The Days and Months We Were First Born- the Unraveling (15 page)

Once I was up, I was ready to leave. I went to the bathroom, squeezed a
sliver
of toothpaste in my mouth, and gargled with a bit of bottled water. I used the non-working toilet. Then I dressed and left.

***

Outside was beautiful. There wasn’t a cloud, natural or unnatural, in the sky. Besides the lack of people and lack of cars, it was an ideal day in an ideal neighborhood. Birds were chirping in the trees above, squirrels were running across the front yards, the wind was calm and the temperature was perfectly mild, and the homes along the street were intact. I felt at ease as I made my way to West Front Street.

At West Front Street, however, this moment of serenity came to an abrupt end.

I saw human bodies. Dozens of human bodies. They were felled in the middle of the road. And from their position, I could tell they had died while fleeing from the previous night’s cloud. They had succumbed to contamination.

I went as close as I dared to survey. Before me was the corpse of a Hispanic woman. She was perhaps in her mid-thirties. Her eyes were open with a look of absolute struggle. Her skin was as pale as vanilla. And she was stiff. The body had an unreal quality to it, as if she were a wax figure. This look was universal among each body. There were even a few dead children, huddled next to an adult—all with their lives methodically drained.

From what I could tell, the people were from Elizabeth, NJ. There were injuries on some of them, most likely from the projects damaged in the explosion. And after seeing this, I was confused.

The previous day, I had seen no evidence of others throughout my walk in that defunct city. I only ran across Tory. Apparently, this group did an excellent job of hiding from me, but had no such luck
fleeing
the toxic downpour.

I left the doomed where they lay, and turned my attention to getting a better view of what they had fled. I saw commuter rail tracks behind a cluster of retail buildings. Quickly, I made my way to them.

I stumbled onto the tracks, and as suspected, the clearing gave a view all the way to Elizabeth, NJ. With my binoculars in hand, I looked and magnified.

My view was the same jagged shape of the Elizabeth skyline, half-collapsed buildings and all. But there was one key difference: everything was pitch-black.

“What the hell?” I said in a whisper.

I was desperate for a higher vantage point. Looking around, I spotted an intact hotel up the road to my west. It was a white building with blue, tinted windows. It was at least thirty levels high, and it was
still
standing. Perfect.

Not the least bit concerned for my safety, or running into anyone, I jogged to the hotel. I jogged as if it was a matter of life or death. I jogged as if reaching that hotel was my only purpose for existing. There was no feeling of exhaustion. There was no feeling of any kind. Just a desperate want. A desperate want to see what I could.

At the hotel, I entered through a broken glass door. The lobby was trashed and it was dark, but not entirely dark. I quickly found the stairwell. I burst through the red door and began to climb. Level after level I climbed with no pause. Heavy breathing and hard footstep accompanied me with every set. For ten minutes, I moved like this. For ten minutes, I was as determined as a machine.

Once on the roof, I walked to the ledge facing east, and there was a panoramic view.

Extending about ten to twelve kilometers from where I was standing, there was greenery and life; and beyond, almost to a perfect line, there was nothing but blackened and lifeless devastation.

It was the metro area. The vast outstretch of low-lying neighborhoods, Jersey City, Newark, a mangled Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty, the bridges, the parks, the Hudson River, the SkyCharge antenna—the everything. It was all pitch-black. It was as if someone had painted it all with a huge spay can. It was akin to one giant burned forest, stretching as far as the eye could see. From the bodies on the road and the scene before me, it was obvious. Anything on the other side had no chance.

My eyes began to water.

During the entire sequence of events since July 28
th, I had not
shed one tear. Not during the phone call with my parents or brother; not when I left my parents’ house for the last time; not when I witnessed the first killing before me; not when I saw Julie dead in her living room; nor when I was cast into exile that morning had I shed one, single, solitary tear. Everything was so sudden. Everything was so absurd. My emotions were simply buried. It was as if there was a hidden instinct. An instinct that held everything in check within me. But taking in the view before me, that instinct had finally failed. Like a dam that was at first cracked and then broken, I was overcome with an outpouring of grief and loss. It all became undone. It all burst from me. Everything. On the roof of that hotel, I cried more passi
onately than I ever had before.

To Be Continued

Book
s
II
& III

The Days and Months We
Were First Born- The Post-New York Edition

Is now Available

Find a link to purchase at the beginning of this story, or visit:

www.christopherhunterfiction.com

Christopher Hunter
was
29 years old at the time of his first publicatio
n. He currently resides in New York
, NY, and h
e plans to publish more titles in the months and years to follow.

For the latest news and the author’s blog visit:
www.christopherhunterfiction.com

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