After the Pandemic: Genocide (15): The End of the Pandemic (954 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: After_the_Pandemic
Rating: 1.61 on 24 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Axolotl (View user info) at 2006-04-11 09:26:48 EDT
Jack McCallum's Introduction - http://www.ubersite.com/m/61238
After the Pandemic: Genocide (1): The Variants - http://www.ubersite.com/m/79933
After the Pandemic: Genocide (2): The Armory - http://www.ubersite.com/m/80119
After the Pandemic: Genocide (3): Times Square - http://www.ubersite.com/m/80429
After the Pandemic: Genocide (4): The Highbridge - http://www.ubersite.com/m/80522
After the Pandemic: Genocide (5): Stars and Stripes Forever - http://www.ubersite.com/m/80836
After the Pandemic: Genocide (6): Against the Grain - http://www.ubersite.com/m/80897
After the Pandemic: Genocide (7): Infiltration - http://www.ubersite.com/m/81839
After the Pandemic: Genocide (8): The Crucible - http://www.ubersite.com/m/82506
After the Pandemic: Genocide (9): Justice Under God - http://www.ubersite.com/m/83249
After the Pandemic: Genocide (10): The Feeding - http://www.ubersite.com/m/84178
After the Pandemic: Genocide (11): The Battle Cry of Freedom - http://www.ubersite.com/m/84551
After the Pandemic: Genocide (12): Diaspora - http://www.ubersite.com/m/85869
After the Pandemic: Genocide (13): Over the Hills and Far Away - http://www.ubersite.com/m/85933
After the Pandemic: Genocide (14): The Weight - http://www.ubersite.com/m/86335
It's all finally over...
Epilogue to follow.
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PART FIFTEEN - The End of the Pandemic
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Dies irae, dies illa
The day of wrath, that day
Solvet saeclum in favilla
Shall consume the world in ashes
Morning rose on the world, from the Pacific Ocean across the vast continent of Asia, across the ancient domains of Europe, and onto New York City. Sunlight swept across the Great Plains of the United States, and out to California's white sandy beaches.
Judex crederis esse venturus
The judge, we believe, has come
It was morning. Somewhere in South Dakota, a woman stood outside her farmhouse, in the middle of a wide field of grain. As the rising sun hung low in the sky, new lights shone in the twilight.
Hundreds of missiles rocketed high into the air, their boosters glowing as the ICBMs and tactical nukes blazed in the clear blue sky. The woman returned into her house, crying for the fate of our world.
In te, domine speravi
In you, Lord, have I trusted
The Mongols were outside the walls.
Tobias Collins ordered another battery of shells gunfire into the Hackensack Court House, the final bastion of human strength on the Eastern Seaboard. The nation had fallen, and the zombies were the new dominant race.
The Variant C were the most powerful creatures on the planet, the next step in evolution. There was no strong place on earth that they couldn't breach, no human they could not kill, and no feat they could not accomplish.
Security was theirs. Tobias raised his sword high in the air as the courthouse perimeter fell to the zombies, and a great cheer rose up from the warriors. Men and women, of all Variants and races, colors and religions stormed through the courthouse doors, ready to begin the slaughter.
Non confundar in aeternum
Let me not be damned to hell for all eternity
"Did you ever read the Chronicles of Narnia?" asked President Russell Effinger.
"Yeah." replied Steven Marquez.
"In the Magician's Nephew...there's a scene of war between the Witch and her sister," said Effinger. "The Witch has lost, and the enemy forces surround her castle. As her sister walked up to the defeated castle, the streets red with blood, she thinks she has won."
"And?" asked Marquez.
"And the Witch says the abominable word," replied Effinger. "The magic word that kills every living thing on the planet except for herself. The entire enemy force dies, along with the millions and billions of people living in the world."
"Amen to that, brother."
Salvum fac populus tuum
Save your people, O Lord
"Kill them all!" Tobias roared, his face covered in war paint. "Take no prisoners, and give me the head of that motherfucker Effinger!"
Von Dorn held out his shotgun, directing the troops inward. Thorpe and Father Robertson were fighting their way into the court house, ready to kill the remaining humans.
Libera me domine
Free me, Lord
In wide arcs across the morning sky, the nuclear arsenal of the United States made their way to their targets. The closest city to the nuclear launch pads was Denver, Colorado.
The citizens of Denver never knew what was coming. They had been fighting a small outbreak of Variant C in Littleton to the south, but Denver as a whole had done nothing wrong except being densely populous.
The tactical nuke screamed along with the people of Colorado as it hurtled from the ionosphere into the ground, detonating and incinerating everything within a twenty-mile radius. The mushroom cloud rose miles into the sky, glowing a sickening red. The fireball engulfed the entire city, and the fallout began to drop from the poisoned black sky.
Libera me domine de morte aeterna
Free me from everlasting death
Jennifer Grant stopped her car on Route 80, by Garret Mountain in Paterson. She rested her head against the steering wheel, crying her eyes out, her heart cut in two by the loss of her country. She had grew up here, lived here, loved here, and now would see the end of the world as she knew it.
In die illa tremenda
On that terrible day
The door to the last bunker was buckling under the force of the zombie legions. President Effinger opened his eyes slowly, looking over at Marquez.
"Maybe there's a heaven," Effinger breathed slowly, nodding. Licking his lips nervously, Effinger closed his eyes once more, feeling the gentle pressure against his temple.
He took a breath, and pulled the trigger.
Quando caeli movendi sunt
When the heavens shall be moved
The door broke inward, and Father Robertson gazed quickly around the room. Effinger was sprawled across the table, blood leaking out of his blasted eye sockets and mouth. The gun was in Marquez' hand, facing the zombies.
"No—"
Marquez fired twice, striking Father Robertson in the chest. The ex-priest fell back, dropping his sword and choking. Marquez fired in the crowd of zombies, two bullets piercing the densely-packed host. He planned the final bullet for himself, but as he placed the barrel under his chin, the zombies leaped forward, severing his arm with swords.
Marquez was backed up into the wall and eviscerated, his body falling to the floor of the crowded bunker.
Caeli et terra dum veneris judicare
With heaven and earth at the fiery judgement
Two solitary ICBMs streaked across the bright sky, over the Delaware River. In the distance was the city of New York. One nuke would be striking in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, and the other nuke would be hitting Times Square, Manhattan.
O salutaris hostia, quae caeli pandis ostium, bella premunt hostilia, da robur fer auxilium
O saving victim, open wide, open the gates of heaven to us below, when foes beset us on every side, your help provide, your strength bestow
Jennifer looked upward, stepping out of her car. Her jaw dropped as she saw the two streams of light, like comets, hurtle through the stratosphere, whirring slightly as they careened to the earth.
Sit sempiterna gloria
May you always be praised
"Goddamn it," Tobias muttered, staring into the sky. The two bright, shining lights hung like stars leading wise men to Jesus.
Mors stupebit et natura
Cum resurget creatura
Judicanti responsurra
Death and nature shall be confounded
When creation shall rise again
To answer for judgment
"Close your eyes, sweetie, it will all be over in a second."
Judex ergo cum sedebit
Nil intulum remandabit
Therefore, when the judge shall take his seat
No wickedness shall remain unpunished
"Toby! Toby!" Marcia Thorpe called out, running from the press of bodies at the courthouse. "Father Robertson..."
Tobias pointed into the sky, and Marcia Thorpe froze where she stood.
Quem patronum rogartus
Cum vix justus sit securus
To what protector shall I appeal
When scarcely the just man shall be secure?
Ex-President John Derringer stood on the edge of a field in western Pennsylvania, urinating against a tree. The Secret Service guarded him on all sides, against no apparent threat.
With a rush of wind and fire, a shock wave knocked the entire group of them over, falling to the ground. Their senses buzzing, an agent stood up, grasping the tree for support. To the west, a fireball was rising over the distant city of Pittsburgh.
"Russell..." muttered Derringer, his voice full of regret.
Juste judex ultionis ante diem rationis
Righteous judge of vengeance before the day of reckoning
"Effinger!" Tobias wailed, throwing his sword to the ground.
"It's not too late! We can still escape!" Von Dorn said, stepping in front of Tobias.
"Look!" Tobias shouted, pointing up at the sky, where the nuke was falling to earth at an intense rate.
Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla
Day of wrath, that day
Shall consume the world in ashes
"No...it's going to..."
Jennifer looked out upon the demise of New York City, the Chrysler visible in the far distance. The domed roof of the Hackensack Courthouse rose far away, next to the highway.
Quando judex est venturus
Quantum tremor est futurus?
When the judge is come
How many shall tremble?
The nukes hung over New York City for a split second, glorious in their beauty. In a flash of blinding light, they exploded, the wave of flame and physics pure white in the mid-morning sky. There was a few seconds between the flash of light and the low, roaring, eardrum-breaking sound of the explosion in Jennifer's mind.
The Chrysler Building faded away like dust, along with the rest of the New York skyscrapers. The Rockerfeller Center collapsed in a breath, and the white-hot fireball turned a dark, ugly red. The buildings melted, their steel girders collapsing under the terrific heat, and the explosion made contact with the ground.
Confutatis maledictis flammis acribus addictis
When the damned are cast down into the searing flames
The Hudson River boiled, steam rising from its banks. Midtown was a flat desert, ablaze in nuclear fire, while the shock wave blasted buildings off their foundations all the way to the Bowery. The second nuke struck in eastern Brooklyn, immediately evaporating tens of thousands of homes and offices.
The Brooklyn Bridge shivered and collapsed, depositing its abandoned cars and trucks into the East River. The piers and ferry ports of southern Manhattan fell into the Harbor, and Ryker's Island Prison collapsed across its foundations into the waters surrounding it.
Voca me cum benedictis confutatis maledictis
Call me with the blessed when the damned are cast down
The George Washington Bridge, proud connector of New Jersey and Uptown, shook and buckled wildly in the shock wave. Its suspending cables snapped, and the bridge began to collapse. The radioactive fire raging in Central Park was blown all across uptown, catching alight the bridge.
All the subway stations were flooded with liquid fire, and the ground under the massive mushroom cloud was all turned to red-hot glass. The shock wave spread over the Hudson to Hoboken, Weehawken and Fairview, setting everything afire in its radius.
The Overpeck Creek and Fort Lee were hit with a strong wave of nuclear energy, and were in flames within minutes of the initial explosion. Tobias Collins stood watching the Hackensack River grow hot and boil, before the wave of superheated air reached where he stood.
Gere curam mei finis confutatis maledictis
Help me in my final hour when the damned are cast down
Though the shock wave was not powerful enough to incinerate or collapse buildings this far away from ground zero, it was setting everything it hit on fire, and shaking the ground like a huge earthquake.
Tobias Collins was hit head-on with the wave of energy, being blown back into the courthouse with the rest of his army, including Thorpe and Von Dorn. Thrown bodily through the air and pinned to the wall, the searing head boiled his brain and overheated his blood. His skin turned bright red with the force of the bomb, and the burns soaked through to his bones.
Michael Benkosky stood where he was on the battle-ripped street, letting the all-encompassing blinding heat overwhelm him, fading away into the twilight. He caught afire with the amazing shock wave and was hurled back from the river onto the pavement, his body burning away, leaving his seared, charred bones on the sidewalk, an anonymous grave.
The zombie army in Hackensack burned, burned like the heathen kings of old, their infected flesh eaten away by nuclear power and their skeletons dropping in piles to the scarred ground. The Hackensack courthouse caught fire, burning bright on the horizon as Jennifer watched on from Garrett Mountain in Paterson.
From the mountain, Jennifer watched the shock wave blow by Bergen County, Jersey City and Newark afire in the distance. The energy wave's power dissipated, the flames no longer catching the buildings. As it crossed Route 80 over the Passaic River, the waters bubbled, but did not boil.
Gere curam mei finis
Help me in my final hour
Jennifer grabbed her car door for support, and was heated with the evanescence of the shock wave, a slight tremble of the ground. Her hair was whipped back, but she remained standing. All down in the valley between the Palisades and Garret, the world was on fire. More nuclear missiles traveled high across the sky like airplanes, seeking out Rome, Cairo, London, Moscow...
Life as Jennifer knew it was all over. She stood, watching New York and New Jersey, the place she had loved, burn, burn all away. The streaks of fallout from the sky were plummeting to earth from the canopy of the wide, greying mushroom cloud.
Jennifer had never seen anything as massive as the mushroom cloud over Manhattan. It rose what must have been thousands upon thousands of meters into the air, a behemoth of gas and energy, a fiery furnace in the morning sky. Its wide upper cloud hovered in the air, miles across, groaning and muttering as though there was an evil voice on the wind.
Jennifer opened up her car door and started the engine. To her mild surprise, it worked, and the carburetor clunked into life. She closed the door, and took one final look at the land that had been her home.
All through the air came the sounds of more nuclear bursts; Philadelphia, Boston, Syracuse, Harrisburg...they all would fall, too. Jennifer shifted the car into gear and began driving down Route 80 westward, leaving her old life behind.
There was a kind of beautiful violence in the sky, the burned ashes of millions of bodies rising into the air. Looking in her rearview mirror as she drove around the bend of Garrett Mountain, Jennifer saw the flaming demise of Bergen County, and of New York City, its two grey mushroom clouds towering immense over the field. Jennifer didn't know what the future would hold for her, but she knew that the past was burning white-hot in its wreckage.
"Goodbye," she said softly, a note of relief in her voice. She continued down the highway, and the burning city disappeared from view.
User Reviews
Submitted by supadupapupa (user info) at 2007-12-06 04:11:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This whole series was bloody brilliant, and I felt like you kept the quality of writing up throughout...! Excellent, excellent, you probably won't read this since it's been a while. But damn! Thanks, dude
Submitted by Still-Life (user info) at 2006-04-29 12:32:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-04-13 10:56:28 (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice finish to the series. I'm glad you had the stones to write a very not-happy ending.
The Latin was a bit much, though. I liked it, but you inserted it too often into your text, and it broke up the flow. Often you'd switch scenes after a latin bit, and it always took me a second to get my bearings.
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Basically what I thought as well.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-04-29 10:18:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2006-04-29 00:31:51 (#)
Ranking: -2
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Crybaby.
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2006-04-29 00:31:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2006-04-24 00:45:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I enjoyed this series man and I think you deserve extra thanks for sticking with Pandemic for so long. I enjoyed the use of Latin at first but it did become a little distracting after a bit.
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-04-15 14:42:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sweet thanks. I liked the use of latin in this one it really kept me glued.
Ill send you part of it once I actually find out where the hell I put it.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-04-15 14:30:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
My email: bergentimes.at.yahoo.com
I haven't used that one in a while, but I'd rather not give out my real address. I'll be sure to check it occasionally.
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-04-15 13:47:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hey Ax can I have your e-mail? Im writing some other short stories I want to see what you think of one of them.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-04-13 20:42:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Not happy endings are the best! The latin thing, I tried to use that to separate sections/scenes, but it got a bit much, especially bridging the same event.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-04-13 10:56:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice finish to the series. I'm glad you had the stones to write a very not-happy ending.
The Latin was a bit much, though. I liked it, but you inserted it too often into your text, and it broke up the flow. Often you'd switch scenes after a latin bit, and it always took me a second to get my bearings.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-04-12 19:39:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
hmm, I thought I rated this already...good finish, dude, excellent work.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-04-11 20:02:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2006-04-11 15:35:17 (#)
Ranking: 2
It hurts me that quality work gets ignored so frequently on this site.
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Eh, I don't mind.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-04-11 17:36:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by rougeogre (user info) at 2006-04-11 17:00:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
A reason to keep coming back!
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2006-04-11 15:35:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It hurts me that quality work gets ignored so frequently on this site.
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2006-04-11 14:37:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
huh.
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2006-04-11 13:09:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-04-11 13:05:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Well, it's all over.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-04-11 10:21:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Har har I said breast.
I have a breast, and two nipples as well. Indeed.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-04-11 10:21:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Sphagnum (user info) at 2006-04-11 10:13:14 (#)
Ranking: 2
-2 for this :- http://www.ubersite.com/m/86493#1926773
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My brest writing ever.
Submitted by Sphagnum (user info) at 2006-04-11 10:13:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
-2 for this :- http://www.ubersite.com/m/86493#1926773
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-04-11 10:06:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-04-11 09:45:58 (#)
Ranking: 2
great ending to a great series.
you're a hell of a writer kid.
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Thanks for reading, MyNameisTim.
I have two more series lined up, one of them being the Mafia series.
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-04-11 09:45:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
great ending to a great series.
you're a hell of a writer kid.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-04-11 09:27:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
The picture is taken a millisecond after the detonation of an atomic bomb, in 1953. It seemed fitting.