The Fall of Society (The Fall of Society Series, Book 1) (10 page)

           
Paul
Hubber’s fate was sealed…

           
Then
everything
JOLTED
violently, the
fuselage crumpled in a tectonic effect, all the windows fractured, the entire
floor
BUCKLED
and misshaped, ejecting
seats as bolts were snapped and then everything else that wasn’t bolted down
was suddenly thrown forward at a blinding speed.

           
Food
carts, seats, luggage and bodies.

           
The
momentum was at a fatal velocity.

           
The
aircraft hit an open field with little housing, and its long wings shimmied
violently from the impact. The friction from the skidding on the plane’s
undercarriage was loud and shrieked as it tore through everything in its path.
The M4 Motorway was in its path, and the freeway was full of automobiles that weren’t
aware of what was about to happen…

           
The
huge fuselage was God’s fingernail digging into the land as tons of dirt and
debris were ejected into the air. When the plane hit the freeway, the Airbus’ nose
collided with concrete and steel barriers, destroying it and the cockpit. Dozens
of cars were smashed and others were thrown aside. One of the plane’s wings
tore from the body, and the two Rolls-Royce 6-ton engines broke off and tumbled
away like spinning juggernauts. Thousands of gallons of jet fuel spilled out; a
second later, it ignited and a fireball the size of a warehouse exploded. The
plane rolled over and the other wing broke off, its fuel ignited, and destroyed
the back half of the Airbus, luggage, bodies and pieces of flesh were thrown
out of the fiery eruption.

           
The
rest of it kept moving forward…

           
Directly
for a populated area…

           
People
in South Hayes Town saw the destruction of twisted metal and fire that barreled
straight at them and they ran in a panic, but they couldn’t outrun the tidal
wave of death that was about to break on them. What was left of the plane’s
body rolled straight into town and hit the first of the old brick buildings, an
apartment building, and it shattered from the collision. Multitudes in the
building screamed before they were snuffed out. The ruptured gas mains of
building caught fire and added to the ruin.

           
The
plane wreckage center punched a second building before it finally stopped and
settled in rubble, blood, flames, and thick black smoke. The air was congested
with dust, visibility was almost zero, and there were many spot fires in the
wreckage and the two buildings that it destroyed.

           
The
cries and sobs of pain echoed everywhere from the townspeople that were dying
or hurt.

           
Sirens
made their presence known as they hurried in from the distance.

           
The
smell of jet fuel and burnt flesh was everywhere, there was movement in the rubble
of the final impact zone, lucky citizens rose out of the destruction. They were
covered in concrete dust, some were bleeding from debris impact, and others
were just bruised, but they were alive.

           
A
twenty-something hipster in a trench coat got up and looked at the carnage
before him. “Bloody fucking hell!” he said in shock.

           
He
dusted himself off and then rubbed his dust-filled eyes for a better look, what
was left of the plane was burning a couple hundred feet from him, no one could
have survived such a thing.

           
“Poor
bastards,” he said to himself.

           
He
then saw movement in the wreckage, he didn’t know what he saw, but something
moved in there. A person ran out of the mangled plane and was on fire.

           
“Oh
my God!” the hipster said.

           
It
was a large man burning alive as he ran directionless and the guy took his
trench coat off to smother the flames. “Hey! Drop to the ground to kill the
flames!” he shouted and moved toward the man.

           
The
man heard him, but he didn’t drop and roll, he saw the guy that wanted to help
and he charged at him, ran straight for him.

           
“Drop
to the ground!” the guy shouted again.

           
The
man on fire growled madly with wide eyes and the guy dropped his trench coat
when he realized that something wasn’t right, so he moved back, but it was too
late. The fiery creature jumped him, and they tumbled to the ground. The thing
bit into the guy viciously and ripped out some flesh.

           
Dozens
more ran out of the plane and attacked anyone they saw.

           
The
feast was on.

           
Over
the entire wreckage, from the point of impact at the freeway to where the crash
ended, a couple hundred dead passengers began to move.

           
Then
they all got up
…

           
Some
were mangled corpses so they crawled or limped away, other were intact and fast
movers that ran off in every direction. One survivor, a man that was still
buckled into his seat torn from the plane, had a severed right leg at the knee.
He struggled to get his seatbelt off, but it was damaged and locked in place.
He began to lose consciousness from blood loss of his leg, so he took off his
belt from his pants and began to wrap it around his thigh to stop the bleeding.
A walking corpse came upon him from behind and bit into his shoulder. The man
shouted in agony, but he was in obvious shock as he kept trying to tie off his missing
leg, instead of dealing with his attacker. A corpse with no legs arm-crawled up
to him faster than if it had all its limbs and bit into his crotch. The man
tried to scream, but the ghoul behind him tore out his throat and consumed his
flesh. More staggered in and took part.

           
Inside
the wreckage, Paul was still strapped in his seat, and he was alive,
unconscious, but still alive and not infected. There was a three-inch gash on
his forehead that was bleeding mildly, but it was a shallow, cleanly cut wound
from a piece of flying debris and not a bite. Consciousness whispered to him,
and he began to rise. He moaned from pain and slowly opened his eyes, but his
vision was extremely impaired from the crash and his hearing was nothing but a
deep ringing that distorted his equilibrium. He felt a strong pressure at his
waist, but wasn’t concerned with that as much as he was with his sight,
everything was a blur. He looked up and saw what had to be the sky, because it
was moving; the ceiling of the plane was ripped open and dark clouds were
moving overhead. The ringing in his ears began to subside, and he could hear
some thunder from the skies above, but it was so dark. He wiped his eyes and
looked again—he saw dark patches of clouds, but they were moving too fast
and then his hearing improved and the thunder turned to
growling
. His head throbbed, so he touched it and saw the blood on
his fingertips, which explained why his head ached so badly, he felt all the
blood that had rushed to his head and the pressure wouldn’t go away. He rubbed
his eyes again and they finally focused, he looked up at the sky again—

           
The
dark clouds were the undead.

           
About
thirty-five of them were gathered and reaching down trying to get at him and he
thought,
How are they standing on the
ceiling?

           
His
mind cleared and he realized that
he was
upside-down
, and being held in place by the seatbelt, which explained the
pressure on his waist and his throbbing head. The dead wanted Paul badly and his
blood that dripped from his forehead agitated them, they jumped and clawed at
the air because he was out of their reach, but it was a short reach of only
about four feet or so. Paul looked and saw that the dead man next to him was
still in his seat as well; he saw his dead, dangling face looking at him—it
was still attached to the body, but only by a couple threads of flesh—his
spinal cord was severed, so he was not coming back as the dead.

           
Paul
was given a reprieve from the crash and the undead, but now he wondered if it
would have been better if he had died in the crash, not just die, but to have
been totally vaporized, because he definitely didn’t want to come back as one
of
them
. His current situation was
worse than he could have ever imagined and he had no idea what he could
possibly do to survive this.

           
His
life hanged in the balance…

           
Police
and fire crews arrived and they didn’t understand what was happening as the
people that they were there to rescue—began to attack them.

           
The
dead were in the U.K
.
and that would lead to the rest of Europe
…

DAY
28:

OUT
of
 
CONTROL

L
os Angeles was in a downward spiral
. The sky was dark from more than a dozen
fires that burned out of control throughout the city, and black smoke stretched
up like veils. The streets of downtown were decimated and empty of life. There
were many military checkpoints at major street intersections, but there were no
soldiers posted, only abandoned vehicles covered in ash and old brown bloodstains.
The buildings and stores were all riddled with bullet holes and shattered glass
was everywhere, along with trash and all sorts of paper debris that swayed with
the wind of death.

           
In
an alley behind a five-star hotel, a huge mural was painted on the hotel’s wall,
done by a talented tagger. The mural was over forty-feet long and stood almost seven
feet tall, and it consisted of every color of the rainbow. The letters were
bigger than life and had precise angles and soft edges. Classic street art that
said:
“THE DEAD LOVE L.A.!”

           
 
But it wasn’t finished; the tail end of
it was still just the black outline and not too far from that, was the reason—what
was left of the tagger’s body was lying in the middle of the alley, the dead
had their way with him. They tore him completely open and consumed all of his
vital organs; his ribs were the broken bars of an empty cage. His lifeless,
glazed-over eyes were just visible under the blood-soaked hoodie and his stiff hand
held a can of spray-paint.

           
He
wasn’t alone.

           
Hundreds
of dead bodies were everywhere. Most were just hollow carcasses that had been
eaten to the bone.

           
A
few helicopters were in the air, but they weren’t in a search or rescue pattern;
they were leaving the area.

           
Random
gunshots rang out from all directions and echoed thinly until new ones replaced
them, single shots and the occasional fully automatic fire,
tat, tat, tat, tat
that stitched the horizon.
And then there was
them
—the long
screeches of the dead slithered along the walls and alleyways, marking this
land as theirs. A few of them ran across streets, in and out of buildings, parking
garages, over some of the many abandoned and burned out cars that were
everywhere. Some just lurched along or crawled if they were missing limbs. A
distance away, an Army personnel carrier truck, sped by an intersection in a
hurry. The five soldiers in the back were firing their automatic weapons at
something chasing them. The truck was gone and a moment later, what was after
them arrived…

           
A
horde of the dead.

           
About
300 strong tore through the intersection, running as fast as they could to
catch the truck. They were gone and the eeriness returned as it goose bumped
the streets. Los Angeles was a graveyard that still had plenty of room for
people to hide as they tried to get away. An old newspaper flew in the breeze
and smacked against a car grill, the headline read:
“BY PRESIDENTIAL ORDER, GOVERNOR
CALLS FOR EVACUATION OF ALL MAJOR CALIFORNIA CITIES!”

           
Another
newspaper, still in a badly damaged dispenser, had a newer headline:
“GOVERNOR
AND ACCOMPANYING STAFF KILLED IN MOTORCADE BY ATTACK OF THE DEAD!”

           
That
newspaper didn’t even have full stories on the front page; it was slapped
together in a hurry and had empty sections, a last attempt to report the news
to the very end.

           
The
Los Angeles suburbs were no different—the streets were empty of anything
living, school playgrounds were desolate—trash gently danced at the foot
of a tetherball pole from the wind’s touch and the ball slowly circled the
pole, mimicking the sway of the children that once thrived here but were now
ghostly echoes of a time gone, now a time all wrong. Nothing remained, except
for abandoned vehicles and bodies.

           
And
the dead
…

           
They
wandered the streets aimlessly, some walked, some ran if they heard or saw
something that could be a meal. People who were sick or elderly in life
emulated their physical condition in death. If a person was active and fit while
they were alive, then they were
fast
movers
as the dead. And fast movers usually formed groups,
hordes
, working together to find food,
prey, and when they did, the strongest always ate first, while the weakest were
left with scraps, if anything at all.

           
All
of the undead had battle scars and damage from when and after they were
infected and turned. Many had kitchen knives and forks stuck in various parts
of their bodies, except the head, which was the
sweet spot
. Some had crowbars impaled into their guts, others had
garden tools stuck in them, including machetes. All one had to do was run
around and pluck items out of the walking corpses and they would have a
complete kitchen and gardening set.

           
It
was the jungle of the undead.

           
And
they were everywhere.

           
All
the homes were deserted, some were burned out shells, and some houses had
bashed in front doors, windows busted in, entire walls that looked like a car had
crashed through, but it was all destroyed by the dead that got in to kill and
eat. Children’s toys; some smeared with old blood, littered dead lawns. There
were baby seats that had been torn to shreds. A school bus was flipped on its
side in the middle of an intersection and the windows were all shattered, some caked
in flesh and smeared excrement from children who were pulled out by them.

           
There
were backyard pools with water that had turned black, mixed with bodies and
dead pets, carcasses of the unknown. The houses were like gravestones for this
dead part of town, but there was no caretaker here, no flowers, nothing, only
the memory of the life that once flourished here.

           
Except
for one two-story home.

           
This
one was intact, besides random scratches on the doors and walls, the structure
was still sound. All the windows were broken, but nothing entered the premises,
because all the windows had metal security shutters that were locked tight.
There was an RV in the driveway, but it was smashed up and inoperable, so it
left the question—what happened to the family?

           
Inside,
the house was quiet. A layer of dust coated the air and everything else in this
place that was once a loving home. The pictures on the walls told the story of
happiness that this family of five shared; the joyous couple had one son in his
twenties and two teenage daughters. Their bliss caught forever in glossy photo
paper and a legacy to whoever would visit their home in the future, if there was
one.

           
A
weak noise broke the silence, a very slow sound that had caution in its
meaning. Underneath the staircase of the second floor was the door to the
basement, and it was the source of the noise. It had opened to reveal that it wasn’t
your typical basement door that’s usually about an inch and a half thick. This
door was six inches thick and composed of steel plating topped off with
soundproofing material on the inside. The open crack was barely an inch wide, and
it was pitch black beyond that, and then a snake spy camera slowly came out at
floor level. It angled to the left for a view of the kitchen down the hall, which
was clear, it then angled the other way for a view of the front door, and that
was clear as well. It appeared that the house’s integrity was intact. The
camera quietly retreated into the darkness, and the door stayed open.

           
Inside
the basement was the camera operator, a man in his fifties, gray haired and
tanned, rough skin, he was the kind of man that worked outside a lot with his
hands. He was the happy husband in the family pictures, but right now, he was
dead serious. His son was behind him and past him was the rest of the basement—they
had converted it into a survival shelter by expanding the square footage beyond
the house walls. It was equipped with beds for all of them, stacks of boxed
food were against the walls, many five gallon bottles of water, and there was a
restroom stall that had a septic system built underneath.

           
His
wife and two daughters were seated in the back of the shelter. One of the girls
was listening to music with ear buds connected to her laptop. Her mother was in
the middle of checking the world news on the Internet, which surprisingly still
worked, but she had stopped to watch her husband and son. The computers were
the only dim lights sources in there; they had turned everything else off to
open the basement door. Except for the two young girls, all of them were armed.
“How’s it look, Dad?” the son whispered.

           
The
father whispered even lower. “Clear, doesn’t look like anything or anyone’s
been inside.”

           
The
father carefully put the snake camera away and looked at his wife. He signaled
to her that they were going out and she acknowledged him. The mother motioned
to her daughters to be quiet, and then she checked her pistol to make sure that
it was loaded. She walked to the foot of the stairs and waited.

           
The
father opened the basement door a little more, just enough to stick his head
through; he cautiously looked around and was ready with a pistol grip shotgun. Once
satisfied, he opened the door so he could step out, but he motioned his son to
wait; he did as instructed with a large caliber handgun at the ready. The
father crept to the front door and slowly peeked through the peephole—he
saw the same thing that he did last time—walking corpses were in the
streets, in every direction. His peephole was suddenly blacked out and he realized
that one was right in front of his door.

           
He
froze and held his breath.

           
The
thing was an older man; half of its gray hair was missing, because its scalp
was gone, the cranial pattern was clearly visible because its head was so dry.
The scalp was missing down to half of its face and its right eye had no lid; it
was a constant stare as its eyes slowly scanned around for anything of interest—it
looked right into the peephole for a moment and then moved off.

           
The
father released his breath and turned away.

           
The
creature stopped
…

           
He
tiptoed back to the basement door.

           
“Okay,
let’s go,” he whispered to his son.

           
The
son signaled his mother that they were going; she moved up to the top of the
stairs and waited at the door. The father and son headed to their garage, it
had a locked door with four deadbolts, and it had two different peepholes. The
father looked through them carefully and then gave the
all-clear
signal. The son began to unlock the deadbolts.

           
“Quietly.”
the father whispered.

           
The
son acknowledged him and slowly finished unlocking the door.

           
Outside,
at the porch, the scalped corpse was back at the front door.

           
It
sniffed
…

           
The
garage access door opened quietly, letting out one short
creak
sound, which made the father cringe, but nothing happened. They
stood at the doorway and looked at the garage, it was full of more of their
supplies, what they couldn’t fit in the basement. Sunlight streaked in through
the rollup garage door that was a little battered but still intact. Some of its
panel sections were loose and one at the bottom corner of the door was cracked
open, but it was only a small four-inch section that was barely big enough for
a cat. The sun made a warm spot through the hole in their cold, dark garage
that reminded them of what it was once like being out during the day, or any
time at all, for that matter. “Okay, we’re only getting the two cases of the
cooking fuel,” the father whispered. “We’ll get more later.”

           
The
son nodded and mindfully put his weapon in his holster, and then he entered the
garage while his father waited at the door. What he wanted was across on the
other wall, and as he got closer, he could hear them, just outside as they
lurched along—dead feet grinded on the pavement and thudded in the dirt,
making dull, heavy sounds. The son heard long dragging noises by whatever dead
things that were missing legs and feet—the noises were keeping a pace
with his heartbeat, which was steadily increasing; he needed to calm down and
concentrate on the task at hand.