The Last of the Living (4 page)

              "I didn't even get to go to the freaking Moon," she said as she turned off her computer. "I can see it not that far away and yet I will never set foot on it, frustrating." That was when she turned and looked at the bumper sticker that she kept on the wall which said the dinosaurs didn't have a space program and look where it got them. "Look where it got us. I guess we didn't expand into space fast enough before someone came and wiped us out. If only we had gone a little bit longer we might have been able to colonize space before this happened. But now it looks like we are the ones who are going to be colonized."

              Maybe she just needed to have more faith she thought to herself as she grabbed Maria's cross, which she kept around her neck. "I just wish I had your optimism," she said as she fingered the cross and thought of Maria. But she was the rational skeptic, not quite a cynic, but experience was starting to make her that way. From all the evidence she could see around her we lived in a cold, cruel universe hostile to life and that if there was alien life out there, as it seems there very well might be, it clearly did not have benign intentions towards us.

              Amy was interrupted from her thinking when the alarm began to go off. "Fire!" she shouted as she read the alarm. She grabbed a fire extinguisher and floated to where the problem was and began to put the fire out. When she had finally gotten the fire out she leaned back against the wall and angrily pounded her fists against it. "You lousy piece of crap, some lifeboat you are!"

              The fires were getting more frequent she thought. This was the third one in the past month. Her communication system had failed, one of the solar arrays had failed and next thing that would go would be the life support. And although she had stretched her supplies out nearly twice as long as they were intended, she was only able to do that because the death of her only two companions practically doubled them.

              Finally she made a decision. She was going to have to abandon the space station. It had already been up there longer than intended and she had already spent more than six months on the station past what she was supposed to. Although her health was still decent, she didn't know what the long-term effects would be of staying up there. She was in new uncharted territory and every day of life was pretty much a gift. She knew that at some point she would have to try to make planet fall and return to the Earth.

May 9, 2028 3:27 PM Eastern standard time.

              Amy had spent the last couple of weeks preparing for her descent to the Earth. She tried to stretch her time out on the space station as long as possible but then even more systems began failing. She realized that she could not waste time preparing any longer. Now was as good a time as any to abandon ship.

              She packed up her few possessions that she had with her such as her laptop, her photographs, Maria's cross and about a week or two worth of supplies. She also took her bumper sticker with her. After much debate she decided that she would bring the mice with her even though they probably wouldn't survive the trip.

              "I might not survive the trip," she said aloud as she moved everything into the emergency descent spacecraft. But as she fingered the cross she thought that sometimes a little bit of blind faith is necessary. She could either stay up here in the space station and eventually die when the systems failed or slowly starve to death, or she could go down to the Earth, where if there was some type of deadly biological agent in the atmosphere, at least her death would be quick and relatively free of suffering. And there was also the possibility that she would burn up in the atmosphere. Or she could find herself on Earth so weakened by her extended amount of time in space that she simply dies of shock. But she was prepared for all such possibilities when she became an astronaut. It is one of those professions where you have to accept a high possibility of danger and the unknown.

              "Here we go," she said as she got into her space suit and went into the emergency descent craft.

              As the spacecraft detached from the space station she looked it over and took a few final pictures just in case she found anyone on earth alive to share them with. As she moved slowly away from the space station and it receded into the distance she thought that that might be one of the few signs that would exist that the human race had ever been around in the first place. But she figured that with no one manning the space station that eventually it would probably burn up in the Earth's atmosphere and leave little behind. She just hoped that the same would not happen to her.

              Her plan was to land in the Atlantic Ocean and hopefully make her way to New York City since it was her home. She had no idea what she would find but her astronaut training had prepared her for if she had ever landed in hostile territory. She was never quite a Girl Scout but she figured she knew enough to survive off of the land if she really had to.

              As she began to approach the Earth's atmosphere for one final orbit before descent, she looked over the world and found herself clutching her cross tightly and offering a silent prayer that there would be someone down there alive, anyone. She hadn't realized until that moment just how profoundly lonely she had been all that time. It's worth the risk of burning up just for even the slim possibility of hearing another human voice again that was not a recording.

              Finally she felt the space capsule entering the Earth's atmosphere. As flames shot around the outside of the craft she could feel the G forces pressing her against her seat. Her final thoughts as she descended were of Maria and Anatoly. Then shortly after that, as the G forces reached their maximum, everything went dark.

Chapter 6

Amy awoke to the smell of vomit filling her space helmet.

              "Ewwww, gross," she said as she took off her space helmet only to realize that she felt extremely dizzy and began vomiting even more. When she finally stopped vomiting she slowly lifted herself into a seated position. "I'm lucky I didn't choke to death on my own vomit."

              She slowly maneuvered herself out of her space suit but had very little room to move around in her small descent vehicle. As she tried getting out of her space suit she realized how much heavier everything appeared to be and how even the slightest physical exertion on her part was causing her to gasp for breath.

              "I forgot how terribly cumbersome gravity feels," she said as she slowly rubbed her legs to get the feeling back. "I must have been out for several hours. But at least I didn't burn up in the atmosphere, so I guess you brought me luck this time," she said as she fingered Maria's cross.

              Once her nausea had subsided she checked all of the systems to make sure everything was functioning well. So far so good it looks like, but unfortunately the mice had died during reentry from shock. "Better them than me," she said as she wrapped up the dead mice to dispose of them.

              "I guess I should try to eat something," she said as she checked her supplies. She only ate a very little bit before starting to feel nauseous again, so decided that she should probably go to sleep because she still felt very weak.

              "How long was I out for?" she said as she woke up and rubbed her eyes. She checked the time to see that it was now late afternoon on May 10th. "I guess I was pretty much out for an entire day more or less. According to the GPS I am about 370 miles away from New York City. I wish that I had gotten closer."

              She went to look out the window and saw that it was a bright and sunny day and the sun had hurt her eyes because she was not used to direct natural sunlight like that. She grabbed her cross and said a silent prayer to herself and then went to check the atmosphere. Apparently it was still breathable, time to sample it for herself, directly. Either nothing would happen or she would die instantaneously. Hopefully her prayers would be answered.

              She blew the hatch on the spacecraft and slowly climbed on top. Her legs still felt extremely weak but it felt good to breathe the air again. She had forgotten what fresh non-recycled air actually tasted like and she could feel the cool ocean breeze on her skin, as well as the warmth of the sun beating down on her.

              "I'm alive!" she shouted triumphantly as she inhaled deeply. "At least for now anyway."

              After she had spent anywhere from a half hour to an hour taking in the sun and fresh breeze she got back inside and laid down. "The fresh air and sunlight can really take a lot out of you if you are not used to it," she said. "But it didn't kill me, so at least that is one good sign."

              Next she decided to write up a report on everything she had experienced. As far she could tell the Earth's atmosphere was not toxic to inhale unless it takes a few hours for her to die, in which case this record will be her last for anyone who might find her. Of course if the atmosphere is really toxic to all forms of human life no one would ever find her, so she felt that the report was probably kind of pointless. But she had always learned that it is best to document all her observations, that's what a good scientist does.

              Once she had made her report she decided to take all of her vital signs, which were all low, but that was to be expected after such a long amount of time in space. She was the record holder after all. She then did some simple exercises to try and get the feeling back in her body, which still felt extremely weak, and she found that after only a moderate amount of exercise she was finding herself completely exhausted.

              "Once again gravity can really be a pain in the ass," she said as she laid down. "I think that this is enough activity for one day."

May 11, 2028 7:25 AM.

Amy awoke with a start as she had a dream that she was falling very rapidly before being jolted awake. She attributed this to the fact that she was still feeling some degree of vertigo from her descent to earth. After eating a light breakfast and taking her vital signs once again she decided that she would again go on top of the ship to get some fresh air and sunlight.

              "I'm still alive!" she shouted triumphantly as she felt the sun on her face and took a deep breath of air. "So whatever it is that killed the human race, it must be gone."

              A few minutes later her thinking was interrupted when she heard the squawk of birds flying above her. "This is a good sign," she said as she took a photograph of the birds. "Whatever it is that killed the human race apparently left the rest of the planet's lifeforms completely untouched, or at least the birds anyway."

              She went back inside the safety of her spacecraft and wrote up another report and again took her vital signs. She then had a light lunch and get more exercise before taking another nap. When she woke up she again exercised, ate a small dinner, wrote up another report, took more vital signs and then decided to call it an early night. She figured until her strength started to come back she should take it as easy as possible as it felt like even small amounts of exertion were exhausting, but all of these repetitive exercises and report writing would help to reorient her to the fact that she was now again on Earth.

May 12, 2028 12:27 PM.

Amy ended up sleeping late again and still felt weak and exhausted but she felt an improvement over the first two days. She could gradually feel her strength returning even if she was still feeling enfeebled. After eating a small lunch she again went out to breathe the air and feel the sunlight. She inhaled deeply and loved the smell of the ocean, having forgotten just how much that she had missed it in all the time she had been in space.

              After again returning to the spacecraft and resting for a few hours, Amy decided that it was about time to go swimming for the first time, her skin was feeling rather irritated and it was getting quite stuffy inside of the spacecraft. She decided to undress completely since she didn't have a bathing suit with her. She crawled to the top of the spacecraft and once again went out into the sun and the breeze, which blew her long hair all about. The fresh air and sunlight felt wonderful against her naked skin, but then suddenly she felt self-conscious and began covering up before stopping and laughing. "Who's going to see me?!"

              Finally she slowly walked down the ladder on the side of the ship and very gently dipped her toes into the water, which felt cool but refreshing. Then, while still holding onto the ladder, she gradually lowered herself into the water until it was up to her neck. She then got her face under the water and got her hair wet before quickly coming back up again. She continued holding onto the ladder and paddled with her feet figuring it was a good opportunity to get used to being in a gravity field again. Swimming in the ocean was almost like being weightless in space, so it would be a good way for her to re-acclimate herself to the planet that gave her life.

              She continued holding onto the ladder and allowing the cool water to wash over her irritated skin. Yet another thing she had forgotten was just how refreshing it feels to be immersed in water. It had been more than 2 1/2 years since she had been in a natural body of water and the experience was quite exhilarating. And she hadn't actually gone skinny dipping since she was a teenager.