When the rains may come (Science Fiction)

1. Under the red cloud of smoke

Looking down at the gun, Cathy wondered if today was the day when she finally killed her father. He was in a wheelchair in the backyard, looking just as sick and decadent as he'd looked the previous day (if not more). She wondered if today it really ended for him.

The screen door of the kitchen was the only thing separating the two of them. He sat there in that chair, watching her with his dull, blank eyes. His skin as pale as milk and his body thin as a rake. He'd been losing some of his weight every day, making him look more sick than dangerous. And that was the reason why it was so hard to pull the trigger.

Dandelion fever. That's what the press had named it. A bio weapon launched by the enemy nation, shot into the water reserves during the Ten-Year Strafe. It spread across several states of Ardvenia like wildfire, forcing the government to impose strict quarantines on those states.

Once you had the disease, nothing could save you. It entered your system and found its way to the spinal cord and moved up to the brain, rendering the central nervous system useless. Next it targeted the cerebrum, firing all your thoughts and emotions into overdrive. And the next thing you know, you are trapped in a psychosomatic fever dream--a prisoner of your own sub-conscious while the virions multiplied and devoured your internal organs, one cell at a time.

But Cathy didn't have to kill her father just because he was dying a much slower and painful death. If only it was that easy. No, sir.

"The infected in the dream stage are stated to be still fairly intelligent creatures, capable of some memory retention," one of the early radio announcements had said.

And that is what still gnawed at Cathy. The fact that somewhere under that foggy pale skin, behind that lifeless, vacant stare was still a man that was her father. A man who looked at Cathy and maybe still saw his daughter and not just a host to infect. But that is where things got complicated even further.

Once the virus had consumed all that was within you, it drove you crazy. Think of pushing a self-destruct button--the infected would then enter the "hunt" stage, trying to find a healthier host to infect. Similar to rabies--a disease that had claimed the lives of dogs and humans before the war. Now barely anything except a few humans survived against the dandelion fever.

And it was inevitable for Cathy's father to avoid that last stage. Unless she gathered enough courage to fire that gun.

"If I don't kill him then it would be the other way around," Cathy told herself as she stared at the gun. She'd been telling that to herself for a few days now. She'd thought saying that would make it any easier. It hadn't.

"No matter what I become, Cat," Dad had said after he'd got the virus. "I would never hurt you. I would always love you, Cat. Always."

Cathy glared into the empty eyes set in the pale face. "Why did it have to be you of all people? Why Dad?!" For a moment, she almost expected him to answer her. He didn't. Cathy shook her head and looked down at the gun again.

That's when she heard a distant noise of propellers slicing the air followed by a sharp whoosh! And it was getting closer.

Cathy knew that noise. They are back! She put the gun on the dining table and rushed up the stairs to the first floor of her house. She climbed up into the attic and grabbed the "other" gun that she kept there. The whooshing noise was getting closer. She put on her gas mask (because the virus was airborne) before climbing out of the skylight and onto the roof.

She saw the plane as it was passing by overhead. She cocked the other gun, held it up, pulled the trigger. The flare soared up into the air before exploding into a cloud of red dust. "Hey, I'm here!" Cathy screamed, waving her arms. "I'm alive!"

The plane kept moving. Cathy screamed a little more, even jumped up and down a bit. The plane didn't stop. It kept moving. Then it disappeared.

She stood there on the roof, gazing up at the empty purple sky before looking down at her neighborhood. Abandoned houses, empty streets, stranded cars, dying trees. Corpses lying around everywhere--dead animals, dead humans.

This wasn't a city anymore. It was a graveyard. The government called it a "sector"--a place that was hit hardest by the strafe. Every sector was deprived of its original name and given a number. So Cathy's city was now Sector 22. A state with a lot of sectors also had its name replaced with a number. So the state where Cathy lived became C3 (previously known as 'Calder'). According to the government, the change in nomenclature was purely for 'administrative convenience,' whatever that meant.

Cathy wanted to leave, but it was starting to look more impossible everyday. The planes had been passing her by for almost a month now. She'd fired the flares more than a dozen times, only to go unnoticed.

Just how many more times? she thought. If only she knew the answer. Cathy sighed and climbed back into her house, ignoring the red cloud that still hung in the air. She went back to the kitchen and took off her gas mask.

Her father was still staring in at her with his dull, blank eyes. Cathy looked at the pistol on the table, shook her head and pulled the blind over the glass screen of the backdoor. Now only a shadow of her father was visible.

Two guns and both of them useless, she thought. She tucked her pistol behind her back and was ready to go back to her room, ready to sleep away another lonely and uneventful day.

On her way upstairs she heard it. It sounded real but she almost couldn't believe it.

A knock at the door.

Is this actually real? she thought, or have I finally gone crazy?

Another knock. "Hey, anybody in there?" A man called out from the other side. "We saw a signal flare go off above this house. Is anybody home?"

Her eyes went wide. It actually worked?

"Anybody in there?" The man said again. Then his voice sounded a bit distant, as if addressing someone else--probably his partner. "Maybe we came to the wrong house. Nobody's answering."

Cathy jumped a little. "No, I'm here!" She yelled, rushing up to the door. "I'm alive!"

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Hey, thanks for reading, you awesome wattpader! If you liked the story let me know--I love to hear feedback on my stories. Hit that little star down there and maybe share it with your friends? New chapters will come out every Saturday and Wednesday. Thanks again! (-ADBWrites)