I Am Frank (Beginnings Series)

by Frank Slagel

  “Bury the battle ground?” General asked.

  “Burn it.”

  The General snickered. “Burn out Pittsburgh? Nuke? What?” he shook his head at Frank. “No, Sergeant. I believe we know what we’re doing. Follow your orders and we seal off the city.” The General walked to the door and as he did put out the order to blow up all access routes into town.

  Frank and I were the only ones left.

  “You’re supposed to be like this brilliant guy,” Frank said.

  “I am.”

  “You are. May I borrow that line?” Frank asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think we already lost control. I agree with you.”

  Okay, keep in mind; I honestly believed that Frank was a brilliant man, so I had a conversation as such.

  “Thank you.” Frank extended his hand. “It’s good to know that officers like you exist. I look forward to working with you, Sir.”

  Sir.

  Frank called me sir.

  Not only was it the last time I would see Frank for a while, But it was also the last time I’d ever hear him spout the word ‘sir’ in reference to me.

  When we get into the survivor portion, whenever that may be. You’ll know why.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Bravo Company. Bravo Company. Something’s happening at the hockey arena.”

  When the radio call came in, we knew which arena it was. There was one main arena in town. One that was easy to get to and not shut off.

  At first, you know, I thought there was rioting. After all people were fuckin’ pissed off about the bridges. It could have been people fighting about the home team losing. Or, the Army didn’t want us to miss a really good game. It was the Stanley cup and we were stuck. So we didn’t think we’d see what we saw.

  Would you?

  We planned on going in there, tossing some gas, getting things under control and go back to bitching about the bridges.

  We get there, and people are running from the arena screaming.

  Fuck, man, these people in this town do not handle losing.

  That’s what I thought until I went in there. I divided my men into squads, and led the first squad in.

  People were screaming for us to save them.

  I was thinking, what the fuck. You’re running out of here, you’re safe.

  Then I saw.

  My first Sgt said, “Look at that.”

  I did. Fuck me.

  Hockey players were in the stands. And they were tearing people apart with their hands and teeth. A fuckin’ blood bath.

  “Sarge, what’s the call? Shoot? Gas?”

  “Let’s try shooting,” I said. “If that doesn’t work, we’ll gas this place and blow it up.”

  “On your call.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Look at the ice.”

  Two hockey players from two different teams had this referee. They were fighting over him. Pulling. Tugging. It was awesome.

  “Wait.” I said.

  Then the hockey players did it. The head of the ref popped off. Man, I bet that was one of those subconscious zombie kills. “Okay. Shoot.”

  And we shot.

  We killed many. There were only about twenty. And people don’t turn into monsters after being bit so we were good.

  <><><><>

  For the purpose of this story, let’s pretend there is this special secret room at the arena. Not that it’s a secret, it may or may not be, but we’ll say it is. I don’t even know if there really is one, but it makes the story cool to make up one.

  A room where they not only have security cameras but instant replay of the game.

  After we wiped out the monsters, me and my men went to this room.

  We started watching what happened and when in the game. The players were on the bench hacking, the announcer didn’t fuckin’ notice. He’s announcing. And it just happened like all of the sudden.

  The announcer said, “Looks like that player isn’t very happy with the ref.”

  Fuck I wouldn’t be either with the way he called that play. But the player started tearing into the ref, and the fuckin’ announcer didn’t even notice. He said, “Wait. Is that player . . . biting the ref?”

  At what point are you gonna announce. Monster! Monsters in the house!

  Within seconds of the player biting the ref, blood fuckin’ shooting like a fountain, all the players hopped over the wall and started tearing into fans.

  I had enough.

  I couldn’t watch anymore.

  Not that it was gross, but it started to get boring.

  Movies are better.

  Anyhow, we learned a lot that day. It was the start of it all.

  Man, was that a brilliant fuckin’ chapter or what? Suspense. Thriller. Best seller.

  I’m like the author guy.

  CHAPTER FIVE – DEAN

  Author guy Frank? Oh my God. Okay, you want suspense, thriller, edge of the seat, this is one of those chapters. All right, admittedly, it won’t be as cool as the hockey arena incident; I did see the footage of that.

  The day they ordered the city sealed, I took my seat on top of what used to be the United States steel building, sixty five stories high. I could see all three rivers and every bridge for miles and miles, and there I watched jets stream across the sky blasting out the bridges.

  Boats, helicopters, no means of transportation out was safe.

  The orders were to seal off the city and execute all actions to insure that no one go in or out.

  It was a brilliant sight.

  Sealing off the city was useless, I knew as did many people that the virus had already broken the boundaries and crossed into other areas.

  We were fighting on ground zero.

  Okay, stepping out of book character for a second, this is a total rip off of I am Legend, just so you know, that’s what Frank wanted me to do. I’m trying to be creative, but when I can’t think of anything original I’ll take from that.

  Anyhow . . .

  I didn’t want to leave ground zero, much like Neville in I am legend.

  It was my battle ground, my virus, my war to win.

  An unwinnable war, sadly.

  It got ahead.

  What the sealing off the city did was lock people inside the city with a mutated virus that turned a lot of people into madmen.

  If the virus didn’t kill them the mutants did.

  I watched the virus go from a several day incubation period to an instantaneous, no pre symptoms full blown state of infection.

  When that happened, there was nothing you could do short of killing the victim.

  Unfortunately, I went into lock down.

  I didn’t want to.

  I went to the arena to view the footage; it was the first of many incidents like that.

  In order to preserve the world, try to cure the virus, I was sealed off in a room five stories below ground. I had food, water, others were there.

  I truly one hundred percent thought they were going to nuke the city.

  But that never happened.

  The virus broke out on March 1st; I was called in on March 10th. The bridges were blown at the end of March, and all hell broke out one week later.

  On the fifteenth day of April I was placed underground.

  What happened above me from that moment on is only hearsay. I was sheltered from the elements, the virus and everything else.

  Imagine the mindset and shock when faced with the world in which I emerged.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I guess at this point, you’re like, “Why the fuck aren’t we hearing about he’s a survivor in Pittsburgh.”

  Well, I had to give you some background.

  So, here I am a survivor in Pittsburgh. My place is fuckin’ decked out. I don’t live in the city, I kind of live out of the city, but not out of the city where it’s the suburbs, it would be too interesting.

  A ghetto is just outside of the city, but considered cit
y, so that’s where I lived.

  I had a house, I decked it out. My own generators and shit.

  Guess who survived?

  Fuckin’ Dean, the scientist. He found me. He was like, “Take care of me.”

  Fuck that. Take care of yourself, Dean, you started this shit.

  Of course he said he didn’t. He was innocent. So I told him I’d visit him, offer him food if he got hungry. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about him wanting me. After all, I am Frank.

  Get it? I am Frank?

  If you don’t, it’s the title of the book. This book. Not another, I don’t know if there’s another book called, “I am Frank’. There is one called Frank’s Day out. And Diary of Anne Frank. She was some deaf girl in Germany who learned to read and write, or something like that. Of course, if she couldn’t read or write, she couldn’t write a dairy about learning to read or write.

  Ever wonder where titles come from? I hate when you watch something and the title doesn’t make sense with the movie. You’re like, what the fuck does this title have to do with the movie?

  The classics, now they had a lot to do with movies. Like the Horse Soldiers, it was about Horse Soldiers. But that could be misleading. I mean, if you aren’t real big on military you may think The Horse Soldiers is a movie about horses that are soldiers. Easy confusion on that one.

  But the movie title that always confused me the most was, “The Day After Tomorrow” A movie about a fuckin’ ice age.

  An ice age. What the fuck does the day after tomorrow have to do with the ice age. And isn’t the day after tomorrow really tomorrow? So why would they call it tomorrow? Not that tomorrow has anything to do with the ice age. If it were me, I’d call it, ‘Ice Age’ or ‘Big Snow in New York’, but then again, another movie about New York. Survivors in New York, that’s why I chose Pittsburgh.

  You don’t see an ice age hitting Pittsburgh in a movie.

  Zombie attacks, yeah.

  Then again, Independence Day destroyed the fuck out of New York and there were no survivors.

  Okay maybe there were and we just didn’t see them. After all, the movie wasn’t about New York; it was about fuckin’ aliens, which I know we’ll be having next in Beginnings. You know it.

  End of the world books and movies are always my favorite, but did you ever notice the same people are in the disaster movie circuit. What the hell? It’s like some have this flair for being survivors. Like me. There was this old actor from the seventies, his name was George Kennedy, not like John F Kennedy the president, I don’t’ think they were related, they might have been. Not sure.

  Probably because they were both alcoholics.

  George was in all these disaster movies. He wasn’t in Poseidon adventure. He was in a movie called Virus, not to be confused with this movie, and Earthquake. He was also in Airport with Charlton Heston. Who was in Omega Man, which is one of the three makes of the book I am Legend, Did you know that? Vincent Price was in the first one. Boring fuckin’ Movie. Chuck Heston in Omega Man. Lots of people think that he’s the disaster movie guy; I guess he is, he was in Airport and Earthquake, too. Plus Soylent Green. Good fuckin’ movie. You gotta love him. He’s like the inspiration to all of us post apocalyptic guys.

  You get yourself in a situation and you think, “What would Heston do.”

  Anyhow, where was I? I don’t remember.

  Let me read back.

  Okay, I did.

  I was talking about surviving and my decked out place.

  I didn’t leave Pittsburgh, I could have, I wanted to. But one thing kept me there.

  No, it wasn’t the desire to kill all the mutants, okay, maybe a part of it was. Kill all the mutants, make the world safe. I could do that, I am Frank.

  Man I crack myself up.

  I didn’t stay in Pittsburgh, because it’s cool. Or because my house was awesome.

  I stayed in Pittsburgh because I knew.

  Somewhere, somehow ‘she’ survived and was hiding. I would find her.

  My one true love.

  I know, you’re probably thinking, what a lame thing to write about at the end of the chapter, but you gotta change it up once and a while and show how sensitive a hero can be.

  I am.

  CHAPTER SIX – DEAN

  There were eighteen of us that went into that shelter and let me tell you it was nothing less than a nightmare as it all unraveled.

  Airtight didn’t make a difference the virus was everywhere and thirteen of the others came down with the virus, six of them became mutants.

  The mutants killed four off in the shelter.

  I was able to fight them off, survive, eventually outsmart them and kill them.

  It was about six weeks after being placed in the shelter that I discovered what had happened to the world.

  There was a time that I didn’t think that was going to happen.

  See, the doors were on auto lock, and the system went down. Last one alive, last man standing, I knew I had immunity, and I knew I had to get out of there.

  When I tried, I realized how stuck I was.

  It took some thought, but I managed to unlock the ventilation system and crawl my way out. I packed and took what I needed. I hadn’t a clue at that point what I would walk into. The world could be nuked, gone, a disaster or fine.

  The vent emerged into an underground tunnel, just inside of the parking garage we entered to get to the shelter.

  The garage was dark, even for daylight. But I couldn’t take a chance. Those things. Those mutants could be in the dark tunnel. Yes, daylight was safe out in the open, but the night was another story.

  Okay, another I am Legend rip off.

  Back to my story.

  I dropped the ten feet from the vent to the garage floor and began to quickly make my way to the ramps. Nearing the top, I heard the scuffle.

  Footsteps.

  Someone or perhaps something was coming my way.

  A hint of light peeked through the ramp of the garage and the shadowy figure appeared. It was large, arms extended in attack mode.

  I couldn’t take a chance, those things were fast, super fast – that of course is a rip off of the Dawn of the Dead remake.

  I had the revolver; I cocked the chamber and aimed.

  “Sir,” he called out. “Sir don’t shoot.”

  Knowing those ‘things’ lose ability to communicate, I lowered my weapon and stepped closer. It was then I recognized him. “Sgt. Slagel?”

  “Yes, sir.” Frank ran to me. “I knew people were in this shelter, I was told not to retrieve you for six weeks if I hadn’t run into any of you.” He extended a hand. “It is so good to see you, sir. Finally some leadership.”

  “Thank you.” I accepted the handshake. “Tell me, Sgt. Slagel. What’s it like up there.”

  “Bad. Real bad. I am so glad I have a companion now. There’s no one left. Not many.”

  I hated to do it to him; he looked so desperate, so lost. “Sgt. Slagel. I . . . I need to be on my own to figure this thing out.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out.”

  I nodded. “I’ll stay with you until I get a working lab, but for my own piece of mind, I need to sort through things. You understand?”

  “No.”

  “After I get things together, you’ll have to be on your own for a while.”

  “Can we stay in contact?” Frank asked. “I hate to be alone.”

  “Yes,” I said with reassurance to a frightened Frank. “Yes, we can.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN – FRANK

  Oh, my fuckin’ God.

  Wait, I can’t even think right now.

  Let me repeat that.

  Oh my fuckin’ God. Little man Dean’s idea of what happened is so far from the truth. I called him, ‘sir?’ the fuckin’ world ended while he hid out, trust me, I was calling no one sir.

  I was scared to be alone?

  I think it was the shock of the whole situation that made him distort what really went on
.

  Let me tell you.

  Everyone that was gonna get the virus and die, got the virus and died.

  Everyone that was going to turn into a mutant fuckin’ monster, turned into a mutant fuckin’ monster.

  There were two types of people left.

  Well, three. Okay, maybe not three. One type with two sub types. Yeah, that’s what I would call them. Sub types.

  Hey, I wonder if people on submarines get the virus or if being underwater helped.

  The fish didn’t get it, so I would think that people in the water in a sub didn’t get it.

  I once saw this movie about a submarine that had this nuclear weapon that was leaking and everyone died.

  But they were Russians so it didn’t matter.

  I wonder if the virus left the US. It hit Canada but that doesn’t count as a foreign country.

  Anyhow, back to my story.

  There is one type of person left, the survivor, but the survivor is broken down into two different categories. We’ll call them Frank and Dean’s.

  The Frank’s went out and looked for mutants to kill; they were scared they got killed in battle.

  The Dean’s hid. Eventually they started dying because they were pussies and were just too afraid.

  I remembered my orders, Even though technically, there was no more Army, but I remembered my orders. I could have said fuck it. Okay, and to be honest, I kind of did for a week, because I figured they locked fifty people in a room they were gonna blast me, when I thought of it like a video game I went to the shelter.

  My whole entire plan was go there, kill the mutants, leave and do my thing.

  I went there, placed in the code. Yeah, Dean, there was a code to get in there. Didn’t think of that, did you? No. anyhow, I placed in my code.

  Man it stunk. Not a sound of life.

  I was just about to leave when I heard it.

  Whimpering.

  Like someone crying.

  I listened, determined it was a man, and decided to leave. If some man was there crying, he certainly wasn’t the type I wanted to have hanging around with me.