White Lies in Black Town

In the Beginning

Copyright © 2017 Eta Tomi

Cover Design by Eta Tomi

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews

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In the Beginning

My heart was beating finely when we two set forth in the cold night upon this dangerous venture.

1881, Robert Louis Stevenson

Blood.

That is what they looked like. They fell, painting the earth and everything else in its way red. It was just as red as the sky from which they fell.

There was no metallic smell, but something much worse, something that elicited dread itself.

This was the first time this had happened, if not in the world, but at-least in the little place known as Black Town.

It was a remote town, a world on its own. The town people had a self-sustaining system, and it was easy with a majority of the people being involved in farming (which included even fishing). They also had a simple government made up of representatives from the oldest houses. It was perfect with every-day being predictable up until that day.

The Day of the Red Sky.

Most of the residents were also religious almost to the point of fanaticism, and had simply believed it was a higher power that had caused the bleeding sky. Possibly because of the weight of their sins and such. So, they didn't question, but took everything as events beyond them.

But there were also a few others. They were called The Freaks. People ignored them, muttering that the red rain that fell the day before must have gagged their brains.

They were the ones that carried placards with inscriptions like 'open your eyes' 'they are coming', shouting to no one in particular nonstop about the 'wicked' that will come not just to rule them all but to also control them.

Three days after the sky had turned red, something happened. It was not as spectacular as the devil taking over the world but just as serious. Maybe it was just as spectacular because something else took over people's lives without mercy or conscience, if it were even capable of such.

It was a disease.

Any in its path was struck with immediate death regardless of age or status.

It seemed to be an after-effect of the rain or the rain might have simply been a warning; a sign of the deaths that were to come.

Quite a number of the residents had died.

At-least for a while.

They went through reanimation; dying and then coming back to existence.

They had no recollection of their lives, not even their names. They however had an immense thirst for blood. That the first person and subsequently others who discovered these resurrections were unfortunate to have their jugulars torn and blood drained.

One minute a person died and in the next few minutes, they opened glazed eyes, stood up and attacked anyone or animal in sight. If there wasn't any one in sight for at least a day, it meant no blood to consume.

Then the diseased simply just died again and this time stayed dead. They couldn't feel or think and as such, it wasn't hard to avoid them if you were smart.

The blood kept them existing, nourishing their bodies with the elixir gotten from the unfortunate victims.

But the corpses perished and within months, and in rare occasions even years regardless of how much they drank.

You could tell the old ones by their smell and the state of their body. Maggots filled every orifice of their bodies, and their flesh was a mangled mess as it rotten, coming off in bits. Their bodies broke down until they could walk no more, which meant they couldn't feed. That didn't make them any less dangerous as they had to be avoided even their final death because the decomposed corpses were highly contagious. A ticking human time bomb.

How the blood process worked was as baffling as how the dead came to life, but seemed soul-less.

Like always, humans survive the worst of situations, and this was no different. It was after all a trait that had enabled us to survive decades despite all the foolishness of wars and their ills.

So, the remaining residents barricaded their homes in fear of getting the ravaging disease or worse; get torn apart by the disgusting things that were no longer human.

They had concluded the dreadful disease could be gotten through the corpses, but how it came about had them speculating. The doctors couldn't place the original mode of transmission, and admitted that the corpses can't be explained medically because they, even by the simplest logic shouldn't be living.

The perfect little town finally became interesting.

And in a few months, it got more interesting.

The earth began to shake violently. And no, it wasn't an earthquake. It shook as though something had dropped on the earth and resounded.

At this point, there was a young woman alone. She was covered head to toe, and wearing a face mask in order to protect herself in case she accidentally bumped into one of the corpses. She was outside against her mother's wish.

The woman jumped, frightened by the sudden noise. After which she pivoted, quick as a hair trigger, and spotted the object that had caused so much noise.

A dome.

It was clear enough to see through that it was almost invisible. She heard the buzzing emanating from it even from the considerable distance from which she stood. If it it wasn't for the buzzing and a slight tinge of blue that emanated from it, she would have thought nothing was there.

A bird flew over her head, hit the walls, and got fried immediately. And there she stood, frozen to the ground in shock staring at the monstrosity.

Until...

"What is that?" a deep voice bellowed, causing the young woman to jumped in fright again.

She would have reddened, if dark-brown skin could.

The voice turned to murmurs and whispers as a quite a number of people had reluctantly come out of their homes trying to understand what was going on.

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A/N: This is more of a prologue than a chapter, but because I would still edit and make it longer, decided to leave it. I hope you enjoy the story.
What do you think about the story so far?
*Made a gif of the red rain above*