Dead & Alive (Short Story): Outbreak

DEAD & ALIVE

OUTBREAK

BY

I.J. SMITH

A SHORT STORY

All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

All work is Copyright © I.J. Smith May 2016

I.J. Smith has asserted his moral rights

Cover illustrations by I.J. Smith, Copyright © May 2016

Dead & Alive: Outbreak, names, characters and all related work is Copyright of I.J. Smith

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ALL MY READERS.

WITHOUT YOU THERE WOULD BE NO POINT WRITING.

ENJOY
!

The world is at the mercy of a possible terrorist attack at any time. For most it is a time of terror, but for some it is a time of fortune.

Weapon manufactures race against each other to develop the best weapons.

On a beautiful sunny day, a secret group is about to test a weapon against their own people.

What is to come
,
could never have been imagined.

The path to hell begins on this sunny day.

OASIS

A town in the south of England called Gosport has a rich military history. During the war, underground warehouses were created. Not to protect people, but to hide a massive store of weapons.

Over the years, places like this have become privatized. These underground warehouses are protected by armed guards and perimeter fences covering five miles in each direction.

Today was a special day.

A fleet of black 4x4 vehicles approached the gates. The guard was simply waved away; the occupants were officially never there.

The gates opened and the vehicles drove a mile into the grounds. A small building stood isolated, several people waited outside for the important visitors.

Several people emerged from the vehicles; Three men and two women. All were dressed in black, they remained silent not even talking to each other.

A large overweight man (appeared), walked towards them. He wore a jacket that was too small; a white shirt with a crooked tie, his stomach hanging over his trousers and he had short, shabby grey hair.

“Great you could all make it, I am Doctor Steven Banks,” he greeted them holding out his hand.

The five people simply stared at him, one of the women stepped forward. “We are not here for names. We are here to see what the millions in research has built for us!” she stated.

Steven simply shook his head, in a way he was scared of these people.

He turned and walked back towards the building, followed by his guests.

“As you know, we have been developing a non-fatal weapon,” he was saying when he was interrupted.

“Non-fatal!” a male loudly said.

Steven turned to look back at the guests, sweat covered his brow. “Yes. It is a biological weapon. When dispersed it will blanket an area, and will neutralize everyone in the area,” he replied.

“Neutralize how?” one of the women asked.

Steven wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Basically it gives
people a bad form of the flu. The body can naturally fight it off in 48 hours, but it will not kill them. Once spread, you could stop an entire army without firing a shot and they would be unable to fight back,” Steven told them.

A man in a black suit chuckled. “I doubt it would be that effective,” he replied.

Two people in white, long coats stood by a missile launcher. Steven guided the visitors towards them. One of the people by the missile launcher was holding a green glass case, she was loading it into the missile.

When the glass case was loaded, Steven told the visitors, “We are ready!”

One of the men spoke out, “Wait, are we testing this on British soil?”

A woman from the same group stepped forward. “It is the only way. A non-fatal weapons test has been agreed upon from the very top. Besides with current affairs abroad this is the only viable option,” she told him.

“Can we trust this is safe?” the man asked her.

The woman smiled. “We have worked alongside Oasis for many years. They have proven their work many times. Anyway just in case we have an antidote waiting for any unforeseen problems,” she told him.

With no one else speaking out the woman turned to Steven and nodded her head, giving him the sign to proceed.

Steven moved to a nearby computer terminal.

“3…2…1…AND MISSILE AWAY!” he announced.

The missile launched towards the south.

With a big smile on his face, “You should see results within the hour,” he said in an excited voice.

The sun was shining over the water. The local ferry was going back and forth from the next town. The area was alive with activity, children played on the grass while eating their ice creams. Parents laughed aloud, enjoying the company of other parents. Young couples walked hand in hand, falling in love.

On a wooden bench dedicated to the memory of World War Two, an old man sat. Holding his walking stick in one hand and an ice cream in the other, that was melting under the sun making the cream run through his fingers. He looked at the sun glistening of the calm water. He smiled to himself, thinking this was a perfect day.

The sound of children and laughter suddenly stopped.

A loud thunderous noise sounded overhead. The old man looked up to see a large object break apart and fall into the water.

Everyone looked out to the water, but soon turned their attention back to having a fun day.

Whatever it was they laughed it off as nothing important.

The old man still sat on the bench, his mind drifted to his late wife. She had passed away a few months ago and now his life was simply one of waiting to join her.

He started to cough violently, dropping his ice cream to the ground. He looked around and was shocked to see almost everyone else was coughing too. The old man coughed violently again, covering his mouth with his hand. Once the cough eased off, he moved his hand to reveal that he was coughing up blood.

Suddenly screams echoed throughout (the area). Parents rushed to their children. Everyone was coughing up blood.

The old man sighed, “OH NO!”

IMPACT

“NURSE! WE HAVE MORE COMING IN!” A male voice shouted.

In the last hour the local emergency medical center had been overrun. The War Memorial hospital was normally for minor injuries, but the last hour had seen hundreds of people walking in complaining of similar symptoms.

Headaches, blurred vision, sick to their stomach, and a pain in the back of the head that felt like nothing they’d ever had before. Doctors and Nurses were stretched beyond their capabilities.

People screamed for help. Children cried in pain. A child began vomiting blood. A nurse ran for the child, scooping the youngster in her arms she ran down the corridor to find a bed. Placing her on a bed in the corridor, the nurse looked around for a sign of the child’s parents.

Checking out the young girl lying there. The nurse could see all the color was gone from her face, her fingers had begun to turn blue as if she was freezing, but a touch of the girl’s forehead was to find it was one of overwhelming heat.

The corridors of the hospital were beginning to fill fast with severely ill people.

The nurse trying to help the little girl wore a name tag, ‘Raven.’ The name suited her;
she had the darkest black hair and smooth olive skin. She looked like the kind of woman who never needed makeup.

The child began to shake, Raven held her down to stop her hurting herself. The young child’s body suddenly went stiff. Raven looked into the eyes of the child. Feeling for her pulse and found none.

Suddenly a loud scream echoed through the corridors.

She turned to see a doctor running towards her. Behind her a man stumbled. Then he was falling against another nurse. Raven looked on in shock as the man suddenly took a bite into the nurse’s neck. Tearing the flesh away, blood sprayed everywhere.

Everyone else began to run as more stumbling people appeared.

“What the hell!” she uttered.

Raven felt a cold hand grab her arm. Looking down she could see the dead child attempting to bite her.

“FUCK!” she screamed out.

She managed to push the child away. Raven ran back towards the entrance, but was stopped by more people being attacked. Blood covered the floors. Raven watched as the sick began eating the living. A man rushed passed her, knocking Raven to the ground. He made no attempt to help her and ran towards the entrance, but was stopped by several sick people attacking him. Raven lay in a puddle of blood, struggling to get to her feet. A figure appeared over her. She looked up to see a large woman, her mouth covered in blood and loose flesh. Raven noticed the eyes were dead, just a misty white. The large woman reached out for Raven.

Raven kicked the large woman in the kneecaps hard, forcing her to fall back. Raven kept slipping but finally managed to get back to her feet.

Leaving bloody footprints in her path, she ran away from the carnage. Running along a corridor, she was stopped in her tracks when more of these infected appeared, blocking her path. She crashed through the door of a nearby office. Slamming the door shut and locking it, she could hear the infected banging against the door. In a panic she pushed over a file cabinet to block the door. Almost in tears she looked around the office, she ran to a desk and picked up the telephone. There was no dial tone, the line was completely dead.
She slammed the phone back down. The groaning noise outside the door grew louder.

Raven backed away from the door, until she was stopped by a large indoor plant. Turning to see a window, in her panic she had not noticed it before. She attempted to open it but it was locked and there was no key visible.

Raven heard a cracking noise, turning back to the door she could see it beginning to break. Without a second thought she pulled the plant from the pot, throwing it to the ground. She lifted the heavy pot and threw it against the window, glassed shattered everywhere. Raven wasted no time in climbing though the broken window, she cut her hand on the way through, but showed no concern by it.

Once outside, she ran. Screaming echoed out (around the building). People ran, escaping the infected.

Raven ran into the road without looking, the screeching of wheels sounded out. Raven stopped to see a police car just inches from her. An overweight bald police officer got out of the car, standing in the road he looked at a lady dressed in hospital scrubs and covered in blood.

He ordered her, “DON’T MOVE!”

He started to pull his only real weapon a Taser. Raven was frozen stiff with fear and not because of the police officer aiming a weapon at her. A second officer appeared from the car, he was much slimmer and younger, short brown hair with a look of fear on his face. He was looking beyond the woman covered in blood and towards the people attacking each other. Shocked he could see them ravaging each other.

The police officer with the Taser moved closer to Raven. His fellow officer shouted out, “DAVE!”

Before Dave could react someone grabbed him from behind and sunk their teeth into the back of his neck. Blood sprayed through the air, Raven screamed as the other officer ran to grab her. Pulling her away from a small swarm of ravenous humans, he pushed her into the police car, and quickly he jumped in the driver’s seat. As he started trying to drive away, a group of people covered in blood, chunks of flesh and bone hanging from their faces attacked the car. The officer wasted no time, in ramming the car into reverse and drove backwards with speed, swinging the car around he raced away from the scene.