The Last of the Living (5 page)

              As she slowly climbed up the ladder she looked over her shoulder and could see something in the distance. It looked like another ship! She couldn't believe it. She quickly climbed back into her spacecraft and got her binoculars out and sat on top of the spacecraft. Looking through her binoculars she could see in the distance what looked like a personal houseboat of some kind. That was the moment when she suddenly started blushing when she realized that there was the possibility, however slim, that someone might be looking back at her. She immediately climbed back into the spacecraft and decided that she had better get dressed, because she had some exploring to do.

Chapter 7

As soon as she had gotten dressed in a simple pair of blue pants and a shirt, Amy immediately began making way towards the ship that she had seen off in the distance. Within a short time she had arrived at the ship. She jumped off of the roof of her spacecraft and swam over to a ladder on the other ship which she slowly and carefully climbed up, still feeling rather weak at the exertion.

              "Is anyone on board?!" she shouted as she made her way up the ladder. "If anyone's there I am coming aboard and I come in peace. I have no weapons or hostility towards anyone who might be on board."

              Once she had reached the deck of the ship she looked around closely but saw no signs of life. In fact it looked like the ship had been long abandoned. The windows were filthy such that you couldn't see in, and they appeared to be cracked. Aside from that the ship just looked dirty in general and there was a significant amount of rust. There was no sign that anyone had been maintaining that ship regularly.

              Going inside the ship she went to the control panel and everything appeared to be off. She wasn't sure if there was any fuel in the boat but the gas gauge read that there was at least half a tank. She made note of that and then moved below deck.

              First she went into a small dining room and opened up the refrigerator but quickly closed it after inhaling a terrible smell. Apparently all of the food inside was completely rotten and had probably been sitting in the refrigerator for the past two years, completely uneaten.

              Amy turned to the side and gagged a little bit. "This probably isn't an optimistic sign," she said as she continued to gag.

              Next she moved down to the living quarters. She checked all of the beds but found no sign that anyone had inhabited the boat any time recently. But there was another thing that she found rather peculiar. There were absolutely no bodies.

              "If someone had been on the ship at the time of the bombardment, even if they were killed right away, there should be bodies," she said as she wondered aloud. Then she reasoned that it was possible they had been off of the boat at the time of the bombardment or that they had abandoned ship at some point. She supposed that there was a bunch of possible explanations for why there would be no bodies, but she seemed to think that it was unusual to think that a boat that looked like it was meant for several people would have not a single body on board. Even if the bodies had completely decomposed by now there should still be skeletons.

              As she continued to rummage through the ship she noticed something under the bed. It appeared to be some type of a captain's log or personal Journal. She opened it and began reading. She immediately turned to the final entry figuring that it would give the greatest insight as to what had happened to the crew.

              April 19, 2026

              A strange occurrence is being reported all over the world. The sky has lit up with an explosion of colors, almost like the aurora borealis, but not localized. No one is quite sure what exactly this phenomenon represents but it seems almost like the sky was exploding. And then afterwards there was this strange red dust that rained down everywhere. No one is quite sure what any of this is, but hopefully by the morning there will be some type of explanation. Linda and Jacob had inhaled some of the dust and began coughing very heavily, as did I, and I have to admit feeling a little bit under the weather. We figured it was best that we all just try to get some sleep and stay indoors until whatever this is was over. I am sure that in the morning people will be talking about it and I can't wait to see what they will say. I am sure in the end it will turn out to be nothing particularly special.

             
She put down the Journal when she saw that that was the final entry. "I guess you were wrong on that one Mr.," she looked at the name on the Journal, "Philip Lanchester."

              After putting away the Journal she came across some type of radio communication system. She turned it on to find that the power still worked. She tried on all frequencies broadcasting an SOS message saying how she was an astronaut who had been in space for the past two years and was looking for survivors. Unfortunately after several hours of trying she had received no communication from anywhere. That did not surprise her though, because if there had been any survivors she probably would have been able to contact them when she was still on the space station.

              Finally she decided to scavenge the ship for supplies that she could possibly use and bring them back to her space pod and then decided to leave the ship. Later that evening, after eating and doing her exercises, she decided to relax by reading more of the Journal that she had brought with her. Most of what was written in the journal was mundane. Apparently Philip Lanchester appeared to be an avid fan of traveling the oceans with his family and was going to attempt to go all the way to Bermuda to go on a vacation with his family, and that was where they were on the way to when the bombardment began.

              But there was one thing that still puzzled her and that put her ill at ease. From all indications from the Journal it appeared that Philip and his family had gone to sleep that night in their beds and presumably died from the bombardment in their sleep. But if they were asleep in their beds at the time of the bombardment how come there were no skeletons in the bedroom? If they had died in their sleep and decomposed there should have been skeletons still left after two years.

              "No matter," she said as she closed the journal and put it away. "Tomorrow morning I will probably be at New York City and then maybe I will get some answers."

              As she slowly drifted off to sleep she couldn't help but think that maybe the answers that she would find would not be to her liking.

Chapter 8

May 13th, 2028 5:57 AM Eastern standard time.

              Amy was just waking up to the Sun coming through the windows of her spacecraft after having a refreshing night's sleep. She wasn't far away from New York City now and figured that she had better make herself a good breakfast, because today would be her first day exploring an actual city. She figured if anyone was alive that a city would probably be the ideal place to find them. It was also her home and she was hoping to find evidence that someone she knew might have survived. It was a long shot, but it was probably the only hope she had, and that was pretty much all that was keeping her going.

              As she approached the city she could see it from the distance using her binoculars. From what she could see it still looked totally desolate and abandoned. She could see even from that distance that many buildings had collapsed and it looked like the Brooklyn Bridge might have collapsed as well.

              While she slowly drifted towards the city she also noticed that sticking up out of the water looked like the remains of an airplane. She figured that anyone who had crashed was long since dead, but just in case she fired off a flare to let people know she was coming. She stopped for a little while to see if there were any supplies on the plane but figured it was too dangerous to try and go inside.

              By 6:30 AM she had reached the city where it was within distance and could be seen without her binoculars. She could see the sunlight striking The Freedom Tower, which was partially collapsed. In fact a large number of the buildings seemed to be either collapsed or had evidence of severe burning and fires. Much of the city looked charred and off in the distance it looked like at least one airplane had crashed into the city proper.

              She docked her spacecraft at The South Street Seaport, a place that she had visited many times in the past but that now was completely silent. Most of the stores had broken windows and the ships that were docked in the port looked completely ill maintained, like the one she had seen out at sea.

              As she slowly got out of her spacecraft with a small backpack full of supplies, she breathed in the fresh air coming in from the ocean. She inhaled so deeply that she began coughing and then suddenly she panicked. Had she inhaled some of the deadly dust that had killed everyone on Earth?

              She took a drink of water from her canteen and managed to stop coughing. "I guess I just inhaled too deeply too quickly," she said as she wiped the water from her mouth.

              First she decided that she would look inside the shops because if people had died in large numbers there should be some evidence inside the shops and restaurants. But she found nothing. She did find a couple of plates broken on the floor and a bunch of flies buzzing around the place, but no sign of human life. And more significant there wasn't even any signs of skeletons.

              Once again this was completely puzzling to her. In a city of millions of people in a crowded place like The South Street Seaport there should have been evidence of piles of bodies, or at this point, skeletons. But she did not find a single solitary one.

              There was also very little signs that any form of looting had taken place, which would be strange under the circumstances. So whatever killed everyone killed them so quickly that there wasn't even time for any breakdown of society or looting to take place.

              Getting distracted briefly she noticed some clothing stores and thought that they might be a good place to pick up some supplies. She found a really lovely dress that she thought would look really nice on her, but she thought it was probably impractical for exploring the city. She was always a bit of a tomboy anyway. Ultimately she found a couple of pairs of shorts and shirts and decided to stuff those into her backpack after trying them on to make sure that they had fit. At least one nice aspect of the end of the world was that everything was free so she didn't think any bill collectors or police officers would be pursuing her for taking these things. Even so, as a law-abiding citizen, she still felt like she was committing some type of crime.

              After she had finished exploring the Seaport she decided she would make her way further into the city. She actually did feel a bit on edge when she saw a police car considering that she was wearing clothing that she didn't pay for. But the police car had no evidence that it had been occupied any time in the last couple of years. It was hard for her to navigate the streets because there were so many crashed cars with shattered windshields, yet once again not a single bit of evidence that there were any bodies around.

              As she continued walking down the streets she found everything was slow going because there was so much debris in the streets, and she was constantly worried that she would end up cutting herself on glass or otherwise injuring herself. She had a first aid kit back at her spacecraft, but that wouldn't do much if she got majorly injured. She had to be super careful because one of the bad sides of the Apocalypse is that there are no doctors or hospitals. Any injury that you can't fix yourself could very well be fatal. Even the slightest infection could lead to a slow and painful death.

              A few blocks away she came across a jewelry store. Although she was a tomboy, she did like jewelry, so she figured it wouldn't do any harm to do a little bit of shopping. Most of the glass in the store was broken and she made sure to be very careful on entering the store that it wouldn't collapse on her. Given the state of most of the buildings she had seen she wasn't confident that they were fully stable and thought that the slightest little thing could cause them to become deathtraps.

              She grabbed a handful of rings, necklaces, earrings and watches and put them all over her body and looked at herself in a nearby mirror. "I look like the freaking Queen of England, or maybe some kind of a pimp," she said as she turned around in the mirror and laughed. But as she looked at all of that gaudy bling she began to feel ridiculous. Jewelry was a status symbol, and status symbols meant very little when you're the only person in the world.