The last days of Earth

TW: descriptions of blood, and gore.

Harriet watched the evening sky from the basement window. She had decided it was time to leave.

She thought back to when the drought began, how nobody panicked at first, but you could feel the unease in the air. Then the temperature spiked to over one hundred twenty-five degrees and hovered there, never going under one twenty in the last six months. Rolling blackouts turned into complete blackouts. Finally, the panic set in, white-hot and frantic. People trampled each other to death over necessities. They looted stores and robbed houses. There were times she didn’t think they would make it back. 

Harriet was in charge of food rationing and spent her days standing in a sweltering kitchen looking over the group's dwindling supplies wishing they had risked going to a few more stores. Canned food, chips, candy, water, and soda used to fill the pantry from floor to ceiling, but now it covered one shelf. As she counted, beads of sweat began to form on her forehead, one case of water, half a case of canned beans, one loaf of stale bread, three cans of spam, and some miscellaneous candy nobody liked. She opened the last case of water, grabbing three, before heading back downstairs.

At this point, the 800-square-foot basement looked like a country on the verge of war. Each member of the group invaded a corner of the average size basement with Ted claiming the entertainment area in the far left corner, Jessica taking over the bedroom they used to alternate occupying several months ago in the right corner, and Scott had pulled out all of the storage bins from under the stairs to make a shanty room. Harriet had settled for the floor by the laundry machine. 

She couldn’t even remember what anyone had done to turn them against one another, they just slowly grew apart. Stupid squabbles had turned into months of not talking, and now it seemed everyone was too prideful to move on.

Harriet went to Jessica's room first. The door was always locked. So, she knocked leaving the water outside the door. Next was Scott, who would scream at her if anything was moved. So once again she left the water on the floor outside his “room.” Finally, Ted. Every day Harriet delivered provisions to everyone in the basement, but he was the only one she actually saw.

 The running water had stopped flowing to the toilet months ago. So, that meant that Scott only had to leave his space to use the bucket in the dead of night, and Jessica never had to leave her room at all. Harriet had no idea how she got rid of waste… frankly she did not want to find out.

Ted was sitting on the couch staring blankly at the wall where the TV once sat. Harriet set the water on the end table next to him, then she moved to the wall he was staring at. His face did not change. 

“I think I’m leaving tonight,” she said as she leaned back on the wall crossing her arms, “It’s not going to end well, I know it, but what other choice is there?”

Ted’s eyes focused on hers, he hadn’t said anything in the last three months, but that did not stop Harriet.

“Either get out of this hole in the ground or die in it.”

She waited a moment hoping for a response. Ted said nothing. Harriet pushed off the wall and began walking back to her corner. He grabbed her wrist with a loose grip. A slight squeal escaped her lips.

His eyes remained fixed where she had been leaning, “you know what they did to Caroline.”

She hesitated for a moment, then she said, “No, you think you know what happened to her. For all, we know she made it out.”

He looked up at her, his deep green eyes full of pain, “who are you trying to fool? If you want to leave, leave, but don’t make a fantasy world where they treat us well at the border. She showed up looking for help, and they killed her. Either with a bullet or by sending her back into this hellscape. Second verse same as the first.” he let go of her.

Harriet held his gaze for a moment, then continued back to her corner. She knew he was right, two months ago she had wanted to leave, but all she could see when she closed her eyes were flashes of the news coverage days before the power went out permanently. After a month of extreme heat, people wanted out. The entire Midwest was affected, but bordering states couldn’t handle the overflow of people. So, they shut down the borders. For the first few weeks, they tried to send in supply trucks, but most of them were ambushed. The drivers were killed, and the trucks were used to sneak into neighboring states. That put an end to government aid. 

Eventually, the mass populous of the Midwest tried to move over to Canada, the feds didn't like that, so they temporarily closed the US-Canada border. This was about the time Caroline left. She did not live with them, but she was Ted's girlfriend. she begged, and pleaded, for Ted to leave with her. He refused. So, she left on her own. 

Along with the supply trucks, fuel had stopped coming in making cars useless. Harriet watched from the bay window upstairs as Caroline hopped on her bicycle, riding off into the dusk. Early next morning the news showed a video of people being slaughtered at the Illinois-Kentucky border. It was taken by someone hiding under a car. The camera shook horribly as it panned over hundreds of bodies lying in a river of crimson. Cops, or maybe soldiers, in riot gear, walked amongst the corpses poking the occasional body with the barrel of their gun. they cut it before you could see the fate of the person recording. Everyone sat on the couch in silent shock. Caroline hadn’t made it there yet, but it was waiting for her. 

Harriet often had nightmares about what happened to the person taking the video. Occasionally she dreamed it was her, and she managed to get away. Bullets whizzed past her as she ran for her life. Most of the time she was not so lucky. Again, she looked out the basement window, the sky a mixture of blazing red and orange as the horizon almost completely consumed the sun. 

Three days later

She took highway fifty-seven from Joliet to twenty-four, then that down to Kentucky. A sign reading “Metropolis next right” was her cue to get off the main road.  The sun bared down on her with the fury of ten angry gods. Up until now, Harriet had made it a point to only travel at night, but she did not want to be caught trying to cross the border at three in the morning. If the whole trip was an exercise in suicide by cop, then crossing at night would be an anti-climatic ending.

Pulling her bike over to the side of the road she gave the bell one last goodbye ring. The highway was surrounded by unkempt country. Grass and weeds up to her waistline, bugs buzzed past her ears, landing on her face. It was like torture. She’d only walked a few feet, but sweat was already starting to pour down her face, and down the sides of her body. It was seven thirty AM by her calculations, and the sun had been out in full force for the last hour and a half, but she could feel its endless heat zapping the life out of her. All at once, blood rushed through her ears, her head felt lighter than air. It dawned on her, I’m about to pas- everything went black.

***

The ground was hot and dry. So were her throat and lips. The entire back half of her body felt like overcooked bacon. Harriet moved her right arm to get up. The inside of her head flashed red. In a minute. she thought. For a moment, the clock turned back eleven years. She was ten years old again, her back wasn’t sunburnt, no, it was warm from the sun sneaking in through her bedroom window. 

“It’s ten o’clock honey, breakfast is ready!” she heard the distant voice of her mother yell.

“just one more minute…” Harriet mumbled in response.

She bit the side of her tongue and got up with a grunt. Fireworks went off in her brain, beautiful reds, and blues, all the colors of pain. Her head spun again, it doesn’t end like this, she bit down harder on her tongue. The taste of pennies flooded her mouth.

The border was closer than anticipated, just over the next hill she had a full view from about three blocks away. Harriet lay down in the brush taking note of the defenses. Stone barricades for miles in both directions, with one sheet metal building at the side of the road with a little wooden arm blocking the street. 

She whispered to herself, “I guess massacres do work. People must’ve stopped coming.”

Not to mention It looked like nobody was there unless the entire garrison was held up inside the metal building. Harriet shrugged it off, plan A was to try and go in legally, if she was rejected, and not shot, then plan B was to sneak across. As she went to get up her back screamed. Her head went light again. She lost her footing, sending her tumbling down the hill head first. Harriet landed at the bottom of the hill flat on her back. She nearly screamed but stifled it while frantically getting to her feet. Limping, she headed to the building.

The closer it got the more something felt off. God knows that building doesn’t have central air, and she didn’t hear a window air conditioner. As she approached the door an awful stench hit her nose. Her heart raced, blood rushed through her ears again, and her breathing became quick and shallow. Harriet grabbed the knob, hesitated, then threw the door open.

 Inside leaning back on a wooden chair was a bloated body with no face. Stale blood and brains covered the ceiling, walls, and floor. It was like someone had blown up an expired watermelon all over the room. The instrument used to make this wonderful piece of modern art lay on the ground barrel facing the door. Harriet dry heaved once, then she threw up Spam down the side wall.

Harriet stumbled away from the building, her vision beginning to darken. Not again NOT AGAIN! Using one of the barricades to steady herself she closed her eyes attempting to take deep breaths. With every inhale rot filled her lungs, it took everything she had not to pass out or throw up again. After what felt like three hours, she opened her eyes. Nobody was there. Why was nobody there? Tremors ravaged her body, and she waited for the tears to come. When they didn’t she laughed. Her eyes found the building housing the faceless man again, and the gun pointed at the door like an invitation. Harriet began to laugh harder as she traced her steps back to the room.