The Old Man & the End of the World | Book 1 | Things Fall Apart

by Harrison, William Hale

“Let’s get out of the wind first, shall we?” the young man said, and led them around the corner of the building. A long dark sedan waited for them with a driver in military uniform. Once in the car, the man said, “I’m Bert Hatcher. Doctor Bert Hatcher. Actually I guess I’m Lieutenant Bert Hatcher, MD now, since I’ve just accepted a commission in the Army. Which is where we’re going. To the Army, I mean. Army Headquarters. In Andover.”

  “Why there?” asked Whitman.

  “I’ll let them explain. Above my paygrade and all that. Go fetch them, they told me, so here I am. And here you are.”

  In Andover, they were taken to a large blocky red brick building that looked as though it had been constructed shortly after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It had the feel of an old army barracks, which turned out to be exactly its original purpose. They followed Hatcher up the huge central staircase and into an office. An unmanned reception desk sat in the antechamber. Hatcher rapped lightly on the inner office door, stuck his head in and said, “They’re here, Colonel.”

  The colonel stepped from behind his desk to shake hands. A large man with a florid face, he sported a neatly trimmed mustache that he waxed and curled up at the ends, making him look like he might pull a rabbit out of a hat if you had one handy “Patrick Finnie. Call me Finn, everyone does.” His voice held the remains of a Scottish accent, though one tempered from years of living in England.

  At the name, Whitman looked up with sudden interest. “Doctor Patrick Finnie? Ebola outbreak in West Africa Finnie?” The man nodded. “It’s an honor to meet you, Doctor Finnie.”

  “Finn, please,” he smiled. “Now let’s get down to business. I’ve asked you here to help me with this infection you ran into in India. It’s been popping up all around Asia and Oceania, and now it’s in India too.”

  “Really?” asked Whitman? “It’s not just isolated to Raipur?”

  “Oh no,” replied Finnie. “We’ve been hearing bits and pieces about it for a couple weeks now. It first cropped up in Tonga. Then New Zealand, Japan, Australia, maybe China, but they’ve been quite closed mouth about it. Now India. Very few physicians have seen it firsthand from start to finish the way you two have. Due to the violent nature of those who’ve become infected, they’re usually dead before anyone can get there to observe them. We’re starting a team to study it here and I want you two in on it. Ground floor and all that. Base you in Singapore, perhaps, or maybe Hong Kong, ready to fly out at a moment’s notice and jump into the fray, eh? Doctor Whitman, if you’ll join us you’ll be commissioned as captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps.”

  Whitman sat back, blinking. “I’d be honored,” he said, finally.

  “I can see Jeremy would be useful here, with his background in infectious diseases,” Deevers said. “But why me? I’m a combat medical officer and surgeon. What good could I do here?”

  “A great deal, actually.” Finnie leaned back in his chair. “We have teams all over Britain who are working to find the transmission method and its source. What we’re going to do here is study the people who are already infected. How do they survive? How long do they live once the disease takes over? What are their physical limitations? Devise experiments to test their abilities. Put them through their paces, as it were. You know the human body under duress as well as anyone, Doctor Deevers. How about putting that knowledge to good use?”

  Deevers thought for a moment, then nodded. “I’ve certainly nothing better to do.”

  Labangka, East Kalimantan, Indonesia

  March 25th

  “Hi, everybody, it’s me, Fenna! I’m here in Kalimantan on the island of Borneo! You’ve never heard of it, right? Well neither had I until a week ago, and now I’m heeere!” She ran around in a little circle with her arms straight out to her side, her suntanned breasts jiggling inside her tiny bikini. “And I have found the most fabulous, most perfect beach ever!” She dropped to her knees and scooped up a double handful of white sand, held it up toward the cell phone her friend held toward her and let it run through her fingers. The angle also allowed for a fine view of her firm round breasts. “It’s called Labangka, or maybe that’s the town. But look at this sand! Isn’t it perfect?” She stood up again and danced sideways, so the jungle waved at her back. “And this sunset is so, so fantastic!”

  Police Sergeant Syukri Bintulo sat astride his bicycle and watched the shapely blonde Dutch girl as she performed for the camera. He disapproved of her attire; she wore nothing but the tiniest of bikinis, composed solely of three small patches of fabric the size of a child’s hand, and some string. Her entire back side was naked save for a few straps, her front side nearly so. Still, he thought, she certainly spiced up the empty beach.

  Out past the reef a yacht rode at anchor, its sleek, modern, white surfaces now tinted pinkish orange by the setting sun. A large launch bobbed in the gentle surf just off the beach.

  “So follow me on Instagram and tell all your friends! This is Fenna! I love you all sooo much!” She ran up to the camera and gave it a big kiss with her lovely, pouty lips and then laughed. Camera off, she thumbed some buttons on the phone, pulled on a T-shirt and joined a group of tanned young men and women. Someone handed her a beer, and she took a long pull. One of the men said something to her, and everyone laughed. Syukri couldn’t hear what he said, but it must have been something off-color because she pushed her hands up under her breasts and jiggled them at him and stuck out her tongue.

  Must be nice, he thought. A whole subculture of kids who had lots of money and nothing but free time traveled the world looking for “fun,” which usually meant sex and drugs in exotic places. Right now there were only a few dozen on the beach. By the end of the month there’d be hundreds.

  Another young man suddenly jumped up, yanked his t-shirt off and began scratching his chest furiously. Bintulo smiled. Sand fleas, he thought. They were bad last year. If they’re starting this early, they’ll probably be worse this year.

  Bintulo straightened his police uniform a bit and mounted his bicycle. He wore the standard issue khaki shirt of the Indonesian police, but like most cops here on Kalimantan, instead of the heavy brown pants, he wore crisply pressed shorts and high socks. He’d stuck to the pants when he first arrived, but he’d gotten them jammed in the bicycle chain twice, despite the chain guard, so he’d reluctantly switched to the shorts.

  He possessed a handsome face with clear coffee-colored skin and a trim mustache, and the black police beret looked sharp on him. He had been hit on several times by drunken female tourists, but no good ever came from sleeping with the white women who flitted through the area. Everyone knew stories of good cops in tourist towns who had taken a tipsy tourist up on her invitation into her bed, only to have her regret it the next day, march into his superior’s office and claim she’d been taken advantage of. Besides, he had a wife at home who would flay him alive if she ever caught him cheating.

  Twenty-two full time officers served in the Southern District, which spread from just south of the city of Balikpapan to the border at Pawing. Farms dominated the district, a scattered patchwork of fields that ended in the foothills of the mountain range which ran down the middle of the island. The area boasted some beautiful surf which drew globe-trotting surfers, but the waves were too high to make the shores attractive to the beachcomber set. Labangka was the exception. Two hundred meters offshore lay a reef which ran for a couple kilometers down the coast, keeping the water behind it calm and inviting. The reef had some wonderful snorkeling too, something Bintulo and his wife loved to do in their spare time. The young globe-trotting set had discovered the area a few years back, and every year when the rains ended there were more of them.

  He decided to head back toward the headquarters in Babulu Darat, a quick ride away. Nearly dinner time, he noted, and he’d promised his wife Amsia he would join her at the clinic cafeteria for a bite. Perhaps this time she had good news, although Bintulo didn’t allow himsel
f to believe it.

  Leaving the area, he passed by a cluster of homes and stopped short. Did he hear a scream? It was faint, and he wasn’t sure. Might have been children, or some horseplay from the beach, or even monkeys chasing each other through the trees. He waited for a while and didn’t hear it again, so he shrugged and started on his way. Monkeys, he decided.

  When he walked into the kitchen of the clinic, he could see at once that the news was bad, again. Bintulo sighed as he watched his wife staring down at her tea, idling stirring it with a spoon, a vacant look on her face. He sat down next to her and took her hand. “How is my beautiful wife today?” he asked brightly.

  “Oh, Syukri,” she said sadly. They had been married for eight years, since before they left Bali so she could take the job her in Kalimantan and had been trying to have children the entire time. Two years ago, Amsia finally consulted the physicians she worked for. They examined her, and the diagnosis was grim. An untreated childhood illness had left her unable to conceive.

  Since then they had been trying to adopt, but Indonesian law made that almost impossible for them. Muslims made up seven eighths of the population of Indonesia, and the law forbade any child to be adopted out of its religion. Hindus like Bintulo and Amsia were at a special disadvantage, since Hindus were only about two percent of the population, and almost all concentrated on their home island of Bali. On top of that, a very strong sense of extended family prevailed among rural people on Borneo, like rural people everywhere. Orphaned or unwanted children were quickly absorbed into extended families as a matter of course. Still, on the rare occasions a Hindu mother died in childbirth, or when the mother was very young, Amsia would gently approach the family and ask if they might be interested in giving the child up for adoption. She might have received the same answer if she’d asked if they wanted the child cooked and served for dinner.

  By the time he left the clinic, darkness had fallen. He stopped to have a smoke when his walkie talkie crackled. “Bintulo? Are you there? Come in, Bintulo.”

  “I’m here, Chief. What’s going on? Over.”

  “I need you here right away. Where are you? Over.”

  “I’m right down the road at the hospital, Chief. What’s up? Over.”

  “Just get here fast.” The transmission ended. The chief must be upset about something, he thought. He ended without saying “Over and out.” The chief had a real bug up his butt about walkie-talkie protocol, but as his father used to say, “The boss may not always be right, but he’s always the boss.” Bintulo hopped on his bike and started pedaling hard down the street.

  He arrived in less than a minute. The chief and Rajaguk, the other officer on this shift, were already waiting by their one squad car. He jumped off the bike while it was still rolling and leaned it against the building and trotted over to the car. The chief clenched a cell phone to his ear in his big meaty fist, his face scowling. He said something sharp that Bintulo didn’t catch, and disconnected. “I’m here, Chief,” Bintulo said. The chief responded by slapping him in the chest with a holstered pistol, a Walther P99, on a Sam Browne belt.

  “Put this on and get in. You drive. The beach. The one at the end of Old Temple Road.”

  “Chief, I was just there a few hours ago,” Bintulo said over his shoulder as he strapped the gun belt around his waist. “Bunch of Euro-trash tourists and a big yacht offshore, but no one was making trouble.”

  “Well they are now,” the chief grumbled. “We’ll just have to sort them out and see if we can keep everything quiet.” Bintulo hopped into the driver’s seat next to Rajaguk and fished for his seat belt while the chief climbed into the back. The chief, a big heavyset man with a thick mustache and a perpetual frown, had been a champion wrestler in his younger years, and still took on all comers at the annual spring festival. “Move!” he commanded. Bintulo put the car into gear and stepped down hard on the accelerator. Gravel spun under the wheels, and the squad car fishtailed onto the road.

  He looked at the chief in the rear-view mirror. “Siren?”

  “No. It’s not far and I don’t want the bastards to know we’re coming.” He looked out the window for a moment. “We got a call from someone who lives near the beach. She said there’s been lots of shouting and screaming, and a couple naked men ran past her house a few minutes ago. She thought she saw blood on one of them.”

  They all knew that could mean serious trouble. Indonesia depended heavily on tourism for its economy. An incidence of violence involving tourists, especially if there were deaths, could mean the loss of tens or hundreds of millions of tourist dollars. When a nightclub bombing in Bali killed a hundred and eighty tourists in 2002, estimates were that Indonesia lost a billion dollars in revenue. It didn’t matter whose fault it was or whether anything could have been done to prevent it; if they got upset in Jakarta, it was very bad news for little people like them. As his father also said, “When the elephants dance, the grass suffers.”

  They drove quickly down the dark road. As they passed a cluster of houses, Rajaguk whipped his head around toward the road behind them. “Did you see that? There were people in those woods and they were naked!”

  “Stop the car!” the chief shouted, but as Bintulo started to brake he growled, “No, keep going. We’ll deal with those bastards on the way back.” As they neared the ocean, through the trees they spotted flames. “Shit!” the chief yelled. “They’ve torched the cabanas!” A small open-fronted grass hut sat on the beach, owned by one of the local bars. During the tourist season it was used to vend food and drinks, but now it was a bonfire, its thatched roofs blazing, sending spinning orange and red sparks up into the night sky. Silhouetted against the flames, they could see people running.

  He drove down onto the beach and slewed the car around so its headlights lit up the nearest fire. A cluster of naked figures, both men and women, crouched around something on the sand. When the headlights hit them, they all looked up. Their eyes were wide, and their faces and chests were covered with blood. They looked like demons. A strong stench filled the night air.

  The chief barreled out of the car and yelled, “Damn your eyes! What’s going on here?” As one, the crowd jumped up and loped across the sand toward the squad car with an odd ambling gait, their arms dangling by their sides and their mouths open, teeth bared. The chief and Bintulo both reached for their extending batons, but Rajaguk backed away, drawing his pistol as he did. The chief crouched at the front of the car, his muscles bunched and ready. He glanced back at Bintulo and Rajaguk. A fierce grin lit his face. He hit the first runner hard enough that Bintulo could hear his collarbone crack like a knot exploding in a fire, but it didn’t stop him. He staggered to one side with the force of the blow, and then threw himself back toward the chief. The chief hit him a terrific wallop behind the ear and this time he went down like a sack of bricks.

  The sight stunned Bintulo. That man should not have been able to function with an injury like that. A broken collarbone is immensely painful; he should have been writhing on the ground. But he had no time to think about it as the runners came pouring around his side of the car. As the first one came within reach, he hit him with a vicious sidearm blow to the ear, and down the man went. He hit the second one the same way, but the third one had her arms up and he couldn’t reach the ear, so he brought the baton straight down on top of her head. The runner staggered, and her knees started to buckle. Bintulo cocked his arm back and hit her again, swinging as hard as he could, terror and adrenaline in equal measure powering the strike. He both heard and felt her skull giving way under the force of the blow. She fell forward, but the impact bounced the baton out of his grasp. Bintulo stood motionless for a moment, awed by the violence he’d committed.

  He watched the chief hoist one runner in the air with a big meaty hand around the man’s neck, and smash another across the face with his baton, when a naked, bloodstained man with crazy eyes leapt toward Bintulo’s throat. In an
instant he recognized him as the boy that had joked with the Instagram girl earlier in the day. He brought up his hands to defend himself when a hole appeared in the boy’s forehead and the back of his head exploded. From behind him Rajaguk yelled, “Use your gun, fool!” He reached for his pistol as two more came at him, but before he could draw, Rajaguk shot the first one twice in the chest. It had no apparent effect.

  “The head!” he yelled. “Rajaguk, aim for the head!” Together they dropped both runners. By the light of the fires, Bintulo could see other figures scurrying toward them from farther down the beach.

  The chief had his gun out now too. He shot three in quick succession, but a bloody man jumped him from behind, sinking his teeth into the chief’s shoulder. He screamed in pain, and pivoted his body, dropped his shoulder and smashed the man’s head into the frame of the car. The man fell, but then there were more and he was out of bullets, so he turned his gun around and used it as a club. There were too many, latching on with their teeth and taking bloody bites out of his arms and chest. Still he fought them, smashing heads with his gun butt, and sending them sprawling with punches from his huge fist, until a small woman with blood-soaked hair rose up off the ground in front of him, sank her teeth into his throat and shook her head like a mongoose with a snake. In the light of the fire, Bintulo saw an arc of crimson blood jet out of the chief’s neck and he fell. The runners piled onto him and he was gone.

  Rajaguk grabbed Bintulo and yelled, “There’s too many! We have to get out of here!” but a naked woman jumped him from behind and sent him sprawling on the sand. Bintulo shot the attacker through the head but two more piled on and Rajaguk screamed in pain. Bintulo turned and sprinted up the beach away from the road, swapping the magazine in his gun for a full one as he ran. He found a slim path into the tree line and kept running, bobbing, and weaving through the underbrush with barely enough moonlight to see by, until a half a mile or more from the beach he stopped to catch his breath and swore to himself. He heard a noise and spun around, gun raised.