The laughter of children tingled pleasantly in CiCi Kwu's ears. She looked out the window at the bundles of joy dancing in the street--urchins and spoiled brats mixed in one amorphous mass of puffy coats and muddy scarves. Older children hefted huge pots from their mothers, passing steaming bowls of soup to and fro. Below her window, two rocking chairs squeaked in unison as their occupants chatted about new strains of vegetables they had managed to grow in the frigid weather. Excited by the end of the workday, returning workers were typically so eager to strike conversation that they would make themselves comfortable on the nearest porch.
Pressing her chilled hands to her sides, CiCi smiled down at a faded photograph of a shorter, rounder version of herself with her two best friends in puffy children's jackets and muddy scarves of their own. Today was the anniversary of their long-lasting friendship--every year they reenacted the games they had played together the first time they met. As she reached for her bag, a distant wail cut through the peaceful chill. Her body stiffened as a shiver ran down her spine and she rushed out onto the porch. The creaking of the rocking chairs ceased as the two ladies stared into the distance. CiCi did not have to wonder about the cause of the sirens for long--a heavily armored vehicle blazed towards them, scattering children like paper in the wind.
The serious voice of a public official boomed into the street, a tiny head visible behind a megaphone perched on top of the bulky vehicle. "This is not a drill! I repeat: this is not a drill!"
The rocking chairs swung back into motion as the two ladies jumped to their feet to stand on either side of CiCi. "What could it be?" one of them mused. "An attack?"
"There's no way," the other responded. "We've had peace for years."
CiCi swallowed a lump, her heart racing. Of all days, why today? They had never rescheduled their anniversary--not for the past 12 years. Mind numb, her eyes followed the puffy coats bobbing through the slushy, frozen mud, ruining their clothes. A low rumbling destroyed her attempt to escape from reality and she returned her attention to the talking head to see a line of armored vehicles fall in line behind the first.
The voice boomed through the megaphone again. "As you may be aware, we have been monitoring an approaching mass that has been affecting weather patterns. After hours studying this phenomenon, we have agreed that evacuation is necessary. This mass is more than an ordinary swell, but evacuation is a priority to identifying the nature and origin of the mass. Please stay calm and pack only one bag of valuables and foodstuffs."
"Evacuation?" CiCi murmured, the armored vehicles blurred as if a figment of her imagination.
A cold hand rubbed her back before the two ladies darted down the porch steps, a pair of foxes willing themselves across the frost-dried mud. Other residents rushed to the sides of the huge vehicles. Their strained voices carried clearly through the thin air.
"Could it be an attack?" someone echoed.
"We fear it may be a new weapon," the official stated bluntly, his megaphone lowered but unnecessary.
Rooted to the spot, CiCi took several deep breaths before turning to go inside. She dumped out the contents of her small purse and retrieved a backpack. It would all turn out to be a false alert and they would get back in time to continue their tradition. Or the event would allow them to make a new tradition. She chuckled, restoring a bit of the warmth in her body.
As she opened the cupboard to grab some desiccated food, the siren sounded again. Ignoring it, she selected a few bags of dried herbs and fish, saved months before, but the quivering voice of the public official suggested that the siren was not just a reminder. She closed the cupboard door and returned to the porch.
"We have received word that the surrounding colonies have started evacuation procedures--this mass is not only targeting us. Residents are advised to leave everything," he stressed, "Everything! We must leave as soon as possible to get to safety." The tiny head atop the vehicle grew a body and began frantically waving at surrounding residents, urging them to board the tanks.
A series of thumps brought CiCi's attention to her loosening grip, the packets of food hitting the porch. She hardly had time to reclaim them before someone snatched them up and rushed off to board. People surged from their housing units in numbers CiCi didn't know existed in their tiny colony, cracking the normally peaceful atmosphere with the shuffling of feet, cries of mothers separated from children, and of children separated from pets or toys.
She could not leave. Not like this, with previously loving neighbors clawing at each other, eyes full of fear of the unknown. She backed into the house as their fear lashed out with spindly fingers, threatening to engulf her. Peering through the rattling windowpanes, she decided she would rather spend her last moments at home than in desperate fear. As she made her decision, figures began to stop in the raging crowd, which began to form waves around them as it surged on. Shoulders squared, they pushed against the crowd, away from the tanks. CiCi blinked, watching these individuals separate from the crowd and head back to their homes. Pride surged through her, triggering resolution--she would not be leaving. A few of the returning faces bobbed at her in solidarity. If the enemy wanted to threaten their home, let them. They would not run again.
"Please!" the official's voice rang out through the megaphone. "Board now!"
The receding backs were his only response. With a monstrous rumble, the tanks fired their engines, the last children scuttling into manholes and sons lifting frail mothers into the hold. Moments later, the heavy tanks clanked out of sight, leaving the streets gutted and silent.
As the clanking faded, children flooded the streets, toys and gadgets tinkling behind them. Though they were older than the children before, CiCi felt uneasy with the number left behind, but their happy chatter melted her unease away. A sputter turned her attention to the kitchen, where the refrigerator's low hum gradually changed pitch before dying. She found the nearest light switch and flipped it. Nothing. She flicked it desperately up and down before it finally sank in that the power was out. With several deep breaths, she managed to dissolve the bubbles that rose in her stomach. The officials had probably cut the power on the way out.
But what if the officials were gone for days? She looked in at the vegetables lining the shelves of the refrigerator and began pulling them out by the armful before she realized she needed power to preserve them. She left them on the sink, watching the skin of some darken from the cold air. The refrigerator was less of a freezer box and more of an incubator. She let her chilled fingers rest a moment on its considerably warmer shelf before she closed the door and returned to the window.
The children had left their gadgets in a pile and were standing in a circle, their eyes directed towards one child. One arm extended to the side, his entire body trembled. The children next to him stuck fingers in their ears and leaned away from him. Before she could make out the object in his hand, she heard a telltale click. A brief glint of light highlighted the sleek barrel of the devilish item. CiCi's breath caught in her throat as she realized the children were playing Russian Roulette. When she was their age, she joked with her friends about playing the daredevil game but knew they would never carry out their wishes. But these children were different--after hearing the wails of adults issuing death notices, these children probably saw the town’s evacuation as an opportunity. Her heart fell as she noticed that the grungy clothing of street urchins dominated the group. Who did they have to instill hope in them?
The postures of the surrounding children changed with the passing of the gun. CiCi's heart thumped in her ears as she stiffly walked to the porch. "Ch-Children?" Her voice came out like confectionary powder. As another click invited itself into the air, the porch creaked under her twitching muscles. She rushed forward, stumbling down the porch stairs and tripping on the last step. Face full of mud, she looked up to see all eyes on her. The children erupted into laughter and discarded the plastic water gun, rushing off to play in a different street.
Shaking, CiCi returned to her kitchen, clutching the sides of the sink. The water chugged out with a series of bangs. She washed the mud from her face and heaved a sigh of relief. A clang, followed by the tinkle of broken glass, pulled her from her relief. Was it happening? Her fingers began to tremble against her face, sweat mixing in with the residual water. She did not know what to expect. Was the mass a bomb or a missile? A UFO? A flock of resilient birds? She scanned the kitchen for a blunt object, the blood rushing to her head making her dizzy. In one hand, she grabbed her pulsing head, and in the other, she found a butcher's knife--shorter than she would have liked but sharp enough to lower her pulse. Tiptoeing, she crept around the corner. A flash of color blazed by her and she jerked, the knife flying from her hand. She gasped sharply as the knife embedded itself deep into the wood floor, centimeters from her foot. Whirling around, she spotted the flash of color, splayed in front of the door and calmly rubbing a paw to its face.
She felt the air build in her lungs for another sigh when a crash came from the room across the hall. She bent to retrieve the knife, falling onto her back as she held the dangerously sharpened weapon between her palms. She continued towards the room, silencing the urge to flee the house. The door stood slightly ajar. Composing herself, she pushed it open with one swift motion of her foot. Something hit her in the stomach and sent her careening against the wall. Flashes of color darted from the room, headed for the kitchen. An entire clutter of cats had entered her home through an open window in the den. She shut the window and released her pent up sigh.
Every threat turned out to be a hoax, and this mass of air would be no different.
The street began to grow dark. CiCi pulled the door shut and locked it. Now, it could not be much longer before the officials returned to fill the empty units with laughter again. She turned from the window with a smile, but a flash drew her back to it. Forms flitted in the alleys, too ominous to be children playing late-night games. Her throat tightened as she considered that this was the threat, but she cast the thought from her mind. There was no way aliens had landed.
The forms began making their way to different housing units, keeping to the shadows, but CiCi could see their every move. Some broke off, scattering to houses to the south as others slinked to houses to the north. They all seemed to diverge around her house. Soon, the street was empty again. They were just residents returning home--the tanks had probably dropped them off nearby. CiCi quieted her mind and shuffled back to her room, throwing back the covers on her insulated rubber mattress. She shouldered her way out of her heavy coat and stared longingly at her hot water heater, reluctant to break her routine of a cup of piping hot tea before bed. A form flitted by the window.
This time, her mind could not produce an excuse to remain calm. She backed out of the room as a pair of pearly white eyes raked across her room. The form disappeared from her window, but her heart had returned to her ears. What if that threatening presence decided it was going to enter? Maybe there was such a thing as aliens. She rushed back to the kitchen, searching for her butcher's knife when a scream came from next door. CiCi froze as Mrs. Min rushed out in her nightgown, a cackling form racing behind her.
"This is for making me take that shot!" her pursuer shouted.
Another form raced by, slapping hands with the first before disappearing into another house and eliciting a fresh scream. CiCi watched from the window, shivering as the intruder reemerged with the resident of the housing unit. With a shove, Mr. Em found himself face down in the mud.
"That's for siccing all your urchins on my house!" The door slammed.
The light receded behind the rooftops, casting a shadow completely over the street.
The colony was falling into chaos. It would only take seconds for revenge to morph from chasing elderly women and house-napping to shooting and killing. Was there anyone who wanted to hurt her? She could not think of anyone, and so few had stayed. But the ruckus outside did not allow her to think she would be safe. The foundation creaked and CiCi pressed her back to the wall, sinking below the window. One of the cats from earlier drifted by, disappearing beyond the door frame like a ghost.
She had made the wrong choice. She had been so stupid. At least others had stayed behind for their families or for some material attachment. But her? She had stayed behind to escape fear? To be able to strike 'laughing in the face of Death' off her bucket list?
She grabbed her backpack, still on the kitchen table, and rushed back into her room, pulling on her coat. She made for the back door before realizing it was close to the window where the face had intruded on her space. Taking a deep breath, she returned to the kitchen and stepped out the front door, biting her lip as she fumbled with the lock.
She tried to remain calm, but her nerves were frayed. She had no idea what she was doing--the residents had left hours ago in tanks. A low rumble filled the air and CiCi's heart fluttered. They were returning! She rushed into the road, suddenly not caring if a prankster decided to charge her. The shadowy figures in the street darkened into outlines as a black mass shifted towards them in the sky. CiCi stared up, her mouth wide and quivering in dread. With a crack, the balloon-like mass exploded and screams rang out, the magnitude indicating that it was from pranksters and the pranked alike.
"It's black rain!" someone screamed, whipping by her in a mad dash back to their unit.
A crash told CiCi they had not quite made it in the dark. CiCi closed her eyes and filled her mind with memories of the sun. She would not die in fear.
She stumbled as someone bumped into her and her eyes flew open, a well-lit face entering her vision. "Are you crazy?" the man snapped at her before rushing off.
She looked up to see the sky had lightened to a milky hue, speckled with fallout. She swallowed down her feelings of doubt and imagined they were draughts of the honeysuckle tea her father made just for her when she was little. She was with her friends, in a field of them, filling baskets to turn into the rich liquid.
Feeling tears build along the rim of her eyelids, she blinked them away. A solidarity wet drop touched her nose. Eyes crossed, she could see the tiny droplet poised in place. Another drop joined it, dislodging it from its throne. More tiny droplets began to brush her skin, sticking instead of rolling off. Her eyes shot skyward. Her grandmother would tell her stories of a feathery liquid, of white ice, of frozen water than did not hurt and tickled the skin. She could not believe it.
She looked around to see the streets empty. Faces pressed to glass windows and wide eyes watched her. With a laugh, she began to twirl in her first snow.
Like a water gun held between her eyes, the spray was refreshing.
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Author's Note:
I am very pleased to say, like Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol
, I received one negative critique saying this piece was too actiony. This is a case where a person would respond "well, sorry for my life." The critic didn't like one of the main points of the piece, which is how life can sometimes suck you up, knock you around, and leave you drained. If you felt that way reading it, then I've only done my job.
Remember! Sometimes negative critiques tell you that you have successfully executed something and you just have to weed through the fact that the individual has a preference against that element. On the other hand, some are just amusing to read and should not be taken seriously--another critic believed everyone died. You must be able to isolate unique cases. I understand where s/he may have gotten the idea, but no one else reached that conclusion.
It's always important to understand the "anatomy" of your genre but to also have confidence in the unique elements you add. A few critics said I left out things here and there, but wanting to know certain information is different from necessary information missing from the piece. The next time you read a good short story, preferably a science-fiction piece, notice how much is left out. I recently finished Ass-Hat Magic Spider
by Scott Westerfeld and realized at the end I didn't know where the main character was, where he was going, why he was going there, or even the level of critical importance that he leave despite the entire story revolving around him preparing to leave. But that didn't matter. The story was well-executed and I believe not knowing contributed to the story. It is, after all, a short story, not the biography of the main character. The importance of the story was the precious cargo he risked his health for--the last book in the universe.
I hope my short blurb on critiques can be helpful for someone, if not just an amusing fun fact. And, in case you're wondering, yes, I did have good critics. Like you, for example! But I won't force that title on you.
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Blizzard Bombshell
is copyright Krystal K. Brown. All rights reserved. Please do not copy or distribute this work without express permission of the author.
