NEW DESTROYED WORLD

An AFTER THE BOMBS FELL story.

    Glen looked out of the window of the top floor of an office building in downtown Portland, Oregon. Below he saw a devastated city. He believed the whole world was now devastated. He shook his head sadly. Glen was too tired to feel anything stronger which, he knew, would be more appropriate than sadness. The office building he was in was empty of people. Everyone was gone. He rubbed his big hand across his face, feeling his weariness all the way to his bones.

     Glen didn't feel comfortable so high up but surveillance was a must. Even on a second floor level he didn't feel comfortable. It was too easy to get trapped by the zombies. That was the only thing he could think to call them, zombies. They were once upon a time humans. Their skin was grey, they had long teeth but not sharp, their eyes were vacant of emotion and a sickly silvery yellow shade. A lot of them had oozing sores on their skin. And the most chilling thing of all was they ate human flesh, tearing their victims apart, sometimes while still alive. He had witnessed them do this.

     Then there were the others. Pale skin, with strange metallic eyes that reflected light in a frightening way. They had fangs. Some you could see their blue or red veins beneath their skin. They drank blood. He'd seen them and was relieved to note they kept to themselves, trying to stay hidden and out of sight. They avoided the zombies too. But they could be dangerous just like the zombies if they wanted to and they were if it suited them. He'd encountered one, a female. She had been going to attack him but he'd talked her out of it. Vampires. There was really nothing else you could call them. Scary but reasonable. He'd seen this female vampire a few more times. The first time he'd seen her had been outside a brick high school building. She'd been hunting pigeons.

     Glen was glad to see the streets below were empty of zombies and vampires. There had been a couple savage dogs, altered by the radiation and what ever else was drifting about in the air. Their hair was stiff looking and had a strange sheen to it. He could easily tell this even from his height in the office building.

Glen decided it was time to go back down. His wife, Jamie and two grandkids, Shawn who was 8 and Kelley who was 10 were waiting for him in their shelter on the ground floor of the building.

     Two grandkids he was blessed to have. They were weak and sickly and probably would never be able to have kids of their own, but they were alive and now in his and Jamie's care. Since the governments around the world allowed GMOs into the food supply it had rapidly become harder for people to have children. The GMOs caused infertility. This was kept from the public until it couldn't be kept secret anymore. By then it was too late, the damage was done. Any children born were sickly and weak, many didn't survive long after birth. Food additives like aspartame and sucralose better known as Splenda added their damage to the human body. There was just so much additives to food and drinks, including water, that it was a wonder any humans were even alive. But now humans were no longer surviving. They either died or were altered.

    Slowly Glen started down the stairs. He was growing anxious. He had stayed away from Jamie and the grandkids longer than he usually did. He didn't dare move any faster than he was as he descended the stairs. He was too old for that. He didn't want to risk injury. He'd be no good for Jamie and the grandkids then.

    On one landing in the stairwell he encountered several pigeons. They were altered in a frightening way. Their eyes spooked him. These pigeons had silvery metallic feathers and a metallic sheen to their eyes. They looked at him, heads turned and one scary eye focused on him. The sounds these pigeons made, made them even creepier to Glen. They weren't anything like sounds pigeons use to make before.

     Before the nuclear bombs had started to fall. He had seen one of the mushroom clouds. He couldn't believe it. Nuclear bombs had been dropped all over the world. It had been on the cable news shows. Not long after that the news went silent. All communications had gone silent. There was still plenty of electricity so that hadn't been the problem. It was the vast death of human life and then the mutations. After the first bomb had dropped the black rain started to fall and it fell often. It had still fallen once in a while a month later. The mutants had started showing up only days after the first bomb fell. That had been a month or two ago when all that had happened. Glen didn't know for sure if a month or two months had gone by now.

     Glen eyed the pigeons and hoped they'd leave him alone. He carefully slipped by them and slowly edged toward the stairs to keep going down. They watched him closely, making their creepy noises but made no move toward him. With a momentary sense of relief he started down the stairs.

     The animals that had survived frightened Glen as well as the plants. Everything had mutated and had taken on predatory aspects. The radiation, he thought, and something more. He didn't believe it was just the radiation alone that was causing this rapid mutation. The government had something released into the air from some secret laboratory, Glen was certain. Something that had been released when the nuclear bombs had started falling. Or perhaps an accidental release. Too bad government people were so evil that they kept such dangerous viruses in labs.

     But not everyone was mutating. He hadn't. His wife hadn't mutated nor had his two grandkids. And now he had to get to them. The need to do so was urgent and powerful in him. He had been away too long.

     Finally he reached the ground floor and hurried to the room his family was using as a shelter. They had food and weapons there. They didn't think they could eat the mutated plants and animals and he worried about what they would eat once all the food in the stores was gone. With so few humans still alive that might take awhile but it would eventually happen.

     As he neared the room Glen heard a horrifying sound. The moans of the zombies. They were in the building and close by

     “S**t.” Glen muttered. He held a gun in his hand and now raised it before him and started forward slowly being as cautious as he possibly could.

      Glen's heartbeat had quickened to the point where breathing was difficult. He wouldn't pant or gasp for air, no way. He wasn't going to alert the zombies to his presence. He took quick shallow breaths, trying to calm his pounding heart.

He slowly moved forward down the hall. Rounding the corner at the end he saw the worst sight possible. He cursed. He couldn't help himself. The door to the family shelter was open and he could see several zombies moving about inside the room.

     “Oh hell!” moaned Glen. His wife and two grandkids were dead, he was certain. The zombies preferred human flesh over animal flesh. There was no way Jamie and his grandkids could fight off all the zombies. They were armed and knew how to use firearms but there were too many zombies, that was obvious to Glen. He had heard no shots to indicate a fight had been going on. He would have heard shots even up on the top floor where he had been. Glen moved forward rapidly now and started firing his gun at the zombies.

     The zombies had heard Glen's voice and some of them were already facing the open door. As soon as he started firing the whole gang turned and started toward him, moaning and hissing as they did. They gnashed their overly long teeth in hunger as they charged Glen.

     Glen stood his ground and kept firing his gun until it was empty of bullets. “You b******s! You b******s! You killed my family!”

     Several of the zombies were on the ground, their wounds crippling them. They thrashed about, moaning but couldn't rise. Smiling a grim smile at the sight Glen shoved his gun in his coat pocket. He wasn't willing to toss away his weapon even though it had no bullets in it now. The remaining zombies were still moving toward him.

     Glen turned to run. He was old and tired and knew he wouldn't be able to run far or fast. He knew the zombies would get him. But he didn't really care at the moment. With his wife and grandkids dead he didn't want to continue living on this destroyed world that was nothing but a nightmare now. He headed for the front doors of the building.

     As he neared the doors he heard a voice. It was calling out to him.

     “Here! Here!” It was an urgent female voice. “Mister! Here! Here!”

     He was so surprised to hear this voice but he didn't have time to be surprised, not with zombies right behind him. The voice wasn't one he recognized. But he slowed and turned toward it anyway. It was the female vampire he'd encountered who had decided not to attack him. She was waving him toward her.

     With the hungry zombies closing in on him now Glen made a quick decision to trust the vampire. He headed her way. The vampire was actually smiling at him, exposing her scary fangs. It was a chilling sight but Glen felt he was safer following her than trying to outrun the zombies. He knew he didn't have a chance with the zombies but he felt he did with this particular vampire. He didn't really want to die by being torn apart and eaten by zombies. Survival instincts, he supposed.

     He followed her around the corner and found her standing just inside another open door. “Come.” she said then went through the open door. Glen followed her.

     He found himself in a long narrow hall with closed doors positioned at intervals on both sides. At the end of the hall was another open door that led to the outside. Standing there he saw Jamie, and his 2 grandkids. A moan of relief escaped him. He felt like he was going to faint for a moment from the powerful rush of relief. “They're alive!”

     “Yes. I helped them to escape from the flesh eaters when they entered this building. Hurry to your family. I'll throw the flesh eaters off your trail.”

     “Thank you. Thank you. I'm Glen. What's your name?”

     “Shannon.”

     “Thank you Shannon. I owe you one. No, I owe you four.” Glen said.

     “Go to your family. I'll get these flesh eaters off your trail.” Shannon darted back through the door, shutting it.

     Glen hurried down the hall to where his wife and 2 grandkids were waving and calling to him. When he reached them he was sobbing. They all hugged each other in one tight group hug. “I thought you were all dead by the zombies.” He said.

     “We almost were. Then the female vampire appeared and saved us. Why? Why would one of the mutants care about us?” Jamie wondered. She was grateful but truly wondered why.

     “I guess she's a mutant but not a monster.” Glen answered. “I hope we meet her again. We can help each other to survive in the new destroyed world.” He kissed his wife and grandkids. “Come on. Later we'll go back and get our supplies but right now we need to find a new shelter.”

Reviews

[Wolf's Dark Song]

A great and interesting story of what a future could look like with all the horrible things governments are doing to the people around the world. This is fantasy but something horrible I don't doubt will happen. I really enjoyed Glen and Shannon and the horrible zombies and I'm glad the story had a happy ending as far as Glen's family is concerned.

[Coyote Poetry]

Amazing story. I like the way you brought me in. I like the history you gave about the nuclear blast and the detail description of the human and animal change. I want to read more. This is a outstanding story. Thank you for sharing.
Coyote

[KAREN]

WOW! This part kept me on my toes! Excellent story telling!

[KATHY SUE SILLS]

OMG, this was one intense awesome stroy! Excellent read!

[Star Wolf]

Awesome writing. I was hooked all the way though. Great characters and great story, enough suspense and tension to keep the reader all the way to the end. Not a moment of boredom does this story produce!

[Black Cat Fever]

Wow, I'm impressed. This is a great story. Very gripping, it flows along with no boring or slow spots to plow through. Excellent writing.

[Eric Cox]

Cool continuation. Nicely done. An excellent write.