Finally, the truck drives through of the second tunnel and rushes down the I-76 Highway.
They don’t travel much further when the land and the road starts to shake again.
Through the windshield, in the middle of the night, Chandra and Forster see a wave of black giants galloping through the field on the side of the road.
Chandra asks herself.
“What’s now?”
They are immense animals, larger than elephants and taller than giraffes running madly toward them.
Chandra speeds but the flock reach the truck.
It’s a crowd of giant turkeys running scared, stepping and pecking the vehicles that get in their way.
Chandra makes tight turns zigzagging between the sturdy legs and beaks, avoiding being crushed.
The animals’ feet raise dirt and asphalt producing a thick cloud of dust.
The flock runs away, disappearing into the night. Chandra stops the truck at the roadside, leaning on the wheel, stressed.
Dr. Forseter put a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
Chandra looks up. Threatening noises approach everywhere.
“Let’s get out of here, I can’t imagine what could come now.”
She starts the engine driving back to the road, speeding away.
Chapter 25. Arriving in Philly
Minutes later, passing by a nearby Philadelphia’s suburban area, they see through the windshield lots of flashes of police, firefighters and rescue vehicles.
Chandra tries to see in the dark.
“What’s happening over there?”
There are several fires and thick clouds of smoke. Shots are heard, and people are fleeing.
Suddenly, a flock of shadows crosses the highway. They look like giant turtles, but they run fast.
Suddenly, the lights of the truck light up a group of huge cockroaches.
Chandra scares up making tight turns to avoid them, but she hits one. The huge cockroach falls on its back over the hood of the truck, smashing it.
Chandra yells scared while the animal kicks over the hood.
Chandra makes a sudden turn making the cockroach fall from the truck.
The other cars on the highway hit the brakes or make turns to avoid the animals. There are collisions, overturns, explosions and fires among the vehicles on the freeway.
Chandra steps on the accelerator making tight turns to avoid the animals and the other vehicles
Chandra is shocked.
“Critters also? What do they have to do with Mutanex?”
“They have access to pets’ food,” clarifies Forseter, “that explains everything.”
Chandra drives the truck toward a ramp, leaving the highway into the residential streets of Torresdale, Philadelphia.
They hear sirens, shootings, screaming, and rumble.
In an interception, Chandra must give way to patrol cars, firefighters’ trucks and ambulances that pass rushing with their sirens and flashing lights on.
In the next intersection, Chandra must hit the brakes as a colossal opossum runs with a dead body in its mouth.
A SWAT team truck chases it, firing their guns at the monster.
Chandra and Forseter freeze in awe.
“I thought this was an environmental disaster,” she says, “but it is an apocalypse!”
Dr. Forseter comments, amazed.
“Yes, the animal apocalypse, the Animalypse!”
Chandra stares at him, puzzled.
Chandra turns into a side-street which seems to be calm, driving all the way to a mansion surrounded by a wall.
Chapter 26. Wilkison’s Mansion
Dr. Forster's truck arrives at the gate of Dr. Wilkinson’s house.
Chandra rolls down the window and makes a call through the intercom.
A ringing tone is heard. Alicia, Dr. Wilkinson’s maid, answers with a strong Spanish accent.
“Hello, who’s this?”
“Hi, Alicia, this is Chandra, could you let me in, please?”
“Sure, señorita Chandra, come in, por favor!”
The gate opens automatically. Chandra drives the truck in through the driveway to the mansion’s front.
Dr. Wilkinson opens the front door of her house with joy and runs out to greet Chandra.
Alicia, a little and fat middle-aged Hispanic maid, stays in the doorway with a smile.
Dra. Wilkison approaches the truck.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? You shouldn’t be out there in this chaos!”
Chandra steps out of the truck and gives a hug to her mother.
“Are you okay, Mom? I couldn’t call you. I’ve found Dr. Forseter!”
Dr. Wilkison looks surprised at the truck.
Dr. Forseter steps out of the truck and approaches her with an ironic smile.
“Hello, professor.”
Dra. Wilkison is startled.
“Heinrich?”
On hearing a scream, they turn to the door.
A strongman in black fatigues and ski mask, armed with an assault rifle, has taken Alicia by the back putting a knife to her neck.
Chandra draws her gun aiming the attacker.
“Stop, FBI! Let her go and throw down your weapon!”
She hears a laugh and turns back.
Another strongman in black fatigues and ski mask, armed with an assault rifle, holds the clip of her gun. A dozen attackers surround them.
Dra. Wilkison gets scared.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
The second attacker approaches her menacingly.
“Shut the fuck up! Get into the house, now!”
Some attackers take off their ski masks.
A slim but strong attacker of Asian descent tries to take Dr. Wilkinson’s arm. Chandra intercedes and gives him a karate chop to his throat, knocking him down.
Another attacker, tall, of African descent, with bulky muscles, tries to catch Chandra but she throws him over her shoulder with a jiu-jitsu move.
The defeated men whine and scarf with anger. The rest of the attackers laugh at them.
A Goliath with criminal face and a shaved head mocks the downed.
“This girl surely has kicked your asses!”
A couple of attackers take Dr. Wilkinson and drag her into the house.
Dra. Wilkison yells to her daughter.
“Chandra, run!”
Chandra tries to go after her mother, but the attackers surround her and play to attack her, laughing.
Chandra throws punches with hands and feet, keeping them at bay.
A big blond beast wants to make fun at Chandra and attacks her with a shout of martial arts.
Chandra kicks him in the balls. He falls screaming in pain.
The rest of the Attackers laugh at the fallen surrounding Chandra.
The only one who hasn’t entered the game takes off his ski mask with anger. It is Molotov. He approaches Chandra from behind raising his rifle over his head.
Chandra turns back seeing the butt of a gun rushing toward her face.
There is a blow. Everything does a somersault and goes dark.
Chapter 27. Molotov
Rowan McGregor was a big fat, curly-redheaded and freckled kid. He was born and grew up in a hippy community. Its organizers tried to bring to reality every Utopian thought and experiment on history, from the Plato’s Republic to Karl Marx’s pre-communist ideas from 1844 manuscripts, passing through Thomas More’s Utopia, Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, Robert Owen’s communes, Charles Fourier’s Phalanx and so on.
Everything was common, housing, food, clothes, bathrooms, beds, sex, drugs, and even children as no one can say for sure who was parent or child from whom. It was a mess of any spiritual trend, from Buddhism, Hara Krishna, astrology, to a mix of American and Australian natives’ beliefs. In the end, the only clear thing was the adoration of life and nature, very near to Celtic Animism, drugs and sex.
One of the animist “gurus” of the commune
used to gather the children to talk about the holiness of all natural things in contrast to the demonic nature of humans’ products. He never finished any of his lectures or sermons passing out completely drugged and drunk.
Rowan used to have a lot of energy and hostility so his “parents” and “siblings” use to give him long immersion baths with herbs and mushrooms along with collective soothing massages to calm him down. He loved so much those treatments that frequently pretended terrible tantrums to be “treated” repeatedly.
One night, the police came to evict the camp, under the allegations of drug possession and dealing, the children situation and, moreover, because its owner had declared bankruptcy.
He saw how all his “mothers,” “fathers,” “uncles,” and “aunts” were taken to prison, and he and all his “brothers” were sent to foster homes scattered all over the state.
Although the “spiritual education” he had received rejecting violence and in behalf peaceful resistance, Rowan became a very violent and rebellious boy.
He was the bully of all the kids at school, and at each of the many foster homes, he was sent through his infant and adolescence life. No one could control him. The last of his adoptive fathers decided to put him in a martial arts school to canalize all the anger, strength and energy, encouraging him to enter the army as soon as he turned 17.
Rowan learned the military discipline the hard way until he discovered that being a warrior was his real nature. He became the opposite of what he has been until that moment, training night and day to be the perfect soldier. He even passed the SEAL test period and began the training until he injured one of his superiors in a fight, going to a military jail and being dishonorably discharged afterward.
Civilian life received Rowan as rebellious as ever. He joined several motorcycle clubs, enjoying fights in bars and gatherings, frequently going to jail.
He also took advantage of every protest he knew about to get involved in all kind of vandalisms, attacking stores, burning autos, and throwing Molotov cocktails at police. Since then, he got Molotov as his nom de guerre.
On one of these protests, he met the love of his life, Lilith, an almost completely tattooed girl who was a militant from Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), and Greenpeace.
She lived in a trailer house full of dogs, cats, piglets, birds, plants, dirt, dung and bugs, bringing Molotov to live with her as her new mascot.
Lilith inspired Rowan to renew his love for animals, nature, and vegetarianism, as much as to hate capitalism, government, farmers, hunters, and everything that they considered an enemy of natural life.
His renewed love for nature make him enroll at the Pennsylvania University to study biology, being briefly Dr. Wilkison’s student but he got expelled very soon because of his activism and violent behavior.
Lilith and Molotov spent most of their time protesting and making propaganda against almost everything. They needed to take their action further. So, they began sabotaging everything that polluted the environment, committed animal cruelty, and threatened the biodiversity.
They planned and attacked industrial, extraction and farming facilities, burning them down and even bombing them.
On their eco-terrorist group was an undercover FBI and they were ambushed on one of their attacks. They respond firing at the police. Molotov was injured, and Lilith was killed. Molotov spent some years in prison mourning his late love.
Once he was released from jail, he was contacted by a different organization, the one called The Green World Order, who was recruiting proven eco-activists with a military background.
After several meetings, Molotov was sent to Brazil to combat gold diggers who were disforesting Amazon forests.
Amazonia was the paradise for Molotov’s violent character. He could shoot and kill anyone freely in a place without law and God.
Molotov and his mercenary colleagues attack the gold miners, the drug producers, and the illegal farmers’ camps and the natives’ villages, burning, beating and killing anyone on behalf of the pristine forest.
Soon, by his roughness and loyalty to the cause, Molotov rose the ranks of the Green World Order’s mercenary army meeting, at last, its supreme leader.
Chapter 28. We’ve Helped a Lot
In the darkness, Chandra hears voices as if she were underwater. She opens her eyes with difficulty. Her vision is blurry and unfocused.
Something blocks her view. She groans.
She discovers that she is tied up, hanging by her hands from a pipe at Dr. Wilkinson’s basement. She shakes trying to break free.
Dr. Wilkison is curing her face injuries and speaks to her in a low, warm voice.
“Be calm, honey, I’m only healing these wounds. Don’t move.”
Chandra moans. Her broken nose oozes blood. She has a black eye and cuts on her face.
Molotov shouts at them
“No talking, bitches!”
Chandra wakes up finally, yelling back.
“Let me go, you bastard! I’m an FBI agent!”
Molotov slaps Chandra. Dr. Wilkison faces him.
“You, coward! You surely love hitting handcuffed women!”
Molotov gives Dr. Wilkison a hard push, throwing her to the floor.
Chandra shakes with all her strength trying to free herself.
“Son of a bitch!”
Molotov addresses Dr. Wilkison angrily.
“Fuck you, hag.”
And, turns toward Chandra.
“You are no FBI, no anything! You’re out of the game, bitch!”
Dr. Forseter approaches and helps Dr. Wilkison to stand up. He turns to Chandra.
“This has been very unfortunate. We didn’t want to hurt you, but you react irrationally.”
Chandra is surprised.
“You…! Are you part of this? But, why?”
Molotov rebukes Forseter.
“I don’t understand why you insist on being so considerate with these bitches.”
Dr. Forseter tries to smooth things.
“Take it easy, Aizik.”
Chandra calms down and studies everything around her.
Dr. Wilkinson’s basement is part library, part laboratory.
Besides Forseter and Molotov, there are half a dozen attackers in fatigues and assault rifles.
Molotov takes a remote control, turns the TV set on and searches channels to find the news. Dr. Forseter and other attackers follow the news with interest.
The TV screen shows Philadelphia’s vegetation growing at a glance massively. Trees, shrubs and grass lawns grow uncontrollably
The vegetation rises the asphalt and sidewalks of the street, breaking the pipes of water, sewer, gas, and power lines. It pierces walls and demolishes buildings.
A TV anchor narrates the latest developments with an alarmed voice.
“Chaos has taken over the main cities in Pennsylvania with massive attacks of animals and the impetuous growth of vegetation.”
Amid the vegetation’s chaos, a stampede of thousands of giant bulls, pigs, muttons, goats and sheep, bigger than elephants with huge jars and disproportionate muscles under the thick wool sweeps downtown Philadelphia, crushing cars, trampling and attacking pedestrians.
The TV anchor talks with alarm.
“Family pets and farm animals have become aggressive monsters, attacking and razing everything in their path.”
A security camera view shows a pack of cats bigger than tigers, with heavy musculatures and terrible jaws and claws, chasing people throughout a mall. They attack and destroy everything and everyone.
On a shopping center, police officers try in vain to stop a pack of hounds bigger than horses shooting at them. The dogs attack the cops, dismembering them.
The TV anchor gives another point of view.
“Crowds of criminals take advantage of the chaos to create disorder and vandalizing properties.”
Several security cameras give the view of vandals shattering windows and break
ing into different stores and stealing appliances, clothing, etc.
“However, vandals are also victims of plants and animals’ ferocity,” says the anchor.
A security camera captures a group of vandals crushed by the collapse of a building caused by the growth of plants.
Another surveillance camera films a group of thieves breaking a window of a Pet-Shop. Suddenly, vandals try to flee, but some couldn’t make it.
Dozens of exotic animals turned into monsters attack the thieves. There are white rats the size of large dogs and chameleons bigger than crocodiles.
A group of vandals tries to escape in a car, but a boa constrictor the size of a train swallows the car completely.
Molotov shuts down the TV.
“There is no time to lose! Let’s take the hag to the lab!”
Dr. Wilkison turns to him.
“What do you want from me?”
Dr. Forseter responds.
“Short and simple: we need your nanobots.”
Chandra can’t get out of her confusion.
“Why you treat us this way. I also wanted to stop the effects of Mutanex.”
Molotov, Dr. Forseter, and the Attackers look at each other, laughing. Chandra and Dr. Wilkinson look at each other, puzzled.
Chandra gets upset.
“Have I said something funny?”
Dr. Forseter approaches her.
“To be fair, we shouldn’t give Saint Mount all the credits for this catastrophe.”
Chandra shakes her head without understanding.
“What do you mean?”
Dr. Forseter smiles.
“We have undoubtedly helped a lot.”
“You… How?” Asks Dr. Wilkison.
Dr. Forseter enjoys the explanation.
“Remember what I told you about Hypergenex?”
Chandra responds:
“You told me that it is intended to neutralize Mutanex, right?”
“Actually, it’s quite the opposite,” reveals Forseter, “Mutanex produces gentle monsters while Hypergenex enhances its action.”
“How do you do that?” Inquires Dr. Wilkison.
Dr. Forseter continues.
“Hypergenex replaces the Mutanex’s restrictive enzyme by another that allows an accelerated cell reproduction up to the very threshold of cancer, preventing it from becoming tumors.”
Animalypse Page 8