The Last of the Living (3 page)

              Maria began to tear up and hugged Amy.

              And then there were two, Amy thought before she began to tear up as well and clutched Maria tight to her chest.

Chapter 4

September 29, 2026 10:35 AM Eastern standard time.

              Amy was floating and doing her daily check, still no signs of communication from the Earth, same as every day for the last five months.

              She floated over to the viewing port and looked down at the Earth below. She could see a vast hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico annihilating all of the coastal cities, many of which were now completely under water. Observing New Orleans the floodgates had once again broken like they did back in the time of Katrina, but this time there was no one coming to clean up as there was no one left alive to rescue.

              "Any communication from Earth?" Maria asked as she floated over.

              "Nope."

              "So same old same old?"

              Amy nodded.

              "Look at that destruction down there," said Maria as she stared at the hurricane. "It's almost beautiful in a way."

              "I suppose there is a certain beauty in the act of destruction, especially when you know that no one is dying down there. I remember reading once how if the human race were suddenly to vanish inexplicably from the face of the earth within a century there would hardly be any signs that we ever existed at all."

              "I can believe that. Look at how nature is wiping away all remnants of the human race in just the last couple of months. In a couple of more years we might find the Earth actually starting to recover from all the damage we had done to it."

              Amy smirked. "I suppose the environmentalists would be very pleased, if they were alive. I was always something of an environmentalist myself actually, but I never thought that genocide of the human race was the way to go about solving the problem."

              "I still can't believe that there is no one left alive anywhere on the planet. Nothing kills everyone. The Earth has had pandemics in the past, maybe not as bad as this one, but there has to be at least a couple of survivors somewhere."

              Amy shook her head. "Not necessarily. This wasn't a naturally evolving pandemic. This resembles something more along the lines of a massive biological attack. They completely saturated our atmosphere so it's possible that everyone on earth who so much as inhaled any of the air might have dropped dead rather quickly, probably instantaneously."

              "At least it was probably relatively painless. Most of those back on earth probably didn't even know what hit them."

              Amy nodded. "I guess that's a small consolation. At least whoever is trying to exterminate us did so in one of the more humane ways possible, if you can consider anything like this the least bit humane."

              "But if we were being invaded how come there has been no follow-up? It's been five months now and we haven't seen any signs of communication from whoever did this. If they were conquerors you would think that they would have set up on the Earth by now."

              "Maybe this was just something that they sent ahead, like an initial attack to clear things up before the colonists arrive."

              "My grandparents used to tell me stories about how our ancestors in Mexico were wiped out when the Spaniards came and brought their diseases from Europe. Sometimes the most efficient way of conquering a people is with microbes. So I suppose it is possible that this was the attack to wipe us out and we are just waiting for the cavalry to arrive and finish anyone off."

              "If anyone still exists to be finished off that is."

              "I like to remain optimistic about that possibility."

              "If there are any survivors maybe they envy the dead."

              "Why do you have to always be such a downer?"

              "I consider myself a realist. And in a situation like this realism and pessimism are pretty much one and the same. From everything we know so far it would appear that there are no signs of survivors. And if anyone did survive and there is going to be another wave of the invasion the ones who were wiped out instantaneously and relatively peacefully would be the lucky ones rather than the few survivors who might have to fight off actual invaders in armed combat."

              "At least in combat there is still a chance."

              "Against an advanced race of extraterrestrials with the capability of interstellar travel, I wouldn't really think that that is much of a chance. If there is going to be another wave of armed invaders the weapons they have will be so far beyond us that there will be very little we can do to resist. Again I am just being a realist. If aliens really are going to invade it won't be like in the movies. What we have witnessed so far seems like a much more efficient means of waging interstellar war. They have more or less won already."

              "I realize the situation is pretty hopeless, but in spite of that I still like to have some faith," Maria said as she fingered her cross and rosaries. "Don't you want to believe that your fiancé is still alive down there somewhere?"

              "Of course I do, but I want real hope, not false hope. The irony is that my fiancée was a virologist working to cure the world's most deadly diseases, so he would love to be studying this phenomenon if he did survive."

              "Maybe he did survive and has found a cure."

              "I really do love your optimism. As much as I try to be realistic I would much rather have your faith that your husband is definitely alive out there somewhere. I am probably a hopeful agnostic at best."

              Maria put her arm around Amy. "Well we still have each other, and if you ever get really lonely am still open to the possibility of us joining the 250 mile high club."

              The two of them began to giggle and then kissed each other and blushed.

              "Well we aren't going to be the ones to repopulate the human race at any rate," said Amy with a smile.

              "I suppose not," said Maria as she grabbed her stomach and began laughing before she grabbed her side and winced in pain.

              "What's the matter?"

              "Nothing, I just had a sharp stabbing pain in my side."

              "Do you think it could be indigestion?"

              "No, I don't think so. It has been hurting me for the last day or so now and it feels like it's getting worse."

              Amy felt Maria's forehead. "You feel like you are burning up."

              "I might just have a small fever," said Maria as she began to gag and then started throwing up.

              "Gross!" Amy shouted as she ran to get a vomit bag for her.

              Maria began vomiting heavily into the bag.

              "I think that we better get you into bed," Amy said as she helped Maria put on her restraints to strap her into bed.

              "I am sure that I will be fine," said Maria as she continued to gag a bit.

              "Let me feel," said Amy as she felt Maria's side and frowned.

              "Is it bad?" Maria asked, already knowing the answer.

              "Have you had your appendix out?"

              "No, why?"

              "I think you have appendicitis."

              The two of them floated there saying nothing for several minutes before Maria finally broke the silence as she gently stroked her cross. "I am not afraid to die."

              "Please don't talk like that. You are supposed to be the optimist."

              "I think that in this case I have to be realistic."

              Amy grabbed Maria's hand tightly. "No, I need you to be the optimistic one. You can't leave me alone up here."

              "You know that I don't want that any more than you do."

              The two of them began to cry before realizing once again that it hurts a lot to have watery eyes in space.

              "Take this," said Maria as she pressed her crucifix into Amy's hand. "It will bring you luck."

              "Please don't leave me," Amy said as she fought back tears.

              "Will you stay with me," Maria said as she grabbed Amy's hand tightly.

              "You know I will," Amy said as she squeezed back and held on all day long and into the evening as Maria slowly faded away.

              The next morning Amy prepared Maria's body and put it to the airlock and then gave her a burial at space. As she watched her one remaining friend float away from her forever she never felt more alone. She was the last one remaining and the universe outside her window never felt more vast, empty and malevolent.

Chapter 5

April 20, 2028 7:34 AM Eastern standard time.

              "This is Amy Takahashi, if anyone is down there please answer," Amy broadcasted to the Earth as she had done every day for the past two years.

              But much like every other day for the past two years she received no response, and every time she used the communication system it seemed like it was functioning less and less each time. Then finally today it completely failed.

              "Happy anniversary," Amy said as she turned off the computer.

              She went to the porthole and looked upon the Earth. It still looked completely desolate and devoid of any signs of life whatsoever.

              "I almost wish that the aliens would invade," said Amy as she pushed herself away from the porthole. She went to her room where she looked at pictures of herself with Maria and Anatoly. She then looked at a picture of her fiancé receiving a distinguished award in the study of virology. "At least if the aliens arrived I would have somebody to talk to."

              Amy went through her computer files and brought up videos of that day from two years ago when the bombardment began. In the two years since that not a single thing had happened of notable interest. Every single day was like the last. No communication with the Earth, no communication from whoever brought about the bombardment. If there was some higher intelligence out there trying to wipe us out it has made no attempt to contact us. But that just made her feel even more alone.

              She decided to do yet another inventory of the space station's maintenance systems to make sure everything was still functioning. With no one coming to resupply the space station she was amazed that it lasted as long as it did. With the deaths of Anatoly and Maria she was able to stretch a year's supplies this far but she knew she was going to run out eventually.

              She floated over to the experimentation area where she looked at the cages where they kept the mice that they brought up with them. Somehow they had managed to survive for two years in space along with her and were now her only companions, and if she got really desperate perhaps her final meal, but she chose not to think about that.

              "You guys are the only friends I have left," she said as she fed the mice. "I guess that we are both record holders. No one has been in space for as long as we have. And by the looks of things it doesn't look like anyone's going to break our record anytime soon."

              After doing her daily exercises she ate her daily rations and took her vital signs. "I seem to be healthy enough. I was sent up here to test the long-term effects of staying in space and now I have been up here for more than 2 1/2 years. Had the Earth not been destroyed I probably would have returned at least six months ago. I have been up here for as long as a round-trip to Mars would take." She began to clap. "Congratulations Amy, you've proved that human beings can survive in space long enough to get to Mars. Unfortunately it looks like that's one dream that you are never going to get to live out."

              Amy went to her computer and brought up an image of Mars. She thought to herself how it had always been her dream to actually travel to another planet. That is what inspired her to become an astronaut in the first place. People had laughed at her when she was a little girl when she said that she wanted to be the first person to set foot on Mars, but when she actually became an astronaut everyone changed their tune and it looked like that might be a very real possibility. As one of the more experienced astronauts, being in top physical and mental health, it was conceivable that in a decade or so she might very well be making that voyage to Mars. But now it was never to be.