Omega Plague: Collapse
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Authors: P.R. Principe
Omega Plague
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P. R. Principe
Copyright © 2015 by P. R. Principe, Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may
not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written
permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in critical
articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,
places, organizations, events, and incidents are either the products of the
author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
Published in the United States of America by Grey Mountain
Press
First edition 2015
ISBN 978-0-9963264-0-7
Edited by M. J. Hyland and Trevor Byrne
Cover design by Ivan Zanchetta
Visit www.prprincipe.com
To my family
Bruno Ricasso gazed at the husk of a once-proud city. What
was he thinking, coming back here? He must be out of his mind. The only sound
he heard was the wind and the sea and the gulls behind him, and the pounding of
his boots on the cobblestones. The late summer sun, while already past its peak,
still shone brightly and cast sharp shadows. With the strong headwind, it had
taken much longer to cross the bay than he had anticipated, and he needed to
hurry. Bruno didn’t want to be caught outside at dusk. Or dawn. He had made a
point never to be out at those times. Which is probably what had kept him alive
this long.
The pistol and baton strapped to his side were the last
vestiges of a uniform long abandoned. He wore sweats, and had cinched his
sleeves with rubber bands over his light leather gloves and tucked his pants
into the boots. While chafing and hot, he much preferred being uncomfortable to
risking exposure to infection. The black leather of the gun belt around his
waist contrasted with the dark-blue fabric underneath. Had anyone else been there
to observe, they might have noticed the grey hairs beginning at his temples and
shading down into his beard, uncommon for a man in his early thirties—but
perhaps not so uncommon for anyone who had managed to survive the past year.
Bruno paused for a moment to get his bearings, the sunken
blue eyes behind his dark sunglasses surveying the scene. Ever-present to the
southeast, the volcano menaced the city, its grey rock slopes stark in the
daylight. He stood on the long road that meandered along the seaside, concrete
and stone piers stretching behind him. Vulgar graffiti decorated the façades of
the long, stone buildings that lined the street in front of him. A steamy
breeze blew trash back and forth at his feet. The breeze carried the smell of
the sea with it, but it was also tinged with the damp scent of ashes from fires
that had long ago burned themselves out. The state of the city reminded him of
how things had been after a garbage strike, minus the syrupy stench of rotting
food. Now, the public bins were filled with refuse so old they smelled mostly
of dust, not decay. Bruno peered into one of the bins. There was little point
in rummaging; anything of use had long since been scavenged.
And he’d left paradise for this?
But there was no point in dwelling on what he’d left behind
just across the bay. Unwisely or not, he was committed. If, against all hope,
what he searched for was still here, then he would find it and get out. He
headed east. While it wasn’t the most direct route, he wanted to stay on main
avenues, for fear of losing himself in the warrens of streets.
Cars and
motorini
with flat tires were scattered here
and there. He moved briskly, but stayed as close as he could to the left side
of the street: concrete barriers topped with translucent plastic screens along
their lengths bordered that side, with a row of regularly planted trees behind.
Beyond the trees, cranes and other construction equipment rose over an open
pit. He watched for movement. Passing the half-excavated construction site, he
noticed a sign on the building to his right. “Centro Storico.” Good. He was
headed in the right direction, towards the city center.
The street opened onto a large square with an overgrown park
in the middle. As Bruno entered the square, he paused and took a wide look
around. He remembered this place. It had once been lively, full of people
laughing, talking, complaining. In all its long history, the city had never
been this empty, this barren. He looked north and saw the trattoria where he
and his father had celebrated the good fortune of his assignment so close to
his father’s town. The tables and chairs that had once been arranged on the
sidewalk surrounding the eatery now lay mostly upturned, like fantastic
four-legged creatures, dead on their backs. The long terracotta pots defining
the outside dining area were filled with dry scrub weeds. He thought of the
city as it had been, and continued northward.
The two-lane street lengthened into the distance and veered
left, rising beyond his sight. Bruno walked on the low concrete divider between
the lanes, four times the width of a normal curb. He wasn’t sure if it was
better to try to stick to the sides of the street, where there was more cover,
or remain on the straight, unobstructed path of the divider, where he was less
likely to be surprised. He decided to opt for speed over stealth, as a quick
glance at the sun told him he had spent too long drinking in the sights,
wasting precious time.
There were far fewer vehicles on the street than he might
have otherwise thought. Before he arrived here, he had steeled himself for
scenes like footage from a World War II documentary, with bodies lying naked in
the streets. But he saw none. Made sense, he supposed, since most people had
tried to leave the city if they could. Or they would have died at home; maybe
there were tens of thousands of desiccated cadavers hidden away, unseen, all
around him, lying in their beds. He tried not to dwell on that thought.
The low-rise stone and concrete buildings on either side all
had balconies facing the street. The shops and storefronts on the ground floors
were either empty, ruined, or locked down behind steel
serrande
. Black
streaks ran up the outside of many of their windows, and many of the buildings
were charred. A few buildings were relatively intact, and some of the balconies
had overgrown plants spilling out. Some looked like pear trees. He took out a
small pad from his sweat top and wrote down the street and cross street.
Perhaps something to remember for the next time he came into the city.
If
he came back.
He reached the end of the divider and the street curved
sharply to the left. The street opened onto a wide intersection of three other
streets. The buildings facing the intersection terminated not in hard angles
but were rounded, softening the otherwise sharp architecture. He scanned the
corners of the buildings in front of him and spotted the street name on a
concrete plaque mounted on the building to his right. Via Monteoliveto. Street
of the Mount of Olives. This was it. He quickened to a jog.
Finally, Bruno arrived at a small intersection. A
gridiron-style building rose almost directly in front of him. The streets
continued sloping upward, rising sharply around the gridiron building, and they
met in a triangular intersection with a similarly shaped fountain in a
pedestrian square to his left. He recognized this place instantly. He had
lingered many a time at that fountain, reading a magazine and smoking after his
shift. With its white marble eagles, tapering up to an obelisk crowned by a
bronze Spanish king, the fountain seemed defiantly elegant in the ruined
silence, even though the marble lions had run dry. When water had poured into
the basin, the air about the fountain had always been crisp. But now it was
filled with stagnant rainwater the color of seaweed. It was not somewhere to
linger anymore.
Bruno walked past the fountain and into the small square. On
the left side of the square was a green metal newsstand still plastered with
tattered posters and full of the last newspapers and magazines ever printed.
The square itself sloped gently upward, ending in a long, three-storey building
arranged perpendicular to the square. Arches framed the tall windows and
stretched along the ground floor. Two navy blue vans were parked nose-to-nose
across great, wooden double doors, as if to provide cover for them. The back
doors of the van to his left were flung open. He approached the van with
caution, drawing his pistol in his right hand and cutting a wide angle around
the door, controlling his breathing as best he could. The van was empty, except
for a thick, brown streak framed with handprints that stretched from the middle
of the interior to the lip of the door, a gash in the otherwise white space.
Dwelling on the streak and what had happened to make it would do him no good.
Keeping his pistol ready, he searched the other van and found registration and
insurance paperwork, in the glove compartment, and a small penlight with an LED
that gave off a feeble, but still usable, white glow. He slipped it into a
pocket.
Bruno turned now to the building looming over him. The
wooden doors stood directly in the middle of building’s façade, framed by the
tallest arch. Above the arch, affixed to the second-storey balcony, were two
fraying flags on masts reaching into the square. One was
il Tricolore
,
the national flag. The edges of the faded red end flapped over his head. The
other was the Flag of Europe. He had known as soon as he came to the square
with the fountain that he was in the right place. The flags, marking a
government building, only served to confirm what he already knew. There was a
gold-plated plaque streaked with grime mounted just to the right of the door.
He read the words: “Commando Provinciale: Napoli.” Bruno pulled the large steel
ring that served as a handle, but the doors stood firm. He holstered his
pistol, lowered his backpack to the ground and, after first removing and
stowing his gloves, pulled out the crowbar, then began to pry the seam. He
worked the tool back and forth until the wood began to give and finally, with a
sharp retort, a chunk of the door flew out. The crowbar fell to pavement with a
clang that reverberated around the square. He had hoped for speed and stealth
during this trip back to the city, but he felt sluggish and loud. He looked
around before reaching in and turning part of the mechanism that was now
exposed. He heard the scrape of metal on metal and the bolt withdrew into its
housing.
He remembered the courtyard of his old duty station well, and
knew exactly where to go. The rational part of him knew that what he sought was
probably long since removed or destroyed, but the other part smoldered with
hope that what he might find here would provide him with answers—maybe even
the
answer.
He slid his pistol from its holster and stepped into the
courtyard.
***
Hours later, he emerged back into the square. He paused in
front of the door he had broken. His t-shirt was stained with moisture, but it
wasn’t from exertion. Each time he had pried or broken open a door, window, or
cabinet with the crowbar, the noise had made sweat pop out from under his arms.
Yet, against all hope, there it had been, sitting intact in the electronics
storage cabinet, gleaming, almost waiting for him. He knew that it probably would
not work, for any number of reasons: it might be broken, it might not be the
right kind, it might simply be beyond his ability to use. Yet the weight of it
in his backpack comforted him.
In the square, everything looked the same. The blue vans,
their doors still open, were as he had left them. The sun, though, was now low
in the sky. He was not sure how much time he had. He moved forward with haste,
thinking only of the sea, where he would be safe. He made it only as far as the
middle of the square when a long, low growl froze him in place.
He turned to his right and saw, emerging from behind the
remains of the newsstand, an emaciated dog. It was a feral mongrel and looked
like a German shepherd mixed with a wolf. The dog crouched slightly, its hackles
raised, and began to bark. For all Bruno knew, it may never have seen a human
before.
He did not want to use his pistol as he was afraid of who
might hear the gunshot, but there was no way he could outrun the dog, not
weighed down like he was. He eased his baton from his gun belt.
The dog stepped towards him and Bruno leapt towards it,
swinging the baton. The backpack unbalanced him and he only just managed to
clip the dog’s snout. The dog staggered, blood staining its teeth, one of which
was now missing, an incisor. Bruno dropped the baton, drew his pistol, and the
dog leapt at him as he fired.
He backpedaled almost to the vans without realizing it, his
ears ringing with gunfire. He stared at the dog, lying on its chest with its
legs splayed out.
With a loud exhalation, Bruno released the magazine,
dropping it into his left hand. He had shot three rounds. As he swapped the
magazine for a full one, he reflected that his firearms instructor—God only
knows what had happened to him—would probably have berated him.
He shoved the full magazine into the grip and re-holstered
the pistol, then found the baton and hurried back into the square, past the
fountain.
As he was turning right to head back down the Via
Monteoliveto, he spotted two figures at the top of the street, past the
gridiron building. His stomach tightened. He was in the middle of the street,
exposed. They were not much more than two hundred meters away from him; they
must have been drawn his way by the gunfire. For an instant he hoped they
hadn’t seen him. Then he heard what sounded like a referee’s whistle, and he
turned and ran back down the street, towards the seaside.
He darted down a narrow side street, which wound around and
opened onto another four-lane street heading north-south. He crossed the wide
avenue into a warren of narrow streets laid out in a grid pattern. He knew
exactly where this was. I Quartieri Spagnoli, the old Spanish Quarter, named
for when Spain ruled this city. Most of the streets were only three meters
across. Tattered clothes still hung from rusting balconies, and leftist
political posters, their vibrant reds long faded, hung in shreds from the sides
of stone buildings. Once a breeding ground for poverty and crime, the Quarter’s
run-down apartment buildings now stood only as a reminder of an infamous past.
He made his way through the streets, dodging around cars and overturned
motorbikes and zig-zagging south, back towards the sea and salvation.
Bruno hoped the lack of a long field of view would give him
some kind of advantage. He took cover behind a delivery van that had been
turned over on its side. The van cut across the small street, nearly blocking
it, rear doors butting right up to a building. After his breathing slowed he
could hear no movement, but he wanted to make sure he had lost them. He held
onto the van’s undercarriage and leaned just around the front bumper. With the
detritus of the city cluttering the street, he could only see three blocks
behind him. But he saw no one. And the only whistle he heard now was the wind
through the streets. The rush of adrenaline from the chase ebbed from him,
leaving him spent. His legs felt like they were weighed with cement as he
continued to trudge his way south, half-expecting to hear the sound of a
whistle coming from one of the buildings around him.