Noah was glad to get home.
The chip shop was closed for the last two days. It was normally bustling with activity, with the owner Eric rushing around while Roxi stood outside smoking.
He rarely had to use the key for the back door, because it was normally open. The hallway was deserted and cold. It seemed like a tomb without people rushing around, and the sound of the people preparing the food, and the hissing of the large fryers, and the pinging of the microwave.
Noah’s flat seemed even emptier than normal. The muffled sounds from the shop below were always a background noise. He had not realized just how much he noticed them until they were not there anymore.
Noah ignored the computer games for the night, and instead watched the news on the TV as CNN kept him updated on the worldwide virus outbreak.
Apparently, so the reports were stating, the contaminated person, after the rapid eye blinking and disorientated state, then falls into a coma. Tens of millions were infected across the world.
America had football stadiums, and convention centres converted to hold those in the comatose state because the hospitals were overflowing. Every large public space was being utilized to hold the contaminated.
America had closed its borders and was under marshal law. Strict curfews were in place to stop people mingling and spreading the disease.
As of yet, Great Britain was virus free. Being a small island had its benefits.
Noah switched over to the BBC. There were riots in London, Manchester, and Bristol. The police was spread too thin.
Ambulance workers were on strike; their unions wanted more money and better working conditions, and apparently, decided that now was the best time to make a point.
The firefighters were just managing to keep up with the fires spread by the rioters. There were rumours that they too were about to strike.
The parliament was in session. They were deciding on whether to implement Marshal Law. The police force was at breaking point.
Only once in British history had the army been brought in under Marshal Law. In 1918, the army was called in to cover for the police when they went on strike over pay and pensions. The lack of police on the streets had caused chaos, with violence and looting, which lasted four days until the army restored order.
If the reports were correct, Marshal Law would be implemented, and the army would be on the streets within twenty-four hours.
Noah flicked channels.
CNN was reporting that Monaco – the second smallest nation after the Vatican, and the most densely populated country in the world, with over forty-two thousand people per square mile – was as of yet uninfected. Their boarders were closed, with all two-hundred and fifty-five of their standing army defending their checkpoints.
The Vatican also closed its doors to the world, when the faithful needed it the most. The walled in enclave, which is landlocked inside the city of Rome, was allowing no one entry. The basilica and obelisk, in Saint Peters Square, looked down upon an empty expanse of concrete. Normally full of worshipers, it now held only silence.
Pope Francis is said to have announced in an official press release, “I am praying for every single individual in the world.” However, apparently he did not want any of them anywhere near him.
Noah flicked back to the BBC.
The BBC had a specialist in. He reminded Noah of his old history teacher. The bearded, middle-aged expert was trying to describe the spread of the virus. He talked about the Basic Reproductive Rate or RO for short. The RO depended upon three major factors, the duration of the contagion, the infectiousness of the viral organism, and the number of susceptible individuals with whom the infected subject comes in to contact with. In short, if the RO is greater than one, then the disease will continue to spread.
It was getting late. He realized he had been watching the news channels for hours.
Noah flicked off the TV.
Tomorrow will be Christmas Eve. He had no tree with presents underneath. No one to come around and be with him. Tomorrow would be just like any other Monday.
As it turned out, today would become the last real normal day he could remember, because on Monday the 24th, the virus reached the shores of England.
5
Monday 24th December 2012
The Day the Virus Reached England
Day 9
Noah crawled out of bed at just after 11 AM, and flicked the TV on while he made his first coffee of the day. Everything, as they say, turned to shit.
The Royal London Hospital had announced a young woman, who had just returned from a holiday in Cancun, Mexico, was showing all the signs of the symptoms. Within three hours, another case was registered in Manchester.
Christmas Eve this year seemed like it was not going to be a good one.
Within eight hours, all flights were grounded, with all the airports and docks closed, along with the Euro tunnel. England quarantined itself – no one in or out.
The queen appeared on TV, asking that no one panic, that everyone must stay calm and trust in the government that had everything under control.
The army was out in force, in all the major cities, strictly enforcing the curfew. No one was allowed to leave their homes during Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day.
It was announced that a window for collecting everything a household would need would be open on Thursday the 27th. However, the window was only open for ten hours, between 10 AM and 8 PM.
Noah could not believe what he was hearing. Everyone was under house arrest. No unsanctioned movement outside the home was permitted.
A crashing sound made Noah wander over to a window. Down on the main street, a group of chavs was breaking into the local branch of The Halifax Building Society. The building’s alarm blared.
Idiots, Noah thought. Everyone knows all the money is locked away, and there is no way a bunch of yobs would have the skills or tools to crack the banks safe.
Another crashing sound made Noah look the other way, up the street. The metal shutter, which protected the windows of Iceland, was ripped from the front of the building by a chain that was wrapped around a Renault Mégane’s tow bar. A middle-aged man and woman jumped from the car, and with a crowbar, the man broke open the door. They raced inside, along with two teenagers that could have been their children. Another alarm bell pierced the air, mixing along with the first.
The family ignored the klaxon and ran back and forth, tossing armfuls of food and bottles of drinks into the back of the car.
Noah expected the police to rush round the corner, but none appeared.
The BBC announced that there was rioting in London, Glasgow, Bath, Plymouth, Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield.
The News showed Leeds Town Hall, with the army and police opposite an angry mob –bricks and bottles sailing from one side to the other. The mob chanted that they wanted the cure, as if the government was holding back on them.
It flicked to an image of police and rioters fighting in Birmingham’s Victoria Square right outside the Council House Building. Some were even standing in the fountain. The news reporter felt the need to point out that the fountain was the largest in Europe and was known locally as ‘Floozie in the Jacuzzi’.
Police on horseback pushed back a group of teenagers that were tossing paving stones. In the background, Antony Gormley’s famous Iron Man Statue stood imposing and unaffected.
The sound of a large sheet of glass hitting the pedestrian walk made Noah turn back to the window. Three of the large windows of Iceland shattered and fell in a glistening waterfall. From where he stood, it looked like a wheelbarrow full of diamonds spread over the ground.
The family jumped back into the Mégane. It wheel spun as it disappeared around a corner.
A chair sailed through the bank’s window, bouncing as it rolled across the ground.
Noah dialed 999 on his mobile, to report the incidents. A busy signal was all he received in reply.
Suddenly, the power cut out. The TV died. E
verything in the flat went silent, making the alarm bells outside even louder.
Noah stood by the window. He watched the teenagers run from the bank. They carried nothing with them. They disappeared down a side street into the market.
The power came back on. The TV clicked to stand by mode.
How can everything change so suddenly? How can normal become unreal in such a short space of time? Noah thought, as he picked up the remote and turned on the TV.
CNN announced that America was calling for international aid. Millions were in a comatosed state, with tens of millions more reported to have the first stages of the virus. However, every other country was in the same situation. Those that were not affected were closing off their boarders and hoarding provisions. No one was in a position to offer help.
It dawned on Noah that he would not be able to go to work. He was meant to fill in on Boxing Day, one of the busiest days of the year. But how could he if he was not allowed to leave his home?
Noah walked to his small kitchenette. The shabby collection of units held little food. The old fridge gurgled and chugged as it tried to keep cold a packet of ham, a pint of milk, and half an uneaten pizza. He never really kept any food at home because he ate his main meals at work.
He rummaged through the cupboards. A tin of spaghetti bolognese and a chicken and mushroom pot noodle.
He walked over to his table and picked up his wallet. Eleven pounds and fourteen pence. With just enough in the bank to buy the computer game he wanted. His wages would not go in for another eight days. He had the tokens for lunch at work in his wallet, which he brought on the first of each month as soon as he was paid. However, they were just useless pieces of paper, unless he was at work.
Noah needed food.
He only had one option left.
Noah picked the keys off the hook by the door. The owner gave him a spare set of keys for the chip shop in case of an emergency, like the alarm going off or a water leak.
Noah stood in the chip shops kitchen. Two large chest freezers rested against one wall. They were full of fish, sausages, chicken nuggets, burgers, and pies. On the shelves were packets of dried gravies, sauces, salt, pepper, herbs, flour, batter mix, and rows of tins of mushy peas. In a large blue tote bin rested the cut up chips in cold water, stacked next to it was large industrial bags of Maris Piper potatoes.
There was enough food to feed him for months. Nevertheless, he was aware that none of it was his.
Surely, Eric would understand. Anything I eat I will pay for.
Noah did not own a deep-fat fryer, and there was no way he could spark up the huge chip fryers in the shop just to make one meal. On the shelf was a stainless steel Delonghi deep fryer. He did not know why they would need the smaller fryer, possibly to cook smaller, messier items that would dirty the oil of the larger fryers.
He took the fryer upstairs with a large tin of peanut cooking oil. He was a little surprised that the oil was made from nuts, so he read the label. Apparently, the peanut oil had a higher smoke point, whatever that was. It was also suitable for vegetarians.
He set the fryer up on his small work surface, and headed back downstairs.
He only had a small fridge with no freezer, apart from a small shelf at the top that could fit a tray of ice cubes in. He took up a packet of fish, sausages, a few pies, and burgers. He found a plastic bucket and transferred some chips into it. He changed the water, which was looking a little brown. He presumed the chips were meant to be used a few days ago, but due to Eric not opening the shop, they were slowly going off.
I am doing him a favour eating them; he reasoned, as he poured the oil in and turned the fryer on.
Noah sat eating fish and chips while watching the news. The batter was a bit of a disaster, but he had never made it before. It was edible, but a little floury. He had no tomato ketchup, so he grabbed a handful of sachets.
A report that a boat, that was trying to leave the harbor in Portsmouth, was fired upon. The coastguard stated that, so far they had found nineteen bodies in the wreckage.
A doomsday group in Scotland committed mass suicide; all twenty-eight in the cult were found with plastic bags over their heads, including the nine children.
A police officer, in the armed unit in Stoke-on-Trent, took his firearm home and shot his eight and eleven-year-old daughters, then his wife, before turning the gun on himself.
A family in Norwich was found dead in their garage inside their minivan. They had all died from asphyxiation due to a pipe being connected from the exhaust into the back window.
There was a thirty-six car pileup on the M1.
One man in Swindon decided to end it all by train, parking his car on the tracks. He succeeded. However, he also caused an intercity 125 to derail and tumble down a steep embankment onto a busy roundabout at Great Western Way on the B4289.
Noah spent the day flicking back and forth between news channels. No news, as they say, is good news.
6
Christmas Day 2012
Day 10
The world was not in a celebrating mood.
Tens of millions the world over were infected with stage one and two. No one knew what would happen next. What would stage three be like? Death?
Noah was overloaded with news from around the world, so for a change, and instead of playing computer games, he decided to watch something other than the news on the TV.
The BBC series Planet Earth was showing. Sir David Attenborough was talking about ants.
This will take my mind off everything; he decided. Noah settled down with a plate of cold sausages.
The bullet ant was acting strange. Attenborough explained that it had walked over a fungus. The fungus – Opiocordyceps unilateralis, of the Cordyceps family – bores into the ant’s body. Over a two-week period, the fungus takes over the ant’s nervous system and brain.
If the other ants in its colony notice it is infected, they remove it as far away as possible.
The fungus, once it has completely taken over the ant, releases a chemical to make the ant leave the colony and climb to the understory vegetation of the tropical rainforest, which provides the perfect platform for when the spore-producing stem grows out of the back of its head.
The stem can take up to three weeks to grow – looking like a long alien antenna with a bulbous end – before it is ready to explode, releasing spores that will affect any ant in the vicinity. One infected ant can wipe out a colony of over eight million.
Noah felt uncomfortable; the growth looked disgusting.
Attenborough went on to explain that there were thousands of different types of the fungus, and each one specialized in a different type of species. He stated that it was good for the environment, because it stopped one species from becoming dominant. Stating that the more numerous the species the more likely it would become infected, keeping the numbers down.
The program unsettled Noah. He flicked channels. The Snowman was showing on Channel 4. The twenty-six minute animated film made him forget about the world outside his walls.
He remembered watching the film when he was young, living in Ash Leaf Children’s Home. He used to dream that one Christmas a magical snowman would turn up to take him away. When it snowed, he made a row of snowmen. No snowman with a green hat and scarf ever came and rescued him.
When he needed pajamas, from the hand-me-downs, he even went for a pair that had blue and white stripes.
“Walking in the Air,” drifted from the TV.
Just as the film was finishing a news flash report scrolled across the bottom of the screen. It stated that forty-one hospitals across Great Britain had confirmed cases.
Outside Noah could hear cars screeching up and down the pedestrian section of town. He did not bother getting up to look.
Probably, idiot boy-racers taking advantage of the situation, knowing the police were too busy with other things.
Noah flicked off the TV. He could not get away from the news even if he tried.
For lunch, he ate more chips and a steak Pukka pie.
He was not allowed out, and even though there were people milling about, he knew the instant his foot touched the pavement a police car would turn the corner. He rarely left his flat when he was not working, and now he was not allowed to he felt as if he needed to.
He booted up his laptop and scrolled through some of his downloads.
Noah only had ten gigabytes on his Virgin account each month, and because he liked to download, he had found a way around it. He loaded up his laptop with downloads, from Piratebay, and when he was at work, he piggybacked on their Wi-Fi. He left his laptop turned on in his bag in his locker, downloading all the time he was working.
He had a few new movies he had not seen yet, and he hoped they were not cam copies. He also had a season called Doomsday Preppers.
The American program was about a group of people who believe the world, as we know it will soon change. They believe that either a financial collapse of the economy, solar flares, nuclear war, a pandemic, super-volcano’s, global warming, or a vast array of other catastrophes will cripple the world, making survival difficult unless you are ready. That is why they are called Preppers, because they spend time and money preparing for the end of the world.
The first episode of the eleven part series was called: Bullets, Lots of Bullets.
The first words spoken by the voiceover man were ominous, “Across the country there is a growing darkness. The belief that the end of days is near!”
The man’s low voice made the hairs on the nape of Noah’s neck stand on end.
He watched the first episode that covered a couple that lived in Texas inside welded together metal shipping containers. They believe we are overdue for a polar shift, which will wipe out billions of lives and send the world back into the dark ages. They spend on average fifty hours a week storing food. They have enough to last two people for twenty years.
It would come in handy being them right about now, Noah thought.
The Sixth Extinction & The First Three Weeks & The Squads First Three Weeks Omnibus [Books 1-10] Page 25