cases we have the laboratory tests to confirm it,’ he said. Blackwater’s Mayor Grayston Beaumont has announced emergency measures to deal with the situation. They include powers to isolate individuals suspected of having the virus without fear of legal repercussions. In the US, seven people in California, two people in Texas, and two people in Kansas have been infected with the new strain.
In New York, city health commissioner Dr Thomas Friedan said preliminary tests conducted on the ailing students showed they were possible cases of swine flu. Further tests will clarify if it was the same strain that was detected in the other three states. Following a meeting of its emergency committee on Saturday, the WHO said the virus had the potential to become a pandemic but it was too early to say whether that would happen. WHO Director General Moylan Chow said recent events constituted ‘a public health emergency of international concern’ and that countries needed to co-operate in heightening surveillance.
Rest of the Page torn and cannot read. She discarded the Page.
The page slapped to the ground and she moved on, slowly walking through the eerie streets as she took in the monumental visual horror before her. Swine flu broke out in the UK in 2009 and across Europe, but nothing like this was ever recorded. This certainly didn’t look like flu, swine flu or common cold; shit, this didn’t even look Bubonic Plague, these people were fighting something, something physical and something real, but what? All she could see was death all around her and nothing made sense.
Chapter Twelve: A Stranger’s Pain
Alex turned into the next street and again hiked along the roads mesmerized by the horrific butchery that splashed every part of the city. Every new street, road, sidewalk, alley and pathway; showing a completely respective, if creative experience of agony and torment. The shops were dark and empty but the few streetlights that were on cast a dreary pathetic light over the cars and scrapped vehicles; the shapes and shadows of their rotting occupants barely visible through the misted blood splattered windows. Their back seats crammed with belongings, suitcases, bags and the tiny corpses of family members and friends.
The ground glimmered as the lights gleamed upon the water logged streets, polluted with blood and rust they just mirrored the maliciousness above, only vanishing into ripples when disturbed by her advancing steps. She watched the crows feasting from the carrion, wild dogs chewing from the corners of the street, scavenging the flesh from the cold and the decaying, their mouths slavering and their jaws crunching on bone and thickened muscle. She watched horror-struck as nature fed upon the dead without remorse or pity as the smoke from the burning cars was caught by the winds and chased into the red sky high above the city. Alex turned away and continued down the shattered and wounded streets as fires cindered and thunder-less lightening lit up the landscape. As it became obvious that nothing had survived the events here in Blackwater, it started to become more ubiquitous that the chances of her father’s survival were getting smaller with each step. Her father was a real asshole in her life, but as hard as she tried to ignore it, it didn’t stop her caring about the people she loved at home.
The glass crunched and her feet bleed briefly as each step healed instantaneously, forlorn and fraught she roamed deeper and further into the apocalyptic nightmare before her without direction or even a clue. Suddenly, she turned into Cutter Square, a crossroads and centre; a wayward point where the four main shopping avenues met up and she stood in total shock. Her eyes welled up and her hand grasped her mouth in total disgust as she stood before a cindering pile of bodies; men women a children, charred and blackened, piled twenty feet into the air; smoking gently as the wind carried the smouldering ash away into the air and their bones glimmered like hot coal. All around her were the bodies of soldiers, some wearing chemical protection and Hazmat suits, covered with blood and what looked like bites and bullet wounds.
Military vehicles were parked and abandoned, windows streaked with blood and trucks filled to the brim with even more bodies of the innocent and the dead, executed and packed of bullet wounds.
She skulked through the street silently, flies hogging the carrion pitilessly as the crows jolted away as she passed. Hundreds of faces stricken in agony and grief, couples holding hands and hugging desperately, sprawled out where they fell as their blood wept onto the cold streets. The dead were rotting away almost unrecognizable, their skin peeled away from their mouths and eye balls dried out like paper, some had the smallest of bites while others where wrapped in bandages and looked like they had received first aid; and yet, there was some reason why the military saw it fit to execute them. She stood silent, respectful and sickened, crying to herself as the square repulsed her and shamed mankind. She knelt down in front of one of the suited soldiers peering into his glass visor and seeing nothing but blood splashed from inside.
He was holding something, a clipboard? On the clipboard was a document, an order maybe; but it was ruined and covered with dried blood and only some of it was readable.
Quarantine Orders Zone Six
Operation: Blackwater Debug
Forces: 37th ****** *** **********
Time: Effective as **************
*** ** ****anding Officers
The infection of Blackwater City has been deemed **** *** * ** ****** are to gather the infected or suspected infected and take them to the designated areas and perform ******** *** * ***** all subjects will be **** * *** **** without discrimination, all soldiers will carry out designated duties without question. The prevention of the Le*** **rus infecting the rest of the United States is our utmost priority and any soldier refusing to carry his orders will be subject to immediate ******
*****.
Alex dropped the clipboard ashamedly and angrily back into the soldiers lap and walked away wiping the tears from her face. She approached the smoking cindering pile in the centre of the square and just gazed at the mass of boned and blackened flesh as the air around it trembled with heat. What had these people contracted? She reached into the pile and pulled out the head of a Teddy Bear, its fur and eyes melted and its body gone. Suddenly, the wind blew a gust through the square and the plastic sheets flapped as the scaffolding creaked, ash blew into the air and the cindering pile glowed for a few seconds before dying again. She dropped the bears head to the ground and walked around the square looking at the dead with pity and the soldiers with growing abhorrence. Suddenly, a fork of lightening hit a rooftop nearby and Alex jumped with fright, staring up at the buildings as they erupted into flames. The car-alarms continued to bellow and a body suddenly from the back of the truck, hitting the ground with a ruthless thump. She stared at the body for a few moments, watching it as the wind blew through its matted hair; for a brief moment it looked as if it moved slightly. She glared at it with deep concentration, quickly dismissing it as yet another figment of her imagination.
It didn’t really take an expert to work out what had happened here, it was a clean-up operation where the people where simply put to death and their bodies destroyed; but what had they caught?
To her knowledge, all strains of viral illnesses and diseases were curable, but then again; she was no expert. She turned away from the square and walked solemnly into Majors Street. A vast street where most shops were more of a modern nature, DVD rentals, Electrical stores, shops of all kinds lit up with neon and printed posters advertising their deals. Bodies of looters and rioters laid all over road and paths, clutching items they had stolen and grabbed.
Soldiers hung from the scaffolding and bridges by chains, razor wire and even their own intestines.
There were bodies with their rib cages missing and empty, heads gone and limbs that looked like they had been dragged away through the blood smeared streets but ended up as mere bones. Alex walked up to what appeared to be part of a forearm and knelt down, covering her mouth and waving away the flies. Huge pieces of flesh were missing through what appeared to be bites? She stood up and gazed down the corpse besieged road at the carnage. It appeared there were three types of
body, a shot executed kind; the bodies that appeared to be ripped to pieces and the kind that were hanging or arranged in some kind of sick manner of decoration. She stepped over bodies, wreckage and limbs as she roamed through the streets towards Owen Bridge that crossed the circular river and led into Naccoon Lake, a tourist hotspot to the outsiders. It was lit with lamps and proud with gothic architecture and was one of the many ways into the heart of Blackwater.
She slowly made her way onto the bridge and stood looking over the city, the air seemed more foul here than anywhere else, yet the bridge itself had very little on it and that included the bodies of the dead. She took a few sniffs of the air and but couldn’t quite work out why it smelt so bad. She sighed and walked to the edge of the bridge and placed her hands on the iron railings and just stared out bleakly into the distance. Suddenly, the smell of rotting flesh got a lot stronger and she grabbed her face in pathetic effort to shield herself from the fetid stench. Looking down over the bridge, she suddenly gagged, vomiting to the floor and wrenching uncontrollably; her eyes streaming in agony as she slowly took a second, more careful look over the bridge. Hundreds upon hundreds of bodies and ruined boats floated down the river, decaying and rotten; the water hidden by the dark and blackness. She watched haunted and beleaguered as the river of the dead and wreckage slowly passed underneath, the dark mess of derelict boats and tortured faces drifting into the light of the bridge as masts swayed and crunched against the roof. As the taller wreckage built up on the other side, Alex slowly stepped away from the railing, glaring out over the horizon and frozen in fear and upsetting shock. Suddenly, she came to her senses, running over the bridge to the other side, her heart in her stomach and hands clutching her face. How much pain and suffering can one person take? How much can they be expected to take? As she realized that prospect of every new street, every turning and new avenue before her would lead to seeing something deeply upsetting and frightening; she started to beg with herself to let go of her emotions, drop the person that she was, and just try and ignore the world around her.
As Alex walked, more and more bodies were revealed, insane sculptures made with limbs and heads, children decaying in their mother’s arms and the fathers rotting in puddles of dried encrusted blood.
Alex shut her eyes and ran into a residential street, crying and weeping as she passed burning buildings, abandoned tricycles, playpens, paddling pools and cars that were burnt out and despoiled, entombing their drivers.
The suburban streets smoked and cindered, their mail boxes revealing the names of the dead like twisted mementos and tombstones. She ran up a path and into a house, someone’s home; abandoned yet tidy. No sign of life, but there were certainly signs of it being lived in at one point, little tell-tale signs of a happy home. She walked through the hall into the living room and looked around as the red light poured through the windows, casting the surfaces in a strange and surreal crimson glow.
Alex gazed around the room for a few moments, swiftly picking up a cushion from the sofa, nothing special nor even out of place; it was just one of those mad moments you have when you can’t really work out what to do with yourself. She hugged the cushion tightly to her chest as she thought over the feelings that continued to haunt her, her eyes blinking erratically as shock crawled under her white decaying skin. She threw the cushion to the floor and flopped down on the sofa, just staring across the room and out of the window into the street, silent and confused; tortured but strangely calm.
The room was still and she sat frozen as an old clock ticked away, the sound of dogs howling and crows squawking breaking up the silence from outside. Her eyes were still and gazing into nothingness, her mind slowly catching up on itself, the demonic art from the streets was slowly becoming a memory that had overstayed its welcome. She warily looked either side of herself inquisitively; magazines, a TV remote one side and a bundle of folded clothes on the other. She grabbed a sweater from the pile and stood up as she slipped it on; hooded sporty attire that obviously belonged to a man three or four times her size. The man, whoever he was, was definitely a sausage and mash eater for breakfast type of guy; but it was baggy, cosy and warm, and that was good enough for her as she climbed back onto the sofa, ruining it with bloody footprints and pulling the sweater over her legs. As her body started to warm she just relaxed on edge, staring into space as she rocked gently, her toes buried cosily into the soft fabric seat cushions. Alex sat as she warmed through, pulling the hood over her head and waited, mumbling and swaying as the clock ticked her life away relentlessly.
Her mind started to slowly readjust, not cure itself from the horrors outside but more like a forced acceptance of the situation, accepting that something not only evil had hit this city, but something she couldn’t do anything about. Suddenly, the old pendulum clock chimed a few times, making Alex abruptly aware of time and its persistent hypnotic ticking; she listened as she tried to work out whether it annoyed her or simply comforted her with a false sense of warmth, maybe both? Maybe it was just the fact that here in this twisted city, something was working and not covered in blood; something was right and exactly where it should be. But as she rocked backwards and forwards that infernal ticking also reminded her of her given time limit, something that vanished moment by moment and tick by tick; but at this particular moment, right this second; she couldn’t give a toss because this little, if short lived rest; was something she so desperately needed as she processed the all the images she had been forced to see.
She watched the dust glide through the beams of red light, bringing a haze of slight ambience to the quiet and peaceful room that felt almost uncomfortable. Alex looked at her reflection in the dormant television for a few seconds then frowned suddenly. She leant down beside the sofa and pulled the TV remote from the table and switched on the TV, sitting and waiting patiently as she crossed her legs pulling the sweater over her cold feet. She scanned through the blank channels until eventually she came to one that was still broadcasting, a strange and rather obscure looping animation, voiced by some random actor that had an equally pessimistic deep voice as if he was portraying death itself.
News Program Emergency Broadcast. Residential House - Bluebell Avenue.
Voiceover on TV: “This is an Emergency Broadcast as cleared by the Health and Safety governing bodies in association with the Beaumont Corporation. The Beaumont Corporation is currently working on a cure to the Epidemic and is warning people not to panic! Here’s advice on how to protect your family during the Blackwater Quarantine.
One - DON’T PANIC! Panicking WILL result in your family panicking also and could lead to further situations and crisis. LEAD BY EXAMPLE!
Two - STAY INSIDE! If any of your family is infected, the best course of action is to leave them outside or restrain them in a room furthest away from your main room of location. If you venture outside you risk CONTAMINATION!
Three - AWAIT HELP! Specially trained Doctors and Military will take away the infected for application of a cure. Let these people do their job as it could result in your arrest or worse. Your safety is OUR concern. Family members WILL be returned once clear of any infection.
Four - EXPECT VIOLENCE FROM THE INFECTED! The infected will attack YOU! They can’t be reasoned with, talked to or controlled. LEAVE THEM OUTSIDE FOR COLLECTION OR LOCK THEM IN AN UNUSED
ROOM UNTIL COLLECTION!
Five - REMAIN CALM UNTIL CLEARED! When the infection control crews arrive, remain calm and follow their instructions to the letter. HELP IS ON its WAY!
This is an Emergency Broadcast as cleared by the Health and Safety governing bodies in association with the Beaumont Corporation. The Beaumont Corporation is…”
Alex switched off the TV and walked towards the main window and glared over the drive into the silent neighbourhood. There she stood for a few minutes, just looking at the toy littered drive, rubbish blowing in the wind and lone corpse that just lay decomposing on the front lawn. The broadcast was well out of date, the advice given in the curren
t state of humanity was just a waste of time when compared to people’s morality towards their family members. But maybe the military had in fact picked up the infected and left the dead on the streets, but to what purpose? Surly they should have cleaned up all traces to prevent further infection? Alex walked away from the window and went to the front door, hiding away in the house would not get the job done, but it did give her some time to think about the situation. Suddenly, she heard the banging of footsteps from upstairs and she jumped in fright.
“Hello?!’ she called out fearfully.
A survivor? She closed the front door and walked to the stairs placing a foot on the bottom step and holding the banister. “Hello?! Anyone up there?!” she shouted. She waited a few moments but heard nothing. Slowly, she crept up the stairs and peered onto the landing, her eyes flickering and adjusting to the darkness.
Was she hearing things?
She looked over towards the bathroom, its door wide open and the shower dripped continuously, echoing around the upstairs hallway. As each drip fell, passing with a moment in time, Alex simply waited with a strange and bizarre feeling in her stomach, a feeling like she knew or felt something was here; she felt it in her stomach as if by instinct or hunch, yet it was such a greater, overwhelming feeling, like an extra sense perhaps. As the time passed by and the silence dragged itself out longer and longer, she grew more and more suspicious; yet she felt that her time was being wasted, toyed with almost. She turned to go back down the stairs but suddenly there was a long winded groan, almost inhuman sounding but she undeniably heard it. Slowly and cautiously, she crept across the landing and grasped the door handle from where the groan came, leaning in towards the door, she gently placed her ear on the door listening for noise from within. She waited and waited, but heard nothing. Suddenly, BANG BANG BANG; as if someone thumped the door on the other side, deafening her as she fell away shocked and petrified, her breathing out of control as she sat in fear, looking up at the door as it remained cold, closed and silent.
Among the Fallen: Resurrection Page 12