Edict 42

Chapter 4 - Ryan

Gunfire thundered in the distance it seemed more people had been found.

Was it a C 94 defensive or was it a human?

He heard the Police sirens blared and shouts on the road as he looked in that direction. He was sorry for who had to be the unfortunate sacrifice. He was sorry he would be unable to help but firing that much for so long was bound to end horribly. All he could hope for was that the person saved one for themselves. He hoped in his heart that it wasn’t the returning team that left but he knew they wouldn’t have used their guns in the situation not with her with them.

“Mommy, Mommy,” a young girl’s voice shouted from below.

“Don’t worry dear, its going to be okay. You’re safe now. The bad people are going to be caught by the police.”

“Why do they want to hurt us? I don’t want to be hurt.”

“Its hard to explain dear bad people just like to do bad things.”

Ryan bit his lip has he tried his best to ignore them. There very speech was taunting him to say something. He sat on the flat roof overlooking the road from his position no one could see him. This building had been abandoned for a long time and no one showed any interest in it or the area. It appeared to have been at one point a small boutique and a hair salon.

They might be able to stay here for two more days or so before they might need to move to another location. Staying in one spot for too long might draw unwanted attention.

He was on guard duty and he had to take all forms of precaution, being up here didn’t mean he was safe. At the bottom he saw them walking around stumbling over each other. What made them scary in these first stages were that they retained their memories and was capable of speech to a limited degree. They knew where their families were and they also knew things that they knew before in life. If the parasite had been able to gain full control they might have been able to be passed off as humans but the truth of it was they thought that they were. Their give away was the manner in which they walked, moved, stretched their bodies and the obvious lack of pain, despite all of this they carried on unbothered.

Ryan was grateful that not all of them were able to carry guns or use it. Those that had the knowledge from their host could. The others that had no prior experience he had seen them try to before but ended up shooting themselves. Was it memory or was it something else? Were they capable of learning?

He had seen that some of the creatures had mutated into growing wings, although those types were rare. The scarier the monster the more revered it seemed to be to them. Life was carried on as if nothing had happen, the news still ran, football and basketball still played. The only difference now was that humanity was at the bottom, mankind had become the substance for these parasites and boy had they grown. Humans were captured like livestock and forced to breed to create more food. Mixed in the same way they had done chemically to reproduced food. It was all like a nightmare.

He looked up at the moon shining back at him as he wrote another page in his journal and drank a sip of alcohol. It was more like tasting because he didn’t know when he might get it again.

Beside his leg was an Ar-15 and a few cartridges of ammunition. Its black metal shined in the dark, it was deadly too deadly. He had almost shot himself with it before when he was now getting accustom to the gun and the recoil. At the time he had never fired one of these before, it was a do or die situation and that was how he had even acquired the gun in the weapon store. The creature had realized that he was not one of them and started behaving irratically. Its body twisted and contorted as it rushed towards him with shamble like behaviour. It was the first time he had face one alone and in his panic he almost shot himself in the leg.

Ryan scratched his beard and looked back to the door. Behind it were people he didn’t really know, a mother of two adolescent girls, an injured former police officer and a male college student were the ones who stood back. They were now his family, his own had died in the outbreak of the virus. They had to be dead, it was almost impossible that anyone had survived that first wave of attacks and the ones that followed with out either being eaten or sent to a lab. That loss which everyone experienced drew them together.

He looked at the notes he had been scribbling down. The parasite hijacked the host brain after growing, causing them to react or behave in an abnormal manner. The only way to kill them is to shoot them directly in the head. This approach only works for the first stage of the virus. The parasite then grows and mutates the host body or leaves the host body entirely sometimes doubling the size of a rhino in rare cases.

The parasite is dormant in almost everyone but may leave the body due to incompatibility. The cause of the rapid behaviour has not been identified yet by Dr. Cox or myself. Without access to my equipment, it is hard to determine if everyone present on the team gone to scavenge or here could be sick.

He wondered if Alina was safe, she had left with some others to gather medical supplies and food two days ago. If they didn’t need the medicals, Ryan would of never allowed her to leave. It wasn’t like she would off listen anyway. Funny how the world turned in that way, he hated this woman for so long, despised her, called her names and now they were each others greatest source of comfort. His hand flicked over his wedding ring to believe we both still wear this and the things we do. Aren’t we both just hypocrites in the end.

The door opened behind him and Ryan peered his eye towards it. It was the police officer, he had never gotten his name nor had he given his to him. He took up a spot next to him and sat. His faced look distressed even in the dark.

“I would kill for some some cigarettes right about now.”

“Can’t sleep?” Ryan asked.

“Its hard to sleep when everything is so crazy, look.” He pointed to the ground. “They are going dormant again.”

“Yeah I noticed, it seems like its how they sleep. They understand it but don’t fully get the entire concept of it. The children and familes, group together and do this strange behaviour.”

“How do we win? How do we get back all of those people they took to make food out of?” He ran his hand on his head. “You think this is everywhere too or just here?”

“It’s everywhere, I was able to study bits and pieces of it before I had to run out the lab that’s how I know, well, we know that it’s the virus that turned into this.”

“Alina?”

“Yeah, I didn’t get your name by the way?”

“Frank, my name is Frank.”

“Dr…. no its Ryan.”

“Do you think this is reversible somehow?”

“Like if I can pry the parasite of the humans and they go back to normal?”

“Parasites normally feed from their host and for the most part the stage ones do that. They feed from the host to fuel them the only difference is that they have a pension for eating human flesh but why? What is it specifically that it’s trying to get? I don’t have the answer for that. What makes the stage ones move on to stage two ? Those jacked up monsters.”

“So you mean that things might get far worse than whats here?”

“Its possible, Dicrocoelium dendriticum a form of parasite an adult it spends its time in the liver of a cow or another grazing mammal. Here it mates and lays eggs, which are excreted in the host's feces.

A snail eats the poo, taking in the eggs at the same time. The eggs hatch in the snail and make their way into its digestive gland, where they asexually reproduce. They then travel to the surface of the snail's body. As a defensive maneuver, the snail walls the parasites up in cysts and coughs up the balls of slime...doing exactly what the parasites wanted it to do.

An ant comes along and gobbles up the fluke-laded slime balls. The flukes then spread out inside of the ant, with a couple of them setting up shop in the insect's head. When night approaches, the flukes take control. They make the ant climb up a blade of grass and hold tight, waiting to be eaten by a grazing animal. If the ant is still alive at dawn, the flukes release their control and the ant goes about its day like normal (if the ant baked in the sun, the parasite would die, too). At night the flukes take over again and the cycle repeats until the ant becomes cattle food.”

“Ok, Ryan,” Frank said as he eased back. “Do you think the others will make it back?”

“I have to believe that they will, otherwise we are pretty much doomed as well.”

“You don’t seem to hold on to the idea of hope very well.”

“I like to look at the facts and realism rather than at things that aren’t too tangent or believable. To be real, our chances of survival are just like those gunshots you heard earlier until now there is silence, very, very slim.”

The men looked on at the road as cars passed and people stood outside standing still on lawns or on the side of the road.

“What time you figure they will move again?”

“Whenever their work program kicks in, for some five, others six or seven.”

“How are the others?”

“They are doing as best as they can.”

#

The sun was almost out. There was a knock on the door downstairs, then a stop then another knock. A long pause before a third came.

That was the signal.

Ryan knew already who it was Alina and the others had returned. There was a smile on his face as he got up holding his gun from the roof to open the door. The police officer had fallen asleep and he didn’t want to wake him. Down the stairs he passed the others who were awoken by the noise.

Ryan approached the door before another knock came and then another and another. Each one more frantic than the last. What was going on, there was no noise and he had not seen anything from above.

He approached the door slowly as it shook under the pressure. It was bariciaded in along with the windows.

“Alina?” he called.

The banging stopped and then a voice that sounded gurgled spoke: “Ryan, open the door.”

“Alina are you okay?”

She shouted as a hand bang on the door again. “Ryan open the door, open the door Ryan! Open the door!”

Ryan went to open it before another voice shouted, it came from the woman behind him, “Don’t open the door, it’s not her, its not her!”

There was a pause before a screeching noise. “Humanss!”

Ryan stumbled backward and as he backed away from the door, there was loud clawing at the other windows. Would the barricade hold them? They were trapped.

He looked at the woman and signaled with his arm. “Go wake Frank.”

She nodded as she headed towards the roof. The children had awaken and were now screaming and shouting in panic from the noise.

He pushed the gun in front of him as his heart beated rapidly. His hand shifted on the areas that sounded as though they were on the verge of giving away.

We are trapped, Ryan thought, they were all dead. The words made his leg shake.

How long could they hold like this was Alina really dead? No, she couldn’t be, could she? Was this everyone now? Were they the last humans in the city?

The boards started to break as he saw the stage twos getting through the board. He fired his rifle, but realized it was no use. They would all be through eventually. Looking at the panic children, he shouted for them to run but the fear made them unable to move.

Frank had now gotten downstairs and he grabbed them.

“Get to the roof!” Ryan shouted as the monsters burst through the door. They were clawing their way towards him.

The child still did not move and as Ryan pushed her up to her mother. He fell as he felt pain in his leg and hands grabbing him as he turned over to fight off the offender, the face that greeted him was his wife.