End of Gray Skies: An Apocalyptic Thriller Read online

  Harold swung the back of his hand and flattened Richie’s bandaged nose, breaking it for a second time that day. Richie fell to his knees, screaming as blood spurted from beneath the bandages.

  “Nobody touches her! Ever!” Harold yelled at him.

  Sammi held her breath and gripped the metal seat post, waiting for Harold to take another step. Instead, he raised his hands, like he’d done before, and motioned to the stairs. Cautious relief tempted her heart at the offer, and her mind flooded with the idea of running to the stairwell. But then Harold’s expression changed, and a scornful look appeared in his eyes. He’d noticed the rolled blankets on the balcony floor. He picked them up and pulled them into his face, inhaling deeply before tossing the bedroll back down.

  “You were going to choose Declan today, weren’t you?”

  “I’d never choose you,” she spat at him, and saw in Harold’s eyes a true hurt. But she didn’t stop; she didn’t care. “I’ve chosen Declan. I’ve always chosen him!”

  “Hold her down!” Harold huffed without hesitation or fear. But the boys didn’t move; Richie tended to his broken nose, while Peter held onto his bleeding arm. Sammi saw the fury in Harold’s eyes as he stepped toward her.

  Sammi swung the metal post wildly, just missing Harold’s face as he quickly leaned back out of range. But she’d thrown all her weight into the swing, and her momentum carried her off balance. As she toppled, she realized what was going to happen. Her heart and breath stopped; her body crashed against the balcony railing.

  When the wood splintered and broke away, Sammi was certain that a hand was on her. It was Harold. His fingers were splayed across her back, but she couldn’t tell if he was pushing her, or trying to pull her to safety from the balcony’s edge.

  What happened next seemed to last forever, but was actually over in just a blink. As she fell, Sammi let her mind drift to the safety of that distant place she’d found when she was just twelve. She listened to the sweet sounds of her mother’s voice, singing a lullaby—one that she’d never get to sing to her own children now. She thought of the warm touches of Declan’s hands on her skin, and heard his voice breathe words that proclaimed his love for her. The theater came to her eyes a final time. First, there was the balcony, with Harold and the boys watching helplessly as she fell. Then, when her legs rolled above her head, she glimpsed the stage, where she’d shared a passionate kiss with Declan. Finally, she saw the immense opening in the roof, as she landed on her back, staring upward.

  Pain didn’t find her mind at first, but she heard her bones crunch against the floor, and felt the air rush out of her lungs. The view in her eyes exploded in a flash of white light, before dimming to black.

  The faint sounds of the boys’ feet trudging down the stairs stirred her awake. The taste of blood filled the back of her throat, and she tried to get up and vomit, but she couldn’t move. She blinked away something warm that was running into her eye, stinging as it escaped down her face. Harold’s piggy face came into view, and when she tried to speak, she only coughed up blood that splattered across his skin. She watched him swipe a guilty hand at his face, turning his fingers over to look at the blood. Richie and Peter pawed at his shoulders, exclaiming that it was an accident, and that they had to go. The theater went dark again.

  Sammi heaved a throaty breath and blinked past the blood stinging her eyes. Soft fur rubbed under her fingers, and she heard the purr and quiet mewl of one of her cats as it searched for a treat. Sammi nudged her head and wanted to smile, but was stuck somewhere between life and death. She moved her hand to pet the feral cat, to invite some of the cat’s affections as she slid closer to death. The warm taste of blood filled the back of her throat again, and this time she turned her head and vomited. She was vaguely aware of the warmth growing below her waist, but didn’t know if it was blood or if her bladder had let go.

  That was when her vision cleared, and she saw the metal remains of a seat post protruding from her belly. But it couldn’t be the one she’d defended herself with. She gasped when she came to understand the horror of what had happened to her. Clenching her teeth, frightened, and fighting the deluge of pain that was suffocating her mind, she realized that she was stuck: she’d landed on one of the metal seat posts that sprouted from the theater floor. More blood came then, and she turned to cough it out. Her coverall pants were growing cold, and she shivered as bumps crawled up and down her arms.

  The feral cat came closer to her face and laid his body alongside hers. Sammi welcomed the warmth. While she couldn’t move, her body trembled and shook uncontrollably. A single paw gently grazed her chin, and she looked into a comforting pair of green eyes that she’d come to love. She was dying, and regrets began to flood her mind as the blood poured from the wound in her side.

  The cat flinched, then hissed, baring its teeth and laying its ears flat. Sammi heard the rapid patter of feet along the floor. She wheezed out a heavy breath, fearing that Harold had come back for her. But when she heard Declan’s voice, and saw his eyes, her heart filled with the pain and remorse of knowing that he was going to see her die. He rushed to her side and dropped to his knees, but she wanted him to leave. She wanted to scream at him, to tell him to get up and leave—she tried, but she couldn’t say anything. The awfulness of knowing that his last memory with her was going to be her grisly death was too much.

  The feral cat stayed with them, approving of Declan’s presence. When the pain in her side began to ease, and the blood in her mouth thinned, she knew that her time was short.

  It doesn’t hurt as much anymore, she thought, and felt the fluttery yawn of butterfly wings as she considered what awaited her in death. She reached for the lock of hair, pulling the pin from the front of her coveralls, and thrust it into Declan’s hand.

  “I choose you,” she told him, pushing her words. “Declan, I choose you.”

  Tears streamed down his face as he held her hand. He fixed his eyes on hers, nodding. His voice shook, but his words were clear. “I accept you as chosen, Sammi… I always have.”

  ******

  Declan couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t speak. He saw the splintered wood of the balcony railing, and Sammi lying on the theater’s floor, but struggled to comprehend what had happened. He dropped to his knees, taken aback by the rawness of what lay in front of him. Sammi’s broken body wavered in his watery eyes while he fought to understand how this could possibly be.

  When he found his voice, he answered her, with words that came out in tortured sobs. He told her he’d be her chosen. He told her that he’d always been her chosen. Holding her hand, his heart ached and he embraced the lock of hair that she’d offered him.

  Emotions choked his words, and he wove his fingers around hers, locking them together, as he tried to soothe her pain. He brushed the blood away from her face, only to see more of it hemorrhage from the corner of her eye. His eyes darted quickly from her toes, to her chest, to her neck, assessing all that was wrong. Gulping at the air, he had to stop when the count of everything appearing to be broken overwhelmed him. One of her legs was turned outward in a way that was unnatural. Her left arm was pinned beneath her body, and she seemed unaware that she couldn’t move it. But what completely destroyed his hope that she might survive the fall was the metal shaft that protruded from her belly. Blood, bright red and pooling under her, pulsed through her coveralls. With its noticeable smell biting the salty air, he knew Sammi had already lost too much blood.

  He carefully crept around the metal rod, trying to find a way to lift Sammi and free her. The cat’s ears went flat, and its eyes bulged: round and black. A furry arm swung outward, clawing at his hands, as if to warn him that he needed to be careful. Sammi’s screams turned to faint moans, and she groaned whenever he touched the injury. Each of her harrowed objections killed him a little inside.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he finally cried to her, caressing her face. Her breathing grew shallow, and then seemed to stop for a moment before she coughed more
blood from her lips. Declan saw how pale she’d become, and that her lips had turned gray, and a little blue.

  “I’m sorry you have to see this,” Sammi managed to say, and then she squeezed his hand. “Just be with me.” She took another breath, staring into his eyes. “Declan, it doesn’t hurt anymore,” she whispered. “I think… I might be okay now.”

  At those words, Declan began to weep. The sound of her voice thinned to just a weak breath, and he knew that there was nothing he could do to save her. His heart broke as he felt Sammi drifting away.

  Sammi’s face began to change. Her hair and her skin became brighter, drenched in colors he’d not seen before. Her eyes began to glow, reflecting yellow orbs that stared back at him, bright and intense. Sammi was smiling at him then; her expression was one of awe, and she gave his hand a weak squeeze. “Isn’t it amazing?” she said, her voice hoarse and strained.

  Odd warmth grew across Declan’s back and shoulders, confusing him. From outside of the theater, he heard the Commune bells ringing, people cheering. He heard loud explosions of laughter, and singing, and celebrating. All around him, the theater was becoming brighter, more alive, saturated in colors that revealed a time lost so many centuries before. For the first time in Declan’s life, a sudden breeze swept over his face. A world of fog held no winds to move weather against the turn of their planet, but the gush of air pushed his skin and flowed through his hair. It was breathtaking. He watched Sammi slowly close, then open her eyes, seeming to marvel at the same things.

  The yellow orbs in her eyes grew more intense, and he could see the magnificence of her color and beauty. Her eyes, her hair, her skin looked purer than at any other time in their lives. She gleamed with the sunshine raining down on their bodies, and Declan turned to face the End of Gray Skies. His eyes burned instantly from the direct sunlight, and he had to shut them. Even closed, he could still see echoes of the sun dancing in front of him. Absorbing the sun’s rays, he felt his skin warm like it had never done before.

  “It’s amazing! Absolutely amazing, Sammi! Isn’t it?” he exclaimed, and squeezed her hand. When Sammi didn’t reply, Declan knew that she was gone. He threw his face to the sky, opened his eyes, and looked past the sun as a rush of anguish washed over him. He didn’t want to look at Sammi. He didn’t want to see her like that. A slow rumble grew somewhere deep inside of him. His body quivered as the emotions grew in his chest, then exploded in a scream full of anger and hurt.

  Declan pulled Sammi’s hand up to his heart and leaned over, feathering her face with his lips. Her eyes still looked alive, reflecting the glimmers of sunlight. Instinct told him to close them, but he left them as they were. Even as the torture of her loss pained him, he knew that if there was any chance that Sammi could still see and feel the sunlight, he wanted her to have every precious moment of it.

  8

  AS DECLAN PREPARED HIMSELF for Sammi’s rite of cleaning and passing, he wondered if he’d ever see Harold again. He thought it was doubtful, but decided that he’d end him if given the chance. Soon after Sammi’s tragic death, Harold had been found alone in his dwelling, blubbering that what had happened was an accident. There weren’t many who’d listen to him. Peter and Richie had abandoned their leader, with Richie pointing his scraggy, crooked finger and sobbing, telling everyone that Harold had pushed Sammi.

  Many in the Commune were devastated by Sammi’s loss. Word quickly spread to other Communes about the death of the fair, red-haired girl. Sammi’s parents received condolences from Communes in their region, and even a few from across their territory. After all, Sammi was an anomaly, as Ms. Gilly had once put it. But to most, she was more than that: Sammi was a reminder of who they used to be, and was a symbol of who they might become again, one day.

  Declan’s heart filled with a familiar ache when he saw the people gathering. He’d been invited to stand with Sammi’s mother and father, to help prepare her for the passing to the farming floor. It was ceremony; it was an honor. Ms. Gilly had been invited as well; she embraced him, wetted his cheek with her tears as she whispered how sorry she was that such an awful thing had happened. He nodded absently, looking past his teacher, holding back his emotion. The anger toward Harold and the hurt of losing Sammi consumed him, sat in him like a poison slowly releasing toxins that would destroy his soul.

  Sammi’s body was brought to them in front of an ancient cleaning table. Soft, hollow sounds were made as her body was laid down on the metal slab. Her long locks of curly red hair hung over the steel edge like the ancient fabric from the movie theater chairs where he’d found her. The mortician emptied her coverall pockets, giving to Sammi’s mother and father the small candle that she’d shared with him in the theater. Declan fixed his eyes on the candle, lips trembling, and swallowed back the temptation to cry. His body shuddered, and he cursed the tears that wanted to come.

  Ms. Gilly commented that the pinned lock of Sammi’s hair was missing from the front of her coveralls. Declan gripped his hand around the precious gift hidden in his palm. The sharp edge of the pin cut into his skin, but he didn’t care; he ignored the pain. Sammi had given him her lock of hair when she’d chosen him, and he’d never part with it. As Ms. Gilly and Sammi’s parents continued the ritual, he put it into his pocket and pressed it close to him.

  Declan picked up the thin material of Sammi’s coverall zipper, and paused. Finding her dead eyes with his, he tried to understand how it could be that they’d gotten to this moment. Today was the day that they were supposed to have been joined; the day they were supposed to make love for the first time. She’d chosen him. Instead, it was the day that he would help prepare her for the farming floor; prepare her to feed the earthy loam and growth-beds, to freely give away the wealth of her body, the light of her soul. A sudden stubbornness turned inside him, and selfishness grew. But he didn’t act on it.

  He pulled her front zipper down, exposing her body from her chin to her navel, while her parents removed the wrapped coverings from her feet. Ms. Gilly brought them the cleaning cloth and bowl, taking great care to not spill the mix of water and decomp salts that would be used. When Sammi’s body was freed from all civil reminders, and was as it had been on the first day of her life, they were ready to begin.

  Sammi’s mother and father looked upon their daughter’s naked body, their eyes moving over her broken leg, and then to what had killed their only child. They gripped one another, overcome by the sight in front of them, so Declan took the cleaning cloth in his hand and began to remove the blood from around the wound that had ended her life. The place where the metal post had entered Sammi’s body was a gnarled rip in her otherwise perfect skin.

  Dried blood, scaly and brown, stained Sammi’s fair skin like an affront to something pure. As he touched the cleaning cloth to her belly, the blood thinned until the stains were gone. He heard the trickling sound of water, and watched as wispy trails of sallow red flowed along her pale legs to the end of the table. The water and blood would be carried to the Commune’s waste-recycler, where it would join the thousands of words he’d written during his short life, trapped forever in the gravelly ash and sandy filters. From his coverall pocket, he felt the outline of the writing stone she’d given him, and in that moment, he decided that he would never write another word.

  When her wound was cleaned, Declan moved to brush Sammi’s hair, while her parents cleaned her fingers and nails. He pulled the hairbrush though her long red curls, watching as Ms. Gilly wiped away any remains of that awful day from Sammi’s face.

  At times he had to stop. At times he thought he couldn’t continue. But Ms. Gilly consoled him, and helped to keep him going. For the next hour, they cleaned every part of Sammi’s body until all the filth from their gray world was gone.

  When the rite of cleaning concluded, those attending said their final goodbyes, leaving Declan to be alone with Sammi. Before going to the theater, she’d shared with her family that she’d chosen Declan; and as her chosen, it was his responsibility to see
her through the passing, through what would be Sammi’s final moments in their shared form. At once, the emotion he’d been holding back welled up beyond what he could keep inside. He took Sammi’s naked body into his arms. Her skin was cold and lifeless, but he held her firmly, as sorrow tumbled from his lips, spilled from his eyes onto her bare skin. He’d cried until his body ached, and only when he felt the warm touch of the mortician’s hand upon his shoulder did he finally lay Sammi back onto the table. He kissed her, then: first her eyes, after gently closing them, and then her lips, for a final time. He told her that he loved her, and thanked her for choosing him, and then he reminded her that choosing meant forever.

  ******

  Days after Sammi’s cleaning and passing, the End of Gray Skies had already begun to reverse itself. But for a week, or maybe more, the world had been normal. The sun dwarfed the Earth, rising in the mornings and falling in the evenings. The clouds lifted back to the sky, crossing an endless blue sea, as if the centuries of fog had been forgotten. Children ran, untethered and fearless, shrieking and playing, and were called to come inside only when the daylight faded.

  Declan tried to share in the miracle. He even forced himself outside, favoring the sunset over the sunrise. Yet, standing as the sun disappeared on the horizon, and with a twinge in his heart, his mind always went to Sammi, and their last moments together.

  Sammi Sunshine, he thought to himself as he walked alone around the Commune. He passed the theater a dozen or more times, with no longer any need for the morse lines, but still he couldn’t bring himself to lift his eyes from the painted markings. On occasion, he’d bring with him a protein cracker or two, and feed a few of the feral cats that trusted his company. Some days, he tried not to cry while the cats purred and ran figure eights around his legs. And some days, he even tried to smile. But most days, he just tried to live and imagine his life without her.