There was a lot for me and Nyla to do. Besides finding out what the military was hiding and planning for, there was the Leever Island fiasco where nearly a hundred thousand buried bodies were swept up across the bay and onto a closed beach in the Bronx.
I’d come a long way.
And I knew I’d go even farther.
Epilogue
The Collapse was like a horrifying chain of dominoes that everyone was powerless to stop. One tile knocking into the next and then into the next and next, on and on. The virus kept spreading, lighting the population on fire. The riots continued. Law enforcement became overwhelmed. The city started letting go of prisoners because there wasn’t enough room to house them without putting them at risk of being infected by the virus. Non-violent criminals were released at first. But then prisoners started rioting. Lawyers started suing. With the death toll of the virus climbing, the cities started building new makeshift prisons so that inmates had more space to maintain their distance from one another. But they were constructed hastily. Prisoners escaped.
New York City started burning soon after that. When law enforcement officers in New York City demanded that they be given personal protective equipment to prevent exposure to the virus, the city fought back. And when thousands of officers began dying from the virus, the unions banded together and went on a strike. It was illegal and risky, so a lot of them retired early to protect themselves and their families.
With police officers and correction officers gone, criminals on the street, shit went downhill real quick. There was looting, rioting. Dangerous criminals roamed free. Burglars got frustrated that nobody left their homes anymore, so they turned to home invasions that ended up in murder and rape. Car thieves had a field day stealing cars that were left parked on the street. Gangs of thugs would rob people who were lined up to get into the supermarket.
At the same time, new hordes of burners were rising. In response to the virus, the burners, and the civil unrest, martial law was signed into effect. National Guard units were activated. Soldiers were armed with rifles and riot gear to keep the people in their homes. Every neighborhood became a biocontainment zone. And the government wasn’t doing a good job of handling the situation. They were keeping secrets. Giving false promises. They got caught fudging numbers about infection rates, the death toll.
The virus was clipping off links in the national food supply chain. Meat plants were shut down. Restaurants couldn’t get enough food to serve. They cut hours. Staff were laid off. Food didn’t disappear off the shelves, but stores weren’t getting stocked like they used to.
It wasn’t just the food industry that was suffering these losses. Tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs, and banks were running low on patience—people had rents and mortgages that they couldn’t pay.
With all that stress, families were torn apart from the inside. Husbands beat their wives and children. Wives would lash out at their husbands. Children ran away into the streets and never came back.
The rage against the lockdown turned its destructive eye inward at society itself. It was easy for neighbors to explode at each other in fits of violence. It was easy for strangers passing each other on the street to rob each other. It was easy to victimize others, and for others to victimize us. It was easy because we all had to wear masks in public—we were all faceless.
We were all just shedders. Potential threats to one another by virtue of simply breathing. People became paranoid. The trust that lubricated the gears of society evaporated, exposing the rust and grime. It didn’t take long for the spokes of the gears to be worn down to nubs. The machinery of modern life broke down.
And that’s how the Collapse started. That’s how this world we live in now came to be. A world where burners roam the land…where small bands of people cling to each other for survival…where we fight and kill each other for scraps of food and raid each others’ farms. Where militias are resisting and fighting the forces that we don’t understand.
People blamed the virus.
Not the first one. The second one.
But it wasn’t the virus that destroyed society and brought us to our knees.
It was the people.
A Letter to My Readers
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- Leif Kennison
Pandemic Collapse - The First Horde: An Apocalyptic GameLit Thriller Page 20