Prologue

Prologue

The beach was quiet. The waves were lapping on the shore, gulls crying out a greeting to the dawn. I walked along the beach, looking for shells or beach glass; the treasures of my morning walks. The day dawned warm, with a cool northern breeze. The weather was changing; no one could tell what was actually coming.
As I walked I saw a shape climbing out of the waves, it was a person, but they looked hurt. The figure was limping as if they had stepped on something sharp.
“Hello!” I called. There was no audible response. I could see the figure’s mouth moving, but nothing but a sound like the wind through the trees came out.
“Do you need help?” I asked.
The figure started limping my way, I pulled out my cell phone to call for help when I saw the blood on the woman’s (I can tell her gender now) chest and legs. I dialed 911 but the phone just beeped back at me; no service. Well, it looks like my training in Boy Scouts will finally get some use. It has been a few years; I hope I remember it all.
As I get within 10 feet of the woman, I start to smell a really funky smell. It smells like wet socks on a road killed deer. This is a strange smell to be found this close to the lake. I usually smell dead fish, which this is definitely not. I begin to get nervous, call out for her to stop. When I do, she whips her head toward me. She begins to limp in my direction, her lips curled in a snarl, a low growl coming from her chest.
Fortunately, her foot, I can see now, is almost completely off her leg. What this creature is I do not know; all I know is that I am now in serious danger. I begin to run the other way, praying that the nice weather brings out someone else to the beach to help me. I look around; no luck. Why do I choose to walk on such a remote beach? I really should have realized that I was setting myself up for something.
I am about 100 feet from the “thing” now, I slow down to save my strength and the figure isn’t speeding up at all, anyway. What can I do about this? I’ve seen movies like this, but they aren’t real, are they? Of course not, all that is just movie magic with corn syrup and food coloring.
Now that I think about it, there is usually someone out here on a morning walk. Where are all the people? I see no boats on the lake, and it is really quiet. Even the gulls have moved on.
The figure’s foot has fallen off completely now. She falls to her face and starts to crawl in my direction, her eyes never leaving me. I am getting really scared now, what is going on here? I decide that maybe I should get home and try to figure things out there.
“Goodbye, ugly!” I yell to the figure. She keeps crawling towards me, never changing pace or expression. It is as if she is not even a person.
I get home safely, I don’t see any other creatures, but I don’t see many people, either. The few I did see had a panicked look on their faces. The same look I see when a fierce northern blizzard is due to come and they didn’t prepare until the last hour. Typical American thinking, nothing can happen to us until it does; 9/11, Katrina, floods, tornadoes. When the shit hits the fan, Americans are always the first hit by the splatter.
Lack of preparation will be our downfall someday. We are going to be hit by something we do not see until half of us are beat.

Now that I am safely home, I can forget about what I have seen. Maybe I should call the police or something, but I can do that later. Now, I am going to grab a sandwich and watch the news. I go to the kitchen and make that sandwich, taking it to the living room; I sit down and turn on the TV. I am greeted by images of looting and rioting in the towns around me. A reporter is telling the world that there is a sickness spreading and people are dying. Horrified, I switch to the cable news and I see that this is not just a local problem, it is happening all over the world.

Seeing this, I run to my bedroom and start packing for a trip to nowhere. I grab my heavy winter clothes, along with some lighter stuff. My hunting boots are in the front closet, but I have no idea what to do about food. I subconsciously realize that I have no food that is trail stable. Nevertheless, as I am in crisis mode, the thought never gets further than that. I pull on my boots, run out the door, and go to my car. I tear out of the driveway and try to get to the interstate to get the hell out of here, hopefully to a place that is free of people, because I have seen this movie before and it never ends well for people like me. I am of no interest; I have no reason to make it to the end credits.

My mind starts to wander as I turn on to the ramp to get on the highway. I am home free now. I can go anywhere from here. I almost do not see that the entire road is packed with cars. I slam on my brakes and begin fishtailing. It is too late; my car slams into a pickup square in the bed. The rear axle comes apart and punches right through my engine compartment. In some strange event of physics, my car flips over the truck and comes crashing on to the top of the convertible on the other side.

Miraculously, I am unharmed, as is the truck driver, of course. Unfortunately, the family in the convertible is crushed, as I get out of my now hunk of scrap metal, I see that they were just coming home from the beach. Sand pails and shovels, strewn across the road, and a Dora towel is hanging from the side. I cannot bear to bring myself to look in the car. I just grab my bag and run. I run far, far away; I try to run as far as I can.

News of the oncoming plague spread, riots, looting, arson, the civil unrest grew beyond the capabilities of the government within days. People rushed to any health care facility, demanding salvation from an illness they did not even know the full scope of yet. As the various militia and police forces organized to quell the riots, the disease spread like wildfire through the crowds. As the governments were slow to respond, airlines spread the plague through commuters.

The year is 2012, the month is September, and conspiracy theorists around the world are not surprised by these developments. People begin flocking to the streets, some waving homemade signs, some just confused. Doomsday fanatics, beating themselves bloody, preachers of every religion shouting to the masses to prepare for eternity. Through all this, disease begins to spread through many people, the flying blood for the fanatics, the flying saliva from the preachers, and just normal contact between people, spreading disease.

Within days, cases had spread across every continent; London was the hardest hit in those early days. The Olympics were just beginning, and travelers who could not, or would not get away from the events took the illness home with them. This caused the plague to reach pandemic proportions far more quickly than even the most pessimistic projections could have predicted.

Within a month, the disease had killed a quarter of the world population. The disease is a strain of smallpox that becomes lethal in less than 72 hours, and vaccine does not affect it. Rumors are that this is bio-terrorism or some government experiment gone horribly wrong. It does not matter though what happened; it spread much too quickly to stop. Entire communities where overwhelmed in days, cities in just over a week. Churches across the world proclaimed it as the end of days, orgies of violence as humanity burned itself out. It was not the end of days; it was merely a transition to something else

Survivors of communities buried their dead, working together as people have not done since the time of the great wars. Community parks became cemeteries with wooden markers made from pieces of pallets and nailed together by children who now depended on neighbors to fill the void of parents and family lost. The sound of shovels and picks replace the sound of laughing and joy. Women to old to assist in the grim work, take the duty of keeping people hydrated and fed. In a small town in Massachusetts, the community center became a dorm hall for no other reason than mutual protection and peace of mind. Everyone from the oldest to the youngest knew that at anytime the people they are sharing a home with could come down with a small itchy spot, followed by the request to go to one of the now empty houses. Someone would check on them 3 times a day to make sure they ate and were still alive. Once the person died, the bearer of the bad news would assemble a team to remove the body of their former friend and neighbor to begin the work of yet another grave. Some of the children, after seeing this one too many times, started making a grave marker for every person in the building. Some of the adults, though bothered by this, understood the necessity and the peace of mind it may have given the children.

Another month passes; many communities are dead. Small cities now have the population of villages; the town in Massachusetts has only three young teens left. They decide to make a run for it towards Boston. As they begin traveling, the children are ambushed by one of the many roaming bands of thugs that are forming for survival. The children, murdered for the little food they have, infect one of the gangers before they die. The infection is a death sentence to such a small group. However, this is a small karmic victory, as only two in ten of the old world’s population still live.

As people continue to die, some of the smarter and braver people begin to leave everyone behind. They start pilgrimages to remote, but livable places to keep them safe from plague. Those with basic skills manage to meek out an existence; others, no matter their conviction, cannot manage to build a solo existence. While others just keep wandering until a solution presents itself.