"There’s a lot of commotion outside my house" 

The online chat status drew Steve in. Sammie was normally much more humorous in her selection of snappy lines, always leading with a joke. Tonight though, something felt a little sinister. He did not anticipate a punch line as was her usual style.

"Everything okay?" he typed.

"Have you not seen the news???" came her response.

"No.” Steve had been holed up in his office for the last few hours, his sanctuary after fights with Dee. “Why?"

"Something’s happening, I didn't even think I'd make it home from work, it’s like hell outside"

She was clearly upset, and he tried to calm her nerves.

"Rough day, you must really be looking forward to that party tomorrow night then, lol"

"You must be kidding I'm not leaving the house until I have to," she quickly replied. “Since earlier today, there have been attacks on people all over, and it’s not just here I read similar reports from around the world. Everything’s gone mad!"

"Don't be daft just the usual damn press blowing things out of proportion no doubt. Probably just protesters"

He flicked through the statuses of various friends. They pretty much confirmed what Sammie was saying. Whatever pandemonium that was happening really was everywhere.

His friend Diane in New York reported groups rampaging through central park; Pieter in Amsterdam talked about some riot in the red light district; Mark in Canada mentioned acts of cannibalism in a local hospital; Alyssa in Glasgow saw her neighbours attack each other with broken bottles; even in New Zealand, Rachel heard about some lunatics releasing and killing all the animals in a zoo (at least those that didn’t maul them first). It seemed everyone was reporting extreme acts of violence, and all were cowering in their homes or apartments.

It was worse than protests. Still, he didn’t want Sammie to panic. “Just get some sleep. You’ll feel right as rain in the morning.”

“You’re probably right. Thanks Steve, for being the cooler head. Night.”

With that Sammie’s icon shifted to 'offline.’ 

Now that Sammie had been talked off the ledge, it was time to catch up on world events. He hit the link to the BBC news website. It was filled with advisories. People were being told to stay clear of London, and the countryside had not fared much better. People were being directed to stay in their homes unless essential, especially now that it was dark. He scrolled through the numerous stories.

“Two Dead, Five Injured at School Sports Day,” the headline shouted. A madman ran amok at an event at a country school. As the children were running their races on the track, a man freaked out and attacked people with his bare hands. Those who died were just minding their business, watching their siblings compete. The injured were being treated for severe bites. The instigator and the victims were allegedly unknown to each other. The crowd subdued the man until the police turned up and tossed the manic murderer into the back of a van. 

“Riot in Central London.” He maximised the screen and clicked on the triangular ’play’ icon.

The film was obviously an amateur capture from a mobile phone, somewhere high above the street. The picture shook, the aspect swaying, until the cameraman found his happy medium. The autofocus cut in bringing a war torn road into crisp relief. At the furthest point a line of black armour clad police officers came into view, maybe thirty or forty of them stretching the entire width of what looked like a High Street with shops on both sides and broad pavements.

In the cold darkness the orange tinge from the sodium streetlights and numerous small fires glinted off the police forces Perspex riot shields. The camera sped left and focused on the rabble of aggressors moving on a collision course with the approaching cordon. 

The rabble also stretched the full width of the street, but they were much deeper in people, outnumbering the authorities by at least ten to one. The mob advanced like a horde of locusts through a field of maize, shambling forth. The camera from its raised perch somewhere above the crowd stayed with them as the distance between the two masses quickly shrank. It reminded Steve of the riots in the nineteen eighties when he had been a child or the looting more recently. Unlike those assaults, however, the crowd did not fan out, shout obscenities to the police or attack them with all manner of street furniture and Molotov cocktails.

Instead, the mob never slowed. It moved like a tsunami tide. As the wave hit, the police line faltered, breaking into a zig zag as they were pounded by the surge. They failed, and the crowd flowed over the stricken riot cops. Their rank broke into small pockets of resistance, their nightsticks erratically beating down the unaffected crowd.

The rioters continued and swept down the street, leaving only a handful of officers in their wake. At first it looked as if some of the rioters stayed back to help the injured. But as the limping officers approached their injured comrades, the aggressors crouching over the fallen leapt at them like wild cats bringing down a helpless gazelle. The camera paused a couple of times, a last shot of the floor and the fleeing cameraman’s sneakers before the screen went black.

He was drawn away from the horrific stories by a computer bleep, the notification that someone else was online. He checked the friends list. It was his good buddy Mike.

Steve sent him a message. “Hi Mike, how’s things.”

“Too much of the amber nectar no doubt” Steve joked.

“Hell no, I got caught out after dark. All the buses and taxis had stopped. It was a right mare, and I got attacked by some psycho”

“Shit, are you okay?” Steve replied.

“Nothing that a few drinks won’t fix, Oh and a few plasters. Would you believe the tosser bit me?” Mike messaged.

“Blimey how bad?”

“Not bad, just broke the skin, had worse, hurts like hell though”

“Tell me about it,” Steve requested.

And Mike did, “I’m normally so paranoid, as you know back to the wall in restaurants and all that, was surprised I didn’t see it coming, but you don’t expect a smartly dressed woman to go for your throat”

“No way,” Steve replied.

“I don’t normally run from a little scrap, I just smacked her in the face and legged it, she bloody ran after me for four blocks”

“Maybe she wanted a date, after the love bite and all”

“Ha ha very funny,” mike conceded.

“So I’ll catch up with you at the party tomorrow night, right?”

“I’m going to crash for a while, if I can sleep with the racket outside, I feel well tired, hopefully be fine for party dude, don’t want to miss the party of a lifetime”

With that the conversation abruptly ended, the colour of his status going from green to grey. Mike had never been much for small talk.

Steve went back to the BBC News.

“Nursing Home Fire Takes 72 Souls.” A shocking report of a nursing home having burnt to the ground with all residents still inside, it was reported that due to the large crowds that surrounded the place, the fire appliances were prevented from getting through. This meant the building had been left to burn. A clip taken from yet another shaky camera phone from a distance showed a crowd so large that people nearest to the fire were pushed close enough to ignite. Like moths drawn to a flame they pushed ahead unafraid.

The newsfeed ticker at the top of the screen was adding stories faster than Steve could watch or read them. Shockingly, all seemed to mention extreme acts of violence and degeneration.

“Caravans Cause Carnage,” The headline caught Steve’s eye. Apparently the caravans were put where they shouldn’t have been. That wasn’t unusual as the travelling community does have a reputation for unruly behaviour. But the time was up for them, the court orders processed, and the bailiffs moved in. Moving gypsies is always a tricky business, and it all went south really quickly. There was a battle, and the travellers got the upper hand. The fight didn't stop at the entrance to the unofficial picket line. No, the horde left the illegal pitches and proceeded to ravage the local community maiming and injuring everyone they came across, even TV crews and reporters. The fires were at last report still burning all over the town.

Steve scrolled down, pulling a story from the previous night.

“Neighbour Ate My Dog.” A man came home to find that his pet spaniel, which had free reign over his enclosed rear garden, was missing. On investigation it appeared that his dog had managed to dig under the fence and get into the next garden. He got a chair from his kitchen and climbed up to look over the eight foot fence. What he expected to see was his jolly black and white spaniel, Patch, playfully wagging his tail at his beloved master. But the sight he actually saw before he fell off the chair was far more shocking.

His retired neighbour, Mr Newman, was sitting on the lawn with legs apart absolutely covered in blood and gore; he was chewing on what looked like a crimson femur. Around him covering the manicured lawn like a burst dustbin liner were the shredded remains of Patch.

A notification appeared on the screen. "Are you still there, Steve?" Sammie was back online.

"Yep still here," he replied.

"Someone tried to get in my place"

"Really,” Steve keyed, “are you okay?”

“Yes”

“Did you call the cops?"

"The phone is a waste of time everyone I call just gives the busy tone, even to your place," came her worried reply.

"Wouldn’t hear it anyway I'm locked away in my office, no phone up here," he explained. “What happened?”

"It was horrible, I was looking outside and there was a guy in my front garden, looked like he'd been in a fight, he was a mess and his clothes were virtually in rags," she began.

"Don't tell me you went out, you said you weren't leaving the house"

"I had to see if he was okay, I recognised him as one of the guys from next door but he went for me, I got back inside and he tried to get in behind me"

"What then?” Steve asked hungry for answers.

"I grabbed his arm and shoved him out"

"You are one tough gal"

"But there was something odd, his skin where I grabbed his arm was stone cold"

"Doesn’t sound too odd, it is winter, and if his clothes were in rags…" Steve reasoned.

"No I mean it was really cold, it was like grabbing a slab of raw meat straight from the fridge," Sammie wrote.  “There was definitely something wrong with him he wasn't coherent, wouldn't talk at all"

"Where is he now?"

"I don’t know, I think he went away, he's not in the garden, and I'm keeping quiet"

“Are you safe Sammie? Where are you now?”

After a few seconds her reply appeared. “Oh yes I’m locked and bolted in, I’m glad you’re there I’d be so lonely and scared if you weren’t”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Steve clicked away. “I’ll see if Mike is still online and ask him to pop round and look after you, he lives really close to you, I know you don’t know him all that well, but at least you’ll have someone with you”

“That would be cool!”

Steve scanned his list of friends on the social networking site. He quickly realised that virtually none of them were online. Sammie’s icon was green, Mike’s was “be back soon,” but not another soul appeared to be online. That was unusual for the witching hour on a Friday night. 

It was time for him to check out more breaking news. “Hooligans Injure Thousands. FA Remains Mum.” Earlier in the evening at a top football match at Wembley Stadium was scheduled to be played.  It was a big game, and a full house of some sixty thousand plus fans in attendance was anticipated. Thirty five minutes in the home team were one-nil up. Suddenly violence broke out and spread like wildfire.  Steve had never seen anything like it, even in the eighties when football disasters and violence were rife and always made top of the news. None of that came close. The rumour was that hundreds were dead with thousands injured. Unfortunately, there had been no confirmation as the violence was still going on. The authorities were by all accounts completely overwhelmed. They locked down the stadium and left it to its own devices. 

Steve couldn't stand the game, but part of him wished he had tickets.  If he had been there, the fight with Dee would never have happened. He couldn't even remember how it had started.

The story continued. Many of the injured from the stadium were taken to a local hospital.  Severely overcrowded, the hospital could barely cope. Doctors and other healthcare staff were being overworked. Reports were that they were dealing with a large number of bites.

A related story screamed, “Parliament Makes Doctors Hand of God.”  Doctors all around the country doggedly did what they could for the injured and dying. Authorities rushed through an emergency act allowing doctors the power to euthanize seriously injured people without fear of retribution. The result: hospitals were legally putting to sleep an average of at least ten people an hour. Hospitals were out of basic items like sheets, smocks and towels. The bodies were piling up. The basement mortuaries were full, and as such the cadavers were being piled up in the lower floor corridors three or four high.

At the bottom of the story was a blog section where users could post their own comments, the top one read like a schlock horror film. 

The report was allegedly from a junior doctor that ran out from the hospital.  It said: 

“After we shut and locked the door to the entire basement level we just didn’t know what to do, more and more bodies coming down and the gurneys piling up. I was working in admissions when I was called back to the basement doors. A few porters were standing by the entrance that we’d locked an hour or so before with confused looks on their faces. As I approached I could hear the racket of thumping on the locked doors. That was odd as I was the last one out of the mortuary. I passed my access card to the porter nearest the door, after locking down it needed a master card to reopen it.”

“People flooded through, the porters disappeared under the rush. I was thrown clear. Scrambling to my feet and seeing a gap I panicked and just ran.  See, those people were dead. I kid you not.  We lost count at around two hundred people we put in that basement, and we were still piling them in. What came through that door were those people, and not just a few of them. As I hid in my car I could still hear the screams as that horde ripped through the hospital. I will always hear those screams for as long as I live. You may not believe what I’ve said here, but I don’t care. I know what I saw, and I can’t live with the knowledge of running out on them. Please consider these words as my final confession and suicide note.”

Maybe, Steve thought, just maybe the Mayans had been right yet again. They had been correct about the conquistadors and global warming. Maybe this really was Armageddon, the rapture, the apocalypse, the end of the Mayan long count calendar. The end really did seem nigh. 

But with every end, there is a new beginning.

Look at that mystic art, the Tarot. In the movies the hero turns a card dealt by a mysterious dusky beauty, only to find the Death card staring back at him extreme close ups and dramatic music. The tarot is based on what you see in the picture on the card, but in reality the meaning is dependent on opposed cards that have also been dealt. Out of the seventy-eight cards in a tarot deck, there are much worse meanings. The general meaning of card thirteen, a.k.a. death, is the end of the old and start of the new.

It was now the early hours of Saturday morning, but Steve was not tired. Up until now he had only been looking at local and national stories, he needed confirmation of what his friends had been tweeting about earlier on.

Australia would be a good bet, on the other side of the world, and the bonus that the news would be published in English. 

“Bondi Beach Massacre.” Bondi Beach is famous for its surfing waves and shark attacks, the latter happening more often than publicised. But on this day on Bondi Beach, it wasn’t the sea life biting.

Numerous bodies had been washed up on the beach that morning. The lifeguards, as drilled, rushed into the foam breakers. As they reached the bodies, they had found that despite their appalling condition most seemed to be clinging to life. As the dozen or so people were dragged from the rumbling sea they regained their strength a little. As they stumbled and tripped up the beach they turned around and viciously attacked their rescuers with a speed that defied their condition.

Then they continued up the beach attacking all that strayed in their way. The beach cleared in a panic leaving corpses and a red hue to the breaking waves, all in a matter of minutes.

The Australian Parliament’s public line was that a patrol boat had attacked and sunk a refugee boat from the Philippines after it was confirmed weapons were on board the previous night. The refugees were purported to have been carrying a rare and virulent form of Rabies. As a result Australia was now locked down tight with absolutely no inbound flights and ships being turned away before they reached the docks.

“Civil Unrest Hit’s All Time Record.” In the U.S., it looked like a classic seventies horror film was being enacted as a group of people were stuck in a shopping mall that was surrounded by hundreds possibly thousands of people. Was it just a movie? No, CNN wasn’t prone to showing fictionous entertainment. This was a live video feed, “eye in the sky” report.

The narration from the reporter was fast and breathless; did Steve hear him say the word zombie? The chopper continued circling the centre, its car park bustling with crowds all jostling to get closer to the building and the stricken people inside. Where were the police? Where was the army? Surely they have procedures in place for such situations. Then again, if this was just a snapshot of what was going on in the U.S., maybe it was just too big to handle.

Steve clicked back to the BBC website. There were no more new articles on display. The rapid postings had come to a halt.  More importantly, many of the previous articles he had already read or viewed were gone; all that was being shown was the following.

By Parliamentary Order, all citizens are required to stay in their homes. Please remain calm and wait for further instruction. Martial law has been introduced and a shoot to kill policy is in effect. 

The bleep of his computer relieves the shock of what he had just read.

“Are you there Steve?”

“Yes Sammie, a little perplexed but I’m not going anywhere”

“I was on the times online and a notice came up”

“The same with BBC website,” he confirmed

“I’m really scared Steve, you’re the only contact I have with the outside world”

“I know, just us two. Mike’s set to busy so hopefully he’ll come back online soon”

“I hope so I’ve never felt so lonely, even with all the noise outside, it feels like everything is collapsing”

Sammie was right; everything Steve had seen in the last few hours did seem to be heading towards the end. But in his mind there was a doubt, the theme of new beginnings played over and over. Maybe it was the end for mankind, but after all, the entire planet itself hadn’t exploded or split in two. 

Mike comes back online. "Hi Mike, how are you feeling now," Steve typed into the text box.

"Hungry," the reply comes quickly.

“Still up for a party?” Steve asks.

“Yes!”

"Good, the party has moved. It’s now at Sammies and it is now. From what I can see she is one of the last of the old type. She’s expecting you so you won’t have a problem getting in. Have a bite, then come and get me out. Dee locked me in earlier after I bit her.”

“Yes I will,” Mike replied.

Steve turned his attention to his other friend. “Sammie, are you still there?”

“Yes, did you get hold of Mike?” 

“Good news. Mike’s on his way over just let him in quickly when he arrives. He’ll make sure you don’t have to worry anymore”

(c) 2012,2025 Paul S Huggins.