Again, stay inside and let the authorities do their jobs. We will be back on the air every fifteen minutes to update you on what we have learned. Until then we will broadcast footage from our helicopter and from the various webcams that we have mounted on rooftops of building around town so you can see for yourself what is happening.
This is Michell Wright for WTAE News.”
The TV screen then began showing footage from the station’s cameras mentioned by Michelle Wright. The scenes were unbelievable and obviously not being edited or censored. The station had to be overwhelmed by what was happening. The things being shown on the screen would have never been shown before.
I watched the violence in silence, all sound coming from the TV had stopped.
I watched the footage from the station’s helicopter as it flew over the north side. The images were beginning to show the streets starting to appear to turn a reddish color. Bodies were visible everywhere, many laid on the streets and sidewalks, other bodies sprinted across the streets fleeing for their lives. Large hordes of slow moving, staggering bodies followed in pursuit.
The screen changed to a picture of downtown Pittsburgh. The words at the top of the screen identified the location of the camera as being on the top of the Highmark building.
As the screen changed, a gruesome image appeared.
At the bottom of the picture were three Roswell type creatures sitting on top of a young woman. The three figures were ripping the clothes and flesh off the young woman and jamming it into their mouths. The blood covered young woman was thankfully already dead. The bodies on top of her were so covered in blood, only their shapes identified them as being human. If that was what these things still were.
Thankfully the screen changed to another camera on the west end bridge. The scene was of the bridge with all lanes crossing the bridge being empty. The water flowed rapidly under the bridge. There were no signs of violence or bloody staggering bodies arriving yet in the west end.
The camera changed again, this time to a camera in Bethel Park. Blood covered bodies, moving and unmoving filled the screen.
I had to get up, I didn’t want to see this any longer. I walked over to look out the living room window. My mind was numb.
Fortunately, our street was still quiet and deserted.
As I stared outside, I heard a beep coming from my pocket.
I was surprised and at first didn’t realize where the sound was coming from, but after eliminating all other options, I pulled the phone out of my pocket. It was the phone that I had given the number to Wilson.
I opened the phone and looked at the screen and saw that I had received a text message.
I tapped the screen and the text app opened on the screen.
“Are you OK?”
I tapped in a response, “I’m fine so far. Who is this?”
“Wilson,” came the reply.
“What are you doing giving your name over an open line?” I typed in.
“If you have been watching the news, the government has bigger problems to worry about at the moment than me,” Wilson replied. “Besides, by the time they get around to looking for me again, I’ll be long gone.”
“Where have you been?” I asked. “I’ve been worried about you for the last few years. Why no contact?”
“I’ve been in hiding,” Wilson replied then added. “I saw your post on the blog.”
“It sounded like you so I thought I would send you a message to confirm it,” I replied. “How come no reply until now?”
“I couldn’t take the chance to reply until now,” Wilson replied. “I was sure they were watching the internet for any signs of me, but after today, like I said, they have bigger problems.”
“What the hell is happening?” I asked.
“April 21st, you read the blog and I told you about the carbon dating information before,” Wilson replied. “Weren’t you paying attention?”
“I was, but this wasn’t what I expected,” I replied. “I thought it would start with the people that had been abducted and given brain implants.”
“It was,” Wilson replied.
“But how did the people abducted in Roswell spread out this way, and all across the country so fast?” I asked.
“The people they had in Roswell were only a small sample of the people abducted,” Wilson replied. “I estimated that there have been thousands of abductions across the country. Most people that have been abducted don’t remember a thing about being abducted. Most of the others were too afraid to tell anyone about it. Only a few, mostly the ones in Roswell on level three were dumb enough to tell the government about it.”
“So everything I’m seeing on the TV is the people that had been abducted, had been given brain implants and they were all activated today?” I asked.
“Yes, and there are thousands more that will be activated in another six months,” Wilson replied.
I thought for a minute, trying to recall our last conversation at Ohiopyle.
“Have you discovered anything else about the brain implants that will be activated in another six months, the implants with the red liquid?” I asked.
“I told Professor Johnson about that,” Wilson replied.
“I saw where Professor Johnson had an accident and was killed,” I said.
“The government killed him.” Wilson replied. “He was getting too close to the truth.”
“That’s what I figured,” I said.
“Professor Johnson said he felt that the red implants were the final piece in the alien plan to eliminate all life on our planet,” Wilson replied. “He believed that the red implants will produce a super zombie, a smarter, more aggressive hunter to search out and destroy any humans that have managed to survive the first wave.”
“Why didn’t the aliens just start with the red implant zombies?” I asked.
“I’m not an alien, how would I know that?” Wilson replied. “Professor Johnson said he believed that the byproduct of the red implant zombies could be something harmful to the aliens that would arrive shortly afterwards, so they wanted to limit the damage as much as possible but still accomplish their mission.”
“So, what is their mission?” I asked.
“Hell if I know, all I know is that it doesn’t involve us,” Wilson replied.
Just then I heard a sound, something had bumped into the side of the house.
“Wilson, I’ve got to go, something’s happening outside,” I said.
“I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Even though I feel the government has their hands full, I’m not going to be dumb about it. I’m going to sign off and move somewhere else,” Wilson replied. “If you have to hide, do not go down into the basement. Go up as high as you can go, the attic if possible. Talk to you tomorrow. Be safe and smart.”
I slipped the phone back into my pocket then leaned over to the window and pulled back the drapes slightly.
I saw two staggering bodies coming down my street. I heard another body scrape against the front door, two feet to my left.
I let the curtains fall back into place.
Chapter 22
I looked back over at my mother and whispered, “Turn off the TV.”
She held up the remote and turned off the TV.
“Is this real?” Ma whispered. “I think I remember seeing a movie like this one time before, is this what we were watching?”
“No Ma,” I whispered back, “this is real, but right now I need you to stay quiet. I think there is someone on our front porch.”
“Well, open the door to see who it is,” Ma replied.
“No Ma, the people outside are like the people we just saw on TV,” I replied. “They are very dangerous, and we can’t let them find out we are here.”
I knew my mother didn’t understand what was going on and I really couldn’t blame her. I felt that I knew what had happened, but what I had seen in Roswell and now what I was seeing in Pittsburgh was still unbelievable. But my entire understanding was based on things that I didn’t be
lieve in, like UFOs and aliens. I believed that we were not alone in the universe, but I had never believed in all the UFO conspiracies or alien visitation stuff. I however had to admit that the things I had never believed in were the only things that could explain what I was now seeing. Was that what was really happening? I guess at this point, all that was important was that I accepted it was happening and did whatever it would take to keep my mother and I safe, regardless of why it was happening.
“Ma, this is very serious, and I don’t understand everything that is happening myself,” I said. “But I do know that the people outside are very dangerous. Until we understand more, we have to be very careful. So just work with me here, OK?”
“OK, I’ll try,” Ma replied.
“Right now, while I try to deal with the people outside, I need for you to make sure all the blinds are pulled down and curtains closed so that no one can look inside the house.”
“OK,” Ma replied.
“Just do it very quietly and stay away from in front of the windows so no one will see you,” I added.
My mother turned and started to check the windows.
I walked over to the front door and looked out through the peep hole. I felt my body tense as I saw something I had never seen before, this close.
A face outside the door was staring directly at the peep hole, its mouth was hanging open, mainly because the right cheek had been torn away, leaving the lower lip hanging down over his chin. A reddish black drool flowed through his bloody red teeth and ran down the hanging lower lip and dripped off the lip, falling to the ground.
The skin covering his face was a pale gray color, the eyes were white and cold. It reminded me of looking into the eyes of an alligator. The only thought behind those eyes was to attack and kill whatever got close to those teeth. There would not be any sympathy or regret, only a cold calculating killer that didn’t understand anything else.
It sent chills to know that this face was a mere four inches from my face.
I slowly reached down and quietly slid the deadbolt into place.
I walked over to the front window for another look. This time instead of only two bodies, there were now over a dozen bodies staggering around out in front of the house.
I watched their movements but instead of just dragging their rigid bodies down the street, they seemed to be standing, turning their heads as if trying to find something.
I didn’t know much about these people or what they were capable of in their present condition, but it looked to me that they were searching, that maybe they had the ability to sense when there were normal people nearby. Since looking in the eyes of the one at my front door told me that they were cold killers, the idea that they might be able to sense when normal people were close by, I found that thought to be disturbing.
My thoughts were interrupted when my mother came running into the room, a look of shock and disbelief on her face.
“Ma?” I asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Those people just broke into the Miller’s house,” she replied.
I quickly pushed by her on my way to the kitchen window so I could look out back. The Miller’s house was located behind our house, next to our garage. They were a younger couple with three kids and a dog that had moved into the Keller’s old house. Mr. Keller had passed away a few years before I had enlisted in the Army, her kids put her in a nursing home and hired a realtor to sell the house. It had been on the market for almost a year before they lowered the price and the Millers moved in. My mother had been good friends with Mrs. Keller and was devastated when her kids moved her to a nursing home in Philadelphia. Thanks to my mother’s failing memory and the Miller kids adopting my mother as their grandmother, my mother soon recovered from her depression over the Keller’s fate.
I reached the kitchen window and pulled the curtains to the side just in time to see Mrs. Miller being dragged from her house by two gross, bloody figures. As they dragged her out into the middle of the yard, four other gruesome figures began to try and pull Mrs. Miller’s body away from the first two figures. A bloody tug of war ensued that resulted with all of the bloody creatures piling on top of Mrs. Wilson, savagely tearing her apart.
I had seen a similar incident earlier on the TV, but then it felt like I was watching a movie.
But this was different, there were no cameras or TV screens, there weren’t any faceless unknown figures being attacked by other faceless unknown images. What I saw was my neighbor being savagely mauled in my back yard in front of my eyes. The blood was a deeper more realistic color than what I had seen on our old TV. Not only could I see the carnage in front of me, I swear I could feel my flesh being torn from my body as I watched.
My heart sank even further when I saw two more of the monsters coming out the Miller’s back door fighting over an adult human arm. I let the curtains fall closed and turned away when one of them came out of the house frantically tearing at the disembodied leg of a young child.
I turned to see my mother standing behind me.
“Did you see how they got into the Miller’s house?” I asked.
“They broke the window in the door,” Ma replied. “When Mrs. Miller’s face appeared at the broken window, those people went wild and started running into the door. The door finally broke under all the pressure and fell back into the house. Then all those people starting crowding around the door, trying to all go into the house at once. Do you think the Millers are OK?”
“They’re all dead,” I replied slowly and waited for what I just said to sink into my mother’s head. “Those monsters killed them all.”
“Mike, I don’t understand what is happening,” Ma replied. “I’m going to call the police.”
I knew it wouldn’t do any good, but I thought that by letting her do something, it would make her feel better.
“That sounds like a good idea,” I said. “Why don’t you go do that. Just do it quietly so those people outside don’t hear you.”
“OK,” Ma replied. “Do you know the police’s phone number? I can’t seem to remember it.”
“Just dial 911 Ma,” I replied. “When they answer, just say you want to report a crime and need the police to come to our address.”
Ma nodded, then turned and slowly walked away.
I took one more quick glance out back, the backyard looked like a convention was taking place, a bloody convention with every member of the zombie’s local 104 present for the festivities,
“Where the hell are they all coming from?” I asked myself, but then my thoughts turned to thinking about what could happen if they all turned their attention to my house.
My mother had a habit of knocking things over, often resulting in a loud crash as a lamp or a book hit the floor.
She couldn’t help herself, getting old was a bitch and it was painful to watch, but not as painful as it would be having to watch my mother being torn apart in front of my eyes.
I needed to prepare for the fact that those things might hear something and decide to break into the house to investigate. The house was a small one story, two-bedroom house, there wouldn’t be many places to hide, especially with an older woman that didn’t get around very well.
I needed to do something now, while I still had time. After I was sure my mother was safe, then I could continue to keep an eye on what was going on around my neighborhood. Then I could decide what to do next.
I quickly began to walk through the house, looking for options, but it was obvious that the house was never intended to be used as a fort against ruthless intruders.
Each room had a large window which provided for a great view outside but could also be easily broken and would provide for an easy entryway into the house for a determined intruder. The only room in the entire house that had a window small enough to keep anyone out was the bathroom, but the vinyl sliding door wasn’t strong enough to keep out a determined two-year old child.
With my mother, the toilet would come in handy, she seemed to spend more
time in the bathroom now days than in any other room in the house, but the bathroom offered little else.
Wilson had said we needed to get up high, but in a small one-story house, that didn’t seem possible until I spotted the trap door in the ceiling in the hallway outside my bedroom door.
I ran into the kitchen and grabbed one of the kitchen chairs and placed it directly under the trap door. I climbed up on the chair, reached up and pushed the small trap door up into the attic. I was met instantly with a wave of heat and the musty smell of an attic that hadn’t been used in over thirty years. I pulled myself up so that my head was above the opening, giving me a view of the dimly lit space. Other than a few boxes, the space was empty except for hundreds of cobwebs that glowed from the light entering the attic through the two side vents.
It would have to do, I decided it was the only place in the house that might offer us some protection.
I dropped back down on the chair and found my mother standing there, watching me.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“I’m looking for someplace we can hide where those people outside won’t find us,” I replied.
“Why don’t we just hide in the bedroom?” she asked.
“With the big window in the bedroom, someone could easily break the window and get inside,” I replied. “The attic will be much safer.”
“How do we get up there?” she asked.
“Good question, the only ladder we have is out in the garage,” I replied. “I guess we’ll have to climb up from the chair.”
“You might be able to do that,” my mother smiled.
“I’ll find a way to get you up there somehow,” I replied.
“If you do get me up there, what are we going to do once we get up there?” she asked.
“Just wait and be quiet so they don’t know we are up there,” I replied. “So, let’s assume we can make it up into the attic, what will you need to take with you?”
Apocalypse- the Plan Page 17