madmanic999's fiction

nothingman-Block8-answers continued

0 bang

del.icio.us Reddit

Inappropriate

Email This!

:: Tuesday, October 9, 2007 by madmanic999

Here I am at the end of the world, the end of IT...                                                                           Here I am at the end of it all....

"I see it," Decker shouts from his position scouting ahead, "just over the hill, we're here!"

"Good deal Deck, get a scope on the shacks, look for activity, and get a headcount if possible!"  Reese shouts back.

"There's a lot of smoke boss," Decker adds, "a few gees running around, they look rattled......." He carefully moves his field glasses over the horizon, "Oh yeah, they're rattled, it's a pig roast, they got hit, recent, and hard!"

"A pig roast?...." I'm almost whispering.

Fish shoots me a sideways glance, "They're burning their dead and infected, they were attacked."

Suddenly Reese's weapon is aimed at my temple, a wild look in his eye, "I don't have time to ask you the next question twice so please answer quickly..." his voice oddly calm considering his expression, "How many people over that hill, what's going on over there, what do you sense?"

I slowly turn my head to face him, never averting my eyes from his, then I shut them, concentrating, trying to see over the horizon, trying to feel.... but I see nothing, feel nothing. "I... I can't... I can't feel them... can't sense anything..."

"Try harder!" his voice rises as he steps toward me pressing his weapon to my forehead.  The barrel is cold despite its recent use.

"Fuck!" Reese shouts. "Why the fuck... they better still have what we're lookin for!  Fish, you're babysitting... Deck, Rez, Sull, with me.... we are in and out, no drama."

As Fish drags us towards the grassy ridge, I watch the four jog down towards Sanford, weapons raised and ready.  This makeshift town of tin shacks and boarded up old storage structures stands in the shadow of  a huge smoke column rising from the dead bodies burning in it's center.  From this distance it is hard to tell for sure, but as I strain my eyes I can swear that something in the fire is moving.  Unknown figures spot Reese and his soldiers and seem to become frantic... Fish grabs my arm dragging me back away from the ridge, my chains tighten as James and M stumble backward with me...

"Get on your knees," The sound of three short pops interrupt Fisher, gunfire, "on your knees and wait... now!"

"Are they infected, are they... Ivon?" my question seems to upset him, I slowly sink down pulling the shackles to force my friends to do the same.

"We wait, that's it," 4 more pops answered by 2 hollow crashes, maybe a shotgun, "our job is to wait, no more questions about Sanford."

We sit in silence... every few moments another gunshot or tight series of pops, then more silence.  Fish paces nervously in front of us. 

"Tell me... tell me more about what I am... what happened to me."

He looks at me, agitated by the question...

"Please, we have time.... while we wait...."

He pushes the hair from his eyes and starts reluctantly...

"It's the disease, the virus," he begins, "the Doc says it goes after your brain first, tears everything up and rewires it, turns you into a killer, a maniac.  I watched some old man tear a little girls eyes out three seconds after a reaper attacked their camp." he slowly sits in the dirt in front of us legs crossed, "Then, once it has you the infection starts spreading, changing the body.  Hair falls out, it makes bones and muscle mass denser, thickens the skin, even your teeth and nails change, and before you know it, you're a more efficient killing machine... a stalker... a reaper...... but when those alien things, those yellow monsters, crashed here they started infecting us... but some... a small few they tore apart. Just killed them quick.  For a long time no one understood why.... but then the first groups of ghosts showed up.  They stumbled around together, wandering, lurking... until they spot uninfected, then they go insane, attacking and killing anything that gets in their way.  It was like the infection rewired them, but just didn't finish the job.  Early on some were captured and studied and then the connection was made."

"What connection?"

"The connection between the ones who were killed and the ones that became ghosts.  You see, Reapers can see the sick, the already diseased and infected, the potentially inferior, we don't understand how, but they were picking the healthiest humans, the best of us for infection, and killing those who were already sick or dying, like picking apples from a tree, the ripe go in the basket... the rotten ones thrown aside.  They killed them by the thousands, but... but sometimes during an attach, the first attacks and those that came after the aliens, a person would get infected by accident or somehow escape being killed but still infected, the virus would start changing them, rip their minds apart... turn them into psychopaths.... then just stop.  The doctors said that the infection was still in them, but it was inactive... and when they studied the ghosts they found all sorts of shit... cancers, aids, hepititis, even some with infected wounds, and severe flu... it was like the virus would encounter other sicknesses and just abandon the transformation in mid-change, no one really knows why, but they would just become these half reaper, half human zombies.

"That's why you call us ghosts... I was..."

"Already dead... basically, yeah.... the infection tried to make you Ivon,  that's why you have no memories, who you were is dead and gone, but during the change the virus just... stopped.  Your just a...."

"Rotten apple..." I interrupt.

"Uh.. yeah I guess, sort of... but you... you're different... different from these guys."

"But why... why aren't I like them?" I gesture toward my two moaning friends... James is rocking back and forth drool running down his filthy chin.

"I overheard the Doc talking to Reese when they took you out of isolation.  He said that before infection, you were really sick, like dying... you had some kind of massive tumor in your brain... said he wasn't even sure how you could have still been alive, and he was only guessing, but somehow the tumor had an effect of your infection... Kind of ironic... the thing that was killing who you were, stopped you from becoming one of them.... "

"And the infection that would have made me a Reaper, stopped the tumor from killing me...."

Fisher smirks and lets out a small laugh, "Yeah... you're some kind of fucking miracle in a  world gone to hell."

"Why did they keep me  in the dark?"

"Early on some studies showed that the infected communicate through extra sensory perception... even Ghosts had it in small amounts, for example, they could tell infected from uninfected.  They would react differently to each when they were introduced to them.  It was Reese and the Doc who first thought of capturing and studying them, then doping them up and using them as bloodhounds... like an early warning system to help us in case of attack... or to sniff out infected.  That's when they found you.  Decker and Reese were on a supply run, they spotted you behind a burned out general store in the rain.... you were huddled in a ball babbling.  They thought you were just another dust head and were arguing over whether they would put you down or bring you back to the Doc....  That's when they heard it... you were singing softly to yourself... some kids nursery rhyme... freaked them the fuck out.  When they brought you back the Doc said he wanted to test your potential... see how much of you was human and how much was Ivon.  As the days went on you were becoming more and more coherent and when they tested you they saw you had the sense, you reacted to infected, could see the difference.  They started talking about how they could use your power, how with you still being almost human they could better communicate with you.  Reese wanted to see how strong your perception was so he decided to make the room... they put you in, and started their tests.  With you isolated in the dark they wanted to make certain that they could use you, that your sense was strong.  When Decker released a captured stalker into the room they new you were ready, they new you were valuable, your potential was off the chart compared to the others, and somehow you still had some piece of your humanity.  It was too good to be true..."

We are stopped at the sound of several feet stomping through tall grass.  Reese and company come running back over the ridge, but now they are dragging two strangers with them, their hands tied with frayed rope.  One is a young woman, filthy and badly beaten, her dark hair almost hides a bloody cut beneath a blackened eye.  The other an older man, with a thick mane a gray hair and a ragged gray beard, his nose clearly broken and spilling blood onto his filthy shirt.  Without warning Reese aims his weapon towards us, and out of fear and instinct I shut my eyes... POP POP... two loud shots, and when I open them again I see James and M in the dirt next to me, black blood spilling from their skulls.  Ramirez and Decker shove the two refugees to their knees in front of me.

"What the fuck!" Fisher shouts, shocked by the sudden violence."

"Fish, unhook the dead, then chain these two to John.  Make it quick, the sun is going down... Goddamn dust heads would have slowed us down, we would have never made it back in the light, and besides, our guests need to be one hundred percent secured." he plants a boot into the small of the old mans back driving him face first into the dirt, the man winces in pain as the wind is driven from his lungs.  "We wouldn't want anyone wandering off."

The woman stares into my eyes... tears streaming down her bloodied cheeks....

Every answer leads to more confusion, more pain... I am realizing a world that I do not recognize nor do I want to... and again I long for the dark... my peaceful nothing.....

next... fight or flight...