'The siren from the street begins again, the shrill beep followed by the crackling taps just before the tin sounding words rattle the same sentences over in pattern. Attention! This is not a drill. Follow the instructions and you will be safe.

-Stay Calm
-No sudden movements or noise
- Do not attempt contact.
-Do not prevent entry 
-Do not attempt to resist

I felt my mouth mimic the words as they pierce the silence and screech through the empty streets.  Each inflection exactly the same as it was every time it alarmed. 

"We cannot assist you, this is a global event and your safety depends on your ability to be follow instructions. Good luck."

When it ends I wish for more. It was always the same, a deep angry part of me not wanting to ever hear that voice again, and then secretly longing for that loop message one more time just to hear another voice. I'd lost count of the days since I'd used my ears for human words from anyone but me.

It had been months, that I knew. The leaves had turned and fell and bloomed again before they finally blackened and died like everything else in the heat of the scorching sun that never seemed to end. Suddenly my thoughts of leaves and voices are interrupted as sound  drowns out everything and a shadow fills the sky and darkens the sun. This time it is not a drill, they have arrived again.

Stay Calm. I tie the black blindfold over Maisey's eyes just like we had practiced for the entire warm season. She didn't react to the fabric, or my touch as I pulled her onto my lap. I turn the rocker toward the wall and begin the soothing sway that somehow I hope pushes everything else away.

Dirt blows into the room through the door that I leave open to follow the rules. I can feel it on my skin, hitting us like mini shards of broken glass. Each tiny microscopic bite reminding me of some past sin that put me here. I view them in my head. Seeing those faces, names, and incidents march across my brain like a giant pain parade.

Killing Mr. Parker isn't one of the sins though. I refuse to be guilty for that. He tried to eat me, I think. Just a few days after I found momma. When I finally got brave and went all the way down the road. Past the corpses of all the dead animals and people rotting and melting on porches. Back when I still believed there were people like me around. People who lived, and moved, and may be afraid, but just wanted to have today.

I knew it was bad that day when I saw those Parker girls, or what was left of the girls. Their sticky bits of flesh oozing down the linoleum like wax from a candle no one was watching. Their thin boney bodies were tied to dinner chairs in front of empty plates. I should have ran. But seeing Mr. Parker sitting there, next to his hollowed out wife whose severed arm he had sitting on his plate, just froze me. When he grinned that bloody grin with bits of her skin hanging from his teeth, I grabbed Maisey and tried to run. 

I wasn't expecting him to bolt toward us like an animal, his fork leading the way, mouth open and eyes wild, like the cattle just before the slaughter. The vase was there, it was the only thing there. I didn't know his skin was that fragile, peel-able, how could one know that? Even today, with my eyes pinched closed and Maisey soft and warm like a baby chick on my lap, I can't come up with a way that wouldn't have ended up with Mr. Parker and us living. Like a rabid dog he would've kept coming.

Now I feel the energy in the room increase. Like being outside just before the lightening
back in the days when rain came. My hair stands on end and I feel Maisey stiffen her muscles as if the shock of that invisible lightening bolt landed directly on her frail frame. I rock faster. Warnings are ringing and screaming in my ears: 'no sudden movements or noise"- I know this. And yet my body rocks. Swaying like the deep blue water I remember seeing once.

"Do not attempt to resist"- and I don't. I hold Maisey and I rock.

Maisey settles. Her small body breaking into shivers from the cold gusts of air that always come when the sun goes black from the shadow of their visit. I grab the blanket and pull it around her hoping it provides warmth and comfort. Hoping it's worth an ending that means love and safety and erases memories of being left on the side of the road with acid eyes and blood coming out her ears.

Do not react. I rock softly. The thunderous echo stops but the blackness and cold continues as if the world is suddenly in the shade. I should feel grateful for the break from the constant light and heat, but I'm too afraid to find comfort. I hear movements begin on my left and clicks and beeps stir to my right. Each breath forced in and out as if I can control the universe. As if I can somehow make sense of any of the now.

The message begins again. As if it will help me here. As if it's loud piercing doesn't count as noise. It is broadcast through town once an hour of every endless day. I know it by heart. I know it's a loop. I know that whoever  read those words is far away from everyone and everything that now rules my world and the skies. I also know, like everyone else, the announcer is probably dead.

In my mind I see him, the reader of the prompt, laying in a bed with his wife. His children have been hid beneath the garden. Mercifully killed to keep them in the boundaries of alignment. They do not react now. No movement or crying. No fear of them being captured or killed. Whatever plague has come upon this cruel new world, the reader  has made them safe. 'Out of goodness and mercy'. That's what he told himself. That's what he convinced his wife as they plotted the schematics of keeping themselves alive. 'We can have more', they each though privately, 'when the threat has passed, as long as we survive'. This is what I think of, each time, changing it a little to keep my mind away from now.

I feel the stillness then. The eye of the storm. As things around me are finally quiet as the moving and scattering ends. Only the clicks increase their pattern and a warm light flashes. The wind and noise stop and time stands still. This, I think, this is the hard part.

I lay my cheek on top of Maiseys warm head. It's tilted to the side and relaxed and I know she must have fallen asleep. I focus on feeling her chest rise and fall upon my own as I soak her in. My mind thinks of all she has accomplished and I feel wet tears spill upon my cheeks. I wait in the stillness while the unknown visitors return to their clicks and thumps and scurrying.

I think about the day I found her. Day three. But that isn't enough. To get there I remember day one. When the announcements started. Over and over hearing the same words. Words that had momma crying. Words that made her bring down the big bible she kept in the closet. The one with the names of all the dead people written in fancy gold letters so they wouldn't be forgotten. I didn't worry then about the man's voice or his constant messages of warnings and fear. I didn't understand momma rushing around and panicking, and I wouldn't, until I went to the barn and found her swinging there above the goats.

That was day two. The day I picked up that big bible and wrote her name in black pen because she never told me where I could find the gold one. The one that made names pretty and not forgotten.

That day I understood that momma was afraid. That she would rather choose a big black tongue and eyes that bleed than something she feared. That I was alone. That I was too afraid of being like momma to swing above the soft simple goats who only wanted a bit of food and a scratch on the head.

Day three I woke up thinking about taking her down. Thinking it would be better to bury her beneath the dirt and let the bugs have her than to keep washing wet bits off the floor and have her leaking on the goats. But try as I did, I couldn't get her down. And when I started walking to the Parkers to ask for help I never expected to find Maisey on the side of the road. Tiny crooked arms and legs kicking in the wind. Eyes bubbled and scarred. Thick gelatinous tissue building up in those tiny sockets without a blink to be found. Or a tear, but I'm guessing in her short time she used all those up. Her ears curled up and bleeding and no longer useful for hearing. I'm sure before those eyes and ears were done, they'd seen and heard enough.

But she smiled when I picked her up, without making a sound. The holes in her tiny throat making bubbles like the ones in the sink when I wash the dishes. But they never floated. Not a single one. Just bubbled up and eventually ran down her soft white throat making her smock all wet and soggy.

At night I tell her that they loved her, those missing parents. That they put her there for the drill just to be safe, but things went bad. Someone moved or screamed or ran, and whatever made that electric feeling got them. I tell her that they probably saved her life that day. Just by putting her on the side of the road.

It doesn't matter that I don't believe a word of it. She can't hear a sound I utter. But it still means something to me. Like I'm doing a kindness. It doesn't matter that I believe her parents were like momma. More filled up with fear then love. Why else would they make her blind and deaf and unable to ever say her own name and then leave her? Not for her sake.

I feel it now. Whatever it is. Close by my face. I feel it's breath upon my cheek. My nose smells plastic like the new hose when we first unwrapped it. The one I used to wash momma's messes off the goats, back before she was dried up. It stays close and I feel my heart thumping in my throat. I think about swallowing to push it down but I know better. I keep my mind on Maisey. Do not react.

Do not attempt contact. My right hand shakes a little. The feeling to reach up and touch it is a powerful thing. So powerful that if it weren't for Maisey I would. Just to see what it was. Just to know. Even if it meant my own death. Like momma, I know it would be me quitting. And I feel more tears fall. This time, guilty ones.

My cheek jumps as its touched but I still myself quickly. Waiting for something. This part is new. Touch. I didn't even get to feel it. So quick my brain wasn't sure it happened. Except I know it did because the tear path is crooked now.

I hear the thunderous noise begin again and more dirt blows in. Those tiny painful bites feel better this time. Because I know they mean goodbye. The clicks and thumps scurry. Each echoing from further away until silence sucks up everything like a Vaccuum.

I wait a while. And rock. With Maisey's warm skin upon my own. I take off her blindfold, which doesn't help her see at all, but does tell her when it's time to be still. I walk to the bed and lay her sleeping body on it. Covering her with a soft cotton sheet to soak up the sweat. When the shadow over the sun leaves, it's right back to the scorching heat that never seems to end. Sometimes I wonder what happened to winter, but not today.

I walk to the barn. Carcasses of goats lay in the field. Flies thick and ornery fight above them like they're having tiny air wars. All of them fighting for any drop of anything wet at all. I peer in the open door looking up to prove she's still there. Momma. Each time I tell myself she is, but something always makes me worry they'll take her. Like they'd have a need for bones and bits of dry falling skin.

Her hair, still in its long braid, swings despite the lack of a breeze. Bits of it stand out and I know the birds, those that can still fly, have been stealing it to make nests. It's shiny and soft and if I could reach it I know it would still smell like roses. I can't blame those birds. If I could reach it I might just make a nest of it myself, lay my face on it and remember how she laughed as she taught me to make braids of my own.

I turn away and walk back to the house. Bugs have gathered on the table from the open doors and windows. Gods way of scolding me for not scrubbing it hard enough I suppose. I go to the mirror and look at my left cheek. The one that was touched. Expecting a streak of red or blue or black. At the very least, bubbles. But it's just me.

*****************************
Entry #206513. Visit #4

Subject One: continues to remember and follow protocol. Handheld infra scans show stable vital signs. No obvious deformities in primary subject are seen.

Subject continues to keep living quarters clean and hygiene up showing evidence of continuing neurological function.

Sample of tear was obtained from left eye. Unknown reasons for emotion.
Tear bottled and sent to lab.

Subject Two (planted infant from site #5): appears to be growing despite deformities.
Past Radiation exposure level: 7.
Infant has obvious bulging growths from bilateral ears and eyes.
Gill slits in throat appears to be increasing.
Footage from satellite and cameras show she is still able to maintain ability to eat.
Further testing is needed to show damage to internal organs.

Field office has scheduled another dose of radiation at 2300.
Team on site asks for extension.

Team has placed aerosol sedatives on site to safely do physical examination without interfering with subjects. And again remove Subject Two for next location.

Documentation submitted to halt increased exposure until physical testing at this phase is complete.

Team feels it is crucial to know exact nature of each stage of contamination to effectively counteract when real life scenario occurs.

**************************

The military bird sits in a field a few miles away from the complex. Jonah scans the paperwork and observes the fatalities of Site #6. So far it is the only successful biological testing site. Two subjects remain living and fully functional despite increasing weekly doses. Both subjects are young females, which may be significant. Tonight if he is unable to stop the increased dose, the test will be over. Level 8 has always been obliteration.

Jonah looks at the picture he took of the subjects and tucks it in his coat. He is aware it will be his final visit. With looming nuclear threat from the East, an extension will be denied. It is urgent to seek reliable survival data. Tomorrow he will be given another small town to start the process of full system radiation effects again. The new subjects have been targeted and the towns youths have already been given test antidotes via new mandatory vaccines.

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Word count 2730
Entered in #TNTHorrorContest
Originally written for glamour of the grotesque