Studio Newsreader: Are there any sign of anyone being let out? How are the Public reacting?
Tasmin: Well as you can see, Howard - there’s widespread panic here, we are delivering this report from the top of the news van because there’s a lot of mania here, we are still waiting for an update of when they will start letting people leave, but until then, there we are told to look out for all the symptoms - which are mostly flu like symptoms, such as cold sweats, hot flushes and aching limbs, skin deterioration and muscle breakdowns in more advanced cases, the infected are described as…
oh wait! Hold on Howard we are just getting an update……. It appears that the military will NOT be letting anyone leave at all until further notice.
Studio Newsreader: Wait a minute, Tasmin. Can you reconfirm that? Did you say NOBODY is allowed to leave the quarantine Zone!
Tasmin: Yes that is right, I’m not sure if you can hear the loud speaker here over the panic, but basically they are telling people to return to the city and go back to their homes, locking their doors and windows and holding up until the Pandemic passes.
Studio Newsreader: What is the Beaumont Corporation doing about the outbreak, Tasmin?
Tasmin: At present we are not too sure, there has not actually been an official statement as yet, but we have been informed that Beaumont Pharmaceuticals is currently fast tracking an anti-virus on Nacoon island and the island is under quarantine too with Lethal Force authorized to keep the Legacy Virus away from the island as they work on a cure. We are even informed that Mayor Beaumont himself has remained on the island and personally overseeing the cures development.
Studio Newsreader: Is there any word from the Mayor himself on the Outbreak and how it managed to get into the city in the first place?
Tasmin: At present, Howard… there is still no word from the Mayor and he’s been quiet and stayed out of the news since the murder of his daughters, Sarah and Alexandra. However, we have been informed he will be giving a press conference in the morning, but until then residents of Blackwater are being urged to STAY at home as nobody knows the true nature of the virus… it could be airborne, blood transmitted, fluid transmitted… nobody knows anything. The two main Hospitals in Blackwater are REFUSING to take any more cases with East General reportedly to have been ABANDONED! We have not travelled into the city yet but it is reported by witnesses here as a WAR
ZONE. Hospitalization is now NOT an option as no known medical procedures work against the Legacy Virus, intravenous antibiotics actually speeds up the virus… it is a very dark night here at Blackwater.
Studio Newsreader: What advice are they giving the residents once they return home?
Tasmin: Okay, Howard, this is where it takes a turn for the worse. Basically what they are saying is, go home, barricade yourself and your family inside. If you have a Panic Room, basement or attic hide there and await rescue. If any of your family have been infected and are in the early stages there are three options. One is to secure them in a room either by tying them to a bed, radiator or anything to prevent them moving, shut the door and await rescue. The second option is to remove them from the house and leave them outside where the military will find them, administer the cure when it is found and await their return home. The Third which I actually cannot believe I’m reading is to…
Studio Newsreader: Tasmin, we are losing the signal, you were saying about the Third Proc….
Tasmin: Sorry to interrupt you Howard, we appear to have a situation here! The infected have reached the quarantine zone and as you can see there is mass hysteria here, and yes those are gunshots you can hear. We can’t actually get close enough because there are people everywhere.
Danny can you zoom in that over there?
Danny: I’m getting it I’m getting it…
…………….…………………………………..Jesus Christ!
Tasmin: Oh my God this is…. As you can see, Howard the Infected are…
End of Transmission
Chapter Twenty: Upon Deaf Ears
Alex stooped as the video ended abruptly, the screen switching back to a folder containing more video files. She impetuously scanned the names and scrolled down the numbered files but found nothing of obvious interest; she certainly didn’t have time to watch them all, so she left the desk and wandered towards the main windows, looking out over the city glumly.
There was obviously some relief, even if only a little, that the whole contagion was confined to Blackwater alone. The city was undeniably an impregnable fortress; its colossal wall defences meant it could be very easily quarantined; all the government had to do was seal the main gates leading into the city and that would be the end of it. What appeared to be the city’s best defence against intruders and vagrants, ultimately became the resident’s undying tomb. Alex stood staring over the city towards the forests and beyond; the whole state and beyond was most likely asleep, completely oblivious to the fact that they might not even wake up in the morning - if she were to fail of course.
Alex put her hands into her pockets and looked down into the courtyard; the red and blue lights colouring the walls eerily as the hordes waited patiently on the other side of the wall. As the ghostly light beamed through the blinds lighting up her worried face, she stood cold and silent as the dust floated around her.
The Asphyxiated appeared to be gone - for now at least. The identity and purpose of her stalker’s game continued to elude her. He obviously wasn’t a Fallen, and even if he was, he weren’t making it obvious. She sighed and lit a cigarette, watching a pack of dogs fighting over the same corpse in street below, their jaws ravenous and their bodies altering. It had crossed her mind that anything feeding from infected tissue could too become infected; but the mechanics behind the Legacy Virus were a complete mystery to her. She watched as the dogs savagely ripped themselves apart, randomly snarling and yelping as the larger, more dominant one stood above the others claiming rights over his meal. Alex turned away coldly, chugging on her cigarette and looking over the office in mystification.
She eventually grabbed her rucksack and made her way over to the doors, gently peering out into the mournful and abandoned hall cautiously. Alex flicked her cigarette to the ground and made her way back to the stairwell, opening it with growing paranoia and looking over the darkness with mistrust. She stood on the marble stairs listening intently as the extractor fans from the air conditioning hummed out of sight, the wind outside howling past the windows with furious gusts.
She looked down the gap that led to the darkness below before turning and gazing up, the empty stairwell noiseless and intimidating. She put her arms through the straps on her rucksack and pulled it onto her back tightly, readjusting her collar and sighing in a lost and tormented huff of bewilderment. She strolled up the stairs and clasped the metal gates that sealed the top floor, tugging on them gently as they rattled with an echo that vanished into the void below her. She looked over them inquisitively before reaching through and grabbing the chain and padlock on the other side, pulling it through with a violent tug. The chain shattered, its metal links scattering the ground like glass. Alex stepped back and listened with caution, paranoid the inescapable noise she was making would be heard by the macabre stalker that prowled the precinct. As the stairwell dropped back into silence, Alex quietly pulled open the gates and stepped towards the door that led into the second-floor.
Wearily, she pushed down the bar and peered into the hall beyond, looking for signs of anything even remotely threatening. The hall was shrouded in darkness and looked like a newly renovated office area, hundreds of desks and workstations littered with paper, files and in complete disorganization. Book shelves full of folders stood proud and dominated the working area with well-defined shadows, the gloomy room only lit with computer screens and fixed monitors that hung from the ceiling, all showing the same muted static. Shadows of plants, chairs and cables warped over the ground and the air was loaded of dust, the windows sealed from the morbid gaze of the city behin
d heavy steel shutters.
On the ground in front of her appeared to be a body lying on its front and completely motionless.
She took out her torch from her rucksack and cast a long beam of light around the area, watching as the light crept over the surfaces with a haunting glow. She cautiously approached the body, turning it over; swiftly covering her mouth as it peeled from the blood-soaked carpet.
As the corpse rolled onto its back, it remained still and dead; it’s frightful face gazing past her.
Calmly, she lowered the torch, watching as the light revealed the dead man’s body, its chest and stomach completely empty.
“Shit!” she cursed with alarm, standing up and casting the torch around the offices in blind panic.
Alex turned as the light jumped from one area to the next, but strangely, there was nothing to be seen. As the beam moved slowly over the desks and furniture, Alex gazed into the torch light as it panned around, clinging to the surfaces tightly.
Suddenly, the body at her feet coughed, spitting congealed blood down its face, and its bones cracking as it struggled and snapped at the air. Alex stepped back and shone the torch light down onto its rotting face, its black crawling eyes glowing with reflective light.
Suddenly, there was a crash from the back of the office. She quickly aimed her torch to the area to see a cadaver crawling over a fallen filing cabinet; the air around it filled with dust as it heaved itself towards her. Instantly, movement came from all around her, the torch light unveiling the dead as they stumbled desperately from the darkness. Alex gasped in profound horror as the cadavers shuffled and faltered in the shadows, dragging their smashed and broken limbs across the ground, falling over the desks and hauling themselves over the room. As the torch light lit up the advancing bodies, her beam jumped erratically in panic as it went from one horrifying sight to the next, before suddenly revealing a door directly in front of her. Rapidly, she ran across the office space; the light from her torch fluttering haphazardly across the floor and walls as the growing army closed in around her. As Alex leapt over desks and obstacles, she ran as fast as she could, the door within her swaying sight as it drew closer. Suddenly, she heard the stairwell door slam open; she looked behind her and there stood the Asphyxiated, pulling at his plastic wrapped face, his axe pulling up the carpet behind him.
“Shit!” she grumbled worriedly, before turning away and continuing her gauntlet for the mystery door. The Asphyxiated grumbled angrily and trudged after her, hacking at the cadavers and throwing them off frenziedly as they lunged at him, tearing strips of flesh from his back and arms.
“Wait for me!” the Asphyxiated cried as he heaved his twisted body through the office, slamming the decaying creatures to the ground as the wrapping puffed around his tortured face.
Alex looked back and watched in horror as he chased frantically behind, the dead hanging from his body, dragging them behind him with awesome strength and determination.
“Please wait; we are friends!” the haunting voice sobbed as she turned and glared back at him with a saddened guilty look of bewilderment. Alex swiftly ran between a few cadavers as they lunged at her, her tiny frame easily slipping past their aimless swipes. Suddenly, she clasped the door handle and looked over her shoulder for a split second, the Asphyxiated just feet from her as it cried and sobbed, the cadavers ripping off its limbs and tearing into its flesh. Alex watched with horror as his head was snapped from his shoulders, squealing desperately as the dead quickly piled on top of him.
Suddenly, she pulled open the door, running into the stairwell frantically and slamming the door behind her. She listened for a few moments as the dead huffed and grumbled on the other side, the door handle rattling fiercely – then silence.
Alex backed away from the door slowly, her hands shaking in fear and boundless apprehension. Her mind was completely desolate of thought, but her body was ravaged by emotion - immense relief, paralyzing fear, anguish and even deep sadness – all cascading and profoundly traumatic emotions that had her crippled with numbness, her ears taking in the muffled noise as they gathered at the door. As the circle of torchlight trembled at her feet, she stood hypnotized as her whole body quivered with fright. Slowly, she backed against the wall, her eyes instantly welling up in a poignant torrent of personal despair. The torch slipped from her hand as she slid down the wall, sobbing in heart break and obsessive fear, the white light spinning around the walls for a moment or two as she sat hidden in the shadows.
Alex lowered her head suddenly, watching the torch as it slowed and became still. She leant down and picked the torch up, looking into its light with a sad and tormented expression; the door beside her now silent – but she knew they were there, she could almost feel them around her.
She cast the light up the stairs in front of her, the sign on the wall reading ‘ROOF – HELIPAD’. Calmly, she pulled herself together and stood up, ascending the stairs cautiously and opened the door onto the roof. A cold wind blew into the stairwell, carrying with it the foul smell of decay and smoke. The car alarms hollered in the distance and thunder clapped all around her, crows circled the red sky and the rabid dogs howled and fought amongst one another. As the haunting and familiar landscape fell upon her eyes once more, she walked over the silent rooftop looking into the crowded streets below. She stood at the edge with her arms folded, dumbfounded and besieged; escalating with bitter torment as the sky rained with paper and ash. As the ash soaked up her grief-stricken tears, she glared into the city silently; tired and beleaguered – her mind wandering off to far and safe lands of daydreams and past moments of long-gone happiness.
The street below was just a sea of heads, all looking down at their feet, perfectly motionless and haunted - some swayed as the winds barged through them, whilst others sniffed the air as her scent teased them from above. As the neon city lights and flames cast her in an eerie glow of color, she watched as the crumbling capital wept before her; its foundations heaving with pain and scarred with the ghosts that inexorably plagued it. As the wind blew through her hair and her sore eyes watered with dust, she gazed solemnly over the heaving highways. She turned away from the edge and begun to weigh up her options, or should she say, the complete lack of options. High above was a billboard, dimly lit and showed an advertisement for Beaumont Pharmaceutical’s latest anti-wrinkle cream, complete with a dumb blonde smiling falsely with a row of gleaming teeth. Alex merely gazed upon her pretty face with resentment, probably misplaced seeing as that girl was most likely dead now anyway. However, the more Alex stared into her perfect face, the more she missed her life and what she once was.
She looked down at the floor almost lost as she played with the asphalt coated roof with her feet, her mind wandering in and out of unobtainable muses and inconceivable nightmares. Suddenly, she mumbled under her breath and looked away, gazing over the twisted landscape as it sat gradually deteriorating. Calmly, she approached the roof edge and sat down, her feet hanging over the side as she peered into the ravaged horizon. As the reflection of the dead city glimmered in her black eyes, she fumbled nervously with her hands as ash and dust slowly fell around her.
“All I see… are the dead around me… the people in pain… my people - how can you sit back and let this happen?” she said softly into the sky. “I know you’re listening to me; I know you can hear me…
if they exist…, then you MUST exist!” she murmured as she looked down at the sea of cadavers below.
Her lip shook and her eyes welled up as she fought long and hard to find the power within herself to finish what she had to say. “These people devoted their lives to you, spread your messages freely and lived by your commandments… for what? So you can watch your enemies do all this to them?”
she sulked. “You make it so hard for us to believe in you!”
“They have taken my life… my Sarah…” she said as the pain snatched at her voice ruthlessly. “She was six years old, she was innocent… what did she ever do to anyone? Why did you let the
m take my Princess away?” Alex sobbed as she wiped her eyes with the cuff of her jacket - frowning up at the sky defiantly for a few moments.
“Where are you?!… I can’t do this on my own…” she said regretfully to herself with deep heart-rending emotion. “Where are you?”
Suddenly, Alex jumped to her feet angrily and screamed into the dark horizon as loud as she could
“WHERE ARE YOU?!”
A cold wind blew past the roof and she watched blankly as ash drifted from the heavens like snow.
Neon logos faltered and hummed, huge towering signs that poured their eerie light into the crowded streets. Barricades and cars burned as the scaffolding that stifled the city rasped and swayed, its joints bleeding rust as it plagued the streets.
“I don’t want to be alone anymore…” she muttered as she fought back her painful tears. Alex stood quietly for a few moments, watching as the thunder and lightning scorched the skyline.
“To Hell with you!” she scowled as she walked away from the edge of the roof. Suddenly, she stopped and paused. “Sorry, I forgot…” she growled, looking back into the sky. “It’s only us mugs that get that privilege!”
As her mind emptied she turned away from the deaf skies and scanned her surroundings closely, the precinct was dwarfed by buildings and at the far end of the roof was what appeared to be an apartment block. She gazed up at the cold and grey intimidating building as it loomed over her, its face covered with scaffolding and a complex looking fire escape that was well within her reach. She rubbed her head in confusion for a few moments; she could hear voices within her mind, but it was nothing like she had heard before. Bizarre whisperings and mutterings of words that were too quiet for her to understand - it felt as if the apartment building was talking to her, calling out to her perhaps.
Among the Fallen: Resurrection Page 25