Life After Ashes

Apocalyptic Story.

A Feast of Post-Apocalyptic Proportions

A Three Course Meal For The End of the World

👀 What Caused The End of the World?

👀 Do The Survivors Have Hope for a Future?

👀 What is the New Threat They Face?

Life after Ashes

One minute we are sitting having dinner at Ron’s Café – highly recommended, Rock has been going there for years. Tonight it was Les and Stu’s anniversary. Chip and him set this up for them.

Chatting, yes an interesting chat after the latest run of news. Life was changing, the news the other night warned of an influx of Drones, Direct Energy Weapons, Satelite issues. Rather concerning. However, the parting must go on.

More chatting and laughing, drinking – yes far too much drinking, food, oh goodness; Chef Lee surely did his best. Those scrummie pork belly slices, butternut caramelised, onion rings fried in the lightest batter and cherry on top, the gravy, just smackingly gorgeous.

Then out of nowhere and I mean nowhere – darkness you couldn’t cut. Pitch black, that blue black that sucks every bit of light out of the atmosphere. Silence. Total silence. Not a breath, sigh, movement. Nothing! No prior warning. Nothing!

“Stu?” Rock whispers. “Stu, Stu, can you hear me?” Nothing just silence. They must be playing a joke on me Rock thought. This is just not on.

“Les, where are you?” His voice is breaking now. Something deadly strange is going on.

“Chip, come on mate, this is not funny!” Rock feels a scream in his mouth.

He gets up but notices the table had disappeared. What the heck! His feet feel heavy like a weight is upon them. And arms feel heavier too. He shuffles forward. It feels like heaps of something he is walking over.

Now Ron’s Café can be dark at night. And in winter he has the thick curtains drawn to keep the breeze from sneaking in through the windows. This is a Grade II listed building – so no knew double glazing has been fitted.

Rock continues to walk to the door – having been in the Café numerous times and with a fairly good idea of which way to go. Those heaps of soft something. Not in hell sure what that is. He feels something on my arms but will leave that until I can see what is going on.

There is not a soul in the Café. This is rather uncanny and unbelievable. The smell now seems rather suffocating. He has this cloying wet ash smell up his nose. Smells burnt and sulphuric. Weird beyond weird.

He gets to the doorway and realises there is no doorway. Actually, the whole building seems to have been reduced to nothing. Still this darkness envelopes him. He raises his head. The sky is pitch black too.

Rock takes tentative steps forward. Ground seems okay. It is just the walking over soft something. This is now getting to him. All sorts of reasons go through his mind. Lately the news has mentioned Direct Energy Weapons. Mentioned satellites and highly sophisticated planes.

Yes, something dreadful has happened. He feels in his pocket for his mobile phone. Nothing. How odd he thinks. It was there. He knows. All he feels is softness. But a grainy softness. Rock shakes his head. Strange.

Then, he feels like something moves on his head but then settles back in place. He lifts his hand and passes his fingers through his thick hair – he feels a grainy substance but again taking his hand away it goes back to the same feeling. What the hell is on his head.

His heart is doing somersaults inside of him. That awful smell is making him feel sick. His throat is now starting to feel like sandpaper. His eyes seem to be adjusting to this unusual blue-black darkness. Making out strange shapes.

He moves forward slowly. The way seems level but still he feels the softer ground. This is the road running alongside the Café. His car would be close by. Rock continues. His breath becoming a little laboured, his heart still doing that strange flippity flop rhythm.

Suddenly the ground before him is lit up with a strobe light – just pulses. The shapes he saw before him are strange armoured like vehicles. A strange matt grey with round discs for wheels and a round door on the side.

A person is on the roof directing Rock toward the vehicle. A dreaded feeling comes over him…. The pulsing light had made him realize that he was coated in ash. He shook his hands; nothing. The substance shifted and then shaped back instantly. The same with his arms and legs.

He was now starting a full-on panic. The person with the strobe light stood silently, an odd-looking chap he thought. No, NOT a chap. A Robot-like thing - a Surveyor Drone. Its thick, matt grey chassis was dusted identically with the soft, grainy remains.

The drone moved with calibrated, precise efficiency, raising a heavy, metallic arm and directing Rock toward the round door of the vehicle. There was no aggression, no warning, just the unfeeling certainty of a command. Rock’s heart raced uncontrollably in his chest, his mind screaming wildly for air and escape.

He looked at the vehicle, then back at the drone. Its singular, disc-shaped eye did not blink, did not waver, did not pity. The ash of the old world was being systematically collected.

Rock realised, with a deep, chilling finality, that his own panicked, helpless body was simply the last piece of debris left in the street.

By now you are getting the idea that I have decided to continue with the Month long Horror Prompt by Bradley Ramsey - whilst I am enjoying and finding this all rather competitive, did I mention I had a bit of a competitive nature 😅, I am actually having fun. As you are aware from the previous post, I am researching quite a bit as this is a totally new genre in writing for me. Apologies for filling up your inboxes. And a further apology if this disturbs your dreams. Blame Bradley Ramsey 😃