Aftermath 01

Inspired by the Halloween 2008 enactment of War of the Worlds 2 on Twitter, I began writing a story to follow my alter-ego’s experiences during the aftermath of the alien invasion. By the time I got past 1400 words, stopping only from exhaustion, I realized I had a book on my hands.

This is the rough, unedited first draft of Chapter One. Read more chapters and the story process here.

1
~~~

I awoke.

Perhaps it wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary, to awaken in the cool, gray dawn of a November morning. I never thought much of it on most mornings before.

But that was before.

I came to an awareness of myself this foggy morning, breathed a shock of cold air into my lungs, and felt my heart pound. I was alive. Thank God.

But then, like a rock slide, reminders of yesterday hit me, one by one. Sharp ones first, like the lingering throb of the headache nothing would alleviate last night, and pain from the raw burn on my left arm and side. Then tumbling little sensations—gaggy smells of disinfectant and smoke and unnatural rotting flesh in the air; the ironic silence of a world that tried to dawn like any other; the taste of stale blood in my mouth, where I’d nearly bit the side of my cheek away during a fall. Finally, the heaviest weight of all, crushing my chest: the lives lost. The macabre visions replayed in my mind. Men, women, and children vaporized, their last expressions of terror seared into my eyes forever. Cities decimated, never ever to be the same again. Friends lost. Families destroyed. A world in chaos.

Because of last night.

I gasped for breath and heaved my shoulders up, rolling to my side; but the weight couldn’t be cast off. It came with me. For a moment I lay still, with my face pressed against the stiff sheets of the hospital bed. That alone was more than most others had this morning—a bed, with blankets. We had taken refuge in an abandoned hospital, so there were beds to spare. But not many of us dared to spread out alone last night. Most of the twenty survivors in my group had huddled in knots of two or three, clutching each other in desperate panic. I couldn’t take it anymore…I finally commanded my leaden feet to carry me away from everyone. Not far, only down the hall. I felt secure enough, especially since the guard troops had arrived near midnight. But I needed to be alone, where I could get a handle on my grief, in whatever way it chose to manifest itself.

Once I established that I had survived and was awake, I expected to find the grief overwhelming, rendering me unable to pull myself from the grasp of depression. But oddly enough, it wasn’t grieving that drew me in—it was a sense of urgency, of drive. An impetus to get up and get moving. I couldn’t understand it—the Earth as I knew it was destroyed, laid waste by an invading army from an alien world. My family was gone, lost in the first sweeping attack. What was there to get up for?

Keep moving, the words seemed to echo in my mind. Get up, find them. Find survivors, move on.

I pressed my elbow into the mattress and raised my body up on one side. It hurt. I shivered in the cold, and dragged the blanket with me as I slowly unfolded myself from the bed, feeling every strained muscle and bashed joint. I rubbed my face with the blanket to waken my senses. The gray light was filling the room, like snow flurries that had finally collected enough to make their presence known. I deliberately didn’t look out the grimy window when I slid my feet into my shoes and stood. I was afraid of what I would see in the daylight—it had been horrible enough in the dark.

Little more than twenty-four hours had passed since the first meteor showers marked the beginning of the tragedy; so in a way, it made sense that I still felt as if the battle was not yet over. But that went beyond reason. Every report we saw said that the monstrous tripod bots and their pilots were dead, beaten by the life forms that often landed human beings behind hospital walls: germs. Plain and simple. The aliens had no resistance to our bacteria. They were defeated by the common cold.

So why did I feel like we were still on the run?

I left the thought unanswered and stepped softly across the room to try out the bathroom facilities; they still worked. Even the hot water worked, and I splashed it over my face with relief. It stung the raw burns and scratches that covered my skin, but I didn’t care. I looked up from the towel and faced my own visage in the mirror—young enough, but suddenly so very old. Haggard shadows under my sunken eyes, lurking in the tense lines that framed my mouth. I quickly took up a handful of my long brown hair and twisted it into a knotted ponytail at the back of my neck, fastening it with the stray rubber bands that held a packet of hospital-issue tissues together. I gave one last, doleful glance at my face, almost breaking down in tears at the hopeless expression in my own eyes. But whenever I tried to give in to those tears, there was nothing there. Just a few drops to promise relief, then nothing in the reservoir after all. Much like the unfulfilled promise of rain that had been my biggest worry day before yesterday.

I pulled the blanket around my shoulders again and huddled into it as if it were a poncho, then crossed to the door. I swept a hesitant glance back at the room. I didn’t want to leave, in a way, because I didn’t want to face what was ahead of me. I felt numb, devoid of the sorrow I knew I should feel. Half detached, hovering on the brink of defensive denial. But I couldn’t sink into the merciful arms of denial—I had too strong a sense of work left to be done. And some force other than my Self was driving me to do it.

Find survivors. Move on.

I entered the hall and let the door slide closed behind me. It was too quiet in the hospital; my imagination began to conjure up horrific scenarios as explanation. They had come back, to destroy everyone. They were there, standing behind me. I glanced back warily. But there was no one there.

~~~~~

(c) 2008 Christine Taylor, All Rights Reserved