Barrenlands: An Odyssey (Old Work)

Prologue: The Boom.

THE little girls' parents cast a cursory glance towards each other as they caught the tiny television screen suddenly change from the corner of their eyes. The picture box that was previously flashing their usual dinner program was replaced by a rudimentary black-and-white still image of a broadcasting antenna with the words 'Emergency Broadcast Incoming' blazing underneath. Well succumbing to the fraught-filled realms of panic, the mother plucked herself up from the dinner table and grabbed the confused little girl by the upper arm. Her grip was tight and secure, the skin slowly turning white underneath. She pulled for her to move, dragging her through the kitchen and towards the back door like she was nothing more than a mere limp ragdoll made of soft material.

"Mamma," she whispered, her voice not yet mature. It was tender, soft and filled with ever-present innocence having not yet reached the age of puberty. She was young with not much life experience and thus, oblivious to the ensuing chaos around her. Her wide, shiny eyes reflected the words of the screen unsure of what she was seeing. "What is happening?"

She watched as her mother's eyes looked wildly ahead, her grip tighter and tighter and her hair flailing on end like a mad woman's. "Now, hush. This is just for practice."

They were in the upper garden now, metres from the massive metal shutter doors that were embedded into the dirt and grass. It was something that they hoped that they would never have to use and yet, here they were. But desperate times had called for desperate measures. Still grasping the little girl, the woman seized one of the handles and gave it a tug.

The door didn't move. It didn't even crack open the slightest.

Rolling up the sleeves of her loose nightgown, she gave it another pull; the weight of the door numbing the palm of her hand. The slate of metal finally opened with a creak, the hinges well rusted from minimal use and the result of weathering from the elements of the outside forces. The woman turned towards the little girl, and knelt down onto one knee. The rocks underneath the grass cut into her soft skin like sharp razorblades.

"Now hon, I need you to climb in there for me and damn well don't move. Myself and your father will be down there as quick as you can count." She lifted her daughter and placed her onto the top of the concrete steps within the bunker, and then kissed her forehead as a final, struggling source of comfort. But who was it comforting? Herself or her daughter? She didn't know.

As the little girl opened her mouth to begin a protest, the woman heaved closed the door with a bang! Her footsteps echoed as she made her way back up the cobbled footpath and towards the house. The heavy thud thundered in her mind, just as a warning shot would ring throughout the still of night. She found her husband waiting in the receiving hallway of the house, his boots freshly pulled over his feet and his favourite shotgun of a rifle hefted over his left shoulder.

"I neve' thought I'd live to see another uns of these days. Just like them ol' uns," he grinned, toothily. He opened the wooden front door and stepped out onto the front porch of the wooden home, but it appeared that they weren't the only one's disobeying government orders.

Governmen' orders, he'd laugh over a cold brew. The governmen' can't even catch a cold in a whorehouse.

His neighbours had lined the street with their wives by their sides, most of them toting some form of weapon or another.

"This be 'nother lynchin'!" his closest neighbour and good-friend called, a smile plastered across his face which was showing subtle signs of stubble. His own wife kept her head bowed and her eyes to the ground, dismayed. A bruise along her cheekbone was slowly coming to full bloom; the outline of a palm and the streaking of fingers coming out in all awful shades of purple and yellow. It wouldn't fade for another week just yet.

"Bout time. Old betty here was getting' a bit restless!" the man lay a loving hand on the barrel of his firearm, the black metal shining in the dying sun's light. It appeared to be freshly polished, most likely lovingly. "Pretty big un if they even put a alert out fer us!"

The man's wife glanced around their street, her eyes softening as she continued observing the commotion around them. Whilst the men stood at the most forefront of their homes, the wives stood slightly behind them as a sign of sure submission. Whilst the men's eyes were shining with hunger, those of the women were softened and saddened by the sudden change in the state of affairs.

And then something happened.

She watched as her husband's mouth moved, but she couldn't hear a single word of his gruff voice. And neither did she hear any other sound in the atmosphere around her for that matter. The chirping of the day-birds, the bumbling of the televisions had all fallen deathly silent in the township. It was almost as if someone in an office of the mighty had flicked the switch and the world around them was muted; plunged into a universe without sound. She caught her husband close his mouth, followed by his hand scratching the swatch of brown hair on his head. Just as he began to turn on the heel of his boots, an ear-splitting tone blasted across the street and she found herself falling to her knees. It was like nothing she had heard before, only remotely comparable to that of television that received no signal.

The hum was maddening.

She placed her hands over her ears but they didn't do much to block out the ear-splitting sound. The skin and bones of her hand were like a sheaf of tissue over speakerphones.

Her ear-drums began to throb, and she found herself clenching her eyes closed to combat the pain. But as quickly as the blast had started, it stopped, leaving the neighbourhood in quiet, astonished awe. She dropped her palms away from her ears, her gaze quickly caught by something rather unusual. Her skin was covered in deep-red, oozy liquid with a faint sweet-salty smell.

Blood.

With a sinking chest, she looked back at her husband. His ears were smothered in the red stuff, and trails were running from the opening right down his neck like a pouring river.

Bunker, she watched him mouth in panic. Now.

But it was too little, too late. And she knew this - her stomach told her so - as soon as he mouthed the last word. Another tone screeched across the land, this one louder than the last. Paralysed by pain, both of them dropped to their knees; the man dropping the gun on the wooden boards beside them as he grabbed at his own ears.

The earth beneath them started to tremble, intensifying as the seconds ticked onwards into infinity. And that was when she saw it. A giant wave broached the horizon, and warped the view as it began to hurtle towards them. Her view was warped; the horizon no longer straight. She trained her eyes onto the wall, quickly realizing that it left a trail of obliteration – crumbling shells and debris of houses, uprooted greenery, no living souls.

No living souls.

And then she was gone without the ability to say a final prayer.