Gregory Norris - Down with the Fallen - A Post-Apocalyptic Horror Anthology

Sitting against the tree, my tree, I peel open a can of peaches and stare across the park. It’s overgrown now, the playground is frozen like it’s rusted, hiking paths are choked by unmanaged flora. But I’ll always love Gramercy Park. Mom and Dad brought me here so often. Grandfather never liked it, but he knew what it meant to me. After I finish the peaches, I crack open canned pudding.

This park is like the Internet: its vast emptiness reminds me of how big things made by people can outlast those people. I realize I’m underdressed. The falling temperatures remind me I need to stay alert. Nothing stays the same, not even in this new world. Change always comes. The seasons, the loss of comforts as more and more infrastructure crumbles, fear of how far into my mind loneness will take me. And worse. Eventually there will be a time to worry, to eventually lock the doors with intent. But Grandfather warned me of such a time. And prepared me for its arrival.

Grandfather holds me in his lap as we rock in his wicker chair. He is a room himself, my head presses against the wall of his barrel chest. Each arm are walls, too, and the room closes in on me with a gentle squeeze. I’m laughing. Mom and Dad are having a date night. I’m wearing Grandfather’s favorite dress. It’s not the one I like most, and it’s getting kind of tight around my belly. I don’t mind.

“Change is coming, Mia,” he says. I hear his voice in his chest, tickling my cheek. He’s been telling me this since I was six years old. It used to scare me to hear him talk about the Change, but now that I’m nine, I don’t worry about it as much. “I may not live to see the Change, but you will, my darling.”

I don’t like when he talks about not being here. Yes, he’s old, and his right hand sometimes seizes up on him, but he’s a strong, big room and his eyes never look old. My silver-haired grandfather is the greatest man I know. I can’t think of a life without him. I’ve told him this. He says he’ll always be with me, even after he’s gone. I think this is something people tell you so you won’t miss them as much.

“There is hope for you, my darling,” he says. “I will see to that. I will give you my greatest secret.”

What makes this new world strange and lonely isn’t so much the lack of people, but the absence of animals. I know what happened to all the people, but the animals just went away. This world was theirs, too. The sky seems vastly sad without the birds. You miss the big, bright things, but you also miss the small things teeming in the cracks and corners. I truly understood how alone I was when I discovered no worms in the soil, no ants in the pantry, no spiders in the dusty webs on the basement walls.

I am twenty-two. I am careful to mark the days since I’ve lost the automatic reminders from iPhones and radio and satellite TV. Before the end, time came to me as an involuntary function; now to track it is a commitment. In this place, my birthday can be any day, just mark it down and put twelve months between it.

Hey, I know how to pump gas from the tanks beneath the service stations, and stock up on the right medicines gloriously waiting at neighborhood pharmacies, and to keep my eyes and teeth strong and protected. Grandfather’s books help. On a schedule, I mow the lawns of every home on my block. That makes the neighborhood look less savage and less abandoned. Besides, busy work legit keeps my mind stable.

As for my appearance, I keep it practical—clean and shaved. Hair is short, clothes causal. I don’t do bras anymore, except when jogging, or doing hardcore scavenging. I’m stocked with enough Always pads to last me to menopause. I’m not a pretty girl. I know it. But I’ve known love. Love of my parents, and of my grandfather, certainly. I’ve tried to snag the love a boy here and a girl there. But I know I’m not someone’s idea of a catch. That’s all moot now, isn’t it? I am the most attractive woman walking the face of the earth.

The Pathfinder bounces and rocks as I guide it down Cabot Road, the worst road in town, even before the Change. I shouldn’t risk damaging the SUV on Cabot, but it’s the quickest way home. Inspired, I pull to the curb and snatch up my phone and text: Who will mind the things that need man’s constant care? Our nuclear reactors? Our unstable skyscrapers? Our dams and aqueducts? Our satellites still circling the globe? Our vast collection of deadly viruses? Who will fix the potholes? I press SEND.

I turn right onto Camden Ave. It’s smooth sailing from here to Brine. But I notice a doll in the middle of the street. I can’t recall seeing it earlier. You notice microscopic changes in a world without people to change things. I get out of the SUV, leaving it running. The doll’s China-white face is half smashed. Maybe I ran it over yesterday not knowing. It’s wearing a dingy denim dress over pantaloons. And an apron over the dress. I think of Raggedy Ann. The doll has a pull-string ring on its back.

It’s occurring to me that besides my dad’s final word and my own chatter, I haven’t heard a human voice since the world ended. I pull the ring and release it. At first there’s static, then a slow crescendo of sound as some out-of-use mechanism struggles to rewind the string. The doll speaks, slowly, garbled, but clear enough: “new… creatures… coming…” I drop the doll and almost wet myself.

I haul ass all the way back to Brine Street. When I slam the brakes in front of my house, the Pathfinder’s brakes grind miserably. I am reminded it’s time to learn to change out the brake pads, or to hotwire a new vehicle. Sweating by the time I reach the attic, I step to the corner behind the old wicker rocker. One hand is over my heart, which is going like a jackhammer, the other at my forehead. I think of Grandfather, then picture in my mind’s eye a beam of light coming out of my forehead. The imaginary beam marks a spot ahead of me. Reaching out, I pinch at the spot with my thumb and pointy finger. I breathe and concentrate until the spot’s tangible to my flesh. Pulling the spot downward, I unzip the doorway. I’m standing in front of a V-shaped opening between here and there. I step out of the room and into the void of comfort. Grandfather called it the Quiet Space.

In the void, the scent and light of my world slips away, the air of this world is crackling molecules. Momentarily, my eyes will adapt to the darkness. I zip up the door, closing out Grandfather’s room.

As I’m rubbing Grandfather’s shoulders and back with Bengay, he tells me it’s time to visit the Quiet Space. He tells me the story of a boy who discovers a special place beyond our world, where he is safe from everything. In the Quiet Space he is not restricted by the rules of our world. He doesn’t need food or drink, and he won’t be affected by time. It takes a while for me to understand that this is more than a story. The Quiet Space is real. It takes even longer for me to find the zipper that opens the door. It’s more about coming to sense its existence and wishing it into real life. When I finally open the door and giggle at what I have done, and can see the pride in Grandfather’s shiny eyes, I feel so loved.

“In here nothing can touch you,” he says. “Nothing can see you.”

Grandfather tells me of the coming days of darkness, the Change, the new world. And most importantly, the New Creatures.

“The New Creatures?”

“We’ll talk more about them when you get a little older,” he replies. “I don’t want to frighten you. But the time will come when you must hear about the New Creatures, even though it will scare you. Do you understand, darling?”

I tell him I do, but I don’t.