After The World Fell Apart

Prologue


It was dark out; it was always dark out now. It just seemed with all the running, scrounging and hiding no one noticed, but there were no brilliant, sunny days anymore. Seems just when you got down the stairwell, out the front door onto the street with new found supplies, shaking off another building gang, the realization dawned that there was yet another need. Then, it was back to hunting once more. There's no time to look up; take your eyes off the street and you could die. No stopping to smell the flowers, so to speak, flowers were just a memory for me now anyway. It never ended, kind of like what dad used to tell us just after the world fell apart…

My dad was another history in itself. He had always told me and Junebug, my younger sister, that studying the Bible had been one of the best things he had ever done. It had forced him to accept the coming future of the world and prepare for it. He had a young, growing family to support. He had always taken an extreme approach to his ideals and responsibilities, his family was no different.
Dad had become a lifestyle bicyclist, as they were called, when the planet started heating up. He committed to never relying on a gas combustion engine ever again and he kept his word. Because, he said, Adam's first job had been to tend and care for the garden and man had dropped the ball terribly on that account. His plan hadn’t stopped there; my father intuitively knew he was going to have to stay ahead physically in a broken world. One would have to depend on another form of locomotion to acquire food and supplies in a society where all would have to run for the hills and live by their wits.
He trained my sister and I at night, when the warring gangs went away. We would come out of our underground and venture through the deep, dark, burned out forest to scavenge at the nearby gutted apartment complex. Some nights there were drills as we ranged a little further to an abandoned set of buildings once known as James Monroe University. This part of the county had been rural, free ground for Indy runners and hunters until the gangs used up the towns and started to move outward. Then dad's training became more involved, even complicated. He introduced us to a discipline known as 'Free Running' developed ages ago by a man named Sebastien Foucan. Bug loved its artistic expressions and creative forms immediately. I still preferred his collection of hybrid, dual-suspension bikes. We both acquired a great deal of strength and agility under our father's tutelage. We never suspected the secret regimen he was dosing us with. This hadn't started until after our mother died, when highly potent growth supplements were added to our food.
It was Bug's first encounter with Townies that tipped me off. They heard us rummaging in a physics lab one night at Monroe and tried to corner my little sister. She completely startled me as, from a burned out cubicle, I secretly watched her run up a wall, launch and land sprinting in the next room. She quietly laughed flying over my head, but I heard. The hungry pack of young men were still stunned, looking at the spot where she had just been. Behind a broken divider, crouching, I observed the entire adroit maneuver. This couldn't be normal and later back at the underground I confronted dad.
"Well, what did you want me to do Thomas?! Leave your sister to the rape gangs and you with no advantage, save some supped-up bikes?!" He yelled back at me. I was boiling and had never spoken to him this way before.
"But we're your kids....."
"YOU'RE ALL I HAVE.....," he shouted through filled eyes, "...and I'm not going to be around always - you have no idea what you're up against out there, Thomas! I had to give you an edge......I had to do something. What kind of a legacy was an underground and the little your mother and I possessed?"
What could I say; I had never seen him this way. For the first time I sensed he was engaging me as another man, not his kid. I glimpsed the future without him and suddenly felt very alone. My rage rapidly cooled. On one level I understood; I had always known the lengths to which my father would go to protect his family, it was why we were alive now in the first place.


* * *


They finally had to move into the secreted underground when South Stafford went off the power grid. At first it was cramped with all the things stacked inside, and then Father started expanding into the hillside. The digging kept the children awake some nights, but dad told them it was like making a house bigger by putting on an addition or a dormer. They didn't understand any of that. They just felt the cold damp Earth all around them and heard the sounds outside and huddled together for warmth. Why mother called it a shelter was beyond them as well, it may as well have been a prison.
"No one goes outside except me for now" Father declared the next morning. "Just for a little while, until things quiet down out there."
But there was everything they needed and it grew inside just like dad promised. He left sometimes, then mother would pray fervently and the little one cried. But always he came back and with a surprise of some sort. Either mother, or Thomas or littlest June would give a squeal of delight on his return, as he had been thinking just of them on his trip. They were like separate individual Christmas'. The beams went from stacks on the ground into the dirt walls and a cave became a room, and the room a hallway, then larger areas and longer, as dad worked feverishly into the hours. Mother kept up their studies, especially from the Bible. The children knew the prophetic books like Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelations almost by heart.
There was a special door built up top to replace the small, buried crawl space on the side of the hill. Dad ventured out more frequently at night now with more ease, taking Earth out with him. The accoutrements collected and made the underground homier. Little June started to sleep more soundly. She now had a bed.
For a period there was calm outside, but then a commotion began with sounds of yelling, distant explosions, rumblings and the running of feet overhead. During one period of several weeks there was the odor of smoke hanging on everything, but it did not come into the dwelling. While these days passed Father went nowhere and the family was happier for a time.
Dad had thought far ahead and the family had everything from light to food to toilets. Later, if need be, they would grow things. There was a set of books dad consulted from time to time. He said he had been waiting for this day since he had accepted the Lord into his life. He said he was 19 years old when that happened. Much later, after Thomas was born he had started stockpiling things over in the wooded hillock just a ways from the crowded apartment complex he and mother had moved into after getting married. He was ready now and they found great comfort in his words. It was evident that their father had seen this day coming and had thought of everything, except the days when the contaminant would spread and the mutants would arise…



I



"What's wrong with our legacy?! You and mom carved out a whole world here dad, and it's a beautiful place we live in - a lab, the garden, storage and rooms, its better than out there." I admitted.
"You and Junebug were always that world, Thomas. Your mother and I lived to make it the best world we could. You'll have to do it for Bug someday on your own...” he turned, head sagging, embarrassed by his own tears and stepped into the pale light under the grow lamps in the garden.
"Hey Tommy, flip ya to see who does bike charger tonight. I really don't feel up to it and my feet hurt a little. I think I landed too hard on them back there." Bug bounced into the hall from her room, her natural perkiness faded when she saw the look in my eyes.
"You had a close one on that raid, Junie. Take the night off and go see if you can do anything with that hydrosplitter we found at Monroe. Have I ever mentioned how unnatural your love affair with machines is, sis? - ha-ha!" Then I remembered, ".......oh, yeah, was the manual on heavy water anywhere in that lab?"
"...not the lab, I found the text you've been talking about in the reference library. Ya know, that splitter’s small enough - I might be able to rig it to one of our bikes!""
I walked over and put my hand on my little sister's shoulder. It felt like steel chord wound around re-bar.
"...that scared me back there. Are you O.K.? You know what they wanted, right?!"
"I keep telling you, Thomas, mom was a great teacher and she knew what was coming. Give her some credit, would ya? She told me all that stuff…" she taunted me and I remembered the smirking laugh she painted the ceiling with in that deserted laboratory back at Monroe. I guess my little sister was finally growing up. That encounter with the scavengers hadn't fazed her at all. Then I realized I had just been conned into bicycling through the next shift to recharge our power storage.

Little did we know dad had spoken so prophetically. It happened so suddenly that June bug and I came to be on our own. We had known through our parents about the Cungee, when as children my father, to keep us in line would promise on his next outing to inform these creatures of our bad behavior. It was the most frightening thought we could conjure, because we knew virtually nothing about them except that they weren't human beings. Well, not completely humans anyway. And a small child's imagination will do a fine job of stirring up fearful thoughts about an unknown entity when left to its own devices. Dad understood this and knew to tell us just enough, but not all. Our parents thought it would be unkind and somewhat abusive to tell the whole truth about the mutants. Mother always opted to speak pitifully of them when we would ask, telling us that they had once been people just like us until contamination had set in.
We went farther away from town than ever before. We never went toward town. Dad usually forbade us, not telling us why; he said we were not old enough to hear the war stories. I figured June wouldn't sleep well with the knowledge. I never realized that what we experienced on the run that night would take June and I into a phase of near sleepless living that would stay with us the rest of our lives.
Our parents knew the area very well before the mass socio-economic collapse and the contaminant spread over the land. After mom's passing we started to take more chances farther out. Dad said he wanted us to develop a stricter discipline and to hone it with elements of danger. Evidently, adrenaline was an important catalyst in combining with the synthetics saturating our systems and would take us beyond our normal physical benchmarks. Permanent changes in our physicality were occuring rapidly on a daily basis. Bug had proved this to be so on several occasions and I was starting to experience explosive symptoms myself.
It was an open air mall west of our underground, closer to the Ni River Power Plant where the concentration of contamination was denser. Most of that area was over-scavenged already. Usually, the things our father would look for never had any appeal to scavengers; they were building blocks for other components. He would build everything and anything from these found items. It was a very dark moonless night and the quiet was ungodly. June was off a little ways and I wasn't far from dad in the same building when he stumbled upon them. It was a brood of Cungee in the back of what appeared to have been a department store. There were old ragged clothes filling the room. They were sleeping nearby when dad found the wire hangers, tons of them. He was so happy he cried out, and then shouted for me to come back. As I started on my way to him I heard a horrendous growl and his screaming. I got to the room in time to see the brood's mother tear his arm off and put it in her mouth, and then rip his other arm off and tossed it over to her young. My father went unconscious soon after. I froze momentarily under the wave of horror that washed over me, then jolted, my entire metabolism accelerated, bringing everything around me to near stand-still. My body burst with force that propelled me over to this monster. She hadn't even known I was there, her attention diverted by the meal, and wasn't aware still as my fist passed through her face. Her head caved in and I was covered with her rotting flesh. My arm burned terribly, but I was unmindful of the pain in my hyper-state. Her carcass collapsed, and I caught my dad's limp body in my clean hand as she let him go. The babies stopped their momentary wrangling over my father's other arm and turned their attention menacingly on me. Just then a flash of color passed in front of my face and over to the dark corner where these natal travesties stood frothing at the mouth. There was the quick glint of steel as the tops of their heads flew up, and then dropped, to land beside them as they gaped. Simultaneously they crumpled to the ground, again not knowing my sister's blade had so quickly ended their miserable existence.
As we ran through the countryside, a blurring landscape, dad made gurgling noises, but nothing more. Bug’s crying filled my ears as we sped past the hills toward home. No matter how much speed I poured on I couldn't get the stench out of my nostrils. Before departing, June had snatched up dad's left arm. The other appendage had dissolved in the digestive fluids of the creature's mouth. I controlled the revulsion and urge to vomit when I saw the pool of flesh and bones lying on the floor. I rapidly filled the back room with ammonia nitrate from the garden center of the store and detonated it with one of our homemade concussion grenades. The explosion launched us into the night away from the scene. My sister and I were in shock. Like missiles without a guidance system, we hurtled toward home and the outer regions running, oblivious to our devastated surroundings, wanting only to land somewhere, on something, and to bring ruin with us.

We prepared my father the same way we had my mother, they were added to the garden as they had requested. June liked to go in there sometimes and talk to the plants. She felt they were somehow connected to our parents, because they had absorbed the nutrients and made them a part of themselves, so in a sense our parents were living through this lovely garden. The belief was a comfort to June at least – to me it was only a theory. No faith in the unseen, no belief system could quell the rage simmering within my heart. For a man of my father’s stature to have been torn apart so grotesquely in such an undignified and agonizing way was abhorrent to me. I hated this reality and would bring punishment to this world in whatever way I could, especially the Cungee, pitiful or not.
Besides, there was the matter of my arm. It wouldn’t heal and it hurt something awful. June and I knew all too well what was happening to it. The burnt, mottled skin started slowly moving up my arm, as the entire appendage from the finger tips to halfway near the elbow took on a deep gray discoloration. I was contaminated.
“You know what we have to do, June, you know it has to come off!’ I said.
“I’m not a medic, Tommy, I’m a mechanic. I don’t know the kinds of stuff mom knew about. …..I…I would've went to MIT, dad said, not medical school!” She was panicky.
"C'mon Bug, buck up...I need this! Just use the wedge and a mallet. I'll take a sedative - you can do this." I pleaded.
"Then what?!" My sister gasped incredulously, "...I watch you bleed all over the underground...NO! I'm not taking responsibility for THAT!!"
"Look, June, I've got a couple of weeks at the outside. You can rig one of your mechanical creations - strap it on, I'll be fine! I trust you Junebug, you're a genius with tools, you can build anything...” I couldn't keep the note of desperation out of my voice and I know I must've looked scarred as hell, because Junie relented and went back into the workshop. I didn't see her for a long time after that.
The rancid growth slowly crawled up the arm. The pain was excruciating on a physical level, but the sense of loss and revulsion was more overwhelming. I watched what appeared to be a separate life form, independent, sentient moving up my arm, engulfing my elbow. I was sick, as wave upon wave of nausea, pain and horror overtook my spirit and crippled me in its grip. Repeated attempts to gain Bug's attention through the metal door of the lab brought no result, she had locked herself in and wasn't responding. One morning I found a note lying just outside the entrance to the laboratory. June needed to know how far it had spread, would I need an attachment at the elbow or higher. I wrote back, knowing she had completed the project and was trying to solve the problem of integrating the prosthesis. Then the day came when the door flew open and a disheveled version of my baby sister stood there with a huge piece of gleaming, metallic armature in her right hand.
" Oh God, Thomas, that limb smells worse than I do...I'll gladly hack it off now. I'm gonna have to knock you cold first though." she haggardly leaned in the door jamb.
"I need some cooked food, give me a minute......then we'll proceed."
"Thanks sis, I had almost given up hope." The forearm was completely eaten up and I had bagged it to midway up the bicep. The smell was intolerable and I was frantic by now. Bug went to the pantry where all the food was processed, while I looked over her work. It was a streamlined marvel. I held it up to the light and moved it in my hands, open then close. It had the mobility of an actual appendage, but the appearance was sophisticated and sleek.
"I left room for a self-contained power servo in the bicep." I jumped a little, startled, and turned around as the strong smell of breakfast filled my nostrils. Junebug leaned in the doorway scooping heaps of re-hydrated eggs and bacon into her mouth.
"I told you that Hydro-splitter was customizable, all I need is a power source of some sort..." she said between gulps.
"It's perfect Junie, you are a master! ...don't you worry about power, I've already come up with a solution for that splitter, but we have to get to the plant out at Ni River." She dropped the plate on the lab floor and her mouth fell open as she stared at me in disbelief.
"No........no....NO!" she shouted at me. "I'M NOT GOING OUT THERE!!! .....are you crazy?! That whole area is crawling with Cungee, Thomas! Wasn't one encounter ENOUGH FOR YOU?!"
"The only energy that will power that hydrosplitter, Bug, is out there at that plant. We need it if we're going to take this facility to the next level, sis, please. Think of the applications in virtually every aspect of running this base. Once we get it up and running, it'll be self-renewing, an unlimited source of energy. We could power the bikes, the generators, the food processors, our information center - on one cell! Think of it, no more running out in the open! .......besides, I need your speed, Junie. I can't take those beasts on by myself - not with just this arm." I pleaded with her knowing full well my little sister never said no for long to her big brother and I would never refuse her either. As I prepared the injection, Bug approached me.
"What about dogs?" Looking through the hypodermic into the overhead light as I bled the air out of the top of the needle I said.
"I've got a plan for the dog packs, dear sister, leave it to me. Just be gentle with that mallet when you separate my arm from the shoulder."
"The socket has to remain intact, I know, or the ball and pin at the top of the armature will be useless. Looks good though Tommy. You're gonna be the prettiest Halfling in these parts."
"Oh, God," I groaned, the image it conjured just wasn't as funny as it was intended to be. "Please, make this quick." I started to tremble a little as we walked across the hall to the sleeping quarters.


II



There is nothing new to time travel, it has been with mankind since the first human fell asleep; as long as we're traveling forward. I lost a day and spent the next one in a kind of semi-coma. I lay on the bed strapped down, not fully comprehending why my entire right side wouldn't respond to my will. I was too weak to make much of a fuss. My sister floated in and out of my vision, feeding me, holding the towel under my chin as I drank, reassuring me and mopping my forehead.
As the weakness wore off and my head cleared up, June was sure to give warnings and aid in any sudden movements I had to make. Every time I would try and get comfortable by shifting my weight, Bug would be on me, making sure I didn’t rip the prosthesis off. She was constantly salving the shoulder in steroidal compound. It quickly grew together from both the inside and the outside. Soon I was up on my own getting to the toilet and eating in the dinning room. The appendage’s weight wasn’t a problem at all. At first, I felt soreness in the shoulder socket joint, but as Junie helped me get accustomed to its heft, I was able to manipulate it easily. Now it was just a matter of building strength on that side of my torso to compensate for it. Getting good at doing all the things we take for granted with our limbs took a few more weeks of rehab, but I soon had it. During which time Junebug and I hammered out our plan of attack for the assault on the Ni River power station.
Instead of pedaling, we had decided to motor in. I realized the compact 100cc engines would give our positions away, but they would also give us the advantage of quicker escape if we were set upon by beasts, men or things. The entire area was rural and unmapped. I knew which routes to take to get to the reservoir, but from there it would be a matter of feeling our way around the perimeter until we came upon the complex. I was reassured by the strong dual suspension frames on the bikes. We had a good deal of versatility with these rugged machines. They could haul a hundred pounds of gear if need be and had interchangeable racks front and back. My father and Bug had designed several types of mounts that snapped in and locked down tightly, distributing weight evenly and keeping them balanced. There were mounts for heavy work such as winching or ramming. Also turrets for assault and defense like launchers and cutters. Bug suggested splitting our options between defense and assault. I agreed. I had always been a big proponent of the bows. It was a device we could use to either defend against an attack or assault a high wall. And if we needed to clear a path of any sort the smaller darts made great explosive weapons.
As we planned, Bug became more confident about the whole affair and began her long range plans for the application and development of the newly powered hydrosplitter. Her creativity knew no bounds. She even came up with ideas to fortify the underground and make it impenetrable. With a renewable power source, so many more options were now available to us. I drew up a series of schematics for the mounts, while June calculated weight distributions for the vehicles. Final preparations were made and we gathered our needed supplies and ammo. I waited until I saw just the right demeanor in my sister before I stopped feigning being physically uncoordinated, hinting that I felt confident with the new arm. I started showing her little tricks I had been privately practicing alone. My sister was duly impressed and reassured that I was going to be fine on my own. The big night was fast approaching and I had coordinated the assault according to the lunar calendar. I needed a moonless night, but there was one more thing I wanted to check on. We would make a short run to test our vehicles, attack strategy and the use of my arm under actual combat conditions. It involved going back to Monroe, one more time to see if the Feds had arrived yet.

"The Feds?" she blurted out, "Thomas, I can't believe you've got us involved with the Feds." I had expected as much and was prepared to explain it to Bug before we set off. "This was dad's idea. Look, he and I have always had a plan for making sure you were safe, Junie. He didn't want you to know that he was part of the Federal Government's think tank on the ‘Splitter Project’. How do you think he knew about it and exactly where it was at Monroe?" The look of consternation on Junebug's face was pitiable and Thomas fought with himself to restrain the smile that was battling to breakout on his lips. She was always the last to find out, but expected to go along with the scheme anyway. It wasn't fair and Thomas knew it.
"So those scavengers that jumped me weren't Townies?"
"No, they were. If they had been Feds we would have seen some sort of vehicle outside or they would have been armed in some way, you know Tasers or darts, something." I reassured my little sister.
"...and now you want me to tag along while you do what?" she asked incredulous.
"We're just going to recon the University and get the vehicles worked in. I need to test the arm."
"So what makes you think they'll be there?"
"Well, dad said eventually the government would have to show up and stake the place out, set up a perimeter to make sure they'd not be interfered with, while they looked for the prototype."
"You mean we have the only one? Oh my God, do you realize what this means? Thomas, we are ahead of the entire world on this one!" I could see the gears in her head spinning wildly as she calculated the potential for this new development. June was a genius on that score. I got excited just thinking about what was to come of our new find once June got it powered up and back in her lab. It boggled my imagination to think of its uses. The hydrosplitter was self contained and generated energy upon itself by smashing hydrogen molecules, splitting heavy water. There was no phase diminishing due to the container of the engine itself, so it was endlessly regenerating. Dad had said it was the most efficient engine ever conceived and he had been on the team that built it. I had his journals and some other documents on the power theory, so that June and I would be prepared to take this device to all of the levels within its potential. Our parents had thought of everything. They were true visionaries and I was blessing my lucky stars as I watched Bug's face. We were going to be right on the crest of the wave that would take mankind out of this dark period and into the light of the future. My sister's name would be remembered for ages to come. Our alpha brainwaves must've locked, because the thought dawned on us both simultaneously. Without saying a word, we ran into each other's arms. June was crying.
"I miss mom and dad so much, Tommy. They thought of everything. I wish I could show them how much I love them right now!"
"I know June, I miss them as well." I cooed, as I stroked her hair, while her tears ran down my natural shoulder. "...and you will show them your love, Bug, this is your time. You will show everyone what our parent's love for man was about. Dad said the main reason we had to protect you was, because YOU are the Godsend, Junie! Mom was given the prophecy and told it to dad. I believe in you, little sister." Now she was ready to go to Monroe and the Ni River plant. Junebug would ride through hell to bring her parents vision of man’s rebirth to pass. She understood what she had to do. I don't think a ferocious pack of Cungie dogs could keep my sister from this mission.



III



The night air was crisp and bit into my cheekbones as we sat in the cold, moon filled parking lot on top of the hill looking down at the entrance to James Monroe University. It swarmed with armed men, black vehicles and lights. This didn’t look good to me; not enough cloud cover and the entire area was bathed in a Lunar brilliance - only made brighter by the thin, cold air.
“God, Tommy, maybe not tonight, huh, it’s like broad daylight out here?!” June suggested squirming on the seat of her highly polished Chromalloy Diamondback.
“The better, Bug, we won’t need our head lamps and they won’t be able to draw a bead on us.” I still didn’t feel good about it, but I never trusted my gut anyway. I knew, the thing about fear was never to let it make your decisions for you.
“We’ll pedal down and friction start the engines for a quick get away if need be.” I told her. There were several hillocks to ride down and around until we would come up alongside of the grouping of cars and men stationed as a barricade at the double front doors. They were relaxed and smoking as they cajoled each other with their weapons at their sides. Occasionally, a burst of group laughter rang out over the small hills reaching June and I as we watched from above.
“O.K., coast down slowly, Bug.” I whispered.
Our two Diamondbacks slithered stealthily down the series of hills, side winding back and forth, like two camouflaged snakes reflecting only the color of their surroundings. The grey riding suits were doing the job and made our vehicles appear to be without riders. We knew that out of anyone’s peripheral vision June and I were quite naturally invisible. The full moon was working to our advantage. Junebug understood the plan; quick in, grab weapons, quick out - rendezvous back at the underground. We held at the east side of the main building and loaded the launchers on front. June had smoke and flash canisters, I had concussion. We both carried tranq side arms. I released the safety off the net-winch on my bike’s rear. June released the safety off the Tumblers on the back of her bike. We were ready for the assault.
The only thing that alerted them was the hissing coming through the air, but by the time they reacted it was too late. The canisters hit, 1–2–3, FLASH – BOOM, then billows of smoke. They were on their rear ends blind and we were upon them, in and among them, zigging and zagging through the cloud of smoke like grey ghosts. Tasers were firing and miss firing in every direction as the group of G men tried to hit us in vain. I was able to snatch one gun raised aimlessly in the cloud as I streaked by. My arm felt strong and responsive, that portion of the mission was a rousing success. We could hear shouting and confusion, feet stumbling around, an electrical smell hung heavy in the air all around us.
Suddenly, I heard the double doors thrust open and I knew backup had arrived. There was another sound that I didn’t like at all. It was barking and I knew it was time to bolt – they had set dogs loose on us.
“STARTERS!” I yelled and heard June’s engine catch immediately. Mine caught a millisecond later and I followed the sound of June’s engine west away from the underground. Car doors slammed shut and colored lights came on through the heavy grey mist covering everything. We knew the cars weren’t going to be able to follow us, but the dogs were close behind following the noise of our engines. I pulled up along side of her bike and we sped onward side by side. I knew the route June would take - one that would lead away from our home. We would stick to the roads for a short while, then loop wide along the rural countryside until it was safe to head toward home. There was the crashing sound of heavy drums hitting asphalt. I chanced a glance backward as one car crashed into the water filled metal drums and the glass windows shattered. Its tires blew and it screamed to a sideways, skidding halt. Then the other pursuit vehicles plowed into it with the roar of multiple concussions. I laughed out loud, knowing June had put the Tumblers to good use. My little sister could show genius in her timing when need be. The dogs were another problem all together. I suddenly knew how these beasts might be able to serve us instead. They might follow us for miles. The trick would be to lead them on by intermittently slowing and speeding up to keep them with us. I whistled my sister to go on ahead, while I put my plan into play.



To be continued......