Natures Fury
Michael Lodico
Natures Fury
All Rights Reserved
Cover photo by Justin Banks, available under a Creative Commons license
Copyright © 2012 Michael Lodico
All Rights Reserved .This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Natures Fury
Copyright@ 2012 Michael Lodico All rights reserved
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Disclaimer: First published by Michael Lodico July 13,2012.Any web addresses from the internet in this publication may not be valid and are subject to change with time.Any persons in this publication are purely fictional,and in no way represent anyone living. If there are characteristics of certain people it is certainly coincidental. Any views or incidents in this publication are purely viewpoints of the author and do not reflect the views of the publisher.The publisher totally disclaims any views by the author.
By Michael LodicoFact: Organisms have been on planet Earth for 3.5 billion years since the simplest bacteria. Humans have only been on the planet for 5 million of those years. The rest of the years belong to the animals.
Fact: Arthropods have almost a million species accounted for to one species of human. Animals out number humans by a large margin.
This is to all animal lovers everywhere. This is to all people who influenced me to treat animals as a friend instead of a slave or a zoo oddity.This is to all people that go see the animals in their true habitat and environment. This is to all that experience wildlife firsthand,in the wilderness!
Intro-
December 15,2012 12;00A.M.
A weird streak crosses the sky around the globe. A searing flash of light pierces the atmosphere and then it is gone. Animals around the world are restless and then the restlessness passes. People are immune to the restlessness.
Chapter 1
The Land Incidents
Friday, December 16th.2012. Algonquin Illinois 4 P.M.
It was an ordinary day after school, adult tries to teach kids science and they don’t care about it. Even the topics like animals before Christmas vacation seemed to be boring to the kids. Maybe it’s an uncaring group Mike Loding thought to himself. It’s his twenty-second year teaching and it keeps getting rougher. Mike is single, about six feet tall and 220 pounds. He ponders how it used to be and then the thought passes. People are bustling outside the school to get home, or go where they need to go. Mike is an average guy who has three main hobbies: teaching, music, and animals. Not a day goes by where the idea of working with animals would be a better idea then what he’s doing with people, but this passes and he deals with the present day. As he gets in his car he turns the stereo up loud. Then he notices geese slowly going across the main road on his way home. Just another animal crossing he thinks to himself. “ Wow,’ he exclaimed to himself. “ I’ve never seen that before!” Geese were flying into cars crossing the road. There were hundreds of them. He didn’t chance it and decided to take another route home. Little did he know that about twenty minutes later the police had to reroute traffic because it got so bad. There were a few accidents, but no geese or people were harmed.It was highly unusual for them to behave that way.
Mike finally got home after a half hour on the road. This commute home usually took him fifteen minutes so he was beat from the days work. He greeted his three cats as he entered. Mike lived by himself and he liked the company of animals. The cats were a little rowdy tonight, but he didn’t think anything of it yet. They started hissing at him unusually, which was not like them. He had cages and rooms for them that he ended up using because they were so unusual tonight. He hoped it wasn’t a pattern.He went to take out the garbage and noticed police cars out by the road.When he went to take a look by the main road which was named Barlina Road, he couldn’t believe his eyes. There were cars and deer all over the road. He heard the sirens earlier, but didn’t think too much of it. It happens all the time. This incident didn’t happen ever! There were still live deer all over the place, hundreds of them. It looked like they just crossed the road at their own speed ignoring the cars. It almost looked intentional that they meant harm to the people in the cars. Blood and guts were everywhere from the deer and the people that were in accidents. Ambulances were hauling people away. Some people were dead, as were some deer. The animal shelter was trying to round up the remaining deer with tranquilizers.It was a mess and Mike stayed and watched for an hour until it was completely cleaned up.That too was unusual. Mike, being a fan of animals knew something was happening. Three incidents with animals in one day, very strange. He was tired now so it was bedtime.” What a day!”, He said to himself.
Saturday, December 17, 2012 Bronx Zoo New York 7:30 A.M.
It was eight o’clock A.M. and the zoo was closed for the winter months. Stephen Millman knew that things would pick up in March when the zoo reopens, but right now he was focused on feeding the big cats. Stephen was an ordinary zookeeper with a small build. The Christmas lights looked pretty to him as he was dishing out meat portions for the cats. His title was zookeeper, even though his dishing out food to the animals seemed menial and a job for someone else. Still, he loved the animals and didn’t mind it. It was a little bit cold this morning, lower twenties, he thought.The temperature didn’t matter it gave him a chance to see and interact with the animals. He loved his job.
He noticed an extra amount of crows perched around the pens today. There were hundreds, when in the past there were only a few. They were squawking about something and he didn’t think anything of it yet. He started to feed the cats. They usually are half asleep when he wakes them up with food. They were wide awake today and very mobile and roaring. He fed the lions first and it was very evident that something was irritating them. He thought it was the crows, and said,” What is up your butts this morning.”” Yes,” he said, like they were going to respond, he thought.
An hour had passed and he saw other workers and specialists in the zoo field also out this morning working. He liked working alone when feeding the cats, even though it was probably nice to talk to someone to make the day go faster.He yelled,” Good Morning,” to Jim Halko feeding the hoofed animals about 20 yards from his location. He doubted if he heard him, but it was a thoughtful gesture on this day. There were a few other workers down the path working and feeding other animals. The path through the zoo looked like the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz. The lions were getting even more restless. He thought to himself they just might be hungry. As he gathered the pieces of meat the lions were coming closer to the cage. He could here other animals and there loud noises. He could here the howler monkeys from across the compound. It was much louder than the usual feeding time. Again, he thought the crows. The way he would feed the lions is to throw it through the bars into the lions pen. He wasn’t paying attention and a few of the lions reached for him and growled through the bars. He gasped and screamed. He knew they couldn’t get through the bars, but they never did that before. “ This is scary,” he exclaimed. He finished and went on his way to the leopard cages. He thought is was a fluke that the lions tried to attack him through the bars. Another hour had passed.
The leopard
cages were similar, except they were in fences, instead of a huge barred pits like the lions. He noticed the crows were not perched anymore. They were flying recklessly around the whole zoo! It reminded him of Hitchcock’s “The Birds” movie. This situation just shifted into bizarre to him, being a person familiar with animals. He could hear other workers being loud and yelling. He decided to feed the leopards first, and then see if it just was regular problems with the other employees. As he got to the leopards cages they were casing the fence line hissing and growling. He slipped the meat into the cages quickly and got out of there. They were completely and totally aggressive to his presence. This was starting to look serious. He thought there might be something infecting the cats.
As he returned to the nearest building where he got the food, he started to get mauled by crows. It was like they were chasing him to the shelter. He noticed in his thrashing and trying to protect himself, he wasn’t the only one getting mauled. The crows were attacking everyone around his cat pens and nearby complexes. They were only attacking the people, not any other animals. He got to the shelter in one piece with a few scrapes and scars from the attack. He was going to need some stitches as he looked at himself in the shelters bathroom mirror. There were a couple of other people that made it to the building. Jim exclaimed,” What was that, I’ve never seen that before.” Stephen replied,” Even the big cats were aggressive along with the crows.” “I know so were the giraffes and other hoofed mammals, Jim said. “That’s weird,” Stephen replied. “I’m going to see if other people are affected around the zoo,” he said. Stephen made some phone calls around to all the departments around the zoo. There were reports from all over the zoo that animals either attacked or got aggressive towards other workers. There were a few dead crows around the zoo, from people trying to swat at them to protect themselves. When Stephen got done with all his calls, there were some minor injuries amongst the workers, but everyone was intact. The animals in the zoo were still restless and making an extra amount of noise. All the workers decided to ask the managers of the zoo if it was fine to quit for the day, based on the circumstances. The rest of the day was spent inside doing research on this atypical animal behavior. Stephen was stunned and decided when he was done today he was going to research this and see if there was a pattern at home. “ Rough day,” he sighed to himself.
December 18, Long Beach California, Royal Palms State Beach 4:30 P.M.
It was 5:00 P.M. on a beautiful, sunny, clear, 85 degree day along the beach. Annette Sterman was finishing her cheeseburger and fries at the local Wendy’s. Annette was a single woman about five and a half feet tall with gorgeous brown hair. The only thing she could think of was seeing AC/DC along the beach front in an hour with some shitty warm-up band, that she never even heard of. The warm-up bands name was the Hulky Bears. “Who are they?”, she thought. Just some no name band from Russia making a token U.S. tour with one of the worlds best hard rock bands. Just another band trying to make a name for themselves when she knew they would probably suck!
She was only 15 minutes from the concert site. The beach front where they were holding this special concert held about 20,000 people, so she thought she better get there. It was general admission and there was at least twenty minutes of parking traffic to deal with. She wasn’t too worried and she already set up a time to meet her girlfriends. The warm-up band started at six P.M. They were meeting at seven. They couldn’t care less if they saw the warm-up band! She would meet her girlfriends at the front gate. They had done this before like riding a bike. They knew exactly where to meet for this party in the making. She was so excited. She had never seen AC/DC before. She had seen other bands like Rush and Loverboy at this venue and it was great, but AC/DC!!!!!The gang of girls weren’t to concerned about getting up front. They were good looking and that was the best trick to getting up front. It usually worked. On this day they would be close to something else.
Annette got there and parked her car. She had about a ten minute walk from the car to the front gate, She was walking so fast because of her anxiety the time didn’t matter. When she got to the front gate there were her friends. “AC/DC.” She yelled with authority.”Here we go”, exclaimed her friend Deb. They got as close to the front as possible. It ended up being about 30 feet from the stage. “ I can’t wait,” Annette said. “ I hope they play Back in Black, she yelled. “ It’s my favorite.” “ Mine too,” said Carol, Annette’s other friend. There were four girls total: Annette, Deb, Carol, and Linda. They were all High School friends in their twenties ready to enjoy a good rock concert.
The warm-up band was on their last song. People were cheering and getting nuts. Beer was being spilled all over the place and there was garbage on the sand, as far as the eye could see. The girls didn’t care, because AC/DC was a short time away, and none of the girls had seen this great band. Annette noticed that most of the people were wearing sandals,which,was typical for a concert venue here. She was glad it was wonderful out. The sun was starting to set, but there was still plenty of light. It was still kind of warm out, mid-seventies, and dry. Annette thought to herself, perfect weather for an outdoor concert. She noticed some people fighting off a few crabs in the sand nipping at some of the peoples toes. She didn’t think anything of it. In fact it seemed quite normal to her in this area. Probably since it’s happened before at other concerts at this venue. Some gulls were circling above and that also seemed quite normal. Basic events that happen on the beach. It took about 30 minutes before they introduced AC/DC. Annette let out a big “Yahoo!!” “ It’s time to get rocked,” she screamed. AC/DC entered on the stage, the lead guitarist came out first with some guitar licks. The band then continued into a song called,” Shoot to Thrill.” The girls were dancing and singing like crazy. They were having fun. More people were getting nipped on the toes by crabs. It was starting to happen to everyone around the party of girls. People were just stepping on them trying to kill them. Some gulls were starting to swoop down on the crowd. “Why are they doing that,” Deb thought as she got slightly distracted from the show. It was a brief distraction and she continued to enjoy the song. It was probably a fluke as the girls started pointing at the gulls. They continued to enjoy the show. The girls started to flash their cell phones at the band and started taking pictures of the band. It was their dream to see this band.
The first song got over and the lead singer started talking to the crowd. They were introducing themselves and asking the crowd how they were. Of course, the crowd cheered. and they introduced their next song. It was called,” Thunderstruck.” The girls were elated, especially Annette. It was one of her favorites. They started enjoying this song also. They were oblivious to the gulls dive bombing the audience more until one of them hit Carol. It got her right in the back of the head. She thought it was a scratch until she started bleeding more. Then Deb noticed more people were getting attacked by crabs. More of them were crawling up Linda’s legs! This was starting to get irritating to them. They were trying to enjoy a concert. Many other people around them were going through the same thing. They thought that there was something people could do about this, there wasn’t anything anybody could do except protect themselves. There weren’t enough security people or police to stop people from the concert or contain the animals. The band even noticed people starting to swat at crabs and gulls. People were thinking why don’t the gulls attack the crabs and eat them, but this assault was on the people. A few crabs started getting on stage and the road crew went around killing them. A couple of gulls swooped down on the band members, but it wasn’t serious. Maybe it was the sound of the speakers that kept the animals away from the stage more. The band didn’t think anything of it. Maybe they should have! The second song was over and the mayhem was continuing in the crowd. There was still some light and the band noticed this on a somewhat beautiful night. The band saw this black cloud towards the immediate horizon about a mile away from the concert venue. It was pitch black like the night sky itself. They decided to go wit
h it and broke into their famous hit song “ Back in Black.” The cloud got closer to the crowd. The girls were trying to nurse Carol and enjoy the concert at the same time. They thought about going to one of the concession stands to tend to Carol, but she said she was fine, so they went with it. It the mean time Linda and Deb were dealing with the crabs and more gulls were dive bombing the immediate crowd around them. The black cloud got to the back part of the crowd. The band went with it even more and it seemed to the girls that they got louder, but it was just all the chaos around them. People in the back started dropping and that’s when that band knew this was serious!! Bees started swarming the whole concert area. There were millions of them. The lead singer had enough time to just say real loudly,” Take cover Long Beach.”and he stumbled off the stage.The girls started running for their cars. The bees were stinging every human in sight. The crabs were feasting and swarming on the people from underneath. The gulls were descending on any people that got free of the crabs and bees. People were getting stung from the bees all over the place which caused most people to be poisoned from multiple bee stings. The crabs were ripping off flesh from the crowd quickly, so the concert goers were essentially being eaten alive!!! This was a complete assault on these eager concert fanatics. They didn’t realize what they were in for when they entered this event. There was total carnage. The girls were all dead, weather it was from the bee stings or the crabs eating at them. The gulls went after the soft parts of the people also. There were just swarms of all three the attacked these people. After about an hour, the swarm of bees dispersed into the sunset and the crabs continued to feast on the remains of the crowd. No survivors. The gulls that were left scavenged also. Then the gulls went on their way. The police and ambulances showed up, but they were too late. Some of the neighboring houses were questioned about the event. The band and crew were all dead also. Nobody escaped. The police tried to separate the crabs from the people’s remains, they were just too thick, and the police didn’t get paid enough to tackle this mess. When the coroner arrived he diagnosed the deaths as poisoned from multiple bee stings.
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