by P D Platt
Silent Reaping
P.D. Platt
© 2019 by P.D. Platt
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Cover image by: wegotyoucoveredbookdesign.com
Edited by: theerroreliminator.wordpress.com
Other fictional works by the author:
Autumn Choice: A Short Story
Life Inches
Memory Lane: Journey to Retribution
Missing Pieces: The Unleashing of Wynter Mandrel
The Scavenger Hunter: The Untold Story of a Serial Murderer
Blood & Rust: On Devil’s Throne
Coming soon: The Mill Trap
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Silent Reaping
Part One: An Apocalypse Begins in Silence
Day One
Day Zero
Origin
New Order
Preparing for Chaos
Closure
Plans Change
Door to Door
Contact
A New Group
Part Two: The Inevitable Collapse
Worst Fears
Emily & Daveek
Everything to Lose
Blockade
A Rescue
Outreach
Recovery
Risks
Connection
Need to Know
A Dangerous Journey
News
Realization
Knowledge
Part One
An Apocalypse Begins in Silence
Chapter 1—Day One
Saturday Afternoon, March 7
Digging was slow and dreadful. The ground, cold and hard, only reinforced Solomon’s immeasurable torment; the thought of placing his wife’s body in such a lonely, uncomfortable place made him retch. He’d toiled over her grave for the latter part of the morning, delaying the moment when he would have to lower her pale, stiff body into the damp clutches of the earth. Only one day earlier, there had been no conceivable notion that he would have to bury his thirty-five-year-old wife in his backyard. But the time had come; he could procrastinate no longer.
They’d been exposed to the world and the dangers that now existed in it. Although the world had become suddenly larger, its vastness now offered suffocation through enforced self-imprisonment in your own dwelling. All that remained of the only world that he cared for now stood beside him, staring down at the flat sides of the earthen hole, carefully dug and cleared of any loose pebbles or bits of roots. It was as clean and neat as a dirt hole could be.
“Wait, Daddy,” Emily shouted as she ran back inside through the open patio door. Before her father could protest, she explained, “Mommy needs a pillow.”
This compassionate sentiment from his six-year-old choked his throat and forced a sobbing Solomon to his knees, the handle of his shovel the only thing holding him partially upright. Her strength and thoughtfulness welled a peculiar melancholic pride within him. Emily shouldn’t have to deal with this amount of tragedy while still so young. It tortured him to feel so helpless, unable to take any of this away and make it better—like it used to be.
Used to be—also known as Thursday, the day before the world crumbled. When they’d laughed together on the sofa, watching television as they devoured cookies fresh from the oven. One day later, and the whole world had been transformed into unimaginable, chaotic despair.
If only they could have lived Thursday forever.
Chapter 2—Day Zero
Friday Morning, March 6
Solomon Parrish woke on time, which meant early, as he normally did from habit. After showering and dressing, he looked over at the bundle of covers hiding his sleeping wife, smiling as he thought of her resentment of early risers. His wife, Marion, worked from home and, being a night owl, wouldn’t start her day for another hour or more—not until well after daybreak. ‘When normal folk shake off the cobwebs,’ as she always joked.
He poked his head through the half-open door of his daughter’s room. At six year’s old, Emily was already halfway through first grade. Where had the time gone? He wiped a tear from his eye; sentiment holding him in the doorway longer this morning before he finished getting ready to leave for work.
Situated on the outskirts of the southern town of Sparland, Solomon’s cozy suburban subdivision was aptly named Halcyon Place. It was idyllic—far enough removed from the inherent bustle of downtown, but still close enough to benefit from the conveniences of urban living that fingered out from the city’s center. Their neighborhood was older than most that had sprung up over the past decade in Sparland.
Halcyon Place traded modern day amenities for larger plot sizes and an absence of homeowners’ associations. These days, it was a rarity to find homes situated on acre-sized lots with generous surrounding yards. Being a mature neighborhood, with its origins in the eighties—a time when they built homes to the tastes of the owner, each house was unique and followed no mandated architectural standards. It was an eclectic place, which had been a major draw for the Parrishes.
This morning was unusually clear; there was not a drop of fog to fuzzy his headlights. A slow breeze kept the air unsettled, bringing an extra chill along. March in South Carolina meant springtime, brisk mornings were brief, turning into comfortable days as soon as the sun peeked above the pine-tree horizon.
6:15 a.m. His strict routine-heavy mornings paid off, keeping him on a punctual schedule. However, once on the road, Solomon noticed an unusual quietness. The roads were abnormally devoid of activity: there were no cars or dog walkers. Strange indeed, he thought, but it was a Friday, and in his experience, the busiest weekday mornings tended to be Tuesdays and Thursdays.
He hadn’t quite figured out the slowdown on Wednesdays, well, not yet anyway; although it was a topic that he frequently entertained himself with during his half-hour morning commute. He thought of many things during this time, never paying much attention to the radio broadcasting eighties music on low volume in the background. Questions of life and the mysteries of the universe he swore he would solve while stuck behind the wheel for an hour a day, if only to satisfy his own curious mind.
This morning’s conundrum of the barren roads was an entertaining riddle for him, as a long week of meetings still weighed on his normally upbeat spirit. Constantly solving problems for others had become a tiresome burden. The oddity of this morning was indeed a welcome break from monotony, leaving him determined to solve this little mystery.
So, he began his deductive reasoning. Nothing in particular alarmed him as yet. The roads were usually less busy on a Friday, this much he conceded. And, thanks to his earlier-than-most habit, they were always comparatively empty when he headed into work. Solomon made it a point to get to the office exceedingly early; sparse traffic was just another benefit of his self-induced rigid schedule.
Today, though, seemed much different.
This was no everybody-stayed-home or it’s-a-holiday-weekend Friday. No. This became creepier by the minute; the closer he got to the city, the stranger things became. There was not a single car. Not even one. No school buses. No joggers. No delivery trucks. Hell, even the convenience stores and gas stations were dark. They were always open. It was something he’d taken for granted, but now they weren’t, he noticed.
Solomon’s first reaction was to create plausible excuses. Power outage? No, the streetlights were on and the traffic lights were worki
ng. Holiday? No, he would have known. Time change? No, that only happens on a Sunday. Did he have the wrong time? No, his car radio, phone, and watch all agreed: 6:40 a.m.
Lights from signs and parking lots, all things controlled automatically, were working just fine. It seemed it was only the mechanisms that required a human hand that were not.
6:45 a.m. He entered his office building—at least his keycard still did its job. Both the lobby and hallways were dim, illuminated only by the security lights, which they never turned off. No sign of his coworkers, in fact, no people anywhere.
Truly alarmed by this point, he called home. Were his wife and daughter okay? They had to be. Didn’t they?
Solomon usually dressed in the bathroom so as not to wake his wife. As Emily’s bedroom was across the hall from theirs, and she always slept with the door open, he had to navigate in the dark and step lightly to avoid waking her, protecting her rest as well. Having two light sleepers in the house was a bit of a curse, or so he’d always joked.
When his wife didn’t answer her cell phone, he knew something was awry. She always kept it charging on her nightstand. Something was off. Although, at the moment, he had no idea what.
Not wanting to waste another moment, he ran to his car, leaving his coat and lunch behind. Panic set in based on an unfounded hunch that something was terribly wrong in the world. And as he jammed the accelerator toward home, priorities began to change.
It seemed the world, for all intents and purposes, had failed to start its day. People weren’t traveling, moving to-and-fro, eating, heading to work, getting their children off to school; all the normal hustle and bustle of everyday life was nonexistent.
Constantly redialing his wife’s number, Solomon paid little attention to anything else on the trip home. Each time, his call went unanswered. Most attempts returned an ‘all circuits are busy’ message. Every fifth or so try, the phone rang through, but no one picked up.
The miles flew by at a furious pace as he topped triple digits more than once on his drive home. Roads continued to be empty, with Solomon passing only a few other oncoming cars, all traveling at similar maniacal paces. Whether or not the world had collapsed did not matter, Solomon’s concern was only for his wife and daughter. Finding out what had gone wrong beyond his own tiny world seemed inconsequential. He could not make it home fast enough.
With instant thumping dread, he pulled into his yard. On the side steps underneath the carport, little Emily sat, head on knees, and arms wrapping her own trembling legs. On seeing her father’s car, she ran straight at it, causing him to stop only halfway into the driveway. Reddened eyes peered from a tear-stained face. The only sound he heard was his daughter’s sobbing screams of “Mama.” Solomon dropped to his knees and scooped her up, asking her over and over what was wrong.
“Mama won’t get up.”
Still holding her in his arms, he strode inside with swift steps, heading straight to the master bedroom, already expecting the worst. His legs hollow and his chest heavy, Solomon lowered his daughter by the door before crossing to his wife’s side of the room. Anxiousness and trepidation swirled inside him as he approached the bed. On reaching it, he melted to his knees with a blast of devastation.
Pulling back the covers, he found what he’d most feared: his wife was dead. The coldness of her skin turned his stomach, removing all hope of life. Questions filled his mind, crowding out the shock.
How did this happen? Why did this happen?
He wondered if she’d died before he left for work. This thought sickened him. Maybe he could have done something…Maybe she’d been in distress. And he’d left poor Emily alone to deal with the unimaginable. Solomon collapsed onto the corner of the bed as his legs finally gave out.
“She won’t get up, and she’s so cold, Daddy,” Emily said. “I tried to make her warm so she’d be okay.”
“I know, honey, and I’m so sorry.” Solomon choked on his next words. “But Mommy…Mommy’s dead.” Being matter of fact was the only response he could manage, as more sensitive, elaborate words were held captive within a haze of utter shock.
Noticing Emily’s bright yellow blanket that she’d brought to warm her mother, it was all he could do not to lose what little composure remained. Solomon embraced her and carried her from the room, closing the door behind.
Repeatedly dialing 911, he was met each time with the familiar and frustrating ‘all circuits busy’ message he’d encountered all morning. But he persevered, determined to keep occupied, no matter how fruitless the task.
Helplessness consumed him as he and Emily cried into each other’s necks.
___
Shock. Grief. Despair. These overwhelming emotions ravaged Solomon Parrish. He felt suddenly alone in the world, as if he were insignificant without his wife. He knew he needed to replace grief with resolve, needed to be strong for Emily. His one remaining duty in life was to protect their…his little girl.
After much crying and numerous failed attempts at contacting emergency services, or anyone for that matter, Solomon made a hard decision. He knew he needed to mentally prepare Emily for what they must do.
“Sweetheart, the phones aren’t working, so we need to take Mommy to the hospital ourselves.”
“Can they make her better?”
Solomon swallowed hard, gathering what courage he could. “No, baby. But they can make her…comfortable.”
Even six-year-old Emily knew something was wrong with this situation. How often did one have to think about what to do with one’s deceased? Usually, an ambulance is called, death is verified, and a morgue or funeral home is involved in planning the funeral. Those left behind only have to deal with the loss, which is enough in itself. Now, it seemed, that was no longer the case.
“Oh.” Emily’s face dropped again, her tiny fragment of hope depleted.
After sitting in silence for a while, Emily pointed at the television on the living room wall. “Even the TV’s broken. None of the channels are working; that’s the only thing it shows.”
Solomon lifted his head from his hands and studied the white letters on a red ticker, scrolling center screen. The only news from the outside world now entered his home as a simple looped message transmitted on the emergency broadcast system.
The message read: A suspected viral outbreak has been reported worldwide. Early estimates place fatalities at over eighty percent. Stay indoors and avoid contact with others. Disease type and transmission methods are currently unknown. Updates will be issued via the emergency broadcast system as they become available.
It was sparse information, but at least it demystified why the world seemed empty: people had either died or were hiding in fear. Although it explained how his wife had died, it did nothing to ease the wallowing pain or to help him understand. Why her? Why not him, or someone else? An angel on Earth, she deserved to be alive more than anyone else he could think of. He would have gladly given his own life if it could have brought her back. Emily needed her mom; it was that plain and simple. It wasn’t asking much to want a child to have their mother.
Solomon rubbed his temples as he did his best to explain what the message meant. “Sweetheart, Mommy died from a virus. They say this sickness made people all over the world…die. I know this is hard for you…for both of us because we loved Mommy so very much—”
Emily’s eyes welled and her mouth bunched tight before she buried herself in her father’s chest in a futile attempt to escape from her sorrow. “It’s not fair,” she sobbed into his shirt. “Why did Mommy have to die?”
Chapter 3—Origin
August 26, 1985
Wellbourne, Utah
10:05 p.m., local time. A small meteorite impacted the earth in Utah. Little more than a brief flash of light across a vast black sky, its arrival was an ostensibly insignificant event as its mass was less than two pounds on its eventual discovery. But for many years, something sinister simmered in the unseen particle-level world. A germination of microscopic entities
traveled and spread via human contact and by floating on the currents of the wind.
After several decades of dormancy—a sliver of time in the grand scheme of the universe—an invisible threat loomed, passing genetically to further human generations, waiting for a full population infection before maturing in a synchronized fashion.
Its purpose was as straightforward and intolerant as that of any living organism: survive and reproduce. Whether this was an engineered attack or simply bad luck, no one could possibly know. While it might have been fascinating to some inquisitive minds—the few that remained after its initial wrath; nonetheless, it was irrelevant to the immediate generation of survivors.
An efficient killing machine, the unseen invader had a single purpose, which it executed with deadly precision. After infiltrating its host, the virus-like organism spurred into the human body’s involuntary systems, meticulously replicating itself in order to accomplish a not-so-simple task. Learning its host’s systems, it ultimately discovered a facile way to kill. Once its human host achieved REM sleep, it simply blocked the signals that control the body’s involuntary systems, silently and effectively ending life.
The origin of these microbes, whether they were a result of anomalous bad fortune or a planned eradication of the human race by other-worldly beings, was immensely significant, with obvious implications for the continuance of humanity.
As unfortunate as either scenario was, the latter suggested an extraterrestrial species would soon arrive to inhabit their new home. A planet free of indigenous competition, gained through an effortless war without risk of casualty, one already waged far in advance by an unseen autonomous army.