The End Of Days

Seeing as Pepper had pretty much grinded things to a halt I've decided to unleash my inner author and present you with some backstory to Old World Journey. It ain't Shakespeare but it's readable. Enjoy! or don't. Like I care....
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Chapter 1 21/12/12
For years many had suspected that the world would end on the 21st of December in the year 2012. They saw the signs pointing to the end everywhere. The Mayan calendar, the works of Nostradamus, the movements of the planets and the stars. And they were, of course, completely and utterly wrong. Many were left embarrassed and disappointed. One such person, was Moira Stapleton.

A small beam of light was shining through the bedroom window. A pair of birds were chirping a cheerful tune. A slight breeze hung in the air and made Moira pull her duvet tighter around her. And then as if to ruin the magic her soft sleep was broken by the mocking whisper of "Wake up kiddo, it's a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the worlds still spinning and you've got ten minutes to be ready for school."
Her eyes snapped open at the voice, and were met with a large grin. Of course it was her elder brother Jon, come to gloat about how he'd been right and she was wrong. He was two years older than her and a total smartass. Over and over again they had argued in the subject of the end of the world, and now had come his time to say I told you so. She wasn't going to let him have the satisfaction. Just as he began to open his mouth, she sprung into action and let out an almighty yell, "MY GOD GET OUT OF MY ROOM I NEED TO GET CHANGED YOU FREAK!"
She leaped from her bed and threw all the weight of her body against his. Before he even realized what was going on he had been pushed out of the room and was laying winded against the wall.
A thin smile spread across her face. It was a hollow victory but a victory none the less. She turned to her dresser and began to hastily pull out some clothes. Her mind was abuzz with disappointment. She had been so certain the world would end, she hadn't bothered to set an alarm or prepare an outfit. She didn't want to go to school. Everybody there was so horrible and no matter how hard she tried it was never good enough for them. It didn't even seem fair that they should have school this close to Christmas, why should kids have to spend the next two days learning when they outta be playing in the snow and having a good time? She'd probably get stuck sitting next to the creepy kid with the blue hair who smelled like paint again. Nobody understood how she felt, it just wasn't fair. She sighed heavily as she dressed. "Another day in this old world..."

So no, the world did not end on December 21st 2012. People went on with their lives. The planet kept on turning. Nothing wiped mankind from existence. No, the end of the world did not occur that day. Merely the events that would send it spiraling to its doom did.

Chapter 2 The Beginning Of The End

When looked back upon, the cataclysmic events that tore down society and brought mankind to the brink could all be put down to simple human error. Though humans may at times seem cold and mechanical the truth is that when push came to shove we're all controlled by simple primal emotions. And such emotions can so easily force us to make mistakes.

The first such mistake was that of Aaron Brentwood. Aaron made the mistake of believing he understood what love was, and that such a love applied to his high-school sweetheart. Three years later and now living onsite at this military installation the starstruck lovers had become a disgruntled couple who argued over every little thing. Just last night they had a row over the toilet seat. Aaron was playing this argument over and over in his head, and it was breaking his heart. He wished he could take it all back, he wanted to take Lucy in his arms and tell her he was sorry, that he loved her, that everything would be okay. He would never get that chance.
As he finally found the right words he knew would make it all okay again he misjudged the position of the metal crate he was loading the tray into, and as the tray bumped off the edge of the crate the little vials with the strange blue liquid were launched through the air and smashed against the ground. The warning alarm played out and in the panic that followed whole crates of the deep blue liquid met with a similar fate. In the rush to escape Aaron Brentwood was pushed to the ground and trampled to death. Oops.

The next such mistake was that of Private First Class Mark O'Brien, the soldier in charge of guarding Laboratory OW-21. In the case of an accident the doors of such a laboratory were automatically sealed until it was confirmed the area was clear in which case the guard would swipe their keycard and the magnetic lock would open. O'Brien however did not wait for the all clear, because one of the chemists who sealed the vials in the crates was his kid sister and when she cried out his name and banged on the door he couldn't stop himself. The door came open, she threw her arms around him and cried. The rest of the laboratories occupants stampeded out, bringing each and everyone infected by the contents of the little blue vials. Oopsy.

A researcher named Ron Berk was the next to slip up. Berk was a self-centered man who cared little for the actual progress these top secret projects made only that he made a butt load of cash on what was probably going to kill some poor fool in the Middle East. So of course the moment the door was unsealed he had thrown operation get myself the hell outta here into action and yelled out "We gotta get the hell off this base now, the gate guards won't dare shoot us if we all go together!"
Infact in this head he was quite certain that they would shoot at them, but he knew they couldn't shoot the entire staff of OW-21 fast enough and so he'd use the rest of the researchers, chemists, packers and guards who decided they wanted out before the shit hit the fan as one big shield. He'd drive ten miles to Rodak, pick up all the money in his account and then drive to the middle of butt fuck nowhere and hide out til this all blew over. Plans of course do not always go down the way he intend. In his haste to get out Berk was infact the first and only man shot down. As the bullet tore through his brain his foot wedged onto the accelerator and he drove right through the small hut where the gate guards were stationed and his car exploded. The rest of his fellow staff escaped through to Rodak, and cried when they remembered his "heroic sacrifice". Whoops.

Perhaps the most important mistake was that of Corporal Anthony Dawkins. You see regardless of all the previous mistakes none of them would mean jack shit if the man in the security tower pressed one little red button to activate the bases fail-safe mechanism sealing every man woman and child inside. But Cpl. Dawkins did not. He hadn't reacted at all. Why? Because Cpl. Dawkins was what the boys back home called "a pot head" who couldn't get enough of that good old marijuana, and hey this place moves like clockwork right what could possibly go wrong on his shift, so lets kick back roll up a joint and have ourselves a good time cos he'd be here all night and fuck alls gonna happen.
And so when the red light came on and the sirens blared at 23:47 that night of December 21st 2012 Cpl. Dawkins had leaned forward to check what was what and found he felt so incredibly heavy that he fell off his chair and smashed his head against the console. He died of blood loss early the next morning. Whoops-a-daisy!

Chapter 3 Schools Out

For the students of Verdot City High School, the 22nd of December would not only be the final day of the school term, but also the final day of school for the rest of their lives. While the principle droned on in his monotonous tones about unacceptable levels of bad behavior, ever accompanied by the low hum of the rusty heater that was failing to warm the hall in any capacity, the students were more concerned with the immediate business of Christmas. The holidays would only last two weeks, and they intended to get the most fun as possible out of them. Although as Ron Berk could have easily told them, things don't always go the way you planned. Once the assembly was over the kids stormed out of the building and didn't look back. In the parking lot the kids from Thornton and the farms and small cottages along the way were forced to hang around however while they waited for the school bus to arrive.

"Hey hey watch where you're going some people ain't got the pleasure of being able to run along home anytime they want"
called out Deacon Moss towards the girl in the lime green sweater who had just bolted past him and nearly caused him to spill his coke. "Damn it Jonny I tell you the people around here, it's like fucking back to the trees time."
Jon let out a low grunt of a laugh. Deacon Moss had been held back a year because of horrible test results and was it was widely speculated by his teachers that he may be mentally retarded. But Jon Stapleton saw through that. He could see that while Deacon may not have a high mental capacity he was much more clever than people thought, he had a strange insight into life that most people just couldn't understand. But Jon did. He saw that clever streak that was so well masked by excessive swearing and loud speech. And that is why in the three months they had known each other (Deacon had been held back a year due to his bad test results) they had grown to be good friends, and now everyday instead of going straight home Deacon would stick around and chat with Jon before the bus came. "You got that right Deak, people in this town just seem to be getting crazier and crazier..."
Jon peered over at some of the others waiting for the bus. His eyes stopped at Elinor Lyle. When they were growing up they had been good friends and there was even a time when he thought he liked her as more than a friend, but as they grew older they grew apart. She was standing with her jock boyfriend Mike Lawrence, who unlike Deacon probably was genuinely stupid as a pile of bricks, and Rick "The Brick" Johnson, a tough as nails bully who scared the living hell out of kids, teachers and shopkeepers alike. They were her crowd now. "Forget about her Jonny, the bitch has a pretty face but inside she's cold as ice."
Jon smiled. There it was again, from one look Deacon was able to pick up what Jon was thinking without any indication that Elinor and Jon had ever spoken once in their lives. Silence broke as the sound of a cheap novelty car horn soared through the air and everyone turned their head as a scratched and tarnished yellow rust bucket turned the corner. The bus had arrived. Jon looked back to Deacon and said "Seems the hearse is here. I'll seeya round then Deak, have yourself a nice holiday."
"You fucking bet your fur I will. Hope I see you again when it's all over."
That last remark confused Jon but before he could ask what it meant Deacon had already begun walking down the street. And so Jon simply shrugged it off and found himself a seat on the bus. It was probably nothing. But as usual Deacon knew better. He saw what others missed. And he already knew that something was terribly wrong in this world.

Chapter 4 Spilled milk

By the morning of the 25th of December it finally became apparent to someone that things had gone wrong. In a top secret location deep below ground General Marlon Randall was looking over the details of the outbreak. Scattered across the desk before him was a series of documents that spilled out the sorry tale. Of the 364 on Base Sierra Delta 62 were working in Laboratory OW-21. 39 of these people escaped out of the base before a lock down could be put into place, most of them evacuating to the nearby town of Rodak. Beside the desk were a series of monitors; most of them were live feeds from Sierra Delta, others were replays of the tapes from the night of the accident. All the evidence was laid out right in front of him. Except Randall had nobody to point fingers at. Everyone on Base Sierra Delta and in Rodak was dead.

The 23 people who refused to go AWOL for fear of being hunted down and executed soon infected everyone else on the base. The 39 people who fled to Rodak spread the virus to the entire town. Because of their direct exposure to the original virus they were all dead within three days. Sadly it didn't end their. On the 23nd a state patrol officer had passed into town when he heard about the sudden influx of military personnel. By the time he left he had picked up the sickness and spread it into two other towns up state. At around the same time a pair of young lovers decided to run off together to Europe. They drove to the nearest city and took the next flight to Holland. By the end of the day everyone in the airport, arriving or departing was infected and they spread it wherever they went and so on and so forth. This second wave of virus was much different than the first, rather than remaining dormant in the body for several days and then killing suddenly this one manifested itself with flu like symptoms. In the monkey test subjects it could take up to a month upwards the virus to finally kill the subject.

So while kids across the world were waking up to open presents with glee in their eyes, General Randall was sitting at a desk with his head in his hands. It was up to him to decide how to deal with this. Already cases of the virus were appearing across the country and abroad. He reached into his desk and picked out a small bottle of pills. He took out a tiny red pill and swallowed it dry. It cleared his head a little. For the fifth time he turned away from the papers and towards the monitor. Again he found himself staring at the replay of the guard that had been ID'd as Anthony Dawkins. It was a strange sight, the man did not stir for nearly half an hour until suddenly his head begins to tip back and forth. And then boom he leans forward and smacks his head off the security console. And then he's still again, for the rest of his life. Another red pill down.

There was no time left. The decision had to be made now. It was time to make the call. Randall took the phone to his ear and whispered "Len, get me the Secretary of Defense."