Xeyra's Nightfall

Xeyra's Nightfall

         All the prophets of destruction were bored by the year 2002. First, the Y2k bug failed to crash the world economy. Then, Jesus didn't descend from heaven with a host of angels as the Second Millennium ended. Finally, the black hole spotted only 300 parsecs away turned out to be a glitch caused by Micromind's Windblows'02 astral processing software.
         With nothing else to cry about, the doom anarchists jumped all over a NASA report about an upcoming astronomical oddity. On June 12th, 2002, a rogue comet the size of Texas would wander leisurely through our solar system. The amazing thing about the comet named Xeyra was that its path and speed placed it directly between the Earth and the Sun for a period of approximately 66 hours of eclipse.
         With humor inviting legal action, NASA confirmed that the calculations in this report were not made by Windblows'02. So other than preparing for three days of darkness, the general public did not, unlike the doom prophets, find cause for alarm. If anyone was astonished that the doom prophets were right this time, they were not astonished for long.

         The porcelain-faced hermit had lived a long time and had seen many bogus portents. After 250 years in hiding, he felt in his bones that it was finally time to make his presence known to the world. He summoned his coven and made plans.
         On June 11th, just as the sun was setting over the Chilean sky, ten members of the Punta Arenas Blood Cult assembled to worship their master. The master was not Satan, as some of them fancied, but a night walker named Azarat. "The time is upon us, my children!" proclaimed the formerly meek hermit in a powerful, booming voice. "This night I shall grant unto thee eternal life, and thou shalt spread this gift as long as the night doth sustain thy hunger."
         Azarat often drank from the goblets of blood offered in ritual by his naive followers. This time, he drank from the sources themselves. One by one he drained them of their body's energy, gracing them with a kiss as he stared into their eyes in the Dying Moment. By the time he had drained the last of them, the first was already crossing over into the world of the undead. They were eleven strong as they marched into town. Their birthright was hunger, and it could only be sated by violent claim.

         California endured the night hours until June 12th with relative ease. Xeyra's shadow did not actually occlude the sun's light until 5 AM pacific time. Isolated instances of rioting began in every major city of the world when people woke up and realized that it was still dark at breakfast time. In my newly-rented apartment in San Jose, I was not spooked by the trite television reports of gangs looting department stores. The news item about the mass murders in Chile didn't faze me one bit. Those silly South Americans were all backwards anyway.
         By dinner time the broadcasts had all gained a panicky quality. The scripts were delivered with more urgency and the live reports were presented with obvious lack of rehearsal. All of South America was riddled with outbreaks of violence. Commercial flights leaving for overseas were overbooked, and Mexico City was closing all its southern roads to prevent any influx of troublemakers. By midnight the National Guard had been called up - just as a precautionary measure, of course.
         The power was out when I woke up expecting morning. It was still dark, despite the 8:40 AM on my Casio. Xeyra was still sucking up all of our sunlight. A lot of homes had faint lights within from candles. Some houses had generators. Flashlights wavered as sparse souls wandered along the sidewalks. Cars started making their way north.

         My girl Magda came over to spend the day with me. We both skipped our summer creative writing class. By noon we started to hear loud pops in the distance. Eerie sounds filtered through the air, and fears of gunshots from idiot high school gangs kept us locked inside my place. I thought it was a good opportunity for romance. By candlelight we shared a hot bath.
         The sudden sound of shattered oak caught us in a rather compromising moment. We were slow to react when Mr. Stilson from the next building barged into our presence. Except that it wasn't Mr. Stilson - it was a morbid parody of that gentle old man who stood glaring at us with a feral expression. Magda shrieked, and I started to demand explanation. He threw me aside as if I weighed nothing. I watched helplessly as he ate the life from the only girl to whom I'd ever said the 'L' word.
         My legs were frozen in confusion of rage and grief. I thought for sure that the evil clone of Mr. Stilson would try to come bite my throat out next, but he didn't. He waited, and before our eyes Magda rose. Her still-dripping body was hunched over, as if an unseen puppeteer were holding her up by a string between her shoulder blades. Only when she hissed at me did I come to my senses. I fled like the wind out the destruction of my apartment door. As I ran naked down the street, I heard screams indicating that I wasn't the only mortal in peril.

         Hiding on a church roof, I witnessed as things progressed to their conclusion in the next two days. Naked under a stolen raincoat and covered with molasses and coffee grounds (out of paranoid hope of masking my human smells), I clung to the steeple as the last humans were chased down and converted into the walking, stalking, hungry undead.
         I wondered just how far this epidemic had spread. With pangs of hunger I was too scared to remedy, I imagined in a daze that every human in the world was devoured. To my growing horror I realized that the fighting sounds from the neighborhood below were the attacks of vampires feeding on each other. With no humans available to sate their appetites, they fed upon each other in an increasing frenzy of savagery.
         Silently I wept tears onto my disgusting, sticky raincoat and prayed that I was dreaming. I knew that insanity was knocking at my door - and if I couldn't find another human or at least the courage to find some food to eat, soon I would be answering that knock.

         The sun began to bake my face when finally I awoke from my nightmare. Sadly, my pillow was a pile of shingles atop my neighborhood church. It must have been June 15th finally, and the morning light revealed ravaged bodies decaying in the streets.
         No vampires roamed the daytime, and I fancied that maybe they had killed each other into extinction. I wondered how the few surviving undead, if any, would feed without walking blood factories like me on which to snack.
         Nothing moved, yet birds chirped. Though a foul stench wafted through the deserted community's air, I slowly regained my confidence. My abused stomach begged for food despite the appalling death scenes in the streets. I climbed down from the steeple back into the church. For a moment a stupid thought occurred to me: perhaps I was the last living man in the world. Xeyra's nightfall had passed; was I the last? I chided myself and opened the front door.
         Vicious snarls greeted my action, and I hastily shut the door as three mangy wolves charged at me. I let out a yelp as they slammed into the heavy door at my back. I ran to the side door, but glances through the windows told me the tale: the church was surrounded. My last resort was the kitchen entrance. I stood on my tiptoes to peer out the high window.
         Two large black wolves sat patiently staring at the door. I had thought I might die to vampires, so why were there wolves? In helpless confusion I studied them. Their jowls were lined with thick saliva. Whether rabid or in anticipation of a fine meal, it mattered not at all. Whether or not the world had ended, my world was at its end.

[auth note: written for "the world ends" contest by xeyra]