Piercing the Darkness: A Charity Horror Anthology for the Children's Literacy Initiative Page 36

  GORD ROLLO

  Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger.

  —Zephaniah 2:3 (King James version)

  Buffalo, New York, USA

  June 14th, 2039

  Tim was scared of a lot of things—admittedly, too many damn things—but at the moment his biggest fear was that he’d run out of duct tape before finishing; not that there was much he could do about it. The stores were all closed now, and more than likely sold out or looted long ago anyway. He’d either have enough silver tape to finish sealing the apartment in heavy clear plastic or he wouldn’t. Simple as that.

  Heaven help me if I run out, though, Tim thought. He was getting itchy just thinking about it and needed to stop and go wash his hands again.

  Fucking germs…

  Tim scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed his hands practically raw but eventually got himself under control and headed back to work; worried he was taking way too long. There was only the big dining room window left to cover but he knew he was running out of time. Back a few hours ago when he’d taken his last break there had still been four hours to prepare, but time was flying and down to a little over two hours until crunch time now. One way or another, the world as he knew it was about to end. The planet wasn’t going anywhere, of course, but human civilization certainly might be. Two hours and change until the scientists and global leaders initiated Project Red and finally found out if they could stop the devastation they’d unleashed.

  Tim didn’t have much faith in them.

  None, actually, which is why he was taking his own precautions.

  His friends and neighbors here in the building thought he was insane but he’d fully expected that much. The President of the Earth Council himself had ordered (not asked, or suggested, or pleaded—ordered) that every able bodied man, woman, and child be outside at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time tonight for the scheduled bomb drops in his area. Screw that! When the sky turned red tonight Tim planned to be in his apartment, cocooned inside his little fortress of plastic. There was just no way he could handle being outside tonight. Not with all the bugs. He was starting to sweat just thinking about them crawling all over his skin…in his ears…in his mouth. God no! They’d be too small to see, but still, he wasn’t doing it. He couldn’t do it. Was he making a big mistake, like everyone told him he was? Who knew?

  They’d all find out soon enough.

  From his window, Tim could see people already starting to gather in LaSalle Park beside his apartment building. He was on the fourth floor and his dining room window looked directly out over the kid’s play park and ball diamond beyond it. Downtown was only a few clicks west from here, and Lake Erie directly to the north but distances and directions didn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things anymore. The coming apocalypse had reduced everything down to the here and now. Even though LaSalle Park was fairly small Tim imagined it would hold several thousand bodies if they packed it to the max, but so far there were only a hundred or so men and women milling around, most huddling together with the people they’d arrived with and keeping a close eye on the sky.

  Tim was reaching for his last roll of tape, just about to seal the window up when he spotted a familiar face outside in the park. A woman named Wendy Harding was exiting the building and walking into the growing crowd below. All five-feet-eight, blond-haired, long-legged, perfect-bodied inch of her. Even at a time as dire as this, her beauty stopped Tim cold and he let the heavy plastic wrap drop to his feet, forgotten for a moment. Secretly he’d been in love with Wendy for years, and although Tim had promised himself one day he would walk up and let her know how he felt, he’d never summoned up the courage to actually talk to her. The closest he’d ever come was sneaking one of her real estate business cards off the community cork board down in the lobby and dialing her cell phone number listed at the bottom of it. He’d waited until she’d said hello twice, then hung up before making a fool of himself trying to ask her out on a date. He just always figured someday he’d ask her properly, you know…face-to-face.

  Odds were, now he’d never get the chance.

  With a sigh of regret, Tim got back to the business at hand and finished sealing off the dining room window. Just to be sure, he took another twenty minutes rechecking every nook and cranny of the seams for possible leaks where the chemicals or man-made viruses or whatever the fuck else might try getting in, but things were about as good as he was going to get them. For better or worse, he was ready.

  He needed to go wash his hands again, though.

  Fucking viruses…

  And then Tim got out his journal.

  Project Red Survival Journal

  Entry #1

  June 14th, 2039

  My name is Timothy Meek. I’m 38 years old and I live in apartment 412 of LaSalle Towers, in Buffalo, New York. I’m not very good at describing myself, but I guess I’m about 5’ 8” tall and weigh 160 pounds. I’m a pretty average white guy - Caucasian I think they call it - with short brown hair and hazel colored eyes. Suppose none of that really matters all that much but it makes me feel better knowing there will be documentation of me if things go to hell in the coming days, which is definitely possible. There may not be anyone around to read this journal either, but as far as I can see it, it can’t hurt.

  For the record, I disagree with the Earth Council’s desperate decision to implement Project Red, and have subsequently locked and sealed myself within my apartment and will be disregarding the President’s order to be outside at 8:00 p.m. tonight. I am not in principle a troublemaker or a lawbreaker, but I have made my decision and must stand by it now. If the truth be told, I hope the government scientists are right but I don’t think they will be. If I’m wrong and ever called out to answer for my disobedience, so be it. I’ll deal with it then.

  I’ll try to keep this record simple and to the point as much as possible, even though I’m sure I’ll end up rambling. My personal feelings and thoughts aren’t all that important so I’ll try just relating the facts and the play by play as things go down. No promises though. Okay, in case whoever reads this has no idea what happened, let me go back about six months and tell you what started all this madness.

  On January 19th of this year, there was a terrible explosion at one of the United States major centers for disease control in Atlanta, Georgia. Deep within the bowels of the CDC, there was a hidden laboratory where top secret research into biological and chemical weapons had been going on for nearly 100 years. Joe Public like me would never know about any of this but the scientists had really fucked up this time and accidentally released a nasty genetically mutated superbug that swept across the planet killing 250 million people in the first 3 weeks alone. The virus, known only as V-2283 initially (before everyone realized we’d been given a one way ticket to hell and someone clever in the media had dubbed it Dante’s Flu) was an airborne disease that started with flu-like symptoms such as cough and fever but soon escalated to weeping sores, internal hemorrhaging, and liver, kidney, and respiratory failure. Basically, within a week of contact, a person’s body would shut down on them, Dante’s Flu eating them from the inside out.

  The viral weapon had been designed to masquerade as a common cold or mild flu so the infected individual would have time to make it back to their troop, army, country, whatever, and then pass it along before the real symptoms hit. By the time their doctors and leaders discovered what was really happening, it would already be way too late.

  Somewhat luckily (if 250 million casualties can ever be considered lucky), the bio-weapon didn’t quite work as planned or it might have killed off every man, woman, child, and animal on the planet. When the death rates started to slow down on their own, the Earth Council began to think maybe we’d gotten off as easy as possible under the circumstances, but they were flat out wrong. Those who didn’t catch Dante’s Flu and die quickly weren’t getting away scott
free. They weren’t immune to the bug as initially hoped; their bodies just reacted differently to the spreading disease. Long story short; the entire world population is dying of cancer.

  So am I, I guess.

  It’s in our lungs, they say. In our blood too. I don’t seem to have any of the visible lumps most people are developing and I’ve never even once coughed up a mouthful of blood but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. The government says if we do nothing, we’ll all be dead within a year. What we need is a miracle, but what the Council has given us is Project Red. Starting tonight, the bug bombs are going to heal us, supposedly. Well, obviously not me. I’ll be sitting this one out.

  The clock read 7:52 p.m. and Tim couldn’t recall the city ever being this quiet before. Hell, this was Buffalo after all. Morning until night, this city was always crazy. Not tonight, though. Nothing was moving around out there and no one was talking. All those desperate people gathered outside and it was as silent as a tomb. It was seriously creeping Tim out. Through the dining room window he could see a mass of blobs down in the park but the thick plastic was distorting his view and he couldn’t make anything out clearly. Probably for the best. If he could see the people outside, his best guess was they’d all be facing the same direction; heads tilted to watch the horizon, waiting to catch their first glimpse of the planes they hoped were coming to save them.

  Tim sat down, back against the outside wall and tried to clear that haunting image out of his head but just couldn’t shake it. Then he started to imagine the people a few minutes from now, standing out there covered in the bugs raining from the sky and he nearly lost it. Suddenly light-headed and nauseous Tim closed his eyes, grabbed his knees and held on tightly.

  How can they do it? How can they just stand there and let…

  Tim dashed to the sink to vomit.

  It was only after washing his face and thoroughly scrubbing his hands again that he realized he hadn’t sealed the drain in the kitchen sink yet, like he’d planned. He had lots of bottled water and buckets to use for washing himself or going to the bathroom and had already sealed the bathroom tub and sink, but not this one in the kitchen. Idiot! The bombs would be dropping any minute and he clearly wasn’t ready. Tim knew the sink had a water trap inside the pipe that would more than likely keep the bugs out but didn’t want to take any chances so he quickly twisted in the drain plug, filled the sink with water, layered plastic over the top and used the last of the duct tape to seal the edges to the countertop.

  He finished just in time to hear the drone of the approaching plane engines and ran to the dining room window even though he couldn’t see outside very well. Seconds later, the blurry crowd below started to cheer and there was even a brief chant of USA…USA… that started up but for the life of him Tim had no idea what they were all so happy about. Desperation and blind faith can do strange things, he guessed.

  Fucking people…

  Through their collective noise Tim heard the first of several detonations. Maybe it was because he was sealed inside a plastic bubble, but the bombs sounded strangely muffled and farther away then they really were; more of a bass deep THUMP than the loud explosions he’d been expecting. Then again, these weren’t missiles smashing into buildings or tearing up the ground; these warheads had been designed to blow up in mid air, to release their payload above the heads of the gratefully cheering crowds.

  Tim considered turning on the television set to watch the drama unfolding simultaneously around the globe but his heart just wasn’t into seeing the end of the world in blazing Technicolor right now. No thanks. He’d eventually want to check the news feeds to get updates on how things were going, but tonight he was far too depressed to watch the idiotic smiling faces of the reporters on CNN. Instead, Tim turned on the portable air compressor and homemade filtration system and said a little prayer they’d hold out long enough for the air outside to clear. It might be a couple of days; it could take as long as a week. Regardless, he was on his own for a while.

  Outside, the sky was turning red.

  Project Red Survival Journal

  Entry #2

  June 15th, 2039

  Project Red is supposed to purify our blood; hence, in my opinion, the rather silly name. To do that, the scientists have developed these tiny creations called nanobots: microscopic ‘bugs’ that are half living organism and half computerized machine. Crazy stuff straight out of science fiction novels if you ask me, but they’ve been around for a while now and will be released into the air by the billions and infected people will breathe them into their lungs where they can then apparently go to work healing the sick from the inside out. Call me cynical, but I don’t buy it that the scientists have just come up with this wonderful cure. That reeks of bullshit to me. There was too much money in NOT curing cancer, if you know what I mean? Governments keep things from the public all the time and there’s no way of knowing when they actually discovered a possible cure. Probably years ago. Decades maybe. It just took the whole world standing at death’s door before they finally decided to let the rest of us in on the plan.

  How inhaling laboratory created bugs can possibly cure cancer is beyond me, but from what I’ve gathered they will use electrical impulses to stop the damaged cells from reproducing uncontrollably, not allowing the cancer to grow and spread as it normally would unchecked. It’s a bit like chemotherapy, but on a microscopic level where the smart bugs can identify and destroy the cancerous cells on a one-on-one basis instead of just wiping out everything in its path like chemo. If Project Red works as planned, the world should go into remission, the cancer stopped in its tracks from spreading or infecting other organs. Further nanobots may need to be deployed on a regular basis to keep people’s enhanced immune system running properly but no one really knows what the future might bring. At least the smart bugs will give the world a chance, they say.

  I’m not buying any of it.

  I think it’s a crock of shit. A desperate move made by a handful of controlling desperate men and women. Lies and false hopes given to the people to help keep the masses from panicking too much. Hope is a powerful weapon, and as long as the people have some the authorities will be able to keep the peace. Once it’s gone, though, and the citizens of the world know they’ve been played for fools; that’s when the shit will really hit the fan. I’m afraid that’s where we’re headed.

  Anarchy.

  The next two days were surprisingly uneventful. Tim sat around the dining room table listening to the radio and occasionally flopping on the living room couch to watch an hour or two of the unending television coverage. There was no end to the parade of scientists and government officials interviewed by the various news media; all of which droned on and on about the apparent success of Project Red and how everyone would start feeling better soon. To Tim, it seemed like they were jumping the gun a little, clapping each other on the back a bit too hard before there was any proof they’d accomplished anything. In fact, if success was so assured as they claimed, why weren’t they showing more live coverage from out in the cities? Where were the interviews with the average citizens of the world who were supposedly out there on the mend? Sure, there were hours of footage from the night the bombs had been dropped, film clips from around the world of the skies changing color and all the happy people dancing in the streets literally covered head to toe in a sticky red substance that, no matter how many times Tim watched the replays, couldn’t stop thinking looked eerily like they were covered in bucket loads of blood.

  The following morning, Tim heard a report on the radio that definitive proof had been collected to verify the nanobots were doing their job, stopping the spreading cancer in its tracks. Encouraged, Tim had flipped on CNN to see what they had to say about it, but was shocked to find out all they were showing was a minute long film clip of a bearded man in a white lab coat standing inside some sterile looking lab somewhere. He was pointing to a graph on a blackboard and explaining about the growing number of reported cases of remission thr
oughout the world. That was it. No patient interviews. No eyewitness reports. No tear-filled mothers or wives beaming at the cameras while they hugged their victorious husband or child who’d just been given a new lease on life. It didn’t make any sense, did it? Throughout the day, there were more miraculous newsflashes but they too lacked any real substance. It was all happening too fast for Tim’s liking. All the reports were just that little bit off, not quite ringing true or providing any real proof of anything other than the confident scientists’ claim. And why should Tim believe what they were saying? It was them, along with the governing officials, who’d got everyone into this mess in the first place.

  Fucking politicians…

  Outside his building, Tim couldn’t see or hear a thing. After the crowds had dispersed from LaSalle Park swarming with their microscopic saviors several nights back, everything had been quiet as a mouse. No one seemed to be moving around and Tim couldn’t even hear the normal yelling and screaming within the paper thin walls of his apartment building. What were they all doing, he wondered? Why was everybody staying inside and being so quiet? Tim had absolutely no idea. All he could go by was what he’d seen and heard on the television and radio—and they weren’t telling him shit.

  In the days that followed, things would only get worse. Tim continued his journal entries but outside the world had seemingly ground to a halt and there was never much for him to say. The newscasters and scientists were still spouting their messages of hope and victory but even to Tim’s untrained eyes he could see the men and women on his television screen didn’t appear anywhere near as healthy as their reports claimed. The red lesions and cancerous growths were far more prominent than before, covering huge areas of the broadcaster’s visible bodies. These were examples of the scientists’ success stories? Christ, they looked worse than before the bombs had been dropped. Worse than Tim, even, and he hadn’t showered in over a week now. He quickly stripped and checked again, but Tim still had none of the red growths growing anywhere on his body.