The day would have felt more or less perfect. It had most things associated with nice days, warm sunshine and bright blue skies, white fluffy clouds casually making their way across it. Large and tall trees overhanging a sandy beach. The sound of birds chirping somewhere above, the cool, crisp breeze blowing through the tree's green leaves and the small, slight waves crashing along the shore would probably, in combination, cause some onlooker to want to sit back and enjoy their summertime.
The onlooker- as they pulled up their lawn chair and cracked open a good book under the shade of a nearby red maple (possibly with a glass of iced tea in their free hand)- would also be quick to notice something that looked like a large freighter, moving rather hastily across the endless but also invisible blue line where the sky met the Atlantic. Except, now it didn't seem so large. It looked small, the closer it came the smaller it got until it was no bigger than a fishing boat that hypothetical onlooker might have taken out to the lake the weekend before.
In fact, now it no longer looked like a boat at all. It floated on the water which would make it disrespectful to call it anything but (few things are capable of such a feat), but it would have been wrong to call it a boat to begin with. No part of it even looked like a boat now, it's only resemblance being how it floated on top of the water. It was a black, oblong hunk of rusted metal. Thick red and black wires stuck out of its sides, some spiraled up and reconnected to the top of the boat while others curled down and disappeared under the sandy blue water. Sitting in the middle of the hunk of metal was the only thing that looked normal enough to be floating on water and even its oversized, bright red metal looked out of place, drifting across the sea like a dish sitting atop of silver platter (if the platter had been made of a metal that looked like it had been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for about 109 years).
The boat- so it was called- finally touched down on the beach, pushing several feet through the sand before running out of momentum and coming to a standstill. It sat in silence for a few moments before a scraping ripped through the air, like metal being torn apart, the tranquility tangible throughout the beach a moment before gone in an instant. Orange sparks flew from the large metal hatches keeping the bright red shipping container closed until the entire hatch launched from the shipping container, flew several feet across the beach before landing in the sand, one hitting a tree trunk before finding a place in the dirt.
The sound of energy flowing through circuits filled the air and it would have tasted like copper. The whirring got louder until it transformed into the thrumming of machinery powering up. Parts rattled together, metal making loud clanging sounds as a white light filled the inside of the red metal container.
No, this wasn't a boat, it would have been an insult to call it anything less, this was a machine.
-/-
The air in this room was heavy, hot, fake. It felt like warm, natural sunlight was pouring through glass pane windows, casting morning shadows across the room but the windows were blinded shut with small cracks revealing slits of darkness. The warmth was fake, generated from burning gas, set to mimic natural warmth but fell short. Similar to an electric fireplace, it was there for utility, not realism. It got the job done either way.
The sun had set, plunging the world into darkness, most of the town now fast asleep. All except her dad who was watching, rather enthusiastically, a game of sports in their living room. She hadn't been all too interested in those games and her father's loud, triumphant, reactions weren't always welcomed hospitably, but she was happy enough hearing him doing anything to relax. Recently, work has been scarce. About two weeks prior, several cell towers shut off without any cause and still haven't been repaired leaving that section of their state completely detached from the rest of the world. She didn't mind, her father did though which is why he set up some personal WiFi tower in the backyard for his games.
She was in the same position. Now that she didn't have to devote so much time and energy to her schoolwork, she had very little to fill her time with. She'd tried other things obviously, cooking, writing, drawing, reading all didn't settle well with her. Not that she could explain why. She had been shooting with her father every so often. She enjoyed that but even that had started to become few and far in between.
There were several weapons her dad had hidden around the house which he had taught her how to shoot. Some she knew better than others but she had a basic understanding how a gun worked. He'd brought her out a few miles from town to an old shooting range, large targets in the distance riddled with bullet holes, there to try out a few new weapons. They'd shoot until their hands were sore- hers getting sore much before his did- then they'd travel back home after getting a bite to eat. With him being busy finding as much work as he could and her spending all her time trying to graduate from school, they hadn't had much time for that anymore. Next, to keep herself entertained through the summer, she'd thought she might try baking.
Those were the best times she'd had with her father, the memories bringing a soft smile to her face. It was almost like she could still hear the sound of the gunfire. She frowned as she pushed herself upright. She could still hear the gunfire. The sound of the television down the hall completely silent. She jumped from her bed and peered out her window, lifting a few of the metal blinds with her finger. There was nothing but darkness. Except for several white lights that moved up and down the road but she just assumed they were a few pedestrians taking their nighttime walks.
That was when the entire house started to shake, sending her stomach jumping up into her throat. Her first thought was, Earthquake? But before she could even think that thought, the shaking stopped. A few seconds later, the shaking came back, rattling the windows and sending ripples across a glass of water sitting on her windowsill. Footsteps. Her mind immediately soared back to the memory of a movie based entirely around the impossible premise of scientists all too concerned with how much money they could make developing theme parks with wild, unbelievable themes being able to resurrect long extinct animals from the dead, some bigger than buildings, their footsteps causing the same ripples through glasses of liquid or puddles on the ground.
But unless somehow dinosaurs had come back from the dead and let loose to roam around her town, something else was causing those massive, unearthly footsteps.
Unearthly. The word sent shivers down her spine but it couldn't be. There had to be some rational explanation for these sounds and once she found out what, she would have laughed at how irrationally afraid she'd been.
"Uh," she could hear her father down the hall, he had gotten up from the sofa and peered out their front door. A gust of cold wind ruffling his thick graying brown hair. "Maya, maybe you should come out here for a second."
She spun around walking down the hall, giddiness from anything gladly interrupting her uneventful evening making her move faster. But that quickly changed.
As Maya neared her father, something exploded, filling the entire house with sound. Orange light filled her vision as she ducked and screamed, covering her neck with her arms. Every window in the house shattered as the house descended into a silence that screamed in Maya's ears, the only sounds her harsh breaths and the shards of glass plinking on the ground.
"Maya, get into the basement now," her father said, his voice stern, she had yet to lift herself from her hunched over position. The air was no longer empty but now filled again with sound. Police sirens echoed in the distance, mixed with gunfire and screaming. She couldn't move, didn't know what to do. What was going on?
"Maya," her father's voice pulled her out of it. She stood up, her long golden brown hair falling across her shoulders, her normal pink face colorless. Her father had stepped out into the hallway, hunting rifle grasped in his right hand, knuckles white. "Get to the basement now."
"What's happening?" Maya asked, her voice sounded distant to her own ears. Small, insignificant. He started to shake his head, his face hiding the fear she knew was in there. Something was very wrong. "No no no, I can help." Her voice was louder now, she stepped towards him. "You've taught me. All those times, whatever it is, I can help."
"No you can't," he replied with a single head shake, the expression on his face not changing at all. "Not this time."
She began to protest but her father slung the hunting rifle in his hand onto his shoulder and over onto his back before stepping towards Maya. She started shaking her head but she followed him, knowing well that there was no use resisting her father's commands.
She pulled the door to the basement open before stepping down onto the first step of the stairs leading to the cold, dark basement. Her father moved to close the door but Maya put her hand on it, giving little resistance.
"Dad-"
He shook his head, silencing her with nothing more. "No, Maya listen to me." His deep brown eyes started to glisten. "I love you. Don't leave. There's a 9mm under the dryer and some ammo above the fridge."
"Wait!" Before she could finish the word, the door slammed shut and the click of the door locking pounded like a gong through the small area. Silence ensued. Her heart thumped through her head, in her ears. She stared at the locked door in front of her willing it to open but too shocked to try the knob.
Maya blinked away black spots in her vision, tears even. How could her life change so quickly? Just a few minutes prior, she had been lying on her bed, half-reading a book about baking, trying to figure out what to do with her time. Now, where was she? Standing in her basement, an unknown threat just outside the door.
The entire building started to shake again, dust falling down from wooden rafters above her with each giant footstep. The screaming outside penetrated the wooden door, reached her ears. She squeezed her eyes closed and pushed her palms against her ears. The thumping got louder, she could feel it in her chest until it got hard to differentiate between the sound of the footsteps and the sound of her own heartbeat.
Then something exploded. A cascading explosion that shook the house's foundation. Maya stumbled, trying to get down the steps without loosing her balance as a force from behind swept her off her feet. She yelped as she fell down the rest of the stairs, her head landing hard against the concrete floor. Pain spiked through her head but frankly, she didn't have time to feel it before her mind was struggled down and pulled into unconsciousness.
-/-
The forest was dense and filled with no color other than green. Nothing stirred but the forest was no doubt alive. Birds chirped overhead as they swept down to bunches of sticks and fuzz nestled in a tree's thick, protective branches; several groups of gray fluffy squirrels climbed tree trunks and scavenged the ground in search of nuts to add to their already full store. The still rising sun glistened through the tree's tall canopy casting shimmering rays through the dark forest. Droplets of dew made the entire forest almost glow with sunshine.
There was just one thing missing. No, it wasn't missing, more like lacking. After decades of time, the animals had gotten used to the common sounds of cars passing down nearby streets, groups of children playing in the forest they shared, even the sound of loud bangs or cracks of someone training their aim. But recently, this activity hadn't vanished but… diminished.
And even though the bird's main priority was to find food for her fledglings- the squirrel's to find nuts for his already handsome gatherings- they couldn't help but notice the silence that dropped in from nowhere, almost as if the tall, fur and featherless bipedal creatures that had once caused these sounds just recently decided to up and leave.
And frankly, they couldn't care.
No matter how many humans continued to pass along strips of hard, gray stone in their noisy machines, some smaller ones playing in piles of fallen leaves, others bringing out their clubs and handles that went bang or crack, as long as whatever had made those bangs and cracks wasn't pointed towards them, it wouldn't harm them any more. They could live on in ignorance to some of the- what those bipedal creatures would have called "life changing",- things that had just happened because it hadn't seemed so life changing to them. As long as the early morning birds get their worms and the gray fluffy squirrels get their nuts, it didn't matter to them. They had full bellies and a short, blissful life ahead of them. They were just animals after all and it didn't matter to them at all.
Except, humanity isn't gone. Not yet. A black bird jumped up, flapping its wings as it crows, flying into a tree's leaves. A squirrel darts for protection behind a rock large enough for it to jump up on top. Two boys walked through the forest no older than eighteen, clothes worn and dirty, one lanky, the other just as tall but with broad shoulders, guns in both their hands. The lanky boy with a head full of shaggy blonde hair- almost brown- which he regretted now not going to get it cut was named Tom. The boy walking beside him, a pump-action shotgun clutched in his hands, black hair sat more or less perfectly trimmed two days ago atop his head was named Jacob.
These boys were friends by every definition. Since childhood they had been inseparable. They grew up together, went to school together, graduated together, laughed together, made mistakes together, learned together, felt sad together. They had played in these forest their entire lives and even know, pushing out all the horrible things they had experienced just two days prior, it felt like as if they were back there again, playing in the forest. Except this time with real guns, albeit a little old, the hunting rifle tucked underneath Tom's arm looked like it had been made in the 1980s at least.
Tom and Jacob had been lucky, very lucky. They had somehow survived the initial outbreak. Jacob had escaped from his home and found Tom. Both their families had disappeared only leaving pools and splatters of their blood. Houses were ablaze, some gone entirely, their home town reduced to rubble. They grabbed weapons and ran until it would have been detrimental to their health to run anymore. That had been two days ago. Since then, both boys not willing to think about the things they had lost that day again.
They had decided it best to branch out. They had been sticking with their home town since its fall, afraid to move any father away, not willing to find out what had caused this destruction and why no one was able to help them. All communication had been cut off. Cell service, disconnected. WiFi and internet connection, broken. It wouldn't be a surprise if no one else in the world knew anything was wrong.
That's when they found it. The source. Machines unlike any they'd seen before. Of course, Tom had seen videos online about some robotic dog that could walk and balance itself even when pushed or shoved but that robot had always been mindless, programmed by engineers and assisted by circuits and electrical components for one purpose, to stand and balance itself. These were different.
They moved in packs. Four legs, doglike, made from rusted orange metal. They not only walked, but ran, dodged, moved like animals, and they came equipped with submachine guns bolted to their shoulders. They barked like real dogs but there was a twisted, mechanical sound to it. They terrified him but at the same time, he couldn't help but feel fascinated by them. But he still didn't believe these small machines had the firepower to level houses. They named them Runners, after Tom's dog Runner.
Now they walked through the forest in between their town and one nearby, hopeful to find any other survivors. Since leaving their home town, they'd seen no one. No sign of human life anywhere. This next town was just the same as theirs, flames still burned away at the sides of houses leaving chimneys and stone fireplaces, the only sign a house used to stand there.
Doubt had laced itself through both boys' minds. Whether they knew or not, two days without any other human contact excluding each other had already taken a toll on them. The world- massive and incomprehensible- was suddenly much larger and much more lonely. It started to feel like they were the only people left on this hunk of rock hurdling through the emptiness of space and without a fight, these machines that appeared out of the blue had won already.
Following a routine they had quickly fallen into, Tom and Jacob searched through several of the houses still standing sturdy enough for them to enter. They found exactly what they had in any other house they searched through. Evidence of lives in progress. Dishes topped with cold food still sat on set dinner tables. Clothes left folded on beds, ready to be worn the next day or placed inside a closet filled with more clothes, shoes, and personal items that might have once meant something to someone.
They found evidence of lives interrupted. Blood splattering the ground, bullet holes riddling walls, bloody handprints grabbing onto wall's corners. Dishes shattered across kitchen floors, a pc setup all monitors displaying a blue error screen, glass broken. No bodies.
Probably the strangest thing they had encountered. All evidence pointed to an unbelievable amount of loss of life. Blood, smoke and fire was everywhere. Around every turn at least something had either broken or bled on top of something. But no one had left a body.
There search was nearing its conclusion and they'd found nothing but ammunition maybe some medical supplies, all good but not what they had been hoping for. They stepped up to the last house on this street, a short one story house painted a sky blue, still somehow managing to stand upright despite a little crookedness. Tom pushed the door open and stepped inside, not bothering to knock knowing no one was left inside to answer.
The inside of the house was much different than out. Every wall and floor and ceiling had been charred black, like a bomb had exploded just strong enough to burn anything in sight while not breaking through anything. Tom let Jacob in and they began their search, their footsteps making the burned floorboards creak beneath their feet. They started in the kitchen, finding a fridge packed full of food just starting to decompose. Nothing else of use, they moved back around to the entrance where a long hallway extended to the back of the house and turned. Several rooms connected to the hallway, an office, a bedroom in better condition than the rest. It looked like a girl's room based on light brown painted walls and white bedsheets, not the colors Tom would have picked.
Across the hall from the bedroom was a door which had little uncommon with the rest of the doors in this house. It was completely blacked by some kind of explosion, several large gashes ran down the cross section of the door and blood and black machine oil was splattered across its base. The one thing that set this door out from every other door Tom and Jacob had come across was its lock. On the blackened metal doorknob, the lock was engaged.
Jacob knocked, the action feeling weird now that knocking on someone's door before barging in anyway had become more or less an unnecessary formality.
There was no response.
He knocked again, this time calling out, "Hello? Is anybody in there?"
Tom tried the knob. No luck, whatever blew up had been hot enough to melt the metal inside the doorknob together. Tom shook his head and glanced up at Jacob who nodded. They both pressed their shoulders up against the door and at the count of the three, swung back and slammed their shoulders back down against the door's wooden frame. The wood splintered and split, Tom yelped as he felt nothing but air behind it. Jacob had kept good enough footing to catch his friend before he fell face first down a dark set of concrete steps.
No other door inside a house had been locked. The front door had been many times but that was to be expected. Both Tom and Jacob had assumed that these machines had taken everyone so off guard no one had had time to hide themselves inside a bathroom, closet or-
-basement.
"You first." Tom blurted out, suddenly overcome by nerves.
"I- what!" Jacob exclaimed. Despite his size, he still has been shaken enough to be afraid to walk into a dark basement. "Nu-uh. You first."
"I called second." Tom shot back, not taking his eyes off the darkness.
"What?"
"I called second first, which means you have to go first."
"What that-." Jacob sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Fine, I'll protect you you little baby."
Jacob took his first step down, Tom close at his heels, the cold concrete beneath his sneakers. He was reminded suddenly of an hold horror movie he'd seen ages ago, completely forgetting the plot but vividly remembering the scary parts. He half expected to see a monster had laid a nest full of alien babies all across the ceiling. His hand found a light switch and he flicked it.
Bright orange light filled his vision but vanished with a loud pop! He hadn't expected any less. In fact, he had gotten more than they had gotten before. Most every light they came across was dead completely. Luckily, his phone- useless as it was without service- came built with a torch, he flicked it on and scanned the basement.
His fears, no doubt heightened, faded. The basement was no more ordinary than his own, almost the same layout even. There was a second fridge just in front of the stairs, probably stocked full of food and drink in just as good condition as upstairs. Tom wandered into the left side of the basement, switching on his own flashlight and Jacob took right. They both were hurting desperately to find survivors. Or maybe a new gun would suffice. One that wasn't as rusted as the hull of the Titanic.
Jacob pulled around a corner to see a body lying on the ground, on its side curling into the fetal position. Long brown hair, its tips ending in a blonder color covered the person's face and small slender arms. He was so surprised at first that he opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He quickly recomposed himself and said, "Bro, I just found a girl." His voice echoed off the concrete walls, making it sound louder than he had intended.
Tom gasped and followed by banging the top of his head on the underside of a wooden shelf. Several large metal pails fall from the shelf and clatter along the ground. He gracefully follows by saying, "Huh, dibs!"
Tom circled around to Jacob to find him weaving his arms underneath hers. The girl's eyes were closed and her face was strikingly hard. Almost as if her unconscious face could cut diamond.
Jacob scoffed. "Very funny," he said mockingly. "Now shut up and help me with her legs."