The Danger Family Apocalypse, Ch. 6 (Generation 2)
zombiekim:
Hi, all! I've tried to do the apocalypse challenge a few times, but I've always lost interest. I hope that posting an apocalypse story will keep me from getting bored with it. If you aren't familiar with Pinstar's apocalypse challenge, it's viewable here, or you can view my summary of the rules here. Also, I just wanted to share that the family is named "Danger" because, uhh, well, because I got tired of thinking up interesting surnames. :D
Okay, I hope you enjoy my little story. This first chapter is short, but I have more coming very soon.
The "Danger" Apocalypse: Chapter 1
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Ansly Danger tried to remember how she’d gotten here, to this shack on the outskirts of the outskirts of Strangetown. She couldn’t, and she thought that might have something to do with the goose egg forming on her forehead, her dirty clothes, and her missing luggage.
Okay. What was the last thing she could recall?
The orphanage. Yes. She had gone there, to see if anyone remained, or if any of her old friends had come back, but there was no one. What did she remember before that? Why was she even back in her hometown at all? The empty airport—no, not empty; looted. The plane. The Pualos Islands.
“Ansly, you’ve been with the volunteer program for eight weeks,” the project director said, leaning forward over his industrial metal desk. A large fan swung its face lazily around to her, dispelling little of the room’s cloying heat.
“Yes? I’m here on the twelve-week stay,” she answered. The Pualos Islands were a difficult place to call home, what with the lack of basic amenities, sweltering tropical heat, and unusual food. But, fresh out of college, she loved feeling like she was making a difference. “Is there a problem with my papers, sir, my passport…?”
“No, nothing like that. But you’ve heard about the disaster in Strangetown, haven’t you?”
“Disaster?” She smiled nervously. “I’d heard there was an accident, but you know—news travels slow.”
“Yes. It does.” He looked uncomfortable. “Ansly, I want to apologize that we didn’t realize the urgency sooner. And But now, we really—we really think you will want to go back. Not to Strangetown, of course, but to the states—“
“Sir, what happened?”
A nuclear disaster had happened. And she’d insisted on returning to her hometown, to find her loved ones—no family, of course, but the friends she’d grown up with at the orphanage, as well as the woman who’d lived in this shack, Jane. Jane had been the closest she had come to family outside the Home, a “Zen wannabe” with a sense of humor, a huge heart, and a sparse (really, impoverished) but lovingly kept home. Ansly had found no one at the orphanage, so here she was—able to remember only scattered images since she’d arrived at the airport, and unsure of how long it had taken to get here. She suspected it was days, and was suddenly grateful for her amnesia.
“Jane?” She knocked lightly, and the door swung open. A chill clenched around her heart. “Jane?”
Jane’s lovely things, simple though they were, had been stolen in the weeks since her death. Still, there was a bed, a sink, a toilet, a near-empty fridge; not much more or less than Ansly had had on the Pualos, in other words. Ansly had nowhere else to go, and was afraid to venture far from the house, so for now it looked like she was home.
Jane had kept a journal before her death. She wrote of the confusion after the accident, the terror in the streets, the fleeing survivors... Ansly’s heart went out to her, to all of them.
The last two entries were her goodbyes to the people she’d loved. Jane had always had a weak heart, and perhaps she’d known there was little more she could take. Ansly read them over with a sadness and deep reluctance, never more so than when she got to the end:
“Ansly: I’m so proud of you and grateful that you are at that college and far away from all of this. I know the world has a great need of you and wonderful things in store for you. You were a blessing in my life.
I’m not afraid of what will happen to me now. Life has to end because end is natural, and life is natural. And deep down I know that my soul will find Howard’s. That will be a relief.”
Part 2
Astral Faery:
I love it! I played the Apocalypse challenge awhile back and wanted to do one sometime with a story behind it, but could never think of anything interesting. I look forward to reading more and sharing the adventure!
Sam the T-man:
Ooh, I like the look of this :) Well written and well illustrated; I'll be following this one for sure :)
defenderp123:
this looks really good so far i look forward to reading more, please update soon
and i hope this story will keep you playing the challenge:D
zombiekim:
Life went on. Ansly took a job as a paramedic, and slowly began to fix up what had become her home. Mostly she furnished it with what she found while out driving, like the barrel that became a crude fireplace.
She had always been crafty and artistic—in college, which seemed a lifetime ago, she’d loved to dance and to sew her own clothes. Making things just for the joy of it? That now seemed incredibly luxurious, even wasteful. Her time was now spent driving the ambulance, looting and foraging for goods, and lying awake at night, too terrified to sleep.
She had no sewing machine here, but she did have an awful clunker of a car to fix up. It was nice to be able to work with her hands again, and on something that could ultimately be useful.
Of course, there were days when she wished a perfectly new Mercedes-Benz would show up in the driveway, instead of this...this monster.
“You…you…I’m feeding you to the zombies, you piece of junk!”
As the endless winter wound on, Ansly found that it was becoming second nature to talk to herself.
“What I wouldn’t give for some fruit, like…raspberries. Strawberries. What? I know they’re not in season, but I think that’s kind of moot. Because it’s a nuclear winter and so everything’s out of season, that’s why. I’m just so sick of hot dogs and hamburgers and hot dogs and hamburgers and I think I might be getting scurvy. Do zombies get scurvy? I guess not. Lucky.”
Her medical job was surprisingly lonely. She would drive through the streets looking for sheets hanging on doors, or for people running out to meet her, then simply deliver them to the hospital--there was no 911, and she had very little training. Besides, people had become strangely disconnected since the incident. It was almost as if they had forgotten how to feel, how to care. Even she felt numb. In her former life, she had been very nice, and playful, if a bit on the sloppy side (or so she’d been told). She’d had a love of knowledge. Now, all she cared about was getting home to bed at the end of the day. And she was sleeping more and more.
Desperate to feel again, she traded one of Jane’s heavy quilts for a hideous, but working, word processor, and began to keep her own journal. It was difficult at first, but after the first week, she felt emotions beginning to penetrate the haze of fear and survival.
She laughed when she burned her hot dog dinner. I’ve made this enough to know better, she thought, helplessly shaking with a strange joy. One day, she came home from work to find butterflies, and she cried from the beauty of it.
Ansly knew what her mission was, and it wasn't to be a medic-taxi. She had to make people care about each other, even about themselves, again. And she—she with a bachelor’s degree in drama—would do it through Shakespeare.
She sought out survivors to act with her, to perform. Every one of them thought she was crazy at first, but many stayed to give it a try, perhaps intrigued by her energy and passion.
Then, one night, he arrived.
There was a knock at the door. Ansly was poring over a copy of As You Like It that she’d been fortunate enough to find that day in a looted bookstore. Her muscles tensed and she reached instinctively for her baseball bat. Tonight she might actually have to use it.
“Ansly?” came a hesitant but somehow familiar voice at the door. “Ansly?”
She threw open the door. “George Schweber,” she whispered, not believing the sight until he pulled her into a hug.
“Oh, my God, Ansly. It’s really true. Someone said they’d seen you out here, but I thought no way, no way would you come back here.”
“I guess I wasn’t that smart, huh?”
George had been her best friend growing up. While Ansly left for college on scholarship, he’d stayed to attend culinary school in town while working nights at the orphanage. It had been more than two years since she’d seen him. She’d hoped he’d come for her college graduation, but he’d been a poor pen pal in their time apart, and he hadn’t come.
At that moment, though, she was just overjoyed to see him. She didn’t want him to leave, but he promised he’d be back—he had to let the others know that he was safe.
“You could come with me,” he offered.
She couldn’t tell him that she was terrified of leaving home for any length of time, terrified that it would be gone when she returned. Even back when she drove an ambulance for a living, she would swing by home every hour or so, just to check. “Come back tomorrow,” she said.
He did come back the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Sometimes she came by the hotel where he and the others with him had set up camp. She was happy to see old friends there, but saddened when George told her the fates of others they’d grown up with: those who’d been killed in the blast, or in the ensuing chaos, or murdered.
Stronger for his friendship, Ansly poured herself into her work, and before long, she’d achieved her goal. People once again appreciated the dramatic arts, but more than that, they cared. They took care of themselves again, beyond basic survival, and they reached out to one another as a community again. And best of all, George moved in. The finicky water in the hotel had mysteriously shut off, and the others he lived with there were starting to leave, one way or another. Besides, and he couldn’t bring himself to tell her this, he worried about her safety.
“I know this is a little weird, but I only have one bed—not like there’s room in this house for two of them,” Ansly said, climbing in.
“It’s not that weird,” he said, thinking, This is weird.
“At least we can keep each other warm,” she murmured, falling asleep immediately.
Okaaay, time for a midnight snack. Or cold shower.
Part 3
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