THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty-six

The whole city seems to groan and heave, driven by a rapidly expanding thunder far beneath the earth. It builds with some unfathomable pressure, straining the earth until it can no longer be contained. All around the Reclamation Center the earthy opens like a violent concrete flower. Great gray concrete petals rise vertically before tearing themselves to pieces. A great eruption of smoke and flame carries bodies, vehicles and bodies skyward.

For a moment, amid this calamity, the Reclamation Center seems defiant. Even as the walls are swallowed in the eruption those towering smokestacks remain unbowed. They continue pouring thick black smoke into the air, oblivious to everything but their singular hideous purpose.

For a moment it seems all but certain that the rebels have squandered their chance. But then the center stack wavers and falters, like a prize fighter taking a fatal blow. It bends and dissolves in the middle with a piercing crack. In quick succession the others follow, twisting fluidly as they slip from view in pillars of smoke.

The sound, the sound! The death sounds of the Reclamation Center are as solid as a wall. Not a singular mass of sound, but a collection of sounds, of thunderous groans and murderous screeches. It sounds like some great beast being felled by a pack of ravenous and vicious wolves.

The sounds fade, echoing away through the city streets. It is replaced by the patter and hiss of brick and stone, the remains of the reclamation center falling like hail. In time that fades too, becoming a silence as deep and breathless and full as death. Dust and smoke hangs heavy as a shroud, blotting the thin cold arctic night.