Apocalypsis Immortuos | Book 1 | Syndrome
Syndrome
Apocalypsis Immortuos, Volume 1
Marco de Hoogh
Published by Marco de Hoogh, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 By Marco de Hoogh
Cover design © 2020 By Michael Dargie
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Syndrome (Apocalypsis Immortuos, #1)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-one
Epilogue
Chapter Sixty-three
About the Author
Dedication
This book represents over two years of off again, on again effort. Or is that supposed to be on again, off again? Thank you to my wonderful family for helping me realize that writing is my passion and pushing my switch firmly into the ‘on’ position! Thank you for supporting me through those many evenings and weekends as I plugged away at this thing…
Carmen, Johan, Logan: Thank you. I love you.
I also wish to thank my beta readers for their feedback and support. Connie Genert, Stephen Weis, Lowie Sierat, Craig Douglas, Anita Morison, Inge Verkley, and Dirk Maasmans: You gave me the confidence to take the leap!
Thank you to the incredibly talented Michael Dargie for the great cover.
Finally, I want to thank you, reader. I want to thank you for giving this book a chance. I truly hope you enjoy it and freely welcome your thoughts and feedback, as well as your insults and praise.
“I SEE IN THE NEAR FUTURE a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
Abraham Lincoln
Chapter One
Emily
October 28, 10:15 A.M.
‘WHUMP’
Several pairs of eyes watched as something bounced off the front bumper of the bus and spun away to the side. The next thing that the passengers heard, was the sound of the bus revving loudly, the driver involuntarily hitting the gas and speeding away from the accident. It all happened in a flash, the body little more than a blur as it propelled away.
“Nice driving, English.” Sergeant Peters’ voice betrayed little emotion. He was standing in the aisle-way behind Emily, hanging on to the pole behind her right shoulder with a white-fingered grip. Emily Hill wasn’t sure if the comment was meant sarcastically or not. To her it felt like sarcasm... The bus continued to travel down the inner-city street, sticking to the left side of the road.
“Wrong side.” Peters said. “But I guess you’re used to driving on the wrong side, eh?” It wasn’t really a question. Peters was nervous and just commenting for the sake of it.
The jibe fell on deaf ears anyway. Emily had no response. She did not even shift her eyes from the road in front of her. Her jaw was clenched as she gritted her teeth in concentration. Besides. He was right. Emily was used to driving on the left side of the road. She was English, after all.
Also, she was nervous as shit. And freaked out too, for that matter.
Before the bus had gone two more blocks, another person stepped into the road. There was no room to maneuver in the downtown street and avoid another collision.
“Brace!” One of the soldiers called out as the bus bore down on the figure.
It’s a girl. Just a child...
Just before impact, the girl raised her head and looked right at Emily. Her eyes were unnaturally wide-open, as was her mouth, which was drawn into an exaggerated “o” shape. It gave the girl a look of shock, but Emily knew that this was not a reflection of emotions. It was just what these things looked like. And it was utterly horrifying.
With a hollow ‘bonk’ sound, the bus hit and then ran over the girl. One of the back tires caught the body and the bus jumped slightly. It felt a bit like taking a speed bump too fast.
“God damn it woman! Are you trying to crash this thing?” Peters was not really angry. Were Emily to turn back and face him, she would see the rictus grimace betraying the fear and disgust he felt.
Emily did not respond. Instead, she continued to focus on the road ahead. For a moment, her focus shifted from distant to near. From the cars and buildings ahead of her to the windshield a couple of feet from her face. There was a drop of dark red blood running down the windscreen.
Oh my god... Emily closed her eyes for a second. She inhaled and exhaled through her nose and opened her eyes again as she gathered herself.
The bus drove on. The next minute was spent in relative silence. The downtown streets were nearly empty of cars, and the ones that remained were not moving.
Just those ... things to look out for. Those ‘things’ used to be people. People that were infected somehow. People that suffered the pains of the syndrome. Then seemingly died.
Nobody was quite sure of that.
What was sure though was that some of these infected
would rise up immediately after, to viciously attack any person within their reach.
She had seen her share of them. Infected. Possessed. Undead. There were plenty of words to describe them, although nobody seemed to know exactly what they were. Zombies. That was the word most people called them. They were monsters, in human form.
Their behaviour was unnerving. The way those things would just stand there, unmoving, in kind of a half-crouched position. Their heads pointed down and to the side, like they were seeing something interesting just beyond one of their feet. Like somebody fell into a trance just as they were about to pick up an object from the ground.
Yes, it was unnerving. But even more unnerving was the way their faces had changed. Once you saw that face, you knew that you were looking at something that was not human anymore. Their mouths hung wide open, almost unnaturally so – like their jaws had become unhinged. And then there were those wide-open eyes... Like they were stuck in some kind of macabre staring contest. The whites of the eyes turned grey like overcooked eggs. The whole countenance was some kind of sick homage to Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ painting.
Any noise or movement would trigger activity. They would jerk their heads up and stagger towards the noise or motion. If they saw you there was no stopping them. And if they got a hold of you...
Just focus on the road, Em. Focus on the job. Emily tried to calm herself.
“There’s the ramp” Peters leaned in to see if the top of the ramp was clear. Luckily for all on board, it was. The army had done an excellent job keeping some of the main highways free of traffic.
Emily knew though, that that particular job had been messy. Very messy.
Well, what did you expect? This is the US of A, and Americans are a proud people. All about their rights and liberties. Even when under martial law. Heck, especially when under martial law.
To many people, this was the catalyst for bugging out. Within hours of the announcement, thousands had packed up their cars and hit the road. Unfortunately for those people, the armed forces had their orders. Keep strategic infrastructure operational. They had prepared for this and the harsh lesson that the American people learned that day, was that you don’t fuck with the US armed forces.
Emily heard plenty of stories about civilians and their vehicles literally being pushed off the roads. It had turned pretty ugly, and there were some major gunfights between the US army and the civilians it was sworn to protect. After these clashes, bulldozers were apparently being employed to ram and shove everything off the highways.
She had seen enough evidence on the sides of highways and major thoroughfares to know that this particular rumor was very true. If she looked carefully, she could see the bodies in amongst the crushed vehicles lining the ditches.
Ah, stop it Em. Think of something positive! Emily gave her head a small shake. Cheer up Em, at least the weather is holding up well.
Just a couple of clouds in the light blue sky, nice warm temperature. A nice day for a bike ride or hike. Too bad it’s the end of the world.
Ah bollocks. Positive thoughts, damnit! She berated herself once more.
“We’ve got about eight miles on the 71 before the interchange. Then two miles on the 495 before we get off the highways.” Garcia said from three rows back. In his hand he clutched a list of addresses. Today’s pickups.
Corporal Garcia was second in command in this outfit. He was a stocky guy – only a couple of inches taller than Emily. He had a pockmarked face that was dominated by his expressive dark brown eyes. Emily felt strangely attracted to this charismatic soldier. He was one of those guys that inexplicably attracted a lot of women. Emily couldn’t put her finger on it. But the guy’s charm was undeniable.
Emily quickly looked ahead when Garcia looked up and caught her staring at him.
Focus Em. This is no time to check out blokes!
She focused on driving for about ten seconds, before her mind drifted to other matters. This was their fourth day of doing these extractions. Every day got a lot harder than the one before. On day one they left the safe zone in one of several convoys, with a minimum of five school busses per convoy, escorted by several High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, or ‘Humvees’ as everybody called them.
Some of them had M2’s gun turrets. The fifty caliber machine guns made short work of the occasional undead. Or any obstacle for that matter. They had even had a couple ‘little bird’ helicopters circling overhead and a black hawk on stand-by at HQ, ready to provide support. They never had to use that support.
Not that it was a total cake walk. Civilians were running around all over the place. A bunch of them had packed up their belongings into vehicles and tried to head to the hills, despite the martial law. Emily had even seen one –a fucking Prius of all things! –ram one of the armored vehicles in an attempt to get around the convoy. That didn’t end well for those people.
Emily was fascinated with some of the shit people took with them. Cars were jammed with everything one could think of. Or maybe they weren’t thinking. What the fuck good is a huge flat screen tv going to do you in the boonies. She’d even seen a couple with their arms sticking out the car windows, trying to keep a mattress on the roof of their car as they drove along. Really?!
But after the first couple of days things changed rapidly. The streets became deserted. Then more and more of those things started appearing. On top of that the helicopters were called away, and the convoys shrank in size dramatically.
Today, theirs was the only bus to leave the safe zone, and the number of people on their list to pick up would barely fill this bus. Emily wondered if there were less people calling in because there were less healthy people, or maybe it was because they were getting smarter and deciding to ride this out at home.
The biggest issue troubling Emily was the fact that they had no escort. This was the first trip that they would attempt without at least one support vehicle. No Humvees positioned in front to clear the path, and behind to provide support. No helicopter circling overhead, miniguns ready to roar at a moment’s notice.
Yeah. That would have been nice. Like a warm comfy blanket.
But that was not to be. Today, the team was sent out without any support whatsoever. They were on their own. Just Emily and a mixed squad of soldiers patched together. Emily had worked with most members of this crew for a few days, so she knew that there were some vastly different personalities on board. But there was one thing that they would all agree on, and that was that this was fucked up.
The army was stretched thin. Or had bigger fish to fry, depending on what you believed. Emily guessed that it really didn’t matter what the truth was. They had their orders.
The next fifteen minutes was spent in relative silence. There was no traffic on the interstate whatsoever. It almost would have been a relaxing drive if it weren’t for the burnt-out husks of cars in the ditches. That, and the occasional glimpse of bodies lying amongst or in those cars...
The bus moved along the interstate at a monotonous pace. Emily took a quick glance in her rear-view mirror. Six men were sitting in the bus. They sat in silence, but Emily knew that it was anything but silent in their heads.
The shit they had seen... The constant worrying about friends and family. Some of them must have been wondering if it was as bad at home as it was here. Emily knew the answer to that one. Damn right things were bad. They were bad all over.
Welcome to the Apocalypse, lads.
Four of them were regular army. The other two National Guard. One of those was in the reserves, so Emily figured that made him the rookie instead of her.
Emily had served a full tour herself. Spent four years in service of her majesty’s royal armed forces.
Yeah, right Em. You spent most of that time based at Duddleston.
Duddleston Barracks. Located in the West Midlands near Birmingham, England. Emily still remembered the shock and disbelief in her mum’s expression when she had told her that she was enlisting. All those years
in private school, all that privilege. All thrown away in a moment of rebellion as Emily signed up for the British Armed Forces.
Several days later she was off to Duddleston. Several years later, when the army spit her out the other end, she was a Transportation and Communications Expert. And disowned by her parents.
During her time in the army she’d rarely been out of England, and certainly never fired a weapon in battle. As a matter of fact, she had fired a rifle on exactly six occasions. Just enough to pass that course. Emily knew herself well. She knew how to operate a radio, and drive lots of different vehicles – but she was no warrior.
Certainly not prepared to deal with this. Well, who in their right mind would be? She considered.
Emily ran a hand over her forehead and looked at the moisture in her palm for a moment, before catching herself. She had a quick look in her rear-view mirror to see if anybody was paying attention to her.
Those blokes probably think you’ve lost your marbles, Em!
Eyes forward once again, Emily slowed the bus slightly as they approached an interchange. The grey of concrete met the bright blue of the sky as the bus ascended an overpass.
At the top of the overpass the team was witness to another example of the chaos that was growing in the city: Fires. From their vantage point they could see several fires burning in the surrounding city scape, including one big one downtown. Those fires would go unchecked, as there was nobody to put them out.
They traveled down the highway for several more minutes. Emily had gotten so used to the droning of the bus engine and the regular clacking sound as the bus tires traversed from one concrete slab to the next one, that she gasped when Garcia spoke up from his seat near the front.
“Our turn off is up ahead. Mason south.”
His next words were directed at the squad leader. “Our first pickup is about five minutes out. Contacting the civilian now.”
“Weapons and gear check.” Peters was all business now.
She looked through her rear-view mirror and scanned her team. The guys had their heads on swivels.
All seven occupants could sense the rise in tension as the bus navigated the off ramp and took a left under the highway. These areas had not been cleared by the armed forces, and it showed. The bus had to weave past several abandoned cars.