Death's Awakening

Part II: The Awakening / Chapter Twenty: Crash

The amount of information out there was overwhelming.

Night had turned into morning at some point and Crash had barely even noticed.

His basement apartment was cool and dark, much more appropriate for his mood than the bright sunny day showing on his security cameras outside.

He stared at his computer monitors. The information was an addiction now. He'd been talking to some of his buddies on his favorite doomsday prepper forum. They'd started a few new threads, sharing the most recent and important information and videos they'd been able to find online.

It hadn't escaped his notice that five or six of the regulars had stopped posting all together.

Crash refreshed the page to see if anything new had been posted in the past half hour.

A couple of news articles. Six new videos. A new report on the death toll in Georgia and Texas. Nothing groundbreaking.

He was watching one of the latest videos when the new message sound dinged. He clicked over to his inbox and read the subject line of a new private message from his friend Atomic. PRIORITY!!! What the hell are we dealing with here?

Crash double clicked the message, his heart racing and his hand gripping his mouse.

Hey, man. I just came across this new video posted to a private forum I belong to. The dude who posted it said he has a cousin who works for this news station and that he risked everything to get this footage out there. Watch it and get back to me. What the hell are we dealing with? Do you think this could be legit? If it is, my mind just got blown. ~Atomic P.S. How are you feeling? Any signs?

There was a video attached to the message and Crash leaned forward in his chair. He moved the video player to his center screen and pressed play.

An older man with salt and pepper hair spoke into a microphone that had the letters 'WKBX' on the handle. He looked like your typical reporter in a suit and tie with a hard-on for breaking news. Crash had seen dozens just like him in the videos he'd watched so far. The only difference was that this guy had one of those white surgical masks stretched across his face. As if that would protect him in a hospital full of infected.

"This is Neil Snow reporting for WKBX, Raleigh," the reporter said in his best trained-for-TV voice. "I'm here at Raleigh Hospital where a quarantine has been in effect for the past four days. Under special orders from the Governor, our news crew has been allowed inside the quarantine zone for an exclusive look at what is going on behind closed doors."

The reporter motioned to the door behind him, which was labeled "Morgue" in bold black letters. "And one of the first doors we're going behind is the one with the biggest secrets of all. Contrary to what some officials want you to believe, the flu that has brought patients here in droves is much worse than the seasonal flu, the swine flu, or any other strain of the flu that we've seen in recent years. In fact, some doctors here are saying this outbreak will be several times worse than the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic that killed an estimated fifty million people worldwide."

"Some of the images we're about to show may be disturbing." Pausing for effect, the reporter stepped in front of the door and drew his eyebrows together in a serious expression. After a moment of silence, he opened the swinging door to the hospital's morgue.

Inside the room, bodies were stacked on top of each other up to six feet high along the walls. Even though Crash had seen similar images in previous videos, he still felt his gut churn. The reporter explained the images as the cameraman slowly panned from one end of the room to the other.

"More than one-third of the patients who were being treated at this hospital are now found here in the morgue. As you can see here, this facility has run out of room for their normal procedures and have started to stack the bodies of the dead on top of each other. A doctor I spoke to when I arrived estimates that the number of dead will double by the end of the day tomorrow."

The camera settled back on the reporter. "We've been told that bulldozers are expected to arrive in the morning to begin digging out mass graves, something that is completely unprecedented here in the United States. When questioned about the legalities of this decision, authorities—"

A scuffle off camera caught the reporter's eye and he jerked backward.

The cameraman swung around and Crash could barely make out the figure of a girl in a hospital gown. The camera lurched wildly. Crash heard shouts, but in the chaos, he didn't understand what was happening.

He leaned as far forward as he could in his chair and tried to make sense of the jumpy images on the screen. A bare, dirty foot limping toward the camera. The reporter shouting, "Someone get a doctor." The sound of shoes squeaking against the tile floor.

Finally, the image settled down and Crash could see the reporter reaching out to the girl. She was definitely a patient. By the bruise-like rings around her eyes, it was obvious she was infected. But what was she doing down there in the morgue?

The cameraman had taken a spot across the room and his hands were shaking, but at least the images made sense now. The image zoomed in slightly on the reporter and the girl.

"It's okay, sweetheart," the reporter said. "We're going to get a doctor for you, okay? Now where did you come from?"

The girl, who couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen, reached out as if to take the man's hand. Then suddenly, she lunged forward and sank her teeth into his forearm. The reporter let out a high-pitched, terrified scream and tried to yank his arm away from the child. In his chair, Crash jumped back, startled.

In addition to the reporter's scream, the camera picked up a low, rumbling sound. The man operating the camera must have heard it too, because he swung around toward the stack of bodies behind him. The moan grew louder.

The cameraman backed away, then tripped over something and fell to the floor, screaming. The screen went dark and Crash sucked in an uneven breath. He brought a trembling hand to his mouth, trying to make sense of what he'd just seen. What the hell was happening there? Patients attacking reporters?

Or worse. Dead patients attacking reporters.

But that wasn't possible, right? That was something that happened in movies and video games, not real life.

Crash took a second to breathe and calm the beating of his heart.

Then he started the video again.

So excited to get to Part II! Thank you so much for reading, voting, and commenting! I appreciate it!