by Nathan Ward
The Foliage: Termination
Written by Nathan Ward
by Nathan Ward
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
A Kindle Original 2016
Copyright © Nathan Ward 2016
Cover Design Copyright © Nathan Ward 2016
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved. No part of this publication be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Acknowledgment and dedication:
This didn’t take any thought what so ever, this book had to be dedicated to my friend and not only is she a friend she’s a great support and an even better editor. She helped me bring this book alive after taking a liking…or perhaps a little more than a liking to the short novella I released in April of 2016 which was a tool for setting the foundations that lead in to this sequel novel.
The Foliage is something I’ve always wanted to write since university and it’s finally come together, it’s become a world of escape and it houses a range of brilliant characters that can sometimes seem all too real.
My thanks and gratitude goes out to Cheryl who I know will enjoy taking this story into its third chapter.
The Foliage: Termination
Chapter 1: Together we stand
Have you ever gone to put your head down on a pillow hoping you’ll close your eyes and almost instantly drift off into a dream state without any worries, feeling relaxed and comfortable? And then before your body has a chance to shut itself down, you’re pulled sharply back to reality, the room around you is spinning and every time you try to close your eyes and escape into your dreams, you begin to rotate like a gyro sphere, a piece of equipment used to train astronauts, feeling like a simultaneous motion that you cannot break, at every attempt to regain the psychological balance it grasps you by the back of the skull and throws you back in to orbit?
That’s how I felt for in excess of thirty minutes, I didn’t know where I was at first while my reflexes urged me to breathe, my lungs in desperation for oxygen, I was gasping for anything remotely breathable even if it had to be the nuclear radiated air, anything at this time would have been better than impending death.
When I thought the time has finally come, it had.
My vision was a blur but I could make out the butt of a rifle being slammed against my helmets visor. and then they decided to give up and instead use common sense and unlock the clasps and pull it from my head the old fashioned way.
I must have made the most monstrous sounds as I repeatedly inhaled oxygen, not knowing if it was breathable, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t have felt any worse than before and if it was going to kill me I’m damn sure death would be a better experience than spending another day in this hell hole, right?
My vision slowly over time began to focus; I had to just lay there on the scorched ground staring up at a deep brown sky. There wasn’t such a thing as clouds any more - it was just a single tone of bright orange-brown, all around us ash fell from the sky from all the burnt up junk, the debris, and without any doubt, plenty of raw flesh.
I eventually found the energy to look down along my body to witness Josh’s wife Steph aiding the rest of us, pulling the bodies of Thomas, Enrique, Sasha and Henry up against the nearest wreckage. I had spent the last few minutes gazing at my new found friends and totally dismissing the fact that I could have been breathing the harmful air from the nuclear explosion - but after the moment of panic, I realized I would have been long dead by now.
So to my relief I wiped the sweat from my forehead, threw my nugget back and closed my eyes.
The world had stopped spinning and I assume I fell in to a deep sleep.
When I eventually reawakened I once again had no idea where I was, everywhere around me was dark and all there was to light a path was the torches attached to our suits.
I’ve been conscious now for about five minutes, lying against these cold brick walls which believe me, is far better than the current heat on the surface.
Oh yes! We’re underground, I was just informed that the guys grabbed my legs and pulled me across the railroad until they finally discovered this place, which happened to be a out of service underground tunnel, doesn’t take a genius to work out why it’s out of service now, does it?
If you were to ask me I’d go as far to say the entire planet is out of service for the foreseeable future, but then again we still don’t know the scale of this UNA operation. Was Houghton the only representative of England or are they scattered all over the country? Has every single country experienced the same agonizing events?
I don’t know and maybe I’ll never know, but while I’m recording this there’s one thing I do know and that’s that we’re moving on, together.
I’m your host for the foreseeable future; my Name is Nathan Murdock, ex captain of the UNA Norwich division, no family, no children but I’ll tell you what I do have: A responsibility that I choose to take on, to make sure the people who saved me, find the lives they deserve to salvage, I also have nothing more I could possibly lose...
Sasha, who had been listening in on Murdock turned to look at him, saddened by all she had just heard.
The Captain slowly disconnected the power from his built in arm transmitter then looked across at Sasha. They locked in gaze both sporting a blank expression and then he slowly began to smile.
Sasha returned the very same expression, her dark long hair slightly covering her face, she cowered away like a blushing school girl allowing for the hair to partly hide her gaze.
Josh had already begun to settle down for the night, his arm wrapped tightly around his partner's waist, clinging on for dear life. It had been months since they had seen each other and for all that time Josh had believed that she had died along with his daughter on the day he returned home from his brisk walk to the corner shop to witness the world on fire, with UNA soldiers rounding up the community under orders from UNA command, lead by Commander Houghton, not of human origin:
He had run through the fire, fighting his way through a riot, then finally arrived at his door - a door that was now hanging from its last hinge. He kicked the door down and threw himself inside his home, falling in to the walls deluded by his surroundings, not knowing at what moment he would pass out and wake up from this nightmare. It never happened, instead he arrived inside his living room to witness a sight he believed would haunt his dreams for every sleep to come, the sight of his wife and child being beaten by anonymous soldiers and pulled by their hair across the garden. At this point flames were licking high at the glass doors as a warning to keep Josh back – by this time he had already fallen to his knees unable to find the strength to hold himself up, but even in the most severe of situations the body can perform the most incredible acts.
Even with the sound of sirens and fire being sprayed against the residential homes, Josh managed to hear the sound of his front door - or at least what was left of it - being ripped off its last hinge. The door fell to the ground with an almighty crash. Josh instantly leaped to his feet, finding a new impulse of non existent energy. His eyes had widened and sweat had begun to drip at an even faster rate from his neck and forehead.
He approached his living room door frame with his arms out stretched, prepared to drop whoever would turn that corner. He crept forward just taking
an inch of a step until he had positioned himself against the wall, waiting for the unfortunate soul to enter through his living room. As he waited, every second feeling like a minute, he jerked his head to the left and threw his arm out, pulling a ceremonial knife off the wall. Josh clenched on to it, removing it from its sheath...
The sound of heavy footsteps got closer and closer until finally the face of something so atrocious. It passed through the door frame, leaving the narrow hallway and entering the living room. Its face looked very human but around the mouth and eyes it had started to turn a sour shade of green, as blood continuously poured from its ears and the wounds it had sustained to its neck and arms.
Josh at first froze in shock, not expecting such a creature to be stood before him – his mind took a moment to process this almost fictional scenario. Then as the creature acknowledged it wasn’t alone in this home its attention turned towards Josh, who was just inches away pushed against the wall. Its neck crunched as its head turned allowing it to look at Josh; its blood shot eyes piercing towards the fearful man like daggers. Deep down Josh knew he had to act now but his brain wouldn’t allow him to do that, it wasn’t until the creature latched on to his arm that he regained control of his body, pushing the chest of the deformity with a forceful blow.
It almost fell to the ground but somehow regained its balance and then it made a swift leap at Josh, who had already begun to ascend his arm welding the knife.
The deformity had impaled itself, and as it did it began to struggle as if it could actually feel the pain – in doing so, Josh was able to remove the knife and swing it across the creatures’ neck, slicing a deep gauge, it's internal fluids began to leaked out. The laminated flooring became a pool of blood, a moment after, a grave to the deceased man. A man that perhaps was no longer classed as a human being, instead – a howler.
Not only had Josh just committed his first act of murder in his twenty six years of life, but he had also just embarked on a journey into hell.
He ran outside and leaped on to the back of a passing group of fearfully driven people. He kept looking back, trying to catch a look at what exactly was going on, but the air was thick with smoke, making it incredibly difficult to breathe. As Josh stopped to catch his breath he managed to lay his eyes on the outline of an approaching platoon of UNA Soldiers, dressed in their whites, sealed by air tight helmets and sporting what could only be flame throwers. Josh very slowly began to back step, trying to get a better look at everything, taking the most smallest of steps just before a house on his left side convulsed in to fire, sending a flurry of bricks across the street in to the nearby parked vehicles, smashing windows and leaving the doors caved in.
If anything was a valid reason for Josh to turn around and run for his life, it would have been the creature in his living room or even the sight of his family being ripped from his grasp.
This time he did begin to run and not looking back, not stopping, not until his lungs had given up. His legs drove him to the far reaches of the seaside town until Josh’s body fell into the foliage of a forest he had arrived at, he snowballed down the hill until he came to a sudden halt when colliding with a tree trunk.
Unconscious, but all alone, he was safe from the emerging threat...
It had taken Joshua and Stephanie seconds to fall in to a much needed dormancy.
The both of them were now being watched by Murdock and Sasha, who had shuffled herself along and now sat beside him. Sasha looked up at him and with hesitation asked:
“What happened to your family?”
Murdock looked away as he gathered his thoughts, and then met her gaze again.
“You know what, your guess is as good as mine,” he replied.
“I don’t even know what kind of circumstance you were in when it all began,” she added.
Murdock reached out and placed his hand on her cheek, it was a brief but tender touch.
“I’ll explain it all tomorrow, but now let’s get some shut eye.”
Murdock put his arm around Sasha and pulled her in a little closer; she leant her head against him and slowly shut her eyes. Murdock looked over towards Josh, as many thoughts crowded his mind. Murdock may have not been part of the group for long, but what he was seeing was something very different to how he had originally been introduced to Josh and perhaps what he was viewing now worried him. He felt this side to Josh could become very toxic, very fast and not only to himself but to the entire group – for now all Murdock could do was remind himself of a single thought:
Tomorrow would be a new day.
Chapter 2: A New Day
That night the ground had remained as hot as sand on a summer day along the holiday coast line. The nuclear explosions had caused a reaction in the earths air, creating a thick smog that didn’t look like it would be clearing for at least a few months.
Come morning, when the sun began to rise from behind the dark silhouetted mountains in the distance, the air was still as humid as ever and becoming even more insufferable by the second.
The bright orange rays beamed down on to the scorched plains as it slowly rose from its slumber, higher and higher into the sky. As it climbed so very high the shadows of the naked trees would move ever so slightly with the passing day, but the thin shrub itself stood motionless by the lack of flowing wind. This day ahead would bring with it many difficulties and the weather conditions were just a small factor of those arising complications.
Inside the dimly lit tunnel, Josh was forced awake by the rising heat levels, as he slowly raised his hand and brushed away the sleep from his eyes he noticed that everyone was still positioned in the same spot, untouched, unharmed. Which was something that had become quite rare with the new way of life.
Josh outstretched his arms and loosened his neck – the sunlight had begun to shine through the beat up walls, finding any slight crack to penetrate, filtering through as slivers of light.
Then one of those rays emerged from a newly formed hole that was left from a piece of rubble falling out of its place in the stone wall, it settled on to Josh’s face sending him in to a short lived panic before realizing it was just the sun and not a killing machine sent to dismember him. Josh looked down to his sleeping wife, his gazed fixed upon her to a point where it almost felt as if the shape of hearts almost began to materialize within the pupils of his eyes, he could almost feel his pupils squeezing, changing to the shape of his beating heart. This woman meant so much to him, and he had never known the best way of showing her that, he just trusted that she would believe him, and he hoped she always would believe and never question because he did, he did love her so very much.
Across from Josh, Murdock began to emerge from his doze.
He didn’t make much of scene, just lifted his head slightly which attracted the attention of Josh. They met each others gaze and nodded in an acknowledgment of one another, both with smirks taking form on their faces.
Murdock had kept a tight grasp of Sasha's waist and unknowingly became even more snug as the night unfolded, and now that embrace that had been a source of comfort now felt unbearably warm and close. At this point, the risen temperature was approaching an unbearable level as every minute passed, and they simply couldn’t remain below ground level much longer.
Shortly after Sasha, Steph, Thomas, Enrique and Henry had risen and downed the last of their fresh reserve of water, Josh led the expedition up and out of the tunnel emerging on to desert like fields – where their eyes stung as pupils shrank painfully in reaction to the piercing sunlight, the intense brightness wasn’t going to help the thumping headaches they had woken up to. Weary yet refueled, the small group stood, remaining vigilant. Sasha took a breath and raised her hefty rifle above her chest and drew the scope to her eye, she panned around three sixty, her sights switching from left to right as she observed the magnified view.
“Not a sign of life for miles, there’s not even any greenery. Just millions upon billions of grains of dust,” she said, with the smallest tremble
in her tone.
They all just stood, barely holding their own weight, wrapped in military uniforms in a boiling hot desert. Thomas looked as if he was about to keel over and Henry didn’t look any better, he was a slim lad with fair hair and a pair of thick framed glasses that honestly looked as if they had begun to weld themselves to his skin - if anything, they had just began to realise that they weren’t going to survive another day in this heat.
Josh, for what seemed to be the first time since being reunited with Steph, let go of her and paced himself into the inner circle that they had formed. He begun to share his thoughts on how he felt they should act on the current situation they had found themselves in.
“Obviously, we are all aware that we’ve come as far as our bodies will carry us. The water is depleted, the suits have run out of oxygen so it’s a damn good job we’re in somewhat of a safe zone!”
As he spoke, all eyes were on Josh as the group listened.
“We now have a difficult choice to make,” he continued, “For some it’s going to be an easy choice but for others you may be torn - but do not hesitate to speak your mind!”.
Enrique had always found it difficult to communicate in English since arriving in England so he naturally kept quiet, remaining private but listening in. Murdock took this opportunity to have his say on the matter and begun to approach Josh, but he addressed everyone around him, turning as he spoke.
“I’m just going to lay my opinion on the metaphoric table, we’ve come this far. We’ve hiked a damn fair few miles, I’m continuing the path we set out on... with or without you guys, I’m just saying.”
Enrique took a step forward and replied in his Mediterranean accent.
“I agree with the Captain.”