Geoff North - How the World Ends

Joanna started to feel light-headed. The soldier’s cold, fat fingers were filled with incredible strength, and she was close to passing out. She thought she could feel something else as well—an itching sensation crawling behind her eyeballs and reaching down her throat. Fortunately, Joanna passed out before the ticks could reach her internal organs. It was the last lucky break of her life.

Fred could hear the two struggling less than twenty feet away, but he couldn’t see a thing in the pitch blackness. A rock, or something similarly round in shape, rolled up against the doctor’s ankle. He reached down and felt for it. My God, is this what I think it is? His fingers touched the cool, pitted surface, and his thumb found the release pin. A grenade. He didn’t waste any more time. Joanna would be dead in a few more seconds, and Fred would be right behind her. May as well put Adam out of his misery at the same time. Maybe if Fred and Joanna were blown to bits, they would be spared the awful transformation that had claimed the humanity of so many others.

Fred tried pulling the safety pin, but the thing wouldn’t budge. It remained firmly attached to the grenade. He explored the grenade’s parts with the fingers of his left hand while his right hand kept the lever pressed down against the body of the explosive device. How can it be so complicated? I’ve seen them go off a million times in the movies! He discovered a safety clip holding the safety pin in place. Fred removed the clip and pulled the pin. How much of a delay do these things have? It didn’t much matter, he supposed. Three seconds or thirty, they would all be shredded meat and bone soon enough. Fred threw the grenade down the tunnel shaft. He turned away, fell onto his stomach, and covered his head with his arms.

Hayden’s sense of direction had returned. He was heading north, and the Trans Canada highway was dead ahead, slicing its way west. There was less than a hundred yards of dirt field left to cross before he would be on the black asphalt, speeding away from Brayburne for the last time. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw the horde of swollen bodies falling away. He was going to make it.

And then the earth in front of him blew up.

He saw a flash of orange, and then a hail of dirt and rocks rained down on the Buick. The cracked windshield collapsed in, coating him with glass and soil. Hayden slammed on the brake and swerved hard to the left. The car’s back end rocked to a complete halt narrowly avoiding a fall into a six-foot deep hole. Hayden exited the car wondering if the army had set land mines around the town.

He looked down into the smoking crater and saw something moving. A shaking hand coated with blood and dust reached up. A feeble voice called out. “Are you… are you one of them? Have you changed?”

The man in the hole started to hack and cough. Hayden waited until he was done before answering. “I’m still human if that’s what you mean. My name’s Hayden Gooding, and I’m trying to get the hell out of Brayburne.” He held out his hand.

The old man took it. “I’m Fred Gill. I just blew the town’s mayor to smithereens, and I may be having a heart attack.”

“We must have worked our way up near the tunnel’s original exit. There was only a foot of dirt above my head when that grenade went off.” Fred Gill massaged his chest and stared out into the night through the passenger window as he recounted his story. “If I’d pulled the pin fifty feet earlier, I would likely still be buried under there… Probably been best if I had.”

“Don’t say that,” Hayden replied. “It sounds like you did the mayor a favor. Whatever it is that took those people over isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy.” He pictured the shirtless asshole that had murdered his horse. “Well, maybe with one exception.”

They pulled off of the gravel road and started west again down Highway 16. Brayburne—or what remained of it—was twelve miles behind them. “It’s a plague, Hayden. That black guck that came out of Corporal Stevens, the same shit you saw coming out of all the others… it’s a disease that spreads almost instantaneously from one host to the next. As if bombs destroying civilization wasn’t enough, now those that are left have this to struggle through.”

They drove along in silence for another two minutes before Hayden spoke again. “How’s the chest?”

“Down to a manageable ache. I can take a full breath again. Thought I was a goner for a while there. So much for doctoring myself.”

“Well I’m glad your diagnosis was wrong.”

“Where are we going?”

“I have friends waiting a few miles away. My son’s with them.”

“I meant after that… Where are we going to go? How can we keep ahead of what happened in Brayburne?”

Hayden didn’t know how to keep ahead of a disease that transformed humans into un-dead cannibals, but he did have a good idea where he wanted to go. Convincing Fred Gill and the others would be the tricky part.

“I need another roll of duct tape.”

“Just gave you the last one.”

Louie leaned back on the third rung of the step ladder and surveyed his work. There was a two-foot long strip at the top of the window frame that hadn’t been sealed over. Every other part of the small shed was secure—or at least enough to his liking—to ensure the smallest of potentially infected insects couldn’t squeeze through. Two rolls alone had been used on the door. “We’ll need more to make this space safe. Every square inch of join has to be covered.”

Roy looked about the four by eight foot storage shed they had trapped themselves inside. Duct tape was running down all four wall corners, and a rectangle above their heads was in place where the walls met the ceiling. “It’s good enough.” He tested the door handle, pushing lightly to show the smaller man how well the door was stuck in place. “No bugs are getting in. I wouldn’t worry about a few inches above the stupid window.”

“All it would take is a couple of mosquitoes working their way in—a single fricking house fly carrying the ticks… and then we’re infected.”

“It’s enough,” Roy insisted. “Bad enough I didn’t get a chance to have a shit outside before you sealed us in.” He kicked the bottom of the door.

“Don’t do that. Don’t tear the seal.”

“We don’t have anything to eat… no water. How long do you think we can stay holed up in here like this for?” Louie didn’t answer, so Roy explained it to him. “Seventy-two fucking hours. We can last three days without water, maybe four if we drink our own piss.”

“It won’t get to that.”

Roy thumped his big back against the metal wall and slid down onto his big fat ass. “Why won’t it get to that? Is the disease that’s making birds and animals fucking crazy going to magically cure itself in the next couple of days?”

“I think the ticks are attracted to heat and movement. If we keep hidden away for the next day or two… if we keep quiet and still… maybe they’ll move on.”

Roy threw one of the empty cardboard tape rolls at him. It bounced off Louie’s forehead. “We wouldn’t be in here at all if you fucking disease control morons hadn’t been messing around with something so dangerous in the first place. Goddamn it, can’t we stay hidden in the house at least?”

Louie rubbed his forehead and peered out through the window. The farm house was less than a hundred feet away. “No way we could seal that place off. Too many windows and doors, not to mention an open chimney, a back deck with two huge sliding doors, and an attached garage.”