by Al K. Line
It was disconcerting. Ven was an obsessive, being sensible about shoes was definitely not her style.
She had packed fast, grabbed her laptop from its secret hiding place, and was currently sat in the driver's seat with the lid open on her Mac, finger poised over the power button.
She had to know, she simply had to. What had happened? What was happening? And was there a way for her to take back what was now unleashed?
Ven knew in her heart that there was no way she could stop the botnet now. It was the whole point of it. She had purposely built it so that it would become as viral as possible as quickly as possible. This meant there was no single source any longer. No single place to eliminate it, it jumped from one device to another ensuring it could never be traced. There was no central command and control — that was how a virus got stopped. Via Tor and peer to peer networks it had already infiltrated social media, blogs, advertising accounts, YouTube, Facebook, the majority of pornographic sites and more. The Web as a whole was no longer safe and you couldn't just go in and take it down. It was now a part of the programming of not only individual Websites but the central servers at the main, and back-up, data centers. The source of the Web was irreparably corrupted.
Deep down Ven knew all of this, she just couldn't bring herself to actually admit it.
But she also wanted to find out exactly what the outcome was. She felt that she may stand a chance of discovering what had happened to the botnet if she was given enough time and a stable enough Internet connection. The first step was to ensure that her Mac really was firewalled to a sufficient degree. Which meant turning it on.
But the fear took her.
What if she became infected the minute she looked at the screen?
It was a possibility.
Her computer could have been infected that fateful Thursday when the zombie botnet first got its name. The day it corrupted the biggest phenomena the world had ever seen — the World Wide Web. The invention she had helped turn on its head and now was nothing much more than a way to corrupt and destroy humanity. She dare not risk herself, not out of fear for her own sanity, but because her son needed a mother.
So she sat there, shaking and alone, wondering just how she could discover the truth about what she had created, knowing that she had to get away in order to do it.
She went nowhere.
As she sat in the car, shivering and crying, she finally allowed herself the luxury of the truth.
It's over.
She couldn't find out what had corrupted her program. Covering her tracks as she had done cut both ways. It meant that if something had been inserted into the code it would now be impossible to discover without actually watching the subliminal packet she had delivered to the world. And if you watched it you were lost to the other side forever.
Trying to come to terms with the realization of this truth was no easy thing, but as she sat there sobbing and trying to get a grip on her new reality she did her best to think ahead, and to not think of all she had helped the world to lose.
Then Kyle knocked at the window.
All she could do was get out of the car, hug him tight, wipe her tears and ask, "Where's Al?"
"It's a long story Ven. C'mon, let's get you inside shall we?" said Kyle, walking her in the direction of the back of the house. A cup of tea would sort her out.
Cassie got Tomas, whistled for Bos Bos, and parked the cars back out of sight.
The unpacking of Ven's car and the goodies in the Land Rover could wait.
They waited quite some time.
Once again, life very much got in the way of plans, this time in a way that was hard for anyone left alive to deal with.
Coping
They found Cassie in her bed, ashen-faced and cold. She had obviously passed away in the night, her pallor and the temperature of her body meant it had certainly not been a very recent death.
Kyle and Ven had been hunting around for her all morning, Cassie was always up and at 'em early before the rest of the house stirred. She enjoyed the garden as the day began, trying to time her first cup of coffee with when the birds began to sing. But Cassie had become more and more withdrawn over the previous few weeks, although she had obviously been trying to put a brave face on the fact that she was far from herself.
After the death of Mike she had thrown herself headfirst into the garden, had bossed them all about, getting them to dig vegetable plots, sow seeds, move compost, and even collect up animal dung from the fields to help the crops and the flowers grow amazingly well.
But if she slowed down for a minute the reality of the recent events seemed to send her spiraling into a mire of depression it took her some time, and serious effort, to emerge from.
Ven knew her sister well, and knew that she was not the best person to cope with sorrow — when their parents died Cassie was unable to deal with any of the myriad bits of bureaucracy that involves saying a final farewell to a loved one.
Mike really had been the love of her life. Cassie had wanted all her life nothing more than to live a simple existence with a man that would treat her well and love and adore her. Mike had done exactly that. The day of the funeral she was certainly distraught, as expected, but also her normal quirky self. However, over the days and weeks that followed she was more withdrawn and you could tell her heart was simply not in the work she did. She could often be found staring into space, lost in what were very obviously dark thoughts.
Looking back on it after the fact it was obvious that she was not coping well, and that this new, and very violent world, was not one that Cassie was able to either understand or deal with. The death of Mike, the leaving of Al, the realization of just what the world had become when they made infrequent trips to hunt for necessities, all combined to overwhelm Cassie. The result was her lying cold and gray in the bed she had chosen. A bed that never gave her comfort, as her man was no longer there to keep her warm and cuddle her at night to keep the demons at bay.
There was a note...
Dear Ven, Kyle and baby Tomas. And Bos Bos too, not forgetting you buddy,
I'm sorry, I really am, I'm a coward and I have taken the easy way out.
Please don't be angry with me and please don't blame yourselves, especially you Ven, I don't hold you to blame. I know that what has happened is not your fault you would never have done such a thing. I just can't go on any more with the way things are, it's just all so wrong.
The world has always been hard to deal with for me, so many things mixed up and so many things I don't understand, not the world's fault. Mine I guess.
But with Mike gone and all those things out there trying to get us I just can't see the point now. Mike was my salvation, the one thing in my life that I felt I understood properly and could truly love, and I was loved back. Now that is gone, and I know that I have you guys but it isn't enough. What will the future hold? Nothing good that I can see and I just don't want to be here any longer. I think I would actually go mad if I have to see another person eating another person. Or get chased by one of the infected again, it's just too much to bear, and I know that makes me weak, but it is just the way it is.
Ven, please don't blame yourself, I know you will and you shouldn't. Look, I even used proper punctuation and everything in this note, how about that then eh?
Anyway, love you all lots and I am sorry, I truly am, but I want peace, and I don't want to think any more or be scared any more and I don't know how else to end it. The horrors outside aren't going to go away are they? I can't live like this any more, not without Mike to keep me strong and hold me when I get scared or I wake up screaming in the night, which is all the time now, all the bloody time. Damn, Al would make me pay ten pence for that one, I bet. I wonder if the big guy is alright out there all alone.
I wish things could have been different, but I guess I am just not made of the stuff you guys are.
Please stay safe, kiss Tomas for me and give Boscoe a big sandwich.
And if you let my veggies an
d plants die then I will come back to haunt you, you can be sure of that.
All the love in the world
Cassie
p.s. Please bury me next to Mike, and plant a tree on top of me. Make it something strong and hardy and also a little bit pretty if you think I deserve it. I'm not sure if I do or not — you decide.
xxx
Ven had tears streaming down her face as she read it, and then passed it to Kyle. She never said a word until Kyle had finished reading words he hoped he never saw again in his life.
"What have I done Kyle? What the fuck have I done. I killed my own sister, I may as well have given her the pills myself, the poor thing. Why didn't she come to us for help?"
"I wish I knew what to say Ven, I really do, but the fact is she fucking bailed, and that's that," said Kyle, anger boiling to the surface.
"What the fuck do you mean she bailed. She fucking killed herself Kyle, because of me. Because of what I did and because Mike died because of me. She didn't bail, she just wasn't made to cope with this shit. What are we going to do without her? She can't be dead, she just can't." Ven was in floods of tears, shouting at Kyle and shaking him by the shoulders, teeth bared, with another breakdown rising to the surface.
"What, you going to bail too? You going to top yourself as well? Oh, no, I know, why don't you just blank out for a day like you did before and leave me to cope with things on my own. It seems to run in the family... not facing up to things." Kyle was as loud as Ven, and a lot angrier. If Ven was in the depths of sorrow then Kyle was in the depths of anger.
It all boiled over at once.
"You need to get a fucking grip and you need to think about Tomas before you think it's a good idea to go to your 'special place' again and leave me alone here to cope," said Kyle. "Mike died because of what happened, sure. But do you think he would have fared better if we hadn't gone to get them? No. And what about Cassie then, huh? You reckon she would have been hunky dory and carried on growing fucking veggies all on her own living in a stupid fucking yurt with zombies helping shift the manure? She bailed!" Kyle stormed out of the room, too angry at Ven, Cassie, and the wreck of a world he found himself having to try to cope in to deal with the current situation any longer.
Ven just stared after him, surprised and outraged by the outburst from Kyle, who had always been a very calm and un-opinionated person up until this point. She certainly didn't know this was how he felt about people that were so unable to cope that they took their own lives.
Neither did Kyle, until now.
As he wandered down to the garden to get some much needed fresh air, and to try to clear his head somewhat, he attempted to think dispassionately about what had just happened.
Did he mean that? How could he be so cold about someone who was a friend?
There were no easy answers to philosophical questions regarding the taking of one's own life, how could there be? This was new ground for Kyle, something he had never considered before in his life. He let the warm summer air tickle his skin, trying to calm himself and keep the rising anger pushed down and away. He knew he shouldn't have said those things to Ven, her sister had just died after all, but he reacted instinctively, and if he admitted it to himself he was just extremely disappointed with Cassie for leaving them and for not turning to them for more help.
If the truth be told he was just as angry with himself as anyone else — he should have seen the signs and helped Cassie when she so obviously needed it. A million and one thoughts ran through his mind as he stood stock still on the grass, letting the sun warm his face and eventually calm him. There was no denying that Cassie's decision was one that had a certain appeal. The world they now lived in was not one that offered a bright future as far as he could tell. There seemed to be no silver lining to this heavy cloud, just more struggle and more nightmares. But he knew he would never take such a decision himself, life was too precious to give it up, more so now than ever. With so few humans left in the world that were not infected it was every person's responsibility to not let the zombie buggers take over completely.
Cassie was far from alone in the extreme action she took to escape the new world. The finality gave her peace that hundreds of thousands also followed. Watching your world fall apart before you, seeing unimaginable horrors inflicted on loved ones and strangers alike, and experiencing your family turning into mindless flesh eaters was too much for a plethora of people to contemplate, let alone deal with on a rational level.
Suicide was a way out that many people saw as the only real solution. It was no easy decision for Cassie, or those that followed her into oblivion, but it gave a final peace that was hard to argue with under the circumstances. Each person has the right to decide their own fate and although faith and personal conviction can certainly give many a firm stance on this extreme action there is no denying that for many it was the only way they could think of to escape such horrors. No easy decision, but one that allowed a release from an unforgiving world that was impossible to understand any more — or deal with.
For some the decision was taken early on, before the zombie botnet affected them and their loved ones directly. For others it was a last resort, taken moments before their life was to be ripped from them in the most gruesome of ways possible.
For those that resorted to such a difficult decision there was little in the way of choice apart from watching your loved ones eat you alive. Reason enough to end it quickly. But for others it was simply a lack of ability to make it in the harsh new environment they found themselves. Many were on the brink of death from starvation. Many more were dying from thirst or from foul diseases because the water they drank was no longer clean.
Simple medical problems escalated, those with already severe conditions fared worse. We forget quite how reliant we are on regular transportation to collect such everyday things as a repeat prescription for antibiotics, let alone obtaining regular supplies of medicines for critical conditions. When the world is full of flesh eating zombies popping out to the pharmacy is no longer such a basic chore, and you can bet that they haven't ordered in your regular meds anyway.
It led to a lot of suicides, both independent and assisted — for those lucky enough to still have someone uninfected close to them. Putting an end to pain and suffering was the sensible choice for those that knew there was no way back from the health issues they had to deal with.
And for others?
It was just too much to deal with on a practical level. No longer able to go outside and make their way in the world millions of people cowered in their homes waiting for a salvation that never came and never would. So when their bodies began to rebel, and slowly shut down, snuffing out the lights seemed the most sensible option.
These circumstances and thousands of variations on the theme led to mass suicides on an unimaginable level, just another one of the myriad repercussions the zombie botnet dealt the billions of unfortunates around the globe.
Ven pondered all of this and more as she stared at her pretty younger sister, now cold and nothing more than a lump of dead meat. The effects of becoming infected hit home once again, this time, in a way she had truly never expected. Taking time and becoming aware of just how others are truly faring is easy to dismiss, when really it is the overriding factor for those that are of a more delicate nature. Ven felt she had let her sister down in a massive way — she should have observed her more closely and seen that something like this was on the horizon.
I could have done something, couldn't I?
It's so easy to overlook the signs when it comes to mental health issues, family should be the first to spot it, but often they are simply too close to accept the reality of the situation: that help is needed, and that something is very seriously wrong. Too late now, there are no second chances.
Thus, yet again, Ven felt the blame landing squarely on her shoulders — right or wrong, it was her botnet that was responsible for delivering the new world, even if she was now convinced the actual infection was not
directly of her doing. Finally, after she had considered leaving and stayed, she had come to terms with this. It's all semantics though when you know for certain that you are in a very direct way responsible for so many deaths, the destruction of people's normal lives — even their sanity.
Now it is her own family that pays the price, yet again, so it hits home even harder. Ven wondered how much more of this she could take before she went so deeply into her psyche that she could never return to sanity again — she was on the brink and she knew it. As of now Kyle was her only remaining family apart from Tomas, and Kyle was seriously pissed at her and she couldn't blame him, not really.
Ven spent the late morning and early afternoon doing one of the things she did very well, applying make-up and doing hair. She may have been a world class hacker but appearance was obsessively important to her, undoubtedly she wanted to ensure her sister was given all the dignity she deserved.
She cleaned up the bodily fluids that unfortunately escape us all after death, then washed her sister gently and lovingly. Much as it went against the grain Ven even dressed Cassie's body in clothes she knew she would approve of: crazy woolen trousers, a Sparks t-shirt, and plenty of her large collection of bangles and bracelets as a nice final touch. Ven brushed out her sister's hair, washed her face gently, and applied her most expensive make-up. Chanel was her de facto choice — always the best for Ven, and now her sister too. A final addition was a touch of Guerlain Vol de Parfum, a fragrance Ven had been sure to salvage from her home what seemed like a lifetime ago now.
Cassie looked beautiful in death, and smelled great too. Ven didn't beautify her sister in a way that Ven wanted, rather she gave subtle touches to her sister's complexion that highlighted her natural beauty and were applied delicately in a way that Cassie would be secretly pleased with, even if she would rant about the objectification of women and the bad example of catwalk models, if she were alive to see herself. Especially if she knew how much the Guerlain cost. Ven couldn't help smiling at that.
