The Sullivan Chronicles

A summer breeze swept through the landscape, rustling the maples, stirring up smells of cut grass and a slightly fishy odor from the nearby river. Olivia took her usual path: between apartment buildings, following the sidewalk through the park, up the hill along what used to be an old apple orchard, but was now a busy construction site with huge bulldozers pushing humongous piles of dirt from one acre to the next. 

Olivia had been saddened to see another farmer retire and another developer swoop in to rape the land; plaster it over with a sheen of concrete pollution; drop another non-descript, energy inefficient, boxy habitat-slash-bomb-shelter on site then clap himself on the back in congratulations for making huge profits on a cranked-out clone of non-creativity. With the park in between, and the river within sight of anything taller than three stories, whatever monstrosity they were building would command top dollar.

Tragic.

She passed through the park, enjoying the shade provided by the tree-lined sidewalk. It was usually very quiet on Saturday mornings, as the inhabitants of the apartments slept in, and the local businesses did not open until ten in the morning, if at all, on the weekends. But lately, the crack of dawn brought the hum of big machinery, no matter the day of the week. The push to build as fast as possible required overtime and weekends, taking advantage of the long hours of summer daylight.

Olivia left the park boundary with its green grasses and shady trees, and began her climb up the hill. The sidewalk was still the same, if covered in clay and soil runoff from higher up, but gone were the fields of apple trees, the neat rows of Americana, of healthy creation, of productivity, of nature, of purity. Now, there was just dirt. Forty acres of uninterrupted brown dirt. 

Oh, there were tall mounds here and there to make it look non-flat. But those were temporary. Sewage, water, power lines would all get buried, foundations planted, then everything would be backfilled, smoothed and tamped down neat as a button before rolls of insta-grass were trucked in and rolled out for that immediate photo-op marketing shot of a beautiful dwelling timelessly nestled in the community. Collect the money, move on to the next. 

Consumption, expansion, and greed. Humans call it progress.

Olivia passed a new trench. It was deep. Dug for a new sewer line, apparently. Along the trench rested concrete tubes large enough for her to walk through, if she crouched. So she did. Why not? 

As a kid, she and her friends had played for days in tubes like this when the city had fixed broken lines under her street. Endless lazy hours of summer, playing tag, climbing on, over, through the temporary jungle gym. It was the best entertainment no money could buy—a kid’s imagination and a tube.

Depressingly, all Olivia felt now was claustrophobia, and a pinched nerve in her back from hunching over. She missed her childhood imagination. And her childhood joints.

Back to the sidewalk.

Standing tall, gazing back from the hill to watch the river meander through the growing city—or did the city meander around the river?—Olivia took a deep, cleansing breath. 

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

She could not change progress. It marched inexorably on. Her best course of action was to enjoy her walk, the view of the river, the fresh air, and the clear blue sky. 

Well, almost clear blue. A few clouds were on the approach. Huge clouds, really. Not spread flat and wide, but solid towers of impressive gray. Tall, dark, and dense, hanging low in the sky, and reaching high. Olivia didn’t remember scattered showers in the forecast, but these angry thunderheads undoubtedly carried rain, even if they were surrounded by deep shades of Egyptian blue. 

She watched the mountains of ornery mist glide towards the city. Two from the west, one from the southwest. And several from the south? That wasn’t normal, was it? Clouds blowing in from three directions? 

She turned to gaze over her shoulder, and gaped. Four more clouds of impenetrable slate rolled in from the east. That most definitely was not normal. Not possible. The wind could not blow in four directions at once! 

Could something be sucking these clouds in? Some new device for weather control? Something military? Some new tech company? 

No, not here. Not in this small town, in the middle of nowhere, near nothing military, not on the radar of any substantial or insubstantial company of invention. This was farmville, and factoryville, and the ville you passed through to get to where you really wanted to go. This was rural America, and the last place to get last year’s castoff fashion fads. 

But those clouds were definitely not normal. Not rural America. Not natural.

A westerly basalt behemoth reached the far side of the city. It rolled over the town like a literal storm cloud, only to pause, to hover, to loom above the sleepy downtown area where nestled Cafe Blanche, Mallard’s department store, a CVS pharmacy, and several other locally-legendary establishments that tenaciously clung to life in the age of all things internet. 

And then, the gray fell. Like someone cut the strings holding it in the sky, that chunk of something dropped. 

And obliterated downtown. 

The sound was deafening. The impact sent ripples through the ground, upset the river, toppled Olivia to her knees. The dust encrusted wind that followed stung her face. It blew her over backwards. She covered her head with her arms and rolled into a ball. And waited. 

The rumbling stopped, and the ground settled. She heard alarms in the distance. She heard crumbing buildings, and settling concrete. She heard nothing natural.

Tentatively, Olivia uncovered her head. She was at the wrong angle, so she scooched and slithered on the sidewalk until her sideways face could view downtown. 

Downtown was gone. The other side of the river, except for the last block hugging the banks, consisted of a large mountain of rock that had not existed mere seconds ago. That seeming cloud which had floated through the air like supposed water vapor, was solid stone. Or stone-like? For now, Olivia saw electric-blue lights, like asymmetric pockmarks, scattered around the mountain. And from these pockmarks, things moved. Things descended to the city below. From this distance, Olivia couldn’t tell if they were creatures or machines, vehicles or enormous monsters. One thing was for sure, they were not human. They were not of this Earth.

It’s an invasion, Olivia thought. Panic rooted her.

From her fetal position, she watched a second alien berg coast to a stop over the south end. That was residential. Nothing but small bungalows and Cape Cods, with detached garages, a patch of lawn out front, and a backyard just large enough to contain two kids, a dog, and a grill on a sunny Saturday.

The second was like the first. It plummeted. It crushed. It obliterated the entire south end of town. The earth trembled. It rippled and shook. The river jumped and sloshed the banks. Olivia’s teeth rattled in her head, and she saw the dust cloud rocketing in her direction. She covered again, and rolled, putting her back to the coming gale. Sand and debris penetrated her cotton tee; a prickling, but no real damage.

Those people, Olivia was nauseous with shock. All those people. My neighbors. My friends. They’re gone. She wanted to weep, but disbelief clogged her ability to process.

She uncovered her head again. The rumbling had stopped. The wind had passed. She did not want to swivel around. She did not want to look again to the other side of the river. She did not want to face whatever horror was next. But she did.

Dust billowed at the base of the second mountain, obscuring anything at house-level. But no house could remain. Anything under that monstrosity was now pulped, mashed, pulverized and driven a dozen yards deep. Or deeper. No hope.

Lights blossomed on the second mound, and movement ensued. Like ants, or termites leaving their nest. Is that what these creatures were? Insects? Would they eat humans, or were they here for the verdant land? Were they carnivores, or herbivores? Were humans cattle, or a nuisance?

Olivia did not want to find out first hand. She had to get away. Far away. She had to force her locked limbs to move, her heart to stop pounding out of her chest. She had to breathe, close her eyes, count to ten, turn around, rise up, run.

She drew a deep, fluttering breath, eyes closed. She counted to ten, rolled onto her hands and knees, pointed away from downtown, then rose shakily to her feet. She opened her eyes and saw the billowing pewter cloud glide into position above her. 

It stopped. It dropped. It obliterated forty acres of uninterrupted brown dirt.