Rooftop, Bank of America Plaza, Downtown Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. Friday, October 18th, 2019. 9:00.
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Most survivors outside Verachiel's debris exclusion zone spent more than a week unconscious after Armageddon. Those in downtown Atlanta were no exception. After a few days of coping with the tragedy, they struggled to rebuild their lives.
A couple stood on the roof of the tallest building in Atlanta. More than a thousand feet above the ground, they could see more than thirty miles away. More than enough to admire all of Atlanta's magnificent sights, from the airport to the south, Stonecrest Lake to the east, and the ruined city all around. Including the massive line of twisted and burnt metal separating the city in two.
Underneath the steel girder pyramid which no longer illuminated Atlanta's nights with hues of yellow and gold, the couple surveyed their surroundings. The man was looking to the south with a pair of binoculars, toward the airport.
"See? I told you, the area east of I-75 wasn't hit by the meteor shower," He clamored excitedly and passed the binoculars to the woman.
She took the device and checked. Truly enough, she could see a stretch of land, roughly oval starting at the airport and stretching all the way to Panthersville at the shores of Lake Stonecrest.
"Was it a focused attack on major cities?" The woman conjectured. "Ted, this is huge! I can see my house! Maybe daddy survived."
Ted gently put a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe, but let's not get our hopes too high. You've seen how many people were cooked alive by whatever weapon they used against us. Bill thinks this was a neutron bomb dropped by Russia or China."
"Why is that stretch of land intact then?" She wondered and started to walk along the railing at the edge of the roof, glancing through the binoculars as she examined the destruction around the skyscraper. "Did you see this? Everywhere except there is wrecked by the meteorites."
Long furrows dotted the land in all directions but to the southeast. About half the buildings in the city's financial center were destroyed. The AT&T Midtown center, just a block to the north, was now a pile of rubble as if it were demolished by an implosion.
"We need to go there," she decided.
"Martha." He tried to soothe and hug her.
Angry, Martha dodged and pushed the binoculars toward him. "No, Ted. I'm going to find my father. I am sure he's alive. I can feel it!"
The woman stormed downstairs with Ted trailing close behind. They would climb down fifty-seven floors worth of stairs in the dark and then leave through the underground garage ramp. The skyscraper's main entrance was blocked by debris.
*
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*
Christine Appleby's Residence, Forest Park, Clayton County, Georgia. Friday, October 18th, 2019. 09:30
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Sara started early and worked hard this morning. She drove between Christine's street and the ruins of Lakeview Apartments several times, taking all the stuff she looted in the two apartment buildings with her. Under the light of a new day, she was sure the apartment complex was no longer structurally sound. The water tower was destroyed by the blast, the gas lines ruptured, and the wooden structure looked compromised. Not only that, but all the windows on both sides broke. With winter just a few weeks away, the only way someone living there would stay warm was by burning the timbers until only the concrete base remained.
But she didn't see any signs of other survivors rummaging the ruins. The cop hadn't come back for her.
Instead of being dismayed that her former house was destroyed, she felt liberated. As if Lakeview Apartments was a burden, something shackling her. Sara felt trapped now that she remembered the ten days she spent alone there. She had so much to explore outside! Northwestern Forest Park had hundreds of houses hidden among the trees. The girl estimated she could spend the rest of the month looting these houses and would still have lots of neighborhoods left.
But was it the best use of her time? What about looting a grocery store, or even a supermarket like Costco to the south? The houses weren't going anywhere, but the major retail shops were a prime target for other survivors. Costco, for example, had everything in one place. Food, clothes, sundries, and...
Probably a lot of dead bodies. People loved to shop for groceries on the way back home. Which meant more ghosts to meet and earn Skill points on one hand, but also the stench of the dead and a lot of vermin and bugs.
Should she go looking for other survivors? What should she do if she met other people? Sara had no idea. She fought the notion she was somehow developing social anxiety. It was all the cop's fault. Seriously.
The girl assessed her supplies. She had about two months of food if she rationed it, but only a week of drinking water. The water for personal hygiene had to come from somewhere else. Overdependence on utilities meant most houses didn't have water tanks. The houses she checked didn't have water or any other utility at all.
She had a huge stock of toilet paper and other hygiene products, at least. But securing a steady water supply was still a major concern.
Maybe she should set some rain catchers to get more water. While looting the apartments, she grabbed four water filters. A lot went into making drinking water other than filtration, but it was the most basic, at least. Where to get more water, though? She knew of some small ponds hidden in the backwoods of Forest Park, but she doubted the water would be usable. Gathering all the laundry baskets and other containers she could find, Sara filled Christine's backyard with improvised rain catchers. She only had to wait for the rain to come.
Near noon, she sat to eat some canned beans, tuna, and pickles for lunch.
"What should I do?" She wondered out loud.
It was worth a shot, she believed.
*
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*
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia. Friday, October 18th, 2019. 12:00
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At the edge of the meteorite exclusion zone, the world's busiest airport kept its reputation even after Armageddon. Though no flights took off in more than ten days, it was still the busiest.
A group of people in ragged, bloodstained, and dirty clothes ran for their lives in the underground tunnel. They jumped past abandoned luggage along with their dead owners. The grotesque burned faces stuck in the torment of their last moments didn't even upset the survivors anymore. Unless they were moving and hungering for the flesh of the living, that is. Someone fired a gun.
"Don't shoot them, you idiot!" A man shouted to the woman next to him. "Whoever kills one of them zombies dies!"
They were about forty people when they woke up after the world ended. Ten had already died, most of them trying to fight the, for the lack of a better term, zombies that invaded the terminal from the interstate.
During their flight from the dead, Another ten mysteriously and spontaneously died when the zombie horde fell down the escalator. Against the endless hordes of the dead, their only choice was to flee down the pedestrian tunnels underneath the concourses. The world-famous "Plane Train" was dead at the station with the doors opened.
There was no electricity left. It meant that not only the train didn't work, but also air conditioning, lighting, and anything else didn't work either. The stench of rotting flesh was almost unbearable after ten days, and all of them were starving. A few of the earlier survivor fatalities were due to food poisoning.
Using borrowed flashlights and guns from the TSA, the most useful the agency has been since it was created, the survivors dodged the dead, stepped on pools of congealed fat and blood, and ran as fast as they could. The undead was inexorable but not really fast.
"We need to shoot their heads," the woman replied. "Everyone knows that zombies die when their heads pop."
Pop culture had spoiled them too much.
The man sighed. He didn't even know the woman's name, never bothered to ask. "We did that! Guess what, shooting them made it worse! The body stops moving, but every single time the one who shot the dead gets killed. It's like the Freddy Kruger movies when people get sliced out of nowhere! I think they become invisible after they die!"
The woman shouted in fright and fired the handgun again. She was a horrible shot, though. Her bullet ricocheted on the ceiling, sending a shower of sparks down on the undead horde.
Should any of them stop panicking and counted them, they would see the "horde" was less than two dozen shambling mangled bodies, fewer than the remaining survivors. The dead sported grievous injuries and had no regenerative ability. They climbed out of their vehicles at the massive car crash on the interstate.
"I lost my son to one of them!" She clamored and received no sympathy from the person next to her.
Instead, the man gave up on trying to keep her alive. "Then kneel and aim with both arms on the gun. It'll be easier to hit them."
"Thanks," she replied without a smile. The woman knelt, aimed, and fired. At the end of the hall, a zombie lost its head. "I did it!"
The dashing man dashed along with the other survivors who were already far ahead.
At first, the man didn't look back as he sped away from her. He only stopped to look behind him when he was a hundred feet away from her. Under the light of her own flashlight, just as he expected, the woman jerked forward and fell on her stomach with huge gashes running along her back.
"HELP ME!" She shouted and extended a hand.
"I told you! Too bad you women don't listen to us men," the jerk gloated.
As if pierce by invisible spears, the woman's chest was bent inward. She gasped, then slumped down, dead. The man moved his flashlight around, trying to see what killed her, dreading it would come for him too. A minute later, when it didn't, he sped to catch up with the others.
On Concourse C, or as the Plane Train announcer called, "Gate C, as in Charlie", he found the other eighteen survivors arguing among themselves. Or nineteen, as he recognized a new face. A woman, wearing a Southwest pilot uniform.
"You gotta take us out of here!" An aggressive survivor argued.
"The undead is coming!" Another added.
"What's going on?" The rude man asked as he joined the circle.
"These chaps want me to fly a plane. I told them it was suicide. Them birds have been sitting on the tarmac for more than a week, the fuel has gone bad."
"Liar! Fuel doesn't go bad after a week!" The first survivor accused.
"Car fuel is different," the pilot said in a condescending tone. "An airplane is a precise machine, and its fuel is very delicate."
The situation was getting out of control. Everyone was on an edge, everyone was afraid for their lives.
They head the undead shuffling their way. The first survivor drew his gun and pointed it at the pilot's head. "Listen, lady, the dead are coming, and they want to eat our brains. You'll either fly us out of here, or I'll be merciful and kill you before they do."
The guy didn't seem to be joking around. A few other survivors nodded in approval.
The pilot looked at the same time cowed, angry, and desperate. But so were all of them. None of the survivors were in their normal state of mind.
"Flying now is suicide!" The pilot rebutted.
The guy lowered his gun, then shot her in the foot. "Then you'll die here with all of us!" He barked at her.
"Motherfucker," the woman cursed from the ground.
She resigned herself. "Fine, I'll fly for you jerks. This way. You guys will have to help with the ground procedures. It'll be a while before we take off."
They dragged her to an airplane.
*
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*
Forest Park PD, Clayton County, Georgia. Friday, October 18th, 2019. 12:00
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Detective Keynes and Hainsworth gathered the remaining survivors of their group. They'd rescued a dozen women from the military base and found more survivors that came their way after hearing signs of human activity. Blowing up a building was bound to draw some attention.
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"We need to stay together," Hainsworth said to the people before him... "I know everyone still has their homes but is it worth staying alone? I think not. I suggest we gather together and find a good place with room for all of us."
"We won't go anywhere near that military base. We'd rather strike out on our own," the leader of the rescued women demanded.
"No, we'll lock down Fort Gillem," Hainsworth assured her. "We'll leave some volunteers to keep other survivors from accessing the arsenal, but that's it. We need to find somewhere amenable to everyday living, not a military installation. We're not an army."
"What about Clayton State University? It's close to a lake, and we can clean the dorms. They have a large kitchen, cafeteria, and a library," a survivor suggested. "We could turn the campus into our village."
"They have a gym, and even a concert venue," another added.
"That's possible. We'll need to see if they have water filtration systems, or implement our own," Hainsworth commented.
"We'll need electricity too," another survivor added. "I think the main benefit of having everyone together is if we can start their generator or another way of making our own power."
"Don't they have a lot of solar panels on the Hickory Ridge landfill? I don't think we can move the panels, but maybe we can use the distribution lines and redirect power to the university. We can disconnect the lines going elsewhere."
"Let's vote, then. Everyone in favor of staying together, raise a hand," Keynes called.
The majority voted aye.
"Now, everyone in favor of moving to the university, raise a hand."
It was an almost unanimous decision.
"We'll need to visit the town hall for the electrical plans," the same survivor who suggested using the solar panels said. "Then we'll cut off everything and route power from the landfill to the university."
"We need to power a gas station too. Our cars won't run much longer, and the gasoline will go bad in a few months," someone suggested.
"We won't drive in winter, I'll assure you," another survivor added. "Winter gasoline is lighter than summer gasoline, to make ignition easier in the cold. Even if the gasoline in the tanks didn't go bad, it would freeze during winter."
"We need to prepare for winter."
"Yeah!"
"There's Costco and Target near Southlake mall. We should get enough supplies for winter there."
Keynes and Trevor frowned and shuddered. They remembered very well what happened to the Necropolis King's minions when they tried to cross the interstate. They exchanged a glance and decided to keep silent about that. No need to cause panic, until they could confirm what they saw.
"We're setting I-75 as a southern boundary of the territory we'll claim," the crippled cop clamored, barely hiding his emotions. "We don't know if we'll meet another group of hostile survivors. While we wish for more people and cooperation, we must first secure our homes. So we're putting a ban on getting near the interstate. Please understand."
Nobody raised an objection. The feeling Keynes had was that if Hainsworth and he weren't steering the group, they would just mope and sulk all day.
"Let's split into teams," Hainsworth said. "Keynes, you and the women go check the university. Maybe some students survived, make sure you bring them on board. Trevor and Jake, you go check the landfill and see if the solar plant is still operational. Jason, go to the county hall and find the electrical distribution blueprints for Conley, Forest Park, Lake City, and Morrow. Gather any documents you think are important and take them to the university library."
The survivors let a sliver of hope into their hearts. They had each other and plans to survive winter. Though all of them lost their families and loved ones, being part of a group brought them some solace.
They split up and got into their cars. Only Hainsworth and a few others remained behind.
"Tev," Hainsworth called. "Stay on the radio, and check all frequencies. We need to find a transmission. Someone out there must've survived."
The former military officer went to the roof and looked north, toward the ruins of Atlanta. He wondered if his daughter had survived. His heart told him she did. He had to cling to hope.
*
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*
Hendrix Drive, Forest Park, Clayton County, Georgia. Friday, October 18th, 2019. 12:00
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She found the ghost in the backyard, huddled around a rusty truck that reminded her of a certain Pixar cartoon character. A middle-aged man with a thick uni-brow and pink skin, literally, probably hailing from one of the Slavic countries in eastern Europe. He noticed her right away.
"Hey, Sara. Come on here and give this old man a hand, yes? I'm having trouble fixing old' Gerty."
The man had a shiny crown devoid of hair on his head, a round spot of baldness that contrasted with the thick mane on the rest of the head.
"Good morning, Sir."
The ghost leaned against the propped hood and grinned as he wiped some sweat off his brow, leaving a greasy streak mark behind. "Oh, thank goodness, a well-behaved child. My name is Graham Cobbler, pleased to meet you. I'd offer you something to drink but eh, I'm dead."
"Don't worry about that, sir. And I'm pretty sure the drinks in your home either expired or aren't suitable for minors."
He grinned, "Got that right, Missy."
"I have water with me if I need something. So, what do you need help with?"
"Gerty here," he gently tapped the old truck, "she's a fighter."
"I'm sure she is. What model is this?" She asked with genuine interest though she knew little about cars. All she could tell was the maker from the logo.
"This is a 1982 Chevrolet C10," Graham proudly announced. "I need to do some repairs. Just be a sweetheart and hand me the tools as I ask, that should be plenty.
Sara was touched by the love this ghost had for his truck. But maybe she could use it to learn something about car repair. "Could you give me some pointers on mechanics while we're at it, sir?"
"Of course. it'll be my pleasure."
Once more she was dragged into the ghost's rhythm, spending several hours repairing Gerty. When Graham declared it done, he had her turn the ignition. The engine whined when the electric starter labored to turn the main crankshaft but then roared as the gas engine burned fuel for the first time in a decade.
"Woo-hoo! Atta girl!" Graham cheered. "Thank you, Sara."
She watched the ghost, waiting for the telltale to fade. She got none. Sara made a remark to be a bit blunt and asked for the last wish out front next time.
"Sir, what is your last wish? Your unfinished business?" She asked.
"Oh, that," he chuckled. "Well, there's this puzzle I can't solve," he went to the workbench and opened a drawer. He produced an 11x11 Rubik's Cube. The middle layers were so tiny one could make pixel art with them. "Would you do the honors, Sara?"
No way, she thought. The girl knew she lacked the mental capacity to solve a standard 3x3 cube, much less this monstrosity. She had an idea, though. "What are the rules, sir?"
"Just fiddle with the thing until it's done, I guess," Graham shrugged. "It's solved when the faces are all the same color."
"So, I can twist, turn, and pull any way I want?" She asked just to be sure.
"Go wild."
Sara took the cube and went to sit by the dining table. Graham followed. Once there, she grabbed a corner and twisted and pulled, until it came off. Sara started to disassemble the cube, setting the pieces aside by their color combination. An hour later, she had the whole thing reassembled, with the faces all of the same colors.
"Snakes bite me. Now, that's what the fruit computer guy called thinking out of the box."
"It's solved, sir."
Graham started to fade. "Sure is, Sara. Thanks for your help."
> > Assignment Complete!
>
> > You gained 1 point of Adroitness
>
> > You gained 1 point of Brawn
>
> > You gained 1 point of Core Strength
"No car repair Skill?" She asked the fairy.
"Bum—" Sara's lamentations were interrupted by a loud noise.
**WHOOSH**
The unmistakable sound came from the airport. An airliner had just taken off, heading southeast. By the looks of it, it was a Boeing 737-800. Something was off. It wasn't climbing smoothly. The plane tilted a bit, then black smoke came out of its engines. It tilted upward, stalled, then tilted forward all the way and started to descend. It glided for a moment, but then nosedived. It felt like it had happened on purpose.
She watched with abject horror as the airplane descended on southern Forest Park. Sara climbed onto Graham's house and stood on the roof, forgetting even to blink. The plane crashed with a loud noise and a massive cloud of smoke. She could hear the trees and houses it destroyed in its wake.
The girl jumped down and ran on foot. She didn't even notice how fast she went, at the same speed as a bicycle. Her heart pounded. All she could think of was to help any survivors. She ran past a church, crossed the train rails, and jumped over crashed cars littering the Forest Parkway.
*
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Forest Park, Clayton County, Georgia. Friday, October 18th, 2019. 16:45
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Sara reached the crash and found burning wreckage. She felt her skin tingling. "What's happening?"
The girl put a hand on her solar plexus as the news struck her. "Any survivors."
"Should I run?"
"You want me to fight it?"
"Yes. You know I did, so stop going in circles. This is just rhetorical. Can't I make the ghost —"
Sara huffed. "Can I make the wraith go away by fulfilling their last wish?"
Sara detected sarcasm. "What if we leave it alone?"
She could swear the fairy rolled its eyes at her. "Tell me what I should do," she resigned to do as the fairy asked.
Sara imagined herself as Elza, pulling a coat of frost over her skin. It did fuck all to her mana manipulation.
No such thing.
It tickled. She concentrated but snorted as she imagined herself constipated on a toilet.
She rubbed her right arm. It was getting so cold the skin was becoming numb. "I can't do it."
"Frozen from Disney."
Sara could do angry. She imagined the cop who attempted to kidnap her and get her killed by the psychopathic Necropolis King, then thought how she wouldn't mind stabbing the megaphone-toting terrorist. Angry energy was red and hot like resentment turned into Tabasco sauce spat right into the eyes of those two idiots.
"FUCK YOU!" She yelled her frustrations and pushed the angry energy, stabbing forward with the knife.
She might as well be trying to push water uphill with a rake. Her results were a lot of embarrassment. Fortunately, no other survivors were nearby. She thought about the people on the plane, and how she would never learn why they decided to fly the aircraft.
The girl whimpered. She thought of something very stupid. Kissing goodbye to her dignity, Sara assumed a pose with her knife. A magical girl pose. She felt ridiculous. "I hope there's nobody around."
"Fuck off, crystal symbiote," the girl retorted with her potty mouth.
She returned to the pose. Her brain tied into a knot and blanked out, forgetting everything she knew about those cartoon shows.
"Pretty pretty, omygodican'tbelieveI'mdoingthis Moon Power!"
All that she managed to kill was her self-respect. She just waved the knife menacingly.
"Seriously, fuck off. I'm not doing this, if someone comes too close to the crash and dies, it's their fault."
"Oh, NOW I'm irresponsible! For crying out loud, what do you expect me to do? Save the world? I know I was born at Christmas, but don't you dare make me a mess... messiah..."
"Yeah. That. I'm not your freaking Jesus allegory! I'm done. Bye. Verachiel chose wrong. Should've gone for the Brazilian televangelist. Every priest embezzles church money. It's not such a big deal."
Fuming, the girl shrieked. "So you say. If I'm humanity's salvation, then we're going extinct!" She pointed at the plane wreckage. "At least those people died with style."
She felt veins popping underneath the Band-Aids. Whether actual veins popped or not was anyone's guess. Her forehead throbbed, and her hands were sweaty. "You gotta be fucking me."
A dam broke inside her. Her indignation, shame, anger, hunger, paranoia, fears, bitterness, vice, and all things not nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect bitchy girl. When accidentally added with chemistry X, in this case, the supernatural, thus the...
Black stuff gushes out of her right arm as she forcibly purged open a mana channel in her arm. Red energy flowed into her palm, charred the surface of the wooden handle, and then coalesced into the blade. Sara screamed and swung the knife, leaving a red gash in the air for a fraction of a second, like an overexposed photo of a shining object.
> > You gained 5 points in Mana Infusion.
>
> > Mana Infusion (Mystical Skill): Infuse energy into tools and melee weapons. Adds 2% effectiveness and damage per rank. Infused objects can interact with incorporeal entities.
Sara threw the knife down, sending it skittering on the pavement. Then she screamed her lungs out.
"I fucking hate you right now," Sara whimpered.
Abby sounded resigned and content at the same time.
"Fuck you. Stop messing with my mind!"
"No!" She denied it just to spite the sprite.
That made Sara look at the plane crash. She could see something move out of the fuselage. "Ahhhh!" She screeched but didn't move. "Seriously, just shut up until I calm down!" Sara ordered.
She looked up and saw it. The wraith was a woman and wore a pilot's uniform, was bald on top but had two wing-like hair projections on either side above her ears. Instead of hands, it had a two feet long blade on each side that looked as impractical as they were sharp. A distorted face wrapped in shadows without anything to block the sun represented betrayal and a body shaped like a werewolf's for her wrath.
The pilot's wraith locked eyes with the girl.
"I killed those whiny idiots!" She shouted. "Four days trapped in the airport and they make me fly the plane at gunpoint. Ha! Serves them right!"
"Lady, can... can we talk this through?" Sara tittered. "Do you have any last wishes? Unfinished business? Look the people who threatened you are all dead."
"ALL MUST DIE!" The pilot wraith shouted and started to limp toward the living girl.
Sara bolted. The girl didn't dare look behind her as she fled for her life. She heard nothing but wraiths didn't make any noise either. She could sense the undead hot on her heels.
She ran past the city hall, back to the parkway, and ran to the east. Ahead of her, she saw a police cruiser approaching on the wrong side of the road. Unwilling to meet other survivors, she jumped over the guard rail and crossed to the north side. As the car went past her, she could swear she saw the cop inside it. No, that was her imagination. Sara kept running.
"DIE!" The wraith shouted again.
She felt a rush of mana. That only happened when... fuck.
> > You gained 2 points of Composure
>
> > You gained 1 point of Core Strength.
She heard tires screeching, then a metallic crash and glass breaking.
Sara slammed into a crashed van to halt her momentum. She trembled, unwilling to look behind her. She didn't die, proof the wraith was no longer behind her. The girl flipped around and pressed her back against the van's cold metal. She stared with shock at the police cruiser.
Stuck in the airbags, the cop was glowering at her. The kidnapping one.
Still panicking, Sara screamed, "NO!" And ran northwest, passing next to Forest Park's library.