"7.62, NATO," Parker said aloud. He lifted the spent shell casing to look it over. The firing pin imprint on its bottom and lack of an actual bullet in the opening left no doubt as to what happened to it. However, when the ammunition was discharged was the mystery. It had to be at a point sometime in this address' last year or so, because the once-shiny brass surface of metallic cylinder was only beginning to take on a dull, weathered patina. With a shrug, Parker tossed the casing aside.
"Looks like I'm playing detective again."
Standing from where he knelt amidst the ruins of the city park, Parker brushed his dirty hands off on his pants legs and sighed. As his eyes continued to adjust to the sunlight showering down on him from between the withdrawing clouds, he was able to take in more of the surrounding imagery. Parker noticed that a few of the broken, skeletal trees that were still standing bore only small patches of greens and browns. The once-tall English elms and Oaks were now encircled, no longer by pretty green grass and bushes, but by sporadic dying foliage and dirt. And they lined the edges of one very massive hole.
When he shifted in from the woods...well, that last, forest-covered version of Earth, Parker found himself standing dead center of a deep crater, devoid of anything living. Thanks to the compressed dirt and size of the indention it took Parker some time to climb out of the thing. He imagined the nearly perfect, semi-circular hole was generated by an explosion and whatever created it might have been just shy of nuclear. Regardless, this horrid landscape was all that apparently remained of Madison Square Park and it made Parker shudder.
"Another world destroyed...I wonder if this was because of the Geniel Empire or something more 'homegrown'?"
Adjusting the Aussie haversack over his shoulder, Parker stepped over a pair of empty ammo cans lying on their sides. The .50 caliber rifle that accompanied them rested harmlessly on a tripod with its barrel pointed skyward as if taking in the view. Parker admired the weapon as he passed and then turned to his right to avoid a wall of sandbags and an overturned park bench.
Slowly, Parker continued down E 23rd toward 7th Avenue, his imagination running wild. He feared he was actually home and this was all that remained. The young man needed to find a paper or something with a date on it to assuage the dread welling within him.
True, New York was his adopted home, but it was home, nonetheless. His New York, the one he remembered; the one he left behind as he boarded the jet for Savannah, still teemed with life and activity the last time he was there.
This New York, the one before him now, was a horrible scene of death, destruction, and empty streets, devoid of any life whatsoever. This was not his New York. This was a city of deadly stillness...and deathly quiet. A place where no yellow taxis zipped up and down the roads. It was no longer a town where its streets flowed with endless rivers of men or women concerned with the day-to-day activities of life.
Not here. Not in this New York.
"Hmmm, no cats," Parker muttered. He looked up and scanned the blue skies, "....or birds, either. Maybe they were poisoned to death?"
As Parker rounded the corner onto 7th, he turned and felt his jaw drop involuntarily. "What the hell?"
Stretching out before him was a perfectly symmetrical, immense crater, several hundred times the size of the one he found himself in when he shifted in. This one, however, was smack dab in the heart of Midtown Manhattan.
"It's all gone! Son of a..."
A newspaper blew by and landed over Parker's face momentarily concealing his view of the devastation. He grabbed at the black and white paper and removed it from his head.
"June 6th, 1999. The End Is Here." Parker lowered the paper and then raised it once more to match up the photo on the periodical's cover and the location of the crater. He thought about his entry point and the proximity to the crater. Maybe the blast points and destroyed trees in the park were not from explosions, but because of whatever this thing on the paper's front page was. Possibly its landing gear or something...maybe this was the Ferramortium!?!!