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In the confusion that swept through the square, panic spread like a virulent fever.
Those who saw the blood-letting, who knew even as they struggled to comprehend the signals sent from eyes to brain that an atrocity was emerging, something ancient and primal and unstoppable, simply turned and ran blindly. Several, paying no heed to the limited visibility of the morning, smashed into walls or posts, and were swiftly set upon. Others found that the beings that now chased them down seemed indefatigable, reeling in the yards inexorably, until they were close enough to claw and rend their victims.
James Thomas, retired gardener and still-going-strong octogenarian, had only set out for his morning paper that day, but with his knees playing up, had taken the car.
James preferred to walk, even when the pain was present, because he understood that opportunities to get out and enjoy the world, or spend time with others, should always be taken. That was one thing about reaching what the TV euphemistically and poetically referred to as your twilight years: if you were lucky enough to hang on to your senses (as many of James’ long-time friends had sadly not been) then the world was brought into sharp focus as the timer ticked down toward zero.
So much of the modern world seemed designed to segregate and isolate, everyone sitting in protective bubbles of their own design: they travelled everywhere in cars, knowing only the destination and nothing of the journey that took them there, or they became slaves to their television or their computer or their office, living like ghosts, never connecting with those around them.
James often thought of the time he had visited his grandson living in Bristol, discovering that his evenings were spent lost in an online game of some sort, and that he didn’t even know his neighbours’ names. James had left after a few days to return home with a heavy heart.
On this day however, the fire that lived in his ancient knees had just been too much, his joints protesting loudly that the previous day’s gardening – long hours of planting daffodils and azaleas and rhododendron bushes – had been just a tad too optimistic.
So he took the car, but compromised. He would stop for a cup of tea somewhere and read his paper, hopefully finding a few people to have a natter with before returning to the hollow silence of his empty house.
Now he sat, stunned, behind the wheel as the car trundled to a halt, and he saw the scene unfolding in the square before him, and found to his surprise, that eight decades on the planet did not mean he had quite seen it all before.
All around him were people running and screaming, dropping to the floor in sprays of blood, or pouncing on the people who had been their lifetime friends until moments before and tearing them apart with teeth and fingers.
It was incomprehensible, and for a moment he felt the mind that he worked so hard to keep alert with puzzles and hobbies drifting like a leaf on the surface of a fast-moving stream, and he was back there in the unending nightmare, the one he worked so hard to submerge, the furious crimson skies glowering over the lowest ebb in human history. The broken bodies as skin clashed with industrial steel and the insanity of men that had grown too powerful, and too greedy.
This was something different though, something that was immediately apparent. There was no order here, no purpose, no matter how evil or misjudged. Not war. Just chaos and disintegration.
It was only when a man, covered in blood, strips of flesh hanging from his face and eyes that looked like ready-to-burst boils, leapt onto the bonnet of the car and threw himself bodily into the windscreen, sending sharp cracks right across it, that James snapped back into the present and found that age hadn’t quite dulled his reactions entirely.
He threw the car into reverse, and stamped on the accelerator, never taking his eyes away from the bloody horror that clung to the breaking glass.
He would, he thought, readily throw himself out of the door when that glass fell away, and, dodgy knees or not, he would run like a teenager.
Such was his focus on the monster trying to get in that he entirely lost the direction of the car, swerving blindly, glancing off the brickwork off one of the buildings that crowded around the narrow streets, the collision threatening to rip the steering wheel from his grasp. The impact made the car shudder and lurch, and suddenly the abomination that had gripped his bonnet was gone, lost in the fog.
James began to give a silent thanks to whatever god was clearly watching over him, and ploughed into the petrol station he hadn’t even seen racing toward his rear view mirror.
The world ignited.
Those who saw the blood-letting, who knew even as they struggled to comprehend the signals sent from eyes to brain that an atrocity was emerging, something ancient and primal and unstoppable, simply turned and ran blindly. Several, paying no heed to the limited visibility of the morning, smashed into walls or posts, and were swiftly set upon. Others found that the beings that now chased them down seemed indefatigable, reeling in the yards inexorably, until they were close enough to claw and rend their victims.
James Thomas, retired gardener and still-going-strong octogenarian, had only set out for his morning paper that day, but with his knees playing up, had taken the car.
James preferred to walk, even when the pain was present, because he understood that opportunities to get out and enjoy the world, or spend time with others, should always be taken. That was one thing about reaching what the TV euphemistically and poetically referred to as your twilight years: if you were lucky enough to hang on to your senses (as many of James’ long-time friends had sadly not been) then the world was brought into sharp focus as the timer ticked down toward zero.
So much of the modern world seemed designed to segregate and isolate, everyone sitting in protective bubbles of their own design: they travelled everywhere in cars, knowing only the destination and nothing of the journey that took them there, or they became slaves to their television or their computer or their office, living like ghosts, never connecting with those around them.
James often thought of the time he had visited his grandson living in Bristol, discovering that his evenings were spent lost in an online game of some sort, and that he didn’t even know his neighbours’ names. James had left after a few days to return home with a heavy heart.
On this day however, the fire that lived in his ancient knees had just been too much, his joints protesting loudly that the previous day’s gardening – long hours of planting daffodils and azaleas and rhododendron bushes – had been just a tad too optimistic.
So he took the car, but compromised. He would stop for a cup of tea somewhere and read his paper, hopefully finding a few people to have a natter with before returning to the hollow silence of his empty house.
Now he sat, stunned, behind the wheel as the car trundled to a halt, and he saw the scene unfolding in the square before him, and found to his surprise, that eight decades on the planet did not mean he had quite seen it all before.
All around him were people running and screaming, dropping to the floor in sprays of blood, or pouncing on the people who had been their lifetime friends until moments before and tearing them apart with teeth and fingers.
It was incomprehensible, and for a moment he felt the mind that he worked so hard to keep alert with puzzles and hobbies drifting like a leaf on the surface of a fast-moving stream, and he was back there in the unending nightmare, the one he worked so hard to submerge, the furious crimson skies glowering over the lowest ebb in human history. The broken bodies as skin clashed with industrial steel and the insanity of men that had grown too powerful, and too greedy.
This was something different though, something that was immediately apparent. There was no order here, no purpose, no matter how evil or misjudged. Not war. Just chaos and disintegration.
It was only when a man, covered in blood, strips of flesh hanging from his face and eyes that looked like ready-to-burst boils, leapt onto the bonnet of the car and threw himself bodily into the windscreen, sending sharp cracks right across it, that James snapped back into the present and found that age hadn’t quite dulled his reactions entirely.
He threw the car into reverse, and stamped on the accelerator, never taking his eyes away from the bloody horror that clung to the breaking glass.
He would, he thought, readily throw himself out of the door when that glass fell away, and, dodgy knees or not, he would run like a teenager.
Such was his focus on the monster trying to get in that he entirely lost the direction of the car, swerving blindly, glancing off the brickwork off one of the buildings that crowded around the narrow streets, the collision threatening to rip the steering wheel from his grasp. The impact made the car shudder and lurch, and suddenly the abomination that had gripped his bonnet was gone, lost in the fog.
James began to give a silent thanks to whatever god was clearly watching over him, and ploughed into the petrol station he hadn’t even seen racing toward his rear view mirror.
The world ignited.
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