Haven’t posted in while, just finished my third semester in a row in college and am about to start round 4 so I’ve been busy. But I took creative writing classes the last 2 semesters and this is one of the things I came up with. This is a second draft but far from a final draft. Its just a sneak peek at my current project and probably my next novel but I won’t even guess on a possible completion date.
This started as an assignment but I feel the idea has evolved into something that might be promising also I decided to go with a first person present tense perspective that jumps around from different characters points of view. I’d love to get some feedback on this, hope you like it so far!
Justin Lindner
Working Title “Fragments of an Apocalypse”
INTRODUCTION
One day, with no warning, all of the electronics on Earth died. All of the power turned off and it many cases circuitry was destroyed. Nobody could ever prove what caused it and most people didn’t really care. The why didn’t matter at all. The effects were so severe and sudden that the instinct for survival outweighed any curiosity about the why of the situation. Figuring out a why wasn’t really possible anyway. Later people had their theories and guesses but nothing could ever be proven and even if it could it wouldn’t have changed anything.
What mattered is that within less than a week nearly all major cities had become inhospitable and deserted. Billions of people were either dead or displaced. Long distance communication was non existent. Most governments were reduced to a state where they couldn’t operate or maintain any form of control. People were starving, desperate, scared and confused.
Within a month the death toll was estimated to be in the billions, many people having died from starvation, lack of clean water or exposure. Within a year those who were still alive had either built new settlements-far from what was left of the cities or had become hunter gatherer nomads and some formed gangs with plans of stealing whatever they needed to survive.
Eventually people with the knowhow were able to restore some electronics depending on what they could scavenge and build new limited electrical grids but surviving people with these skills were few and far between. For most people in many ways life had reverted to how it had been in the eighteenth century only with recent memories of what they had lost.
Within a few years life had reached a new sense of normalcy. People realized and accepted (in various ways) that the world had changed and wouldn’t be going back to the way it was, at least not in their lifetimes. Some people accepted this peacefully. Others maintained strong survival skills but lost their sanity and humanity. Others still saw it as an opportunity for conquest and dreamed of building new nations, since now the lines drawn on maps meant little to nothing and nothing was stopping new lines from being drawn.
These are the journals, fragments of journals, or streams of consciousness of the experiences and thoughts from different people during the initial disaster and in the years following it.
Part One: Initial Crisis
Chapter One (Journal Entry/Stream of Consciousness), anonymous author: New York City
January 22nd, 2018 1PM
I don’t know what is going on and everyone else around me seems as confused as I do. I had been walking back to the office after much lunch break like every other day a minute ago and now its pure chaos!
With no warning the street went nearly silent-for a second. The deafening silence stops me and everyone else in their tracks. The air had been full of the sound of the engines of countless cars, trucks and busses then it went silent. Then there were crashes. Lots of crashes! All of their engines had died simultaneously apparently along with power brakes. Now there are crashes everywhere I look and these cars aren’t moving.
People are yelling and screaming and pointing all over the place. I hear two old men arguing.
“It’s those damned Muslims I’m telling you!”
“No, no, I bet its the Russians!”
What difference does it make at this point? I wonder.
I look around and realize if it was night it would be pitch black in the normally well lit metropolis. All the lights are off. Traffic lights, lights on advertisement, lights inside businesses, they are all off. Its eery to say the least.
Someone screams. More people scream. I look around to see people pointing in the sky. I am shocked to see planes plummeting towards the city and the land around it. Like September 11, but not like that… That was planned, aimed. This is out of control. It seems like the cars and everything else aircraft had lost power as well and now they are all going down. In the distance I can see billowing smoke coming from what must be crashes. Or fires caused by some other nightmare.
I close my eyes hoping I am dreaming, praying this isn’t real. Then I hear explosions and more screams. I feel heat. I smell smoke. I open my eyes in time to see fire and part of a building collapsing next to me, then everything goes black…
I wake up with a pounding headache. I rub my head and it feels sticky. I pull my hand back and see blood. It is dark where I am at but I am not crushed. There is enough light shining through cracks in the rubble surrounding me that I can see while I hit my head at least my body is intact. I get to my feet, dizzy but at least I don’t feel anything broken.
“Hello!” I shout, “Is anyone there?”
All I know right now is I would rather not be alone, and I need to get out of here.
“HELP!” cries a voice. It sounds like a young woman. I walk towards where I heard the sound. Now I take in my surroundings. On my left is what is left of several businesses although there is so much rubble it is kind of hard to identify what is what. On my right there is part of the sidewalk, part of the street, some wrecked cars and a wall of debris. And bodies! I didn’t notice the bodies right away. It must be a combination of shock and sensory overload. But sure enough there are dead people on the street, inches away from me. Everything still feels like a bad dream so I don’t think much of anything. I remember the voice calling for help.
“Ma’am?” I call hoping she is still alive.
“Please help me!”
She is close. I walk a bit further and around a wrecked truck and see half of a woman poking out from under some debris. There is blood everywhere, almost surely hers.
“Sir please help me!” she says, seemingly oblivious to her predicament. She is young with blonde hair, pretty, maybe in her twenties at the oldest, wearing an expensive looking blue dress. And she is crushed. She must be in shock because she seems no more upset than someone a little bit lost. What is lost is her body from the waist down. Under who knows how many pounds or tons of twisted concrete and metal. I can’t help her, I don’t know what to do. I can’t walk away either. I just sit down next to her and hold her hand. She smiles. Her skin is pale and I imagine it isn’t always. Her hand is cool and clammy.
I take my cell phone out of my pocket, thinking I should call for help and see that it is completely dead. I feel the young woman’s hand slip out of mine and look over to see it fall to the ground as her neck goes limp and her head hits the sidewalk with a dull thud. She is clearly dead now but at least she didn’t seem to suffer.
I can not comprehend what is happening here. It looks like the city was bombed but I know a plane crash can have that effect. It didn’t seem as if we were under attack, but whatever did happen could be much much worse.
Chapter Two, George O’Patrick: Private property near the outskirts of Orlando, Florida
February 3rd 2018, 9PM
“Remember about two weeks ago?” I ask.
“Barely George…”
“Well you would be able to see the city from here then. All lit up. Now its just black and dead”
“Ya, what the hell happened?”
“No idea but nothing good”
“Its a good thing we got out of there when we did”
“Well I don’t know what happened but I was in New Orleans for Katrina and what I do know is that when there’s some kind of emergency spanning a whole city the best thing to do is get out quick!”
“You were right about that. The gunshots just stopped a few days ago. I guess now everyone is either out or dead. I can’t imagine anyone still staying in a city long like that”
“That city can no longer support life you know? Most of the big cities these days use electricity to pump in fresh water and pump out the sewer water. Anyone still in there won’t be able to get fresh water, shy of bottled which I bet mostly got looted and will have to deal with an environment I expect will get more toxic everyday”
“There must be a lot of bodies laying around in there too”
“Ya that too and I bet no one is picking them up. I don’t think what happened here is an isolated incident. If it was surely FEMA or someone would have sent aid by now. I haven’t seen so much as a single National Guard truck. That means this is either national, or worse global. I think we are on our own now!”
“At least we have this place”
“Thank god for that. I guess Uncle Jeb wasn’t so crazy after all!”
“I guess not…”
Chapter 3, “Crazy Joe”: Wandering somewhere south of Orlando
July 21, 2018 11 AM
“People use to call me Crazy Joe. I’m the crazy one for preparing for anything, For having water filters, and gas masks, and body armor, and dozens of guns, and thousands of rounds of ammunition, and tons of other survival gear. The thing is, I’m alive! Most of them are dead! Isn’t that right?”
Why doesn’t this dog talk back? Oh well he’s still a good friend.
“Well maybe I am crazy. But it doesn’t matter. I like the new world. I’ve never felt so free. I scavenge what I can, hunt what I can, sleep under the stars and keep moving. There’s so much to see! These people though their cities were so great, now they are just fancy graveyards. If civilization was that fragile maybe we weren’t meant to be civilized”
A bush shakes of ahead. Its either a threat or dinner, either way I unsling my twelve gauge. I’m only about twenty yards away and have eight buckshot shells in the gun with one in the chamber, whatever it is doesn’t stand a chance. I aim down the barrel into the bush and wait. An armadillo scurries out and walks lazily towards me. I relax.
“Damn not a threat or dinner! I dread the day I’m hungry enough to eat one of those! Besides I hear they carry leprosy”
I sling my shotgun and start walking again. The armadillo is just a few feet up ahead but doesn’t pay much attention to me, this is unusual for these things but I am in quite a desolate part of the state, perhaps this guy has never encountered a human before. Well, I better be polite!
“How are you Mr. Armadillo?”
The armadillo pays me no attention. Rude. The dog I’m with, a stray chihuahua with no
killer instinct seems afraid of the armadillo. He continues to follow me but gives the strange creature a wide berth, growling a bit as he passes.
A hundred yards or so ahead I see a sign for Lakeland at the next exit. Never been there, maybe I will meet some people to trade with, maybe I can scavenge. Either way I’ll get to see the ruins of another city and I can’t wait!
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