The Tommorows

Skewed through the ashes, there was nothing but smoke and snow for lengths. No one knew what day, what time; they just existed. Slow and menacingly cold. Keeping watch had become a painful task, and was usually given to recruits. However, sometimes, seniors were cast off in a manner of severe punishment, second only to being in a coffin. That’s how Ira had found himself on the top, with Alysa and Dean. For Ira, the day had been irritating at best. He did refuse a direct order from a senior officer, and his friends paid the price too.

“A real Game of Thrones vibe to this,” Dean huffed in the cold wind.

“Stop with your references already,” Ira snapped. His temper had been out on a run today, checking it had been unfruitful. “This is not one of your TV shows, Dean. People get killed out there. They aren’t white walkers, they aren’t zombies, God knows what they are. No matter how many we kill, they keep coming back.”

“They sure as hell aren’t alive,” Alysa snuffed a cigarette on the wall. Perched on the edges, armed enough for a calvary. Ira never understood how could she carry all that weight around like nothing. “You should have done whatever was asked of you,” she looked at Ira and sighed. “It won’t be long before he’ll have your head severed, with all the pompousness of the gallows. You know how he is like.” Her words made Ira still, stiller than the cold winds, the cold night, and the dead that did not stay dead.

Long ago, when the day was mixing with the night, a ten-year-old Ira had dragged Keya along to this place. A haven, they’d know the walls and the civilization within as. Little did they know, it was just as bad as the outside. People had been disappearing.

Back in the day, when the world, bright and full of opportunities had existed, Ira had had high hopes for his future. But that future had turned into something wretched. There had been premonitions, the world would end, they’d say. The Mayans got it wrong, and so did the scientists. When they had least expected it, the world came shattering down. Attacks had started small, and then massively grown. The world’s best of best leaders succumbed, and bit by bit, everything shattered into nothingness. It wasn’t just the dead out in the open, but the heavy snowfall. The lush greenery had disappeared, life was scant, and so were animals.

“Ira,” there was the quickness in Dean’s voice. Ira gazed into the abyss of the night; he couldn’t see as well as Dean. Dean had a scout’s eye. “There’s something there.” Alysa jumped off the parapet, next to Ira. “There’s a lot of it.” She spun and barked orders, she was the commanding officer out on top. The walls stood massively tall, difficult to climb, and easy for the soldiers to shoot at the dead. Lately, there had been more attacks, growing in viciousness. Some even propped up inside the walls.

No time to think, Ira reminded himself from spiraling in his thoughts, his friends called it a conspiracy. He ran to the interconnecting communicative system, punched his code, and connected to the office at the base of the wall. They need to brace themselves. “How many?” croaked a voice through the intercom. “Too many to count,” Ira steadily replied. “Great, see you soon,” with that the line went dead.

The new breed of the enemy was hardly a threat. Thick-skinned, zombie-like creatures, and ugly as hell to look at. Their eyes bulged out of sockets, Ira had seen some with eyes hanging out of the sockets more than once, their limbs weak and heavy bellies. All they wanted was human flesh. Ira had also seen them feed on humans so much that their bellies burst.

More men flittered in, Ira and Alysa took their positions. When the dead approached, they simply fired. It wasn’t even a real fight. “It would be a real fight only if it was one on one,” Ira gritted his teeth, knowing there was nothing to this meaningless fight. The heat from the flame throwers Alysa used, and the sordid references Dean kept throwing out in the air kept him company for the rest of the night. Even at dawn, there were no signs of retreat from the monsters. They kept coming. “All right, Ira,” he said chewing on cold meat- raw meat no less, “tell me how do you not see this is Game of Thrones? They keep coming, they don’t bloody die, and they will eat whoever.”

“There are no giants, for one,” Ira sighed and retracted his turret of potassium bullets, deadly for anything. “And we have guns, we don’t just rely on dragon breath for fire, we make our own.” The sun was quickly rising, the heat was not enough, but the brightness somehow made them immobile and it was easier to kill them. Alysa tossed her flame thrower away and brought out her machete. Dean was close behind, with a knife of his own, Ira hadn’t drawn his blade out yet. Rather, Ira felt almost bad for killing them. They reached the big front gates, found out that none of the dead had gotten inside.

“Why would you even ask that?” a familiar voice echoed from somewhere inside the front office.

“Keya, it is unnatural of you to be out in the front,” Ira laughed. 

“It was either this or the toilet and I don’t like washing toilets,” she kept her voice low. It was strange to see her take interest in anything other than lazing around or drinking away to the glory. The only reason she had joined the troops was that she did not want to be picked on by the others when Ira was gone. Her skills were passable at best.

“Coming with?” Ira asked her once he saw the scouting party come out of the second gate. Ira was positive she’d say no. To his surprise, when he turned over the paperwork stating only Dean and Alysa were accompanying him, Keya joined them, armed and suited. She was eyeing the incoming party from the gates. “I’ll go,” she breathed.

Once the gates opened, everything dulled. Stepping outside the gates, he found his blade tucked under his shirt and began his work. There was no running away from a soldier’s duty. If he did not kill them, they’d kill him and his friends. He’d seen it happen, and he had seen that when he was too young. Reporting back to the office was pretty easy, headcount, items recovered and the ammunition used. Simple and done without a hitch.

On his way from the second the gate, towards the settlements, he saw a woman crying. She looked young and dirty. Most people were. Only those in the corps, those manning the walls, and anyone in the command was well-off. According to Keya, another young woman was missing. There were no traces of her. All of her belongings were gone. “That’s been happening a lot,” Rust joined him as Keya finished her story.

“Some of ours have been missing too,” Rust continued. “I doubt we would find them, been gone a long time.”

“That’s impossible,” Ira contested. “Think about it, we live in confined spaces. There’s nowhere to disappear but here. The guards haven’t found anything suspicious, there have been no breaks in the walls, and there’s nothing more of it. They are here,” he emphasized.

“But don’t you see, there is nothing about it that has been done. The commanders have ignored the missing ones, even these, who work hard to feed us and keep us supplied,” Keya turned to glance at the crying woman. She continued, “What’s strange is, the anomalies of these dead things have found their way in, and no-one’s talking of it.” They walked in silence, nothing could be done at this point.

The relentless winds made it hard to sleep. All of the corps members for the morning excursion had been relived for their duties for two days. “Stupid dreams, stupid wind, nothing lets me sleep,” Ira heard Dean curse. Stretching his legs, Ira padded across the room and motioned Dean to follow him out.

Dean told Ira about the lady from the morning and the painting of her son. He spoke randomly about anything, and all of sudden he frantically moved his arms above his head. “What’s she doing out this late?” Ira ignored Dean, tried to let the chill in the air make him drowsy or cold enough to fall asleep.

Dean was talking about zombies again, and some TV show he’d found on tape in the library. Chattering non-stop, Dean was beginning to give Ira a headache. The door behind them opened, and Alysa stepped in, face pale. “Keya and Rust,” she swallowed audibly.

“Keya and Rust what?” he took two steps towards her, still in a good mood. Ira felt uncomfortable, all of a sudden, he felt exposed, unsafe. “Guys, we should go in.” Before he could repeat his words, one of the dead men came clawing towards Dean, jumping off the ledge.

“What the –“ Dean yelped and ducked, barely saving his neck.

Men, women, children, there was no end to these. They came in all sizes. Ira found a steel bar to fight them off, retreating towards the door, while Alysa managed to acquire some firearms. Pistols, heavy and silver. Alysa took the front, nudging Ira to take a step back. “I know my shit, you two back down. We can’t kill them all with our bullets.” Dean and Ira retreated, shooting at whatever moved, Alysa had already barricaded the door. She was always quick with things.

“Keya and Rust are missing,” Alysa spoke while she reloaded. “Their stuff vanished, even records. I went to the commander and then the chief to inquire,” she fired two shots, hitting them directly in the forehead. Their skulls’ insides plastered everywhere. She brought her blade out and struck the last two of the intruders. “There is no help, there is no trace, and those two might as well have never existed,” she wiped her blade.

“What’s worse,” she continued, “your name” she pointed at Ira, “was marked as dead.” Ira stared at her in disbelief, too shocked to even speak. He just staggered past her. It had been too much, his life was turning over. Keya and Rust missing, he was alive, and his name was marked as dead. What was even happening? Ira’s ragged breaths fogged, and his eyes could not settle down.

“Ira,” Dean called softly, clearly worried about him.

Ira ignored him, looked above. Smoke everywhere, even though he did not smell anything burning. “Dean, you know all kinds of things.”

Dean nodded, Ira has lost his marbles now, I know it, he thought.

Ira continued, “Why don’t we see the sky anymore?”

“The world was covered in smoke,” Dean supplied. “The world was overrun by pandemic after the pandemic, and a new breed of humankind sprung up. Only that they weren’t humans- the ones you don’t want to acknowledge as zombies.”

Nodding at the statement, he looked at them. Ira walked towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Dean asked. Alysa was picking at the dead.

“Something does not sit right with me,” Ira said. The commander had irked him since his first day, but until two days ago, it was nothing out of the blue. Alysa was inspecting the deads bodies with Dean. Alysa,” Ira’s eyebrows furrowed. “Did the commander ask you of something?” Alysa continued with her mindless scavenging. “Alysa, did he ask you to kill someone?”

“Yes,” she replied, not looking at him. “You. But that’s not all, there were others of our corps, each with a name to kill. I refused, and then Rust and Keya went missing.”

“Not before?”

“No, I left them speaking to the lady we saw after…”

 Ira absently paced around in a circle.

Dean had been too scared to say anything so far. “Wait, you are saying, that Keya and Rust are suspiciously missing after you refused to kill him?” he pointed a shaky finger at Ira. Alysa nodded. “Great, we aren’t safe here,” he sighed, the wind was picking up. Dean’s forehead creased. “Is it possible that the older we get, the likely we are to get killed?”

That rung a bell with them. Over the past few years, Ira and Dean had found inconsistencies with the knowledge of the world before. They could tell because they had been there, living in a world that no longer existed. Keya and Alysa had similar inputs, Rust hadn’t cared as long as they were fed, had a bath, and slept in a bed. “I cannot sleep on straws,” he had said.

“Should we confront the commander?” Ira looked at Alysa.

“Oh no,” Dean hushed with a limb in his hand. “Uh, guys?”

They turned to Dean, with questions written on their faces. “There are two things. One, I found the missing man, and he is dead. And there are droid-like zombies, or “deads” as you like to call them, Ira. It is like Fullmetal Alchemist Zombieland down there.”

Alysa and Ira instinctively looked down, and there were many of the so-called zombies. “Do you think Keya and Rust are dead?”

“Not sure,” Alysa and Ira said in unison. There was little hope of seeing those two alive, most of those that disappeared were never sighted again. Not alive at least. The three of them noticed that the horde of the dead did not walk on forelimbs, they simply walked. “The skin is shallow, look,” Dean pointed at one. “They’d be easy to kill.”

“Only if they attacked,” Ira stated. “They aren’t attacking.” Alysa motioned them to move. They decided to keep small guns, pistols, and knives, considering the enemy. The commander only needed to know these three were armed. The harsh wind cut through their knuckles. Smoke hung heavy in the sky. Speeding down the stairs, they went around the buildings to the primary office. It wasn’t hard, their sleeping lodge was close. There were no guards around that explained the horde of the dead walking around, eerie silence struck through the chilly night.

They did not need to prod further, the commander was standing at the entrance, talking to the oldest man they’d ever seen. “Do you think we should just ambush him here? Ask him to come clean?” Dean asked.

They had no choice, Ira nodded. He wasn’t fearful, he could die here or by the dead, or the zombies if that’s what Dean wanted to call them. They needed proof, and but did not have much time. Whatever it was, he would die tomorrow, accident or no accident.

“Who did they ask you to kill?” Alysa asked, eyes locked on the commander. Gun cocked and ready to shoot. “Rust,” Ira answered. “No surprise they went missing,” Dean filled the silence. The old man got into the vehicle and drove off, the talk seemed to have been pleasant. It felt as though he had looked right at Ira. That couldn’t be it, Ira shook his head.

“You three can come out of hiding now,” the commander called.

“Where are they?” Alysa pointed her pistol at the commander. Unwavering. “You had something to with their disappearance, where are they?” The commander did not answer, he only smiled and shook his head.

Ira and Dean crept from the side, standing on the commander’s left. “Tell us now or you die,” Ira barked. Anger flushed him.

“Keya and Rust are…” the commander looked at all three of them one by one, a smile playing on his lips. “There is no need to worry,” the commander sighed. He stepped back and plopped on the stairs. “You three are a handful,” he let out a small laugh. “You think I killed them?” Their raised guns answered his suspicions. “I’ll show you the truth, put your guns away, please.”

“You, spineless prick, you killed your own,” Alysa grimaced.

“Not in the least,” the commander answered, sincere. “I simply helped your friends. They are safe and, in a facility, nearby. I have plans of sending you there as well…” he paused, before the three could protest, he continued, “This facility is run by a group of people, which, we now believe, had something to with the dead propping up everywhere. You know, people die and come back to life. Sinister things, the powerful always look for something like that,” he gave a short, hollow laugh. “I have been working here a long time, I have seen normal people, like the lady whose son went missing in the morning, have turned into the dead, without death.” The commander paused, allowed the information to sink.

“There’s a reason for it all, and trust me, I have evidence inside to show. Everyone’s out cold tonight, as you must have noticed, no one came to your rescue when fired at the dead. The droid-like creatures, you saw, they’re half zombies if you will. Those can be saved. The ones you all killed in the morning, can’t be saved. Usually, we drop them in a controlled volcano and cut our losses. I send only the best to our other facility, where we fight, where the living want to kill the living too, like the old times. Maintaining peace is all I care about. Your friends are alive and inside, let’s meet them.”

As promised, Keya and Rust were there, all smiles. There was the evidence the commander spoke of, and that was enough for the three of them. Dean was psyched. “Oh, goodie! This did not turn into your mainstream zombie shit, I would have been so pissed.”

“You three in?” Keya asked, smiling.

Tomorrow would come, and they would finally do some good, they won’t exist anymore. They’d live. Perhaps, even be heroes.