We Who Remain

by Jacqueline Druga

“I get it,” she said. “I plan on going straight to the roof first. I’m not looking for anything else but Mark. We’ll be back, hopefully with my husband.”

  Bob forced a fake passive smile then looked at Mitch. “Good luck.”

  Mitch and Liv walked inside the hospital lobby. It was empty, there weren’t even remains of employees. Then again, it happened at two in the morning. Liv walked directly to the elevator and pressed the button. “We’ll take it to the top floor then take the stairs the rest of the way.”

  “You really think it’s a good idea to get on an elevator?” Mitch asked. “If the power goes out, we’re stuck.”

  “I’ll chance it,” Liv said as the doors opened. “I smoke. I won't make it twelve flights.”

  Mitch was leery when he stepped in, looking around, but the elevator was empty as well. He held his breath as it started to rise, praying it didn’t stop mid floor. He would have better luck convincing Liv to take the stairs on the way down.

  The elevator stopped on the twelfth floor and they stepped out.

  “Okay, what’s the plan?” Mitch asked, following her down the hall to the staircase. Liv looked forward, she didn’t look back or around. He knew why. She didn’t want to see anything.

  “We go to the roof. There were workers up there.” She pushed the stairwell door. “Mark was in pediatrics last night. He had a dinosaur scrub shirt on and always wore his name tag. So, if we don’t see anyone … that’s what we … that’s what we look for.”

  “Got it,” Mitch followed. “He may be elsewhere. If he beat this, he may be home.”

  “Let hope.” Liv took a deep breath and pushed open the door to the roof.

  The sun was bright and their eyes started watering. The buzz of flies was overwhelming. Liv knew at that very second they weren’t going to find anyone alive on that roof.

  She saw no one, but through the corner of her eye she saw clothing and knew what that meant.

  Mitch walked to the heliport as she slowly made her way around the roof, trying not to look at bodies, but rather just for the dinosaur scrub shirt.

  Her heart raced out of control, she even found it hard to breathe.

  So many had come to the roof. Even patients. IV lines lay on the ground, next to hospital garb. It was such a huge event, they carried their IV solutions with them.

  Looking but not really seeing, Liv skimmed the clothes.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  “Liv,” Mitch called to her. The sound of his voice lacked any enthusiasm and it was enough for her.

  She lifted her head to see him standing on the heliport.

  Mitch slowly waved her to come to him.

  “Jesus,” she thought as her heart sunk. There was only one reason to call her.

  With a tightened jaw and her mind telling her, ‘whatever this is, you can face this. You are strong.’ Liv walked to the ramp of the heliport.

  Making her way up, the landing slowly came into view, including Mitch’s legs. She focused on them. He was facing her way, waiting on Liv. He kept his stare on her and when she reached the platform, Liv walked directly to him.

  “I’m sorry,” Mitch said with such compassion.

  Liv closed her eyes briefly, her eyelashes fluttering against her welling eyes.

  A single tear rolled down her cheek and she swiped it away. She didn’t expect that to happen, she was ready, or so she thought. She inhaled deeply, opened her eyes and looked.

  She groaned softly following the emotional gut punch of seeing the dinosaur scrub shirt. The air coming from her belly and through her throat, as she lowered slowly to the ground.

  If there was an inkling of a doubt in her mind that it was Mark, the doubt went away when she saw his employee badge complete with his picture. His busted phone next to him.

  Nothing remained, at least from what Liv paid attention to. She couldn’t bear to see the remains or think what her husband of nearly twenty years had been through. By her last conversation with him, he was confused not scared, and it didn’t seem like he felt pain.

  She reached down for the badge and lifted it, then ran her hand over his shirt.

  The ‘slam’ of the roof door drew her attention.

  “Mitch … Liv,” Bob called out. His words out of breath and his face red as he made his way near enough to the heliport to peer up to them.

  Liv returned to looking at Mark’s badge in her hand.

  “What is it?” Mitch asked. “What’s wrong? Did you run up here?”

  “I was downstairs … by the truck and … Mitch. There … there are people.”

  Hurriedly, Liv turned and looked at him, the badge in her hand, she slowly stood.

  “People?” Mitch asked. “Not only remains?”

  Bob nodded.

  “My God,” Mitch said. “There are survivors. Others are alive.”

  “They’re alive, but you have to be ready,” Bob replied. “It’s not what you think … or hope.”

  11 – HIDE

  Bob wanted a drink.

  That was how it all started. His steady state of inebriation had come to an end when he depressed that trigger. Granted, if someone took his blood, surely it would show differently, but he didn’t feel that buzz.

  He needed to.

  Sitting in a hospital parking lot, he knew there wasn’t going to be any booze to be found. They left what they had at the bunker, so Bob traded one vice for another.

  He saw Liv’s cigarettes on the back bench seat and grabbed one. Bob used to be a smoker, but that was twenty years earlier.

  He lit one while he paced, taking a deep hit, but it was too much too soon and Bob began to violently cough.

  Smacking his chest, wanting the cough to subside so he could try again, he lifted his head to see a woman wearing scrubs walk out of the hospital.

  Bob dropped his cigarette.

  She looked frazzled, she stammered some in her walk to him.

  Her face was tear streaked, and she approached him. When she grabbed on to his arm, he saw her arm, just the left one. Her hand and wrist looked deformed, as if the bones in her hand were suddenly removed.

  “Can you help me, please? Please help.”

  He saw her name tag, ‘Donna’, a Registered Nurse, and he followed her. He didn’t know what he could do, but he would try.

  She took him around to the ER entrance and that was when Bob knew he had to get Mitch and Liv.

  Liv had found her husband, or rather what remained of him. She clutched his name badge which had his picture in her hand. He didn’t know how to describe it, what he saw, they had to see for themselves.

  Donna waited for them at the stairwell entrance, her arms close to her body. She seemed relieved to see more people.

  “Tell me how you survived,” Donna said. “Please,”

  Mitch replied. “We were underground.”

  She nodded. “I was too. The cafeteria. Everyone was so excited about this comet. I wasn’t. I could care less. When I came up from my break and came out here, that’s when I found everyone. I just don’t know what to do. I started freaking out.”

  “Did you get injured?” Mitch asked.

  Donna nodded. “I wasn’t even up five minutes when my hand started to tingle,” she replied. “I saw those around me, what had happened to so many, I just knew that was happening to me now. That somehow I had been safe while below. I thought maybe it was a bio weapon, and like a coward, I went back down. The progression thankfully stopped. Me and Beth, the café worker, came back up about two hours ago.”

  Liv asked. “Are there other survivors? How is Beth?”

  “Beth is fine.” Donna led them down a hall. “My hand doesn’t hurt much, it’s just useless now. But the others that were inside ...”

  They heard the groans and cries before they even arrived at the Emergency Department.

  Bob had previously taken one step, but after one look he raced for Mitch and Liv.

  Now he was faced with seeing it all.

>   People lay on gurneys, on beds and on the floor. They remained right where they had dropped.

  Craig was eighty percent effected and was alive only because of his brain, those in the Emergency area ranged from thirty percent to fifty effected. It was if the dissolution had begun and just stopped.

  Leaving them alive and in a state that was no less than horrifying.

  Legs and arms melted to the floor, the people there were mere torsos, squirming to move, crying out for help.

  No one was immune. No part of the body was immune. Bob saw a woman who was fine from the neck down, yet, half of her face blended into the pillow.

  Bob couldn’t imagine it, what those people had gone through. To lay there and have their body dwindle away into some sort of liquified, silly putty state.

  “Whatever was in the air,” Donna said. “Remained there for a while, then it just dissipated, is what we guess.”

  The tail, Bob thought. George warned about the tail. That had to be it. The longer they were exposed to the tail, the more damage was done to their bodies.

  Donna continued, “The one closer to the door and to the window. There’s nothing left. But those further inside the building, survived. We haven’t checked the other floors. I’m afraid to. We have so many people. I don’t know what to do. We need to find help.”

  “I don’t think there is any help,” Bob said. “Not out there. We just drove here and it’s like this everywhere.”

  “That can’t be. It can’t,” Donna said. “There has to be someone out there that can tell us how to help these people. They’re suffering.”

  At that second, before anymore was said, Liv abruptly walked out.

  Bob took a step to follow.

  “I’ll get her,” Mitch held out his hand. “Stay here.”

  “And do what?”

  “I don’t know. Just help.”

  That was easier said than done, and slightly frustrating with a feeling of being helpless. Bob stayed behind while Mitch sought out Liv.

  When Mitch walked through the doors, he saw Liv moving at a fast pace.

  “Liv,” he called out to her. “Wait.”

  Liv stopped.

  Mitch trotted his way to her. “Hey.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t stay in there, and I can’t help her. Not now. I know it’s wrong. I do. But I have to go find my daughter.”

  “No, I get it. I do.”

  “Those people, Mitch, the ones that were partially exposed, they were partially, for lack of a better word, melted.”

  “I know.”

  “My daughter is out there. What if she was inside the observatory? What if she was only partially exposed. It breaks my heart to think she could be like that.” Liv winced. “I have to go.”

  “I’ll go with you. We’ll go right now. Okay?” Mitch told her. “Just get in the truck, I’ll go tell Bob.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mitch backed up. He looked over his shoulder at Liv. She clutched her husband’s badge as she opened the truck door and climbed in.

  Liv wasn’t giving up on her daughter, and neither was he. There were survivors, there was a chance that Danni made it. Mitch just hoped if she did survive, Danni was not like those in the hospital.

  That would probably be more unbearable for Liv than if her daughter, like her husband, was just gone.

  <><><><>

  Mount Weather Complex, VA

  It wasn’t Buford Cane’s first choice. He wanted to go to Site R in Pennsylvania. It was a highly secretive, underground survival complex. However, Buford could not get clearance in time, and Captain Miller insisted it wasn’t conducive to reach out to the other bases.

  For long term survival … yes. Mount Weather was the best place to be for trying to determine what remained of the world and the United States.

  Buford had been up all night, like most others. He’d get some sleep when he felt he was updated and informed enough about the goings on outside the bunker in the wake of the Comet streaming by.

  George Miller stayed busy. From talking to communications people, doing calculations and trying to obtain air samples.

  It hadn’t even been eight hours since Pyrrhus zoomed by and it seemed like a lifetime.

  Sitting in his office, Buford stared at a map of the U.S. One marked with underground military installations and places where they knew they had survivors.

  Thus far, only Cleveland and Washington were marked. Washington was where CDC doctor Mallory Gimble was located. She had checked in several times, and though they had been given the ‘all clear’ to leave the underground garage, she was still staying put.

  He contemplated sending a rescue team to get her if her ass didn’t get out of the garage soon. They needed her and her medical expertise.

  There was a single knock on his door and Buford hollered out to ‘come in'.”

  George walked in, balancing an armful of folders, while holding what looked like a sandwich in his mouth.

  He walked in, pushed the door shut with his foot and removed the sandwich. “I came as soon as they told me you wanted me.”

  “Good. Thank you. Have a seat.”

  George did.

  “What do you got?” Buford asked.

  “Oh, ham and cheese. Really not that bad for …”

  “No.” Buford waved out his hand. “I mean so far.” He then pointed to the folders.

  “Sorry, I’m slap happy. Wasn’t thinking.”

  “That’s fine. We’re all that way.”

  George set down the folders on the desk. “We have made contact with Cheyenne who is tracking Olympias. Ten times bigger, ten times more effect, that’s what I’m worried about.”

  “But we should be good at R site, right?”

  “We should yes. We also got in touch with the USS Billings, everyone on board that sub is fine.”

  “How many?”

  “Usually full staff is around a hundred, they are at half that. Some sort of shore training. Those on board were below the surface.”

  “How about our air samples?”

  “Getting them, running them, I really wish Dr. Gimble was here. I could really use her expertise in the breakdown. I know she isolated things.”

  “Unfortunately,” Buford said. “Dr. Gimble is fear struck and won’t come out of the garage just yet. I was thinking of sending a team to get her. She’s only seventy miles away. But can I justify asking a team?”

  “Yes,” George nodded. “In fact, I’ll go. I’ll get her. It’ll give me a chance to get samples and get a good look at how things are.”

  Buford sat back. “That is really a necessity. I mean, how do we plan our next step if we don’t know where we’re dealing with?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll get in touch with her and tell her to hold tight, we’ll get there.”

  “And,” George added. “We’ll need to go to her lab.”

  “I’ll assure her it will be safe,” Buford said.

  “Yeah, it should be.”

  “What do you mean ‘should’?” Buford asked.

  “Just thinking about Alexander. When he made impact, no one could get near it. Not even up til yesterday. There are various unidentifiable elements in the air, not high levels, but they’re there.”

  “From Alexander or Pyrrhus?”

  “Pyrrhus,” George replied. “Just had me thinking about the dinosaurs. What if it wasn’t the impact that killed the dinosaurs, but rather what it brought from space that did it? The debris in the air would have locked the toxins in.”

  “It took the dinosaurs months to die off.”

  George nodded.

  “So this may not go away?”

  “Not right away,” George said. “Again, theory.”

  “So, this … theory of yours has us dwindling away until extinction?”

  “Possibly.”

  With a ‘hmm’, Buford sat back. “I do know one thing, whatever killed the dinosaurs did so because they lac
ked the skills to plan on survival. I assure you, George, we as human beings have a different instinct. You find out what’s going on and we’ll make sure that worst case scenario doesn’t happen.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, let’s go get Dr. Gimble.” Buford stood, he needed to get in touch with her. He left his office along with George and his theories behind. George could focus all he wanted on what could kill off the human race, Buford on the other hand, wanted to focus on what could save it.

  12 – Star Wars

  Washington, DC

  Had it not been for Bob Stevens, Mallory was convinced she would have cried herself into an irreversible state of despair. Even with the call from Captain Miller stating he and the general were on their way didn’t help.

  Bob did.

  Mallory had been sitting in the back of her van, hatch open. She teetered between constantly trying to call her husband’s phone and listening to their work playlist. Which didn’t help, most were songs from the late sixties or seventies.

  It didn’t matter what the song was about, she cried.

  She hated herself at that moment.

  How could she as a woman devoted to her husband, abandon their marriage and partnership for fear of her own safety. Her own paranoia, more than anything else, caused her to make camp in the lower level garage. But not before a day of continuous fights with Walker, over her abandoning their long time plans of a second honeymoon and watching Pyrrhus on a beach in the Bahamas.

  She was riddled with guilt because she was alive and even if her husband, Walker was as well, with the state of the world, she would never see him again.

  And it was Bob’s reply to her saying those words that made a difference.

  He called her and she was inconsolable, barely understandable.

  She then cried out her explanation.

  “Are you crying because you believe him to be dead or because you’ll never see him again?” Bob asked.

  “Isn’t it the same thing?”

  “No, not at all. When someone dies we definitely never see them again. If he’s alive, there’s a chance. So … don’t think him dead. Think about him on a beach figuring out a way to get to you. Think that. Believe that. Never say or think otherwise again.”