Engulfed in the comfort of the passenger seat of his father’s carbon black BMW 740i sedan, Jonathan tried to make some sense out of what his father was saying. Jonathan was very bright for a fifteen year old, but he couldn’t keep up with the things his father spoke about. He rambled on as if he’d gone completely mad. His father spoke of cellular regrowth and regeneration, the impact it would have had on the world if done right, and how it all went wrong.
“We should not have tried to go against nature Johnny. Too many bad things happen under the guise of making this world a better place. Never think that science is tainted though Johnny. It just happens to fall into the hands of ignorant men like myself.” Brian had not called him Johnny since he was little. Jonathan couldn’t imagine his father having any regrets about the work that he does. From what he knew, his father’s work was helping people live longer and healthier lives.
Jonathan took a moment to think about some of the things his father had said, as he usually did at this point. He was certain that whatever his father was saying about cellular regeneration was the important part. That is what he needed to focus on and remember. He felt that he should have paid more attention to his father on that car ride home. He loved biology, and he was amazed at what his father did, but for some reason he did not listen close enough that day.
Perhaps what he was working on is important in some way
, Jonathan thought.
The remainder of the car ride had Jonathan sitting quietly while his father spoke to himself under his breath. Brian grabbed the remote for the gate as they pulled up in front of their house. The large steel gate lurched open under its own weight. Many of the other homes on this end of the city had gates as well, but none of them were as excessive as this one. It stood nine feet tall and spanned the width of the driveway.
The gate slid back behind the wall, and the bars were intertwined to give the gate additional strength, while the frame was made from steel that was four inches wide by six inches thick. Very little space was left between the bars, which made it feel like a maximum security prison. To keep the homeowner’s association happy, Brian had a delightful flower design worked into the outside.
The large gate shut smoothly despite its weight as the car drove up the driveway and came to a stop in the garage. Jonathan unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed out of the car. Walking up to the door into the house they walked past a ladder bolted to the wall that lead up and out onto the rooftop. Brian wanted a way to keep an eye on things outside. Michael always joked that his father should have just put in a periscope.
Immediately after walking inside Brian pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and called his wife. “You need to either get home now or take Michael and find somewhere safe to be,” he warned. “I can’t be sure, but I think we went too far. The subject came back. Nobody else made it out of the building, and I’m afraid contamination is spreading fast.”
Jonathan tried to stop and listen this time, but he kept walking to his room. Upon entering, he set his backpack down on the bed and pulled the chair out from next to the desk built into the wall and started on the math problems that his father formulated for him. He could still hear his father talking in the other room, but unfortunately he could no longer make out any of the words.
After finishing his math problems and the two science questions his father gave him to work on a few days ago, Jonathan sat down in front of his small TV to play video games. Despite being encouraged to use firearms by his father he wasn’t allowed to play violent video games. His father did believe that video games had the power to “keep the mind sharp” as he put it, so the boys were only allowed to play puzzle games that would test their minds.
Jonathan should have been reading at this time, but he figured while his father was distracted he could play games instead. His father made them read each day also, however, they could only read fiction in their free time. He preferred they read the books that were on the shelves on the walls of the family room. Many of these books came from the college. Some of them were new while others were outdated. With all the options presented for educational reading Jonathan decided to pick up the biology books like his father. Michael always chose to read the books that would help him with his chosen career of mechanical engineering.
Both Jonathan and his brother were brilliant. Their father had them doing math problems before they could talk. Brian believed that math was the key to everything. “Any problem can be solved with math,” he’d always say.
Brian worked hard as a young man to gain his PhD in biomedical engineering. He also acquired his master’s degree in chemical engineering. His academic pursuits lead him from his home in Iowa to Clay Hills, California. Here he found work at the Biological and Chemical Research Corporation researching diseases such as cancer.
It was later on that night after Jonathan and his father had eaten supper that the peacefulness that had finally settled in was disrupted by the sounds of sirens. Not much sound penetrated the walls of this fortress that Brian had worked hard to build. The sirens were close. Jonathan followed his father out into the garage where they each grabbed a pair of binoculars and climbed the ladder to the roof.
They exited the garage onto the roof through a stainless steel door. From up above, the door was hidden under the shingles. Lying along the roof was a series of solar panels. These were in place mostly to serve as an emergency power source, but they helped reduce the electric bill. Another source of backup power was a propane powered generator that sat in a shed in the back of the house with a large enough tank to run it for at least a solid month.
“What do you think is going on, Dad?” Jonathan asked curiously as he slid up against one of the solar panels. It was after seven in the evening, and there was enough light left from the day to see most of the town from here.
Brian watched the ambulances through his binoculars. There were many police officers speeding around the town as well. “I have been watching on and off most of the day. The chaos has mostly been in the northern side of the city. It seems to be moving this way. I am not really sure what kept it north for so long. We should have put better procedures into place to contain any contamination that could spread this quickly. You should probably go back in the house. Do not worry about a thing. We will be safe here. I will be in in a little while.”
Jonathan descended the ladder, returned the binoculars to their shelf, and walked back into the house. If he had known that this was the last chance he would have to tell his father he loved him he would have done just that.
He was awoken by the tumult coming from outside. Sitting up in fear, Jonathan jumped from his bed and ran to find his father. “Dad! DAD!” Jonathan screamed as he ran through the house, opening doors as he went. As he opened the door leading out into the garage the noise erupted into a bevy of screams and chaos. The garage door was open, and he could see his father running toward the front gate. As the gate opened he could see the blue Dodge Magnum sitting across the street up on the sidewalk. It looked as though it had been hit by another vehicle, pushed into the light posts, and was unable to move.
Jonathan could just make out the woman driving and her two children sitting in the back of the car. Their screams tore through the air like a bolt of lightning causing all the hair on Jonathan’s body to stand up. There was so much terror in their screams. Before Brian made it to the car another group of people had gotten there first. They looked angry with the woman, beating on the windows trying to get to her. Jonathan realized they were being attacked, and his father was trying to save them.
As Brian reached the driver side door he looked at the attackers all around them, then back to Jonathan. “Close the gate!” he shouted to Jonathan as he realized he was not going to make it back through. “Close the gate and get inside! I will get in on my own!”
Jonathan did what his father told him and regretted it instantly. He ran into the garage and hit the button that closes the gate, followed by the garage door. He turned back just in time to see his father pull the children from the car and signal for them to run up the hill. The last image he saw of his father was him shoving some of the attackers away from the ladies car. Soon his father was lost in the chaos, and then the entire world outside vanished as the garage door slide into place against the floor. The unsettling screams were only muffled by the walls around him. Jonathan dropped to his knees on the hard concrete floor and didn’t even try to hold back the surge of tears.
Chapter 2
The cool rain drops fell gently onto the roof of the house. It only rained a few times a year in Clay Hills, and the sun still tore through the thin clouds like a lighthouse through the fog. This rain only lasted a few hours and created an underwater effect in the house as the light refracted through the water before shining through the skylight. It was the first week of August. Four months after the attack Jonathan sat at the bar in the kitchen facing out into the family room. He no longer referred to it as the family room. Instead it was just “the room” to him.
It was his sixteenth birthday. He had baked his own cake using boxed cake mix and a can of frosting from the supply room in the basement. He was surprised by how well it turned out. The white cake was a little bit dry, but there was enough frosting to make up for it. The only thing his father didn’t stock up on was birthday candles, and it seemed as if frosting wasn’t high on the list of necessary supplies either. He wasn’t even able to write “Happy Birthday Jonathan” on the cake. None of that mattered much anymore. How happy would this birthday be with nobody to spend it with?
He looked down at his cake and closed his eyes. “I wish that my family is alright, and that they will find their way back home soon.” Jonathan inhaled deeply and blew out the imaginary candles. He found that it made him feel silly afterwards.
Cell phones found their way onto his list of things to hate. Because his parents each had a cell phone, they had the home phone disconnected. The only thing they kept was their cable, and the internet was the first service he lost the day of the attack. Over the next couple of days TV channels started to go off the air.
On the day after the attack he was able to catch the end of a news broadcast. “- and families are being advised to stay indoors until the attack can be stopped or contained,” the reporter warned in a smooth voice as the TV came on. The man had short dark hair, black plastic framed glasses, and a handsome face. Jonathan recognized him from the billboards as Bradley Andrews from Channel Thirteen News.
“The National Guard has been dispatched from as far north as Los Angeles down to San Diego to try and head off the attack as it quickly spreads into neighboring counties. We are going off the air until we have more information, but be sure that we will remain right here with you to provide any news as soon as it comes in. Until we return there will be a list of safe zones posted along the bottom of the screen, but we advise you to only try to make your way to any of them if it is absolutely necessary. Thank you and stay safe.”
Jonathan looked through the list of safe zones hoping for something close. Most of the list was made up of hospitals and schools with a few military bases. Panic set in as the list started for the third time with no listing for a safe zone in Clay Hills. “If there is no place safe in town, how long do I have to live?” he said out loud. The reporter never returned, and the channel went off the air later that afternoon.
The day after that, Jonathan caught a portion of a presidential broadcast from the white house. “We are still unsure of who is responsible for the attacks on the western half of the United States,” President Granderson stated calmly in his firm voice. He was in his late forties, short brown hair with deep hazel eyes. He wore a black suit with a red tie and a white shirt.
He pushed his thin wire framed glasses back up onto his face and continued his speech. “We believe that if it was the work of a terrorist group then they would have stepped forward to claim the attacks. At this time we have not received any such claim. Once again, the attacks seemed to have started in southern California. From there it spread quickly along the coast.
“The danger zone reaches from the southern tip of California, Western Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Oregon. We are urging citizens in the connected states to stay indoors for the time being. The National Guard is working around the clock to contain the spread.
“We have received word that the attack has also spread into Mexico. The Mexican government has contacted us just a few moments ago. The reports from around the U.S about cannibalism have yet to be confirmed. I urge you all to please stay indoors. New counties are being added to the danger zone as we speak. I’m being told that the T.V stations will run a continuous broadcast of the danger zone as we move forward. Please, stay safe and God bless us all.”
That was the last time he had seen the President on television. Jonathan assumed that after this broadcast he would be flown to a bunker somewhere in the mountains. A map of the United States appeared on the T.V screen with a red area to represent the danger zones. A large red blotch filled most of the western side of the map.
The next day, Jonathan had turned on the T.V to see that a much larger portion of the map was now red. Washington, Idaho, New Mexico, and Montana were now red, as well as Maine, New York, and Pennsylvania. All of Mexico had been consumed by the red blotch. The southern parts of Canada on both the east and west were also being filled with red.
Scrolling text along the bottom of the screen reported that a plane had crashed in upstate New York. The survivors of the crash began attacking the rescue workers as help arrived. He was relieved to see that Iowa was not yet in the danger zone. This gave him hope for his family.
Jonathan had started listening to the radio every day for months after the TV stations went out. He was hoping that there would be some news of what was happening. He managed to catch the end of a broadcast one morning. There was a man urging people to stay indoors and wait for help to arrive. That was back in October. Help hadn’t found him yet. There was always the thought that maybe he should go find help, but he knew if Michael and his mother were ok then they would look for him at home.
After months of being isolated in the house, Jonathan found himself talking to everything. He knew he was doing it and that he wouldn’t receive a response, but it was comforting to him to pretend he wasn’t completely alone. He feared becoming unattached from reality. At some point he believed he would find his questions answered, or his jokes laughed at by a poster or even a lamp. He dreaded that day.
For now he at least believed he still maintained his sanity, so he continued to keep himself busy by creating housework to be done. He cleaned different rooms on different days of the week. He took care of things in the greenhouse every morning. He also alphabetized the food in the pantry. Much of the remainder of his time was spent learning.
He spent time over the next seven months reading and watching old instructional videos his father had acquired over the years. Jonathan’s knowledge of biology increased rapidly. He consumed books like a hungry wolf consumed its prey, yet he couldn’t find comfort in reading or the knowledge he was gaining. He needed to know if there was still a world outside. At the very least he needed a place where he could find normality and civilization.
Upon waking up one morning and making his way down the hall, Jonathan decided it was time to go into his parent’s room. He hadn’t been in here since before his father disappeared. Standing there in front of that door now made his body feel numb. He hadn’t even noticed it in months. It’s been over a year, and Jonathan had just about forgotten who his parents even were. He was over them. That was the only way he could describe his feelings for them now.
His hand trembled slightly as he grasped the brass doorknob.
Clunk
. The sound that came from the latch was soft, yet it had sounded much louder in the quiet hallway. Like the sonic boom from a plane flying overhead as it breaks the sound barrier. The door hinges creaked slightly as Jonathan pushed it open. He had been in this room many times in the past, but it seemed so foreign to him now. The massive four poster bed stood out like a beast as it lay sleeping in its cave. On the left side sat the bathroom. To the right was a walk in closet.
Jonathan could only stare. His legs wouldn’t move. The thought of turning back came barreling into his mind, but there was nothing to fear here. The room was empty, as it had been for all this time. After a deep breath, he finally gained control of his legs and stepped into the room. With the first step behind him he felt calm and relaxed. Not really sure what he was doing, Jonathan decided first to check out his father’s personal collection of rifles that he kept in a large safe in the back of the walk-in closet.
Standing in the closet entrance he looked left at the side that held his mother’s clothes. He knew from watching his father that behind these racks was a wall that slid to the side. After moving this panel over, Jonathan stood face to face with a large gun safe. Turning the large dial to the numbers thirteen —twenty-one — thirty-four, the safe door unlatched, and with putting his weight into it Jonathan managed to pull the heavy door open. His father had told him how to figure out the combination to the safe. It was the numbers from the Fibonacci sequence. He would change the combination to a different set of numbers each week even though there was little threat of anyone trying to break in. He hasn’t been around to change them, and Jonathan was with his father the last time he opened the safe.
Among the guns in this safe is a magnificent looking Steyr HS50 fifty caliber rifle. This rifle was more of a vanity purchase for his father. Jonathan had only seen it shot by his father once. Also inside were several Springfield handguns. Jonathan’s favorite of these was the two nine millimeter XDs that he frequently shot. He removed them from the safe along with an AR-15 and plenty of ammunition for both. He slid each XD into the shoulder holster, where they came to rest comfortably. Jonathan picked up the AR by the shoulder strap and carried it to the bed where he sat it down.
Looking around the room Jonathan started to wonder more about what he should be doing. Surely Michael and is mother should have made it to him by now if they were alright. His father would have made it back too by now. Jonathan turned to the Steyr sitting in the safe, “I guess it must be time to go out,” he spoke softly to the rifle as a playfully sinister smile crept across his face. Walking back to the safe he grabbed the Steyr and one round out of the box and left the AR behind.
With the rifle slung over his shoulder Jonathan made his way up the ladder in the garage. The rifle felt very heavy to him. This was the first time he had ever been able to hold it. Jonathan felt the warm air rush in to greet him as he opened the hatch on the roof. The sun was bright, and it took his eyes a minute to adjust. He stayed low to the roof as he looked around into the town for the first time in a year. He felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. It was gradually becoming more difficult to breathe. He rolled onto his back, closed his eyes, and began to count.
After counting to sixty, Jonathan turned back onto his stomach and looked once again out into the town he once knew. The attack had left the town crippled. Military blockades were set up along the major roads, and most of the houses that could be seen from where Jonathan lay prone on the roof looked as though looters must have broken in. Doors lay broken off of their hinges while glass lay scattered across lawns. Most shocking to Jonathan was the blue Dodge Magnum that sat empty just across the street from his front gate. The hood and driver side of the car looked to be either covered in rust or dirt. The dark brown spots stood out on that metallic blue paint job.
The tears couldn’t be held back as they poured down his face. The initial shock wore off, and the realization set in that the town had been devastated by this attack. It was too hard to imagine that the town he loved looked so dilapidated. There appeared to be no one left.
They must have been evacuated by the military
. Or worse, they have all been capture by the attacking forces. The thought made his stomach drop, and he slid to the edge of the roof and threw up. He hoped that all the people he knew were alright, where ever they are.
Rolling onto his back Jonathan wiped the tears from his face with the bottom of his shirt. Assuming that everyone was dead, his only wish was that he would have been killed with his family. Rage swelled up inside him, but only for a moment. He thought of setting out on a rescue mission. Certainly, he would need time to form a strategy, and he didn’t even know where to start.
Movement in the distance caught Jonathan’s eye and he pressed his body as hard as he could into the roof. He really doubted anyone could see him up there, but he couldn’t afford to take a chance at alerting any of the attackers to his presence. From this distance he could only see enough to know that it was a human. He slid the Steyr up next to him and pulled out the bipod to rest the barrel on. The roof slopped down in the middle to both the front and back, so he made sure the bipod rested on the slop that faced out into the town. Jonathan figured he should be able to see for several hundred yards at the very least with this scope.
Locating the figure through the rifle’s scope proved to be trickier than he assumed it would have been. Fidgeting around with the adjustment nobs took too much time due to his inexperience. By the time Jonathan had managed a clear view of the person they had moved behind a house. He checked the other side of the house hoping the figure would continue to walk out and into view.
After a minute Jonathan whispered to himself, “Must have walked into the house. Maybe this will attract some attention.” He reached his right hand into his pocket and pulled out the round he brought with him. Pulling the bolt back on the rifle felt smoother than Jonathan had expected it would. The round fit snuggly into the chamber, and Jonathan slid the bolt back up, locking the round in place.