A New World (Title in progress)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The beginning of the end . . . .

. . . . Of the world as we know it

"Fight, Fight you cowards!" I remember shouting as those around me fled scrambling over each other to get away before the other, to put the other in the path of the beast instead of themselves, cowards the lot of them.

We might have had a chance if there had been less cowards and more real men and women prepared to protect what was theirs, I reflected later on after the first wave of chaos. There was plenty of time to think afterwards, the thinking could drive you mad but first you had to survive the first wave. Thinking back now I can't decide which wave was the worst, the first for its brutality, the second for the starvation clawing at us survivors or the third for the desperation. That desperation to survive was the only thing that kept us alive some days, that and our pig-headed refusal to die. There wasn't much else to live off in those dark days.

But I should start from the beginning, I can remember it clear as day even now when other days after it even weeks are a complete blur to me.

I was sitting in a traffic jam of all the places to be when the world decides to go to shit on you, sure there had been talk for a few weeks of some new sickness bug but no one ever quite realised the scale of things until it was too late and all hell broke loose. I suppose the government did the only thing it knew and kept covering it up, the infected went to hospital of course for the cure they were handing out and so no one concerned themselves with it. The uninfected were told to stay away to help protect them from infection and the ill stayed in hospital, somehow it manage to stay out of the news, probably part of the plan. Anyway eventually they just got overrun, that and there never was a cure.

So there I sat in my car head banging away to my iPod as Brantley Gilbert crooned away in my ear about having been half way to heaven as hell was about to descend on me, stuck in traffic after a long hot sweaty day at work counting down the minutes until I could get in a cold shower not realising I would be having more cold showers in the future than I desired. I can remember every verse of that song I was belting out completely out of tune but not giving a fuck. I recall thinking to myself that if I had spent more time revising when I was at school and less time listening to music then maybe I wouldn't have to be working on a Saturday, I would have a nice cushy job that paid well. I remember wondering what the hold up was, I saw no road works this morning on my way through, but I just shrugged and put it down to summer holiday makers causing extra traffic on the roads. I noticed plenty of cars coming towards me whizzing along thinking they were going way too fast. Maybe there's been an accident I thought but I couldn't hear any sirens. By then people in the cars coming towards me were waving their arms about and trying to shout things to the people in the traffic waiting, how weird I thought. Slowly the traffic began to move as more cars whizzed by me, I thought I saw something red smeared on a car as it went by. Up ahead I saw cars doing u-turns and joining the traffic coming towards me, is the road blocked? I wound my window down to try and ease the stifling heat in the car. A car coming toward me slowed down and the driver started shouting for me to turn round.

"Has there been an accident?" I shouted back but he didn't stop to answer.

Then I saw it, people coming down the road stumbling with their belongings, what are they doing. More and more cars turned around everyone trying to get away from whatever was happening further down the road. In the distance I could hear screams over the sound of my cars engine.

"Turn around-" one man started to shout but he was drowned out by an army helicopter coming over low.

I need to get home, but that's my way home. I kept creeping forward in the traffic seeing no gap in the oncoming traffic to allow me to turn around and try find a different route home. It was slow going, my ipod was long forgotten on the seat beside me. My phone started to ring in my bag on the passenger seat, I debated answering it as I kept my eyes peeled for some clue as to what I should do. It stopped then started again almost instantly, "fuck it" I mumbled reaching over to rummage in my bag as I neared the end of the cue, I could see police officers and soldiers up ahead at some kind of road block maybe its some kind of army exercise.