“Hello. I am here tonight because I want to deliver this news to you personally. As I speak, this information is being released to governments and the media worldwide for the purpose of preventing needless panic. Everything will be OK. I must reiterate that everything is, and will be, fine.
“There is an asteroid headed for us, ‘us’ meaning the Earth. It will hit the city of Ufa in Russia. This city will be obliterated. But…”
“Wait a minute!” A reporter jumped to his feet shouting, “You lied about Ufa? How long have you known about this asteroid?” There was an angry murmur swelling among the other reporters.
An older woman stood. “So it wasn’t a stockpile of bio weapons too large and dangerous to move. You lied to our faces. How dare you?”
The president motioned, and two Secret Service agents moved quickly to remove the reporter. She resisted them as others began to stand and shout questions.
The president shouted, “Sit down! Sit down now or I will empty this room!” No one responded. Things were chaotic enough that the Secret Service took the president away.
The general scowled.
These idiots are more upset at being kept out of the loop than to hear what message the president of the United States has to deliver.
One reporter stood on a chair and started shouting. A Secret Service agent tased him. He hit the ground, and two agents flipped him and cuffed him. This sent a clear message that they meant business. The other reporters quieted down and began filing out of the room.
Once the room was calm, a handful of reporters were brought back in. The president addressed them, but the damage had been done. The press had already decided to make things as chaotic and hard to manage as possible. They were going to teach the government a lesson for cutting them out of the loop. They didn’t care that the worldwide panic they whipped up led to great losses, damages, and even suicides and murders.
§
“Those assholes.” The general was tired of watching the press act like children. They were reporting that the asteroid would cause global devastation and the extinction of mankind. He leaned against the kitchen counter, too pissed off to eat the sandwich he had just made.
The doctor had to agree. “They’re even playing footage from disaster movies, can you believe that? Honestly, I always thought we should tell the world as soon as we knew, but this reaction is criminal.”
“I know.” The general was looking at the sandwich. He and the doctor had had a few heated discussions about the situation. He was torn; she was steadfast that they should have told the world sooner than later.
She had just finished a jog and was sipping on a bottle of water. “It does seem that most people are getting the facts and behaving normally. I think in the long run things are going to be OK.”
“Yeah, sure, but the damage that’s being done… You’ve heard the stories—people are destroying their lives and careers, even killing people based on what the press is doing.”
She hated to see the general this angry and leaned against him. “In a few weeks everything will be back to normal.”
“For most people.” He bit into the sandwich, tasting nothing, as he was too annoyed and distracted.
“Well, for us anyway.” She tried to sooth him with reassurances.
He hugged her back, smelled her hair, and forgot all the bullshit that had just been filling his mind.
“Definitely for us.” He kissed her head. “We are going to be better than ever.”
But he was wrong. They would both be dead in a matter of weeks.
§
The day came, and the world held its breath. The asteroid entered the atmosphere and headed toward Eastern Europe—and that was it. There was a worldwide air of disappointment. The impact wasn’t evident to most people on Earth.
But, as people around the world settled down and began to put their lives back together, a group of nine men set a plan in motion. Their plan would cause an actual devastating global catastrophe.
Three weeks ago…
Nine men relaxed in a palatial hotel suite. The suite occupied the top three floors of the most opulent hotel in Vegas, yet the men were seemingly unaware of each other. They were waiting for the apocalypse, and they were the only ones on Earth who knew it was coming…because they had planned it.
Billionaires. Nine billionaires all in one room. With their combined resources they could accomplish anything, yet they had chosen to end the world. They’d been planning it for decades, and the time was finally right to execute it. The media’s credibility was nonexistent after the way they had handled the asteroid story.
With a casual query and the nodding of a few heads, they made the decision to exterminate 99 percent of the world’s population. For the next hour they made a few calls and sent a few e-mails. Then it was done—all elements were in motion, and almost all of the world’s population would die in just under two days.
They were confident the plan would succeed, partly due to the media’s lack of credibility, but mostly because the coming events were going to seem wonderful. A significant portion of the population would ignore physical symptoms that would otherwise be alarming and incapacitating. The billions they would infect over the next few hours would feel better, happier, and healthier than ever before—they would be euphoric.
This group of nine men had decided who would live and who would die on a global scale, and they all smiled as they toasted each other. Paradise would soon be theirs.
But their scheme to depopulate the planet didn’t happen as planned. The groups and individuals they had inoculated became infected when exposed to the virus, and many were killed in the ensuing chaos. And the virus didn’t behave as planned either. The infected didn’t actually die after the initial euphoria drove them all together, by design for easier cleanup—they went into a coma. Their brains underwent some sort of change that brought them back. When they returned, they were altered. The human had died, but a monster had been born. And all that monster wanted to do was eat.
But these nine powerful men, who played God by murdering billions with just a few phone calls, were still just men. They too were infected and suffered the same fate as their victims.
The present, Monterey, California
“Fuck!” The wiry, gray-haired old man felt his eyes go wide with surprise, but he quickly got his shit together. Jasper scowled; now he was very pissed off. He might stoop and shuffle when he walked, but he didn’t take any shit.
Some big fat bastard was bear-hugging him from behind. He could see white mountains of wet flab before his eyes, and he smelled vomit. He felt a massive wet belly and man tits pressing against his back. Large folds of cold wet flesh engulfed him, and he shuddered at the sensation.
He hated hugs, especially from men, and hugs from big fat sweaty bastards were absolutely unacceptable. He carried his best spiked hammer, an old-school Craftsman from back in the day, before the gooks were making them. He was just itching to use it. The fat bastard was yelling something in his ear.
“I love you! I love you, man!”
“Ahhh, geez!” Jasper twisted out of the flabby cocoon and took a few steps back. What he saw disgusted him. It was a giant fat kid, a head taller than himself, who looked like a giant baby, all hairless and soft. The kid was smiling like an idiot, and that made Jasper even more pissed off. Food smeared the kid’s face and ran down his chins in greasy streams between his man tits and over his belly. All Jasper could think was that all that shit was all over his back. Now he would have to burn his shirt and take a long, hot shower.
The kid wore nothing but baggy white underwear soaked in sweat. Jasper shuddered at the clammy coldness on his back. His flannel shirt clung to him and felt like a cold, wet bathing suit.
“I love you, man!” The big fat kid smiled as he came at him for another hug.
“Ahhhh! Fuck you!” Despite his advanced age, Jasper moved with an efficiency and force that spoke of his many years as a carpenter. He brought the spiked hammer down on the kid’s skull, and it collapsed inward with little resistance. He liked the sensation of cracking a head but hated wasting the time to do it.
The kid dropped to the concrete like a wet sack. He was still smiling, which made cracking his skull less enjoyable. Jasper wished he could bash every asshole around with his trusty hammer. He looked around to make sure another shithead wasn’t looking for a hug.
A woman came at him, hooting so loud he could hear it over the crowd, waving her tits at him. He took her out too, with an easy smack between the eyes. He had enough of this shit. He cracked a few more skulls for fun, but he got bored. It was always the same: an easy tap to the skull and the moron dropped, still smiling.
The streets were crammed with people, and they were all acting crazy. Jasper just wanted to get home. It seemed everyone was congregating downtown, streaming in from the surrounding neighborhoods. People were walking in large groups, arm in arm, naked and clothed, dancing, running, and hugging. It all made Jasper sick, just god-awful sick.
He tried to go all the way downtown and almost got caught up in the crowd. People were pushing and jamming each other into doors until they cracked open. He heard the crash of large plate-glass windows, but no one reacted. In fact, he saw people just getting pushed through the windows in a wave. He could tell that people were getting seriously injured and killed, and he just wanted to get the hell out of there.
He left at the right time. The press of the massive crowd smashed and suffocated, ground and trampled, and killed many—and the party continued to grow. No one screamed in panic or pain. No one yelled for help or dialed 911. And no one stopped to offer assistance, an apology, or true human interaction of any kind. Everyone was bent on doing exactly what they wanted to do, and what anyone else wanted didn’t matter to them in the slightest.
In any place where people gathered for a good time, the crowds were thick. The mall was packed, but the hospital was empty. The wharf was so full that hundreds fell into the icy waters of the bay. The office parks and businesses were dark and silent. Some groups formed parties on random streets for one reason or another.
A large majority of the city was empty, devoid of people. Most left their homes and walked away, leaving doors unlocked and often wide open. They would join a group and wander away.
There were still a few souls hiding indoors who were anything but euphoric. They watched with fear and horror the goings-on outside their windows. Jasper had been one of these, but he needed his goddamned pills and had to drive through all this crazy shit to get them. Of course, when he got to the damn pharmacy it was closed. He had tried to call ahead, but no one answered the phone. He was pissed. He wanted nothing to do with this crazy shit. He didn’t want to see any of it and certainly didn’t want to walk through it. He saw quite a few people doing things he had only seen in his buddies’ dirty magazines. But there was one thing every single person was doing: smiling like a retard with a lollipop—every single one.
At first, he thought all the outlandish behavior was confined to idiots, kids, and queers.
It had to be some new drug to get them this nuts,
he thought. But too many people were acting bonkers, too many people who just didn’t fit the behavior.
He walked as quickly as he was able away from the crowd and back to his car. He’d seen some shit in his day, but in the last few the world had descended into pandemonium. There were reports that almost everyone around the world was walking away from their jobs, no matter how critical. Everything was grinding to a halt. Transportation, communication—private or military, trivial or critical—everything was just going belly up. Jasper had known this day was coming ever since the blacks were allowed to vote.
And the crooks in Washington didn’t know anything. They said it was an unknown virus and creatively named it Euphoria-Z. Z because they didn’t know what it was, only what it did. And their advice? Stay indoors and away from crowds, bunch of geniuses.
Jasper had never expected he would need to kill people, not since the war, but in the last few days he had been forced to. The streets were crazy, and he wouldn’t even be outside if he hadn’t needed his pills. He felt as if he were the only sane person for miles. He looked at his feet and wondered, only briefly, if something were wrong with him?
No, couldn’t be,
he thought. None of this was right. The world had gone crazy.
For Jasper, it had all started a few days ago when he was trying to watch television. His friends and neighbors had started coming around, looking for a hug or sex, but he turned them all away. It had only been a few days since his first kill, but it felt like weeks. He’d killed so many since then. Many of the faces were a blur, but he would never forget that first kill.
Jasper remembered the pounding that had shaken the front window and how pissed he’d been because whoever was doing the pounding wouldn’t let up. He’d expected to see some jackass kid and drew in a sharp breath when a young, attractive neighbor was standing on his porch, nude, wanting to “screw like a dog.” He shut the door in her face.
Jasper heard the door click—it had been opened. He’d forgotten to flip the deadbolt. The nude neighbor was coming in his house. He threw his body against it to stop her from entering and felt it stop short of the frame. He heard a muffled crack. When he backed off, he almost puked when he saw her fingers. She continued to advance, hands up, still trying to seduce him. Daggers of jagged white bone tore through swollen flesh as her fingers bent at impossible angles. Blood ran down her arm and landed in big droplets on the floor. She was oblivious. Injuries like that should have had her screaming in pain and panic. She should have been going into shock.
His initial reaction was to help her, but she was pushing in on him. He stumbled back as she advanced, but retained his footing. She was coming into his house, and that pissed him off. He shoved her with both hands and she flew backward, striking her head on the concrete steps. She stopped moving.