Days 9 to 16

by Amy Cross

  Copyright 2015 Amy Cross

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.

  First published: November 2013

  as Mass Extinction Event: The Complete Second Series

  This edition: July 2018

  Finally realizing that she has to leave the city, Elizabeth sets out alone along a deserted road. Eventually, however, she encounters some fellow survivors, and before long she's taken to a remote farmhouse where a small community is struggling to take shape. She soon discovers, however, that this particular farmhouse hides some dark secrets.

  Meanwhile, Thomas also encounters some other survivors, although he soon finds himself trapped in a battle for survival. Captured and held prisoner in a basement, he begins to realize that he might never find a way out.

  Days 9 to 16 is the third book in the Mass Extinction Event series, continuing the story of a worldwide apocalypse seen from the eyes of two very different people in two very different parts of the US.

  Table of Contents

  Day Nine

  Day Ten

  Day Eleven

  Day Twelve

  Day Thirteen

  Day Fourteen

  Day Fifteen

  Day Sixteen

  Mass Extinction Event:

  The Complete Second Series (Days 9 to 16)

  Day Nine

  Prologue

  "It's this cough," the guy says, his voice sounding strained. "It's just not going away. I swear, I've never had anything like it."

  Sitting a few seats away on the bus, Joseph can't help but smile. The two men near the front have been discussing their health problems for a few minutes now, and one of them in particular seems to be struggling with a cough that he just can't keep under control. Ordinarily, Joseph would have moved to the back of the bus in order to avoid the chance he might catch something, but this time he has no such worries. He knows exactly what's happening, and he knows that he already has the same infection. Well, 'infection' is a strong word. To everyone else on the planet, it's an infection, but to Joseph, it's just... life.

  "If you're coughing blood," the guy's friend says, "you should go see a doctor. That shit's serious."

  "It was only a few specks," the first guy replies. "I've been coughing so much, I've probably just torn something in the back of my throat. You know how it is." He pauses to cough again. "You hear that?" he adds eventually. "It's fucking deep on my chest, man. It's not fun. I was starting to think it might be pneumonia, but it's not. It's just a fucking kick-ass cold."

  "Better be," his friends says. "I don't want to catch anything."

  "I'm not sneezing on you, am I?"

  "It's in the air, man. It's like, when you cough and sneeze, all these little droplets are left hanging for hours, and they're all over everything. When you're sick, you should go to bed and stay there instead of coming out and infecting people. It's selfish!"

  "Whatever."

  "I'm serious! You come out here, coughing and spluttering and all that shit, and you're infecting everyone in your path! It's pretty bad, man. Can't you just ride it out at home? This kind of stuff spreads like wildfire. God knows how many people you've infected already. All the people on this bus are probably messed up, for one thing."

  Joseph looks out the window. He knows exactly what's going to happen over the next few days, and he knows that these men are going to be utterly unable to do anything about it. His most recent calculations suggest that the spread will be at least 99.5%, if not more, and it's already clear that these two specimens are going to be among the first to die. There's a part of him that would like to warn them, but Joseph knows that the best thing is just to let everything proceed as planned. It's tempting to think that maybe he could turn back, but even if he was having true second thoughts, he couldn't undo anything. The wheels are in motion, and the plan is unstoppable. The spread must be massive by now, traveling not only through the streets of the city, but also extending its reach all around the world. He can't help but think of all the people moving through airports, unaware that they're spreading the seed of their own destruction.

  "You okay?" asks a voice nearby.

  Turning, Joseph finds that a woman is staring at him with a concerned expression. She looks like a typical busy-body, the kind of person Joseph hates. In fact, she reminds him of his grand-mother, the woman who raised him and ruined his life, turning him into a miserable, bullied child. He has to remind himself to stay calm, because there's a part of him that would dearly like to grab the old bitch and cause her some proper pain. For a moment, he allows himself to fantasize about bouncing her face off the back of the seat, smashing her skull and then watching as the blood flows all over the floor.

  "I asked if you're okay," the woman continues. "Can you hear me?"

  "I'm fine," he replies gruffly.

  "You know you've got a nose-bleed, don't you?" she asks. "It's, like..." She pauses, staring at him.

  Wiping his upper lip, Joseph finds that there is, indeed, a trickle of blood. Pulling a tissue from his pocket, he gives it a quick wipe. He hadn't expected to get so many symptoms himself, and he's a little surprised that he didn't manage to notice the blood moving down his face, but he figures he's just been distracted lately.

  "You got a fever?" the woman continues, peering at him with a hint of suspicion. "You don't look well. Are you sweating? You got a high temperature?"

  "No," Joseph snaps at her. "Of course I haven't got a fever. Have you got a fever?"

  "I was just asking -"

  "Why?" Joseph asks. "Why is my health any of your business? You should be more worried about yourself. Seriously, do you have any idea what's coming? Or are you so stupid, you can't even piece together all the signs? Are you just another typical human idiot?"

  The woman stares at him.

  "Of course you are," he sneers. "You're just like all of them. No-one's gonna give a damn about you. You're no more intelligent than a cow or a pig. You're the perfect example of why I..." He catches himself just in time, realizing that he was close to telling her the truth. She'd never have believed him, of course, but still, he figures he doesn't need to add any complications. "Forget it," he says eventually. "Just... leave me alone and go back to whatever you were doing, huh? Get on with your mundane fucking life, while you still can."

  Raising an eyebrow, the woman sits back, clearly not impressed by Joseph's tone. He doesn't care, though. All that matters to him, right now, is getting back to his apartment so that he can await the end. After building up to this moment for so long, he's becoming impatient, and he figures he's probably allowed himself to come out into the world a little too much lately. He should have cocooned himself away much sooner and relied on twenty-four hour news channels to keep him updated. It's as mistake he won't make again. As he turns to look back out the window, he watches the world and tries to imagine how things will be in a couple of weeks. There'll be a few survivors, of course, but he's confident that they'll be mopped up soon enough. They'll be the unlucky ones, in a way, because their deaths will take longer, and because they'll have some understanding of what's happening. He looks forward to speaking to them, from the other side.

  ***

  The cough gets worse on the second day. Much worse.

  Standing by the window, Joseph looks out at the playground near his apartment. It's getting late, but there are still some children playing on the swings. As he continues to cough, Joseph can't stop watching the children, wondering what they might have grown up to become. Politicians? Civic leaders? Inventors? Criminals
? He figures they'd probably be a random mix, but there's a part of him that regrets taking any their chance to find out for themselves. Watching them, he realizes that they'll never be anything more than a group of children. They'll never grow up and have their own families. They'll never get old. In a way, they'll be frozen in time. He's never thought about the children before, but now he realizes that he's doomed them all.

  He pauses to cough again.

  When he was a child, Joseph had plenty of friends. The problem was that they were all idiots, at least as far as he was concerned. He used to play with them only because he knew it was expected of him, and because he didn't want to let anyone know that he hated other people. Even at a young age, he had a strong streak of self-preservation, and he was fully aware that the slightest hint of weirdness would most likely lead to him being booked in for counseling sessions. He'd known a boy named Bobby who, after going to various sessions, had been pulled from school and sent off to some special academy for 'troubled' children. Joseph most certainly didn't want to meet the same fate, so he'd learned to be a chameleon and blend in. For many years now, it had been a successful strategy.

  The only problem, in the old days, was his family. There weren't many of them, but they definitely seemed to suspect that something was wrong with him, even if they never came right out and said anything. He'd notice them occasionally, glancing at him as if they expected him to be doing something strange or unusual. Over the years, these moments had merely reinforced Joseph's belief that he was 'weird' and 'special'. He'd tried to keep out of their way as much as possible, even though he knew that this, in itself, probably reinforced their suspicions. Eventually, he just gave up caring what they thought, and he accepted that he and his family would never get along. Now, on the brink of his greatest victory, he pauses to imagine what they'd all think if they could see him now, if they knew that he would be the man who'd bring the world to its knees and then force it to be reborn in a powerful new form.

  Coughing again, he looks at his hand and sees a few specks of blood. He'd never expected to be affected like this, but he's still sure that the virus won't kill him. After all, viruses don't tend to cannibalize their own kind. He figures the virus is adapting and learning, and that it'll take a little while before it recognizes its master. In a day or two, his symptoms will clear up, just as everyone else is getting worse and worse, and that's how he'll finally be certain that his plan has worked. He's already looking forward to the moment of victory, and he knows it'll taste all the sweeter if it comes after a period of suffering. Letting out another cough, he can't help but laugh as he thinks of the virus spreading across the world, carrying its unique genetic make-up everywhere it goes. Never before, in the history of mankind, has such an empire been built; never before, he reasons, has one man been in control of such a powerful army. Most other would-be rulers tried to gather men to fight for them; Joseph, on the other hand, came up with a much better idea, and he's seeing the fruits of his work right now. They're everywhere.

  He watches as the children turn and head inside. He hopes that their last night of life will be something particularly enjoyable, although he figures that they'll just waste their time with video games and other pointless activities. He knows, deep down, that while he might enjoy pretending that these children would grow up to be something great, the reality is that they'd most likely drift through life on a cloud of distaste and boredom. Although he's keen not to award himself too many accolades, he can't help but feel that in a way he's improving the world by ridding it of all these pointless people. He knows that his victims will never see it that way, but he remains convinced that eventually, after a few weeks, maybe a month or two, the transformation will be complete. Once the main phase is over, he'll be able to pick off the survivors, and then he'll be able to step back and admire his proud new world.

  Turning from the window, he walks slowly across the gloomy apartment, stopping eventually to look at the silent TV screen. A news show is reporting on some kind of car crash on the interstate, and for a moment Joseph is dazzled by the images. The camera shows twisted metal frames being lifted by cranes, while police and fire officers stand around. There are a few ambulances parked nearby, and a strap-line along the bottom of the screen notes that three people have already died in the accident while another two have been taken to hospital. Seconds later, the image changes to become a shot of the news anchor, and Joseph leans closer to the TV, examining the pixels that constitute the man's mouth. Slowly, almost without thinking about what he's doing, Joseph starts to mouth the words he imagines the news anchor saying. Placing his eye as close to the screen as possible, he eventually sees the pixels for what they really are: little dancing patches of light, like a virus heaving and throbbing as it changes and grows. Eventually, a smile starts to spread across Joseph's face.

  Elizabeth

  New York

  Turning, I look back at the city. With the sun starting to rise above the horizon, Manhattan has a kind of deathly thrall, and a low mist hangs between the buildings. It looks almost like a toy town, made to be populated by little plastic figures of men and women. It's hard to believe that this place was once my home.

  I buried Henry in Central Park. Although I considered leaving him where he fell, another part of my mind took over, telling me to keep busy. I found a shovel and a wheelbarrow in Bob's tool room and I managed to get my brother's dead body through the dark streets, finally reaching Central Park just a few hours ago. Digging a grave was the hardest physical labor I've ever had to endure, but I was determined to get it right. I dug long and I dug deep, emptying my mind and just focusing on the pure sensation of the soil being ripped from the ground. To be honest, I probably dug further than six feet, and I think I kind of ended up on some kind of auto-pilot. Finally, snapping out of my daze, I realized the grave was ready, so I climbed out and rolled Henry's body into the pit. When he landed at the bottom, there was a snapping sound, which I guess means one of his bones broke. I said a little made-up prayer and then I shoveled all the soil back into the pit, and I broke off some branches and made a very basic makeshift cross. Hell, I'm not even religious, but I made a cross. I don't really know why.

  And then I left.

  Now I'm out here on one of the long roads that leads away from the city. I'm heading north-west, I think, following the signs for Chicago. I've got a vague plan to look for Mallory and the others, although they must be way ahead by now and I guess the odds of ever meeting them again are low. Still, I have to try something. Trudging along the road, with a couple of Bob's rifles slung over my shoulder, I keep well away from any cars that I happen to pass. It's strange, but I feel incredibly calm. I guess the full impact of the past twenty-four hours - hell, the past nine days - hasn't really hit me yet. I haven't properly thought about what happened to Henry, or about those final moments with Bob. I'm just focused on the empty horizon and the prospect of one day finding somewhere new. I guess I'll cry and get upset when I reach a new home. Until then, I have to stay strong. And blank.

  The truth is, I haven't even cried. Not properly. My own brother died, and although I can feel the tears behind my eyes, I can't get them out. What does that make me? Am I in shock, or am I just some kind of monster?

  In the distance, I can see the airport. To the best of my knowledge, that's where my parents were when this whole thing started. For the past week, I've been desperate to go out there and look for them, but now I feel the opposite: I don't even like seeing the place. I mean, the odds of finding them alive are miniscule, and the terminal buildings are probably just a bunch of tombs. Stopping for a moment and taking a swig from a bottle of water, I stare at the distant airport and realize that there's no movement at all. In fact, as I turn in a complete circle, I realize that there's no movement anywhere. It's as if, as far as the eye can see, I'm the only living thing.

  And then I hear a noise.

  Turning, I look at the road ahead. Maybe I'm going crazy, but I heard something. It was just
a kind of scrabbling sound, like feet on rough ground, but there's no way I'm going to take any unnecessary risks. Slipping one of the rifles off my shoulder, I stay completely still, staring at the half dozen cars skewed on the tarmac. My heart's racing as I wait for some kind of sign, some indication of what caused that noise. Slowly, I take a couple of steps forward, hoping to get a better view, but there's still nothing. Taking a deep breath, I realize I can't handle the uncertainty. If there's something nearby, even if it's something bad, I want to know right now.

  "Hey!" I call out, my voice cutting through the vast silence. "Over here!"

  No reply.

  I take a couple of steps forward.

  "If you want me," I shout, "come and get me!"

  Nothing.

  "There's no -" I continue, before stopping as I hear the noise again. Somehow it seems further away, almost as if it's coming from beyond the edge of the road. I guess I could just hurry along and hope that, whatever it is, it doesn't cause me any bother. Still, I feel as if I want to know exactly what I'm up against. Despite the fact that I know I'm taking an unnecessary risk, I walk cautiously over to the other side of the road, keeping the rifle pointed forward as I approach the barrier that runs along the edge of the carriageway. Finally, I look down the side of the road, at the section of grassy scrub-land that runs between this road and the next.

  There's a girl.

  Stumbling through the grass, she looks to be about my age, maybe slightly older. Her clothes are ragged and torn, and from the way she's walking, it looks like she's injured, but at the same time her skin looks normal, so I don't think she's like that creature we saw back in the city. She's stumbling away from the city, but she doesn't seem to have noticed me. It's as if she's just making her way slowly through the grass, ignoring the world around her.