The Sixth Extinction & The First Three Weeks & The Squads First Three Weeks Omnibus [Books 1-10]

by Johnson, Glen

  “Suit yourself, don’t take them, I can’t make you. It’s no skin off my nose. If you want your kidneys to pack up, that’s up to you.”

  9

  Saturday 22nd December 2012

  Day 8

  Betty stood looking down at the long, dull stainless steel worktop.

  She was upset because Abel wasn’t able to come and visit this weekend, due to the virus that was ravishing the world. Well, she presumed he wouldn’t arrive, because she had phoned the home where he lived, but she couldn’t get through – the line was dead.

  It worried her. She just hoped it was because there was a problem with the phone lines, and not something more menacing.

  The outbreak that started in Madagascar didn’t just fade away, and end up a small column on page thirty of the newspapers. It turned into a pandemic that was sweeping the globe, country by country.

  One week on and America was already quarantined, with tens of millions of people infected. Hospitals were at breaking point and football stadiums, concert halls, shopping malls, and any venue capable of holding thousands were converted to hold the comatose victims.

  Betty followed the news carefully. She had acquired an old fourteen-inch TV that now rested on her dressing table.

  She remembered the bird and swine flu, from years previous, had just faded out. However, this was different. This time the new outbreak was deadly. No one had yet died from it, but it had reached what some specialists called the second stage, after the rapid eye blinking, and confusion, came the comatose stage. What was next? Stage three – death?

  Seventeen countries had confirmed cases, with more countries joining the list each day.

  The virus hadn’t reached England yet, but it would; in time, it was inevitable – there was no invisible bubble surrounding the small island; it was in just as much danger as everywhere else.

  The news, when it wasn’t showing stadiums full of people on cots covered in plastic hoods, was showing two things. Firstly, people were panic buying.

  The shops were being picked clean, everyone hoarding as much food and water as they could get their hands on. Supermarket shelves were bare, and they were having trouble keeping up with demands.

  Secondly, the streets were full of riots.

  London, Glasgow, Bath, Plymouth, Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield looked like war zones on the TV. Mobs were fighting the police in the streets and destroying property.

  The clashes were so bad that the government was in session deciding on whether to release the army onto the streets.

  To try to control the damage the government had announced every citizen was under house arrest. No one was to leave their home for any reason.

  A window for gathering provisions was set for Thursday the 27th from 10 AM to 8 PM. If you were seen walking the streets between now and then, you would be arrested on sight.

  Half the staff from the nursing home stayed home. The few that did risk arrest were stretched beyond their limit. As the day’s progressed, and the virus spread, even less staff arrived each day. Now only four members were trying to dress, feed, clean, and look after fifty-nine old people. Sadly, due to the staff being stretched so thin, three people had died in the last week. It was believed that in all the confusion and stress, tablets had been mixed up, and wrong doses given.

  Mrs. Fredrick lived on the premises, and she spent hours on the phone each day trying to find someone who could authorize her staff to leave their homes, so they could go to work. She couldn’t believe that the government had overlooked such an obvious flaw in their plans. She kept phoning the local police station, but no one picked up. The national nine-nine-nine number was constantly busy.

  Betty, and a few other able-bodied residents were helping out. Betty’s job was to cook for everyone, ever since Eddy stopped coming. It was a choice between feeding them, or wiping their asses. She went with the top end.

  She stood in the kitchen trying to get meals out of what was left in the large walk-in freezer and storeroom. There was plenty of provisions left, but it was a new experience, having to cook for so many on such a large scale.

  Yesterday she cooked beef casserole in a pot big enough for her to climb into and have a bath. It had been nine years since she last cooked a meal. Even so, going from cooking normally and adding a pinch of salt, to having to add a cup full, felt strange.

  It took Betty two hours to sort out breakfast today, which was simply breakfast cereals. However, it was just her in the kitchen and she had to prepare the dining room, and clean up after.

  Normally, a sullen male teenager that went by the nickname Spider, for some bizarre reason, used to do the dishes. He would stand at the sink listening to oversized headphones.

  What she wouldn’t do for an assistant right about now.

  After she finished breakfast she had to start preparing for lunch. She had no idea what she was going to do for tea.

  Today’s lunch was sausage casserole. She tried to work the amount out. With fifty-nine residents, plus four workers, plus extra, what with a minimum of two sausages each, still amounted to about a hundred and twenty-eight sausages. Eight chunky sausages weighed roughly a pound, so altogether it was about sixteen pounds just of meat.

  I’m eighty-six; I should be sat with my feet up, watching people bitch and complain on Jeremy Kyle.

  For tea, it was what was left of the cheese and biscuits.

  Sadly, after tea, when the few who could help were getting everyone ready for bed, Mrs. Moreau was found dead in her wheelchair in the garden by the stumps of the rosebushes.

  She must have known she was about to die, due to the crumpled letter found in her clenched hand. It said she had lived a good life, and she was looking forward to seeing her husband and three children she had outlived. It ended by saying she hoped Mrs. Ederstark caught the virus, and that she died slowly and painfully.

  After twelve hours of cooking and cleaning, Betty stumbled into bed. She hoped the government had some answers, or a cure, because she couldn’t handle another day like today.

  10

  Monday 24th December 2012

  The Day the Virus Reached England

  Day 9

  Betty was having a day off from cooking. She had cooked four days straight, and after Sundays tea, she fell back into a chair while collecting the dirty plates. She was found by Mrs. Fredrick an hour later. She had fainted from exhaustion.

  Mrs. Fredrick was taking a turn in the kitchen to give Betty a rest.

  Only one carer had arrived to help today. The others had given up, or were hiding indoors with the rest of the country, protecting their families.

  Those that needed help dressing were left, sat up in bed. Their food was delivered to them. It still took a lot to help them to the toilet and wash them, and what with the tablets to be dispensed, another two residents were found dead on Monday morning.

  Betty was angry that only four different families had arrived over the last week to check on their aged relatives. They took them away with them, to care for them at home and to keep them safe.

  But mostly the old people’s home was simply a dumping ground for those no longer useful to their family or society.

  Out of sight, out of mind.

  Who wanted grandma sitting in the front room, zoned out, hogging the telly, taking up space, farting and dribbling, and eating their food? Who was going to watch her? What if she fell over and needed taking to the hospital? What about having to sort out all her pills each day? What about all the extra clothes and sheets for washing? Having to sort out her doctor’s appointments. Having to chop up her food and feed her. Who had time for all that? They forget that they did it all for them when they were young. What comes around, obviously doesn’t go around.

  However, Betty understood. This virus was scary. Unpredictable. Everyone was hiding at home, trying to save their own skins and those closest to them. They presumed that the government would be doing all they could to keep their care homes running at normal standards
. They obviously didn’t know the government had simply abandoned them to fend for themselves.

  While sat in bed, having an extra hour, to regain her strength, before getting up to help wash and feed those incapable of doing it themselves, the news was announced. The deadly virus had reached the shores of Great Britain.

  Apparently, a young woman returning from holiday in Mexico was the first to be registered with it in the country. The Royal London Hospital broke the bad news. Within hours more cases started to pop up.

  Within eight hours, England was quarantined. Nothing in or out. All airplanes were grounded, and all boats docked.

  It was only a matter of time; Betty reasoned. And being such a small island, and packed in like sardines, it will not take long to spread.

  Her thoughts drifted to her grandson. She hoped he was getting the care he needed.

  The power went off.

  It had been doing it a few times a day over the last week. Sometimes it would be for a couple of minutes, sometimes an hour or so. Each time she was afraid it wouldn’t flick back on.

  It’s something’s you take for granted. You don’t realize just how large a part of your life it is, until it’s gone. Without electricity, everything is just lumps of plastic and metal.

  Betty feared what it would be like, trying to look after everyone if there was no power. No warm water. No heating, due to the large boiler-room in the basement needing electricity to run the complicated computer panel that regulated all the rooms. No lights. It would be chaos.

  After the power flicked off for the third time, at the beginning of the week, Betty had collected every bowl, dish, and container that could hold water, and filled them all up. If the power could go off, so could the water. They could manage without electricity, but from watching TV she knew a human could only last about three or so days without the life-sustaining liquid.

  Betty wandered to the phone in Mrs. Fredrick’s office. She still couldn’t reach Abel’s home.

  She would pray that he was okay, but she had given up on God when her husband failed to return home safely, and when her daughter also went missing.

  God, as far as she was concerned, was for people who didn’t face facts. People who needed something larger than life. People who needed someone to dump all their problems on. God will sort it out. God knows best. God willing. It’s in God’s hands now. All sayings used to justify their consciences.

  Where was God now, when millions screamed his many names, in hundreds of languages the world over, asking to be spared? she reasoned. Where was God as millions lie unconscious, possibly dying? Where was God as his so-called creation was slowly being wiped from the surface of the planet? Where indeed.

  With all the work and stress of the last week, she just realized it was Christmas Eve.

  Blah humbug!

  Betty was tired of hearing the busy signal; she placed the phone back in the cradle and wandered out to help Mrs. Stamp go to the toilet.

  Betty rolled her eyes when she saw Mrs. Stamps walking frame – it was covered in so much tinsel and hanging plastic decorations; it must have doubled its weight.

  11

  Christmas Day

  Day 10

  It was the worst Christmas ever. There was no happiness, apart from a few residents who were happy regardless, but that was mainly due to giving them too much, or the wrong medication.

  Betty was really worried about Abel, but there was nothing she could do apart from wait. Waiting was something everyone was getting used to.

  Mr. Grant had died in his sleep.

  A good way to go, I suppose; she reasoned. She hoped when her time came it would be just as peaceful.

  The other problem was the bodies. The ambulance didn’t come to take them away after the doctor had arrived to announce them deceased. They were wrapped in their bed sheets and taken to the bottom of the garden. Seven stark white bundles lay in a neat row, under clear plastic, next to the muted colours of the winter-dead flowers, and sprinkled with a splattering of frost.

  After the first night they had to wrap a thick plastic sheet over the top, holding it down with rocks from the adjoining rock garden. It didn’t occur to anyone that the foxes – or any type of animal – would rip open the flimsy sheets and chew on the meat beneath. By the time the second body was carried down the garden, most of Mrs. Moreau’s face and all of her fingers were missing.

  When Betty went to help, she was grossed out at finding a hedgehog – when they pulled back the sheet – chewing on one of Mrs. Moreau’s big toes. She would never look at the little creatures the same way again.

  Cute? My arse, she thought, when she saw the blood and strips of flesh around the animal’s mouth. Aren’t they supposed to hibernate?

  When she approached it, the little thing made a hissing, growling sound. She booted the little spiky bundle down the garden.

  All washed and cleaned up; she had to start the main chore of the day. Even with everything going on, people still needed to eat. After only one day Mrs. Fredrick was eager to hand the responsibility back to Betty.

  In the freezer was five large turkeys, all bought ready for Christmas.

  Betty decided to cook a large Christmas roast. She had nothing better to do, and it would take her mind off worrying about Abel. Besides, they all had to eat, she needed to cook something regardless, and if the power went off for good, the meat would be ruined.

  After mixing twelve boxes of stuffing together she rammed it inside the poultry along with some skinned whole onions. She found it therapeutic, forcing her hand up a turkeys butt. She wondered what Sigmund Freud would make of that?

  The three large industrial cookers worked overtime with the five large turkeys wedged inside. She wrapped the sausages that were left in smoked bacon and placed them around the birds. After the potatoes were peeled by the large, noisy peeler, which simply tumbled them around inside until it scraped all the skin off, she boiled them and added them to the spitting trays, with some salt and pepper and mixed herbs.

  There weren’t any fresh vegetables left, so she had to make do with a bucket sized tin of mixed veg.

  Betty popped the lid off a large cranberry sauce jar, and filled little pots and placed one on each table. She then pulled a load of Christmas crackers off the massive tree and put them by the plate settings.

  Once the turkeys were carved and served, and everything was dished up, with lashings of bread sauce, all the residents pitched in, feeding those who couldn’t quite manage it.

  It might be the worse circumstances ever, but for an hour, while they all sat down for Christmas dinner, and then popped their crackers after, the world outside was forgotten.

  12

  Thursday 27th December 2012

  Day 12

  The day had arrived. People were allowed to travel the roads and collect what they needed between 10 AM and 8 PM.

  It was 9:56 AM.

  Betty made a plan with Mrs. Fredrick. They needed food and provisions, not to mention medicine. The nursing home’s sixteen seater minibus would be used to collect everything they needed. Four would go, so there were enough able-bodied people left behind to look after those in need.

  Mrs. Fredrick would drive. She stated she was the only one presently at work who was insured for the vehicle.

  Today Mrs. Fredrick had swapped her signature bright dress for a luminous yellow tracksuit, that Betty was sure circling satellites would be able to see.

  Betty had on a loose-fitting tracksuit as well, but hers was in a light teal with two white stripes down the side, as well as her comfy walking trainers. Her sleeves were rolled up with blue sweatbands on her wrists and one around her forehead, keeping her hair out of her eyes.

  There was also Mrs. Armstrong, which regardless of her name, which conjured up an image of a thickset, muscular person, was, in fact, a tall, stick thin, seventy-year-old who had chronic asthma and was blind in one eye, and had difficulty seeing out the other.

  The fourth member was Mr. Warre
n, a sixty-eight-year-old who looked like a potbellied accountant, and was partially deaf and hadn’t spoken a single word in four years.

  However, these were the fittest people available.

  Both Mrs. Armstrong and Mr. Warren were also in tracksuits, as if a memo had been sent out, or it was common knowledge that away missions required comfy, loose-fitting clothes.

  The four looked like a geriatric bowling team.

  They climbed in behind Mrs. Fredrick.

  The streets were busy. Cars rushed around ignoring the traffic lights. There were also a lot of abandoned cars along the side of the roads. Petrol was scarce; the petrol stations ran out within days.

  The closest supermarket was Sainsburys, down next to Penn Inn roundabout, literally down around the corner.

  They made the mistake of heading the back way. A low bridge led to the supermarket. There was a lorry wedged in it. What was left of the lorry had been set alight. The road was impassable.

  They had to backtrack, going back around Forde Park and down onto the main road.

  There were people everywhere.

  It seemed strange to Betty to see so many different people after only a week of being stuck in the same building, staring at the same faces.

  To go from everyone hiding inside, to seeing everyone pouring out onto the streets was unsettling.

  People were heading to the supermarket. A few were heading home, pushing shopping trolleys loaded with provisions. Obviously, they ignored the curfew and left early.

  The supermarket parking lot was complete chaos. Vehicles were parked every which way, with everyone trying to get as close to the main entrance as possible, while ignoring the car parking spaces.

  Mrs. Fredrick parked back next to McDonald’s, which was inside the supermarket’s large expanse of concrete.

  The burger joint was ransacked. The windows were smashed, with tables and chairs littering the drive-through, along with scattered, wet burger buns. There was a small, bright-red and black Smart car smashed into the ordering booth.