by Sarra Cannon
The Dark One had been banished. She’d been sent here to this earth by the five guardians. She’d been trapped beneath the ground inside a block of ice. All of that was true. But the guardians hadn’t been strong enough to completely strip her of her magic. They’d only suppressed it. The same way the Guardians’ League had suppressed magic inside the cities in her own land. It was merely a seal, keeping the magic inside, but giving it no way out.
But a seal was just another type of magic. And like all magic, it could be reversed or broken.
In her dreams, the Dark One had told her that by spilling Tobias’ blood on the earth, she had made a crack in the seal. A small crack, but it was enough to allow the Dark One to cast a single spell. She’d created a flower. Beautiful and simple and red as blood.
Inside this flower, she’d placed the scent of death—an ancient necromancer’s spell that took the power of life from one person and transferred it to another. The Dark One had cast it in such a way that once the first person was infected, the virus would pass from person to person, blanketing this world in a matter of days.
As the virus grew inside them, death sucked their life from them and pulled it deep into the earth, finding its way to the Dark One, giving her more power.
The death spell worked like a virus, infecting anyone who came near it. And the more infected there were, the more power the Dark One was able to drain from this world.
And she was becoming more powerful by the minute.
The witch could feel it. The dark presence grew stronger and her dreams became more vivid.
The witch set the purple stone down on the wooden table and leaned back against the chair. Her hands twisted in her lap.
Could she really do this?
The Dark One had explained it all to her so clearly. She wanted proof of loyalty. She wanted help creating a bigger crack in the seal. And that took sacrifices.
The witch looked over at the handsome man. He stood outside at the edge of his mother’s grave. The older woman had died just yesterday, her power siphoned from her body to become food for the Dark One.
He’d sent for the doctor, but no one had ever arrived to help and the woman had died.
Her son had shown no signs of infection. The Dark One had explained that those here who had the strongest spirits and the closest ties to magic would be immune from the effects of the virus. This young man must have been immune to still be so healthy. He must have had a strong spirit.
Which is why the Dark One wanted him for this task.
She needed to charge the stone. It would help her track the guardians, she said. The witch had been told to drain his life-force and place it inside the stone.
The witch closed her eyes and swallowed. She didn’t want to do this. She liked the man. He’d been so nice to her and she liked the way he looked at her with such admiration. She didn’t want to hurt him.
But if she didn’t obey the Dark One, she would never find her way home. She would never get the recognition she deserved.
Her whole life, she’d been nothing. How many times had the elders reminded her she was a disappointment? That they’d wasted their best training on a witch who was weak? That she’d never become anything more than a maidservant?
Well, she would show them.
When she came back to her own world, she’d have the blessings and power of the Dark One—the strongest and most powerful witch their world had ever known. She’d be someone for the first time in her life. If she helped the Dark One now, she would be blessed with great power and would sit at her right hand when she took her rightful place as ruler in the Land of Fire and Ice.
The witch picked up the stone, closing it tight in her fist.
Yes, she would do this. No matter the cost.
She stood and walked out the front door, down the porch steps and around to the back of the house where the man stood. She stared at him for only the briefest moment. He’d been so kind to her. He’d taken her in when she would have died out there in the heat.
It was truly a shame he had to die.
The witch placed her hand inside the man’s. He turned to her and gave a sad smile, then squeezed her hand as if they understood each other. As if they were sharing this moment of sadness and regret.
She pressed the purple stone tight against his skin. It became hot, then cold, then somehow both at the same time. The man tried to pull away, confusion in his eyes. He yanked his hand harder, but the witch had hold of him now. The magic of the stone was already tapped in to his soul, pulling it through his veins like metal to a magnet.
He opened his mouth to protest, but his voice caught in his throat. He fell to his knees in the fresh dirt, choking for air as his life was stolen from him.
The witch could barely bring herself to look at him. His skin shriveled and bruised, clinging tightly to his bones as the last of his life-force poured into the stone.
She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but it was too late for that. She had chosen her path and she was determined to see it through.
This man was only the beginning of the work that was to come.
She was certain there would be much harder sacrifices, but that in the end, it would all be worth it.
When he was gone, the witch released his hand and he fell face-first to the ground.
The stone hummed in her hand and she held it up to her heart, letting the power of the man’s life buzz against her skin. When she looked down, she gasped as red flowers grew up from his corpse.
Proof that the Dark One was pleased.
Part II: The Awakening
Crash
The amount of information out there was overwhelming.
Night had turned into morning at some point and Crash had barely even noticed.
His basement apartment was cool and dark, much more appropriate for his mood than the bright sunny day showing on his security cameras outside.
He stared at his computer monitors. The information was an addiction now. He’d been talking to some of his buddies on his favorite doomsday prepper forum. They’d started a few new threads, sharing the most recent and important information and videos they’d been able to find online.
It hadn’t escaped his notice that five or six of the regulars had stopped posting all together.
Crash refreshed the page to see if anything new had been posted in the past half hour.
A couple of news articles. Six new videos. A new report on the death toll in Georgia and Texas. Nothing groundbreaking.
He was watching one of the latest videos when the new message sound dinged. He clicked over to his inbox and read the subject line of a new private message from his friend Atomic. PRIORITY!!! What the hell are we dealing with here?
Crash double clicked the message, his heart racing and his hand gripping his mouse.
Hey man. I just came across this new video posted to a private forum I belong to. The dude who posted it said he has a cousin who works for this news station and that he risked everything to get this footage out there. Watch it and get back to me. What the hell are we dealing with? Do you think this could be legit? If it is, my mind just got blown. ~Atomic P.S. How are you feeling? Any signs?
There was a video attached to the message and Crash leaned forward in his chair. He moved the video player to his center screen and pressed play.
An older man with salt and pepper hair spoke into a microphone that had the letters ‘WKBX’ on the handle. He looked like your typical reporter in a suit and tie with a hard-on for breaking news. Crash had seen dozens just like him in the videos he’d watched so far. The only difference was that this guy had one of those white surgical masks stretched across his face. As if that would protect him in a hospital full of infected.
“This is Neil Snow reporting for WKBX, Raleigh,” the reporter said in his best trained-for-TV voice. “I’m here at Raleigh Hospital where a quarantine has been in effect for the past four days. Under special orders from the Governor, our news crew has been allowed inside the
quarantine zone for an exclusive look at what is going on behind closed doors.”
The reporter motioned to the door behind him, which was labeled “Morgue” in bold black letters. “And one of the first doors we’re going behind is the one with the biggest secrets of all. Contrary to what some officials want you to believe, the flu that has brought patients here in droves is much worse than the seasonal flu, the swine flu, or any other strain of the flu that we’ve seen in recent years. In fact, some doctors here are saying this outbreak will be several times worse than the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic that killed an estimated fifty million people worldwide.”
“Some of the images we’re about to show may be disturbing.” Pausing for effect, the reporter stepped in front of the door and drew his eyebrows together in a serious expression. After a moment of silence, he opened the swinging door to the hospital’s morgue.
Inside the room, bodies were stacked on top of each other up to six feet high along the walls. Even though Crash had seen similar images in previous videos, he still felt his gut churn. The reporter explained the images as the cameraman slowly panned from one end of the room to the other.
“More than one-third of the patients who were being treated at this hospital are now found here in the morgue. As you can see here, this facility has run out of room for their normal procedures and have started to stack the bodies of the dead on top of each other. A doctor I spoke to when I arrived estimates that the number of dead will double by the end of the day tomorrow.”
The camera settled back on the reporter. “We’ve been told that bulldozers are expected to arrive in the morning to begin digging out mass graves, something that is completely unprecedented here in the United States. When questioned about the legalities of this decision, authorities—”
A scuffle off camera caught the reporter’s eye and he jerked backward.
The cameraman swung around and Crash could barely make out the figure of a girl in a hospital gown. The camera lurched wildly. Crash heard shouts, but in the chaos, he didn’t understand what was happening.
He leaned as far forward as he could in his chair and tried to make sense of the jumpy images on the screen. A bare, dirty foot limping toward the camera. The reporter shouting, “Someone get a doctor.” The sound of shoes squeaking against the tile floor.
Finally, the image settled down and Noah could see the reporter reaching out to the girl. She was definitely a patient. By the bruise-like rings around her eyes, it was obvious she was infected. But what was she doing down there in the morgue?
The cameraman had taken a spot across the room and his hands were shaking, but at least the images made sense now. The image zoomed in slightly on the reporter and the girl.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” the reporter said. “We’re going to get a doctor for you, okay? Now where did you come from?”
The girl, who couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen, reached out as if to take the man’s hand. Then suddenly, she lunged forward and sunk her teeth into his forearm. The reporter let out a high-pitched, terrified scream and tried to yank his arm away from the child. In his chair, Crash jumped back, startled.
In addition to the reporter’s scream, the camera picked up a low, rumbling sound. The man operating the camera must have heard it too, because he swung around toward the stack of bodies behind him. The moan grew louder.
The cameraman backed away, then tripped over something and fell to the floor, screaming. The screen went dark and Crash sucked in an uneven breath. He brought a trembling hand to his mouth, trying to make sense of what he’d just seen. What the hell was happening there? Patients attacking reporters?
Or worse. Dead patients attacking reporters.
But that wasn’t possible, right? That was something that happened in movies and video games, not real life.
Crash took a second to breathe and calm the beating of his heart.
Then he started the video again.
Noah
The sound of hammering next door was what finally brought Noah out of his trance. When he went out to see what was going on, he found one of his neighbors boarding up all of his windows.
“Mr. Mills?” Noah asked, crossing the lawn. He squinted in the sunlight. Hours of staring at the data in his dad’s lab had given him a massive headache.
“Oh, hey Noah, you startled me.” Albert Mills was a pretty good neighbor. He was middle-aged, single, and quite a bit overweight. He kept to himself, but he was a nice guy who always waved and stopped to say hi. Noah was surprised to see him up on a ladder, hammering plywood over the upstairs windows.
“Getting ready for a hurricane?” Noah joked. Mr. Mills didn’t seem to get it, and he looked at Noah like he was the dumbest kid on the block.
“I’m boarding things up and getting the hell out of here. And I’m not the only one with that same thought,” he said, waving his hammer toward the street. “If you and your dad are smart, you’ll do the same thing.”
Noah followed Mr. Mills’ gaze and saw that he was right. Several families on the street were already packing up their cars. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the bright morning sun. But where were they all going? No one on earth was safe from this virus. Couldn’t they see that?
“Did you hear about Madelyn Sorrows?”
Noah spun around and stared back up at Albert Mills. His stomach twisted. “Parrish’s mom?”
“Yeah.”
Noah shook his head, an unpleasant fear growing in his stomach. “She’s sick?”
Of course, he already knew she was sick. He’d seen it with his own eyes. He glanced over toward Parrish’s house. He never should have let her go to the hospital alone. And why the hell hadn’t he been over there to check on her? What if she’d been all alone over there for days?
“Dead,” Mr. Mills said, taking another nail from his pocket and hammering it into the plywood. “From this flu or whatever it is. And there are more, you know. All around town, people are dropping like flies. The news this morning said they’re burning bodies in mass graves at the hospital.”
So the burning had started here, too. Noah had read the directives that all bodies were to be destroyed to help prevent the spread of further disease. Hearing it from his neighbor made it hit home, though. It suddenly seemed too real. He kicked at the grass with his shoe until a large clump came up, spraying soft brown dirt into the air.
“Where are you going to go?” Noah asked.
“West,” Mills said, climbing down from the ladder. He almost lost his footing and Noah took a few steps forward, as if he could catch the guy. Luckily, Mills didn’t fall on top of him. “I figure since the first cases of this virus were reported on the east coast, west is the best bet. I don’t think it’s as bad out there.”
Noah opened his mouth to disagree, but then shut it again. Why not let the man have his hope, right?
Maybe it was better to die on the road with hope that you could outrun this thing than to hole up in your house alone until the end came. Who was he to say?
Besides, he couldn’t possibly explain everything he’d read over the past twelve hours. No one would believe him anyway. He still didn’t want to believe it himself.
“Well, you take care, man.” Noah said his goodbyes and headed back to his own house.
He glanced over at Parrish’s house again and thought about going over to talk to her. He kind of understood what she was going through. He’d lost his mother a long time ago, and it wouldn’t be long before his father was gone too. Maybe she needed someone to talk to just as much as he did.
But through the door, he could hear the sound of his father’s coughs echoing through the house. He rushed inside to take care of his dad, knowing their days together were numbered.
Karmen
Karmen was bored. And completely lonely.
How could Aaron be dead? She hadn’t heard from her mom since her flight had been canceled. Were her parents okay? Her brothers? She didn’t even know what was going on any
more. Out of all her friends, only Kate was even still responding to text messages. Her mother was sick and her little brother was dead, but the rest of her family seemed to be okay.
Karmen kept expecting this whole thing to blow over and life to go back to normal. Well, as normal as it could be after so much sickness and death. But how long could this thing really last, anyway? It had happened so fast that it only seemed logical it would pass just as quickly. Like a tornado or something. It comes in, does its damage, and then goes away. There’s a period of rebuilding and getting back to normal, but eventually, everything turns out okay.
So when did that rebuilding part start?
Karmen got off the couch, tired of watching Buffy reruns. She went up to her parents’ bedroom and fished her mom’s credit card out of her jewelry box. Shopping always made her feel better. Plus, if she didn’t get out of this house soon, she was going to go insane. She’d turned into a slob, eating peanut butter with a spoon and wearing the same pj’s for three days. She’d actually forced herself to take a shower and put on some make-up this morning and she wasn’t going to waste it.
She started down the stairs, but then turned around and went back into her parents’ bedroom. Since no one was here to tell her no, she might as well make the most of it.
Karmen went into her mom’s walk-in closet and stared at the large handbag collection. With a triumphant smile, she chose a black-patent Valentino bag with a large bow. She loved this bag and her mom never even let her so much as touch it. She tossed her black flip-flops to the side and stepped into a pair of Prada Mary-Janes. Her mom’s feet were exactly the same size as her own and the shoes fit perfectly.
She practically bounced all the way down the stairs. Instead of the keys to her own Toyota, she grabbed the keys to her mom’s sporty Audi. Her dad had bought this car as a surprise for her mom this past Christmas. It only had sixteen hundred miles on it, because her mom had been babying the darn thing. Well, today, the Audi was going to the mall.
Karmen slid into the leather bucket seat and closed the door. She breathed in deeply, the light scent of vanilla combined with new car smell. She gripped the steering wheel and smiled. This was exactly what she needed today. Why hadn’t she thought to get out before this? There were plenty of ways to have fun even if her friends weren’t here to see it. Besides, she’d probably run into a few people she knew at the mall. She always did.
