My Apocalypse (Book 1): The Fall (2 page)

4.

              I came back into the house to multiple voices speaking. I hung my head down and shook it in exasperation. The thunder must have woken the kids up, either that or my unceremonious crash into the living room floor a few minutes before. No matter the cause, I really didn't want the kids all up at four in the morning.

              I threw my jacket onto the hook, water pouring off of it and drenching the porch floor. I then made my way back into the living room, stopping only to grab a towel to help dry my hair. Pulling the curtain back yet again, I was met with a scene of my entire family sitting in the front room, save for our oldest boy, Tyler, who was still in a blessed slumber, and sighed.

             
No more sleep for Daddy tonight,
I thought.

              "What's going on?" I asked my old lady when I noticed that she was holding our younger daughter, who was in turn weeping quietly on her shoulder.

              "She screamed a minute ago," Crystal answered, stroking her hair. "Woke right up and came in here. Right after you went out. She said she had a bad dream."

              "It's going to be a long day." I said. Crystal's only answer was a small smile and a raised eyebrow.

              "Hey Eddy, look at this." Jazzy was holding her phone out to me, so I slid onto the couch next to her and grabbed it up. Seth climbed up onto my lap, dropping his head onto my shoulder.

              "What is it?" I asked her.

              "News cast from last night. It's about Newport."

              A little over a month ago, there was an explosion at the military chemical depot right across the state line from us. We had all watched breathlessly, along with most the rest of the city, as the news covered the incident. Military and local departments had contained the blaze within a few hours, but it was not that that had people in a hundred mile area around the depot waiting for news.

              Newport Chemical Weapons Depot was an U.S. Army weapons manufacturing and storage facility that had existed since around the start of World War II. Most people in our little slice of Mid-Western Heaven knew little about it, other than it had been the storehouse for the infamous VX nerve agent. It had also, at one time, been a manufacturer of heavy water, a substance used in nuclear weaponry. In 2008, a huge ceremony was held at the site, decommissioning the depot once and for all. For a few years before that, the Army told us that it had been neutralizing the agents stored there.

              Or so we had been told.

              I hit the play button on my daughter’s phone, and began watching the small woman behind the news desk start to talk.

              "Breaking news from Fox 59," she began her face grim. "This reporter is sad to have to tell you that Susan Wright, our very own on site investigative reporter, has been found dead this afternoon in her home here in Indianapolis. Susan had called into the office a week ago to tell our producers that she had found out information regarding the explosion that happened at the Newport Chemical Depot.

              "When Susan had not contacted or came into work these last few days, our head producer contacted the authorities, who went to Susan's house.

              "Police tell us that the scene appeared to be a routine home invasion and robbery that went horribly wrong. Susan was found on the floor of her kitchen, dead from a gunshot wound to the head. But it was what was discovered later that interested this station most and why we have interrupted your viewing schedule tonight.

              "Jerry, would you care to roll the footage?"

              I watched the woman disappear and be replaced with a scene that looked like some ones kitchen cabinets. I saw pots hanging from pegs along the wall, and dishes stacked neatly in a dish drainer. I looked over at my daughter questioningly.

              "Just wait a sec." Jazzy said, pointing back at her phone.

              After a few seconds of staring at naught but cabinets, a blonde woman appeared before the camera. There was a slight delay in her speaking, a jerkiness to her movements, that suggested that the video was captured on a web cam. Though through the whole of the short video the woman looked disheveled and worn, I could see that she was a pretty lady, and guessed that it was the reporter, Susan, the other had spoken of.

              When the woman spoke, her words caught my attention, and I knew nothing else.

              "I haven't got much time, Jerry, so listen closely. You know I have been looking into what happened over in Newport, and I found something big. Scratch that, and make it HUGE!"

              She looked nervous and tired, the rings under her eyes indicated little to no sleep. She was constantly looking off camera, and her eyes darted this way and that. I could tell she was scared.

              "Two days ago I was approached by a soldier that was stationed at Newport Chemical. He said he had information indicating that the explosion that had happened was not an accident, but rather a deliberate act by the U.S. Army under commands of the Federal government. At first I didn't know what to believe Jerry, but the more I talked with this kid, the more I did believe. He was terrified. He told me that the government hadn't decommissioned the depot, but was still using it to store chemical and biological agents, some worse than the VX we all knew about.

              "But then he dropped the bombshell.

              "He informed me that they were given orders to blow the depot. Apparently the U.S. Army was under instruction to make the incident look like an attack on us by an outside source. I of course, at first, dismissed him as crazy and paranoid. Yet he insisted that he had proof, and that he could bring it to me. We were supposed to meet two days ago, and he never showed.

              "But Jerry, someone did. I found him in a bush at the park we were going to meet at. He had been shot dead."

              She looked up abruptly and a loud bang could be heard off camera. A second time it sounded, and in a panic, the reporter returned to the camera.

              "Jerry, someone is here. They're trying to get in. If you find this, find the truth. It may be the only thing that can save us. The soldier said the explosion released something." Loud banging, like someone trying to break a door down. "That something was never supposed to be released like it was. That something happened during the explosion, and we were all in terrible danger" A loud crash and glass breaking was heard off camera. The reporter was seen reaching down and apparently grabbed the computer, for it tilted crazily. Then the screen went dark.

              Voices, many voices, could be heard in the darkness. Male ones, authoritative, were commanding her onto her knees. The reporters voice, at first questioning, then pleading. Then, finally, a loud bang, what could have only been a gunshot.

              Then silence.

              Darkness enveloped me.

              I wasn't even able to ask Jazzy anything before the other reporter came back on. She looked scared, terrified, an immense change in the woman that had been on camera only moments before. There were other people on camera also; a short portly man with glasses, a small, young woman, and at one time a young kid with long, shaggy hair and large headphones. Their voices overlapped in a cacophony of noise, and it was hard to pick out any one until the reporter came closer to the camera.

              "Dedicated viewers," she started, her eyes darting this way and that, "While we were running Susan's tape, soldiers entered the studio. Armed soldiers the likes of which this reporter has never seen before. While we do not know exactly what their intentions are, we assume they are here to shut us down. Know that we will stay on the air..."

              The reporter was cut off abruptly then, her face, and the images of the other news crews, replaced by the multi-colored and squalling test pattern I knew so well. A few seconds later, the video stopped.

5.

              "What the fuck was all that?" Crystal’s voice said close to my ear. I jumped when she spoke. I had been so engrossed in the video I had not noticed her sit down beside me, leaning over my shoulder to watch the video along with me and Jazzy.

              "I haven't got the slightest idea." I said. "Some sort of prank maybe. I mean, it can’t be real."

              "I think it is." Jazzy spoke up. "Courtney was the one that sent it to me, said her boyfriend showed it to her. She told me he got recalled all the sudden also. Couldn't say where he was going either."

              "Look," I began, "I'm all up for a good conspiracy as much as anyone else, but that was just too real to
be real
. You see what I'm saying?"

              My daughter and fiancée looked at each other for a moment, then back to me. Both held a look on their face that said simply: You are nuts. I shook my head, shifted our youngest on my lap, and continued.

              "Look, a good conspiracy is quiet, but not flawless. That video is anything but. It's messy, loud, in our face shit. That video is asking the general person to believe that the Army literally killed a woman and than took over a TV station. Come on. It's like the start of some cheesy horror movie or something. It’s too perfect to be real."

              "I don’t know," Jazzy said, playing with her phone some more. "There are tons of comments on it. People from Indy saying they've been seeing lots of big trucks over there. Others say the stations been off air since this was seen."

              "Maybe it’s some sort of joke. Some set up for a movie or convention or something." Crystal commented. She was looking at some of the comments on the video with our daughter.

              "Comic-con was supposed to start today." I told them. "Maybe it has got something to do with that. Whatever the reason, I still doubt it's real. Courtney's old mans recall was just a coincidence. Tomorrow they'll be back online, apologizing to us, but laughing at our gullibility behind our backs."

              I got up and carried Seth back to his pallet on the floor. My back popped as I laid him down. I was getting to old to be carrying these kids around, and they were getting to big. I looked around. Tyler, our oldest boy, had slept straight through all of what had happened. He lay there, snoring away, content in his dreamland. Aliyah was curled into a ball on the living room chair, whimpering slightly. She seemed to still be having bad dreams, and I wished I could do something to console her.

              I walked into the kitchen and started my coffeepot. I figured that since it was now closer to five than to four, might as well get my day started. Thunder boomed overhead, and rain pelted against our windows. I looked out the small one above our freezer, and in the growing gray of morning, saw the old mans vines causing the fence to droop heavily. I'd have to do something, I thought to myself, or else that thing was going to come crashing down. Once more I shook my head.

              Crystal and Jazzy were talking quietly when I came back into the living room. I reached over and hit the power button on our computer before grabbing the cigarette container. I had just got finished rolling the first one, and watching the computer flash to life, when I heard the fence outside crash again. Fudgies throaty, high pitched, whine came through the window. Crystal looked out the window and sighed.

              "He's pulling again. The fucking dogs going to snap that fucking cable."

              "We got a spare, right?" I asked her. She nodded.

              I had just pulled up my novel, staring at it blankly, when it happened.

              A loud snap came through the window, a sound like a bullwhip cracking. Crystal and I both shot to look out, though she got there first. Shaking her head and laughing slightly, she looked over at me, a huge smile on her face.

              "You called it didn't you?" I asked her. Her response was a simple nod.

              I sat back down and grabbed my boots. Sliding them back on, I couldn't help but laugh with her. Looking up into her eyes, I say them sparkling with mirth. Jazzy sat there chuckling softly also.

              "You're a bitch." I shot at Crystal.

              "You love it." she replied, leaning forward and giving me a kiss.

              I hopped up and turned once more towards our back door. I was not looking forward to chasing this dumb ass dog down in the middle of a thunderstorm. I had just got my jacket on, and placed my hand on the knob to head outside when I heard footsteps behind me. Figuring it to be my beloved, I turned around, a smart ass quip on the edge of my tongue. I choked it back when I saw that it was not Crystal, but rather our daughter Aliyah. Her eyes were wide with fear.

              "What's up squirt?"

              "Don't go out Eddy," she said, grabbing my hand. "I had a bad dream. You should stay here."

              "Chickadee," I said to her, planting a kiss on her forehead, "it's alright. I just got to go grab Fudgie. Only take a second."

              "But," she began, but let go of my hand.

              "I'll be right back, don't worry." I smiled and threw her a wink, then opened the door and stepped out into the rain once again.

              I should have listened.