Mass Extinction Event (Book 2): Days 9-16 (13 page)

Thomas

Missouri

Sitting in the corner of the basement, with my back to the wall, I stare across at the dead body by the far wall. I've been over here in this corner for hours now, too scared to move, but I can't take my eyes of the horrific sight that I uncovered when I pulled the sacks away. I swear to God, this whole house is the creepiest, weirdest place in the world.

"Please," I whisper for the thousandth time, "get me out of here." I've spent the past few hours praying, desperately hoping that God might take pity on me and find a way to get the door open. Then again, God hasn't been much in evidence lately. Why would He allow the world to go to hell like this? Why would he let my parents die, and my brother, and all those other people whose bodies I've seen? Why would he let that Lydia woman die in such a painful and horrible way? I want to believe that there's some kind of plan here, that the world hasn't just fallen into chaos, but right now it's as if everything is falling apart.

Finally, after hours and hours of doing nothing, I get to my feet and start walking toward the far corner, where the dead body is partially uncovered. I've been putting this moment off for as long as possible, I figure I need to take a look and try to work out what happened. I've seen a hell of a lot of dead bodies over the past week, but I'm still not used to the damn things. Then again, as I get closer, I realize that this body is different to the others. She's not bloated or decomposed, and she doesn't seem fresh. In fact, if I had to guess, I'd say she's been dead for a hell of a long time. Years, maybe even decades.

Although my gut instinct is to turn and run, I crouch next to the body and stare at her face. Her mouth is open in a kind of twisted scream, and although her eyes have long since shriveled up, I'm pretty sure she was staring up at something. Her skin is totally dry and gnarled, and her limbs are almost like the roots of a tree. There's some long black hair still attached to the top of her head, and I can't help noticing that part of her neck looks to have been damaged, as if it's been eaten away. She's too far gone for me to be able to tell what killed her, or even how old she was when she died, but as I stare at her face, I'm overwhelmed for a moment by a feeling of pity.

Reaching down to the cloth sacks, I pull them away from her feet and see that there's a pair of iron chains still attached to her ankles. Did she also happen to stumble upon this house, many years ago? Did the old man capture her, the same way he captured me, and keep her down in this basement until she died? I've been assuming until this moment that the old man's madness has to be connected with everything else that's going on in the world, but what if it's completely separate? What if this girl was captured back when the world was normal? What if he just likes to leave people to die in his basement? Turning to look over at the door, I suddenly realize that maybe he isn't ever coming back.

Epilogue

No-one comes to move him.

For the first few hours, the television continues to fill the room with light and sound. Eventually, however, the signal is abruptly cut and the screen goes dark. There's still noise from the city, but this too fades over time and eventually it's as if the whole world has fallen completely silent. Later, there's the brief sound of rain against the window, but this doesn't last too long.

Silence.

Joseph's body remains absolutely still. He's on the bed, with sheets covering him all the way up to his chest. His dead face stares up at the ceiling, as if he was expecting something to appear above him as he died. There's still a faint grin on his face, but his eyes are dead and his body has started to stiffen. Already, his eyes appear to have sunk deeper into the sockets, and the skin on his face looks tighter. Deep inside his torso, the process of decomposition has begun. He's the first, but not by much; soon, billions of people all over the world are going to follow him into death, but there's one crucial difference.

For Joseph, this is only the beginning. This is the moment when everything starts again, and soon the whole world is going to be remade in his image. Even as he drew his last breath, Joseph was absolutely certain that he would rise again in billions of new bodies, his conscious mine shattered and poured into all those new souls.

On the far side of the room, sets of notebooks are piled on top of a small desk. These are the notebooks that contain all his plans. If everything works out as he expected, the world is about to enter a period of necessary darkness that will pave the way for an eventual explosion of light. Joseph took a risk, and part of that risk involved his own death, but he was convinced - even up to the very last second - that the pain and misery would be worth every second. He knew that he simply had to get through these final moments and embrace the darkness, and he knew that there would be something else waiting for him on the other side. Something triumphant. Something beautiful and spiritual and real. He knew that he would wake up again one day. One day soon.

But not in this body.

This body, the original - the prime - is useless. In a way, it always had to end this way. By the time his body has fulled rotted away, however, he hopes to be back in the world. His world.

Day Twelve

Prologue

"Has anyone seen Joseph?" asks Dr. McNulty, stepping into the faculty office.

"Not since Thursday," replies Dr. Groom, taking a sip from a cup of coffee. Pausing for a moment, she looks over at her colleague and sees that he seems worried. "Why? Don't tell me you actually miss that pedantic asshole?"

"It's not about missing him," McNulty says, pouring himself a cup. "It's about being responsible for a departmental budget that pays the salary of a man who seems to have gone walkabout." He pauses for a moment. "There's also the small matter of some missing inventory in the store-room. Someone's been taking things, nothing too important, but I'd still like to get to the bottom of it."

"Probably Joseph," Groom replies nonchalantly. "I don't know why you even keep him around. The guy's more trouble than he's worth. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he's started taking bits and pieces. Seriously, he just grinds everyone else down all day."

"You don't know what he's been working on."

"Then tell me."

McNulty sighs. He's been carefully keeping the true nature of Joseph's work from the rest of the department for the past few months, but now it's starting to look as if the whole project is falling apart. "It started as a private research proposal," he says after a moment, still feeling as if maybe he's revealing too much information. "Joseph was interested in the generation of intelligent, targeted viruses. He'd been sequencing some patterns that seemed to indicate..." He pauses again, aware that the whole thing is starting to sound a little foolish. "He was curious about the possibility that individual virus strains might have their own personalities."

"In other words," Groom replies grumpily, "science-fiction."

"That's what it sounded like at first," McNulty says, "but his proposal was actually quite good. He showed that there were some avenues for possible investigation, and I figured it might be worth taking a look. The date indicated that supposedly identical viruses sometimes showed certain predilections toward particular actions, and Joseph was convinced that this was more to do with emotional response than any kind of biological mechanism."

"Emotional response?" Groom asks with a smile. "In a virus?"

"He only wanted a couple of weeks and a few thousand dollars, so I told him to go ahead. If nothing else, I thought it'd be good to get him out of the way. It worked, didn't it? The guy stopped bugging the rest of us."

"And then what?" Groom asks. "He fucked off?"

"I just checked his personal account on the server," McNulty replies. "Before he left, he deleted everything. Not just a few files. Every single piece of data. And then he saved over the disk several times with garbage, just to make sure that we couldn't reconstruct what he'd taken. This wasn't someone deleting his history. This was someone making damn sure to scour everything so that there was no trace left behind. Whatever he was doing, he was clearly determined to make sure that we couldn't get into his files."

"So he wasn't just an asshole," Groom says. "He was a
paranoid
asshole."

"Maybe, but he wasn't an idiot. Obviously he signed all the necessary paperwork, but I'm starting to wonder if he discovered something more useful than he'd expected. If he's shopping his work around to the highest bidder, it'd make sense for him to wipe away any incriminating evidence first. He knows that anything he discovered while he's under contract would automatically belong to the university."

"So you think he's trying to make a quick profit?"

McNulty takes another sip of his coffee. "If it was anyone else," he says eventually, "that's exactly what I'd think. But Joseph's different. He's bitter, and he seems to hate everyone. Sometimes that guy worries me, and now I'm starting to wonder if I should have paid more attention to what he was doing."

"You make it sound like the guy's insane," Groom says. "From what you've told me, it seems far more likely that he just disappeared down his own rabbit hole while he was trying to justify some kind of insane theory. The only mistake you made, from the sound of things, is that you indulged his ridiculous endeavors. Seriously, wouldn't it have been better to have just shut him down and tell him to go fuck himself?" She waits for an answer, but McNulty is clearly lost in thought. "What's wrong?" she asks eventually. "I've seen that look on your face before. You're really worried about this, aren't you?"

"I just feel that maybe I misjudged Joseph," McNulty replies cautiously. "I was too eager to buy into the idea that he's some kind of crank, but what if he was really onto something, and what if he's got some kind of end-game in mind?" He pauses. "I think it might be an idea to see if there's any way to get that data off his hard-drive after all. You never know. Meanwhile, someone should go and take a look at his apartment, see if there's any sign of him."

"I've got nothing better to do," Groom says, finishing her coffee and getting to her feet. "I'm still on the clock, of course. I don't want this written off as some kind of personal trip. Also, I'll be stopping off for another coffee once I've checked on him. That's my fee for this ridiculous trip." She heads to the door, before turning back to McNulty. "Come on, lighten up. Yeah, the guy was a freak, but he wasn't some kind of mastermind. He's just gone off the radar, and if we're lucky, he won't be coming back. Let's just celebrate the fact that maybe we've got rid of him without too much trouble."

With that, she heads out of the room, leaving McNulty to hope that she's right. He can't shake the feeling, however, that Joseph might have had other plans.

Elizabeth

Pennsylvania

Frantically tipping the contents of Toad's bag onto the ground, I immediately see that as well as some food, he was also carrying what appears to be a set of bandages. Sure enough, I quickly find not only the bandages, but also a pair of scissors, some cotton swabs, and a small bottle that I'm hoping contains something I can use to clean the wound. He definitely came prepared.

"What do I do?" I ask, desperately hoping that toad might wake up and give me some advice. He seems like the kind of guy who'd have no problem performing a spot of battlefield surgery. If this was the other way around and I was the one who'd been shot, he'd have patched me up by now; unfortunately,
his
life is in
my
hands and I'm the worst person in the world to have to do something like this.

He's going to die. Just like Henry.

I look over at him and see that he's still breathing, but only just. It's dark, but I've managed to get the fire going again. Having realized that we were both in danger of dying of exposure, I copied everything that Toad did earlier: I whittled away the wet bark from some pieces of wood, and I used some of his matches to get the fire restarted. I swear to God, it's the first really practical thing I've ever done, and I cried with joy when I realized that the fire was going to last. Sure, it might not last all night, but I've got more wood and I'm hoping I can manage to keep us warm.

"Okay," I mutter, carrying the medical supplies past the fire and kneeling next to Toad. "Now what?" I wait in vain for a reply. "If you can just wake up for a moment," I continue, "I can follow any instructions you give me. Please..." Reaching out, I gently tap his chest, hoping against hope that he might be strong enough to talk.

Silence.

The wound on his left shoulder appears to have stopped bleeding, but as I carefully peel his shirt away, I realize that there's more damage than I'd expected. It almost looks as if someone punched a fist-sized hole in the top of his arm, and for a moment I feel as if there's absolutely no way I can ever do anything to help. I hate the sight of blood, and as I peer closer at the wound, illuminated only a little by the light of the fire, I can't help thinking back to the injury that killed Henry. It's all happening again, except this time I'm going to try to do something.

"I'll take the bullet out," I say, looking at Toad's unconscious face. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I think I can see it, so I'm going to try to pull it out."

No reply.

"It's going to hurt," I add. "I don't know if you can feel pain right now, but I doubt I can do this cleanly, okay? It's going to..." I pause as I stare at the fleshy mess caused by the bullet, with blood glistening in the firelight and pieces of torn skin and meat around the edges. "It's
really
going to hurt," I continue. "Like, more than anything in the world. But I haven't got a choice."

Taking a deep breath, I grab the small bottle and open the lid, before splashing some of the liquid onto the wound. It smells strong and medical, so I'm going to assume that the wound is not sterile. I take the scissors and hold the blade in the flames for a moment, figuring that this should help to avoid any kind of infection, and then I take a closer look at the wound. I'm not certain, but I think I can see something dark and metallic deep in the flesh, and I can only assume that I'm looking directly at the bullet. In a way, the whole thing is strangely, beguilingly simple.

"Fuck," I mutter, realizing that there's no point hesitating.

I pause.

Why haven't I started yet?

I guess it's because I think he's going to die. While I'm preparing to do this, I can fool myself into thinking that there's a chance I might save him; somehow, I might turn out to have amazing, hidden surgical skills. The truth, though, is that there's very little hope. The most likely outcome is that I'll poke around in the wound a little, and then he'll die, and then I'll be left all alone out here.

"You can do this," I say out loud, hoping to build up my confidence even though my hands are shaking. Focusing for a moment, I manage to steady myself, and finally I realize that I have to get started.

Slowly, I open the scissors and slip the tips into the wound. Once I close them again, I realize that the black object is definitely made of metal. I make sure to get a good grip, and then I carefully try to pull the bullet out. To my surprise, it comes out fairly easily, although once I get a good look at it, I realize that the tip appears to have shattered, which means there are probably fragments deeper in the wound. I stare at the bullet stub for a moment, and it's as if my brain has frozen. There has to be a way to fix this, but at the same time, there's no way I can start digging deeper into Toad's shoulder.

Dropping the damaged piece of metal onto the ground, I peer more closely at the wound. I can just about spot what appears to be a bullet fragment, so I press the scissors into the wound, but Toad immediately lets out a faint groan and I sit back.

"Can you hear me?" I ask.

No reply.

"Please," I continue, close to tears. "You have to wake up. You have to tell me what I'm doing wrong."

I wait, but he doesn't reply.

Reaching the scissors into the wound again, I manage to get hold of the fragment and pull it out, and this time Toad doesn't respond. As I drop the second fragment, I look into the wound and see several more small pieces, but it's clear that the tip of the bullet was completely shattered, which means there's no way I'll ever be able to get every piece out.

"I can't do this," I say, my voice trembling. "If you can hear me, I swear to God, I did my best, but I can't do everything. You need a proper doctor."

Finally, I decide that all I can do is try to patch him up and then hope that he can survive until we get back to the farm. After all, Patricia's a doctor, so she should be able to help. Grabbing the bandages, I find that they each come with a small roll of adhesive tape. They seem woefully inadequate for covering such a major injury, but I don't have anything else, so I pour a little more of the sterilizing liquid onto the wound before finally placing the first bandage directly over the gaping hole in Toad's shoulder. I struggle for a while, trying to get the pad to stay on firmly, but eventually I manage to get it properly sited and I sit back.

I did it.

Sure, it's not perfect, and he's not out of danger, but I managed to remove the bullet, sterilize the wound and fix a bandage to hopefully prevent any further damage. I have no way of knowing for sure whether what I've done is actually going to save Toad, but I figure it can't hurt. I did my best, and at least he's still breathing. I have no doubt that he'd have died if I'd just left him alone, so all I can do is pray that somehow he's able to pull through. I guess there's a chance. At the very least, I've minimized the risk of infection. I just have to hope that I've done enough.

Looking down at my hands, I see that there's blood all over my fingers. I glance over at the fire and realize that it's still burning fairly well. I have no idea what time it is, but the rain is still falling outside and the sun has been down for a few hours. Hopefully the rain will stop soon and sunrise will help me to work out which way we need to go in order to reach the farm. It's not exactly going to be an easy journey, but at least I'm starting to feel that there's a chance for us to survive. I remember where the sun rose this morning in relation to the farm, so I figure I might be able to work out roughly which way we need to go in the next few hours.

Walking over to the cave entrance, I stare out at the darkness. I have no way of knowing if another of those creatures is in the area, and even if we're alone, I doubt things will stay that way for long. I keep thinking back to the way the creature talked about coming after us, and it's hard not to imagine more of them - maybe hundreds, maybe even thousands - making their way toward us right now. Maybe we can ignore the danger for now, but sooner or later we're going to have to fight. Up until this moment, I've been allowing myself to dream that somehow the world is going to get put back to normal eventually. Finally, however, I'm starting to realize that things might never be the same again.