Fyre

1.

M ommy, the sky is burning.

2.

Lying on his back, drifting in those narrow, quiet spaces between sleeping and waking, Washington enjoyed the early moments of the day. Time and its loathsome limitations seemed to hold no sway during those dreamy minutes which, when he was lucky, seemed to stretch themselves into some distant possibility beyond forever.

Sometimes past, sometimes present, and sometimes what could only be future images danced in his darkened eyes. Washington had no way to control or predict his visions, but anything was better than nothing.

He peered into the gradually gathering images which began to form into sounds, then variations of dark and light, and finally into colors and shapes.

Recognizing the distinct sounds of children’s laughter, adults’ voices, and a gentle breeze, which rustled the trees slightly, Washington knew his mind had journeyed backward, seeking a familiar day. It was his most familiar day in fact. He knew all of its details from beginning to end.

He and his mother were at a playground at some elementary school in Anchorage, Alaska. It was warm but in shady pockets, melting piles of snow persisted, drawing the attention of an army of booted feet who stomped and kicked and played gleefully.

Kids screamed and played, running, swinging, and climbing to their hearts’ content. It was as if they had all been recently released from a torturous seasonal detention. The truth was that most children in Alaska spent much of the winter playing outdoors just as they spent the summer doing the same. The exuberance couldn’t be denied though. There was something about a beautiful early spring day that elicited such wild behavior.

Sitting on benches, there were older adults, accompanying their second or third round of children. They were talking with others, enjoying the opportunity to share words during the day with someone who had long ago crested puberty. Meanwhile, younger parents, keeping closer tabs on their first-born sons and daughters, hovered nervously around the playground equipment. They smiled too, but behind their grins was a sense of worry, the threat of scuffed knees and elbows and all other injuries both great and small taunting their protective instincts.

Looking around, Washington knew where she would be standing. He didn’t want to rush, fearing that seeing her would end the memory too quickly, but it was hard to be patient. And there she was: his mother. Her dark hair and bright skin were easy to spot, even if he hadn’t seen this same image countless times over the years and knew where to look for her. Her cheeks, teased by the cool air of the early spring, were rosy and fresh like the mini rose petals on the flowers that blossomed just outside their front window every summer. She was Spring personified.

Washington, Wash as his mom used to call him, was staring at his mother and her glowing cheeks when an expanding fiery deluge spilled into the distant horizon as if it were liquid flames filling the sky from bottom to top.

The sun, watching nervously from its own corner of the southern sky, was chased, caught, and devoured by the spreading flames, disappearing behind the hellish curtain.

That was the last thing Wash ever saw with his eyes. His retinae were scorched beyond repair, laying a permanent veil of darkness over them. He wasn’t completely blind but was forced to see the world as varying shades of opaque light and dark, as if seeing everything through a sheer but dense curtain.

His consciousness coming into clear focus and the dream fading, Wash hesitated for a few moments longer before rising to the day. There was, after all, no hurry. They wouldn’t leave without him. He kept his eyes closed, hoping to entreat the vision to return and tarry a little longer. He missed his mother and seeing her invited the familiar pain’s return, like picking a persistent scab that never seemed to heal.

All around him, daily activity began to commence as his home came to life. His nose detected the familiar scent of bread baking from somewhere as well. Bread had become one of the few staples still available to them to eat, though the flour used to bake it had anything but wheat in it. Baked with as much sawdust as anything else, the bread provided very little sustenance or benefit aside from something to go into their typically empty bellies to momentarily quench the cravings. Something was better than nothing though. That was what his mother used to tell him about all manner of things. Whether the dessert didn’t quite last long enough, or her answers to his questions didn’t quite answer the question; she always said the same thing. Something was better than nothing…

Life was hard and becoming harder for Wash and the handful of survivors who had formed a community of sorts on the outskirts of what had once been Anchorage. Scratching out a bare sense of survival had become a grueling day-to-day task and proving to be more taxing as time passed.

There simply wasn’t enough food. Very little could grow in the scant light of the shrouded sun. But taking in another deep breath filled with the baking bread’s aroma, he thought to himself, something was better than nothing.

The village, called simply Mirror Lake or The Lake, by its residents was a simple community that grew up as people arrived. Not organized or directed by anyone as it emerged, The Lake was an organic creation without design, chaotic but purposeful with paths both wide and narrow beginning and ending seemingly without purpose. A large thoroughfare through the village was lined with myriad structures serving as homes: cars, trucks, recreational vehicles, scraps of lumber and building materials dragged from nearby ruins. Small gardens, struggling for growth beneath the dull, filtered sun’s rays and the oppressive blanket of dust and smog which threatened to choke and strangle anything green, were dug and cared for by industrious residents but not much was hardy enough to grow under such harsh conditions. The lack of rainfall was also a significant challenge though Mirror Lake’s close proximity helped mitigate that concern. Over the years, the lake had receded and its mineral content had jumped dramatically at the same time jumped dramatically, limiting the lake as a resource. Any aquatic life, fish specifically, in the lake were either harvested or simply died off in the early years of the community’s existence.

Foraging, therefore, became a way of life and the only means to truly sustain the village. The first couple of years, berries of all varieties ripened for picking in what would have been the autumn months but, in time, even those bushes no longer bloomed and eventually shriveled and died. Animals grew scarce in a handful of seasons and then largely disappeared completely, having either died off or migrated toward some distant food source over the next horizon. The only animals that seemed to stay in the area were packs of feral dogs who grew more and more bold as food sources dwindled. Bone thin with nasty dispositions, the dogs posed an almost daily threat, requiring attentive guards at all times. It was not unusual for the predatory canines to brazenly stalk and attack groups of Lake residents caught away from the community.

Despite the risks, regular groups searched for food and other material items wherever they were able. The children, like Wash, who grew up in this world were the first to adapt, becoming experts at surviving. Wash, with his indescribable and sometimes unbelievable intuition, quickly proved an especially gifted asset for their community. Without Wash during the earliest days, it is unlikely Mirror Lake would ever have survived.

3.

The fire that had claimed Wash’s vision and filled the entire horizon was unlike anything that had been visited upon the planet during the time of modern man.

Flames, like a hellish storm from Olympus, mercilessly rained down upon the earth. Europe was struck by the fiery wave first. Fire, like Noah’s flood, washed over Scandinavia, then Central, and then both Eastern and Western Europe. Nothing and no one was spared, as the Promethean shower devoured both land and lives in a heartbeat. Entire cities were rendered piles of smoldering rubble, with both man and beast buried beneath the destruction.

Spreading out across the globe with a precision that suggested some variety of wicked intelligence was directing it, powerful tributaries like reaching arms spread out to every significant population center in the world, seeking to extinguish all evidence of man from the planet. Buildings and homes, both large and small, crumbled, the remnants scattered. Roads and bridges melted, cars and trucks disintegrated in a flash with both passengers and cargo sharing a similar fate. Most were simply cooked to cinders where they stood.

With nowhere to run and certainly nowhere to hide, billions drew in a final, agonizing breath which consumed lungs, hearts, and all other internal organs as if they were dry paper falling into an open flame. The world produced a solitary, anguished gasp and then fell silent.

As cities burned atop their dying residents, an ash cloud began to form a shell in the planet’s closest atmospheric layer. Like a dark, thick blanket, the ash enshrouded the world in the perpetual shadows of a never-ending twilight.

The sun, despite its best efforts, could find neither a way through nor around the dense haze. Almost at once, the cloud, like a constricting serpent tightening its coils around its prey, began to choke the remaining life from the distant corners of the earth.

The earth’s oceans grew angry as well, thrashing about enough to lay to waste most of the world’s shipping, sending to the crushing depths both large and small vessels. Only lucky or exceptionally stout water craft survived the raging storms and towering waves that upset the world’s waterways.

In time, the ash cloud would alter the planet’s ecosystem. While all of the sun’s heat was able to penetrate the planet’s new, denser atmosphere, its light was largely diffused in the clouds and never found the surface or the plants who relied upon it to produce energy. As a result, crops and entire forests began to die, leaving great barren, arid wastelands in what had once been lush, fertile tracts. The oceans’ temperatures and acidic level rose suddenly and exponentially, driving to the brink of extinction most of earth’s species. While most animals and plants living in the wide reaches of the seas could scarcely cope with the environmental changes, one aquatic species began to thrive beyond belief. Jellyfish began to spawn and reproduce in overwhelming numbers. Other species which had survived the initial cataclysm and then found ways to live through the acidification and rising temperatures of the seas found themselves in a losing struggle with the spongy beasts, whose stinging tentacles formed forests of deadly, dangling appendages snaring hapless other creatures. Many emerging species of jellyfish were able to adapt, finding ways to survive and even thrive in the dwindling brackish and freshwater creeks, streams, and rivers which found their way to the extant deltas on continental coastlines.

Earth was dying and with it those few pockets of persisting humans as well. Technology had over the centuries enabled man to exist in areas once thought uninhabitable. Food was grown in locations which had once been arid and lifeless. Medical science, perhaps benefitting the most from technological breakthroughs, was able to extend and improve the quality of lives. When the cities crashed, all infrastructure was lost too. Electricity had been lost with the absence of power grids. There were no longer water lines, so survivors were not able to easily access potable drinking water or fresh water for crop irrigation. Hospitals and law enforcement disappeared along with any other supports that cities and civilization had once provided. People, those few not taken in the initial deluge, were on their own to live and die in a world that none of them recognized as their home any longer.

4.

Chewing hungrily on the salty, tender, white meat, she licked her lips; or rather, she licked what should have been her lips. She had neither lips, nor skin, nor flesh of her own. Instead, her body was a squirming, slithering, creeping mass of insects, spiders, slugs and all manner of carrion creatures in a caky, clingy muddy morass. Her features were forever changing as the base beings which formed her shape constantly writhed and skittered within the thick, dark sludge.

She wondered aloud as the slugs which served as her lips at the moment absorbed the over spilling blood from her mouth, I wonder which I prefer?

From the darkness, a distracted hiss of a voice asked, What was that, Urth?

Urth swallowed the mouthful of raw flesh, savored the taste, and repeated, We’ve killed and eaten all varieties from every continent. Black, brown, yellow, red, and white. I just was thinking about which was my favorite.

Again, the hiss answered, "What does it matter? Besides, what did the flesh bags used to say? When in Rome, eat Romans…"

A hysterical cackle capable of raising the neck hairs of a demon, Urth admonished, Now you know that wasn’t what they used to say, Wynd.

Swirling into view and carrying a dismembered arm under her own arm as if it were a riding crop, Wynd smiled and agreed, You’re right, but I always liked Italian food. Too bad they were all gone before we got a chance for a little nibble.

Wynd, a twisting haze of ash, dust, and smog with swarms of biting flies and other airborne pests buzzing in and around her form, whipped the limb from under her arm and used its index finger to point at Urth while playfully making her case, Fool. Italians always gave you heartburn.

Both cackled this time, filling the air around them with terrifying thunderclaps which caused the ground to shudder. Pleased with the growing atmospheric disturbance they created, Urth and Wynd began to dance about, their bodies becoming tempests of volatile and violent movement. Each of Urth’s heavy footfalls created a loud shudder that shook the ground around them.

Wynd extended the superfluous limb she was carrying and Urth grabbed it warmly, a wry smile spreading across the muck of her face. The two then began to spin, twisting and turning themselves into wide-ranging, frenetic circles, which quickly became an indistinguishable blur of motion. Between them, a vicious, diminutive but eager tornado filled with spinning clouds, dirt, and debris began to form.

Filled with impatient irritation, another sinister voice interrupted their revelry, Stop it, you fools! The words sounded as if they were uttered from the bottom of a cold, dark well.

Wadr, walking slowly toward her frolicking sisters, resembled a fetid, stagnant pond full of foul, brown, scummy water standing improbably on edge, defying all laws of physics. Her limbs were sloshing columns of reeking, inconstant sewer water without defined form. Like twin moons reflecting in the murk, her eyes burned with intense hatred and malevolence. The water twisted into a disapproving scowl as she glided across the brown, hard-packed land, leaving a disgusting slimy trail in her wake.

If she weren’t so frightening and foul, Wadr had every opportunity to be quite beautiful. She resembled a sculptor’s work in progress, her legs not entirely differentiated from each other or her elongated torso. Her movements created loud splashing crashes with each uneven, stilted step.

The lifeless, blue hand of a small drowned child emerged from Wadr’s chest. The diminutive limb hung in the open air as if waiting for someone to grasp hold and free it from its watery grave. With her next long step, Wadr shifted her weight enough to reabsorb the hand into her disgusting innards, the tides seemingly swallowing another lost soul.

Her voice sounding no more inviting now that she was closer, Wadr asked, How many are left?

Urth pursed her gray slug lips and looked at Wynd who absently picked at her teeth with one of the dismembered arm’s fingers. Done with that, Wynd next balled up the arm’s hand into a fist and leaned her dusty chin atop it, a fiendish rendering of the famous Rodin sculpture The Thinker.

Reading the question in Wynd’s posture, Urth grumbled, Does it matter? She felt a low growl come from her insides and wondered if it was because she had eaten too much or possibly not enough. Besides, won’t we miss…eating them? I don’t like being hungry.

Wynd’s whirling dust storm head nodded in agreement as she used the extra hand to attempt a high five with her testifying Sister.

Wadr gurgled angrily, Hungry? Hunger is what mortals feel. Hunger is weakness. You, dear Sisters, are as eternal as death.

Still, Urth protested, I’ve developed a…taste for them, and it looks like maybe you might be…susceptible too. While she spoke, Urth extended an arm that appeared to separate from the mass of her body through a minor earthquake and pointed at Wadr’s frame which was still digesting at least one human of which she was aware.

Wynd added, And they are great sport. You can’t deny that. The scurrying meat bags really put up quite a fight. They really want to live. That makes killing them so much fun.

And then they squirm and struggle as you eat them. Urth’s dark eyes rolled back into her head as the ecstasy swept through her. If she were human, she would have swooned in ecstasy.

As loud as the raging surf, Wadr shrieked, IIIIIIIIIII Haaaaaate Maaaaaannnnnnnnnnn!

Her Sisters fell silent and retreated a few steps. On the periphery, watching from the shadows and too afraid to move, the few remaining survivors from the surrounding village gasped in terror at the exchange. They had already watched most of their friends and family fall victim to the relentless onslaught of these three horrors, and now they were seeing the things seemingly celebrate.

Their village, on the island of Guam, had survived the initial firestorm that had devoured most of the world’s population and just about everywhere else on their island. The village had then persisted through the violent storms and the retreat of most of the world’s vegetation. Villagers had learned to be crafty when fishing in the tumultuous ocean, predicting where fishing grounds still existed despite the vile encroachment of death into the vast seas. There was talk about the jellyfish. No one had ever seen the water so utterly filled with the inedible, poisonous and increasingly more aggressive creatures. The undulating monsters consumed all the oxygen in the water and asphyxiated all other life around them, their deadly tentacles ensnaring the weakened sea life in a fatal embrace. The ocean, always the provider, was dying and yet the villagers had somehow lived on.

Unfortunately, none of that mattered any longer. The Three Sisters had been drawn to them, and now there was nothing that could protect the peaceful residents from the harvest. The demons arrived like a trio of nightmares as the long night fell. They set upon the entire community like a pack of hyenas, stripping the fallen carcass of every shred of flesh. The three went about their work with gleeful abandon, maestros conducting a hellish symphonic score.

Screams pierced the heavy, salty air from the small houses along the single gravel track, from the surrounding plain, which was once a lush rain forest but was now a field of slimy moss and algae, and from the sandy beaches as the population was systematically culled and butchered like cattle.

A handful of brave souls tried to resist, fighting with clubs, machetes, and the few firearms for which they still possessed ammunition. Those attacks did little more than forestall the inevitable gruesome end. Clubs, so effective at bludgeoning most other targets, simply passed through Wynd’s smoky form, machetes and hatchets, their blades honed and sharpened, lodged themselves harmlessly into Urth’s soft body and disappeared as if into quicksand, and bullets merely splashed into and through Wadr’s ever-shifting frame. The three devils seemed impervious to harm and hell-bent on killing all of them.

Perhaps none of that mattered to him or perhaps he hadn’t witnessed the other failed attempts to destroy or even defy the beasts; either way, a large man emerged bravely from behind a small stack of barrels. Despite the darkness, the bold tattoos on the man’s olive-colored arms, neck, and face stood out as defiantly as he did. With a growl from deep within himself, the muscular man hurled a long, steel-tipped harpoon with the force of a bullet.

Capitalizing on surprise and the quickness of his action, the man’s throw was true and on target. The deadly spear bolted toward the back of the tall, dusty one, who scarcely moved. Regardless of its intent and purpose, the harpoon did the same as all the others that had preceded it. The long, barbed projectile passed through Wynd’s back and sank harmlessly into Urth’s soft, upper torso.

A moment of measured silence followed. The man, not convinced whether his attack had been successful or not, waited hopefully in the open. The other cowering, terrified survivors watched anxiously from their hiding spots, not willing to expose themselves to harm just yet. They’d seen a lifetime of horrors over the past few hours and were spent.

Without warning, Urth’s oozing, mucky head cocked back and produced a bellowing shriek that turned stomachs and shook the ground. Like the ripple of a stone dropped in a pond, the horrible sound spread in every direction. Then the earthen entity collapsed to the ground and was gone.

The man was struck with a surge of confidence, his eyes widening with emotion. It could be done. The monsters could be killed. He looked around quickly for another harpoon or any other weapon. He needed to follow up on his success quickly. There wasn’t time to waste.

When he felt the cold, slimy hand on the back of his neck, the man froze. He was too frightened to look over his shoulder. Instead, he leaned forward slightly and began to pray. He prayed for peace and salvation, for his family, but mostly he prayed that his life would end quickly.

Urth, a wicked purring chuckle percolating in her chest, lifted the silent man from his feet and presented him to her two Sisters. Setting him down with a jolt that buckled his legs awkwardly beneath him, she said, Where’s all your fight now, big man? Not so tough when you come face to face with your nightmares. Huh? A growl of a snicker on her breath, Urth continued as a whisper in his ear, I can’t wait to crunch your bones. Should I start with your arms or your big, strong legs?

Wynd warned, Now don’t think you’re gonna eat him all yourself. He’s strong. You can see it. I bet he’d taste…

As if each had been struck simultaneously with the same lightning bolt, the three evil Sisters came to a sudden stop, their expressions full of vacant rage. It appeared as if the world around them no longer seemed to matter; some other calling held sway over their attentions. As still as statues, the three allowed seconds to pass without so much as a hint of movement.

Wadr, her voice creeping from the depths of Davey Jones’ Locker, announced, He’s awake, and then the three demons disappeared, leaving behind three sickening piles of violated flesh which had been digesting in their wretched innards.

5.

D amn, Wash. You look like hell. You doin’ okay? asked a familiar, if gruff, voice. Jack’s voice, like everyone else’s in this day and age, was scratchy and coarse, reminding Wash of his long, lost Aunt Helene who, in his memory, was always to be found smoking a cigarette. Of course, that was before the end of the world, in which she had likely been cooked down to ash, not horribly different than a cigarette herself. That thought, crossing his mind as it did daily, still elicited a slight shudder and a reprimand from himself for being so morbid. It was the same thing every day, but that was the nature of routine.

Wash turned himself toward the voice and, nodding, answered, Not half as ugly as you though. How are you doin’? Wash could feel the smile spread across his friend Jack’s face.

Jack cocked his head and asked, How the hell do you know if I’m ugly or not? You’re blind.

I don’t have to have eyes to see your ugly mug.

Wash couldn’t imagine waking to a day without Jack’s greeting or his continuous presence. Jack was as constant as time and could always be counted on. The two shared a warm embrace as they did every morning and walked over to the truck. Again, warm, welcome routine.

They had one functioning automobile for the entire community, so it was used sparingly. Today, it would be used. In a recent trip to the ruins of Anchorage, they had stumbled upon something which necessitated bringing the truck along.

Unable to wait any longer, a clearly anxious Jack asked, So, what do you think we’re gonna find out there today?

Wash shook his head and gazed with his blind eyes up at the ashen heavens. Quietly, he answered, I don’t know for sure, but it’s important.

"Important? Did He tell you that?"

Well, kind of…

Correcting himself but no less anxious, Jack sputtered, I know. I know. It doesn’t work like that. You’ve told me that like at least a hundred times already. But did He?

I don’t know. It’s different this time. I just know that there’s something out there waiting for us and that it’s important. And stop calling it He. My intuitions aren’t male or female. I just…know. That’s all.

Mmmm-huh, answered Jack with false suspicion in his demeanor. C’mon.

Jack helped Wash into the truck’s bed and quickly sat beside him. Jack and Wash were roughly the same age but in many ways years apart. Wash still harbored the look of a child in much of his aspect while Jack looked like a grown man many years older than he actually was. On the other hand, Jack’s attitude was much more carefree, almost adolescent in many regards, while Wash was much more subdued, calm, and mature…serious would also be an accurate descriptor, but with occasional humor and whimsy as well.

Their differences were apparent to the others in the truck on the ride out to the ruins. Jack whooped and hollered like an excited boy, banging his hands enthusiastically on the truck’s sides. He truly enjoyed just being on the move.

Meanwhile, Wash sat next to his exuberant friend and smiled as he scanned their lonely, scant surroundings, seeing nothing but shades of gray and realizing that, unfortunately, what he saw was not measurably different than what those with still functioning eyes could see.

The once magisterial beauty of the Last Frontier was a largely vacant landscape of dull rock formations and dry creek beds. The verdant forests, which had once lined both sides of the Glenn Highway, were gone; not even a single scorched husk remained, those having been harvested by time so long ago. The mountains too were seemingly nonexistent, hidden behind a dense blanket of smog; too sad to show their grim, weathered faces.

For Jack, it felt good to be on the go. It reminded him of times before when he used to go on drives with this family to go camping or fishing or whatever else the Alaskan wilderness had to offer. It was nice to be reminded of those happier times on occasion and to be granted the opportunity to feel a sense of normalcy that had been absent for so long. For many of them, those glimpses of their past were coming less and less frequently, like the memories were grains of sand passing through their fingers.

Of course, their chariot, a Toyota in name only, was anything but what any of them remembered from the past. The old truck drifted between sputtering and purring, apparently depending upon its shifting mood. Its skin was held together as much by layers of duct tape and bungee cords as it was by rivets and weldments. Beneath its hood, its engine was a hodgepodge of salvaged and pirated parts from other vehicles, banded together as well as their skilled mechanic could keep them. The truck was a modern marvel…a one of a kind…and a product of most of the vehicle shells along the desolate highway.

The drive to the edge of Anchorage went quickly enough and without incident. Of course, there no longer was a place known as Anchorage. Once into the ruinous stretch that had once been called home by hundreds of thousands, they were forced to slow the truck considerably in order to navigate the sometimes perilous route. Not damaging the truck was of tantamount importance, as it was their only one, and the roads through Anchorage were that in name only.

Much of what had been roads were merely shallow crevices between larger piles of rubble. The collapsed walls of large office towers and sprawling shopping centers conspired to transform the city into a lonely lunar landscape. Craters were separated by hillocks and ridges formed by debris upon which a growing layer of ash, dust, and other sediment had settled. The land had no definition aside from an occasional steel girder or large chunks of reinforced concrete that still managed to emerge from beneath its gathering blanket of dark soot.

There were no buildings still standing in the wasteland. Nagasaki and Hiroshima in the days following the nuclear detonation above each respective city in 1945 could boast taller structures forming their reduced urban skylines. Anchorage, like every other major city on the planet, no longer existed. There was nothing recognizable about the place anymore. The city had perished and decomposed like any other corpse.

That’s not to say that there weren’t still bounteous opportunities beneath the ruins though. It was just for that reason that they had determined to bring the truck with them today. They had been making forays into Anchorage for years, often finding the odds and ends that had survived the fire storm that had destroyed everything else: cans of food or drink, clothing, blankets, tools, and anything else for which a use could be easily found.

Their most recent venture had yielded something entirely different. By complete blind luck, Jack happened upon a long stretch of red cloth which disappeared beyond