Aurora - Final Part

I ran. As fast as I possibly could. To my family, to my last remaining sense of a normal life. I tried to signal to them to run faster by shaking my arms in front of me but it proved redundant. As I got closer to them, something abruptly came up through the dry gravel and hauled Joan down into the dirt, pulling her away, bumps forming in the dirt like a track leading back into the barn. Jason, unaware of what happened, just kept running towards me. Until he looked to his side, and then behind him and realized his Mum was gone. Luckily I got to him before he did anything that put himself in jeopardy. I grabbed him "Run up that hill to Mary and Colin, I will be right there. I’m just getting your Mum" I ordered, my voice screeching involuntarily, as I knew that his mum would not be joining us, based on what I’ve seen those things can do. I had done what every husband and father would do, I had to try and save my wife, the mother of my child.

As I ran towards the barn I had flashbacks of my life before any of this happened, time I spent with Joan and Jason when we were a normal family living in the suburbs. Things can change so fast without anticipation from a normal happy life to fighting for your life, future and maybe even the survival of your species.

I could hear Joan scream as I got closer, it was almost thunderous and full of terror, which made me run faster and that bit more desperate. I burst through the barn door to find Joan lain out on the ground of the barn, scattered. My wife lay in pieces.

The barn had turned red with Joan’s organs, so much blood surrounding what was left of her body. The torso was the only familiar part I could see, her head was no where to be seen. As I collapsed, taking in the horror of what had happened to Joan, the pain and heartbreak was too much for one person to take, on top of everything that had happened since the solar flare had occurred. I wept, her body parts lying around me, my anger starting to build. I clasped my fists and tried not to take a deep breathe as the smell was overpowering and would make any person sick to their stomach. I lurched to my feet, trembling with shock, but more importantly anger. I screamed, emptying my lungs to get that Thing’s attention. They took my friend and now my wife, I knew it was over. Nothing we could do would stop what was going to happen to the future, but I could determine how it would end here and I intended to do some damage to these creatures before it did.

I didn’t want to leave my wife in that state, but I had to go and nothing I could do would help other than getting to the people I had left behind. I pushed open the barn door and ran back towards the hill to the others, calling out as I ran “Colin!” I yelled, trying to figure out their location. As I got closer to the top of the hill, I saw it was lifeless. They were gone without a trace. All I could think of was my son, “my son can’t be gone too.” I started to panic when I realized the sky was becoming dull. I had to find them fast before the night came and I turned into a sitting target for the Things. Just as I was about to run in any direction to find them, a soft voice called my name. I looked around but couldn’t see anything. Until I felt something grab my ankle.

I jumped from the shock. It was Colin, under the ground, looking up at me through the gaps on a wooden hatch door. He pushed it open “Get in quick Ben” he whispered urgently.

I climbed down the ladder onto a dusty gravel floor. The room was lit by a single lamp flickering in the undersized space. Mary was there as well, but didn’t even turn to look at me as she faced a wall, seeming to be arguing with herself. “Where’s Joan?” Colin asked. I looked down to the dusty ground and up to the corner, where on a pile of old clothing in one corner Jason was sitting for comfort. I ignored Colin’s question and walked towards Jason to tell him that his Mum would not be coming back. I crouched down beside him and lowered my voice “Jason, I have to tell you something” my voice cracked.

“Where’s Mum?” Jason started to cry.

“She can’t come with us”

“Why! I need her!”

“So do I son, but we are going to have to do this together, just me and you, ok?”

He dropped his head, he knew what was happening, he wasn’t a stupid kid but I couldn’t tell him the truth of what had happened. I never could. I patted his shoulder “I’m just going to talk to Colin, ok? I’ll be right back.” I whispered. As I clambered to me feet Colin came towards me and asked me again where Joan was. “She’s not coming.” I said with more and more anger each time I had to say it. “I’m so sorry Ben, everything’s falling apart” Colin cried, his hands over his face just as Jason screamed. I ran over to him where he was sitting on his hill of clothes. “What’s wrong, Son?” I grabbed his shoulders as he pointed to a limb under the clothes. I plowed through the stack of clothes to find only a pool of blood under the soaked clothing. It then dawned on me that we were trapped, right were the Things wanted us. In a dark place with only one exit, we were just waiting to be killed unless we got out right away. “Everyone out now!” I barked at the others and grabbed Jason by the arm. “What the hell is going on?” Colin wiped his nose on his sleeve.

“They have been in here before, the clothes are covered in blood and I found a limb! We have to get out of here now!”

 I told Jason with wait at the bottom of the ladder as I climbed up to check it was safe to leave. I slowly lifted the dusty wooden door open to peek my head up and look around. There was no sign of the Things, only emptiness and silence, so I climbed up and told the others it was safe. Jason came up first and then Colin followed him but Mary was nowhere to be seen.

I stuck my head down to see if I could see her but it was poorly lit. With my vision limited, I tried to remember where she was standing the last time I had seen her but it was too dark from up here to see any form of shadow. I called out her name but got no response. "Mary! Come on, we’re leaving!" I yelled. Still no answer, but we had to move and I did not want to go back down there. I looked to Colin "We have to go, she wants to be left."

Colin’s eyes widened, he stammered "We can't just leave her there; she’s vulnerable to an attack!"

It wasn't that Colin was wrong but we didn't have time to be trying to convince people to survive. I tried calling for her again but I got no answer. Then I got frustrated at how selfish she was being after everything we had been through. "Listen, Mary! I know you’re down there, we are leaving because the Things will be back! If you’re coming then get out now!" Still no answer from her. Colin was starting to get impatient as well, but he was not comfortable with leaving her down there.

"She hasn't spoken in a while; I think we have to get her ourselves. We can't leave her here to die, Ben." Both of us bent over the hatch and peered into the dark hole. Just before we had time to make a decision a thunderous noise came from nowhere, it scared me to my core. There was nothing North of us but gravel for miles of flat land as far as we could see, but to the South there were hills of brown dirt, though still no buildings or signs of life. The sky was turning to a bright green after dusk; I’ve never seen the sky such a colour. It was something that you wouldn't be able to forget.

At first I thought the sound was coming from the sky, and then the ground started to rumble like an earthquake. Colin spotted something moving in the ground and coming towards us. It was the same noise that took my wife. “We got to go now; it’s one of those Things!”

“What about Mary?” Colin started to panic. I grabbed Jason’s hand and Colin’s jacket and started running “We have to go or we we’ll be killed!” 

We ran past the hatch heading South, towards the hills where we might have a better chance of getting away than on flat land. I tried not to look back so I could just focus on running as fast as I could while carrying Jason. Colin was just ahead of me, starting to slow down as we got closer to the hills. We heard a scream just as terrifying as Joan’s. I looked back to find that the Thing was not chasing us anymore but then a scream seemed to echo towards us.

“We have to go back and help Mary!” Screamed Colin

“We can’t! I yelled back “It’s too late, she’s gone, we have to keep moving or we’ll be next!” I didn’t feel guilty; Mary only brought it on herself. I had tried to help her and she refused to come with us, so I’ve no guilt following me. Although hearing the screams and after seeing what those Things did to Joan, I did feel sorry for Mary. No-one deserves to die in such horror and pain. Based on the screams we didn’t have to go back to check if she was dead.

When the screaming finally stopped, Colin and Jason and I had got to a muddy hill that we ran up in the hope that there were some hiding spots beyond it. Even if we had found a hiding spot, I couldn’t help but feel it was only delaying an inevitable death. We got to the top of the hill and sat on the opposite side to catch our breath, as running up a muddy hill is exhausting. We had not eaten a real meal in a long time.

“This is hopeless. We can’t keep running and running.” Colin held his head in his hands and I couldn’t disagree because he was right. Running away all the time was useless, especially when we didn’t know if we were alone or if help was coming. We’d had no signs of life since the whole thing started. I couldn’t go on running; I had lost everything except my son. I had to try and protect him from what was coming but so far I hadn’t been successful. Joan had depended on me to help her and I let her down. She was tore apart by those Things who don’t seem to want anything other than to kill us. We had done nothing wrong, nor had we harmed them, but they still come after us to kill. “What are we going to do dad?” Jason voice was ragged; he was too young to run so far. I smiled as best I could. “Nothing, Son, we’re just going to wait here for a few minutes.”

Colin was panicking more and more. I spoke to Jason to calm him down but nothing was working for Colin “We’re done!” he ground his fists into his eyes “They can kill us when they want, Ben! Can’t you see that! We’re done!” He screamed the last words directly at me. I turned my back to Jason so he couldn’t hear me talking to Colin. “I’m trying to calm Jason down and your acting like we’re dead already. It’s scaring him.” I kept my voice as low as I could so Jason couldn’t hear me. Colin returned his head to his hands without another word.

We had been sitting almost an hour, unsure of what to do, when we were attacked, but not from what we thought we would be. Bugs the size of a human hand came flying from the dirt in a swarm, their angry hissing sounded like a tyre was deflating. I jumped to my feet, dragging Jason with me and headed for the bottom of the hill. It was the easiest place to run to.

 Colin had seen the bugs but didn’t react in the same manner as I did. “Aw, what the fuck now!?” He laughed. “Get up Colin, come on run!” I yelled at him but he didn’t move. He met my eyes and shrugged “Why bother?” then lay flat down on his back.

The bugs were so dark you couldn’t see any features but was the same shape a cockroach. I tried to grab Colin but the bugs were coming towards me and Jason, so I had to run. That was the last time I saw Colin. Covered in so many bugs that I couldn’t see him at all, it was just a blanket of bugs hissing all over my friend. I reached the bottom of the hill with Jason, who was shaken after everything he had seen and gone through. It wasn’t fair on him. He was so pale in the face and was well past the point of crying now; he was in a state of shock, in his own world.

We stood in silence, as a gust of wind blew; ruffling our hair and making me shiver. I looked at Jason, who dropped to the ground with his hands over his head, almost hiding from what the world had turned into. I sat down beside him, putting my arms around him to protect him from the wind, but nothing I said would help with what he was going through or what I was going through. Everyone I knew was gone, taken from me by something I didn’t understand. I knew it was over, help was not coming and Trinity was probably crawling with Things. I had nowhere to go, no safety, no supplies and no hope. I had two options; sitting there and waiting to be killed or trying to run as far as possible and I liked the second option better.

“Jason” I broke the silence “I’m sorry for all of this, but we have to keep moving or the Things will come again.”

“I don’t want to move again” Jason stared at the ground. I tried to keep in mind what he had been through, but I needed him to move. “I know son, but trust me, we have to keep moving to find help.” Jason looked at me and finally his head nodded in agreement. As we both stood up I looked around to try and determine the best direction to walk. No direction looked any more appealing than any of the others, but I didn’t have to pick because the ground starting to rumble where we stood in terror, guessing what was going to happen.

I had to protect my son, but also myself so Jason wasn’t left alone if something happened to me. I could never have taken his life, even if it seemed like the right thing to do to prevent him from suffering, although I would be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind. “Dad, they’re coming again!” Jason was screaming, I held a hand up to quieten him.

“Calm down Jason, it could be anything” I knew what it was that was coming.

The rumbling noise got louder and louder until the expected happened. Two Things came out from the ground with speed. They stood facing us as I grabbed Jason and pushed him behind me but not fully out of danger. “What do you want!?” I screamed at them, but to no response. “Leave us alone, please!” They started to move towards us slowly, almost like they were just studying us and moving with caution. There was no where to run and almost no point in it either, all I could do was stand and fight but not with Jason standing here.

“Run now, as fast as you can and don’t look back for anything” I ordered him. He didn’t move.

“You have to come”

“I’ll be after you in a minute, go on!” He turned and started to run off, I watched him for a second and turned to find that one of the Things was right in my face. They were so dark with no features, I couldn’t even tell if they were disfigured from what happened or if they were even human, but one thing I did know was that I couldn’t stop them.

I went to push the thing away from me but it hit me so fast, I didn’t see it coming; I was on the ground before I could even move my arm. The pain was unbearable; they had so much power “how much damage could it do to me with one hit?” I thought. They could do a lot of damage it seemed. I looked down to see blood coming through my t-shirt, but I didn’t check it. I looked up to see the Thing just standing there in the same place, which was when I realised there was two of them and the other was after Jason. I looked behind me to see the Thing carrying Jason’s head; he dropped it on me as he walked past, blood dripping from where the neck should be. My son, gone in a brutal undeserving fashion which not only devastated me, but this feeling became over shadowed by anger. A rage that was built up from these Things. I threw the head to the side, I couldn’t look at it. It was not my son anymore. “What do you want?” I screamed again as I lay, injured on the ground.

I wanted to use the anger that was filling my body to stand up and fight the Things, but I just couldn’t. The blood was spilling from my abdomen; I pulled up my t-shirt to check. There was a hole pierced through my skin.

They stood over me looking at me but then they left. Back down into the ground where they came from. I screamed from them to come back, I knew I couldn’t beat them, but after everything they had done I at least wanted to try. To die trying to avenge my friends and family, but they left me. They left me alone to die. They killed everyone around me in a brutal way in which I’ve never seen but they leave me to die alone from a wound.

I lie here beaten, physically and mentally, by something I can’t explain. Something I’ve never seen and something I cannot defeat. I am alone, no-one to help me or comfort me as the pain turns to numbness, as I go into shock. I lay flat down on the ground with a puddle of my blood all around me and my sons head not too far away, this is not my vision of what my death would be like, but it’s the death I have been given. As I drift in and out of consciousness I don’t have the energy to be angry but I hold on to the thought of seeing my family again, but it’s only a thought.

James Smith