I often joked about a woman not hanging on long enough for me to fuck up myself. Usually the things around me were more than they wanted to take on. I understood this though and began to focus on getting used to being alone and being okay with it.
I decided that if I was going to go out I would swoon a younger woman and just hang on till it fell apart. At least we would have some fun. I was losing interest in finding a serious relationship anyway.
As I sat at the bar, the bartender slid a giant hotdog and french fries in front of me. The food at Ruger's, wasn’t awful and the beer was good, so it became one of my favorite hangouts. “CIVIL UNREST IN MAJOR US CITY” scrolled across the TV screen, Interrupting a rather boring baseball game that the few people seated at the bar were blankly staring at. Like the opening volley in a George Romero zombie movie, the world seem to explode overnight.
The violence was incredible as the previously sedated people began emerging from their homes in what seemed at first to be a lethargic daze. They started attacking anything moving that was near them. The attacks were horrible, a violent rage filled the eyes of the afflicted people as they brutally tore each other apart.
On the television, A rather panicked female reporter was narrating the scene playing out in front of the camera, the volume was very low and it was almost impossible to make out what she was saying. In the background there were people running, and things were on fire, cars, houses, people.
“what the hell is going on” I said out loud. The bartender who was talking to another patron stopped mid sentence and looked at me. “Look at the screen” I pointed. He walked over and turned up the volume.
“As of 3:00 pm pacific standard time, local officials have declared a state of emergency for major cities within the Los Angeles County area”.
The reporter on the TV was screaming. She was very nervous and aware of the turmoil that was growing in the background. Her eyes were wide and she was visibly sweating.
“At this point there is no word as to the cause of this outbreak of violence.” She continued with her report.”Not one of the participants is communicating anything intelligible. It almost seems as though they are in a mindless rampage. It does not appear that these riots have any apparent purpose, there is no looting occurring, just unorganized physical attacks. We are now dangerously close to the activity and my producer has just informed me we will be....”
She paused for a minute, lifting her left hand up to her ear listening, I assumed, to a headset of some kind. About 100 yards behind her, a small group of people were engaged in a vicious attack on each other. Even from the distance the camera crew was at, it was clear that it was devastating and bloody. Flesh was being torn from peoples faces. There was no way to separate the attackers from the victims and it appeared that these people were eating each other. Then as the news woman began to report on what she had been told over her earpiece, One of the attackers behind her looked toward the camera.
She had gotten the attention of what was probably the stronger of the group engaged in that attack. The moment he noticed the reporter, he began running at a full sprint toward her. She had no idea what was coming and apparently neither did her cameraman. By the time the cameraman saw him and shouted a warning it was far too late for her to react.
She only had enough time to turn and scream as a bloody, enraged monster hit her at full speed. In the same movement the momentum also took down the cameraman and his equipment. Now the only view the camera had was from the ground, lying on its side. the reporters feet were in the frame, kicking, as she fought for her life.
The attacker must have torn open her neck, blood splattered the lens of the camera in a steady stream then, within moments she stopped screaming, then stopped moving, her feet twitching as the attacker continued to devour her body. In the distance through the TV we could hear muffled screams. In the bar, we all stared blankly at the TV, stunned by what we had seen. The TV went silent then static and finally to a test pattern.
I jumped out of my seat and ran to my car. As quickly as the car would go I drove west, up the canyon and further into the mountains. About five miles up the road there was a turnout that overlooked Los Angeles from eight thousand feet. If the weather was clear you could see all the way to Catalina Island from there. It was a popular place for couples to go for “inspiration”.
I was interested in the view. I wanted to see how big this thing really was. As I sped up the highway, through the winding mountains I couldn't help but feel some excitement. It was just like a zombie movie, and my mind raced as I drove. but the feeling disappeared very quickly as I crested the ridge and saw billowing black smoke rising from the Los Angeles basin.
As the night wore on, more and more people arrived at the overlook point. Once the sun finally set we could all see devastating fires that were by now engulfing the whole basin. It was similar to watching a large wild fire, which were common in the mountains. Many of the same people I would see daily from the local communities, were standing right along side me in the dark, looking on as if we were keeping a vigil over an approaching fire. This, of course, was not a wild fire, and from my vantage point, knowing what was happening below, I was certain I was overlooking Hell itself. I wondered how long it would take for it to reach us.
The death toll from this event was staggering. What we had seen on the TV was just a small sample of the chaos that was happening all over the city. In one suburban community a group of infected ran into a middle school, trapping students in a cafeteria. The children were frozen with fear. Only two escaped as a group of ten people that had been infected tore the rest to pieces. Tearing flesh from their throats and pulling their bodies apart.
Entire communities were destroyed by the infected. I can remember seeing the aftermath of what had happened in a number of homeless shelters in the downtown Los Angeles area. Hundreds of people were dismembered by what were best described as swarms of infected. Eventually they destroyed themselves when there were no more victims to attack. There was so much blood afterword that it flowed down sidewalks like a river.
Days passed, and the people of my small town had taken up a defensive position to the disaster. The town was in a small valley with two ways in and the community leaders had recruited the towns residents' to take up arms and defend their homes until help, if any, could arrive.
After the first 24 hours, phone lines and cable lines were cut off. Satellite TV and amateur radio were still working throughout the event, and TV monitors and radio base stations were set up in community areas through out town. Emergency supplies were rationed to those that were not stocked up before the roads into town were blocked. At first any approaching vehicles were stopped and ID's were checked, but even locals returning were quarantined into a camp area outside of town just to be safe. After several days it became apparent that what had happened was not related to an illness or a contagion that could be passed from person to person and it seemed was not spreading. Soon paranoia began to fade so the guard was lightened up.
Over the following weeks information slowly leaked out about what had happened. Most of the violence was isolated to the greater Los Angeles area. It was over in days, only affecting those within certain areas. It affected people that had been living in specific geographical areas of the county of Los Angeles that were being supplied by the contaminated water supply. These same people simply stopped coming out of their homes one morning. Then something had happened, something had triggered this spontaneous explosion of rage and murder.
5.
-Drugs –
As the contamination spread, discussion on solutions to calm people down was wide spread. Even though it wasn't immediately known it was a drug that had initiated the chaos, there was some suspicion that this may be a side effect of a number commercial anxiety drugs that were on the market. Ironically some talk led towards countering the effects by infusing another drug into the same water supply which I thought would absolutely make things worse.
In th
e 10 years leading up to the first wave, it was becoming more and more accepted for many people to be regularly prescribed drugs designed to sooth and calm. Life was stressful, terribly so for many middle class families. Long commutes, job pressures, family pressures, along with politically fueled uncertainty.
Over time people began to lose composure more regularly, and I was no exception. I fell to the pressure of trying to succeed and became part of the “better living through pharmaceuticals” generation. And it was devastating.
Severe drug reactions initiated a shut down of my body and introduced the worst experience of my life. Drug induced panic and anxiety led to almost a complete breakdown. Amanda couldn’t take it and asked me to leave on Christmas one year, telling me I had an expiration date, and I was left to try to survive while sleeping on my mothers living room floor. I don't think she meant my life had an expiration but rather our marriage. She didn't understand what was happening to me. I was barely able to stand up. I would only sleep an hour at a time. My body shuttered so badly from drug withdrawals that I would wake up often, having what seemed like seizures.
I couldn't breath, I hurt, I cried and wanted to die. But I had to hang in there, had to wake up in the morning and try to go to work. I had four kids that needed me and I wouldn't succumb to death so easily. That would leave them in the hands of Amanda, and I didn't think they stood a chance if that were to happen.
Somehow I managed to get up every morning and say to myself, “one day closer to feeling good again”. The next year was filled with court appearances and custody battles. According to Amanda, I was guilty of everything a person could be guilty of. Abuse, neglect, infidelity, and mental illness were among the list of my failings. None of these things she could ever prove because none of it ever happened. I thought that I must be quite a remarkable man to hold a full time job and go to school full time while also being a bipolar alcoholic with aggression issues. It would have been funny if it weren’t so devastating.
I would stand in court time and again, and listen to accusation after accusation, a stoic expression on my face. Inside I hurt though, not just emotionally but the physical toll of all this was killing me. Even while standing in front of the judge, defending myself, the chest pains were so severe I would nearly pass out. I was still in recovery from drug withdrawal and had difficulty standing at times.
But somehow I did it. I survived the drug withdrawals and the divorce and more than two years later I felt normal more often than not. It still hurt sometimes, especially when I got stressed out. My insides had been badly damaged during the drug intervention and I suffered from a great deal of pain. The feeling of my chest muscles locking up was ever present and I couldn’t move. Sharp pains that were severe enough to make my legs buckle were frequent.
But this was life now and it was painful. I refused to take even the most minor of drugs and eventually grew to embrace the pain. The only way to stop it was to breath deep and meditate, a method which I found forced me to stop and take a clear look at a situation.
I would listen to my body now and try to live long enough to be there for all my kids to get to adulthood.
“Just ten years” I would mutter to myself. “that’s all I have to live, ten more years”. Ten years was when my youngest son would be 18 and hopefully a grown enough man to be okay on his own.
Most people didn't react so badly to the drugs that were by now being prescribed in volume at a rate of 13% of the adult population for tranquilizers. In one year alone, 118 million prescriptions for anti depressants were written. Doctors were prescribing antidepressants and tranquilizers at an exponentially increasing rate.
Over time, the drugs weren't calming people as the effects began wearing off too quickly and higher doses were needed. New drugs were being introduced almost monthly, it was an endless cycle of drugs, side effects, and therapists as eccentric behavior began to present an almost epidemic situation. A new pharmaceuticals company entered the game of drug competition and offered an alternative boasting its dramatic life altering effects. Fallecimiento LLC. would give us the answer to pain, emotional distress, and a better life.
6.
-Safe-
The small town I was living in during the first wave overtook Los Angeles was an isolated little mountain town that served as a getaway for those struggling to live in the bustling cities that stretched almost seamlessly from the foothills to the coast. I considered this to be a crappy little town with nothing really going for it.
The biggest attraction was a ski resort that was regularly overcrowded and would cause ridiculous traffic jams in the little town with only one two lane road in or out of the small valley. During the first wave however, this little burg had one redeeming characteristic. All water supplied to residences and business were well fed, there were no reservoirs and water storage was minimal. Almost all water was fed directly from the source on an as needed basis. The contamination of water supplies that lead to the infection of all those people was isolated to the cities that were supplied by external sources. We remained contamination free.
When the town closed itself off there was water, food, and the community pulled together. The people of this small town had a well organized system for supporting the community in the event of a natural disaster which, in everyone’s mind was eminent. Massive wild fires frequented the area seasonally, and the town itself sat on the eastern edge of the pacific plate, on a section of the San Andrea’s fault line that was said to be on the verge of a major shift and was long overdue.
The potential for a major catastrophic event was always present and part of the daily lives of the people that lived there. So they prepared continuously, they were organized and had a strong chain of command. When it was time to sequester the town, the good people did so without much more than a question as to what each individual could do. This was a relief for me, I had been through so much over the previous few years I didn't think I could make a good call if things got too rough.
But it was easy, like the years I had served in the Navy, all I had to do was ask where they wanted me and they pointed the way. I was able to keep my family safe, my kids, and even Amanda who was frantic.
I was comfortable in this environment for some strange reason. Maybe it reminded me of the many months I had spent at sea during the gulf war. Month after month of flight quarters, battle stations, ship and aircraft fires, and the chaos that comes with an operational unit in the military. Although there were long periods of stress and very little sleep, there was a serene structure to it that gave me peace and purpose.
This situation felt the same even though it was clear to me the world was coming apart. At least the world I knew was unraveling, but still there was that serene peace again. It made me consider how the different eras of my life had felt.
There were periods when I was in situations that felt out of control but I felt solid and excited to get up in the morning. There were times during my military service, that were perilous but I felt completely in control and calm. There were moments when nothing out of the ordinary was happening, just life as usual, but the pressures of those times initiated my health failing and I became a slave to the horror of my own drug saturated mind.
This situation was comfortable at the moment, stable and structured even among the chaos. There was a calm in thinking the end was near. We were all safe for the moment with the sentries on the ramparts of the town. Women and children were safe inside the boundaries of the town. There were food supplies, and most of all there was hope for that time, that moment, not for a future but for that moment. Nothing else on the planet mattered more than that moment. Humans at their best. But it wouldn't last long.
7.
-Prisons-
The first wave took a huge toll on the population of the Los Angeles area. Out of roughly 10 million people that lived and worked in the greater Los Angeles area, approximately nine million people suffered and lost their lives within days of the contamination beginning to take effe
ct. The people most effected were those that were using water from large reservoirs just outside the city. Much of the city's water was supplied from the north by the California Aqueduct.
The areas affected by contamination didn't erupt all at once, there was a slow progression over several hours across the basin as the contaminated water propagated from community to community. In the end, once the madness began there was nothing anyone down stream could do. No one knew what the root cause of the bloodshed was until it was long over and the clean up had begun.
Most Prisons in the area fell within the first few days of the first wave of infection. In the end, there were very few prisoners left alive and the most common reason there were any survivors at all seem to be that they were all already suffering from an ailment that had them locked up in the prisons infirmary.
Isolation kept those prisoners from interacting with the rest of the prison population that in most cases, suffered almost 100% casualties during the onslaught. Interestingly, those suffering in the infirmaries did not kill each other and became even more ill than they already were.
Later it was suspected that the reason the ill didn't react in the same way was related to their condition. Some prisoners were on saline IV drips and were not ingesting any water, saving them from contamination but others did ingest water and their illnesses suppressed the maturation of the fungus in their blood.
They were, however, not safe, it just took longer to become infected. Those in the general public that fell ill due to previous ailments suffered insult to injury as their conditions grew worse with the contamination. This combination of elements initiated the beginning of the second wave and inevitably took down our species.
After the prisons were cleaned up of the dead, the government used the now empty cells to house the critically ill. Although comparatively there were many fewer survivors that had taken ill than there were those that succumbed initially to the contamination, the numbers were still staggering. Prison cells were filled and medical help was brought in, including military medical personal from all branches of the service. The CDC moved in as well and as tighter control over the aftermath took hold, the world seemed to be moving towards normalcy again.
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