After

By Kitt Moss

After is a novel about the end of the world. David's ordinary day at work is shattered by a sudden and violent meteor shower that leaves the city in ruins. But the disaster's not over yet. From out of the smoke and dust come the Creatures... and a whole new world order.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kitt Moss
• Release date: Apr 4, 2012

Book preview

After

By Kitt Moss

Copyright 2012 Kitt Moss

Smashwords Edition

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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After

The first meteor hits in the middle of the day. I look up from my desk just in time to see something streaking across the sky. It disappears from my view, and a second later the whole building rattles. There's a crash of breaking porcelain as a mug topples from someone's desk, assorted curses, one short and surprised yelp. The next moment every light, every computer, every printer and piece of hardware in sight abruptly goes dead.

Briefly, for a fraction of a heartbeat, there is utter silence. Nobody speaking. Nobody moving. Not even the hum of our machines to keep us company. Then the spell breaks and everyone starts talking at once.

I'm on my feet. I don't even remember standing up. My heart is beating like crazy. What the hell did I just see?

Around me, everyone is forming into little groups, muttering darkly about power cuts. Bloody nuisance, I hear someone say. What's the number for maintenance?

Quickly, stiffly, I walk to the window. Just to check, I tell myself, just to make sure everything's fine.

But everything's not fine. As I approach the window it comes into view: not a mile away, a great black tower of smoke and dust is rearing from the city, looking like a tornado in slow motion. The sight of it hits me like a fist, and for a moment it's all I can do to stand there and stare. I've never seen anything so utterly strange and terrifying in my entire life.

David? someone says from behind me. David, are you okay? I recognise the voice as one of the receptionists. She comes up behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder, but then she sees it too and I hear her gasp in horror.

And then, very quickly, I'm surrounded by people. Everyone is crowding over to the window to see, pressing themselves against the glass. I see one woman push her way back through the crowd, hand over mouth, looking like she's about to cry. A couple of the guys are trying to make calls on their mobiles, jabbing helplessly at buttons, tapping dead screens.

I take a step back, then another. I feel almost sick. This can't be real.

And then I think of Sharon. I wonder if she can see this where she is, if she's doing the same thing, gazing out through the window of her studio at the destruction. Even though I know it will be useless, I pull my mobile out of my pocket and try to switch it on. Nothing. Not even a flicker.

Look! cries someone. And I do look, expecting them to be pointing to some new feature of the devastation across town. But they're pointing up, up into the sky. And I move forward to the window again and follow their pointing finger and I see it. I see the shape in the sky, the moving speck growing larger and larger and larger. Not just one speck, in fact, but a dozen, a hundred. The sky is scattered with them, like dark stars.

And one of them is getting bigger, is getting huge. And then it's not just a speck anymore, but a thing, a huge mass plummeting from the sky so fast it's almost impossible to follow, coming straight down towards us. Coming so fast that it's falling, that there's fire all around it as it falls. As one everyone recoils from the window, and there is screaming, and I turn and start to run, not knowing where I'm going, not knowing if there's any escape, but running all the same. And everyone around me is running too. And I swear the thing is so close I can hear the scream of it tearing through the air like a firework. And...

And the second meteor hits, and everything goes to hell.

The impact is so close that I'm thrown bodily to the floor. Everything lurches. Computers topple from desks, glass breaks, filing cabinets slam to the floor. Someone else falls on top of me and rolls away. The air is thick with screams and shouts. For a moment I don't dare move, sure that the floor is about to give way, that the whole building is about to collapse around me. But it doesn't. After a second the shaking stops and I climb cautiously to my feet.

The office is wrecked. Most of the windows along the south side are broken, littering the carpet with bright cubes of safety glass. The air is full of dust, thick and hard to breathe. Desks are overturned, chairs fallen, tiles dangling from the ceiling. But worse than all that are the people. The receptionist who came to me when I stood at the window not two minutes ago is huddled back against the wall, covered in dust, her head buried in her hands, shuddering with sobs. All around the office, men and women in suits are picking themselves up, gazing around at the damage, looks of horror on their faces.

Then the screaming starts. It's close, but not anywhere on this floor. And it's different from the kind of screams that I've heard already today. This sound is long and sustained and piercing: a scream of pain.

That noise, more than anything else, jolts me. I wheel around and run for the door to the stairwell. I have to get out of here, quickly, before the next one hits. I pause at the door and look back into the office. Everyone is still picking themselves up from the devastation. The receptionist is still crying against the wall. Nobody's moving, nobody's running away. Don't they understand? I think of all those little specks I saw in the sky. Little specks growing bigger.

Come on! I yell, as loud as I can. Come on, quick! We have to get out of here. People turn and just stare at me, as though they don't understand what I'm saying. Shock. It must be shock. We have to go, now! I yell. But nobody moves, and so I turn and plunge on down the stairwell alone.

I run. I run so fast that I'm afraid any second I might fall, leaping four steps at a time down and down and down. By the time I reach the second floor a few others are starting to enter the stairwell. I pass a man with a wide, bright bloodstain down the front of his shirt. I pass a couple of frightened-looking interns still trying to coax a response from the mobiles.

My thoughts go to Sharon again. She must be worried. I wonder, are things any better off on the other side of the river? A surge of fear passes through my body, making me feel cold and jittery inside.

I reach the lobby. As I'm crossing towards the main doors the building shakes again. I stumble but keep my feet. The security guard's at the door, yelling and directing people outside. He looks as lost and scared as the rest. As I pass through the doors and into the outside world the tang of smoke reaches me, hot and bitter.

The street outside is thronged with people. They're pouring from every doorway of every building, a tide pulling in a hundred different directions. People are bloodied and dust-covered. People are screaming. People are calling out each other's names. A couple of cars are stranded in the middle of the road, doors flung open, the mass of people flowing around them.

Without hesitation I throw myself into the crowd and turn towards the river.

Something streaks past overhead, so close I'm certain I feel the heat of it. The next second there's an explosive boom, a fresh wave of screams, another horrifying lurch of the ground beneath my feet. I keep running, shoved and buffeted by the panicking crowd. I pass a police van, abandoned like so many other vehicles in the middle of the road, the police themselves nowhere in sight. That's when I realise something: I can't hear a single siren, a single alarm. Nothing but the babble and roar of the crowd.

I glance down a side street as I pass, and see an inferno blazing at the end. Whatever used to stand there is now no more than a few teetering piles of brick and fallen girders, engulfed by wild yellow flame. The smoke is pumping up into the sky like a signal and people are fleeing crazily from it, their eyes wide and their faces stained with soot and blood. One terrified woman almost runs straight into me. I grab her just before we collide and for a second our eyes meet, and it looks as though she's trying to say something, her lips moving, eyes pleading. And then she's gone, wrenching herself from me and stumbling off into the chaos.

For a moment I stare after her, feeling unpleasantly helpless in the face of all this. Then the ground shudders again, and the noise of an explosion echoes through the streets again, and I remember Sharon, and I start once more to run.

It's not far to the river, but it seems to take an age. When I finally get to the waterfront it is as crowded with people as the streets before it. The nearest bridge is heaving with people crossing in both directions. It's a crush, a stampede. There are even people in the water, looking as though they're trying to swim from one bank to the other. I watch as a speedboat passes under the bridge and then swerves to avoid a couple of the swimmers, throwing up a bow wave that almost submerges them.

If she was coming to find me, then this is the bridge that Sharon would use. The next nearest one is almost twenty minutes away. But has she made it across already? Or would she stay in the studio and wait for me to come to her? If only my phone was still working...

I fight my way over to the barrier and grab hold, anchoring myself against the crowd. I watch the bridge, watch the heaving mass of people surging across it. I don't have a choice. I have to find her. However bad it might be, being without Sharon in the middle of all this is worse. Grimly, I start to make my way along the barrier towards the bridge.

At first I don't hear the voice calling my name. There's so much noise and confusion all around that I just tune it out. But it comes again, and again, and I whip my head up to look, to search the hundred faces that surround me.

David! David, it's me. And it's a voice I recognise, and after a moment I spot her, on the other side of the waterfront road, pushing her way towards me, waving and yelling my name. My heart fills up: it's Sharon. It's really her. I feel as though I'm about to cry with relief and happiness. I let go of the barrier and start pushing towards her, fighting the flow of the crowd.

And then, quite suddenly, I'm face to face with her. She's right there in front of me, alive and uninjured and so, so beautiful. I grab her and pull her against me, and we're both saying each other's name over and over. She smells of sweat and fear. She's shaking.

Oh, God, David, she says. I thought I'd never see you again.

It's okay, I say. It's okay. We're going to get out of this.

Her hand finds mine, and now--now that we're together--I feel a hundred times stronger. I never want to let her go again.

How did you-- I begin.

She's sobbing, but holding me still. I came as soon as I knew what was happening. I thought... Oh, David, I thought you might be dead.

I hug her again. We're right in the middle of the street, and the people are knocking into us as they pass. We're an island in a stream.

Come on, I say. Let's move. And holding hands as tight as we can we turn and start to make our way out of the crush, pushing towards a narrow alley between two buildings that leads away from the waterfront.

We're almost there when I hear that noise again. The screeching, tearing sound of