So screw it. Here's the first chapter. Too long? Don't care, I don't have a character limit. I'm still going back periodically and changing things, which is actually kind of a first for me, so this is by no means final. Think of it as--- a proof of concept. Showing that this story can work, and that I can do it. For now, I have it titled
The Lingering Storm
I awoke wracked with pain. The splintered concrete made my
bed with my now blackened blood serving as a pillow against the cold wreckage.
Craning my stiff neck, I tried to survey the aftermath of the long night. The
front wall still stood, its windows blasted out, the door frame turned to dust.
Pain shot through my neck and I cried out. Dust hung heavy in the air and clung
to my throat whenever I took in a breath. Coughing, I pushed against the boards
and remnants of wall keeping me pinned to the concrete. I failed several times,
unable to move my arms in a position where I could push effectively. Hours
passed as I lay motionless on the floor, often times in and out of
consciousness. I called out to my family, to anyone who had lived nearby. Silence,
a few times punctuated by a collapsing building, or, more frighteningly,
screams of pain long in the distance. After trying to free myself once again
and failing, I succumbed to sleep.
Whether
it was day or night when I next awoke, I could not tell. The dust blotted out
the sky, leaving only darkness. I managed to shift myself, with much effort, to
a better position. Pain screamed from my left leg. Being unable to see it, I
feared it was broken, or worse. I pushed again on the wreckage. With a laughing
cough, almost maniacal, I shifted the wreckage. Shifting, panting, screaming, I
finally wrenched myself from my prison. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t
stand. Instead, I clawed my way forward with my jaw clenched against the pain. I
scraped against concrete, wood, and did my best to avoid the jagged edges but
still managed to carve a light gash in my side. Now ten feet from where I had
once been trapped I cleared a space on the dusty remnants of some carpet. I
laid back and sighed, worn out from the hours of crawling.
I lay
on my back and looked up. The sky was a mixture of dusty brown and the darkest
black. I could see a blanket of smoke rising from our neighbor’s home, though I
couldn’t recognize the burning scent. I hoped it wasn’t them. I cried out for my
family once more in vain. They didn’t answer. Tears stung my eyes. I had known
it, yet I didn’t want to accept it. I pushed it to the back of my mind; there
would be a time for mourning, and this was far from it. I still hadn’t bothered
with my leg despite the almost blinding pain. The crawling had put my mind
elsewhere, and getting myself free of the rubble was more important at the
time. Gritting my teeth, I pushed myself onto my elbows and surveyed the bodily
harm. My t-shirt was torn near to shreds, with shallow gashes in my skin
crossing my torso like the road map to hell. The once gray shirt was now
stained to a dark black, and a dried river of blood ran down my neck and right
shoulder, tracing it with my left hand I found it originated near my temple. My
hands were coated with dust and blood, the nails coated with grime and dirt. I
looked at my legs and saw a mess. The left leg had a splinter of wood stuck
clear through the calf, the blood from the wound soaking the torn pants and
what was left of my shoe. The right leg, thankfully, had only a long slice
running thigh to mid-calf. It had bled, but was shallow and had scabbed
quickly.
The
splinter needed to come out, that much was certain. If it got infected then my
survival would be for nothing. We had had a cache of supplies saved for the end
days, but I was doubtful they had made it through the impact. I didn’t have the
energy to search today, that was at least another full day of crawling through
the wreckage of the house. I was in the open air, though, dangerous. The roof
was long gone, and the remaining walls weren’t stable enough to feel safe
beneath. My strength gave out, and I collapsed off of my elbows to the ground.
Sleep took me under the scorched sky.
This
time I did not wake through pain or of my own accord. Footsteps echoed through
the silence, the sounds of hands digging through crumbled ruins. The excitement
knocked the sleep from my eyes, and I began the arduous effort of trying to
prop myself up. I called out desperately, calling names of family members, the
names of neighbors I could remember, for help, for water, anything that came to
my mind. It all came out as gibberish, garbled groans, and half-spoken names. A
rock fell to the ground and an unbearable stillness fell over the wreckage.
Minutes passed, and the footsteps began again, growing louder with each step. I
called out, and thanked them for hearing. I fell back against the carpet,
closing my eyes to rest before they arrived. The footsteps sounded in my ruined
home and I turned my head to see. A man stood by the front wall staring at the
broken man on the ground before him. His hair was mostly gone, with burns
tracing his scalp. The few scant hairs remaining were plastered to his forehead
with sweat and grime. A layer of dust coated him; the tattered remains of his
clothing were bloodied and scarred. The spatter across his chest was not his
own. His eyes pierced into me, as he raised his hand. Even in the dulled light,
I could see the dull steel of a knife brandished before him.
In a
fit of coughing and searing pain, I frantically tried to pull myself away
grabbing for anything that could be used to defend myself. I howled in pain,
trying to call for help though I knew none existed. A sickening grin crossed
the man’s face as he took his steps forward slowly. I could tell he was
relishing the moments before he would end my life, trying to savor the pain he
would soon be inflicting. My hand slipped and I was back on the floor gasping
for air. I flailed, trying to get myself back crawling. In moments he was over
me, placing his foot square on my chest. He knelt down, his eyes locking into
mine.
“Before
you die, boy,” he said slowly, “you got any water I should know about? Be a
shame to have to look for it once I’ve gone through the work of dressin’ you up
nice.”
I
coughed again, my hands struggling for a grip on a board not a foot from me.
The man noticed my arm and tsk-tsked my efforts.
“Now,
now, that wouldn’t be the smartest thing for you to be doing, now would it?”
He
raised his head back up and moved the knife over to my arm.
“You
won’t need it, and what’s a few fleeting moments of pain?”
As he
went to cut I heard an almost cartoonish zip as the man’s chest exploded
followed by a crack as sharp as a whip. His blood fell on my face and chest as
he stumbled backwards, the shots momentum keeping him away from me. He
collapsed onto my legs in a cloud of dust, and I yelled in pain as he struck
the splinter. The body twitched as I mustered all of my energy to pull my legs
out from under him. Successful and spent, I collapsed onto my back once again
weeping. My stomach began to churn as the event I witnessed sunk in, and I
turned my head, releasing whatever content my stomach had in it, followed by
dry heaves of pure dust. I began to lose consciousness as my body heaved as a
conduit of pure pain. I heard hurried, heavy footsteps behind me as I blacked
out.
On my
fourth awakening I found myself propped up against a wall. A small fire
smoldered in the middle of the floor and a man, with his back to me, crouched
over it. The corpse of the burned man was long gone. Dust had built up in my
throat as I slept, and I began to cough yet again. He turned to look back at
me. By the looks of him, he couldn’t be much older than I was, though he certainly
looked in better condition. A worn baseball cap sat on his head, and he had a
dusty handkerchief hung around his neck. His clothes were dusty, but didn’t
seem to be as torn up as the last man’s had been, or mine for that matter. A
rifle lay on the ground beside him, with a small satchel open with some of its
contents placed methodically on the ground. He seemed to have erected a small
spit over the fire which had a makeshift bucket hanging over it. After my last
visitor, I expected more of the same. I grabbed a decent sized rock next to me
and hid it behind my back.
“Look,”
I croaked out to him, “if you’re going to kill me, just do it. There’s nothing
here. I’m hurt anyway, I won’t last long.”
He
smiled at me as he stood and began to walk over. I gripped the rock tight in my
hand and waited. The man stopped by my legs and crouched down again. Taking his
hat off, he sighed, “If I were here to kill you, I’d have done it already.
Besides, I wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of saving your life just to
end it again. You can drop that rock, if you don’t mind. With a leg like yours
you’d have a hell of a hard time defending yourself against a healthy man with
a rifle.”
He
stood again and walked back to the fire. I inhaled the best I could and asked
him who he was.
“I
don’t suppose names matter much anymore. Let’s just say I’m a guy who was lucky
enough to have had a paranoid father with a bomb shelter. It didn’t help as
much as it should, but, well, I suppose it helped enough.”
“How’d
you find me?”
“Find
you? I did nothing of the sort. I was tracking that—barbarian hoping he’d
scavenge something of use. He never came across any people, thankfully, until
you. Enough people are dead; I’d rather not see more die.”
“So
what was he, an exception? I’m probably going to die of infection anyway,” I
pointed down at the splinter still sticking through my leg.
“I
exempted him because you were defenseless. You? You’re mendable. Plus, aside
from that leg you seem able-bodied. I could use help, easier to survive with
two of us. Before you start the ‘how can you trust me’ spiel; you owe me. You
go back on what I’m owed and I can ditch you and look for another. We’ll see
how far you get on that leg. I said I’d rather not see more die. If I can’t see you, I suppose it’s out of my control
now, isn’t it?”
“Now, first things first: I took a
look around your house here to see if anything made it. Truth is, there isn’t
much. I found whatever supplies your family was storing and most of it is
destroyed aside from a few water bottles, assorted medical supplies, and boxes
of ammunition. As for your family… I suppose you already know.”
I
nodded before leaning my head back against the wall. My arms fell limp beside
me and I let my entire body relax for the first time in what already felt like
ages. He paused for a brief moment, “I suppose how we handle that is your
decision. We can afford to hang around an extra day at most, but beyond that I
don’t know what’s going to be safe. Forget other people, we’ll still have the
dust and the cold to worry about and if you haven’t already noticed this isn’t
exactly suitable shelter. My plan is this: we fix up your leg the best we can
and we head back to my bomb shelter. It’s not exactly in the best of ways at
the moment, but it’ll be enough for us to grab a few things and for you to rest
that leg. Luckily it’s only a handful of miles from here, a couple of cross
streets and we’re there. From there, I figure we need to move. I don’t know
where just yet, but west may be our best shot. Mountains, high ground, and it’s
further away from the impact. Hopefully that means less damage, but after that
shockwave who knows?”
He
grabbed the satchel and the supplies he had arrayed and walked back over to me.
After setting them down he grabbed what looked like beef jerky from the bag and
took a bite. Chewing, he put a canteen to my lips and poured water into my
mouth. The cool waterfall felt like salvation to my cracked throat. At first my
body rejected it, spitting up a fraction of what I took in, but the steady
stream insisted and I took my fill. As he took the canteen from my mouth, I
began to cough, fearing that I would throw up the water. I closed my eyes, and
when I opened them he was trying to give me a torn piece of jerky.
He
sighed, “I don’t know if this is going to be a shock to your system, but you’re
gonna need the energy.”
As I
chewed, forcing back the urge to vomit, he rummaged through his bag. He held a
short wooden peg wrapped tightly in cloth. As I swallowed, he asked me to open
my mouth so he could place it across my jaw. I stopped him, “Wait, wait, before
we do this,” I wheezed, “please tell me your name.”
He
placed the peg in my mouth, telling me to bite down, “My name is Nathan. If you
feel the urge to pass out, don’t fight it.”
Nathan
walked back over to the fire and grabbed an iron rod that shone an orange red
at the tip. I could feel myself beginning to sweat, my stomach twisted in knots
barely holding down the minute piece of jerky that now fought for its release.
He knelt down by my legs again, “I’m sorry, but this won’t last long.”
He tied
a strand of rope around my upper calf by the knee and placed both hands on the
end of the splinter. I bit down hard on the peg, the pain was blinding. Nathan
apologized again, and with all of his force pulled the splinter out with a
sickening sound. My whole leg tensed and cried out through the nerves with
thousands of screams. My jaw clenched almost to the point where I feared it
would break, stars shone in front of my eyes and soon I could only see white
flashes. As vision returned I could see blood seeping out of the holes where
the splinter had been. As he applied hard pressure to the wound he grasped the
iron rod firmly in his hand. He removed the pressured hand, and thrust the rod
into the wound on the outside for several seconds. The heat from the rod was a
worse pain than the removal. I screamed past the peg and dug my hands into the
ground; I could feel my fingernails begin to crack from the pressure and the
warmth of blood was soon between my fingers. After a few seconds he removed the
rod, and thrust it into the other side, finishing the cauterization. I screamed
out again and my vision went to black.
It
didn’t last. I opened my eyes yet again to Nathan dripping water from a rag
onto my forehead. The night was dead cold, yet I felt like I was sitting beside
a furnace.
“Hopefully
that was the worst of it,” Nathan started as he noticed my eyes opening, “I
found some antiseptic in those medical supplies of yours, so that, along with
the cauterization, should keep off infection. We’ll need to check it every so
often though; I’d rather not chance it.”
I
looked down at my leg to find the pant leg torn off at the knee, and the calf
bound tightly in bandages. Nathan had used the iron rod, now cooled, as a sort
of makeshift splint. I’d be able to walk, it seemed, which would be a much
better change from the past few days. Nathan withdrew the rag and sat next to
me, he was winded from the surgery too. The lingering dust tended to do that.
“So,
what now?” I asked him as I stared into the blackness beyond our small fire.
Nathan
sighed and cracked his knuckles, “The way I see it, we take tomorrow getting
you on your feet, and I’ll do one last sweep of the house for any supplies. You
wouldn’t happen to know the combination to that gun safe, would you?”
I
coughed, “Huh, I had forgotten about that safe. Yeah, I know the combination.
Not much there aside from an old hunting shotgun.”
“That’ll
do just fine. I know you haven’t exactly
had a moment since we met, but have you thought about—“he trailed off.
“My
family?”
“Yeah.”
I could
feel the tears stinging my eyes. To think that my entire family was gone in a
flash, where I survived still felt like a horrible dream. I couldn’t bear to
think of it; to look on their cold, still faces would break me. Even the
thought of coming upon their twisted remains crushed beneath our own home drove
my insides to madness. I had survived so far, to see them and have my worst
nightmares unfold before my eyes would undo it all. For their sake, all I could
do was press onwards and press them to the deep recesses of my mind.
“Would
you think less of me if I left without seeing them?”
“I
wouldn’t.”
“Then
that’s what I’ll do.”
We both
sat in silence at the end of the world. This darkness that surrounded us was
the new world. Unrecognizable, changed in ways unfathomable mere days before.
Everywhere that had once basked in light was now confined to infinite black.
Where love once blossomed a cold emptiness took root. Life, once exuberant and
ever-growing was now laid to waste in the wake of the impact. A rock in a pond
is never viewed as an end, as the precursor for destruction, but as the ripples
overtook our world, our ponds turned to ash, our lights extinguished. Now we
were but blind men, fumbling in the dark for some lost purpose robbed of us by
one simple stone.
................
And that's what I have of the first chapter so far. Right now, I'm going to take a short time and talk about where I want this story to head. I've wanted to write something post-apocalyptic for a while, but I had no idea where to begin or how to make a story intriguing enough worth following. So what I did is I looked at all of these apocalyptic stories based on an impact with the Earth of some sort, whether it be comet, asteroid, or what have you. What I found is that either in the movies humans succeed in saving themselves, or we catch up the human race tens to hundreds of years after the fact. So I thought to myself, what about the first few days? Something has to be going on there, they call it a "global killer" but it can't possibly kill everyone right on impact just due to statistics. Everyone had to have had some chance to survive. So I have the narrator here, and his new compatriot Nathan, having somehow defied the odds in a city miles and miles and miles away from the impact. What has to happen in these few days? What measures will they have to take to survive? Those are the questions I wanted to answer.But, so what? I can't possibly create an interesting story based entirely off of survival. I could only create episodes of tension followed by pages and pages of nothing. By chance, watching the odd movie trailer or two, I came across the song "The Lightning Strike" by Snow Patrol. Well, the first part of it anyway. There's a line in the lyrics that says, "What if this storm ends, and I don't see you?" and somehow, that struck a (forgive the music pun) chord in my mind. What if the main character was separated long before the apocalypse from someone he held very, very dear to him? Suddenly I have a drive for this character, to reunite with a long lost love of his at the end of all things. And I'm quickly finding ways for that to cause tensions within the character, between him and Nathan, and I even have a rough idea of how I want the ending to look.
Because I mean lets face it, if the world were to end what would we do about our loved ones hundreds of miles away from us? Leave them to the cold? Or find them, whatever the cost may be? I might wind up giving some updates on this as it progresses, but it'll only be as sidebars within other posts. School is starting up again soon, and I'm sure I'll have plenty to write about once it starts. Just 9 more days until I head off for Denver! Can't wait to see all of my Regis friends again!
Until next time...
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