Faces In The Sky

Jim sat on the window sill looking down over the car park some two floors below. Sheets of newspaper and other rubbish blew about on the rising wind amidst the abandoned cars. He raised the tumbler of whiskey and took another sip, raising his eyes to the sunset.

A movement caught his eye and he looked down to where people had begun to run silently across the car park. A woman appeared to be crying as she ran and he didn't blame her one bit. Her coated arms were full of what he took to be a child wrapped in a white blanket. Then a man, who kept glancing over his shoulder, caromed into her and sent her and the bundle flying. He kept running and the woman climbed to her knees, raising the tiny bundle to her face without a sound. They got her then.

"Anything much?" Mandy asked looking over his shoulder and topping his empty glass up from the bottle of Grants. She sighed, shoulders slumping as she took a sip of her own drink. "Some things never change. I just wish that I could wake up and find that all this is just a nightmare."

"Cheerful aren't you Jim said. "Switch the telly on."

Mandy walked over to where the old twenty eight inch television stood and lit the two small candles perched on its top. It was the only light they dared allow themselves. Her eyes flickered to the loaded shotguns leaning against the wall. She had only fired them a couple of times before she stopped practicing, as the recoil hurt her shoulders so much. They had both decided to find something more suitable, not that anything could be as effective. Perhaps something from the army base that was only a mile or so away. It was just getting there alive that was the issue. Until now all of their excursions had been about food, water and other supplies.

Screams came from below, faint through the glass. Mandy shuddered visibly as she walked back and stood next to him. She pulled the curtains closed against the gathering dusk and then turned away from the window. "More?"

He eyed her brimming glass. "We haven't eaten."

She laughed again. "Yeah, like that really matters. This has been going on for months now and we both know those ugly buggers can come at any moment and then we've had it, so don't give me any shit about not having eaten before having a drink. Hey, it might even hurt less, or perhaps I'll actually poison the bastards. Wouldn't that be a bonus!"

Jim sighed at the softly spoken but bitter words and pulled a corner of the curtain to one side and peeped out. "You need to remember that I've seen you shoot. If you point those guns at them when I'm in the same room as you I'd prefer you to be sober."

"You think that's funny do you?" she shrieked glaring at him and completely losing it. "Those bastards have killed just about everything that bloody moves! My family have all gone, my kids, my neighbours, my friends. There's no animals left that we can see. Everything's gone and now, there's just you and me. That's it. So you can shove your stupid comments up your arse and as for me, well sod you, I'm having another drink." She emptied her glass and poured another large shot into the crystal tumbler. She stared at him defiantly as she took a swig.

"You're just a bloke that I'm with," she said. "Remember that. I don't have to be here."

"Then don't be," he replied. "It's quite simple. To be honest I'm sick and tired of your bullshit. I'm going to bed, alone. Sod dinner, I'm not that hungry to be honest."

He dumped his glass on the rosewood coffee table and strode out of the room. In the bedroom he stripped and climbed under the covers, eying the heavily curtained windows warily before turning on his torch and picking up a new novel from the stack besides the bed. The book couldn't keep his attention and his mind began to drift. He thought over the days when he had lived alone, before they'd come and wiped mankind out almost overnight. The weapons that the armed forces had just didn't work against them, the bullets and rockets just went straight through them as if through jelly and the wounds closed up, healing almost instantly. When the creatures attacked they simply floated up and engulfed you until there was absolutely nothing left. Jim snorted; at least there weren't any bodies rotting away anywhere spreading disease. The streets were hauntingly empty.
 

The bedroom door opened and Mandy came in, trembling. She stripped and slipped into bed. "I'm sorry. You've been so good to me. You took me in when we met in the market that day, so long ago, and you didn't need to. You helped me and have never asked me for a thing, except companionship. I'm really sorry." She slipped her arms around him and fell asleep, as easily as that.

Must be the tablets, Jim thought to himself. He spoke softly to her, kind gentle words despite her gentle snoring. "I think that there are less of them than before," he said softly. "There used to be hundreds floating like bubbles around the skies but now it's seems to be just the occasional one or two."

No-one knew where the creatures came from. One day they had just simply appeared and started gorging on the populace. The military had been swiftly defeated; those temporarily safe in the military vehicles were pursued and never seen again. The few people that were left remained in hiding, only going out if they really needed to. Jim doubted if many came back when they did venture out. He turned the torch off and drifted off, his sleep disturbed by the strange foghorn like groans that had started to come and haunt the dark of the night.

Jim had constant nightmares of how the creatures took on the features of their human victims when they came face to face with another of their kind. Human faces appeared screaming in fear and agony, etched over monstrous alien faces. He'd once seen a pair of them devour a man and his wife, people he knew. Then, as the creatures turned to each other, the couples faces had appeared on them screaming and pleading, begging for their lives. That vision had stayed with him for a long time.

Mandy and he had wondered whether this was a form of ritual courtship, intimidation or perhaps even a strange form of greeting. Whichever, it was frightening beyond words to see those faces and hear those human cries tearing at their hearts.

"Good morning handsome!"

He opened his eyes to see a bath robed Mandy standing in the dim light filtering through the curtains, holding what looked like a glass of orange juice towards him. He sat up and took a grateful sip. She sat next to him on the bed, her bathrobe slipping open to reveal her breasts, he didn't hide the fact that he was looking and she smiled. "Breakfast now, or later?"

Afterwards Jim sighed and lay back onto the pillows, pulling the quilt up to his shoulders. "Later. Do you want to tell me what's bothering you?

She looked at him then, blue eyes wide with anticipation. "I'm pregnant," she said, simply.

Jim stared back, his face whitening. "Really?"

"Yes really."

"Any idea who the father might be?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Mandy shouted, glaring at him.

"What you don't know, sweetheart, is that when my daughter died in a car crash all those years ago I had the snip , so that I never had to go through all that pain and sorrow again. I can't have kids Mandy, end of story. So whose is it?"

"It's yours you prat!" she shrieked at him. "The snip can grow back, can't it! Who the hell else could it be? There hardly anyone else left alive."

"I really haven't a clue Mandy. It can't be me, I do know that."

"Look Jim," she said, trying to calm down. "It is yours, honestly. I love you. There isn't anyone else and there never will be."

Jim ignored her, he simply got up and dressed and then went out, without another word. He didn't come back until much later in the day. He put the shotgun down and dumped the sack of food he'd rescued from the shops onto the dining table. Mandy was still in her dressing gown, her eyes red, face puffy. He put his arms around her;
  "Mandy, I love you and have for a long time now." He looked into her eyes. It's not mine, I know that. But it doesn't matter, not anymore. I don't care who the father is. I just want you and the baby. I can't have one of my own and I've thought about it all day and, to be honest, I don't think that I could exist without you. So, I guess that I'm happy to be the dad, if you will have me. I don't want to argue anymore, let's just leave it at that, huh?"

Mandy hugged him back. "Sure, we'll leave it at that but I'm telling you it's yours."
 

Jim simply ignored her. He made dinner, which they ate silently, and then they talked over their old plans of moving out of the city. Despite the lack of bodies the stench here was getting over powering. They went to bed earlier than usual, backs to each other, each pretending to be asleep.

In the morning Mandy got up and made coffee, bringing the steaming mugs into the bedroom. They eyed each other and Mandy smiled nervously. Leaning forward she kissed him on the cheek, her bathrobe gaping open again, as she knew he liked.

"Now as I was saying yesterday," she teased, "do you want breakfast now or later?

It was actually a lot later that they went into the dining room, where Mandy busied herself producing tinned fruit, their typical morning diet. "We have prunes and apricots, hope that's okay?"

"God help our bellies..." Jim replied.

She laughed and he smiled at her, rejoicing in the light dancing in her eyes, the way she tossed her long brown hair and looked at him sideways.

 They saw nothing in the skies that day; nor for several more days after that. It seemed that the creatures had gone and that they might finally venture out safely. On the fourth day Mandy made breakfast yet again, as was her want, and seemed full of herself. Her eyes were bright and full of fun. She had laughed and smiled a lot since they'd awoken, tangled up together.

"It's fine, a feast fit for a king," Jim laughed looking in disbelief at the scant fare before him. He turned to the curtains and stripped them aside, revealing a huge pasty face glaring in at him through the window, tendrils snaking back and forth.

Jim yelled and jumped backwards falling over the coffee table, his arms flapping wildly as he fell. Mandy dropped the dishes she was holding and fled screaming, completely ignoring the shotguns.

Jim turned leapt towards the guns and snatched up one, aiming it towards the monstrosity glaring balefully through the glass. The creature's insubstantial tendrils writhed as they slid noisily over the window, squeaking like rubber gloves over wet china. You could almost see the frustration on its face as the creature tried desperately to get inside. The insubstantial body that had protected it so efficiently from mankind's weapons now protected the humans inside the room, as it was unable to break the glass.

"Mandy, come back here. It can't get in. Grab a gun but for god's sake don't shoot!" She peeked around the door frame and came nervously into the room, picking up a double barrelled shotgun she pointed it towards the window. Shaking visibly her eyes never once left the creature outside.

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"I haven't a clue. Thank god the bugger can't get in. They know were here now, that's for sure. If the glass breaks then we've had it. Lucky for us they can't get in, for the moment. Let's just hope they don't think about picking anything up and throwing it at us."

Something silver flashed past the window towards the beast staring in at them.

"What was that?" Jim asked.

"What?" Mandy replied.
 

"Didn't you see it? Something silver, look another one!" A second flash occurred, then a third and forth. Jim stared in disbelief as more of them shot towards the creature. "They look like arm-length flying fish..." A horrible bellowing moan interrupted him.

"That noise," Mandy said, gripping Jim's arm. "We've been hearing that on and off for days, it's those buggers. Look, those fish things are eating it!"

With another moan the monster outside rose from their view and limped away through the sky, pursued by fleets of flashing silver.


Eight months later they pushed the pram though the deserted parking lot, chattering happily.

"One of the new guys that moved into the block called by this morning," Jim said, "when you were asleep. He said they've gotten a radio working and that none of the creatures have been seen anywhere at all. Civilisation's coming back. There are messages from all over the world and the story's the same everywhere. Neither they nor the fish things are around anymore. We're being asked to show light in the dark and start fires, so that people know where we are and come together. They want us to form large communities, to help each other survive."

"Makes sense really." Mandy cooed at Jacob in the pram. "He wants his milk."

Jim smiled. "Don't blame him at all, like father like son."

"Cheeky!" Mandy giggled, unconsciously massaging her chest.

He grinned back at her. "A boffin somewhere suggested that the monsters are trying to escape from those fish things, which are their natural prey. They run and hide, find somewhere safe for a while but eventually the other creatures find them and they have to run again. And so it goes on. How they get from one place to another is beyond us though. No spaceships or anything like that have ever been seen, before or after."

"Not many of us left to look though, is there."

"No," Jim agreed. "Mankind's been depleted to say the least. We'll have to start again."

"Oh, talking of starting again, I have something for you," she handed him a buff coloured A5 envelope.

"What's this?" Jim asked.

"Open it and see." He did, remaining quiet for some time, reading and rereading. Then he simply looked at her. "When did you get this? It's DNA results, says that the baby's mine."

"That's right," Mandy smiled. "Since Doctor Hines got his lab up and running, trying and find a way to fight those things if they ever come back, I thought that I would take advantage of the opportunity."

"Guess I owe you an apology Mandy," he hugged her. "I'm so sorry; I just thought that I would never be able to have any more kids."

"It's a strange world we live in Jim. Maybe some things are just meant to happen. Like you said, the world's depleted and we have to start over again."

"Yeah, it's horrible but a blessing in one way," Jim replied as they mounted the steps outside their flat. "It's a fresh start that we don't deserve, given what we've done to the planet."

Jim paused. For just a moment he thought he'd heard a distant but terrible rising moan on the wind. He shook his head to clear it and said; "I think, darling, that it's time to go in." He helped her get the pram though the entrance, then paused briefly to stare up into the sky for a moment or two then closed the door on the gathering night.