Fever (continued)

We were in another camp outside of Mayhew when the virus began to take hold. It began with me feeling weak and shaky. Just like when you're getting the flu. That's what I thought it was at first. I was seventeen. I couldn't be dying. Shit no. Things like that only happened to other people.

I didn't tell anyone, of course. People around here panicked if somebody so much as sneezed.

By the second day, I'd broken out in a cold sweat and was shivering uncontrollably. I hid. It was jut the flu, I told myself. I'd get better in a few days, then I could re-emerge.

By the third day I was too weak to leave my hiding place. It was around then that the hallucinations started.

Fever

They took us to the refugee camp. Well, they call it a refugee camp. It's more of a concentration camp really, but that's not a word that the 'friendly' guards who are there purely for our protection like to use. You don't need to surround refugees with razor wire and machine gun turrets.

I don't know where we are. I don't know if anyone outside knows we are here. I've no idea where my parents are, or whether they know about the outbreak. Whether they know I'm still alive.

I've been feeling weak and feverish over the past few days. the cuts on my face and shoulder won't heal. I tell myself it's just exhaustion or the flu. I pull my hair over my face to cover the cut on my cheek. It can't be happening to me.

I know what happens to people when they get sick here. They get dragged away by the soldiers. Or at least the lucky ones do...

Last week a man collapsed in the common area. They hacked his head off with a fucking bread knife. After it was all over, and the guards had broken the whole thing up, we found out he was diabetic and had lost his insulin.

We don't know what happens to ones who get dragged away by the soldiers. My guess is a bullet to the back of the head. You can see it in the eyes of the soldiers.

I never knew what a 1000-yard stare looked like until now.

Guess you learn something new every day.

In the beginning, there was the end

For me, it all began in a refugee camp outside of Barstow City. It was just before the bombs went off and the City disappeared in a blaze of white light. I remember some cops were fretting about whether we were far enough away from the drop zone and I was thinking I could never be far away enough away from that nightmare. Funny really, because in a way it was also the cradle of the cursed half-life of me and others like me. Barstow made me what I am.
Some say the Apocalypse isn't the end of days so much as the end of an age. And in that end was a new beginning.
So the cops were fretting about whether we're far enough away and everybody is crowding around not sure what is going to happen next. We're all pale and dirty and frightened and many are bleeding. Some are screaming and crying. They left loved ones back in the City and can't accept that they are gone. There's a dog running around somewhere. Then there's a ruckus somewhere up the back. A woman falls to the ground. She's blond and pretty under all the dirt and blood. Or she would be blond and pretty under better circumstances. She looks like she might have been a real estate agent or a tv reporter in better days. She's twitching and feverish, just like all the others. Half the people are scrambling to help her while the others who see what's coming are runnign for their lives.
The cops are trying to hold everyone back and everybody is shouting at cross purposes. Somebody barrels past me, knocking the wind out of me. I fall to the ground. For a few momemts I lie there stunned. Then the survivel instinct kicks in and I know I have to get up. Nice idea, but the crowd has become a seething, mindless monster. People tread on me. I probably say a few swear words. All I can hear is screaming and shouting and people pleading to with the cops to let us out of the way, but they're all as scared and confused as the rest of us. All I can see is legs.
Then the screaming intensifies. At some point I manage to scramble to my feet. People are running everywhere. Some are prostate with shock and some are hysterical.
I don't remember being bitten. I didn't even realise until later when I started to get sick. I thought the cut was just an injury from being trodden on.
Oh yeah, then the bombs went off.