Spontaneous Combustion

Tilly and I sat at the table in silence after the first quake rattled the apartment building. Looking over at the window, it's almost as if the rain that had been pitter-pattering on the pane had paused just by a push of a God-like button.

Slowly standing to make her way towards the window another great bang shook the apartment causing kitchen cabinets to swing open spilling their glass contents, shattering on to the ceramic tile hiding it's homely pattern.

Tilly hunched over grasping to the back of the chair she had been resting on. Her eyes looking above and around us, fear has now filled with in our core. She grabs onto me for a moment, what's happening?

We go to the front door and swing it open exposing terrified confused residents rushing down the halls holding their belongings. Tilly grabs onto a neighbor we are familiar with, and says "Henry! What's going on?" He grabs onto her hand that had been gripping onto his leather jacket, and with wide bloodshot eyes he responds "Turn your tv on Till, and may God forgive us all" his voice trembles in complete terror. He rips her hand away merging with the mob elbowing each other for the elevator and stair way down to the lobby. We turn around and dart for the television as another quake punts the apartment causing Tilly and I to stumble over furniture. The hall behind us whales and the thunder of foot steps escalates. Juggling the remote until she can get her thumb over the power button, she pushes down quickly with a click followed by the high pitched hum of the television starting up.

A blue light covers us and all that the cable has to say to us is "This is not a drill, please find shelter." I look over to her as she just stares blankly into the screen, she grabs onto me again with water welling in her big brown eyes. Still we are left with no answers and realize we need to move, now.

Tilly grabs her purse, and we make our way to the elevator. Frantically tapping on the call button rocking back and forth praying for the satisfying slide of the doors opening, but nothing. Now impatient, we push away towards the stair way instead. Thrusting the door open we are met with more occupants from higher floors. Mother's holding onto their crying children and father's leading them down. Tilly looks to me readying herself for the dive into this sea of people, then finally connects with the wave. Flying down the stairs with the rest seems stressful enough but of course the earth again releases a tremor greater than all the rest before it. Tilly screams with the horde as people fall over one another, bodies falling from the floors above her down to the very bottom meeting their demise. The echo of cement and dry wall crumbling from all around them but Tilly keeps moving and I'm right with her.

Finally on the bottom, through the windows of the lobby smoke and fires can be seen. Electric wires hanging down damaged and dangerous, vehicles traffic jammed down the main road making a seemingly uncrossable path. We notice the security guard, Gordon clenching tightly on to his piece outside of the building so we make our way to him.

As we approach Gordon he's looking west and up to the sky he's praying under his breath and doesn't even notice Tilly until she finally speaks. "Please! Tell me what the fuck is going on?" She demands with a stern tiredness of being in the unknown. He rests his left hand on her shoulder then points to where his eyes were glued just moments before. We look up and our hearts sink.

A giant, spiraling, black hole is ripped in the clouds. It seems to be dripping black clumps of material down on to the terrain below it. It covers like a sticky dark tar over buildings in the distance crushing everything it blankets.

"Oh, oh my god Ben." Tilly says to me under her breath with one palm covering her mouth and the other holding on to me.

"You need to listen to me ma'am" he puts one hand on each side of her shoulders and forces their eyes to lock.

"You need to go to the empty field a couple blocks down from here" he points towards the east where the fair grounds are.

"There are military choppers making rounds there. Picking people up and taking them to a military grade bunker, you go there and you get safe you hear me?" He says to her in a voice that seems to almost calm her of all the fear that built with in her. The idea of actual safety was the best and most news we've got sense this all started.

She almost turns to split but quickly 180s back to Gordon.

"Why are you still waiting? Come hurry!" Tilly reaches her hand to get the man moving towards a longer life.

"I need to help here, there maybe more people alike you that don't know where to go. Just go, now!"

Tilly and I break down the road, panting and huffing in rhythm with every loud clap of the bottom of our soles as it hits the wet concrete. Staying close to the buildings to steer clear of that unknown matter that's been falling from the sky.

You can hear every drop plummeting onto the buildings below. Crunching and deafening bellows gave up exactly where it landed, but it seems the closer we got to safety the louder and more wary the trail seemed.

We stop with our back against the wall of a local corner store and notice victims of human panic. People run over by speeding vehicles, revealed a blood covered road. Couldn't help but to nearly gag at the sight of so much gore.

Products from in the store now scattered the outside, making a trail to the entry. The lights inside were completely off, the building was dead so it seemed. Closer to the entrance we hear a gurgling sound with in the premise, our curiosity leads us into the dark liquor store. The noise of the outside dulls and the low whisper of the emergency broadcast is heard again from the television that sat behind the front counter.

Tilly walks down passing the magazines, then the snack aisles and stops before the fridges. The murmur is now heavy and we know that whatever that's giving it off is right around the bend. I peek around the corner before her and we notice something that could not have been real. A pulsing black substance laid over the top of who we recognize as the store clerk. Sucking on his body like an over sized gluttonous leach. Tilly turns back to her starting point and quietly disrupts her gasp before it exposes our position.

Using the doughnut shelf beside her she eases herself back onto her feet and slowly tip toes her way to the exit. Feeling relieved to be right at the door, we realize the gurgle had stopped. Tilly turns her head bouncing her eyes back and forth into the deep darkness of the shop, and all that's heard is the breath escaping between her teeth.

When suddenly, the glob launches it's body still attached to the poor man and hits against the wall beside her with a smack vibrating the floor and walls surrounding us. Tilly dives for the door, and just merely dodges it's next aim as it shoots for us again but crashes into the wall behind the front counter cracking the bones of the man that it just doesn't seem to want to let go of.

We get to the outside and Tilly shuts the door forcefully, runs to the corner away from the thing and falls to her knees. She cries in her hands ignoring the now fewer people running up the side walk. We sit together for a moment and I remember the times we would go to that store for movie nights, I miss those days. Why was it taken away?

Tilly collects herself, grabbing onto me and kissing me "Ben, I'm scared. How is this happening right now?" I try and comfort her with my presence but I know with this insanity that isn't enough.

We are instantly interrupted by a clamor in the distance, Tilly looks to where it's coming from which seemed to be directly behind us. You can see a dust cloud over the stretch of buildings and the thunder is amplifying.

We make for our beginning destination. Now the field is in our sites, cars and people crowding ahead of us now yelling noticing that the city behind us was collapsing in flames. You can see a few military helicopters, the ones that normally transport vehicles. Loading panicky civilians as fast and orderly as possible. I notice one that has already flown off to security, hopefully Tilly and I can get into one of them safely.

Danger seems to be approaching as the ground begins to quiver right beneath our feet, and in an instant our hope had washed away.

Black liquid begins to spout out from the earth on the people right in front of us. Agonizing screams of pain rang in the drums of Tilly's ears as she just watches people melt under the deathly slime.

That's when getting to the copters isn't an option any more it just wouldn't be possible, they're now drenched in this alien substance. That's when I remember the docks they're a few miles down but it's doable. I turn to Tilly but then like a volcanic eruption we are separated by the poison. The ground lifts and throws Tilly back but rips me away from her, I fall to the ground.

"Ben!" Tilly reaches for me but I am completely separated from her helpless and broken laid out on the grass. I watch as tears spill from her eyes and is forced to run in the opposite direction of me and I lay still, it is better this way.

I lay there for a while. A long while, during the sound of destruction until the lifeless silence. I watch the light until it's dark and then light again. Until it just didn't get light anymore, I watched the sky for longer than I could ever imagine thinking of where Tilly is.

Wondering what we would've experienced if she didn't drop the heart shaped locket I had given to her days before I had passed away.