Ferine Apocalypse (Book 1): Collapse

by Leonard, John F.

  What would have been the purpose of that?

  YouTube had been a longtime favourite, a window into other worlds, and it was here that he discovered a wealth of information. Searching for anything related to the crisis delivered a mixed bag of results. Many of the videos buffered and wouldn’t load, but enough showed scenes of collapse.

  People like his mother and father. Many more displayed comments that only confirmed his fears.

  The world had moved into some sort of mysterious twilight. A place utterly beyond his comprehension.

  A place where people collapsed and lay where they fell. Lay there and began to change.

  Began to transform into something different.

  He turned to Skype next. And Skype yielded nothing.

  Stupid, useless Skype.

  Nothing from his contacts. Nothing from his brother.

  Goddamn Elliot. Eff him. Eff him. Why didn’t he do what he should do and be where George wanted him to be. Needed him to be. Why was he older and ...moving away all the time.

  With no clear thought in mind George turned to the PlayStation console and loaded Apocalypse Carillon, the newest and most popular game in the Lowton collection.

  A quite impressive collection it had to be said. A vast array of discs and downloads that charted the evolution of the consoles, slowly diminishing in density with each successive generation as the boys grew older and their tastes filtered and defined into specific genres.

  It was here on the PlayStation with headset enfolding his skull that he struck real pay dirt in his search for live contact. Where he truly found other people.

  Not many and they were scattered around the world.

  But live active people nonetheless.

  He feverishly requested and responded to requests for friendship. Fingers a blur on the wireless controller as he fired messages into the ether like digital distress flares.

  There where he learned that alone as he felt, he was not the only one.

  He replied to foreign language communications with a follow-up asking if they spoke English. If the answer was negative, he ignored them. His language skills were limited. He had some German and a smattering of French but he wasn’t fluent and there was an urgency to this that mounted in him as he interacted with others. He reasoned that he didn’t have time to waste trying to decipher another tongue when there were instant options available.

  Normally he’d have been cautious with unknown users.

  Wary of adults masquerading as children.

  Guarded in his communication.

  Watchful not to disclose anything too personal, information that revealed details about him or his life.

  Now wasn’t the time for that and he struck up a number of messaged conversations and spoke directly to two players.

  The picture that built was as alarming as he’d feared.

  This was widespread.

  Worldwide.

  The gaming system was laggy and unresponsive as he conversed.

  Lag! Lag! Goddamn lag!

  For the first time it occurred to George that without people to maintain them, these systems would inevitably fail. He had encountered faults in normal life of course. Internet down or no television signal.

  Even complete power failures when they sat in the dark, entertained by parental tales of power cuts in the past, long before they were born. Awed by candlelight as his dad related to them how lucky they were and how much they took for granted.

  How their everyday lives were in fact a daily voyage through the miraculous.

  How long before the miracles all stopped working and the faults stopped getting fixed?

  How long before the lights went out and the device batteries couldn’t be charged?

  Tiredness finally overtook him.

  He lapsed into an unsettled slumber wishing that people would get better and wake up.

  Wishing his brother was with him.

  Wishing more than anything else that his mom and dad would wake up and everything would be normal and they could all get back to the ordinary miracles of their little lives.

  His dreams weren’t great. Not great at all.

  Unfortunately for George, at least one of his wishes was to be granted when he was roused from his troubled sleep.

  There would be an awakening.

  Chapter 4.

  Mr Monkton’s Terms.

  The manner in which David Monkton arrived at Oakhill School may have been out of character, grass-churning tyres and pounding music et al, but his presence there was hardly unusual. After all, he had been the headmaster for a number of years. Of course, when he was appointed all those years ago, no one knew he would be the last.

  He still thought of it as Oakhill School, but it was nowadays, more accurately, Oakhill Academy. Its various incarnations included Oakhill Science College, before that Oakhill Comprehensive and before that, plain old Oakhill Secondary School.

  David didn’t care what it was called, he loved his school with a passion that bordered on the obsessive. They changed the name and status of the establishment to follow the funds, trends and governments diktats, but that didn’t alter the fact that David loved the place. He’d dedicated the last ten years of his life to it and had come to feel a sense of propriety, a sense that it was his school. Not just that he was responsible but that it belonged to him. Despite the board of governors and the never-ending parade of school inspectors, and all the rest of the nonsense, it was his.

  A part of who he was. Something that he’d embraced and to which he’d made a serious commitment.

  Like a marriage. Like his marriage to Rachel.

  David had been married to Rachel Monkton for twenty-five years. They’d met at university and decided at that point to face the future together. He tackled his academic career with her by his side as encouragement and guidance. She was sensible and considered, as was their joint approach to life. Cloaked in all that sense and consideration and logic, there was little room for desire in David’s existence.

  They’d tried for children and kept trying long after it was apparent that their union was not to be blessed by the patter of little baby David and baby Rachel feet. He refused to seek medical advice even when Rachel suggested it. A devout and somewhat fundamentalist Christian, he was of the opinion that if God sought to grant them the gift of a child it was entirely within his, God’s, purview and not something that mandated medical intervention. Conception was God’s province, not a matter for the pill-pushers.

  He supposed that was where the rot had really set in.

  Where the seed of decay had been planted.

  God hadn’t seen fit to give them the gift of offspring and that concerned David on a deeper level than he could adequately explain to himself, let alone anyone else. The fact twisted in his mind and began to offend him.

  Why would God deny him children when his whole life was dedicated to them? He would never admit it, but he began to resent Rachel.

  To love her less than was adequate.

  He wasn’t sure when he ceased to love her at all.

  Wasn’t sure that he could have given a date and time when it happened. It happened anyway. His marriage became an empty husk of a thing without him really being able to measure the progression of the failure. Perhaps it had always been empty.

  That failure didn’t faze him because he had faith. This was the life he had made and that God had permitted. Although it was a source of sadness.

  He was faithful to Rachel, provided for her and was civil and respectful toward her. He felt nothing emotionally other than a carefully concealed neutrality, partially concealed even from himself.

  In the darkened room of his soul, over time, that neutrality, that ambivalence, flowered into dislike.

  When he’d been appointed to the headship at Oakhill, he’d thrown himself into the appointment with more passion than he’d ever thrown himself onto Rachel. And in any event, such activities with her now only occurred with a regularity somewhere between that of C
hristmas and the Olympic Games. And then, only when he’d allowed himself a sherry or two and urged the bottle on her in a desultory attempt to temporarily bridge the distance between them.

  If the muted disaster of a marriage was his greatest disappointment in life, his affair was the biggest cause for regret.

  Angela Skorecki was a senior member of the German department when it began. A glamourous matron of a woman in her early forties. Undoubtedly heavyset but curvy and feminine. Stiletto heels that seemed to defy the proportions that they supported.

  Too much make-up.

  Blatantly dyed hair.

  An objective observer might have noticed the overt sexuality oozing from her. The air of adventure and permissive allusions. The hunger for sensation.

  David consciously recognised none of it. Certainly never acknowledged any attraction or attractive qualities. She was in most senses the very antithesis of what he considered attractive. Not that he squandered a great deal of his time on such musings. Nevertheless, they struck up a friendship and, before he totally realised what he was doing, he’d asked her out for lunch.

  A lunch date that would change his life in a fashion that he in no way desired. Not on any conscious level at least.

  They’d had a pleasant meal and were idly chatting in the car afterwards when he’d become aware of a growing warmth in his lap.

  An enfolding weight.

  Unbidden, her large and capable hand was resting there. Long strong fingers decorated with large gaudy rings and terminating in long glossy nails.

  Right there in his lap, on his sober suit trousers.

  Cupped over him.

  He was shocked and at the same time thrilled.

  Intoxicated.

  That was how he would later think of the moment. Intoxication.

  He was intoxicated, not by alcohol, he’d limited himself to mineral water, but by something else.

  Something beyond his experience or understanding.

  He’d made no move to stop her or remove her hand. Only gazed at her open mouthed and speechless as he grew stiff and full beneath the comforting presence of it.

  She’d simply smiled ...lasciviously.

  That was the only way he could describe that smile. Lascivious ...and incredibly exciting.

  With that same hand she’d deftly unzipped his trousers and freed his swelling member. Grasped him so firmly that he gave a little mew of surprise. She began to very gently work his penis. Slowly moving her hand up and down. Slid a thumb over the glossy tip and then circled the wet, sensitive skin. Ran black painted nails down the underside of it in a way that caused involuntary shivers to ripple through him. Gripped the shaft and resumed her measured up and down movements. A rhythmic pleasure that went on and on, mounting. Emptied his head of rational thought or objection. Increasing her pace to match the heaviness of his breathing.

  “Oh David. Is that good?” She whispered and giggled as a split second later he moaned and spurted hot thick semen.

  “Oh dear, there’s an awful lot,” she said in her lightly accented, breathless voice.

  Giggling again. A naughty giggling. Youthful and old at the same time. Like a young girl who smoked forty a day.

  He watched spellbound as she licked her hand clean.

  Tongue darting out to wipe milky white strings from her wrist and forearm. Watched enrapt as she sucked her fingers dry, both disgusted and more aroused than he could ever remember.

  He hadn’t even noticed until he got into the car to drive home at the end of the day that his trousers and car seat were stained with his own cum.

  He’d avoided her for the next two days, thoroughly confused and deeply embarrassed. The day after that she sought him out and asked if he had any plans for lunch.

  They went to the same out of the way restaurant and ate starters in near silence before returning to the inconspicuously parked car.

  She smiled and gently caressed his face, the ball of her thumb delicately stroking his eyebrows, fingers lightly tracing his ears.

  “Dear David, dear, dear David,” murmured as she once again freed a penis already straining against his underwear and zip.

  Hitched her skirt above meaty thighs and full hips. Dreamily slid out of lace white panties to reveal a thick mound of dark pubic hair in contrast to the brassy blonde of her head. Parted herself to show glistening pink folds that she stroked and dipped before putting a moist gleaming finger to his lips. A sharp yet thick smell, a rich and ripe aroma that seemed to fill his brain.

  Permeated his sinuses. Filled the car.

  It repelled him and at the same fuelled a desire so strong that he wanted to scream and beg.

  She negotiated the space between them. Unhurried and graceful despite the obstacle strewn confines of the car. Skilfully parted lips slippery with juice and spit and guided him inside.

  Lowered herself until he was gone, enveloped, consumed by her.

  Moved with a languorous grinding cadence, her thighs white and awesome, filling him with an unknown lust.

  Undid her blouse to show full, heavy breasts and pulled his mouth to a hardened-huge nipple.

  Within seconds he came in great waves of release that shuddered through him, draining him, emptying him so completely that he was dazed and blank.

  And so had begun what some would have considered a laughable dalliance. Sordid and predictable, and to David’s mind torrid.

  Shameful.

  Sinful.

  Irresistible.

  He was appalled at himself and yet powerless to stop.

  The fact that he didn’t love his wife did nothing to lessen the fundamental sense of wrong that he felt at his own actions. He was an addict.

  He prayed that God would guide him. And forgive him. He longed to stop it and felt a hot flush of panic at the thought of doing so. He yearned to tell Angela how wrong what they were doing was, and yet burned for her touch.

  Craved her shameless delight in his gluey ejaculate and the brazen pleasure with which she flaunted her own wetness. Forced it upon him, fingers between his lips and in his mouth. She rarely kissed him and only then with sperm smeared lips, her breath hot and sticky with the stink of his own fluid.

  He had never considered himself a sexual being and had little personal experience in the area. He was a virgin when he married his wife and hadn’t strayed afterwards.

  Until Angela.

  His was an existence of the mind. Guided by a belief in the Almighty. That Angela Skorecki had shown him a world outside his own was an alarming development in itself. That it was merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg was another matter entirely. He strongly suspected that what they had done so far was only the beginning. That there would be no end to the depravity in which they would indulge. She exhibited no inhibition and even less lack of imagination. Less still, any problem in eliciting a willing response from him, however degraded and dirty he felt afterwards.

  When the deputy head announced his success in securing his own school, the situation gained an entirely new dimension.

  Angela entered his office, rested a fleshy buttock on the corner of his desk and asked if he had considered a replacement. He’d had every intention of politely refusing to even countenance the idea of her taking the post.

  To explain how unethical such a thing would be. How it betrayed all of the values that he held close to his heart and by which his life had been lived.

  Before any of that could be vocalised, or even tactfully formulated in his head, she’d slid to his side of the desk and dropped to the floor. Crawled between his knees, knees that opened of their own accord, and took him into the soft warmth of her mouth. When he’d finished, she rose up and thrust her salt slick tongue into his mouth and shared what remained of his stuff. Made him swallow what she hadn’t.

  Five weeks later, Angela Skorecki was announced as the new deputy head of Oakhill Academy. A decision that sparked a flurry of whispered conversations in the staff room and not a few private meetings between various
governors. The words questionable and untenable, behaviour and position, were used in more than one discussion.

  Luckily for David, the ordinary world ended before the campaign to remove him gathered enough momentum to register on his consciousness.

  <><><>

  The collapse crept up on David Monkton in the same way as it did everyone else. It was simply too swift for him to gain any real sense of the enormity of what was happening. Not that he was in the most receptive state of mind in any event. By this stage, David was more or less perpetually distracted by his own out of control personal life.

  However engrossed he may have been in his private anguish, on Monday it became patently obvious that all was not well with the world in general. By the afternoon, the school had ceased to be its usual hive of activity and was virtually silent and deserted. By and large, the staff and children that had appeared hadn’t stayed and David cut a lonely figure when he closed up as best he could.

  At home he was greeted by the sight of Rachel struggling to climb the stairs, clearly sick and deteriorating before his eyes. He helped her to bed and watched helpless as she lapsed into unconsciousness. By the next morning he could see physical changes in her that were alarming. Torn between his obligation to care for Rachel, his duty to manage the school and the sensuously tormenting thoughts of Angela that these days rarely left his mind, he followed routine and drove to the school.

  It was as he’d left it. Abandoned.

  The roads were nearly empty. There was an eerie silence over everything.

  He returned home, checked his wife and tried to find out what was going on.

  The lack of information, the very lack of news itself gave him another intimation as to the scale of the crisis.

  He brooded, useless thoughts circling his mind like midges on a summer’s evening. He prayed to, and then begged, God for direction.

  He relented and tried to contact Angela. There was no reply.