Apocalypse No.3 Read online

  A special thanks to:

  Larry Lawson

  Jeff O’Brien

  Elena Henry

  for inspiring me to become a story teller

  Our world has seen many catastrophes, extinctions, and genocides, but the most devastating losses of life in our planet’s history are The Flu Pandemic and The Black Death. These Apocalypses reshaped the lives of millions and destroyed more lives than any other disease until now. The world is facing a manmade pandemic and this newly created disease will test humanity’s persistence and will to survive. We now will face the devastation of Apocalypse No.3…

  Part 1: Genesis

  Chapter 1

  It was a quiet night, for once. The usual explosions and gunshots in the distance have been absent from sight and sound, but being on watch was still nerve-racking. I have always hated being on watch because it gets me on edge and puts me in a position where failing is not an option. It is even harder to put energy into this job when you’re starving. We were waiting for a convoy of supplies to show up, but it seemed like its arrival time was getting longer and longer. I had been stationed in the outskirts of the Helmand province in Afghanistan for the last three months. However, this was not my first tour; I had been on two tours prior to this one, but I am always in fear of seeing my life flash before my eyes. I had trouble imagining what I would see during that moment. Would I see the happiest parts of my life, or would I be witnessing all the wrong I had done?

  Being a soldier in some of the most dangerous places in the world requires sacrifice and occasionally shatters whatever moral code you think you have. Reminds me of a time when we were driving through a city in Afghanistan. We had stopped because a few children walked in front of our convoy and had their hands out asking for food. They looked like they were in the range of ten and fifteen years old. One of our soldiers got out and handed a few MRE's to the children. In that same moment a child ran out from one of the buildings yelling profanities about our country. It took a second for all of us to realize that he had a block of C-4 on his chest. Before he got to the children receiving food, I pulled out my gun and put three shots in his stomach right below the strapped explosive. The kid fell and yelled out some other words, clicked the button, and then... He was gone.

  In the middle of my train of thought I could hear the convoy arriving, and it is almost like Christmas. We now have food and water again, which is a relief. Two days is a long time to go without either of those necessities, especially in this climate. Seeing those crates filled with food, water, and ammunition was a sight for sore eyes. My thirst was being quenched just by looking at the crates. All of this equipment showing up boosted the morale in this place; you would think we were in hell already by the way we acted. We always kept composure, but the distress in the soldiers’ eyes was far from hidden. We had been so down, and too hungry for too long, and it seemed as if we would never get a break. We have been rationing for three weeks and exhausted all of our resources two days ago. However, Murphy’s law is well enforced and the universe made sure we knew it. As the tailgate dropped and we smiled in adoration at the supplies that the convoy had delivered, I heard the loud bang of thunder in the sky. It was a sound that made us all jump in haste. The only problem was, we did not have a cloud in sight and we were expecting no rain. This sound meant that we had only seconds before a shot from a tank would hit our outpost.

  “Get into position” shouted the colonel.

  The soldiers ran into position without hesitation, we thought we were prepared for this, but we were wrong. Sure enough, the shot was a direct hit on us. It put a ring in our ears that would make anyone feel like the universe was talking about them. The shell sent metal, earth, and fire into the air making our vision blurry and almost surreal. I ran as fast as I could to my post, but as I was on the run a shell landed within my proximity and the force took the wind from me. I drifted out of consciousness and instead of seeing my whole life run across my mind, I saw a man. He could not have been older than forty. He stared at me with such fear and had a rushing feel to his body language. He held out his hand and said, “Here is the catalyst, take it. Take it now!” I woke up to the sound of beeping and yelling. I was in the infirmary back at HQ. I knew I had been unconscious for a long time because Headquarters is at least 18 hours away from our outpost. It’s a miracle that I made it here, I had the weirdest sensation though, I could feel the morphine coursing through my veins as the pain in my side began to fade. I had the obvious assumption that our camp had been attacked and devastated. The explosion was all I could recall from memory, and in the state I was, I was only able to mutter that I had the catalyst. The nurses and doctors were looking at me like I had a major screw loose. I felt my eyes rolling back and sleep then took me once again.

  Chapter 2

  Breathing was heavy and painful; the feeling of a boulder and needles lying on my chest was unbearable. I broke three ribs and pulled all of the muscles on my left side. They said that the explosion threw me backwards against a crate that was about half of my height. This caused me to wrap around the crate and bring about my injuries. I feel lucky that I even survived, I was fortunate enough to be part of the thirteen survivors that “walked” away still breathing. The sad thing is our outpost housed forty-seven soldiers. It was heartbreaking to hear that so many of my brothers would not get the chance to walk on the soil of their hometown ever again. And yet I feel relief in the fact that I survived another tour. Is it wrong to be glad that I am not in their place? “It should have been me” is what I feel I am expected to think, but I cannot help but feel joy in my survival. However, I do not use the word alive lightly. Many of my fellow soldiers walked away breathing, but I would not consider a lot of their injuries as minor as mine. My best friend Allen was not so fortunate. The fact that he walked away alive was part of gods cosmic irony. It is an irony I do not find humorous in any sense. He was paralyzed from the waist down. He was on his way to the communications tent when he felt an object hit him in the back and send him to the ground. That object was a piece of shrapnel that flew into his back and sunk into his spinal cord. His spine was not severed, but it was severely damaged. He was never to walk again; well that is what the doctors said at least. He would not be able to play or run around with his little girl again. His daughter is all he has back home. Charlotte is eight years old by now and she is very beautiful and very smart. Charlotte’s mother died from cancer when she was five, so although Allen could not walk, it was a miracle that Charlotte did not lose another parent. Allen is able to return home and watch Charlotte grow up. As for me, I have been alone since my wife died. Her heart was too weak to keep her body up and running. The doctors could not put more emphasis on anything except the fact that her heart would fail and that she would only survive if her heart had been just a little bit more resilient. She left me with only these words, “Always thrive, do not give up, because to give up is to fail. I failed you, DO NOT FAIL ME, DAMIAN, I love you.” Those four words would change the way I made choices for the rest of my life. DO NOT FAIL ME…

  It is a perfect and sunny day. It is our weekly picnic with the family. Me, my little girl, and my wife. We go to the same park every week, and we sit in the same spot, with the perfect amount of sun, shade, and breeze. My wife is eight months and fifteen days pregnant, and we cannot wait for our little girl to be born.

  We started on a walk until we came to a spot that was a frequent stop for us when we were young. We sat down and held each other as if to never let go. I slid my head down and laid my head on her stomach. I began to listen to my baby and feel her kick my head. I sighed in happiness, and as I looked in the distance I noticed the sun going down. We knew it was time to go because it was getting late.

  Chapter 3

/>   This feeling of frustration cannot be exaggerated, I feel so restless and caged. I have been in this God forsaken infirmary for the last two weeks. They say it is because of some long term acute care program. I feel great due to the Vicodin I have been prescribed, the pain is minute and only occurs every now and then, which is why I should have been out of this place already. Allen and I have been playing the same game of checkers for two weeks, and I have not had a victory against him which is even more frustrating because I always figured I was the smart one. He always sets up the perfect strategy, and I have yet to understand it and beat it. It is almost like a plague in my head that I cannot cure, he uses the same series of moves and still I cannot find the pattern. He always says “I will walk again before you beat me Mr. Walker,” and I knew it was him making funny jokes, but it was also a way for him to cope over the fact that he has very small chances of walking again. Every night he pulls out a picture of his little girl and mutters to her that he would trade anything to get his legs back so he can run and play with her. He did not lose his legs literally, but that seems to be the way he sees it and explains it in his letters to his family back home. I wish there was some godly power or miracle that could make his request come true. He doesn’t have much to trade, but I am sure God could find something. I hate to say it, but I have had trouble lately praying like I used to, and when I say lately I mean the last four years or so. The things I have seen on my tours make me wonder how anything is destined in this world. My wife dying and Allen not getting to run around with his little girl make me put The Book down and go on with my business. Allen however has seemed to put all his wishes and requests in God’s hands. His faith is astonishing and sometimes pathetic. I hate to sound rude towards someone who just lost their legs, but I do not see how anyone can get down on their knees and pray to someone whose plan was to put you in your hopeless situation in the first place. Then again it makes me wonder if I have a bigger purpose in store for me. If God has this almighty plan, do I have a place in it? Will I make a difference in this world or will I be just another jarhead in the marines?

  Chapter 4

  I can’t sleep. Karber will not stop screaming. His convoy was just attacked and he is the only survivor. The Humvee that was leading the vehicles ran over an I.E.D and then they were rained on with mortars. The three passengers in his Humvee pulled out some supplies out of the back and then started looking for survivors in the front Humvee that hit the I.E.D. A mortar shell fell and hit them directly, and another one hit in close proximity to Karber’s Humvee. He was on the outside of the vehicle and the force tipped the Humvee over on top of Karber. Luckily an ammo crate was next to him preventing the Humvee from crushing him to death. He used the radio that his fallen colleagues brought out to call for help. He was then found and brought to the infirmary. I am not supposed to be walking around, but he has been hemorrhaging for the last 45 minutes and the doctors are having trouble stitching all the major blood vessels back together. His screams are keeping everyone from sleeping, so I decided to go see what exactly was going on.

  Allen: What are you doing?

  Damian: I’m done with all this noise, I’m gonna go see what’s going on.

  I snuck over to the infirmary area of this facility and peeked inside the medical room.

  Doctor: He is going to die if we do not try it.

  I did not know what “it” was, but from the look on one of the doctors face: it seemed as if “it” was dangerous. I could hear another person saying that they had no human trials yet, and that they have no clue what the effects could be. I then realized that it was not only doctors in there, but scientists too. I see the main doctor grabbing a tube filled with a purple liquid and inject it into Karber. Karber screams with all of the breath he has in him and then calms down, it looks like his pain has vanished. He breathes heavily for a few minutes and then seems fine.

  Doctor: See I told you it would be fine, primates are not that different from us.

  Scientist: I guess that, by luck, you were right.

  I felt happy to see that whatever they injected into him helped, but as this thought crossed my mind Karber jumps up and coughs blood in the doctor’s face getting it in his mouth, eyes, and all over his nose. Karber screams, “What did you do to me!” He then drops onto the bed limp and his eyes, nose, and mouth started leaking out blood like a fountain, and you could see his stomach swell up and fill with blood. It was a horrible sight, and I had seen the whole thing. What the hell did they do to him? He was fine one minute and the next thing you know he dies screaming in agony.

  That purple stuff was on my mind all night. What could alleviate all of his pain and then kill him? It looked like he was hemorrhaging, so maybe they just could not deliver the treatment in time. It definitely was a mystery, but why were there scientists in there. Were they testing out a new narcotic on patients here in the infirmary? Maybe I will find out soon enough.

  Chapter 5

  I began to ask other people in the infirmary if they had any idea what they had given Karber. There seemed to be cluelessness all around, but the fascination increased ten-fold. Everyone started talking to the doctors asking for the “miracle medicine” that they all heard about. As anyone with a secret does, they deny any fact or chance that the information exists. The soldiers now had such lust for this pain relieving drug, we had so many soldiers in so much pain, and it has caused them to completely ignore my warning.

  I heard the soldiers plotting out some sort of plan. They wanted to storm the lab area of this building and grab all of the “miracle medicine” that they could. I had a horrible feeling about this plan and I wanted no part in it. The scientist obviously did not want this stuff to get out before it had proper tests to prove that it works. This night is not going to end well. I saw what it did to Karber, I was there, and now I am going to have to watch other fellow soldiers go through the same torture. I tried to warn them, but they just mock me and say, “Oh yeah Damian, Karber just died from a narcotic. You know everything don’t you Mr. Vicodin.” I guess they think the Vicodin is going to my head just because I have to take it three times a day. These guys must be in a lot of pain if they think Vicodin is really that strong. I hope that I am wrong about this drug and that Karber’s incident was just a freak accident. The soldiers look more ready to steal than they were ready to fight for our country. Do not get me wrong, we soldiers are marvelous people, but the conditions and variables of this situation make the other soldiers turn into animals. I understand needing pain medicine, but going after something that should not exist is just crazy.

  Chapter 6

  It is three in the morning and I can hear the soldiers plotting out this “mission”. They are whispering, making sure that no one can hear them and so that the soldiers that did not want to participate cannot find out who was a part of this. I thought it was funny that they are trying to keep this a secret and not let anyone know who was doing this, but Allen is sitting right there amongst them in his wheelchair and I think that is pretty obvious. I could hear one of the soldiers preparing them for the storm on the infirmary’s main medicinal area.

  Soldier: Alright, is everyone ready?

  Group: Yes, let’s do this.

  They then rush towards the medicine room, break the door open and start tearing everything apart. They look like a bunch of monkeys in a room full of glass and newspaper. After a few minutes, one of the soldiers finally found the loot.

  Soldier: Hey guys, I found it!

  I was glad that my bed had a direct view at the medicine room, but at the same time it scared me to think that I could relive that same nightmare I did with Karber. I really hope this has a happy ending, but this is real life and fairytale dreams rarely come true. The main soldier who led them all to this point grabbed that same purple stuff and a needle. He sucked out some of the fluid and slowly put it in his arm. It took him a few tries to get a vein, but sure enough he got it into a vein and injected that fluid. He breathed in real deep and sighed in
relief.

  Soldier: The pain is gone.

  The other soldiers immediately grabbed their own needles and injected themselves with the purple fluid. They all felt the same thing, they felt relief. I was glad to see that Karber’s incident was a fluke and that it was just a freak accident. They all walked out of the medicine room and went to bed. They looked completely peaceful as they all drifted into sleep. I guess some fairytales are real.

  Allen: You should have come with us Damian. That medicine is amazing and I feel much better.

  I was glad to see my best friend was feeling better; he really deserved to have some of his physical pain relieved. I was able to fall asleep much easier tonight; I was not worried anymore.

  Chapter 7

  I woke up to the sound of a bunch of soldiers screaming in agony all morning, and the doctors were trying to find out why so many soldiers were crying out for help. There are not enough nurses and doctors here for everyone and I kept hearing the sound of elongated beeps on the monitors. Soldiers were dying left and right and it seemed like it was an impossible task for all of these doctors. It was horrific, and I was reliving Karber’s incident on a massive level. The patients are screaming as if they were set on fire. The majority of the patients said that their blood was boiling and it felt like their veins were turning to stone.

  This lasted for a few hours and then finally all I could hear were the beeps on the monitors. Only a few soldiers stopped screaming and finally did not feel agony. Among these soldiers was Allen, He was shaking and he was breathing heavy. I asked him if he was okay and it took him a second to answer.