September 5, 2021, 10:40AM
Washington Square Park, New York
I stood under the shade of a withered tree. Nondescript and grey, it was slumped to one side as if some invisible person perched on its topmost branches. All it's leaves were brown and sickly looking, all but one solitary stem which was a colour almost on the verge of green, supporting three bright yellow leaves.
I was standing in what remained of a park near the New York University. A stray dog - they were all strays these days - sniffed at a charred garbage can a few meters away from me. I was at half a mind to whistle at it, desperate for some company other than my own, and the resident voices in my head.
Previous experience, however, prevented me from doing so. Most of these dogs had rabies, the plague, a taste for human flesh, all three, who knew? There surely weren't any willing veterinarians around aching to cure all the strays, or any of the Animal Rescue Service eager to find them loving homes, either.
In fact, there were no loving homes for them to go to, even if such a patrol still cruised the streets of New York. No, I argued with myself, Not quite true; homes could be found anywhere and everywhere. There'd just be no loving owner inside to greet the pooch with open arms.
Not in this part of the city, anyway. In the country? The suburbs? Alaska? Maybe Alaska - far as I know, no one had thought to target Alaska. I mean, who would? The people there'd probably melt with the effort of a take over bid in a place a degree over 30 Fahrenheit.
The suburbs? Maybe. Maybe some lucky fucker's got himself one of those old bomb shelters. Maybe a whole neighbourhood is in it right now, crouched into corners, munching on cans of tuna and stale crackers, going steadily insane at the close confinements. Reading in the flickering candle light. Trying to fuck silently, in a tangle of towels and dog blankets, aware of the other people in the shelter, but going for broke heedless. Or maybe the guy even ain't that lucky. All he's got in that bunker is his brother. And his hand.
But I'm wandering again. Always wandering, never stopping, one of the four voices in my head reminded me in a clear and soft tone, Always wandering, never stopping.
I sighed and the dogs' ears swiveled at the sound. Mutant dog. Dogs ears don't swivel. The fallout must have affected a pregnant bitch, spawning unnatural pups. If that was the case, this mongrel could be young; never living in a populated world where humans reigned supreme, a dog untainted by the violence that had spread throughout the once flourishing city only a few months ago.
A few months ago? Heck, I know the date like I know the back of my hand. Know the days, hours, minutes and seconds to the tee. July 4th, 2021, 12:00 Midday; imprinted in my mind forever the day and the time the sky rained death upon New York City.
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July 4th, 2021, 11:55AM
Washington Square Park, New York
Like every patriotic American living in New York, and even those just visiting, were gathered at Washington Square, for the hot dog stands, ice-cream stalls and military airshow that Independence Day, I was seated with my family on a checkered picnic blanket under a shady tree.
Molly climbed onto my lap and I squeezed her to me, smelling the sweetness of her hair, never ceasing to be amazed that this freckle nosed little girl was mine. Leah, my wife, dressed to the nines to show of to any fellow workmates and any neighbours that happened to walk by, crept her hand into the back pocket of my jeans.
I smiled at her and said to our nine year old boy, "Timmy! Ready for those air planes?"
Timmy was red faced from running around like a lunatic with his best friend Cain. Cain retired to his own family's picnic spread, and sprawled out exhausted next to his mother who nodded at me.
Timmy hit the ground beside me and said, "Course. How many doya think there'll be?" He wiped his running nose with the back of his hand, and absently wiped the snot into the grass.
"Wave after wave."
"Millions?" Molly asked in her high pitched voice.
The background noise I had been hearing for a while surely grew sharper and I looked up to see black dots in the sky.
Leah glanced up, shading the sun from her eyes, "Looks like they're coming, kids!"
Molly and Timmy both peered into the sky, watching the planes fly closer.
"Wow dad, there's heaps, just like you said." Timmy's eyes were wide.
"Really?" Normally only seven or nine jets flew in a V formation over the square, and then came back. Heaps signified many, many meant more than ten. Why so many planes?
I squinted into the sky, everyone else in the park doing the same, watching the approaching jets fly closer. There were ten planes, spread out very wide. Glancing beyond them, I saw another set of ten, spaced to fill in the gaps of the fist lot. Behind that volley was another, and another. Each wave spaced out.
Feeling the hairs on the back of my neck rise, I glanced at Leah. She was smiling in anticipation.
"Sonny, there must be at least forty jets out there! They're gonna give us a real show."
The roaring grew louder. Molly practically bounced in my lap. We craned our necks to see the jets. And that's when the first bomb was dropped.
The kids all around us were estatic. At first so was I. I remember thinking, Geez, the kids even get treats this year, when the first scream filled the air.
Heads turned towards the scream. I clenched Molly tighter to me, hoping to God there wasn't some lunatic suicide bomber running around with a Uzi.
"They're bombs!" Someone blurted out in a scream.
If you want instant panic, scream the word bomb in a crowded park on a sunny Independance Day.
The panic was indescribable. There were people running, people still sitting, people screaming and crying. Everywhere kids were being seperated as family members ran off in different directions. All this happened in the 20 seconds it took for the first bomb to hit the Park.
The BOOM of the bomb impacting reberverated in my ears; cut off all other sound. Suddenly I could hear nothing. It was one of the most horrorfying moments in my life. Molly still on my lap was screaming soundlessly into my face, clawing at my clothes. No sign of Leah or my eldest child.
The other bombs in the first V fell in quick sucession - the booms only dull footfalls compared to the first one. The flashes of the explosions, the plumes of fire roaring noiselessly into the sky. Buildings toppling over as if felled by an angry giant.
The smell of burning rubber. Melting tarmac. Smoke. A sweet sickly smell that I couldn't quite place.
The first wave of planes flew overhead, jolting me back to life. The other waves! There were more bombs. More planes. More death.
I gripped Molly to my chest tightly, springing to my feet faster than I have ever before.
Everywhere around me people were running. Stampeding. My eyes swept over broken and bloodied bodies - those not quick enough to get out of the way. Abandoned picnic blankets lay scattered and overturned on the green grass.
I ran towards the street. Vaulted over picnic hampers and small children. I didn't even have to harden my heart into leaving them on their own. I didn't even spare them a thought. God strike me down, but at the time, I didn't even care about them. They were nothing. All I was worried about was myself. And the small child thrashing in my arms.
Slowly sound was returning to me. I could hear snipets of screams. The roaring of the other planes stabbing at my ear drums. Explosions clawing into my head.
Where was my wife? My other child? Who was doing this? Terrorists? Why? How? These thoughts flicked through my head with a scary swiftness, presenting themselves to me for the barest of milliseconds before being snatched away and thrown aside for the next fleeting insight.
A man howling with fear barged into my shoulder, spinning me around 180 degrees, knocking me off my feet. I sprawled onto the park grass, unintentionally squashing Molly under my stocky frame. Intense pain blossomed from my shoulder to my lower back, my head and upper legs, and I tried vainly to prevent crushing my daughter as person after person stampeded over us to get away from the bombs that would continue falling.
A sharp crack confirmed my suspicion of a splintered arm, and a numbing kick to the head made me nauseous and my eyes water.
Crying and moaning in pain, I attempted to crawl to something, anything that would give me some cover from the panicked crowds. Shuffling Molly carelessly underneath me, I slowly made my way through the sea of tangled legs, crumpled bodies of people who weren't as lucky as me, and stray debris to an overturned picnic table.
Sobbing with relief, I rolled into the shelter of safety it offered.
I looked at Molly.
And screamed myself hoarse.
Her head sat oddly upon her shoulders. A blood trail trickled a fine thin path down her chin from a grotesquely open mouth, the tongue lolling out the side, remind me absurdly of a panting dog. What could only be bone protruded from the side of her neck, glistening with thick red blood and pink marrow.
The world around me slowed. I saw motion frame by frame, as if I could take pictures with my eyes and I was in review mode.
Molly was motionless. Every frame of her was the same.
Still.
Still, silent.
Still, silent, and dead.
"Molly." I mouthed, "Molly."
I shook her. Slowly at first, but when she didn't react to the sound of my voice, or the ache in my heart, or the soft shaking, I started to shake her harder. Soon I was shaking her so hard her head was flopping all over the place, splattering blood on her once sky-blue sun dress, and over my singlet. Suddenly her head hit my forearm, and she bit me. I cried out in surprise, throwing her away from me in an action that was entirely in reflex. Her leg hit the edge of the picnic table before she landed in the path of fleeing men, women and children.
I watched, my eyes watering in horror, as she was stood on, trampled, pummelled into the ground, until she was an unrecognisable lumpy thing. It was not my daughter any more. Molly was gone. In her place was a lifeless corpse. I shrieked, howled my anger into the sky. People around me continued to stampede out of Central Park, separated from their families, running for their lives.
Another bomb hit the dirt close enough to me that I felt the immediate heat wave push past me, blowing my hair around my face, and my ears pressurised painfully. The actual sound of the explosion came a split second later. The explosive shock wave made bodies fly through the air. Some of the bodies were dismembered; legs and heads became projectiles along with the natural shrapnel of rocks, dirt and branches. I couldn't hear the fragmentation hitting the thick wooden slats behind me, but I could feel every thump. A torso landed beside my hiding place behind the overturned picnic table; it was mottled with bruises from internal bleeding and was smoking around the edges.
I could see people screaming as they were hurtled through the air and how still they were once they impacted on surrounding trees or buildings. Fires from the first few bombs were spreading, the initial area incinerated from the extreme temperature of the blast. Craters filled with smoke were everywhere I laid my eyes on, and I could not believe that this game of Roulette had not claimed me.
As I regained my hearing, the sounds of the jets screeching overhead started to die down. They continued forward, dropping bombs in their V formations over the city of New York.
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A/N: Sorry about the length of the post. This is actually the work of several posts, but I've combined them into one chapter for the sake of the Novel format. The next chapter shouldn't be as long
-Jai
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