by Hawk, J. K.
“RUN!” Shrieked a woman as she dashed past the window.
Then a few others fearfully sprinted by, along with small boy trying keep up with his selfish father who fled without once looking back. Soon more and more began to charge down the road, as drivers began to abandon their immobile steel cages to join the stampede of the condemned. My fellow patrons soon began to funnel out the diner doors and in pursuit of the others. Regretfully a few were unable to keep afoot, and quickly toppled to the cobblestone. They endured a long and agonizing death beneath the feet of their fellow citizens, and yet, it was truly a better way to go.
Lastly, the grill-cook impetuously shoved his way through the door, following behind all those poor little lemmings. His brute girth gave him the strength to withstand the pressure of the crowd, but to no end. A badly injured passerby, his arm profusely gushing blood, grabbed hold of the cook’s shoulders with a fierce grip. Before the cook could react, the man viciously masticated the grease-cooks throat. His teeth tore through muscle and tendon as buckets of blood sprayed back upon his face. Not once did the cook scream, or attempt to escape, he was overcome with shock and ultimately fell beneath the panic in the street. Beneath a running of the dead festival.
I too was in shock, frozen to my seat, staring out at the carnage that was unfolding before me. But within moments, I came to my senses. My moment of fear and sympathy washed away in an instant, as if I had all but expected this. It was once said that I possessed a certain ethical neutrality that is nonexistent in most. Where the woes of others neither concerned nor delighted me. There was no plan, no thought process involved. I just reacted and rushed towards the back of the empty diner and away from the stampeding fools. Quickly I scurried past the sizzling grill just as a single flame burst over a blackened foot-long. The smell of that scorched processed meat will always be remembered, one of my last sensations of a disintegrating world.
The alley behind the diner was dark and thankfully empty, but the street beyond was flooded with an uncontrollable mob. A few loud pops rung out from the streets, gun-fire, or maybe just idling automobiles backfiring. Either way, I wasn't hanging around to find out. Sticking to the alleys as much as possible I made my way back to my apartment. The haul was fast and arduous, mostly a blur of people, lights and darkness. Only the pounding of my heart as it rigorously pumped mind clouding adrenaline throughout my body can truly be recalled. I'm not even sure how I crossed the panic ridden streets at the end of every alley, but somehow, I made it through it all.
Within my cramped studio apartment, I made sure to lock the door and closed all the lights as well as the shades. I was still oblivious to what I was really hiding from. The significance of the current pandemonium still eluded me, and yet, I somehow knew that this, whatever it was, would not blow over any time soon. I needed answers, I needed to know what was truly going on before I made my next move. My first rule of survival; understand the situation. So I flicked on the television set, hoping that one of those shady news networks could provide some insight into the current blood-bath.
An emergency broadcast was already in session. “The current outbreak, a flesh-eating bacteria,” this again? “Is spreading like wildfire throughout Boston and its suburbs. Stay in your homes and at all cost avoid contact with others.” It must be a joke? Like Orson Welles's War of the Worlds, just a well contrived hoax. “This just in, live footage from the streets of Boston.” The pandemic was now unfolding too rapidly for the government to contain the media, but the truth was now merely incidental.
The footage of anarchy that displayed next was from that very same street I had just escaped. Shaky and choppy images from a cheap cell-phone, the video was hard to follow but before long, there they were. Stumbling across my television screen as if out of some old horror film, a city of the damned. It was all clear now, it all made sense, this was the apocalypse. However, my giddiness was overshadowed by my own increasing panic.
Growing up, my father taught me to prepare for the inevitable, for the fall of man-kind. He spoke of nuclear war, meteors falling from the sky, and even a world-wide pandemic. I would always joke to my friends that he was just a paranoid old man, but he knew, he knew our world could never last. And he drilled his survivalist mentality deep and hard into my brain. However, I had not kept up with those survival skills over my adult years. In fact the last adventure I went on with my father was the year I got my driver’s license, sixteen years old. After that, I had little care of survival or the fall of society. The world was ahead of me, and with a car I was determined to catch up.
Three years before the outbreak, my father invited me on one of those trips. His way of trying to get back to those Father-Son traditions before his time was done. I bailed on him at the last minute, using work as an excuse, when in truth it was a woman. Still to this day, I regret and kick myself in the ass for that. The week after my carnal soiree I received a package, a large box with no return address. Inside I found all of my father’s old survival gear, tools he had used since he was a kid, tools his father had given him. An assortment of compasses, canteens, pocket knives as well as flint and steel. There were even a few MRE's still perfectly sealed in their foil package.
Again, my life came first and I went about my daily routine without a single call to thank him. Three days after that delivery I received message from Aunt Lucille back home. My father had passed away, a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. He didn't cope well after mom had passed, and in the end, my drift from him had become too much to bare. His finally words came from his suicide note, which was but one sentence and only addressed to me.
“To my beloved son and best friend, Keep on Surviving.”
I've never forgiven myself for moving away, for losing that friendship which few sons share with their fathers. At least I never had to see this affliction fall upon him, or he see it upon myself. Although, if this had all happened twenty years prior, then him and I would be living in glory. In his memory I have held on to all those survival tools, they are the only heirlooms I have, my only connections to my past.
I'm unsure why, but I never really mourned his death, nor did I attend his funeral. After his passing I completely cut myself off from the rest of the family, and buried them underneath a fog of memories. The corpses and tombs of the ancient world had become more important to me than my own blood. But now, watching his prophecy unravel, my emotions broke free. I fell to my knees before the television and for the first time I cried. Not because of everyone else's ensuing death, but as a result of my fathers. And, like a child who scraped his knee, I called for him. I called for him like I should of so many years ago, and deservingly I received no comfort.
Struggling, I suppressed my emotions and began to pack, fast and sloppy. Snatching up all the survival gear he had left me, as well as some dried and canned food. Most importantly weapons, also left to me by my father; a bowie knife, shotgun, a recurve-bow and an old forty-five revolver – already loaded. However ammo would be one of my top priorities on my journey, I had little off it, and I knew that looting had already begun.
Getting out of the city had been distant in my thoughts, up until I took that first step back out into street and once again lay eyes on the ensuing apocalypse. The anarchy had only worsened, no one was safe, and no one was innocent. Cops killed without discretion, civilians killed cops in malevolence. And, of course, the infected killed all without prejudice. So soon after infection, one could not really distinguish the dead over the living, their wounds were the only clues. There was no possible way I would make it through those streets, not with police and citizen taking random shots at both the demons and the sheep. So I did what any upstanding Boston citizen would do and plunged myself beneath the streets and into the dark and rancid sewers.
That maze of stench became my own personal underground railroad to freedom. An unholy path towards the outskirts of the city, towards my own redemption. My mag-light and compass became useful in those catacombs as I stumbled further into the twis
ts and turns of Lower Boston. Eerie noises rose from rank darkness, roaring over my own heavy breathing. The drips and drops of water, random echoes, and the occasional scream or snarl. There were others down here with me, friend or foe, I did not know. But, I pushed on, adjusting my course with every hair-raising sound, trying to avoid them at all cost. Thankfully I never crossed paths with anyone or anything within the rankness of Bean-Towns bowels.
It was when the muffled screams and gun fire from the above streets faded that I rose from the putrid depths of the underworld. It felt as though I traveled for hours, but had only made it out of Cambridge and into Watertown. It appeared that hell had yet to spill into the area, and for a moment I was relieved for that. Looking back at that fallen city that I had once loved, I could see multiple buildings had been engulfed in flames as large clouds of ash billowed up into the sky. The faint pitter-patter of gunfire reverberated off the tall buildings and screams haunted the air like wraiths in the night. It was so surreal, like a fiendish night-terror, it was the Fiction that had become the Non.
Without guilt or regret, just fear and the will to survive, I pushed on out of the city and further into the cloak of the forests. North-West, towards the mountains. I knew where I was going, an area far north and almost untouched by man... Almost. It was the same area that I learned most of my hunting and survival skills. This is where I would seek refuge, within the comforts of my past, within the memories of my father.
2nd Day, 1st Outbreak Moon;
Just before sunrise, when the night is at its darkest, I came out onto interstate ninety-three. Only this night was even darker than any other ever before. It was the curtain just before the Act-Change, and I knew that when it dropped, the scenery, the world, would never be the same. I was in the midst of an immediate evolutionary decline, and the refugees along the highway were the unfortunate evidence to this.
The interstate was jam-packed, bumper to bumper, no one was going anywhere. Desperately the sheep attempted to escape the city, and sadly their own selfish preservation was bringing out the savageness within them. Most remained locked in their fuel starved vehicles, yet others used the opportunity to steal and loot what they could from both the abandoned, as well as occupied vehicles.
Rushing across the crowded highway, my attention quickly turned towards a large bald man as he wielded a bat and bashed in the heads of a poor elderly couple without remorse. Their young grandchildren sat fearfully within an old blue station-wagon; watching, helpless, and crying. The murderous batter paid them no mind as he snatched a gold watch from the old man and jewelry from his departed wife. Valuable items of yesterday, and if he had only known, then just maybe he would have spared the couples lives.
It had only been six hours since the city began to fall, only six hours for humanity to lose itself. It made me wonder how our species had survived so long, how we had overcome every obstacle set before us, and yet, after a few tragic hours we had lost the very things that had made us human. Generosity and compassion for our fellow man. Maybe we never really had it, maybe it is just something we faked, like so many of our other behaviors.
Pushing my astonishment aside, I pressed on, and the hairless-beast turned his attention down the road. Deranged and pumped-up, he searched for his next victims, callously forsaking those orphaned children to helplessly watch the blood of their grandparents collect upon the pavement. It yanked at my heart, and a natural instinct to help had overcome me, but only for a moment. “Keep moving!” I said to myself and with haste made my way through the maze of cars on both the north and south bound lanes, and eagerly back into the cover of the forest. I forced myself not to look back, there was nothing I could do, and taking those children was not an option. Sadly, it was every man, woman - and child, for themselves.
supplemental;
For day's I continued to walk north, avoiding any form of civilization that I wandered by. Which is not as easy as one would think. There were a few small towns that I was forced to enter, communities which seemed almost oblivious to the hell that was occurring just miles away. Towns-folk going about their simple daily lives without a care in the world. For a while, I thought maybe the outbreak was just a moment of social hysteria that quickly resolved itself. However, a newspaper I snagged from out front of a house soon vanquished those thoughts and dreams. The articles were all about the viral-outbreak sweeping across the country like a swarm of locusts. Cities were deemed lost, quarantined and in the process of decontamination. The military strategically delivering healthy doses of chemical napalm with extreme prejudice in hopes to incinerate any trace of the virus.
If my memory serves me, unlucky cities that had thus far fallen to this plague; Washington, New York, Atlanta, Seattle, Los Angeles and of course Boston. These iconic cities were swiftly overwhelmed and the infestation soon began to spill out from their borders. Aside from the futile napalm strikes, it was reported that the U.S. military did enforce two nuclear strikes, Miami and Las Vegas, which had done little to slow the spread.
The papers also mentioned that the Government's efforts to medically understand this virus had come to a standstill. There was no pattern to the infection, no consistency. No one even knew where it came from, let alone on how to kill it. But of course, these were just stories from the media, in truth, I am sure the world governments knew much more than they led us to believe. Their pleas of ignorance had rung true to those outside of the major cities. Those poor innocents, still ignoring the warning, still assuming all was under control.
I did not bother to make contact with the locals, to stress what I had seen with my own eyes. One man cannot persuade the stubborn, nor more can he force one to change their own beliefs. So I moved on, making my way further north and into the mountains. I still had a long hike before me, it would be at least four exhausting weeks before I would make it to my destination. I just prayed that I could hold out that long, prayed that I was not making one big mistake.
Day 6, 1st Outbreak;
Over the next week or so I changed my tactics, keeping to the mountains and forests by day, and venturing into communities by night. I found myself looting like the thugs on the highway, however I was a bit more humane about it. I broke into gun-shops to steal ammo, grocery stores to steal canned food, and I even syphoned a couple gallons of gas from random vehicles and stored it in old milk jugs tied at my waste. I only took what I needed and could carry, leaving the rest for the others. During the warm afternoons I rested, walking mostly at night and sticking to the mountain trails and vacant rural roads. Out of site and away from both the living and the infected was key to lasting as long as I have. Upstanding citizens were dwindling, there were no more friendly neighbors, no more families.
During my moments of rest, I organized my supplies and manufactured different tools that would come in handy. One of my first tools was fashioned from a rusted steel barn-spike and secured to the bottom of a long sturdy branch. It made a dependable walking staff for the treacherous landscape, as well as a close-combat weapon. Other items included fishing hooks from the tabs of old soda cans, and a small satchel for a few home-made Molotov cocktails. I reminded myself of MacGyver, although I am sure that Richard Dean Anderson was not as self-sufficient as his character. Most likely, he too wanders mindlessly through this world.
The Molotov Cocktails has been one of my biggest failures and only used but one time, which was maybe only a day or two after their construction. I can't be too sure, time during that period is all but a blur. Some events seem imaginary, as if they never actually happened. But, those fiery cocktails were most definitely real, one does not forget their first kill. Infected or not.
An old orphanage, somewhere in east bum-fuck, seemed to be perfectly deserted and unthreatened. I assumed they must have evacuated soon after the news hit the airwaves. It was once a Catholic Orphanage, renowned nationwide for the physically abusive nun's, and later State-Run after allegations of sexual abuse arose. St. Mary's Orphanage became New England's Little Wander
er's and now the Devil's Orchard. My instincts kicked in and I focused on a small shed out behind the main building. Tools is what I needed most of all, food can easily be foraged. My eagerness to rush into a good thing tends to cloud my judgment and bites me in the ass on occasions. For instance this one, one big bite.
The latch had been securely tied off with a thick rope, this should have been a fair enough warning, but naively I removed them. It was when I swung the door open that I realized the error of my haste. There before me stood eight, maybe ten children, ages anywhere from five to eighteen. They all seemed to be hopeless, like the pictures that the so called non-profits displayed during their guilt induced “Save the Children” commercials. Oddly, most of them were pale and freckled redheads, like an eerie scene from some old Stephen King book. I had heard rumors before of gingers being one of the highest percentage of orphans, aside from minorities. It must be true that some feared and shunned them like they were spawns of the devil.
The majority of the children were boys, and if my memory serves there was only two or three girls. All clothed in fairly clean and respectable outfits, as if dressed up for an annual barn dance. They stood almost motionless before me, as if waiting for me to gather them up in my arms and haul them off to safety. Cute kids, slightly creepy, but cute nonetheless. Or so I had thought.
“Jesus, you kids scared the shit out of me!” I exclaimed.
But the only response was a meek snarl from one of the little girls before they all at once lurched forward in unison. Their boney pale hands reaching out to grab hold, gnashing their teeth as bits of foam spat from their dry cracked lips. I backed away as they stumbled out of the shed and into the morning light, revealing the infectious wounds that laid littered across their bodies.