down as they tripped over each other. Another gunman opened fire, then another. Soon, bursts of semiautomatic fire sprayed the crowd.

  Kat jumped from Jason's pack and scampered away from the chaos. Jason reached for his Taurus tucked into his belt at the small of his back, but he knew it was useless to try to help. He held his gun in a tight grip and ducked low against the tree as the gunfire continued. His pack covered him and seemed to press him into the grassy underbrush. Cries of bloodlust were soon drowned out by those of agony. He couldn't take it. He wanted to scream for the madness to stop, wanted to scream until the gunfire ended and the only madness left was his own. He closed his eyes and plugged his ears, cringing when stray gunfire strafed the nearby trees.

  The gunshots became sporadic. The cries of the wounded and dying became the overriding sound. Jason trembled, still curled up and hiding, his entire world now the loamy earth inches from his face.

  "Jesus Christ," one of the gunmen said.

  "Now what?"

  "We clear the fuck out of here. Pronto."

  "Good idea."

  Jason heard footsteps trailing away. A dozen or so people. Someone chuckled, sending a chill through him.

  "Fuck me, that was crazy!"

  "You see them dance like they was at a rave?"

  "Yeah, no shit!"

  He waited for a long time, even though his bladder suddenly felt full and his left leg had fallen asleep in his curled position. Finally, he lifted his head and saw bodies piled on top of bodies, blood and viscera still spreading in warm pools, legs and arms all akimbo, scattered like the broken trees left behind after the floodwaters receded from Concord. Broken, bloodied bodies left to rot in the midday sun.

  The sounds of footsteps returned and a jolt of adrenaline flooded his system. He saw no movement below. But then he remembered…

  Jason dropped back down as low as he could, hoping the woods would conceal him. The gunmen had rounded the bend and were now walking along the dirt road's incline behind him.

  "What was that?" someone asked.

  "Probably that old man you shot in the head. It's his wrinkly ghost come to haunt your stupid ass."

  "No, seriously… you guys didn't hear that?"

  Jason held his breath. His bladder ached so bad he was ready to just let it go.

  "What could it be, a fucking gopher? Who cares? Nobody's gonna mess with us."

  "Got that right…" someone said, and again gave off that chilling chuckle.

  The voices drifted away, followed closely by the sound of their footsteps. Jason thought of nothing more than the pain in his bladder, wanting there to be nothing more in the world than that throbbing agony, because he didn't think he could face what awaited on the descending stretch of road.

  He only opened his eyes and stood because he heard Kat's lonely whine. He scanned the road above, but it was still clear. Kat came bounding through the woods toward him, stopping a foot away. She gazed up at him, her crazed kattywampus hair no longer looking so out of place.

  Kat rubbed against his leg, wanting to be held, and Jason started to cry.

  2.

  A couple of hours later, after Jason had put the horrifying scene on the nameless dirt road behind him, at least physically, he nearly ran into what appeared to be a block party.

  The seemingly endless woods opened up to an affluent neighborhood of mini-mansions sitting on one acre country lots. The dirt road transitioned to brand new blacktop a block before the new development. He felt strangely comforted when his feet met the smooth tarry expanse.

  He used the trees lining the narrow road for cover, pausing to listen after advancing to each successive one over a quarter mile stretch of road. He heard… music? Live music. A couple of guitars. A violin. A saxophone? The instruments trampled over each other, and when there was a break in the sound, laughter filled the void.

  The street was clear, no people in sight. The lawns were already getting long, and he even spotted a weed or two. Both would surely be home owners' association no-nos. A couple of cars had been abandoned in mid-operation in the middle of the road, painting a still-life panorama that could be any other late afternoon in this wealthy exurban community. All that was missing were some kids engaging in the act of walking-while-texting and a trophy wife in fitness gear power jogging alongside her pampered dog.

  As he neared an intersection, a gentle breeze carried with it an unexpected odor—grilled hotdogs... fried onions… maybe even burgers. His mouth watered so suddenly it was painful. He had survived the last few days on protein bars and trail mix. He looked around in every direction. Still clear. He jogged ahead until he could huddle behind the final tree before the intersection. The street off to the left ended in a cul-de-sac. About twenty people were gathered in a big circle where the street ended. Some were seated on lawn chairs, while others were paired off for conversation. A little boy with downy brown hair trundled around the circle on a tricycle.

  Jason was about to reveal himself, but something inside told him not to.

  They looked and acted like normal people. Yet, he hesitated.

  He didn't belong, and he didn't know how they treated outsiders. For all he knew, they rounded up refugees, and…

  And he realized that's exactly what he was. A refugee. Just like those people he saw back on that
nameless dirt road. Someone without a place in the world. Someone bandied from one area to another like in a game of hot potato.

  And maybe they weren't so friendly to filthy outsiders with few survival skills, few supplies, and an ornery cat for his only companion.

  "Let's keep things simple." Jason hoped Kat was listening from her nest on top of his pack. He could feel like he hadn't gone off the deep end as long as he knew the cat was listening. "I don't know these people. They seem friendly enough. But that could just be my stomach blinding my better judgment. What do you say?"

  As his question lingered unanswered, a teenaged boy ran toward him, chasing a football that had sailed over his head.

  "Derf wad." The boy picked up the ball, no more than thirty feet from Jason's hiding spot. "I'm tall but not that tall."

  It would be so easy to step from the shady tree trunk. Give a small wave. Say a hello.

  Kat meowed finally, saving him from indecision.

  "So, it's just you and me, right?"

  Kat meowed again, sealing his fate.

  3.

  After camping under an ancient pine's broad boughs, Jason folded his makeshift tarp shelter into his pack and lifted it onto his shoulders. Even though his food was running low, the pack felt heavier today. His bones ached deep into the marrow and his muscles felt like raw hamburger. He ran his fingers down his side; his ribs were definitely more defined than they were a short while ago. He still felt a sharp pain in his back ribs when the pack jostled too much. He'd eaten two cans of Vienna beef last night and the last of his trail mix. He no longer had any proper cat food, so he shared the processed beef with Kat, who didn't get nearly as much of the meal as she wanted. He'd fallen asleep with her meowing her discontent, wanting for her to spread her wings and embrace her catlike tendencies. Chase down a baby rabbit for once. Stalk a bird's' nest. Anything.

  He made his way from the pine forest to the rutted blacktop he'd left the night before, his muscles loosening from their arthritic death grip. So today, after yesterday's cop-out with making human contact, Jason decided he would converse with the first person who seemed somewhat sane. He had to do something. He couldn't always count on Kat to respond whenever he felt like voicing his concern aloud.