Immediate Survivors

by Cenz Barone

  When Kenny awoke from his passing out he was unsure if hours had passed or a day into another night had, such was the state he was in and this accounted for his uncertainty about when he first encountered those things as he would later call them. But the room was far darker than it was prior to him passing out. Whereas before he closed the curtains tight and it prevented the sunlight entering his room, now behind the curtains was blackness. The room itself, bar the lime coloured digital clock near the bed, on the bed side table was free of light. As his eyes opened slowly he could make out the outline of objects in his bedroom, the location of the desk and the chair up against the wall with the horizontal mirror going across its length, and he saw the bed, with the indication of bedding and the television on the wall in the corner. Kenny was also able to see some degree of light in this darkened room because the streetlights outside, which were dotted around the car park, made it possible as the ever so slightly illuminated the darkened closed curtains, but it was very slight, the visibility.

  On the floor near him was his mobile phone from whence he dropped it before passing out, so Kenny started to stand up. He now tried to recall earlier on, before he passed out, asking what time of the day did he experience those events, it was light towards the early evening so maybe it was all a bad dream. Maybe a nightmare he made up, and he imagined people being attacked, and in turn attacking those who tried to help them. Kenny, once he stood up walked away from where he had been sleeping against the wall and went out towards the end of the bed, he made his way towards the door, going ever so slowly. Kenny made footsteps as light as he dared make them. He came towards the open clothing cupboard which had some of his clothing attached to coat hangers, and passed his laptop on the desk opposite the bed. He was now in line with the en suite bathroom which was adjacent to the door to his hotel room. On the back of the hotel door, he saw the fire escape instruction, this he could see as it glowed in the dark.

  Kenny sighed heavily, leaning up against the door. He was no longer shaking as aggressively as he once was, and though his hands were clammy and his breathing protracted he was in some degree of control of his faculties. Kenny wrapped his hand around the door knob and breathed deeply, he opened the door slowly and the fresh gust of air hit his nostrils. And he poked his head outside, looking to the direction he recalled the injured hotel staff member was. But the staffer had gone, in fact it was quiet out there, bar the nurse who was still there. Only the nurse was not standing or sitting, she was not in charge of the situation as she told Kenny when she shooed him away. Now the nurse was lying on the floor. Kenny felt his hair stand up on the back of his neck and forearms. It wasn’t a dream, being his first thoughts.

  Kenny crept up the corridor towards her, as he did so he noticed the rooms he passed were in a state of frenzy, some doors were open with blood on the walls and also evidence of a rushed affair with people’s suitcases in the corridor, and it was horrible to think about what had taken place when he was asleep. He did not even know how long he was passed out for and was, as he was walking to think how long he was passed out, it was probably the same day, a few hours later perhaps. Regardless of these distracting thoughts, Kenny kept his eyes focused on the nurse and when he reached her. Her head was closer towards the direction of his room and she was on her front. Kenny was scared at what he found find when he reached her, as he came to be within 5 meters of her, it was then he realised the severity of her position.

  He covered his mouth, because he saw blood underneath her, like it had hardened into a pool all around her body, but he was unsure if it was the injured staffer’s blood. His hunch told him she was dead but he needed to be sure, so he went on his knees and shook her by the shoulder "Excuse me. Miss, can you hear me?" but no answer was forthcoming from her, his brief shaking of her, rendered no physical reply, like she was lifeless. Kenny was taking double quick breaths at this point but he then took her by the left shoulder and used his strength to pull her onto her back. She was a very petite woman so it did not require a lot of strength. Only when he brought her to be on her back, he flinched backwards. The woman had her blouse ripped with her bra ripped also and bite marks as well as large tracts of flesh were missing from her chest. Her throat was pulled out and her nose was torn off, one of her eyes had been gouged. She had been mauled and it was obvious to Kenny what might have been the cause, because her frontal face had been torn through with bite marks, he could tell this due to the imprints of teeth.

  Kenny nearly went sick from being so close to the sight. He started to feel his tears well up due to the barbarity of the injuries, and though he did not know this woman, who was rude and patronising to him earlier, he felt so sorry for her. He felt unable to deal with the grief of seeing such a mangled body. It was then he heard far down the corridor, which was away from his side but past the stairs leading down into the lobby and also going up to other floors a noise. Kenny looked up and heard a groan. Kenny was unsure where it was coming from exactly, as the silence meant the echo made it feel like it was coming from all over the place. This sound was enough to spook him, so he stood up and rushed back to his hotel room, when he reached the door it was locked shut.

  Kenny was nervous and in his panic he knocked the door, as though someone was inside to let him in. The groan from afar was heard again, and a crashing sound coming from a floor above was heard by him, as if someone had fallen. The corridor down the far end of his corridor also caused him to glance down because he heard footsteps and then a shout of pain.

  Finally he came to his senses and recalled he needed the card key to enter. He placed his hand into his left pocket and pulled out the key card, he swiped it down and the door to his hotel room opened. Kenny immediately went inside and closed the door as he double locked it and then rushed towards the bathroom. His inside were ruptured it felt like, as he slid on his knees before the toilet and began to violently vomit into the toilet, as though he was throwing up alcohol. Kenny picturing the blood and guts of the nurse, as well as recalling the sight in the diner with the female staffer tearing at the chef, and not to mention the violent murder he saw in the car park committed by those men and then woman and her baby and how confusing that situation was. It could not be real, those attacked looked like they had been killed but stood up and attacked others, what kind of madness is this he wondered. The woman who was the mother of the baby who attacked the construction workers who came to her aid, to join in her original assailant, but then her baby, that baby who crawled so strangely when its pram was upturned after itself was attacked.

  Kenny went sick several times, and felt the sweat on his face develop as it dropped from the cusp of his forehead into the toilet basin, joining all the sick within. He tried to compose himself and as he stood up, he was too scared to flush the toilet lest he draw noise to his room from outside on the corridor. Instead he went to the sink of the bathroom and put on the wall light. Kenny closed his eyes and began to put the water taps on, he was eager to wash his face and bring some physical calm to his senses. After around 10 minutes of trying to steady his breathing he felt strong enough to leave the bathroom. When he made his way out of the bathroom and back into his room, he sat on the bottom of the bed and leaned forward towards the desk to take the remote control for the television. He hit the on button. He was still in a trance, still frozen but was trying to keep cool.

  He turned nervously towards the door, and heard nothing outside. He closed his eyes and pressed the mute button on the remote control, and then he began looking at the television, he noticed some channels were streaming regular programming. He skipped through cooking shows, reality television shows, soap operas, sporting programmes, dramas of all kinds of genres and reality television shows. But he started to notice that many of the channels also had text below the screen which was moving from the left to the right. The text was indicating for viewers to put on the news channel, which was a 24/7 news channel.

  Kenny like a willing consumer obeyed and when he put on the main news
channel, it was clear that early reporting was coming into the networks concerning what was happening. The anchors on television looked a little more human than normal he thought, with their facial expression betraying what they were paid to read from the script but this was in the early stages before a sense of direction from the higher ups could be had on the networks to try and convey what was taking place, at least amongst the mainstream media. Kenny like so many others watched on as the world became aware of the madness which had suddenly engulfed the planet. Of course as far as anyone was aware at this point, it was all localised but this was escalating and the situation was constantly changing.

  Kenny sat on the bed glued to the screen, he placed the volume up a little bit from mute, and just enough so he could hear it and so he settled into watching in dread. He went towards his phone on the floor and returned back to his spot to sit down on, and he noticed the signal was now poor but the internet seemed to be fine, again this was odd. Nevertheless this was his first experience of this strange episode. It marked the beginning of him enduring it, and even though the outbreak of these attacks began in small parts earlier the previous night, it was only in the following day that it took hold. The timeline for Kenny like many others was all mixed up because people experienced it at different times, but the news reports of something serious happening only kicked in this night. Showing how his reasoning changed in this short space of time, Kenny realised the nurse, who was dead and attacked by those things was still remaining down on the floor, where she was probably killed, why had she not moved. So Kenny rushed towards his hotel door, and slowly opened it, he looked down just hoping in a sick way to see her body there, where it was before he ventured out following waking up, but the nurse had gone, her body no longer seen. Kenny looked to the opposite direction but saw nothing, it was eerie and all he had was the humming of the corridor light. A hum he suddenly noticed, and this showed how attune his senses were at this point to his environment, because he never noticed that hum before. Kenny shut his hotel door, and double locked it once more. He turned back to his hotel room within and thought I have to get out of here.

  Of course this memory was from the previous evening for Kenny to where he was now on this evening some 24 hours thereabouts since but Kenny's experience in the hotel was far from over following the original interlude with those things. However, as of right now he was with strangers, his fellow survivors in another stranger’s house on a cold wintery evening in Oxford. Listening to the battering rain and weird noises all throughout the suburban streets hitting the house they had made their own, and he like them was trying to find sanctuary, trying to find peace and trying to stay alive. All of them tried to come to terms with what had and was still taking place. Kenny's remembering of the hotel eased off him now as he came back to the present slowly and his nightmarish daydream of hotel hell receded.

  Chapter 9 - Settling In

  Kenny's gaze following this involuntary memory of recent events was now thrust back into refocusing on the electrical fire of the house he was in, just before he went under. The electrical fire being the catalyst for him to become aware of his surroundings in the periphery as he was brought out of his daydream by a voice that said “Has anyone got any matches, or a lighter?” this being the voice of Cherie. Kenny turned to her and he focused on her, Cherie stood in the living room of this stranger’s house, holding four candles before her that she had found. The television was still streaming in the background. Kenny was leaning against the wall and wiped his eyes, having come out the memory totally by this point, and he gradually woke up to the present. Kenny remained staring at Cherie, this young woman with her dyed bright red hair holding those candles looking hopefully at the strangers around her to reply to her question. Her big blue eyes on a pretty face desperate for a reply, but it was Grant who stood up from the sofa and replied to Cherie “Good idea. It is better to use candles than artificial light, that kind of light might attract people here" saying this without a sense of irony that the television’s artificial light had been on for so long.

  Grant saying this all the same despite the curtains being drawn and the lounge being in the middle of the house, which was far removed from the streets outside which were at the front, the terrace nature of the house meant nobody would be able to look into the side of the house, and the far backyard of the lane meant they were safe from anyone noticing from the rear. Grant scrambled into his pocket and pulled up a box of matches, and he handed the box of matches to Cherie “Here, use these” he said friendlily towards her. Cherie took the matches and without a word placed the candles she held onto the coffee table in the lounge and lit them all one by one. Kenny was just quiet in the background observing her do this. As Cherie lit each candle, the room slowly became brighter, and more comforting.

  Cherie blew the match, placing it onto the coffee table delicately and mindful of this being someone else is house, even though those household owners were not present and could quite possibly be dead. Cherie next began to place each of the four candles into the respective four corners of the room all were in. Once she did so, everyone went back to watching the television. Everyone was made themselves as comfortable as they dared to in another’s abode

  Kenny still leaning up against the wall and was himself falling asleep a little once more but he managed to keep himself awake by focusing on the scenes being broadcast from the television, and each scene was as unbelievable as the previous. The scenes of complete horror being streamed towards him made Kenny for the first time since this all began happening be thankful he was no longer on the streets. He tried to take solace in the fact he was now in a house, that they had boarded up and no longer had to worry about petrol running out, he no longer had to be worried about being stranded in a van with those things breaking through the windows.

  The heavy eyes of Kenny were rearing itself once more and Kenny just hoped maybe he could switch off the mental chatter in his mind, so he could actually sleep. What prevented him from sleeping were the noises outside the house, which everyone in this house could not detach themselves from being aware of, it was like thudding noises in the air faraway taunting them with just how close they can come to where they were. The noises were hard to decipher here than they were in the van, but the possibilities which played in their thoughts about the source of the noises ranged from the screams of someone running for their life, or someone being viciously mauled. Yet what did not change was the light wailing groans of those things. Due to their positioning in a built up area it was just more directive, and sometimes they heard explosions or crashes of some kind from afar. It seemed to silently filter through the walls and into the bones of their skulls to play havoc with each is thought’s.

  Kenny carefully held the rifle near him and like everyone else was trying to put into order the events of the last couple of days from their individual perspective. Kenny's memories although aloof from what would be deemed reasonable were disjointed but it was an honest reflection of what he had endured during the last couple of days, he kept coming back to that almost couple of day number.

  Kenny wondered, was it post-traumatic stress what he was currently experiencing, but how, surely post-traumatic meant the event had passed, but his event was still ongoing. Or was he in the preliminary stages of suffering a breakdown of some kind, and all he was currently experiencing was the beginning of a psychotic episode. It would make sense if it was he reasoned. Kenny thought about all the stresses he had been under lately preceding the civil unrest, mainly to do with examinations and living in his university dorm.

  As he thought about his eccentric games of pretending to be wealthy as he killed time by booking appointments into the most expensive of houses and also his financial worries. These thoughts just drifted across his mind within seconds and then disappeared because slowly it mattered little. He also thought of his family and those people he knew on the outskirts of Bristol, what were they enduring he wondered.

  He told himself there was little he
could do to assist or help anyone else who was far from him. At the moment it was all about personal survival, and Kenny's own role in maintaining his own personal survival seemed to be questionable in how well he was doing or how long he would last. He tried to grasp his thoughts and that nagging sensation once more crept in, he could not ignore it. The nagging sensation which told him that after all the happenings in the last couple of days, he never imagined he would still be hiding. He honestly thought he would have found help by now, at least in the form of the authorities who would be in charge of everything and reassure him like they would everyone else.

  Kenny in his naive moments believed the senseless propaganda he heard on the television and radio, concerning what was taking place was the result of some kind of terrorist attack via a chemical assault that made everyone crazy. Even though his own eyes wouldn't allow him to accept it wholeheartedly due to what he had personally witnessed and also knew from other media reporting that it was a global pandemic, least they were reserved on officialising this but then again what was officialising it. He also wanted to believe the reports of the authorities via the media concerning highly trained personnel leading a fight back, with all the weapons and expertise available at their disposal, so that no worry would be left to nurture.

  Why not Kenny reasoned, Britain was after all a technologically advanced country. He further sometimes naively believed what he earlier on witnessed was isolated incidents, but this was far more regional than consigned to just the parts of Oxford as he had been exposed to, and byway of the accounts from the television and now the radio it was likely national and probably global, in fact the connection between all these incidents was becoming more obvious. Obvious in ways the media could not downplay anymore even if they had some kind of slip to telling the truth about this, whatever it was, he knew it was here to stay.