by J. Axbridge
“They’re too big to burn up. We learned that in our science class last year. I do know that if anything larger than these hit then it won’t even matter, everything will be gone in an instant, and we’ll end up just like the dinosaurs'. . . extinct… that’s what the scientists say anyway,” I replied as my attention was also captured by the scary yet beautiful, hypnotic burning sky.
No one uttered a word for the next few moments, each of us surly envisioning the end of the world coming at the hands of a gigantic meteorite. The fear in Ethan’s eyes told the unspoken; he loved reading books about dinosaurs and unfortunately I understood he knew what caused their extinction and it obviously frightened him immensely.
Neighbors in obvious shock and confusion, afraid for their lives, screamed and ran for safety inside their homes in desperate delusion that they would harbor safety. Of course nothing like this had ever happened in the world before and it was nothing that anyone could’ve really prepared for, unless they were psychic I suppose. My thoughts instantly drifted to Sky and her world ending prediction, wondering if she was safe in hiding somewhere, regretting I didn’t take her psychic predictions more seriously.
The five of us continued to stand still in shock, absorbing what was happening to our neighborhood, to our world, when suddenly a small meteorite shot right before our eyes and blasted our neighbor Grayson’s home directly across the street. The impact of the blow was so strong that it sent all five of us flying off our feet, slamming us painfully against our front porch wall. The explosion shattered glass from the front windows and caused debris to tumble onto our sprawled out bodies. We tried to shield ourselves as best we could as we lay in pain with our ears still ringing from the blast, but it was to no avail and soon we were covered in broken glass and bits of dirt and wood.
I made a promise Dammit. I’m not letting my parents down this time! Never again, I told them and I meant it! I remembered my words of promise clearly as I looked around at my brothers and sisters lying on the porch in confusion and pain. I knew this was the time to hold up my responsibility for the family. For all I knew my parents could be dead already. This was the time to take charge and take care of my siblings. I shook off the throbbing pain in my left shoulder and started to think about what I needed to do next. I had to concentrate.
Keep your brothers and sisters safe. We’re depending on you. Keep your brothers and sisters safe. We’re depending on you. I thought over and over terrified of what I had to do.
“IS EVERYONE OK? IS ANYONE HURT?” I shouted over the continuing explosions to my brothers and sisters who began to gingerly sit up moaning. With a quick glance, everyone seemed to be unhurt and responded as such then I turned back towards the destruction across the street while quickly formulating a plan to stay safe. I knew it wasn’t smart to head out into the streets, unfortunately it didn’t seem much better to hole up in our home, but there wasn’t much of a choice so I decided to try our luck in the basement.
I hollered out directions instinctively, first to Ethan and Arthur, and then the twins - Caelyn and Victoria, while my dad’s words still echoed in my head. Keep your brothers and sisters safe. We’re depending on you. Keep your brothers and sisters safe. We’re depending on you. “Arthur, Ethan, grab as much food, drinks and snacks as you can carry and head to the basement! There’s an insulated cooler in the garage if you need it.”
Arthur brushed the broken shards of glass and debris off his sweatshirt sending them bouncing across the porch and slowly stood up. He nodded understanding before tearing open the screen door running inside, with Ethan following closely on his heels.
“Caelyn, Victoria! Find out what’s going on. Think radios…tablets…laptops and phones or whatever else we can use to communicate. Bring those to the basement too,” I ordered the twins. Once they were gone searching for supplies I cast a glance at our neighborhood and beyond. The terror before my eyes was unthinkable, the smoke streaks continued to shoot across the sky with deafening booms where they ended, and the high pitched squealing that some of them emitted will be forever engraved in my mind. The world seemed to be crumbling down around me, but I needed to move. I stepped cautiously around large bits of broken glass and sharp debris, and then ran into our home.
Let’s see . . . , what else? I paused looking around; racking my brains, thinking about what dad would do in this situation. My dad was the most practical and resourceful person I knew and he surely would have formulated a plan of survival by now. We used to joke that he was like MacGyver, calling him MacAllister! He could build anything out of anything and would always get us out of a sticky spot.
The house continued to shake as meteorites fiercely streamed by every minute or so, and explosions could be heard nearby as they hit their unsuspecting targets with unimaginable precision. We had to move quickly before we were next! Of course it really wouldn’t matter because if it hit our house we’d be dead in an instant too, but I didn’t have time to think about that scenario, it was time to survive, not to become paralyzed by the “what if’s.”
“EVERYONE,” I yelled. “Look for any extra camping equipment dad might have stored around here and let’s get that to the basement too - PRONTO! We may need some of it!” I had to shout over the explosions outside, as items around our home continued to fall and break.
“Hurry, get downstairs already,” I yelled to the twins as they hurriedly slid past me carrying a box each full of electronic devices. Thick black and gray smoke began floating in from the burning homes across the street filling our entranceway similar to a haunted cemetery at dusk. I gagged on the suffocating smoke and a burning sensation stung me eyes causing them to water. Hastily I covered my face with a thin sweat jacket hanging on the nearby coat rack; it was my mom’s for when she did yoga outdoors. Her sweet fruity perfume was soaked into the fabric and at that moment I missed my parents even more if that was possible, and although I wanted to, I didn’t have time to sit and weep.
“I’ll grab the flashlights…,” I coughed out, “. . . and candles and meet everyone downstairs.” I shut and dead bolted the front door hoping to muffle some of the sounds of sirens, explosions, barking dogs and neighbors screaming forgetting that the windows were already shattered. I scoffed at myself for the lapse but with such chaos I was surprised my mind was still functioning properly at all.
Being the first real emergency I’d ever faced, I believed I was doing OK, my siblings were unhurt so far and more importantly, we were still together and actually working together as a team. For a split second I felt a tinge of relief. However, this soon disappeared, as yet another explosion rattled the remaining windows and shook the house violently, and the alarming reality of the situation - our world could actually be ending any moment - made me sick to my stomach.
Chapter 5 – Safe
Adelaide
Hearing the familiar creak I’d heard thousands of times before, I knew I’d reached the last step to the basement and instinctively flipped the light switch up and down expecting the lights to flicker on, forgetting the power was out in my haste.
“The light from the windows will have to do for now,” I said, trying to sound positive while hopping down the last step joining the others in the basement, pretending to ignore the muffled sounds of terror coming from outside the best I could.
“Addie look, it’s all the camping equipment,” Arthur swung open the storage closet door wide for all of us to peer inside. “We’re set for an apocalypse!” Piled high on the closet shelves were our sleeping bags neatly tied, lanterns, hatchets, hiking boots and tents along with all our cooking utensils for campfires and even a stack of “Survival in the Wilderness,” books that my dad and Ethan enjoyed reading together during their father/son time.
“The refrigerator is full of pop, bottled water and . . . some healthy green bottled stuff too,” Ethan yelled out, scrunching his face as he shut the spare basement fridge a little too fast causing the bottles to clank inside.
“The basement pantry is almo
st full too. THANK YOU MOM!” The twins - Caelyn and Victoria in unison high-fived, letting the seriousness of our situation drift away for the moment. Just behind them the pantry contained cans of soups, beans, pasta, vegetables, pudding cups, popcorn bags and other sweet treats that could feed us for a while if needed.
All five of us were finally thankful for our mother’s resourcefulness and perhaps her neurotic behavior in shopping or cooking when there was even an inch of spare space in the extra food pantry or fridge. With five children, our mom always made sure the house was fully stocked for just about any occasion, apparently even for an apocalypse or so it seemed.
But once again the excitement didn’t last long. Once the adrenaline and buzz of discovering ample supplies wore off, reality set back in as our house shook every few seconds from the barrage of non-stop meteorite strikes making us feel like we were in the middle of a war zone. Sadly it looked eerily similar to the war zones I’d seen in movies too as dust and small debris fell from the basement ceiling continuously.
“Addie,” Arthur turned to me with a more serious expression, “I took a mental inventory and it looks like we have enough food and drinks to last more than a couple weeks down here but only if we ration properly. Like the way we were taught on those really fun camping trips in Northern Michigan.”
“Wait . . . are we going to be camping in this basement . . . for a couple weeks? That’s insane!” Victoria complained with Caelyn frowning in disapproval, “I hate camping!”
At fourteen, the worst fear the twins ever faced was not having the most fashionable, coolest matching outfits for the first day of school, freshman year. Victoria and Caelyn simply loved doing everything together and always matched the best they could. If there wasn’t two of something, they wouldn’t buy it, wear it, or eat it. They were as close as identical twins could be I suppose. So this current catastrophe was something totally new to their psyche - it was their worst fear multiplied by about a trillion times.
Leaning up against the cool gumball red, cement basement wall. It was dad’s color of choice for his future game room. Victoria slid slowly down to the floor and cradled her knees. “Don’t let us die . . . Don’t let us die . . . Don’t let us die.” she repeated over and over under her breath all the while clutching her index finger as if she’d seriously injured it. I was about to go over to console her when Caelyn thankfully stepped up.
“Is your finger all right?” Caelyn asked, walking over and sliding down next to Victoria peering at her twin’s finger in concern.
“Yeah it’s fine, I think,” Victoria answered, and then blankly continued on with her lament staring down at the floor. “Don’t let us die . . ., Don’t let us die . . .”
Caelyn obviously understood her twin’s fear deeper than the rest of us and began hugging her while reassuring her that everything would be alright. Then she started repeating the phrase along with Victoria and thankfully it helped calm her nerves immensely. I always knew the twins were close but seeing them together now, I never realized how close a twin bond they really shared.
“Ouch!” Caelyn exclaimed, looking down at her index finger for a moment, the same one as Victoria’s. “Must have jammed it on something in all the commotion”, she murmured and then rubbed it to ease the pain.
Once I was sure the twins were OK, my thoughts came rushing back to me and I knew that with what we last saw on TV in California, combined with what was happening right outside our own home, we were seemingly falling victim to a world-ending meteor storm and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Yet I also knew that being the oldest at seventeen I needed to be the one to take the lead. My brother Arthur was only sixteen and still too immature, the twins were just fourteen and didn’t quite seem up to the task at the moment and Ethan at eleven was smart but not nearly old enough to be a leader. I was deathly afraid, but didn’t want the rest of my siblings to play off my fear, so instead of dwelling on the inevitable doom looming outside, I gathered everyone in a circle to plan for our survival.
“Look around,” I said loudly trying to sound excited to mask my fear. “We have all the supplies needed to survive until mom and dad return. We have food, snacks—” A loud explosion cut my thoughts short; it was much closer this time causing screams to erupt from all five of us, “ . . . AND we have enough to drink,” I refocused and finished triumphantly not letting the fright overcome me or my siblings.
“Addie, I can go upstairs and get —“
“No!” I cut Arthur off without a second thought, “no one is going anywhere to get anything, until the storm is done. We have food, drinks and a full bathroom down here, that’s enough to get us by for now . . . But think . . . , what else can we use to survive? Come on, really think and be as creative as you can, this isn’t a time to be quiet and shy,” I opened the question to my siblings hoping to get a positive conversation going.
“We have exercise machines,” Ethan hesitantly mumbled, raising his hand like he was in school.
At eleven, Ethan was way ahead of his age when it came to survival. One of his hobbies besides making intricate dinosaur and dragon models was reading survival books and stories ever since dad took him camping in the back yard when he was four and told him tales of the great explorers and what they had to endure to survive in uncharted lands.
“Exercise machines?” The twins repeated in unison.
“I think we’re going to lose enough weight as it is with the food we have down here,” Victoria blurted out.
“Well I read a book once that said you need to exercise and keep moving your body for survival and that you can’t let your muscles at . . . , atrupie . . . , atricky . . . ”
“Atrophy,” I said, helping Ethan out.
“Like when your muscles get weak from not using them. Well . . . , we have mom and dad’s exercise machines. We can use those to stay moving while down here,” Ethan answered proudly while glaring at Victoria.
“Awesome idea little bro,” Arthur ruffled Ethan’s hair.
I was relieved that the five of us were working together to make a plan for survival instead of fighting and panicking. Pride was slowly building within me and with each passing moment I came to the realization that I could be a great leader and keep my siblings safe until my parents made it home to take over their rightful job.
“Arthur, grab that paper and pencil over there and take a detailed inventory of our food and drinks situation, plus anything else you can think of that’s important that we may need to ration.” I was doing all I could to keep my siblings busy with tasks and keep their minds off the deadly storm that could take our lives at any minute.
*****
The first hour in the basement passed quicker than expected as we did whatever we could to ignore the continued rocking, shaking and shuddering of our home.
Arthur used that hour efficiently by finishing up writing the basement inventory list and proudly handed it to me with a smug look on his face.
“Here, what do you think?” He shook the paper in front of my eyes teasing me like he did when we were younger.
Snatching the list from his hand, I looked it over carefully then placed in on the ground and stared up at him.
“Three weeks of drinks and food you believe, if we rationed properly?”
“Yep!”
“Should be more than enough, good work Arthur. Help should be here waaay sooner than that anyway,” I said with a forced smile, not giving Arthur the satisfaction of an argument.
“I hope you’re right Addie,” Arthur raised his eyebrows looking around at the various piles of supplies he’d gathered up. “I really hope you’re right,” he breathed deeply walking to the couch and flopping down.
“Hey, I’m always right, haven’t you got that into your thick scull yet,” I smiled before our house shook violently again from another close strike causing my smile to vanish, replacing it with a look of dire concern. Dust and dirt floated down from the basement ceiling once more adding to the layer o
f dust already covering almost everything around us. I ran two fingers across the once red vinyl barstool creating a red streak out of the dust covering it, then ruffled my long hair and watched even more dust float lazily to the ground, “I really pray mom and dad make it home by tomorrow.” I murmured and closed my eyes for a moment of peace.
Chapter 6 - Time to Move
Adelaide
My brothers, the twins and I had been living on our own, trapped in the basement of our house for three straight weeks, afraid to venture upstairs and blind to the world around us. During the first week of the meteorite storms the twins picked up sporadic radio broadcasts. But after that first week, despite all their continuing efforts, Caelyn and Victoria never found another internet connection, phone connection or even received a response from their black and yellow, retro National Geographic walkie-talkies. They’d tried everything we could think of to no avail and eventually hope slipped away for communicating with anyone in the outside world. There were no doubts about it, we were on our own.
Our only choice now was to wait, plan and prepare for survival in the likelihood the meteorite showers would come to an end. To add to our raising concern, the food and supplies we had gathered together weeks earlier had been running dangerously low and we were growing hungrier by the day. But the worst thing of all was that hope for our parent’s safe return home all but faded, as silently one by one we began fearing something terrible had happened to them.
Still, we weren’t dead yet, we were surviving even though it seemed unlikely we’d make it this long, so we had to do something productive and useful to pass our days in the cold basement keeping as busy as possible. We’d eventually began writing in journals I’d made for everyone, read old books, played board games, exercised, talked about what we’d do first when all this was over and most importantly, planned how we should go about locating our parents, assuming they’d have holed up somewhere safe to ride out the storm as we’d done. Keeping positive no matter how dire our situation would become was now my daily mantra and I made sure my siblings heard my positive remarks as often as possible.
