Decay | Book 1 | Civilization

by Spitznogle, D. L.

  Decay:

  Civilization

  D.L. Spitznogle

  Copyright © 2014 D.L. Spitznogle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Khonsu for the amazing artwork!

  Cover created by Khonsu

  SelfPubBookCovers.com/Khonsu

  Chapter 1

  The nightmares had been haunting Jonathan Sawyer’s dreams for the past few weeks. He tried to fight the sleep at first but knew he needed rest. Keeping his strength up and his mind sharp were more important now than ever before. Regardless of the fear, the restlessness, and the guilt, he slept.

  He opened his eyes knowing deep down that this was all a dream, yet he couldn’t convince his mind that what he was experiencing wasn’t real. Jonathan had no control over what was happening. His only choice was to accept the terror of what he would witness. He knew from experience that if he fought, he would certainly awake tired and sore from the tossing and turning.

  Jonathan Sawyer stood in this dream world, frightened and slightly dazed. He gazed out at his father, Brian, as the man made his way down the long driveway. He was a tall, thin man, and his long legs carried him quickly toward a blue Dodge Magnum that awaited him across the street. Inside, the woman and her two children screamed in terror.

  Their car had been hit in the driver’s side door and shoved over the sidewalk and into a tree. From there, the car wouldn’t move. Smoke drifted up from under the hood, and Jonathan could see puffs of smoke inside the car, as well.

  Jonathan felt the horror before seeing it. Men and women came rushing out from the nearby yards, surrounding the car and thrashing wildly against the windows. They seemed to be angry with the woman. Their pale skin made them look sickly.

  Bloody fists smashed into the windows again and again while the woman and her children screamed, begging to be left alone. Their pleas were lost on the crowd.

  Jonathan, however, couldn’t hear their screams. The world was totally void of sound. Perhaps his ears no longer picked up sound, but Jonathan knew that wasn’t it. The world around him just cancelled it out.

  His father turned and called back. Brian was to the end of the driveway, so Jonathan could only just make out the movement of his lips, but there was no sound to be heard. Brian waved his long arms frantically, signaling Jonathan to go back in the house where he would be safe.

  Jonathan knew that he should listen to his father, yet there was a strong urge to disobey. He ran down the driveway to help, but the sky transformed from the bright, sunny blue day to that of an apocalyptic red. The color washed down over the blue like wet paint spilled down a canvas. The sun melted and ran wax-like toward the horizon. Lightning streaked to the ground in bolts of green that lit up the world with brilliant flashes.

  The asphalt under his feet became sticky as it heated up, making it hard to move. He tried to lift his legs and run to his father. He wanted nothing more than to bring him back safely, but his legs quickly tired. Jonathan’s wrists began to itch wildly, and scratching them only made it worse, yet he scratched uncontrollably. The itching was followed by a sudden sharp pain. His wrists reddened, swelling until the skin tore open, revealing shackles made of bone.

  The pain forced him to his knees, and he screamed a silent scream. As Jonathan examined the bone shackles, he noticed the bloody chains attached. Each link was made of the same rough bone with strips of flesh dangling. He followed the chains back into the garage where a demonic looking reel sat. Cranking the horrible reel was a tall figure that Jonathan couldn’t make out clearly. He knew he’d soon be all too close.

  The reel clicked loudly as the pin dropped into each tooth of the gear, breaking the silence of the quiet world. With each click the chain pulled tighter and tighter. Jonathan stood and pulled with all of his strength. He clawed at the shackles, but he couldn’t free himself from their tight grasp. Panic took over as he began to slide up the driveway toward the ominous looking garage door.

  He dropped back down to his hands and knees and tried to dig in. The click. . . click. . . click of the reel was no longer the only sound in the dream world. Despite the stickiness of the asphalt, Jonathan couldn’t stop himself. Thinking of his father, he knew he could beat this. It was all a dream, and no dream would overpower his brilliant mind. He could free himself from these evil chains and save his father.

  This time. . . he was sure he could, yet fighting against the pull with every ounce of strength he could muster, Jonathan was still unable to counter the force.

  As his feet crossed the threshold into the garage, the slick floor caused him to lose traction, and he fell to his stomach. Rolling to his back, Jonathan looked up at the figure. With his eyes adjusting to the dark garage, he could see the creature perfectly. It could have been human, however, the shredded clothing it wore revealed flesh rotting from its thin body, and everything from above the bottom jaw was missing from its head as if removed by one clean slice.

  The tattered clothing was wet with blood. Its tongue flopped and danced grotesquely at the top of what was left of the monster’s head. Boney hands wrapped around the crank with skin so delicate it kept tearing. Thick maroon blood oozed from the openings, sticking to the floor in gelatinous globs.

  After fully taking in the gruesome sight, Jonathan let out another terrified, silent scream. Each click of the crank sounded louder than the last. With one last effort, he rolled onto his stomach and began to pull against the chains. He released another scream as the red world outside of the garage faded behind the closing garage door.

  Before being consumed by the blackness, Jonathan screamed one last time for his father.

  The scream shattered the silence, as it always had as this dream came to an end, causing Jonathan to sit up. The tears were warm on his face, and his sheets were wet with cold sweat. The scream that had awoken him was his own. The only thing he was thankful for was that the nightmares seemed to be taking up more and more of the night.

  Jonathan looked around his room as his eyes adjusted to the morning light shining in through the skylight. The thick curtains didn’t allow any light to pass through. Blocking out the sun saved on the cost of cooling during the summer.

  Along with the curtains, the high property wall stopped much of the sun from coming through in the early morning. Every house in the neighborhood had a wall. It took the “neighbor” out of neighborhood, but that’s what the people here paid for.

  The posters on the walls of Jonathan’s room were of various superheroes and cars. His action figures were on shelves neatly reenacting scenes from his favorite comics. The periodic table of elements hung on the wall while a model of several cellular structures dangled from the ceiling. He knew he was a nerd in every sense. Climbing out of his bed, he pulled the blankets and sheets off the mattress. Jonathan rolled them up into a ball and carried them out of his room.

  There were four doors besides Jonathan’s in the long hallway.
His brother Michael’s room was directly across the hall from his. To the right of Jonathan’s room was a closet at the end of the hall. Jonathan opened this closet door and dropped his balled-up bedding down the laundry chute. As he walked toward the other end of the hall he passed by the bathroom to his right, and his parent’s bedroom on the left.

  The open floor plan of the house kept the living area lit by the skylights. None of the lights in the house needed to be turned on during the day, the beautiful California sun made sure of that. A large sofa, along with matching chairs, a coffee table, and a fireplace made up the main sitting area in the family room. On the other side of the room sat another couch facing a large television. Jonathan moved through this room on his way to the kitchen to make breakfast.

  After eating, he showered. Wrapping himself in the towel, Jonathan stood before the vanity and wiped the condensation off the mirror. He was about five and a half feet tall with a little more growing to do. His dark brown hair matched his brown eyes. There was a hint of facial hair coming in on his smooth face above his upper lip and a darkening patch of peach fuzz on his chin. Something he was proud of. He didn’t care so much for a mustache, but he couldn’t wait for his beard to grow in.

  Jonathan walked downstairs to start his bedding in the laundry. The basement was lined with shelves full of canned food and bottled water. The skylight ran through the walls of the house, using an intricate mirror system to allow light down into the basement as well, but even then, the fluorescent lights usually came on whenever he went downstairs.

  A small greenhouse where various vegetables and herbs grew stood in the center of the basement. Jonathan’s father, Brian, started preparing for the collapse of civilization two years ago, and in that time he had acquired enough food and water to feed his family for what he estimated to be about twenty years if the garden held up, including what was grown in the backyard.

  Brian also put his wife, Kathy, and their two sons through various survival courses. They were trained in everything from basic wilderness survival to hand-to-hand combat. Jonathan had the most fun learning how to shoot. The family spent several hours each month at a shooting range in the hills outside of town. Unfortunately, Jonathan was only allowed to fire the small caliber pistols and rifles, but he became a very proficient shooter and was confident in his abilities to shoot the larger firearms.

  Neither Jonathan nor Michael cared much for the hand-to-hand combat training. “Every problem can be solved with the mind. Anybody that is not smart enough to reason with is not worth your time.” Brian had told them that many times before deciding that they would learn to fight just in case. Both of the boys took to the idea of not wasting their time on people who couldn’t be reasoned with, but Brian was set on them learning.

  Jonathan made his way back upstairs and checked the time. It was seven o’clock in the morning. The dreams were lasting longer or starting later. This was good, he supposed. Walking back toward his bedroom, he stopped in front of his parent’s door. Maybe he would go in and check today. He often felt like going in to check in the mornings. His parents usually woke up around eight. Deciding not to go in, he walked back into his own room to play video games.

  His parents wouldn’t be in their bed anyway. He knew they wouldn’t even be in the room. They were gone. His mother and brother went to visit his aunt in Iowa. Jonathan hadn’t heard from them in three weeks. A week after they left, his father went to help a woman and her children. They’d been in an accident. Brian had seen that they needed help, so he opened the large gate leading off the property and ran out to them. Only the attackers had made it to them first. Realizing that he wouldn’t make it back through the gate, Brian yelled to Jonathan to close it and run inside.

  Jonathan was scared, and he did what his father had told him without question. Not running out to help his father was the worst mistake he’d ever made. He hadn’t seen his father since, and he doubted he was coming back. Was he even alive? Jonathan did know that the guilt he felt for leaving his father out there had manifested into a demon that haunted his dreams.

  The attack came from out of nowhere. Jonathan still isn’t sure who attacked or why. They didn’t resemble soldiers from any army. He was sure he had recognized a few of them from around town. This made him wonder if this attack was planned out years ago, and whoever they were had spies placed in communities across America. These terrorists created and lived lives that were not theirs just so they could attack at the right time.

  He didn’t even know if they were still attacking, but he remembered that day well. Reliving it in his mind grew exhausting, but he kept doing it in hopes that he would pick up something that he missed before. Nothing ever seemed to stand out. His father talked from the time he picked him up from school until they made it home, but Jonathan hasn’t been able to sort all of it out.

  Jonathan threw himself on his bed and stared at the structures hanging from his ceiling. He reached over and picked up a plastic model of the human brain that he had ordered from a science magazine. Opening it up, he removed the hippocampus and held it up. He thought that holding the part of the brain that controlled memory would help him remember.

  He focused on the day of the attack.

  His earliest memory of that day was sitting in the Clay Hills High School classroom of Mrs. Johnson, a pleasant woman who truly enjoyed working with the students. Her hair was just beginning to gray. Wire-framed glasses rested on her nose. She sat at her desk in the corner of the room. A copy of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in her hands. Jonathan was working on an English paper that she’d assigned the day before.

  The phone rang on the wall, causing the sounds of pencils scratching on paper to halt, and all the students looked up from their work, successfully distracted. Mrs. Johnson sat the book down and turned toward the wall as she answered the phone in an attempt to remain as quiet as possible in hopes of the students returning to work without much fidgeting. Jonathan couldn’t hear the conversation.

  After hanging up the phone, she made her way to Jonathan’s seat. “Your father is waiting in the lobby to pick you up early today. Go ahead and put your things away, and I’ll see you when you come back. The paper is due next Monday, so you have plenty of time to work on it,” she said with a kind smile that made the skin on the outside of her eyes wrinkle. She’d heard of Jonathan’s aunt and assumed this must be the reason for his father picking him up.

  “Thank you. I will have it finished as soon as I return,” Jonathan replied with a crooked smile.

  “Sure thing, I’ll see you then. I hope everything is fine.”

  Brian was pacing impatiently as Jonathan made his way into the lobby. Even at the time Jonathan found this to be odd for his father, a man usually bursting with confidence. His father still greeted him with a pleasant smile and asked him about his day as he urged him toward the car. Jonathan noticed that his father’s hands had been bandaged, and he looked like he had been through hell.

  Engulfed in the comfort of the passenger seat of his father’s carbon black BMW 740i sedan, Jonathan tried to make some sense out of what his father was saying. Jonathan was very bright for a fifteen-year-old, but he couldn’t keep up with the things his father rambled about. He chattered on as if he’d gone completely mad, speaking of cellular regrowth and regeneration, the impact it would have had on the world if done right, and how it all went wrong.

  “We shouldn’t have tried to go against nature, Johnny. Too many bad things happen under the guise of making this world a better place. Never think that science is tainted though, Johnny. It just happens to fall into the hands of ignorant men like myself.” Brian had not called him Johnny since he was little. Jonathan couldn’t imagine his father having any regrets about the work that he does. From what he knew, his father’s work was helping people live longer and healthier lives.

  Jonathan took a moment to think about some of the things his father had said, as he usually did at this point. He was certain that whate
ver his father was saying about cellular regeneration was the important part. That is what he needed to focus on and remember. He felt that he should have paid more attention to his father on that car ride home. He loved biology and was amazed by what his father did, but for some reason he didn’t listen close enough that day.

  Obviously, what he was working on is important in some way, Jonathan thought.

  The remainder of the car ride, Jonathan sat quietly while his father spoke to himself under his breath. Brian grabbed the remote for the gate as they pulled up in front of their house. The large steel gate slid open smoothly. Many of the other homes in this neighborhood (again losing the neighbor aspect of the whole thing) had gates as well, but none as excessive as this eight-foot-tall monstrosity.

  Intertwined through the bars of the gate was steel cable. Jonathan always felt like it was a maximum-security prison. Before the odd shift toward safety, their gate was minimal, but when Brian custom ordered the new one, he went all out. A delightful flower design was even added to the exterior side to shut up the HOA.

  The large gate shut behind them as they drove up the driveway and came to a stop in the garage. Jonathan unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed out of the car. Walking up to the door leading into the house, they walked past a ladder bolted to the wall that led up and out onto the rooftop. Brian wanted a way to keep an eye on things outside. Michael always joked that his father should have just put in a periscope. As his father slipped further into paranoia, Jonathan wondered if it really wasn’t a joke at all.

  Immediately after walking inside, Brian pulled his phone out of his pocket and called his wife. “You need to either get home now or take Michael and find somewhere safe to be,” he warned. “I can’t be sure, but I think we went too far. The subject came back. Nobody else made it out of the building, and I’m afraid contamination is spreading fast.”