Apocalyptic Shorts

by Victor Darksaber

“Not always.”

  The carrier is surrounded by steel fence. We find a rock out in the open, we run for it and take cover behind it. It hides us from the helicopter. We wait until the helicopter turns away, then we run for a bus and take cover beside it. The helicopter’s sound gets louder. We move into the bus and stay quiet.

  Paul takes his phone and dials. I hear the creepy croaking sound close by, I look out the window and see twelve black-eyeds looking up at the helicopter and following it. The helicopter sees them and begins to shoot at them. The gunner must have poor aiming skill because the thick bullets are flying everywhere instead of simply going at the black-eyeds.

  “We have to run, they’re gonna kill us.” I whisper.

  Paul shakes his head. “We stay here,” he says.

  Two bullets enter through the roof and hit the chairs, blowing through the foams and raising foam dust. We stare at each other. More bullets come in. I raise my head slightly and peek out the window. The twelve black-eyeds are dead on the ground but the gunner is still shooting. I guess he wants to be thorough. He must have had zero close encounter with the black-eyeds, or he would know they don’t hide. They hear a sound or see movement, they just follow.

  “Stay down!” Paul yells with a whisper.

  More bullets are hitting the roof and everywhere around us. Paul keeps his eyes on me and keeps telling me to stay absolutely still. I do. Bullets keep coming in through the roof and the windows, hitting the floor between and beside my legs, but none of them touch me or him.

  After a few seconds, the shooting stops and the helicopter’s sound slowly fades.

  “Faye, it’s me. We’re outside the fence, and we’re getting fired at.”

  “Paul?” she sounds relieved to hear his voice. “Where are you?”

  “In a bus, right outside the fence.”

  “With your family?”

  “Mary didn’t make it.”

  “I’m so sorry Paul. Stay where you are, I’ll come get you.”

  “Okay. Don’t be long, it’s crazy out here.”

  He hangs up. “We have to stay here,” he says. “She’ll come get us.”

  We stay in the bus, looking out every time we hear a sound. Paul keeps assuring me that Faye is doing everything she can to get us inside.

  “This attack, I heard Faye mention something about it not originating from this planet. Is this an alien invasion?” I ask.

  His eyes widens at me, like he does when faced with a challenging question in physics class. He looks away. “What matters Steven, is that we’re under attack, and we have to survive.”

  “The president knew this would happen.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Why else would an historical structure be converted to a spaceship?” He does not respond. “You know, there’s a big part of me that’s excited that we’re going to Mars.”

  “Yeah, me too.” He says, smiling.

  I hear the creepy croaking again, but this time, it’s louder, thicker and coming fast, and it’s accompanied by several stumping. I look out the window and see so many black-eyeds coming toward the fence, so many of them that I cannot count, they must be in thousands

  “Oh god no!” Paul yelps. He calls Faye on the phone, but she doesn't pick up.

  The helicopter begins to shoot at the black-eyeds, and then three more helicopters appear. There are so many black-eyeds that I don’t think the helicopters will be able to stop them, and the people in the helicopters are too stupid to see that it’s the sound of their engines that is attracting the black-eyeds. One of the helicopters drops a bomb on the black-eyeds, blowing many of them to pieces.

  The explosion shatters the windows and knocks the bus over. Two black-eyeds crawl in through the broken windows. I shoot them on the head, and more and more come in, squeezing themselves through the tight space. I put my feet together and hit the cracked window beside me. The crack spreads, but the glass still holds. The black-eyeds are already in the bus, crawling toward us, and if I don’t break this window, we will be trapped. I hold my gun at the glass and pull the trigger. The bullet explodes out of the gun and hits the glass, breaking it to pieces. Paul is shooting at the black-eyeds, but there are too many of them. I crawl out and pull him with me.

  We make it out of the bus and run, black-eyeds coming after us as vicious as ever.

  One of the helicopters sees us and turns its guns on us and begins to fire. We run, bullets piercing the ground all around us. We run toward the fence. Ahead, I see five black-eyeds getting electrocuted by the fence.

  The helicopters are throwing more bombs at the black-eyeds, and the explosions are causing thick fog of smoke and dust. The helicopter above us stops shooting. They must have lost sight of us now that we’re covered in thick fog. I know they won’t throw bombs at us because we’re too close to the fence. I look around, and I barely see Paul, but I manage to make out his hand from within the fog, and I grab it and we keep running. We reach the fence and stop. We turn around, our backs facing the fence. The fog makes it impossible to see beyond twenty feet away. I feel my pocket with my hand to gauge how much ammo I have left. Paul takes out the phone and tries Faye’s line again, but she still does not pick up.

  I see a shape move in the fog, I hold out my gun. A black-eyed charges out from the fog. Before I can shoot her, she dives at me. I clutch the sides of her head and turn with it, sending her face to the ground and my right knee on her back. I put two bullets in the back of her head and she becomes still. I get up and turn around immediately, ready for another round. Two more dives at out at me. I shoot one and fall beneath the other. She raises her head up, mouth opened, teeth opening and closing and she brings it down at my face. I shove the mouth of my gun in her mouth and pull the trigger three, four times. Her blood splatters all over my face. Paul pulls the body off of me and pulls me up. Five black-eyeds are lying dead behind him.

  The croaking gets louder. We step back. We both know that no matter how bravely we fight, they will get us. But there is a better option. I look back at carrier and look at Paul and I know he is thinking exactly what I’m thinking.

  The fog is clearing out, and now I see how close the black-eyeds are; only a few seconds away. Paul holds my hand tight and we embrace, tears running down my cheek.

  “I love you dad,” I say.

  “I love you too.” He replies, his face frowned and wet with tears.

  I raise my gun and put it to the side of my head and he does the same.

  Something lands between us and the coming black-eyeds. Half of it sinks into the ground and half sticks out. It is a pod about the size of a little dog, or the size of a bomb, but it cannot be a bomb, because at this range, it will destroy the fence, and they don’t want that. Something about it feels strange. It is smooth with glowing lines around its top and middle. The top part of the pod hisses open and the pod divides into three parts, each of the parts begins to spin in opposite direction of the other. It slowly separates from itself, leaving five inches gap between each part. I am so focused on the strange pod that I completely forget about the black-eyeds. And even now that I remember, I still cannot bring myself to look away from the pod. It glows, clicks and explodes, sending a glowing wave in every direction. Paul pulls me down flat on the ground. The wave touches and moves past us, it feels cold.

  Seconds later, I raise my face from the sand, the wave is gone and the pod is back together and it looks dead. I notice something up in the sky right above us, I look up and see a big object with faint lights on its belly hovering quietly above us, it’s a ship. The sight of the strange looking ship gives me goose bumps and a lasting chill. It is like nothing I’ve seen before; it is striking, and definitely alien.

  “Dad,” I call quietly. He’s already seeing it too. The pod clanks back on and shoots up at the ship and in a blink of an eye, the ship is gone.

  I look toward the black-eyeds, they are all on the ground, not moving. I get up on my feet and move toward them slowly. Paul calls
me, but I don’t answer. I don’t know why I’m moving toward them, but I have a feeling that whatever that ship just did, it’s not evil.

  As I get closer, I see a movement among them, and then more movements. I stop, my eyes wide open, chest pumping, thinking whether I should still be here or I should be running back to Paul. What's left of the fog clears out and I hear the voice of a little girl. “Mommy,” she says.

  I move a little closer, my gun ready to go off if it needs to. A man moves toward me, and just as I am expecting, hoping, his eyes are normal, and the black veins are gone, only a trail of it left on his face. He is looking around, exhausted and confused. I look back at Paul, he’s already behind me.

  The people I once referred to as black-eyed, people who were ready to tear me apart minutes ago are now normal again, or at least, they look normal. They walk around, moving away from one another, probably wondering how they got here.

  Paul’s phone rings. “What’s going on out there?” Faye asks from the phone.

  “I think––it’s over Faye, it is over.” He hangs up. He puts his hands on my shoulders, looking into my eyes. “I’m proud of you son.” He hugs me. His body presses my wound enough that it hurts, but I don’t mind. I hug him back.

  Together, we walk into the once insane crowd.

  I don’t know what really happened here, I don’t think anyone does. But my best guess is aliens tried to destroy us, aliens saved us.

  Now that I’m no longer being chased by a bunch of crazy people with black eyes, now that the adrenaline has faded, I have time to think about my loss, my mom. I am suddenly filled with intense grief and emptiness. Paul puts his hand over my shoulder and pulls me closer, just what I needed. I look over the horizon, the orange sun is setting, and for the first time in several hours, something feels good to me again. A flash of green light appears briefly over the horizon, and then it’s gone.

  The End.

  Prologue

  In the last thirty years, prophecies of doomsday have become rampant, people claiming to be prophets, scientists, time-travelers from the future, all giving prophecies about the end of our world. But of all these prophecies, only one turned out to be exact and accurate, and that was the one prophecy that was ignored.

  Twelve years ago, Dr. Phil Lucas, a weather scientist at the University of New York published his findings on the activities of our planet’s core, claiming that the core of earth has become increasingly unstable, and that in twelve years or less, there may no longer be a place for us here. He wrote of how the planet will explode from inside out, how everything on the surface will be swallowed into molten lava, he warned, he really warned, but no one took him seriously. At a time, some renowned scientists discovered something very similar to Dr. Phil’s theory, and for that time, some references were made to his findings, but it was eventually concluded that the entire theory, even theirs was based on a wrong equation.

  Twelve years later, it turned out that equation wasn’t wrong after all. But by the time this was discovered, it was already too late. A week prior the 14th of March, 2014, volcanos all over the world began to erupt without warning. Well, there were warnings, but it all happened so fast, and there wasn’t enough time to do anything about it. After the eruptions which lasted two days, several thousand lives were lost and the planet engulfed in cloud of ash.

  It was thought that the nightmare had come to an end, but as it turned out, they were wrong. On the 14th of March, year 2014, an earthquake of great magnitude like never seen before began, entire countries swallowed into the ground. It lasted an hour, and that one hour, was humanity’s darkest hour. Hours after the earthquake had stopped, over 800 million casualties were recorded worldwide, over 100 million injured and over 400 million are unaccounted for.

  A few days after the planet-killer earthquake, people had hoped that it was over, but they know better now, they know that whatever it is they’ve seen, it’s only just the beginning. It became clear that the foretold apocalypse is upon us, and there is no better way to spend the little time left than with beloved ones.

  MY NAME IS BENJAMIN STEWART, A COLLEGE STUDENT HERE IN NEW YORK, or at least I was, until two months ago, when the apocalypse began, and then we learnt it’s not going to stop, and that there’s no escaping it. If we’d seen the signs long before it started, I’m sure the world governments would have figured something out, like evacuating the planet on gigantic spaceships. But the signs were there, we just weren’t smart enough to see it.

  Yesterday, I read in the news about one Dr. Phil in L.A who predicted this doom some years back, but no one believed him. We were caught unprepared, and there was no time to prepare for the great escape, not even sure if our science can achieve such feat just yet.

  It started with all the planet's volcanos erupting at the same time, then the earthquake, the sky filled with ash, several millions perished, but I survived, and it’s not because I was smart, it’s that I was lucky.

  I’ve waited two months for the ash to clear out, and thanks to favorable weather, I can go¬–home now. Home–actually, for me, is wherever I find myself. I was the only child of my family, and my parents died of failed hearts three weeks apart, seven years ago. All I’ve got is my uncle, who I despise so much because of all the bad things he’s done to me. And honestly, I’d rather die alone in my hostel apartment than with him.

  To my surprise, he called three days ago, he was sober. He said he was sick, and he’s got less than two years, but that don’t matter anymore, we’ve all got less than two years, and he wants to spend the little time he’s got left making up for the things he’s done. I never thought I could be sorry for him.

  Point is, I’m heading back to Glendale, L.A, my hometown, to spend the end with my uncle. I may hate him, but he’s the closest thing I have to a family now.

  I’ve been on this queue four hours, in this overcrowded airport. Everyone is trying to make it back to their families. The airport’s operation is slightly different now; it must have been adjusted to suit the current traffic situation. While I wait on the queue, tapping my thigh and stomping my feet rhythmically, I hear my name from the speaker. I look up and see my picture and my name on the big screen, I sigh and shoulder my backpack. I hurry and join a group of people moving towards one of the planes, as directed by the men in uniform.

  Entering the plane, I move through the aisle to the back, where there are only three empty seats. I pick the spot most convenient, lock my backpack in the overhead bin and crash into the seat under it. It’s a lot of relief for me, considering that I’ve been standing on a queue for over four hours.

  Right now in here is the first peaceful moment I’ve had in two months. I remember the life I had before the chaos, my friends, my girlfriend. When the earthquake first hit, I was in class with my girlfriend. I watched my art teacher Mrs. Bells get crushed by a building block right in front of the class. That day, we met with Harry, my best friend, and we were going to escape in his minivan when I saw Amy, also my friend, running towards us, screaming my name. We stopped for her, then she twisted her ankle. I had sprung out of the car to help her when the ground cracked open beneath the car and a pillar collapsed on top of them, crushing them into the ground, my girlfriend, my best friend and some random people we let in, just like that, they were gone and I was lucky.

  Lost in abstraction, my eyes are focused on the small screen on the back of the seat in front of me, but I’m not watching whatever the screen is showing. Something on the screen gets my attention, but by the time I’m ready to focus, the headline is gone. I’m not sure what I read, but I think I saw something about some strange energy behavior around the globe. I hear a female voice singing softly beside me, I look and there right next to me is a very pretty girl, about my age, blond, green eyes, smooth skin, and I find it hard to believe I didn’t notice her when I came in.

  “Hey,” I say, moving my mouth closer to her ear. She has a headphone on, and probably can’t hear me, or she’s just pretending not to
.

  As usual, a flight attendant begins to speak through a speaker, but I don’t pay attention.

  The plane takes off, and I begin to feel dizzy. It’s my thing, I do it every time I’m in a moving vehicle, it’s my easiest remedy against motion sickness. I take a moment to look around, and then I glance at the girl beside me. I wish she doesn’t have a headphone on, so we can talk, but, it’s obvious she don’t want to be disturbed.

  I relax comfortably in the chair and close my eyes.

  I hear a very loud explosion, as if a gun was shot right beside my ears. I snap out of my sleep, panting, my face covered in sweat. For a moment, all I can hear is a very loud and intense ringing in my head. I close my eyes and try to calm myself. The small screen for my seat is off. I shake my head, trying to get my brain and ears working. I turn to the girl beside me, her headphone is now around her neck, and she looks really worried, she’s looking at me. I look around, and everyone is worried, some getting out of their seats to see something out the window. I open my mouth and breathe through it, trying to slow down my heartbeat, and then I hear the sound. It’s as if we’re flying through an asteroid storm, but we’re not in space, and of all the times I’ve been on a plane, I’ve never experienced a turbulence as intense as this, loud and deafening. I turn to the girl, she’s scared to bone and she’s almost crying.

  I look past her out the window and see something strange and unclear. I get off my seat and move closer to the window, what I see is still strange, but clearer. If this is cloud, then I’ve never seen this kind before. Bands of bright green and bright blue and bright many colors, all spinning forcibly on to one another in every direction, and they’re spinning so fast and spinning around the plane. The window cracks, I jerk back, falling, I grab on to the headrest of a seat. From where I am now, the picture outside the window becomes clearer and familiar. I squint and realize that it looks like something from physics, like some kind of visible energy flow. I fall back into my seat and buckle the seatbelt. The turbulence is getting worse, and the plane is vibrating aggressively. The girl buckles her seatbelt too.