The Amoeba From The Ash

by Mercedes Prunty

  ~

  Glenn held Alicia’s hand, he could feel it hot, clammy and sweaty but also shaking. He imagined her insides fuelled by anger, he could feel the horror and fear emitting from her soul but also the need to find him. He knew she wouldn’t just leave without him, she would do something stupid to see him just one last time.

  The alarm was ringing in his ears, the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up alert on end. It wasn’t just the thought of Daniel being out there alone and hunting them but also the many now infected souls which would try to get them as they tried to hide the space rock and as they would soon try to find sanctuary back at Joel and Maria’s. He hoped to dear god that they would get out, that they would be safe again, that this soon would all be a distant memory and he and Alicia could start to make a life together. But he knew deep down that they could never forget the horrors that they had witnessed, the betrayal they had forced onto them and the big gaping holes that the loved ones they had lost would leave on their hearts.

  Suddenly Alicia stopped glancing behind them, it looked as if she was trying to listen to something behind the scream of the alarms. Joel stopped and raised his gun up still holding onto the case, his eyes trying to follow where Alicia’s were looking, then his eyes widened. “RUN!” he screamed grabbing Maria’s hand and dragging her along the corridor.

  Glenn turned to see a whole army of the turned chasing after them, their eyes focused on one thing, “The case Joel, drop the case!” He shouted as he also took Alicia’s hand and ran behind them.

  Joel listened and threw the case down a ‘T’ junction type corridor. Glenn watched as they flew past it and some of the turned army jumped after the box, howling and wailing at the thing that infected them all.

  “Ra-ah-ahl-ahli-ahlisha”.

  The word was mixed but Glenn knew what it was, who it was… Daniel stood standing in the middle of a crowd of hungry turned monsters.

  “Alicia, we need to leave now”, Glenn said pulling on her hand but she pushed him away.

  “Daniel… You… Remember me?”

  “Ahli-Shaaaaa”, he dribbled blood down his chin and onto his top.

  “Alicia come on, he’s not Daniel anymore”, Glenn pleaded with her, “He’s going to hurt you… Come on”.

  Joel and Maria had stopped by the staircase that led down the four flights to the ground floor, to their exit, to their escape… If only he could get Alicia to move.

  “Daniel… Is it really you?” she stepped forward holding out her hand to him, it shook from the fear and adrenaline that pumped ferociously through her body. The crowd of turned moaned in hunger in unison as she spoke to him.

  Daniel took a staggered step forward, his young feet struggling with the infection that riddled his small frame, “Ahli-Sha…Ahli-Sha…” Then he ran, “ARGHHHH!” his arms out stretched ready to grip onto her and bite down.

  She collapsed to her knees before he reached her, in shock, in pain and fully heartbroken. He didn’t remember her, it just sounded like he was saying her name but of course he wasn’t. He was just howling with the hunger, the pain and with the need to spread the awful amoeba.

  “Alicia get up, run!”

  Strong arms gripped Glenn’s shoulders, “She’s lost too mate, come on we need to go…” Joel told him.

  Glenn reluctantly stood and let Joel lead him away from the girl he loved, the girl who was willingly letting her brother come closer to take her with him.

  “I love you”, he whispered to her but it was no use, she was a statue, waiting to turn.

  Joel pulled him and they ran, him, Joel and Maria rushed down the stairs leaving them all behind… Leaving her behind…

  “NOOOOOOOO!” Alicia screamed at the top of her lungs. Glenn froze on the stairs but Joel kept a strong grip on him.

  “She’s gone now mate, she’s gone”.

  His heart shattered to pieces in his chest as they made it to the front door and the fresh wave of carnage outside.

  “NOOOOOOOO!”

  ~

  Alicia screamed, “NOOOOOOOO!” As she held a dying Daniel in her arms. He had run at her, pleaded with her in his eyes to stop the pain, to make it all go away. And she had. The knife clattered to her side covered in Daniels warm blood. His eyes fluttered up at her as she spoke cradling him, “I’m so sorry Daniel that I let you down, tell mum and dad I’m so sorry I let them down too… I love you… I love you all”.

  “Ah-Sha…” he coughed and then stopped moving, the wound in his chest too great for the infection.

  “NOOOOOO!” she cried again as time sped up around her and the rest of the turned looked at her, their attention no longer on the box in the corridor as one of them had smashed it open and had the space rock laid bare in their grubby bloody hands.

  She laid him down and snatched up her knife, swinging it at the ones who came closer to her ‘Daniel’ than she would allow but within moments she was tiring and her stabs were not always hitting home. They grouped around her, their teeth readying for the final bite that would seal her fate.

  BANG! BANG! BANG! One by one the ones closest to her fell like flies. Turning she spotted Joel at the stairs, “RUN!” he shouted aiming and taking out more.

  She took one last look at Daniel lying on the floor before the horde of the diseased, feet trampling over and crushing his broken body and then fled, the corridor around her flying past in a blurred mess and she made it to the stairs and Joel shoved her in front of him and forced her to jump almost five to six steps at a time. The turned were chasing them but they were faster than the monsters, adrenaline keeping their legs pumping to get to the outside, the hunger not making the turned faster… Hope and life made the humans run faster.

  “This way”, Joel said pulling her arm and dragging her out the shattered front door onto the steps that led down to a bloodbath of a city.

  BEEP! BEEP! She spun her head to see Maria in a car, not the truck they had come here with but a flashy looking BMW with tinted windows. “Come on”, Maria called and Joel ran with her, turning round and blasting out a few shots into the wails behind them. Like a scene she had seen before almost a lifetime ago Glenn opened the back door just as they reached the car and Joel practically threw Alicia in head first, then he jumped in after.

  “Maria floor it”, he commanded and she done as she was told, spinning the car on the spot to drive in the wrong traffic direction which was slightly clearer and they fled the now surrounded CDC building.

  Alicia sat up and looked out of the back window, watched as all the bodies became tiny ant like shapes the further they got away until they became nothing and then it was just the view of the CDC building growing smaller until it too became just a small speck of dust in the dead city.

  “Where you bitten?” Joel asked her lifting her sleeves, lifting her top and checking her neck and legs.

  She couldn’t speak so she just shook her head.

  “You did it Alicia”, Glenn said trying to comfort her, “You saved him”.

  Tears began to flow uncontrollably down her face as she fell into his arms. Was it over now? Would this nightmare ever end for them?

  3 Weeks Later, Nantucket Island

  Alicia stood on the balcony that looked out over the ocean from the hotel room herself and Glenn had been assigned by the mayor of Nantucket. It was now their small makeshift apartment, it wasn’t as if the tourists would use it anymore anyway she mused.

  Joel and Maria had fought to keep them on the Island, at first the people were angry, scared and frightened and didn’t want the sick English to be in their town when the rest of America was falling into the illness that the English had smuggled over but soon enough with the help of new news reports coming in that the truth really was about the ash coming from Germany and not from the English they came to accept them… Slowly but surely.

  Then an influx of refugees began to arrive from all corners of the planet. What was left of the President and his government then assigned them all to new hom
es and gave them new citizenship when it was found that they didn’t carry the disease. Some refugees were also sent to their hotel, all of them haunted but lucky to be alive.

  Joel had got them both jobs working on a farm by the coast so they could keep busy. Which was important for Alicia who was now suffering from nightmares, suicidal thoughts and post-traumatic stress but Maria was keeping a close eye on her new friend. Every day she saw the image of her Daniel, his eyes, his pleading eyes.

  She shook her head and ventured inside and turned on the television. Like Glenn had told her and the others had told her the army did come and fix everything, well almost everything. They had lain low for a couple of weeks until the infected began to drop like flies. Just like Rosetta had predicted the amoeba eventually killed off all their brain function and rendered them dead and with no one else to infect with everyone in hiding or dead the amoeba also died out.

  Joel had contacted the army and told them about the deadly space rock still in the CDC building but as of yet it hadn’t been located, one of the infected had obviously taken it out and died somewhere with it still in their decaying hands... It could take months or even years to find it but one day it would be found and disposed of.

  Everyone knew it was going to take a long time for the world to recover, for America to rise up again and to one day travel out to the far lands when the time was right and try and build up any settlements of survivors over sea’s but for now it was just nice to breathe in the fresh air, to know that the sickness was gone, the ash had dispersed in the atmosphere, the Earth naturally cleansing itself, the infection had vanished with the dead and that America had survived. Yes there had been a lot of infected but there were still millions of survivors. The news had commented on how Alicia’s outburst at the CDC was caught on camera and shown across news channels and people had followed her advice and not Rosetta’s. They had survived by killing the infected, they had survived by working together and not resting on the hope of a vaccine.

  Alicia sat on the sofa and rested her head back and pulled out something from her top, it was badly damaged by the sea water and had crusted as it had dried but she had it none the less and could just make out the picture. The picture of herself and Ellen, Ellen the girl who had been her first experience with the infection, the first person she had killed, the first person who had made her stronger and made her want to survive. She closed her eyes and felt numb inside but also thankful, thankful to Ellen for helping her even though she would never know how she had helped. How that incident at the college had made Alicia who she was now, a hardened, heartbroken survivor but a survivor anyhow. She also held close Tabitha’s ring, she too would never know, that they both helped her to live on.

  “Alicia”. The door to their hotel room opened, it was Glenn.

  “Yes?”

  “I have something to ask you?”

  She opened her eyes and looked at the man who now sat beside her, “What is it?”

  “I found this”, he passed it to her, “In the bin”.

  It was her knife.

  “I can’t bear to look at it”, she replied.

  “I know, but I think we should keep it. It saved you countless times. It’s a good luck charm and you never know when you might need it again”.

  She nodded, “Ok, as long as I can’t see it”.

  He took out a small metal safe that was normally in hotel wardrobes from under the hotel sofa and placed it inside and locked it, “It’s in there ok”.

  “Ok”.

  He leant forward and kissed her gently on the forehead, “I’m going to work, I’ll see you later”. He then stood and went to the door.

  “Glenn wait”.

  He paused at the door.

  “I…Love you”.

  He smiled, “Love you too”, tears had welled up in his eyes at her saying it to him. He had always told her how he felt, to try and get her to trust him again and now she did, she trusted him and loved him.

  They had survived together…

  And would be together until the day they died…

  36 Years Earlier

  Deep in the hidden crevices of space, spiralling silently were the many galaxies and the wonderment that is the universe. One that is home to all humans, the Milky Way is spiralling peacefully and flashing with all the stars and the hot sun that warmed the Earth and made life. But sitting right at the edge of the galaxy was a cold and desolate planet, unknown and dead to look at but below the ice-cold surface it is very much alive. Not in the sense of plant life, animals and humans but bacteria and microorganisms that made this planet their home.

  Liquid water bubbled and popped under the frozen crusted layer that made the hard crust of the surface, being heated rapidly by a hidden heat source at the core. Hot lava rose up and pushed, forcing the water up and out through cracks that were appearing, shattering like glass. Hisses sounded as the hot water was flushed out through the cracks forming huge geysers. In the cracks that the water funnelled out from there was something living and thriving there.

  The hot and the cold came together and made the perfect breeding ground for a small parasitic like microorganism, it thrived in a way that was smart and dangerous, changing to suit its climate, eating and consuming whatever was possible from gases, to solids and to small atoms in the air. But it needed something else, it needed something more, a host of sorts to blend with, to become a toxic concoction.

  CRACK! BOOM!

  In the silence of space no one heard the almighty explosion as the geyser became so powerful and ripped a chunk of space rock from the planet and sent it whizzing into the air. Spiralling through the galaxy it flew, twisted and turned, guided by the gravitational pull of small moons, small planets and the eventual pull of the sun.

  It travelled for half a lifetime, just gliding silently through space, waiting to be caught by a stronger gravitational pull… 36 years later it hit the Earth’s pull but merely travelled along, not getting into the atmosphere, not until another small space rock collided with it and sent it in to the Earth’s atmosphere and it flew through the Ozone layer, hurtling towards Germany. Flames licked at the rock that had shrunk over the years, no bigger than a large pebble. It made a hissing noise as it whistled through the air and finally, CRASH, BANG, BOOM! It collided with the volcanic lake that was Laacher See, causing a mighty volcanic eruption. The already present amoeba that was lying in the waters was hit with the new bacteria which melded and formed together, the parasite had found its new host. The explosion pummelled up ash high into the skies, the new mixture of the amoeba and parasite clung to the ash and began to move through the weather system.

  Readying to infect the whole planet with its lethal chemical reaction. They became the Brain-Eating Amoeba, the deadly parasitic organism, The Amoeba from the Ash!!!

  The End…

  Thank you for purchasing my novel… The Amoeba from the Ash and I hope you enjoyed it. If you did can you kindly leave a review for me on Amazon and Goodreads. All reviews help authors like me and it would be great to see what you thought of this story.

  Many thanks,

  Mercedes Prunty. .x.