After the Sky Fell

Before the sky fell, Red’s grandmother loved to dress her up like a porcelain doll. Silk, satin, taffeta – always the girl’s favorite bright poppy red – were paired with shiny patent leather dress shoes which always had gleaming silver buckles. When the sash was tied and the last beads of sweat dried on her skin Red’s grandmother would croon.
“Pretty enough to put on a shelf, my little Red,” Gram cooed as she smoothed the girl’s mahogany hair. “Pretty enough for a shelf.”
From the time she was eight, when she first began escaping to Gram’s house Red knew what Gram was really saying. I would keep you there if I could, my little Red. The shine in Gram’s eyes was always affection and apology. On a high shelf, away from all the hurts in this world, where you could look down and smile at the world. Everything looks so much prettier from up high, high on a shelf.
Before the sky fell Red loved escaping to Gram’s house, where she could be a little princess. She could comb the tangles from her hair, the knots from her heart, the lumps from her throat. As she settled in from her long run from her mother’s house she could brush the dirt and dust from her body, almost as if brushing away all the hurts which stuck to her as the dirt stuck to the little jars of jam she brought her Gram in a wicker basket.
Before the sky fell Red would leave the small house she shared with her mom once a week, taking something – anything, really – to Gram’s house. Something she suddenly remembered Gram didn’t have the last time Red was at her house. She would leave her mother bathed in the glow of a computer monitor, where her mother sat chatting with Woodsman_99. It’s not like it’s his fault, Red reasoned with herself. Not his fault at all her mother lived in a world that wasn’t real, constructed of promises nobody would keep.
Before the sky fell that small wicker basket was her escape. She relished every second and every sight away from that house. From the stop sign at the end of her own street to the first tree in the park, every crack in the city sidewalks, to the lime tree of Gram’s neighbors, down to the perky white daisies growing next to Gram’s doorstep. Red was always beaming by the time she set foot on Forest Lane, her Gram’s street.
Before the sky fell she would play house with Gram’s neighbor, Charles Little. His parents called him Chuck and he loathed it, telling Red instead to call him Little. She’d been escaping to Gram’s house since she was old enough to remember the way past the park and through the city, and playing with Little under his lime tree for just as long. Little was the one who told her the sky would fall.
Until she was thirteen the mornings of taffeta and afternoons of teacups were enough. When she was thirteen, the sky fell. Great glowing chunks of it hurtled to the ground, changing at best and obliterating at worst the small peaces of Red’s world.
Skeletons of the sky still littered the ground, no longer flaming but five years later still they gleamed at night and in the dark, acting as beacons for the twisted creatures which now crawled through the shadows.
The day the sky fell Little was waiting for Red at the end of Forest Lane. Without a word he’d bolted toward her as soon as she came into sight, took her by the arm and kept running. Around the back of Forest Lane, out of the neighborhood, deep into the city, running until her lungs burned and her knotted little heart pumped fire through her veins and she was afraid the heat might melt her legs. He knew, he must have. The look in his eyes when he saw Red sauntering along spoke for him. No hello, no I missed you. Just don’t let go and don’t stop Red we’re not safe yet and it’s all about to come down. It’s going to fall Red. Keep moving Red.
Past the bakery and the bank, through back alleys and bookstores, up stony stairs and past shelves and catalogues, through stacks and to a staircase and down down down down, then finally Little let go.

Since the sky fell Red had only been back to her mother’s house once. Her return was heralded by sirens. She remembered the cataclysm of lights, scarlet bouncing frantically from dingy siding to the sheet-covered mounds which lay in the front yard. With an axe – like some crazy – lumberjack? – a damn shame – little girl died years back in that air raid – lotta people died – yeah but some don’t stay dead – these will.
Then it was official, Red had no family left. Since the sky fell she and Little had done fine alone, this was just as well. The day the sky fell she had heard a world end. Crouched among the stacks of donation boxes and old records, the only sounds for hours were the screams of death and disaster, except when the world got quiet. Then there was only the soft rasping of Little’s breath.
Since the sky fell she and Little had learned how to avoid the things which survived the end of their worlds.
Vestiges of what had gone before – authority, order, security, law – still existed but only as pale shadows. Farcical representations of what used to be. A fraction of the population survived intact the day the sky fell. Intact was the important word, Red had learned. She and Little had encountered many people when they ventured out to scavenge for clothes, water and food. What used to be people. When the sky fell it changed life where it landed, twisting what used to make them normal and whole.
Little and Red learned to stay away from the places where the fell, because usually there would lurk contortions and abominations and things which bumped in the night. The library was sanctuary, a middle ground. It was far enough away from the places where the sky fell that the twisted things didn’t come near but close enough that wild animals wouldn’t take it over.
Then came the murmurs of something else. Darker somethings, feral and vicious. Of the many people they saw on the streets, only a handful were intact. The numbers would dwindle as the days passed.
”The wolves got them,” Ellie would say, covered in cinders and dust. She’d seen the wolves, when they killed the couple who used to travel with Ellie and Peter.
Before the sky fell Ellie was a housemaid and Peter was a soldier. In the first months after the sky fell, Peter and Ellie had taken shelter with Red and Little, seeking solace in that shrine of knowledge. Peter taught Little how to fight, hunt and skin. Ellie taught Red how to till and cultivate and soon crates were scattered about their library, filled with earth and growing things.
Then Ellie and Peter decided to move on. They had family find. Red and Little were their own family, they had decided and that was all they needed. Peter and Ellie would come back once a month from then on, over the course of three and a half years, to trade news and supplies with Little and Red.
Then Peter died, lost to the wolves, and his cinder-Ellie said she wasn’t coming back. Little and Red decided it was time to go hunting. The wolves were taking over what used to be the safe places, places the twisted things would never tread, the places which smelled like survivors, like food. Little and Red, now seasoned survivalists, decided it was time to begin taking some of their places back.
Wicker basket in hand, Red was slinking steadily along the surface of the streets. Her booted feet barely crunched over the debris of the world she'd known before. Little carried the weapons, a rifle and his hunting knife. For the five years since the sky fell, this had been all he needed. Red carried water, small pieces of fruit and a small skinning knife tucked into her belt.
Since the sky fell Forest Lane looked different. The twisted things which had survived the fires had abandoned this place, leaving it to the wolves. Gram's house was gone, the garden by the door like salted and barren earth. Little's house, where they'd tea partied and played house, was now a single charred wall with loose brick and dangling pipe. Before the rubble of what might have been the front steps stood a smallish tree, only a few feet taller than Red; the very tree beneath which Little once told her the sky would fall.
Peering up through the leaves and the limes, Little had taken Red's small hand in his without looking her in the eye. It'll fall Red. The sky. And things will get bad, and scary. But I'll keep you safe. I promise.
She'd only met the strange boy the week before. She said nothing in response, only smiling through the lime-scented sunshine and holding the hand which held her own.
The tree survived and still bore fruit. Red stepped carefully, quietly across the wrecked street, a small smile of memory curving the edges of her lips as she approached their tree. Her steps ceasing, she set the small basket at her feet and leaned against the trunk. The bark was rough and cool beneath her fingertips.
Little had stopped in the street, simply watching his Red lean against the tree. In his mind the midnight sky was a brilliant blue, the hazy air clean and crisp. The constant, distant thundering was a sweet birdsong.
Except the thundering grew louder, almost a plodding. Snuffling intoned just beneath it. Little opened his eyes in time to glimpse Red's boot falling from the beast's mouth.

The stench was terrible, worse than the odor which announced the coming of the twisted things - things which no longer remembered how to bathe. It was dark, cramped. Red's skin began to itch and burn from the liquid coating her, churning in the belly of the beast. She could hear Little's muffled shouts, telling her to wait, promising he'd keep her safe.
Her elbows against her knees, forehead to her thighs, Red's knotted little heart raced. Since before the sky fell, when she'd lay in the dark listening to her mother spin stories of a world which didn't exist - and neither would she - she'd been terrified of the dark. For years she'd dreamt of getting away, either with her grandmother or with the sweet boy who waited for her by their lime tree. Now she finally had, and a dark thing threatened to strip it all away. The wolf's heart thundered in her ears. In the churning as the wolf moved, a growl reverberating through Red's body, something cold grazed her wrist - her skinning knife.
Twisting her palm to clutch the small blade, she rotated her wrist again to cut wildly. Thunder pulse and wolf pain crashed against her ears. Her body bruised and the wolf belly crashed to the ground as its legs failed from the pain. Her legs lashed as much and as hard as they could. Red heard bones snap, flesh tear, wolf roar. Before Little could decide how to kill the wolf without hurting Red, she had torn and kicked and cut her way out. She spilled from the wolf's stomach, rolling over the ground to wipe away some of the acid. Little drew her into his arms, not minding the stench coating her hair and skin.
"Oh Red, my Red. Are you okay?" His arms held her tight.
"I'm going to be," her eyes smiled up at him.