When They Came

I can still remember the day that our world fell apart. In fact, it’s been burned into my memory and haunting my dreams ever since it happened. It was just another day in late October, and I was enjoying my first year at the University of Iowa. There was a chill in the wind that added to the already cool temperature, and the trees were bare with their leaves scattered across the campus.

I was on my way to my second class of the day, when all at once everyone’s phone began to buzz with alarm. I was stuck inside a mass of students, whose feelings quickly turned from mass confusion to panic as we all read the notifications aloud. The display on my phone was dim but as I strained my eyes I quickly realized the cause of the panic. The warning illuminated on the display of my phone was a ballistic missile warning, and it was heading straight for us.

I dropped my phone and joined the screaming masses as we all made our way into a safe room only meant to survive light bombings. The room fell quiet except for a few cries and sobs. Everyone huddled together and braced for the inevitable. After that, my memory gets fuzzy.

The next thing I can remember is waking up in ruins of the university, which had been obliterated during the blast. My clothes were burned and ripped yet somehow I only had suffered a few cuts and bruises. I looked around frantically, trying to find anyone who may have also survived the blast but the effort was futile. All I could see was the debris of the fallen school.

I stumbled out of the safe room and into the open. Every muscle in my body ached with each step I took, and the air felt acidic as I breathed in and began to cough violently. I tried to keep my breaths short and (scarce,) but my body craved oxygen.

The world around me was warped from the one that I had seen before the bombs had fallen. The sky was now a scorching orange color and there was no sun nor a moon in the sky. I didn’t have much time to ponder just what had happened, as I only made it half a mile up the road before my legs gave out and I stumbled into a ditch, and shortly after lost consciousness again.

The next time I woke up I could feel something taking hold of me. Its hands were slimy and its claws were razor sharp. My eyes fluttered open to see a horrifying creature taking a hold of me. It looked to be a giant spider-like being, except it had eight arms with claws instead of its legs. It’s thousands of eyes pointed in various directions as it slowly unhinged its jaw to reveal razor sharp teeth.

Right before I was devoured by the creature bullets pierced through its skin. Gunfire tore through the still air and almost as quick as it had appeared , the creature was now gone. It’s body lay at my feet as I scrambled to get away.

“Hands up!” A voice echoed and I immediately dropped to my knees and suspended my arms in the air. A soldier quickly approached, his gun drawn. I noticed a small locket around his neck. It was heart shaped, with a date engraved in it. Suddenly I began to feel dizzy and felt a small prick in the side of my neck. When I turned I saw another soldier as my vision narrowed and I then passed out again.

When I woke up next I was strapped into a hospital bed. The noises of the machines provided a white noise that proved deafening as I took in my new surroundings. The room was compact and filled to the brim with medical supplies. Pill bottles and multiple tools were scattered inside the tiny room as if someone had put them there in a hurry before leaving.

I tried to cry out for help, but I now had a military grade rebreather mask covering my mouth, so my cries were muffled though still audible. I debated ripping it off and screaming louder but I knew that there had to be a reason they had put it on me, and my arms were still bound to the bed.

After what seemed like an eternity had passed, the door finally opened. In the doorway was the same soldier with the heart locket that I had seen right before I passed out.

“Hello, I’m sure you have some questions, as do I, but first I need you to tell me your name, age, and what you were doing when the bombs fell.”

“Wait, bombs? I thought it was just one.” My voice was still muffled by the mask.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” The soldier walked closer to my bed and freed my arms and legs from their constraints. “There should be a button on the side of your mask, if you click it it will activate the small microphone in the mask which will play out through a speaker on either side of the mask so that we can hear you clearly.”

I ran my hand along the mask until I found a button and pressed it.

“Is it on?” My voice was now crystal clear. For some reason, I had almost forgotten how it had sounded. “Wait, you said bombs, I thought that it was only one misfired warhead?”

“ I will answer your questions as soon as you have answered mine.” The soldier pulled a folding chair from underneath the bed and sat down. “Now please, tell me your name, age, and what you were doing when everything happened.”

“My name is William Carter.” I stammered. “I turned 19 on the fifth of September this year. I was just walking to class when it all happened and I hid in a supposed safe room until the blast hit. Then, when I woke up, I could barely walk, or breathe, but somehow you guys found me.” I sat up in my bed now, brushing the straggly strands of charcoal colored hair out of my eyes.

The soldier seemed to record my responses on a clipboard that I hadn’t noticed when he first walked in.

“Now, what the hell is going on?” I demanded as I pulled the blanket off my body and stood up to lean against the cracked wall.

“There never was a ballistic missile, it was a cover.” The soldier toyed with the locket around his neck, as if he was uncomfortable. “Something unidentifiable entered the atmosphere and within less than an hour crash-landed. Ninety-seven percent of the population died in the initial blast, and another one percent soon followed them.”

“Ninety-Seven percent of the United States?” I asked, dumbfounded. “Killed in an instant?”

“No, ninety-seven percent of the world’s population from our estimates, whatever the hell hit us was more powerful than any atom bomb mankind has ever seen.”

The room fell silent as I tried to wrap my head around it all.

“How am I still alive?” I pressed the soldier for answers.

“You wouldn't be if that damn nightstalker would've eaten you before we showed up. The worlds a dangerous place now." The soldier replied

“What do you mean?" I asked.

“It’s better if I just show you, follow me.” The soldier replied and stood up, motioning for me to follow him. I followed closely behind him into a long hallway. It had a wide array of doors on either side with room numbers crudely painted above each door.

“This is our safe place, our very own Eden. Right now we’re in the medical wing which is just what used to be the fifth grade wing of an elementary school before the impact. It’s also the only part of the original building that still remains intact.” The soldier talked calmly as we approached a large metal door at the end of the hallway. The soldier tightened his grip around the door and pushed forward, revealing the outside world.

I stood in awe of what I saw. There were multiple other small sheds and buildings scattered around a compound that was protected by walls made of wooden frames and sheet metal that towered into the scorched sky and were tipped at the top with razor sharp barbed wire. There were a few soldiers stationed in guard towers that were built higher than even the walls dared to go. Civilians cluttered the paved dirt paths that connected the ramshackle buildings. I could tell from the way their clothes were ripped and the soot on their faces that life inside the compound wasn't going to be easy.

I followed the soldier to the top of a guard tower and stared off into the burnt horizon. It was the first time I was able to fully realize just how much the world around me had changed. Other than the burnt sky and lack of sun or moon, there were very few signs of any vegetation and wildlife seemed non-existent. Suddenly I saw something move out of the corner of my eye and turned. My blood turned cold. It was the nightstalkers again

“Ah hell, I think I just saw another one of those crawling bastards." The soldier winced almost as if in pain. Then it appeared again.

I was able to finally get a good The creature mimicked a giant spider that appeared to be around nine foot tall and had five massive arms tipped with sharp claws that connected to a central body. The catch, however, was the massive eyeballs and pulsing veins that covered every inch of its massive body. Then more began to emerge, until we were staring at what seemed to be an endless sea of the damn things that had crawled from the cracks in the split ground.

“Oh shit.” The soldier said quietly under his breath then grabbed a rope, hidden away at the top of the tower and pulled it, sounding a loud bell. All at once the compound erupted into chaos and the nightstalkers began to climb over the walls.

The barbed wire tore holes in their flesh, leaving behind an acidic yellow blood trail. I climbed down from the tower and began to sprint looking for a place to hide. I managed to spy a small hole underneath a deck of one of the sheds and I crawled into the crawlspace. I covered my head with my hands and prepared for the end. Time stretched for an eternity while I listened to the sounds of the compound's members being ripped apart.

After a while it sounded like the carnage had stopped and I peaked my head out of the crawlspace, and re-emerged into the compound. It was eerily quiet now, and the paths were paved with half-eaten carcasses. I stumbled around, afraid to call out in fear of drawing the nightstalkers back.

Eventually I stopped at the body of a soldier that I knew all too well. I turned him over and saw that his eyes were no longer seeing. I crouched down beside him and closed his eyelids and then opened the locket on his neck. Inside was a small picture of the soldier and his wife holding their infant son. Engraved on the other side was “I’ll always love you, Kevin Jackson.” I don't know why, but something compelled me to unclip the locket and place it in my pocket as I took one last look at the man who had saved my life.

Ever since then I’ve never stopped moving. I’ve scavenged for resources to keep myself alive, and all the while I’ve kept that locket with me as a reminder to keep surviving.