After the manager stopped smiling he began to talk. “Well, since you are going to be here awhile I guess I should introduce you to the town folk. By the way my name is Travis Parson. I am the innkeeper and owner of the one and only motel in the humble town of Trenton. I suppose that you will be spending the night here in my Motel?”
“What ever,” mumbled Katharine under her breath as she turned and walked away from the place Travis was standing. Travis, not so easily beaten, jogged after her.
“Miss Katharine, I really would like to show you around,” he said as he reached her side. She didn’t say anything, but she motioned for him to lead the way. There were approximately 167 people in the town of Trenton, and Travis introduced her to over thirty. Most of them were the leaders of the small town or were important shop owners. She met Jacob, the Mayor, and Jennifer, the grocery store owner. The person that Katharine felt was the most important, though, was a tall man by the name of Miles Quentin that passed by them. He didn’t say anything to Katharine until he noticed Travis standing next to her. Quentin was one of those men that always wore a business suit and kept a Blue Tooth bud in his ear at all times.
“Hello Travis,” he said as he passed him, “Who’s your friend?”
“Her name is Katharine, she was the one who was in the wreck down on 666.”
“Hello misses. That was a nasty wreck. Are you ok?” For the first time since he arrived Katharine looked directly at the man. Right as she was going to answer him, she made eye contact. Katharine found Miles attractive, but as she looked deep into his bright blue eyes she saw something else. It looked almost evil, but she couldn’t identify it.
“Ah, ya, I’m fine,” she answered, but she was too distracted with identifying what was deep in his eyes. After she said those words he begin to walk away. Katharine was wondering why a businessman like him was in the ragweed town of Trenton. She wondered these questions and others until she realized what was in the man’s eyes. It was anger.
Katharine slept that night despite the overwhelming sense of insecurity. She didn’t know what the flashes of light were nor did she know why Miles was so angry or whom he was so angry at. Katharine wasn’t as interested about Miles as much as she was about the flashes. Twice that night, she walked out of the motel just to see if the lights where still there. She thought she saw them once, but it was nothing more then the headlights of passing cars. Katharine thought that she might be able to hitchhike out of Trenton, but she had no idea of where she would go. At 3:00 Katharine walked once more out on the porch to see if there was anything out of the ordinary.
What she saw would change her life forever. It was the same flash that she saw the day before, but there was something about it that made her shiver. As far as she could tell, a small piece of metal was creating the light. It flew out of the west sky and hit the sand about twenty yards from the edge of the city. Despite the cold, Katharine walked out to the edge of the dilapidated town. At 3:13 she walked out of the city for the first time since the crash. It took only a minuscule amount of time for Katharine to reach the object. As she approached, she heard the faint sound of flames licking at something wooden. At the exact moment she arrived, a wave of panic shot through her tired body.
Maybe it was the small rocket that lay in front of her or it could have possibly been the small-undamaged wooden box that lay next to it. Whether it was any of these things, the thing that scared Katharine to the core was the to multiple flaming rockets that glided out of the western horizon. She didn’t have time think before the projectiles impacted all around her. Massive explosions rocked the area around her, and she did the only thing she could think of. She picked up the small box that lay before her and ran. Katharine was about ten feet from Trenton when she heard a deafening sound. It was a massive explosion. Many times bigger then the one that had vaporized her little silver Honda Civic. The buildings in front of her where illuminated with more light then they would have been at noon on a hot summer day.
She stopped and stood there for a second before she mustered up enough courage to turn and look in the direction of the noise. The wind around her stopped as she turned to face the 15,000-foot mushroom cloud that rose high into the night sky. Katharine didn’t know much about thermonuclear explosions, but she knew what came next. She spun on her heels and dash into the city, but it was to late. The massive shock wave struck her with enough force to knock her off her feet. Katharine heard the defining sound of every window in the town being blown inwards. It wasn’t the sound or the light that frightened Katharine; it was the sound of the buildings facing the blast ripping into shreds. Shrapnel rained down on Katharine as she lay on the hard ground, and the world around her slowly faded away…
The sound of rushing wind intruded into her ears. Chills shot through her entry body as she lay on the ground. Katharine had been awake for ten minutes now. She heard no noise except the sound of the wind rushing through the exoskeletons of the buildings that surrounded her. It was an eerie sound, the sound of a ghost town, the sound of no human life. She hated it. It took her nearly two hours before she finally built up enough strength to rise from her resting place.
Sadly, she knew that there was something wrong with her back. No pain. No feeling. Third degree burns. Katharine could feel patches on her back that still had pain; the lucky ones that had only received second degree. There was no sign of human life whatsoever as Katharine looked in the direction of the town of Trenton. She was standing on the edge of the small town, the side that had received most of the damage. The side of the town facing the blast was completely smashed. The buildings roofs and walls had been blown inwards in the direction of the town.
Wood and shrapnel lay around her in large heaps. Katharine looked only for a minuscule amount of time before she broke out in a full run. She dashed down the main street in search of any sign of life. There wasn’t. No humans. No animals. And no sound. The silence pierced her soul like an incoming bullet. Nothing could compare to the overwhelming sense of loneliness. She couldn’t understand how an entire town of people had been vaporized while she was still standing. “It was happening again,” she thought to herself, “Wherever I go everybody dies.” She would soon realize that it was as much her fault as WWII was Hitler’s. Katharine broke down crying. She was once again alone, and it wouldn’t be the last time.
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