In the Aftermath: Burning of the Dawn Read online

  “Very good?” Maria questioned. “Mama, I haven’t tasted anything this good in ever… please, have some.”

  The pleas of her daughter were enough to convince Clarissa. Subtly, she handed the bag over to Maria and then reached inside and removed a small piece of the meat (her other hand was still occupied with the shotgun). She put it to her mouth and tasted its savory flavors. Perhaps it was the pangs of hunger from her short celibacy from food, or the fact that she had not tasted anything with any real flavor in a long time, but currently Clarissa could not remember anything from her former life that had ever tasted as incredible as this piece of smoked elk.

  Vita, upon finishing her fist full of meat, asked the man a question. “May I have one of those bottles of water in your room there?”

  “Of course, Ms. Vita; it’s all yours.” He replied. As Vita went into the storeroom, the man looked over to Maria and spoke to her, “Maria, that’s your name right?”

  “Yep,” Maria charmingly replied. “It means she who is bitter.”

  “She who is bitter, huh? I like it! It’s a lot better than mine – God is my judge.”

  “What’s your name?” Maria asked inquisitively.

  “Daniel.” Clarissa answered for the man.

  The man looked to Clarissa with an impressed leer. She was not wrong. “That’s correct.” Daniel replied; he then asked her, “So, what does your name mean?”

  Clarissa was tentative to speak. She wasn’t fond of the idea of giving out her name, but Daniel had already picked up on both of her daughters’ names due to her own slipups when they’d first arrived. Plus, it wasn’t as if he could use their names to somehow locate them in any possible way anymore. Her lack of openness was personal; nevertheless, she responded, “It means Clear.”

  “Clear… okay.” Daniel spoke as he began some course of logic in trying to figure out Clarissa’s name. “Well, I don’t speak Italian, which I’m guessing is what you are, so I don’t actually know the translation for clear.”

  “Chiaro.” Vita answered from the storeroom opening. She smirked coyly as she drank from the water bottle and then offered Daniel a small assist: “But that’s not her name.”

  “All right, thank you, Ms. Vita.” He kindly replied, then continued in his effort. “I do know a bit of Spanish and the word for clear is claro. Which brings the name Clare to mind, but that’s not really an Italian name, I don’t think. So, my somewhat lack-of-educated guess would have to be… Clara.”

  Vita and Maria looked to each other with calamitous faces. Daniel might have slightly missed Clarissa’s given name, but he did unintentionally stumble upon something else. Daniel caught the sense of change in the Hannigan daughters’ disposition. It was a concerned and anxious sentiment that he now detected. He knew it wasn’t because he guessed right, yet he also knew that he’d hit something close to home – too close. Clarissa herself seemed much less affected than her daughters. In fact, she almost looked impressed.

  “My name is Clarissa Hannigan.” She spoke honestly. “Clara is what my husband use to call me. Congratulations, Mr. Daniel, you were almost a success.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hannigan.” Daniel solemnly apologized. “To you too, Maria and Vita, I’m very sorry. If there’s something I truly have a gift for it’s saying the wrong things at the worst times.”

  “Why should you apologize?” Clarissa asked. “You don’t know anything about my husband.”

  “I know he’s not here,” Daniel replied. “And you don’t strike me as a woman who’d pick a lesser man, or even just a normal man, to have as a husband. I’m sure he’s very special to all of you.”

  “He did have his moments.” Clarissa responded. Her daughters were put at ease to the tone of her voice. They were worried about how their mother might react to this stranger unintentionally bringing back memories of her dead husband. Clarissa was prone to a short temper and she was not shy to react violently towards strangers, but she had dealt with her husband’s demise in her own time and in her own way. She chose not to hide from her memories of him, but rather to hold them fondly. Besides, there were other memories in her head that were far better left suppressed than those of her dead, endearing husband.

  “I have no doubts to that,” Daniel spoke. “So, the house is yours, ladies. You’ve seen it all; take what you will, no questions asked.” Daniel waked away from the storeroom and towards the opposite wall and took a seat on the floor next to the front door.

  Maria and her mother shared a drink from the water bottle Vita had acquired. Both daughters remained near the storeroom to continue exploring its many contents. Clarissa took a seat against the wall opposite of Daniel. She continued to size him up. She could tell he was a capable man who could possibly overpower her if he had a mind and an opportunity to do so, yet she didn’t find him the least bit intimidating. How long had it been since he’d actually seen another person, she thought.

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen another person?” Clarissa asked.

  Daniel looked over to Clarissa; he was a bit surprised she had actually asked him something almost casual. He answered, “I’d say probably close to six months or so. Most just sort of pass through heading north towards the lake.”

  Clarissa rephrased her question: “How long has it been since you’ve talked to somebody else?”

  Daniel was quiet for a moment. He looked away, down to his hands, half smiling at her question. She was very intuitive; he dared not answer deceitfully. “It’s probably been over a year, at least.”

  “Why didn’t you speak to the people you saw?” Clarissa further inquired. “The ones before us?”

  “Well, they didn’t come straight up to my doorstep for one. Plus, you never know about people; they could be a bit dishonest, or even dangerous.”

  “And you didn’t think I was dishonest looking or dangerous when I tried to break into your house armed with a weapon that I had, in fact, killed a soldier for?”

  “I know you’d kill me if you thought it was necessary, Mrs. Hannigan, but no, you don’t strike me as dishonest, or dangerous – not my version of it at least. Of course, I didn’t know about the whole dead soldier deal, but hey, I was curious as to how you obtained that weapon anyway. Now I know!”

  “Soldiers actually – as in more than one.”

  “I hope it was nothing personal against the military. I was a combatant there for a while myself, sort of.”

  “It was personal, but not against the military. Sort of a combatant? Local militia?”

  “Yes ma’am, not local to here though. Cincinnati.”

  “My husband joined with the militia after the invasion… the fight for Philadelphia.”

  “At least he won his fight.”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  Clarissa and Daniel were both quiet as they commiserated over memories past. The cities of New York, Newark, and Boston were massacred during the early days of the alien attacks. Philadelphia was next in their sights, but the military, with the aid of millions of citizens, fought back and successfully defended the city. It was a rallying point. The city of Los Angeles followed suit and notched a second victory for the human race. Eventually, what was left of humanity would bring down the alien aggressors.

  “Southern Ohio didn’t get hit very hard,” Daniel eventually spoke. “Not compared to other cities. Of course, we lost everybody when the Sayona showed up.”

  “It’s their world now.” Clarissa stated.

  “Only because we gave it to them.” Daniel commented in a subtly spiteful sense.

  “Gave it to them?” Vita asked as she removed the M14 rifle from her shoulder and placed it carefully against the wall. “How’d we do that?”

  “We overlooked ‘em.” Daniel answered as he removed something small and dark from one of his pants’ pockets. “Most people figured they were just animals sent in as some sort of last-ditch effort on the invaders’ part to try and keep the fight for Earth going. Those people were insa
nely wrong; stone cold revenge was all it was. Also, after our victory, we didn’t stand together. Being that there wasn’t much of any leadership left, people started to form their own little secular-militarist groups. We started fighting amongst ourselves while the Sayona reaped the rewards. We counterattacked the monsters eventually, but that plan was ill-conceived, to say the least.”

  “Were you apart of it?” Vita eagerly probed further. “The ill-conceived counterattack?”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Daniel answered. “I knew it would fail.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Because one of those ships crashed right outside of Cincinnati. I was there when they first appeared. Not alone, there were military and militia there, too.” Daniel paused for a moment and then began to laugh. Vita looked to her mother for a potential explanation, but she received little more than an empathetic glare. “You know, it doesn’t take many of those things to take out an entire squadron. When those gates to that ship opened up, hundreds of those monsters appeared right in front of us… but anyway, after that first meeting with the Sayona, I knew a straight up fight, or a full-on attack, would fail in the end.”

  “What could we have done?” Vita spoke as she took a seat next to her mother. “How could we’ve beaten them? I mean, aren’t they kind of invincible?”

  “Damn near it,” Daniel replied. “They’re also lightning fast and very intelligent, but they do have weaknesses. One being that they’re incredibly arrogant – fearless because of how well-armored they are. They can easily be lured into traps. That’s their figurative weakness; they have a literal one as well.”

  “Their eyes?” Vita guessed, knowing that the beasts were very sensitive to light.

  “No, it’s not that.” Daniel answered. “They are sensitive to light, but that’s more of an inconvenience than a weakness. Also, their eyes regenerate; you can rip one out and it’ll grow another one right back, fully functional, within hours. They’re more protective of their tails than they are their eyes.”

  “Their tails are their weak spot?” Vita pondered aloud.

  “Well, no; it just takes longer to grow back a stinger than it does an eye.”

  “Okay, so where’s the weak spot then? Isn’t everywhere else pretty much indestructible?”

  “Almost…” Daniel responded as he reflected on former days. He continued to speak while doing so. “I watched the Sayona for a long time after they’d taken Cincinnati and killed everybody in the process. I hid in buildings and on rooftops, just watching them for weeks. They’re vicious creatures… and very possessive. They don’t always get along with one another. One night, two of these things got into a fight over God knows what. They hissed and growled back and forth, but they did not scratch, claw, or sting. Instead, they tried to wrestle each other to the ground. It was almost laughable; they were like two little tanks butting their noses. Until one of them took the advantage. She got her sister on the ground, held her down, and sank her teeth into the back of her neck. The loser made this loud, horrible noise, and then ran off when she was finally released.”

  “The back of their necks is their literal weakness?” Clarissa asked with an air of suspicion.

  “It is.” Daniel replied. “They are covered with armor from their jaws to the tips of their tails. They have very few scales on their faces, but their skulls are massively thick and their bones are more like reinforced, synthetic rubber than they are actual bone – human bone. But on the back of their necks, where the scales meet with the skull, there’s a soft spot. It’s very small; we’re talking just millimeters of space to work with, but it’s definitely there.”

  “And you gathered all of this from a Sayona scuffle?” asked Clarissa, still with her suspicions.

  “No, ma’am.” As Daniel spoke he held up the little, dark object he had taken form his pocket. He tossed it to Clarissa.

  She caught the object. It was rough and hard, but also very light and malleable. Clarissa and Vita looked it over. It was dark purple in color with a small, reddish-brown bud in its center. The underside of the object was very smooth. Its height, length, and width were all around five centimeters in size; the object also felt thick. To Clarissa, it was obvious what this thing was. Her daughter had figured it out as well.

  “Is that a scale?” Vita inquired bluntly. “How the hell did you get that?”

  “Pried it off of a dead Sayona.” Daniel answered. As he did, Maria joined her mother and sister in examining the piece of Sayona. “It’s very impressive. It’s not really just one scale; there are thousands of smaller scales compacted together to make up the one big one. It’s crazy effective, too. Bullets will just bounce right off these things.”

  “Dead? How did it die?” Vita asked.

  Daniel was slow to answer. He was skeptical that the Hannigans would actually believe the truth, but he did not want to lie to them; partially because it was dishonest, and also because he could not think of anything better. He answered honestly, “I killed it.”

  “You killed a Sayona?” Maria spoke in a doubtful tone.

  “I’ve killed half a dozen actually.” Denial replied.

  “Six of them?” Vita questioned. “How is that even possible?”

  “I had a really bad idea and a lot of stupidity to back that idea up with. As you might’ve guessed, things weren’t really going all that well for me in Cincinnati.” Daniel spoke in a subtly dispassionate tone, trying to avoid any nuances of sentimentality or melancholy. “Everyone was dead and I was alone in a city of monsters. After I saw those two Sayona fighting, I concocted an idiotic plan—a suicide mission really—to kill one of those monsters. So, I set up a trap: a bucket full of rats. Eventually one of them showed, and when it did I attacked it while it feasted on my rodents. I struck it from behind – drove my knife right into that special spot… it died instantly; it never even knew I was there. I killed three more after that using the exact same tactic.”

  “Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling you a liar or anything,” Maria spoke. “But that is a little hard to believe. Guns, rockets, bombs: none of those could stop them, but you’re saying all it takes is a stab to the neck?”

  “It is difficult to believe and I don’t blame you girls for being skeptical. I’m making it sound easier than it is. They do have scales on this soft spot, but they’re… immature, for lack of a better word, not fully hardened like the rest of their body. It’s like driving a knife through a thick piece of lumber. It takes strength, a damn good aim, and a lot of luck, but it is possible.”

  “With your impressive monster-killing skills, why’d you stop at six? Why not clear the whole damned city?” asked Clarissa, who made no attempts to hide her cynicism.

  “I had every plan to,” Daniel stated. “I wanted to kill as many of those things as I could, but the Sayona aren’t stupid. Arrogant, yes, but definitely not stupid. It didn’t take ‘em long to catch on. During the day I’d toss the ones I’d killed into the Ohio River; maybe one washed ashore and they happened to find it, or maybe they just realized that some of their sisters weren’t coming home at daybreak. For whatever reason, they came looking for me. They stopped traveling alone in the city; they searched buildings and houses more thoroughly, and they also…” Daniel paused for a brief moment. The information he was about to reveal would likely prove to be very troubling for the Hannigans (at least the twins), if they actually chose to believe these disturbing details, so he decided to keep them concealed for the time being. “Well, my days there were numbered for sure, so I turned my tail and ran. My bravery–slash–stupidity does have its limits.”

  Maria was still having some difficulty in believing what Daniel was saying, and her mother was having no difficulty in believing none of what Daniel was saying, but Vita was convinced. Perhaps it was the naiveté of her youth, or the apparent honesty in Daniel’s character; whatever the reason, she wanted to learn more.

  “Are there any Sayona here?” Vita asked.

  Daniel looked
discouragingly into the young girl’s pretty eyes. Even without him saying anything she immediately realized the answer. Daniel confirmed it verbally anyway. “Yes, there are.”

  Clarissa unknowingly looked away as Daniel answered. She knew he was not lying about this; she, too, was aware that the Sayona had been in this region recently. She never told her daughters. Neither Daniel nor Vita had noticed Clarissa’s subconscious slip, but Maria did. She stared down her mother intently for a moment, until her mother returned the gaze – from which Maria quickly acquiesced. Due to this odd reaction from her mother, the young girl decided to hear Daniel with a slightly more open mind.

  “Why do the Sayona come here?” Maria asked. “There’s nothing here for them to eat, right?”

  “The Sayona are garbage trucks,” Daniel answered. “They prefer blood and guts, but they’ll consume anything remotely edible: fruits, vegetables, fungus, algae, grass, nuts…”

  “Tree bark?” Maria added as she shot her mother another cheeky glace from the corner of her eye.

  “Yeah, they eat that, too.” Daniel answered as he pondered over how exactly Maria would have known that. “Pine trees are their favorite.”

  At that reply, Vita had caught on to what Maria was getting at and she, too, fired a defiant glare at her mother, followed by a defiant tone. “You knew,” Vita stated. “You knew and you didn’t warn them?”

  “I did warn them.” Clarissa calmly replied. “Not that it was any concern of ours.”