This choice: An average teenager in a virus-ravaged apocalypse • Go Back...Chapter #3An average teenager in a virus-ravaged apocalypse by: Yote   The virus came out of nowhere and spread rapidly. At the time, nobody paid much attention to it - it was after all, mostly harmless - though looking back it has been hard to determine if its origin was natural or man-made. Certainly there are parts of its DNA coding that are a little too neat to be truly natural, and its spread was unusual, with cases appearing simultaneously on all continents at once, before spreading out to infect the entire world.
It's transmission was remarkable. It could travel through the air, survive in water, and be transmitted in bodily fluids. But the most interesting thing about it was that it only infected men, superstitiously inserting its genetic material into every y-chromosome in the body, and then falling dormant. The symptoms of the original infection were mild and the virus was universally derided and dismissed as a case of global man-flu.
One year after infection, the latent virus entered its active phase. The effect was invariable fatal within only a few days. It began with bleeding from the mouth, eyes and ears, developing into behavioral disturbances culminating in violent mania, eventually ending in systemic organ failure and death.
Before they even knew what was happening, before they could even begin to research a cure, mankind was wiped out. Only womankind remained.
Except for just a small number of men. A few individuals, perhaps just one, proved immune to the disease.
-|-|-|-|-|-|-
It has been a great two weeks, camped out here in the wilderness, sleeping beneath the stars. Just you, the girl of your dreams and a river filled with as many bottles of beer as you could fit in the back of the car. Yet as Thursday evening turns to Friday morning, and you and Jess fish the last few bottles from the cold water and drink them beneath the starry sky, you can't help but feel a deep sense of regret. You'd been given a whole fortnight to ask Jess out, the girl you'd fancied ever since the two of you hit puberty together. The situation couldn't have been more ideal - out here, alone, in the beautiful countryside, drunk off your faces.
But tomorrow - well, technically today - you'll be getting back in the car and driving home, and after that you'll both be going away to college at opposite ends of the country. This was your last chance to tell her how you feel.
As you sit beside the campfire, you feel another tickle in your nose. "Achoo!" The sneeze is so violent that your forehead bounces off the top of the beer bottle, causing froth to spill over your fingers.
"Still got that flu, huh?" Jess says.
"Uh huh," you sniff, wiping your nose on your sleeve. Your runny nose had exhausted the supply of toilet paper halfway through the trip, much to Jess' displeasure - she'd been forced into using handfuls of leaves instead, and had started complaining about having insects up her butt.
You've been feeling lousy since the day after you arrived in the mountains, though you've tried not to let it ruin your trip. "I'm gonna eat like a million paracetamol when we get back to civilization. At least I'll die happy"
"I think I might shave my legs," Jess muses, running her fingers up her bare legs.
"That will be a first," you smirk. She reaches across and thumps you hard on the arm. She's always been tom-boyish, and has never realised what a mean punch she has.
"Thank for that," you grumble sarcastically, rubbing your arm. "I am sick you know."
"You big baby. You're not ill, you're just weak."
"You can't hit sick people!"
"Sure I can," she grins, raising her fist.
As you dodge her punch, the mountain valley abruptly plunges into an even deeper darkness, as the orange glow that outlines the tips of the mountains - the light pollution spilling over from the nearest city - suddenly cuts out. Only the moon and the stars illuminate your retreat. "That was weird. Did they just turn out all the lights or something?"
"Maybe it's a power cut," you reply. Then a thought occurs to you. "Hey, have you seen a plane go over since we got here?"
"I don't think so. We're not exactly near an airport. Why?"
"Just wondering," you shrug and finish your beer. "Anyway, I'm driving tomorrow. I need sleep. See you in the morning."
With a last regretful glance at her open tent, you climb into your own and slide into the sleeping bag. Jess stays awake a little longer, waiting for the lights to come back on in the city over the mountain, but they never do.
-|-|-|-|-
The drive home is quiet. The mountain roads seem deserted. After waking only long enough to bundle her tent up into the back of the car, Jess sleeps for the first few hours; her dirty, bare feet up on the dashboards and her snoring mouth hanging open. Bored, you fiddle with the radio, but only able to get static.
As you drive out of the winding roads and onto the motorway, a sense of unease descends on you. The roads are empty. As you near the city, you start to spot cars sitting deserted by the roadside.
"Is somebody roasting something?" Jess murmurs, sniffing the air as she comes awake. You can smell it too - like burning meat. A thick cloud of white smoke spills across the motorway. "God, that's making my hungry. Can we stop for burgers?"
"We're not stopping for burgers," you say soberly, the unsettled feeling growing. You turn off from the motorway and drive towards the source of the white smoke. Something doesn't feel right here, and you intend to find out what it is.
Eventually you spot the fire. Braking to a halt beside a field, the two of you climb out of the car and stare at the strange sight. The field has been churned to mud by the wheels of several large dump trucks and what look to be military vehicles are parked around the circumference. Figures in bulky, black hazardous environment suits and respirators move around the field, using shovels to tend to the vast, smouldering mound of blackened... shapes that sits in the center and from which pours the smoke.
"I... I don't think we should be standing here," Jess says, suddenly nervous. "If they need those suits, it can't be good for us... right?"
"Wait, wait... don't you want to see what they're doing?"
One of the dump trucks is reversing towards the fire. It stops and as the rear began to tip towards the fire, out from under the tarpaulin begins to flow a torrent of... dead bodies.
Jess screams and races for the car. As you stand, almost transfixed, one of the heavy-suited figures turns and sees you. For a second it freezes, then it points and screams through the mask, "There! Get him!"
"Shit!" So much for friends forever - as you turn and race for the car you notice Jess is in the driving seat. She keys the engine into life and squeals away just as you reach the passenger door.
The black-suited figures are scrambling over the wall, running for you. Some of them carry shovels caked with burnt blood and flesh. Others are toting sleek, military-issue rifles. They're screaming things at you, but behind the darkened visors you can make out nothing, neither words nor faces. You run from them faster than you've ever run before, sprinting down the road towards your disappearing car, willing her to stop. She doesn't even slow down. You're too unfit and hungover for this. Your chest aches and your legs burn. Yet you're faster than them, encumbered as they are by the suits. You almost feel like laughing with joy...
...just as one of them raises their rifle. You go down hard with blood pouring out of your leg. The faceless figures surround you, grabbing your arms and legs and fighting to restrain you as you lash out at them. One of them knees you hard in the balls and you groan in pain, body convulsing around the blow, stars fizzing on the edge of vision.
"Get pressure on that leg!" one of the figures bellows. "God damn it, I did not give you the order to shoot!"
"He was getting away."
"He's no good to us dead!"
That one. That one seems to be the leader. Managing to free your arm, you swing at their head, your fist impacting against the thick glass of the visor with a painful crunch, unfortunately one of bone rather than glass.
"Real clever," the one with the rifle that shot you says dryly. "Say hello to the future of the human race."
The one you punched pins you against the floor with their knee on your chest, their weight forcing the air from your lungs. They reach up, unsealing a catch from the seal at their neck with a hiss of positive pressure escapng. As the hazardous environment helmet is pulled away, you see that the suit actually contains a woman. Admittedly a very angry, buzz-cutted woman. She forces the helmet down over your head. "Stop that bleeding," she orders. "Then get the rest of him suited up ASAP. Call headquarters, tell them we've found one still alive and need a helicopter on our position immediately. We're taking him to...  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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