Afterglow: Chapters 5 & 6
The end and the aftermath
Thanks for reading. If you’re looking for Chapter 1, you can find it here. If you’re looking for Chapter 2, it’s here. Chapter 3 is here, and Chapter 4 is here
CHAPTER FIVE
Mama, Mama, Mama, please come soon. The monster got me. I love you so much. I love you. There’s so much blood. Why didn’t you come with me? The monster got me. There’s so much blood. He killed Mr. Snuffles. I prayed to Jesus but he didn’t come either. I can’t stay awake. It’s getting so dark. Why is it so dark? Please, please, please come soon. I’m so afraid. It’s so dark and you’re not here. Where are you? You promised you’d be here. I love—
“Omega-1 to Mars outpost-5, do you copy?”
Silence from the comm. The remaining thralls beat against the blast doors with weak, sickly thunks, but the doors held. The red planet hung in their viewscreen, a little dusty ball of earth. How could such a desert support the remainder of humanity? She couldn’t imagine starting a new life here, with nothing green, no water.
“Maybe they can’t hear us?” Jack looked out the window, picking at the cast that covered his left hand.
“Stop that,” Molly said. He did, but gave her a little broken smile that just about broke her heart. She didn’t think she could live with herself if Rachel ever gave her that smile.
“Our communications relay is still functional according to the sensors.” She tapped one of the only glowing blue terminals that hadn’t been burned or melted into slag metal. “It must be a problem on their end.”
Jack sat back in his seat and stared out of the viewport. He started picking at his cast again. She let him; she’d already ripped hangnails off her thumb and chewed her fingernails bloody.
“I hope they’re all right.”
Me too, kid. “Come on.” She pushed on the ship’s thrusters and began their descent.
The ship lurched and sputtered but obeyed. Fortunately, the autopilot hadn’t been disabled. The ship essentially flew itself, she just controlled when it did what it did. The sensor array locked on to Mars-5 and the ship spiralled its way down to the dead, dusty planet.
No one greeted them when the ship touched down in the hangar and red sand cascaded down the viewport. No one hailed them on the sensor relay. The hangar doors ground shut, sound muffled in the cockpit. Lights flickered on outside, and the climate-control kicked into gear with a low hum. The hangar was empty. Molly and Jack sat in their seats and listened to the silence. Behind them, the thralls jostled against the blast doors. The wet sounds of their lurching limbs tapped out a demented rhythm.
“Where is everyone?”
Molly unstrapped herself from the pilot’s chair and unholstered her Tek. She made sure her emotions were locked away in her Box of Broken Things. She grabbed a spare jacket from under the pilot’s chair. Rachel would probably be cold. It was cold in space, after all.
“Come on,” she said, and took one last look out at the hangar, full of ghosts and bare metal.
“What’s out there?” Jack said.
“Nothing.” She crossed to the crew’s exit hatch and punched the button. Her fingers twitched on the Tek. The door hissed open and the ramp lowered.
It was cold in the hangar. Her footsteps echoed on the ship’s ramp and then crunched on the red sand. Jack’s footsteps followed behind her. They reached the hangar doors. The access panel glowed blue in the dim light. Molly’s hand twitched on her gun again. Somewhere, in a place she’d buried deeper than her Box of Broken Things, she knew what lay beyond. She pressed her hand to the access panel.
Death filled the spaceport. The stench hit her first. Sickly-sweet, ripe, rotting flesh. Molly and Jack stood in the doorway. His little hand found hers, and together they walked into the carnage. Molly took in the cold details. Bodies littered the room, eviscerated. The Avandii had already been here. She turned in a slow circle. Her hand twitched on her Tek again. Annoyed, she looked down at it and found that both her hands were shaking. Jack stood next to her, silent tears streaming down his face, clutching on to her other hand. He pointed across the room, at the far wall.
The words “SURVIVORS TO IO” was scrawled there in bloody spray paint. A fluttering piece of paper was taped below it. And beneath it…
She sprinted through the spaceport, tripped over a dead arm and went sprawling. She rolled, smacked her head against the floor, and Molly’s Box of Broken Things shattered. A low, moaning sob bubbled out from her throat. She crawled the rest of the way to the tiny, broken body. She cradled her daughter’s head in her lap, kissed her forehead, wiped the blood from her nose. Her wispy blonde hair was matted with blood. She clutched a small, headless teddy bear in one hand, holding it close to her chest. The other held a tiny notebook.
“I’m sorry,” Molly whispered between sobs. “I’m sorry, baby.” And a hundred fragmented memories rushed through her mind. Rachel’s first skinned knee, crying as Molly poured peroxide on the wound. Her first wobbling baby steps, squealing as she tottered into a wall and grabbed the dog for balance. Her first birthday. Fistfuls of cake. Out-of-tune Happy Birthday songs. Nursing her quietly in the back of Mass when she and Will had still gone to church. The first kiss her daughter had planted on her cheek and then ran away giggling. How, when she was tired, she’d toddle up to Molly, plop her head down on her chest, and sigh.
All gone. All gone.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” What good was a mother who couldn’t protect her child? What good was she to anyone? What good was the world without her daughter in it? What good was life with nothing to live for? Her Tek lay on the ground next to her daughter’s bloody sneakers. Her feet. They cut her little feet. Tears flowed anew. She reached for the gun. The world doesn’t care about you, the mountain’s voice echoed in her head. The world doesn’t care. Her hand closed around the Tek. She held her daughter close to her chest. She closed her eyes. I’m so sorry, baby.
“Ms. Molly?” Jack’s voice was high and excited. “Ms. Molly!” Halting footsteps. A small hand on her shoulder. Paper rustled between them. She pulled herself away from Rachel, dropped the gun, wiped tears from her eyes.
“What you got there, buddy?” Her voice echoed, seemingly lonely in the cavernous room. Her hands shook.
Jack’s blue eyes were wide with excitement. He shoved the paper with the list of survivors on it at her. It crinkled in her shaking hands. He pointed to a name.
“My mom.” Tears filled his wide blue eyes. “My mom.”
She nodded, folded it up, and put it in her pocket. Molly had nothing to live for, but Jack still had hope. She holstered her Tek.
She gathered up Rachel’s body, wrapped it in the spare jacket that she’d grabbed, and laid her down under the scrawled message. She folded her daughter’s arms over her chest and nestled the teddy bear in them. She tucked the bear into the jacket and made sure Rachel’s feet were covered. It was cold in space after all. She gave her daughter one last hug, kissed her clammy forehead, and took the notebook from her tiny hand.
CHAPTER SIX
Baby,
It’s so cold without you. I love you. I miss you. I’m sorry.
Love,
Mommy
The smell of gasoline filled Molly’s nostrils. The gas can sloshed and fuel spattered on the ground. She’d drenched the hangar. She finished up by running a trail to Omega-1’s ramp. Jack was there, waiting for her with a small lighter they’d found on one of the security staff’s corpses.
She reached down and grasped Jack’s tiny hand in her own. He squeezed it, let go, flicked the lighter to life with his good hand, and dropped it on the trail of gasoline. Mars-5 blazed up in the night. They both turned their backs on the crackling flames and boarded the ship.
Molly secured the cabin, punched in the coordinates for Io and started the take-off sequence. The ship shuddered. The hangar doors opened, and the night sky whirled above them with dizzying numbers of stars. They lifted off, Mars’s burning surface spiralling away far below them. The ship made a wide, slow turn, exited the atmosphere and faced the black.
Molly Ramirez believed in her gun, her ship, and Jack. She believed in her daughter’s memory, in Will’s memory, in violence, and revenge. But most importantly, she believed in hope. The ship accelerated to cruising speed. The engines hummed, and Molly and Jack sped toward Io. His hand crept over from the co-pilot’s chair and squeezed hers again. She squeezed back. Jack smiled a wide, little kid’s smile and faced the stars as if to say, “Hold on, Mom, I’m coming.” After all, life’s not worth living unless you believe in something.
“All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.”
—WH Auden, September 1, 1939.