Major Franklin had been in the process of trying to organise a bloodless coup, but this was a dangerous undertaking, Sir Anthony Butler was, for better or worse, the head of government and to remove him may well be regarded as treason. Then his problem had been resolved for him when General Sir Anthony Butlers head had exploded and painted the door of his lavish rooms with its contents.
Butler’s erratic behaviour had caused unrest in the ranks and Franklin strongly suspected that one of his own men may well have fired the shot that put an end to his madness. Since that shot, things had moved fast, the leaflets had fallen from the sky and once Franklin had read the missive, he knew in his heart of hearts that what it said was true.
So now he found himself face to face and shaking hands with this Major Alan Brown who smiled and said “I can’t tell you how happy I am to meet you, I sincerely hope that I can convince you of our good intentions. Our volunteer hostages are ready to go with your men.” Franklin hesitated no longer and said, “I do not wish to start out with more mistrust, your hostages will not be required, and I will accompany you willingly.”
It did not take long for Franklin to give his orders to his men and he was soon boarding the large helicopter, he looked towards the rear and noticed the last man to climb aboard, a man of average size holding a Katana sword. Franklin looked into the dead eyes and involuntarily shuddered, Major Brown noticed his reaction and said, “Don’t worry, he may be a monster, but he is our monster!”
The chopper lifted away from the landing zone and headed south towards Camp Pegasus carrying Major Franklin to his meeting with Professor Thompson and Lt Colonel Curtis, a meeting that would reunite the North and South, another significant step on the way to rebuilding the nation.
Dan sat at the back of the helicopter, looking out of the rear door, as it flew over a land ravaged by Infection. He thought about what had been achieved so far, John Smith was dead, as was General Sir Anthony Butler and Major Patrick Jensen. Those threats had been eliminated and Pamela now had a safer environment to live in and a job that would help her thrive, he had accomplished what he set out to do. Thinking about these achievements, he smiled, then he looked down at the ground and could see the mass of Infected reaching up towards him in a crazy attempt to pluck the helicopter from the sky, and he gripped his sword and his smile became wolf like as he realised that there was still much work to be done. The chopper turned west for its final leg of the journey towards Camp Pegasus and flew on towards the setting sun.
A Bad Day at the Office, Just Like Any Other Day
Daniel reread the last words that he had written, “The chopper turned west for its final leg of the journey towards Camp Pegasus and flew on towards the setting sun.” Those words would end the final paragraph of his first novel, “Finished at last”, he thought to himself as he looked at the clock on the laptop, “Just enough time to start the first proof read before work” he thought as he scrolled back through some one hundred and fifteen thousand words to the top of the document and began to read.
Twenty minutes later he was still reading, “Dammit, I’ve got to go to work!” he thought to himself. He closed the document containing his novel and shut down his laptop, reality dawned, and he was dragged away from the fantasy world that he had created, a world where his alter ego was the hero, he was in control and not subject to the whims and dictates of his idiot, so called, managers.
Now that he had returned to reality, he glanced across at the unmade double bed, a bed that until a few months ago he had shared with Pam, his soon to be ex-wife. The bitch had an affair and had not even bothered to try to hide the fact from him. Pam had been his entire universe, he had been like a planet orbiting her sun, her presence and gravitational pull had kept him warm hearted and grounded. But now that she had betrayed and left him it seemed to Daniel that the whole world was conspiring against him, nothing seemed right, he had become cold, his moral compass spinning without direction and he viewed the world through over critical eyes. He could now see society for what it was, full of unnecessary imperfections, mistakes were made by everyone and they did not seem to care and never tried to put it right, the whole attitude seemed to be “I’m alright Jack!” or “That will do!” or just plain “Fuck it, who gives a crap!” and those mistakes and shoddy attitudes affected him personally every day! He would order stuff from the internet and when it turned up it was damaged or not as ordered, and that was if it turned up at all. He had to put up with idiot drivers who would pull out in front of him and then drive like snails, and then the thing that irked him almost as much as his idiot bosses, the scourge of the temporary traffic lights that seemed to have no reason for their existence!
Another miserable day at the office was beckoning and he wished with all his might that he did not have to go; he had a sick felling deep down in the pit of his stomach as he picked up his car keys. Stepping out of his front door and looking past his car, he could see the traffic was already starting to build up. “Great, another stressful gridlocked commute into that hellhole of an office to look forward to!” he moaned out loud.
The radio came on with the ignition, as he reversed off the drive Daniel heard the end of an announcement advising people to stay indoors and keep out of the midday sun. “I should be so lucky to even see the sun today” he thought as he drove away from the house. It was only a few minutes before he came to a T-junction controlled by a set of temporary traffic lights which were showing red. He could see no reason for the temporary lights and shouted out loud, spewing obscenities, as he waited for the lights to change.
Waiting for the green light, he watched another poor slave to the system leaving from his front door and trudge to his car, he could see his own stress reflected in the lines etched into the man’s face as he opened his car door. Just as he was about to get into the vehicle, the front door of the house burst open and his wife ran out and handed him his forgotten lunch, “At least she is doing something right!” thought Daniel. The light turned to green but the car in front of Daniel’s was driven by a learner under tuition, the hapless driver stalled the vehicle and did not manage to restart it before the red light was showing again. The Driver of the BMW behind Daniel went ballistic, was honking his horn and hurling obscenities at the vehicles that he was stuck behind.
After what seemed like an unreasonably long time the lights finally turned green and Daniel could make a little more progress driving along a single carriageway that he thought “Should have been built as a dual carriageway.” Following the car in front and unable to overtake, all Daniel could do was shout at the idiot driver every time his brake lights came on for no apparent reason, “Get your foot off the brake! Speed up; you are driving like a fucking snail!”
Finally, after a yet another frustrating commute Daniel walked into the office only to be greeted with the unwelcome news that he was late for another pointless meeting. He sighed because he knew he was trapped in this boring job, coming into the office day after day and having to deal with these same idiots, sitting in meetings listening to the self-important buffoons making the same stupid, idiotic, decisions that their predecessors had made, like the song says, “It’s all just a little bit of history repeating”. Could they not see that they were taking the company in the wrong direction? It was obvious to him, but they just could not see it. Daniel had long ago given up trying to show them the error of their ways, he used to speak up and put forward his point of view, but this had not done his career any good whatsoever, so now he just sat there and kept his head down and said nothing. He often wondered how these overpaid, overweight, unhealthy swaggering arseholes would fare in the real world and not this artificial hierarchical corporate biosphere, this fake world where the donkeys really were in charge of the lions!
Daniel knew he was a victim in this world, where money was king and decent people were used as human stepladders by the tie wearing so called “elite” as they scrambled toward the summit of their corporate dominion, wedging their offshore bank accoun
ts full of cash as they went.
He walked in the meeting room, half-heartedly apologised for being late, then ambled towards his seat at the plush oak table. Overpriced smartphones that had been switched to silent littered the table, he noticed that the closer to the head of the table that the phones were placed, the more expensive they appeared to be, they acted like badges of ‘rank’, denoting the position held within the company of their owners.
Daniel added his own modest phone to the clutter and sat down toward the far end of the table, seven others were already seated, three engineers from the R&D Department, two from Brand Management, and the Directors Secretary was there to take the minutes of the meeting,
The R&D Director chaired the meeting, his name was Steven Taylor, but behind his back everyone in the company referred to him as “Doctor No”. The reason being, because every time the Brand Managers asked him if the R&D Department could develop a new product the request was met with a definitive “No!” “Useless prat!” thought Daniel as he settled in to his seat.
Daniel was there representing the Technical Department, but experience told him that nothing he said would be listened to, so after only five minutes he started day dreaming. He was back in his post-apocalyptic fantasy world where his was in charge of his own destiny. He was dreaming of assault rifles, swords, bows and Amazon Warriors, a world where people could become infected, fall to the ground convulsing and turn in to super-fast, super aggressive Zombie killing machines.
Suddenly, Daniel was roused from his fantasy by the sounds of concern from the others in the meeting room. Daniel looked around to see what the commotion was about, and he heard Christy, the Directors Secretary say, “He’s having an epileptic fit, give him some room!” The others in the room moved away from the convulsing body of Steven “Doctor No” Taylor.
Daniel picked up a heavy fire extinguisher stepped into the gap made by the others and brought the extinguisher down hard, administering a crushing blow to the R&D Directors head!
As Daniel dropped the brain and blood splatted extinguisher to the ground his face was emotionless as he said, “Meeting adjourned.”
THE END?
Infected Page 33
