Future Day 1

In a small dark room a man lies motionless on a medical table. The main lights of the room are off, but a strip of emergency backup lights line the edges of the floor emitting a faint florescent glow. Slowly the man’s eyes open. He sees only a dark blur. He moves his arms, but feels them held back by something. He gets the fingers of one hand onto the arm of the other and feels the tubes wrapped around his arms piercing his veins and measuring his pulse. He tries to untangle them, pulling weakly at the tubes, but fails. He had awoken without an ounce of energy and slowly his eyes closed once again.

                He is awakened from sleep with a strange shape hovering before him. A low groan emanates from this horrific bulbous mass. “Haaaaaaaaaaa…liiiiiiii……” it rumbles. He rolls off the table away from the thing ripping some of the tubes out of his arms and pulling all sorts of other medical equipment down with him crashing to the floor. The bulbous mass turns toward him, it appears to have some sort of a face. “Haaaaaaaaa…liiiiiiii…..” it groans on into a chortle pronouncing “Halifax.” The man’s mouth was agape. “It knows my name!” he thought, as he screamed silently. The thing bent down towards him and extended a smudged out limb. Halifax scurried on his back away from it. It continued its reach grabbing onto a metal stand that had been pulled down to the floor and picked it up placing it back in an upright position. A tube led from Halifax’s arm up into an empty bag held on the stand. Then another limb worked its way out of the crumbly mass holding a vial of fluid up to the empty bag. It carefully opened the seal on the bag to Halifax’s astonishment as it didn’t appear to be so nimble. As if breaking through the static on a radio a disembodied voice pronounced “Time for another dose. You’re reacting quite well” at the same time as this mushy being before him groaned “Tiiiii….muh…… foooooooor…..” and held up its vial to the seal on the empty bag. Halifax’s eyes followed the bag to the tube and the tube leading down into his arm. He began to pull with all his force, but he felt extremely weak. The liquid was streaming out of the vial into the bag. He grabbed the tube and gnawed at it. Finally it broke apart. Gray liquid spattered out onto the floor. The thing continued pouring. He rolled across the fallen equipment and pushed himself away from the creature. It carefully placed the lid back on its now empty vial and casually headed out the door. Halifax remained in a puddle on the floor exasperatingly inching his way out of it.

After a long moments rest he began to focus on the room around him and things became less of a blur. There was a water cooler in the corner. His thoughts lingered on this as he lay sprawled out on the floor. It was as if he hadn’t had a drop to drink for days. Even the thought of getting up exhausted him and his eyes slowly closed for another time.

                It was as if the quiet of the room had awakened him. He didn’t know how long he had been sleeping. Carefully he rolled over onto his knees and elbows. He clung to a shelf against the wall, gently pulling himself up. Once on his feet he leaned against the shelf. Finally he took a step towards the water cooler, and another and another. Placing a little paper cup under the nozzle and flipping on the spout a tremendous sense of warmth enveloped him. The first cup was like a raindrop in the desert, but the fifth felt like a waterfall. His gaze wandered back to the medical table where he had first awoken. He wanted badly to lie down once again, but feared he wouldn’t be able to get back up from that bedside. He stood before the doorway peering slightly down each end of the hallway barely illuminated by the little emergency lights. Standing there cautiously the first in a series of awful pangs of hunger began wrenching in his stomach. He peered just a little more around the doorway. There was no sign of that monster that had been there before. He grabbed another cup of water and quickly drank it down then headed out into the hallway. The same lights on the floor illuminated the hallway, but so did a few small windows. Their light was just as dim as the light coming from the floor. Softly he walked towards one of the windows not taking his eye off of the corner that the end of the hallway led to.

                In the window he saw that he was on a floor several stories up from the street. It wasn’t much brighter outside than it was inside and there weren’t any lights out there. The sky was filled with a thick smog that moved in clouds. Occasionally a stray ray of light would dart between the clouds across the town. On the other side of the street he noticed four people resting against a wall. It was dark and hard to see. He couldn’t make out there faces. Smoke seemed to be billowing out all around one of them. A bus was further down the street, but wasn’t moving. One person moved away from the others and entered the building they were resting against and soon came out again. Rejoining the others against the wall smoke began to billow out from around him too. Halifax looked for a way to open up the window. They walked up to the curb and began looking to either side although there wasn’t any traffic, just that motionless bus. Quickly they paced across the street towards his building. The window couldn’t be opened. He had wanted to shout out for help, but as they came closer they stopped resembling people he would want to draw attention from. They were gray and mushy looking beings as if they were partly made of charcoal. There was no definition to their general shapes let alone their faces. It was as if they were shifting whirlwind of forms.
                He continued down the hallway and peaked around the corner. The ceiling had caved in at the end of the hall blocking the way and letting a few rays of light shine down into the hallway. There were no windows here, only doors, some open and some closed. Slowly approaching the first door which was open he stopped in his steps as a jolt of terror shook his body at the sound of a stomach growl. Food wasn’t on his mind, but it should be he thought, as his body was demanding it.

A little farm house on the edge of town stood by an old barn in the middle of a few acres of fields covered in some sort of growth. Unfortunately the crops must not have been very good this year as it was difficult to make out what they were in the first place. Unless it was meant to be a crop of dust bunnies things had turned out very badly. There were no leaves or vines, only a thick grey web like tangle of organic matter unevenly covering the fields, but there were variations. Here was a patch where the webbing covered some rather large watermelon sized growths that pulsated in the wind. Another patch had hard thick stalks leading up to cocoon like substances that oozed and dripped like maple syrup. One feature stood out oddly from the rest on this farm though and that was a quite average looking greenhouse brightly illuminated from within and lighting up the disfigured mess of organic waste surrounding it.
                A man with a medical mask emerged from the stalks with one of the cocoon shaped fruits dripping in his rubber gloved hands and walked the path to the greenhouse as the sound of a generator rumbled in the dark. Inside he stood still a moment letting his eyes adjust to the bright sunlamps. The greenhouse lived up to its name and was full of vibrant green life. Vegetables of all kinds and in various states of growth were packed together and each plant had a scientifically marked label taking measure of various parameters. The cocoon-like substance the man had brought in was a complete foreigner to this world. It was nearly black compared to the bright artificial sun lit vegetables surrounding it. He placed it on to a clean empty table where lab equipment was prepared and then walked over to the tomatoes. Although compared to what was outside everything in here seemed very natural, but that wasn’t quite the case as some of the tomatoes for example had small purplish protrusions randomly jutting out of their forms distorting their shapes. Carefully reading the labels and examining their states of growth he chose and plucked a perfectly normal looking one from the vine and brought it over to the table placing it side by side with the foreigner. He sliced each in half and it became apparent that these were strange ancestors. The insides of each were examined and the seeds were collected into different containers. He heated up tiny pieces of each in different liquids and carefully began marking down the results. Looking at his wristwatch he began to rush through his note taking and quickly finished. He picked up the tomato in one hand and the cocoon substance in another and paced out the door. On his way to the house he chucked the cocoon into the fields. Inside the house he met another man in the kitchen also wearing gloves and a mask who had carefully placed about all the makings of a sandwich not yet put together and was waiting there with a cleared cutting board and a knife on the table. “Your turn” the man with the tomato said as he placed it down on the cutting board. “Thanks for taking your time” the other man said looking at his own wristwatch and then slicing up the tomato. “Hey I’m only five minutes late…” he replied, yet knowing full well how important the timing was. He left as the sandwich was being put together and placed in a plastic bag. The other man took the sandwich bag outside with him and hopped onto a bicycle, switching on its bright headlight and quickly pedaled down the road past the fields towards town.

Halifax was in the fourth room down the hallway having closed the door behind him. They were all examining rooms like his. There wasn’t a trace of life. He had gotten another drink of water, but had found no clue of what was happening and no way out of the building. His sense of urgency to eat had been nulled as he thought of that strange being that had hovered over his bedside. There were only two more doorways to go through and it didn’t look like there was anywhere else it could have gone. He stood at the door with his ear pressed against it. There wasn’t a sound. He creaked the door open as quietly as possible and stepped out into the hallway. The next door was wide open. He peered an eye around the door frame. It was still and lifeless like the others. Tracing the cold interior of the room with his careful gaze he noticed this patient had been luckier than the rest. A few dark colored blankets lay rumpled up on the bedside. Closing the door behind him he entered the room. Perhaps there could be something more in this room besides warm blankets. A wallet lay on the bedside table. He began to thumb through it. A few dollars and coins he took and placed in his pocket. He slid a driver’s license out and held it up, but he could only see a blur as his vision seemed to be drifting in and out of focus. He pushed himself up onto the bed to sit and steady himself. Holding up the license close to his face slowly it came into focus. The name was Darren Kremser. He had short balding brown hair and a downtrodden look. Halifax recognized this man, but didn’t know where from. He could recall meeting him somehow, but knew that he had not known him well or perhaps for very long. The sound of a door creaking loudly open took hold of Halifax and froze his stare onto the door to his room. One footstep after another filled the rooms and halls with their reverberations coming from directly in front of his door and steadily walking past it. He remained frozen as the steps quieted in the distance. Now was his chance he thought to find a way out of here. He hopped off of the bed and as he took a few steps it seemed that the blankets he had been sitting on were stuck onto to the back of his pants and were trailing along with his movement. He stumbled and fell to the ground. He grabbed at the blankets to fling them off, but they seemed to grab back and now he was trying to pull his hand away as the rest of the blankets began crawling further up him and wrapping around his body. Rolling around and kicking he tore a hole in the blankets which felt like thick melting plastic being stretched apart. He rolled onto his side and pushed himself up onto his feet as the blankets crawled up onto the arm of the hand they had grabbed onto and began turning into a big lump of material melting together around his arm. He held it up and away from his body as it dripped settling into the misshaped form of a giant wax ball that had sat melting in the sun for several hot hours. It painfully tightened around his arm all the way up to his elbow only leaving a few of his fingertips protruding from the end. Every pulse of his heartbeat was heightened into an intense throb throughout his arm. He kneeled and began scrapping this giant charcoal-gray colored knob against the metal bed frame and bashing it against the floor, but to no result as it had become completely solidified. The knob began to screech in pain like an animal, but wouldn’t come off. He slammed the door open and lugged his giant screeching knob into the hallway bashing it against the doorframe and walls as he made his way towards the caved in ceiling. He looked into the room that the footsteps came from and saw it had a large desk and many seats inside, but no way out of the building. He climbed onto the rubble from the ceiling and saw many small holes leading up to the roof. Climbing the pieces of walls that had fallen down he pulled himself up to the largest hole. As he did so a series of increasingly loud thuds approached from above shaking small chunks of the ceiling down onto the floor. He jumped down and ran into the nearest room and threw the door behind him. He tried to pull the desk over to the door, but it was too heavy and hard to grip with his malformed limb. The building shook with the rumble of the ceiling being further caved in. Instead he grabbed a chair and jammed it up against the door knob. The knob on his arm kept screeching like a metal fork being scratched across a pan. He ran behind large wooden desk and crawled underneath it. The door to the room began to shake with something trying to force it open. The sounds of people running down the halls echoed throughout the building. He bashed the knob on his arm again and again trying to make it quiet, but it only shrieked more. “Shit! Come on…!” he shouted with terror in frustration as it screeched on. “Shhhhhhhhh…..!” At the sound of the shush the screech’s high pitch and velocity lowered a bit. The wood making up the door was being broken apart down the middle. He continued shushing it quietly, “shhhhh….. shhhh…….” Unthinkingly his free hand began to caress and pet this big dark lump. Its screech turned into a gentle cooing. “Shh…” The chair flung down and the door burst open. He couldn’t see the front of the room from under the desk, he just remained huddled into a ball as still and quiet as possible gently stroking his arm problem. Several people’s footsteps ran into the room and suddenly stopped dead quiet except for one pair that slowly continued its movement. All of the goings on coming from down the hallway and the other rooms was dying down too. He heard the chair that had been flung down being picked up and slid into a position on the floor and then that last pair of footsteps died down.

He didn’t dare move. He lay under the desk listening intently. It was completely silent except for the occasional sound of something almost like the buzzing of a fly, but with a deeper tone and more garbled. As he listened he had been looking at his arm. The knob seemed to quiver ever so slightly. He had stopped petting it now. It was almost as if he had put it to sleep. He too began to drift to sleep and as he did so the distant tap tapping sound of someone coming from a long way down the hall came nearer and nearer. As he strained to hear the slow distant and repetitious sound of the footsteps it lulled him to sleep in a ball under the desk using the knob on his arm as a pillow.

The man wearing the gloves and mask on the bicycle with the sandwich in his bag was coasting down a long hill shining the headlight of his bicycle into the smoggy gray world. The woods he rode past were now and endless tangle of one large tree with many trunks. The branches had coiled and twisted together in every possible configuration into such a density that it would be impossible to navigate through. There were no longer any leaves or needles, only layers of filthy dust piled inches high on every possible surface. Occasionally a sharp gust of wind would burst a small pocket of dust and send it flying across the road enveloping its lone bicycle rider in a cloud that wouldn’t settle for minutes.

                This bicycle riding man of science approached a curve in the road he had now grown to know well.  As he turned with it still coasting downhill the first beacon of what used to be human sat in a van endlessly waiting to pull onto the main road. The van faced towards him. It had no lights on and its engine was off. Its driver was a shape shifting mess of aggressively angular bits and pieces trying to hold together a form. As he coasted by it he gave himself a few strong pushes of the pedals to increase his speed downhill. The shape in the van remained in its place.

                Many vehicles approached him now. All of them were strewn about the roadside motionless. Each one had at least its own peculiar driver, but some even had their own peculiar passengers. He had almost memorized the path in between and through them. He pedaled quickly on this path curving around and through the trucks and cars, but slowed to halt quite a distance away from where the stop light used to shine. Beings in all sorts of different states were crossing the road. Some of them were extremely vague. Perhaps only a leg and an arm could be deciphered from among their forms loosely hanging together and struggling to take themselves one direction or another. Others were startlingly complete, with enough definition to make out the contortions of their faces as they spoke. Sounds too hovered around these beings in various states of decay. A cloud of groans and whispers would float by seemingly disconnected with anyone or anything at all, but other sounds emanated directly from the distorted mouths of one the more well put together beings. He watched them closely and slowly approached the throngs of beings. Spotting a clear way through he took it and pedaled hard. There were less people on the other side walking along the sidewalks, but still the safest place was on the road among the stationary cars. He pedaled on his way passing many more crosswalks that were thankfully less crowded. He came upon a scene he had seen a few times before that had always seemed just a bit more peculiar than the others. It was something he had to watch out for as he had seen this particular shape wander off onto the pavement for a moment. Several very small beings danced around a much larger and vague one. As they danced around it they would dash towards it until eventually after the dash of one of them a part of the large vague being would shatter and million black pieces would float up into the air a few feet and then rain down across the sidewalk and onto the road. The small beings dispersed, but the large shattered one would ragingly crash down onto the ground where the black specks had fallen gathering as many of them back up into itself as it could and then ragingly tumble down onto another spot where they had fallen. He stayed pedaling on the far side of the road as he carefully watched the shape roll and tumble across the pavement of the road where a large amount of black specks had been strewn. Just down the end of the block he came to a landmark where he would have to turn off this road and onto another. It was an anachronistic old tower right smack dab in the middle of everything. It was of historical significance to the town, but had been owned by only one man who had always refused to let it go or to have it be shown to anyone. He checked his watch. It was midnight.