The Virus. Chapters one and two.

Chapter one.

Boots, booze, and bullshit.

Definition of a human being. A man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.

The sight of daybreak barging through the smut mottled glass is reviling. It emanates limelight on my shitty existence, scorching my tender pupils. I offer no songs of morning glory, no welcoming smiles. What awaits me now is excruciating bleak misery.

I yank the perspiration soaked blanket over my face. ‘Screw this fucking pain.’

I am resisting the pull to reality, my mind, and body yanking at the chains. A tug of war between my remaining ounces of spirit. A re-enactment of my macabre existence in sector seven. I refuse to frequent the inhabitants of our allocated area. The zombies that carry the name badge: Human beings, as if it afforded them a sacrosanct right to live, to exist. I will find the strength today and offer my soul to the reaper.

‘Please, God, take my soul.’

Eyelids close, I inhale my stench, familiar and comforting. Fists pressing against my temple, pushing hard till pained. I am alive, not good. The sheets sticking to my sweaty legs; I run my hand across my thigh, the bones raised, body fat a distant dream. My eyes open again, I peer up at the window, that fucking sunshine.

‘Leave me alone, just leave me in peace.’

I slam the blind shut, tearing the skin on my finger, the darkness my band-aid.

I prefer the sight of dreary grey skies; it symbolises the past fifteen years, colourless and without. My eyelids squint, radiating a fraction of revulsion. I am a ghost entering the horror of repetition. My frail carcass trembles, my body weaker than my memory of happier times. Another decrepit day has puked its bile over my existence. I am expelled onto a blank and macabre canvas that is to paint itself with blood.

‘I wish this rotten planet burns; I hope you all burn,’ I mutter, pressing my skinny skull against the wet cotton sheets.

Urges forcing me to drag myself from insomnia starving my days, feeding my nights. A dose of meds required beforehand. I reach in search of the liquor bottle next to my bunk, slide my bowie knife from under my pillow, removing it from the sheaf. I sit in my man-made sweat tent, shaking, nausea bound. The daily quandary begins, drink the alcohol, expel the blood from my vein. I shiver, the alcohol-infused perspiration on my back, chilling.

‘Just slice, you can do it,’ I cry, pressing the blade against my flesh.

‘Fucking do it you coward,’ I grimace, my mind urging the ultimate cut, the remaining act, my suicide, I cannot. The sound of the knife hitting the floor, a daily reverberance echoing repeated failure.

I pull the dank sheets from my head and body, revealing my skinny, scarred legs, stand, hobbling to the mirror. I no longer recognise the man staring back, tortured, beaten, a bedraggled bag of bones, filthy hide, matted mane.

The menacing voices in my brain screaming at me to choose the knife, discard the bottle. I fall to my knees, staring at my ribs. They are prominent. Lifting my hands, I place them against my eyes, pulling at the loose skin. I have woken on repeat, another dawn of despair, death, the cure if I could remove the word coward tattooed on my being. The liquor wins. I press it against my acrid mouth and breathe it in, with each gulp the unbearable pain of my reality coughs for oxygen.

The stench oozing from my pores, polluted, someplace between a rodent-infested sewer and exhumed grave, Eau de filth. I drink, the toxins being secreted through my ailing liver cure my sense of despair. I glare with complete abandonment at the mirror, take in the frail reflection staring back. A vile reminder of how my way of life has changed over fifteen years. I collapse onto my bunk, mind, body unwilling to perform in today’s circus.

Life was not always this way. My desperate existence is the yin to the yang of early 2020. Malnourished of purpose, starving for food, full to the brim of hatred. I exist, barely, a scavenging drone in search of the two necessities, alcohol, human flesh. I was a respectable member of society, a job, a future, a girlfriend. Now, a nothingness, a box to tick following my death. Each day I wake, cry a moment as past regret squeezes out the tiny drop of humanity left within my mind.

My eyes are open, alerting me to the fact I am conscious, yet I died many years ago.

The hunger inside my gut signals existence. Alcohol depleted, a repeat decision awaits, take up the knife, slice a two-inch vertical opening into the wrist, open the door to the filthy world, and forage. I am nothing more than a fucking coward, a disgusting human. The latter wins.

I drag my anorexic carcass off the sweat pit of solace, pick up my standard-issue protective silver suit and mask, gather my hunting knife, placing it inside my jacket. Stumbling to the door, I press my face against the plastic, the surface cooling against my oily cheek.

‘Don’t go out there Jake, kill yourself instead, you can do it.'

My gut screams instruction, I surrender, nuzzling the exit ajar, forcing my feet into blackened earth, a visible casket to those who died. I must be unseen, conceal myself. The stink of homemade whisky dripping from my pores does not offer concealment. The snap of bones underfoot echoing each step.

Earlier this week, I spotted a scruffy-looking woman selling her body in return for mortal flesh. The look of pleasure on the faces of the fat old perverts who pumped away at her turned my stomach. She is my target; I am not visiting to satisfy my sexual need; starved of body fat, compelled to feast.

My legs drag through the filth of sector seven, a déjà vu daymare, the rancidity of death claustrophobic to my nostrils. Bones of the perished guiding the way to my destination.

I arrive at pod number six, an array of wildflowers set in rows outside her door. I am not one for all that crap, why put a silk dress on a shit-ridden dead body. A waste of time if you ask me. I rap at the door; she answers. Her pretty face, plump lips meet my craving, her deep-set blue eyes hold my stare, and her pale skin taunts my starvation.

‘Yes?’

I push my way past her, locking the door behind me. Her reflection, an anguished image of terror, emblazoned on the steel of my blade.

‘Please don’t do it, I am begging you, I can help you, please don’t kill me.’

‘I am not here to fucking kill you, stupid, I just need to feed.’

I press my forearm against her neck, slamming her against the flimsy wall.

‘Wait please, I can help, I know you, your name is Jake, please do not do this, I can help you.’

I stare at her face, miserable slag ‘I do not want your help, now shut the fuck up’

I lift her top, revealing her milk flesh, and press the blade of my knife against her upper arm.

‘I have something, to stop the hunger, please, don’t hurt me, I will get it for you’

Her grovelling is fucking up my plan.

Plan.

One. Arrive at pod six.

Two. Cut a chunk of flesh from slag at pod six.

Three. Sew the sliced area.

Four. Go back to my pod, fry the flesh.

Five. Eat.

Voila!

‘Please, my body is all I have left.’

I squint, I will shut her up for good if she doesn’t cease with the whining. I pause, I know what is coming next. The tiny speck of humanity stuffed deep inside me hears her cry and rears its ugly fucking head.

‘Hurry bitch, I haven’t got all day,’ I push her away from me, she falls against the wall.

I watch her every move; I am close to getting caught here. The militia will put a bullet in my skull. A quick way out of this misery, one shot into the skull. She walks into the cooking area, a tiny little room in a puny pod, and opens the drawer, pulling out a knife.

‘Please, drink.’ She presses a knife across the flesh of her arm, cutting to reveal a slight trickle of blood. I grasp her skin, sinking my teeth deep, sucking desperately. The hunger sleeps, I shy from her looks of disgust. I can feel her eyes searching my soul as I drink. I consume, wiping the gore from my mouth, I unlock the door, then turn to her.

‘I’m sorry, I am starving, I shouldn’t have’ my guilt awake as the hunger sleeps.

‘Fuck you, I fuck pricks like you to remain alive in this shit hole. You arrive, armed to cut me up, fuck you, shove your apologies.’

‘I am sorry, I messed up, I am a good person. I don’t know what is happening’ I mumble, desperate not to catch her glare of revulsion for me.

She wipes her arm ‘If you ever come here again, I will cut your fucking throat.’

‘I have something for you, it’s perfume. Please take it’ I say, handing her a small crystal bottle. She nasally consumes its essence, the scent in the glass, one I have longed to consume for fifteen years. Memories of a blissful time before, flood my aching skull.

‘What is it, Jake?’

‘Open it silly, you will see’

‘I can’t wait, I am so excited, Jake, you shouldn’t have, it’s so expensive.’

‘Ophelia Brown, nothing is too expensive for you’

‘This is my favourite perfume’

‘I love you, Jake Steel, what did I do to deserve you.’

‘I love you to Phee….’

‘This will do, but never come back here intending to hurt me or I will kill you.’

The pause between us is palpable, I yearn for something more.

‘Well, are we finished here?’

‘I guess, err’ I mutter, staring at her heaving chest.

‘You have the cheek to come here intending to kill me and then expect sex?’

‘I am sorry, please forgive me’

She looks me up and down.

‘What else do you have?’

I rifle through the pockets of my pro suit. ‘Pain killers, I have pain killers.’

She pauses before snatching them from my hand. I do not mention they were for her after I had cut my pound of flesh. Silence fills the two foot gap between us.

‘Deal,’ she whispers.

She drops to her knees, unzipping my zipper, forcing me inside her mouth. She is an expert; This is so wrong, I am a good man, what have I become, my parents brought me up to treat people with respect. I look at her, breasts swaying from side to side inside her gaping top as she moves back and forth. I sense a rush of euphoria exploding into her mouth. The back of my head crashes against the pod door, I let out a euphoric cry of relief.

She stands, wipes her mouth ‘Are we done?’

I am embarrassed, both cravings satisfied ‘Err, yes I will leave you in peace.’

I grasp the door handle, desperate to get away and fling myself into the daylight. I am disgusted, the yearning gone, the reality of my actions bursting through the stage door, languishing in the spotlight.

I was not always this way. A heartless bastard eating the flesh of my fellow man or woman, black, white, I am not fussy. I remember a time long ago that I loved this planet; the people inhabiting it, a few of them. Everything that has happened in a decade and a half has fucked me up. I am one step away from psychopathic cannibal, a million steps backward from a normal human being.

The planet has mutated beyond recognition since the aggression of the virus M. E. R. D 20 (Middle East Respiratory Disease). The final desperate cries of thirty seven percent of the world populace muted. My world now, a blood stained carcass of savage creatures, void of love, desperate to devour. Years before the virus hit were standard for me. My formative years in Manchester, having two loving parents, stable home, wanting for nothing.

March 6th, 2020 ‘Jake darling your father and I are going out for a little while to pick up some groceries from the store, Michael, don’t forget your mask,’, I hear Mother say.

‘Ok Mom, I may meet with Phee later so I will see you when you get back.’

Fifteen years on, England, Europe, the planet, unrecognisable. What started as a joke turned into a fucking nightmare. The first lockdown in March 2020 ignored in the main, allowing the invisible killer to wreak havoc. Tier one, two, three, four… and more, each part of the United Kingdom forced to obey different area rules, the guidance unsuccessful. Hundreds of virus variants, border closure, food shortage, riots, murder.

Communications, telecoms decimated, a victim of the worst year in history, 2023, World War Three. Apart from the M. E. R. D 20, we tried killing each other, like the ruthless bastards we are. There were no winners. U. S. A turned their backs on everybody paying the ultimate price. China nuked much of the American soil. The UK fought against Europe, which led to a stalemate, border closure, millions dead. What remained were piles of corpses on the street.

My name is Jake Steel, formerly of Twenty Second regiment SAS regiment. I live a crappy existence in a dump containing the brain dead. My Isopod (Isolation pod) is my world, a plastic dome in which I hide from reality. Isopods are a way of keeping people apart, safe from infection. The problem with that is human beings starved of animal meat will set on each other. We are cannibals.

I am thirty five years old, a frail ten stone. My life is simple, drink as much alcohol as I can get my grubby hands on and cry the night away. Every night, hoping that I will not wake. Every day wishing a bullet courtesy of the militia to the back of my head. I have no feelings toward anyone in this dump, else except a need to consume their flesh.

Years ago, I was different; I yearned for love, someone to hold, to cherish. The female offerings of today cannot love, none of us can, they spend their time having sex with anybody for impregnation only; they are in the business of selling their children for luxury items.

My pod is one of three hundred in sector seven, each half a kilometre apart. Adapted this way in early 2024 to hamper the advancement of the virus, which is taking souls today. The distance between each isopod ensures I will not have to bid my brain dead neighbour a good morning. Each person in the sectors receives a two pound meat parcel weekly.

(Meat Parcel, a two pound parcel containing offal, rusk, seasoning, bone, and a degree of human flesh)

The hierarchy supplies. We grovel, dogs awaiting our next feed. My elected home lies on the edge of the Lake District encased inside a one hundred foot electrified wall. Anyone attempting to escape either fries or receives a bullet to the head.

My weekly flesh parcel does not last. I exchange most of it with the liquor brewers. To feed the hunger, I search for scraps or a human willing to part with their flesh, a fucked up existence.

I arrive back at my pod, ashamed of myself. I fall, dragging my aching bones to the bedroom. I perch on my bunk and stare, bottle cradled to my breastbone. Today I will drink myself into oblivion. I will close my eyes on daylight and wake up to another nightmare. Please let me die.

Enough of all this shit, I have a bottle to consume. Tomorrow a meeting with the militia and the rest of sector seven to discuss the new vaccine. I trust you will still be here, maybe you will not. Perhaps you will meet up with people, gather in large groups, ignore the rules.

Good night.

Chapter two.

A duo of unwelcome strangers.

The skin on my hands looks acrid, wrinkles prominent. I haven’t slept, never do. I did not die, this saddens me. Here come’s that fucking sunshine to mock me. I close the electro blind to allow isolation. My conscious drifts, recalling meetings encountered with the militia. The memory disappears. A split second working my brain matter on the incompetent tossers, is all my mind offers. The liquor gone; I marvel why nobody ever invented an eternal whisky bottle, like Willy Wonka did with the gob stopper. Tomorrow is meat distribution, today I starve. I am not an optimistic individual on a barren gut, today’s meeting will piss me off.

My life, a journey through time and space, a memory filled desperate struggle to step off this planet once and for all, the virus, the stupidity of human beings, this is the result.

The economy collapsed into the toilet as the virus consumed. Greedy bankers dragging themselves from the shit stained bowls. They thrust their fat carcasses from the highest ledge. Each cloud a silver lining. It forced lying politicians out of office, onto the streets. Men, women who held power became the new homeless, selling themselves for a few pennies, dying by the hand of the formed anarchist groups, hellbent on destruction. These so-called anarchists did not survive long.

None of us took notice, we scorned the guidance given by those in the know. Husband, wife, son, daughter, selfish by nature, thinking we knew best, the experts wrong. Conspiracy theories flung out on social media to any lemming with intelligence of a mollusc welcoming with open arms. Shouting our human rights as if to add provenance to our behaviour. We screwed up, big time.

Skin colour, sexual identity, religious belief, race. None of it mattered, you eat anybody you can get your hands on, regardless of their persuasion.

An annoying thud on the pod door drags me by the throat and expels my hiding from my woken coma.

‘One hour, the speak pod, don’t be late Steel.’

‘Fuck off loser, I will be there when I am there, fucking militia my arse.’

The arseholes controlling sector seven are the Overlords. A bunch of useless imbeciles headed by Cornelius Devron, a once English teacher from the local school. He spoke properly compared to the deadheads that banded with him. To them he was godlike, to me he was a stuck up spec wearing shit talking spineless bastard.

Every member of the militia receives a selection of luxury goods in return for their service. Items such as soap, soya milk. They live in secu-pods which are larger than isopods. They equip their homes with firearms, security cameras, and the extravagance of heated water.

They deny the pond scum weapons of any kind, including my bowie knife. If caught in possession, the penalty is death, cutting, packaging, and distribution to the starving.

Anyway, where was I, oh yes, my story.

I am mindful I must attend today’s meeting, if you don’t you die, simple as that. Bullet to the head, dragged to the processing unit, cut up, packaged, and distributed. Nowhere to hide. The darkness of the pod offers little solace, just inane black. Past reflection heart breaking, not that I want to reflect, the past yields regret. My shit reality is because of foolishness, my own included. We all deaf to instruction, blinded by self-importance.

I press the button to open the electro blind. The sun is still there.

‘Fuck off already.’

Today’s plan.

One: Take a piss.

Two: Scratch my arse.

Three: Listen to a bunch of useless nobodies spout more nonsensical vowels and consonants.

Four:

Unsure of number four. The thought of scaling the walls of this hellhole, killing anybody who gets in my way, crosses my mind. That or visit Zeus in sector zone east for a token offering of his homebrew. His name is not Zeus, it is Malcolm; I opt to greet him by his correct title, he, his so called militia, are a sham, I will not utter their foolish aliases. I embrace the latter, a bottle of his poison it is.

Four: Visit Malcolm, obtain liquor.

I pick up my pro suit, slipping my feeble legs inside.

(Pro-suit, Protective outwear for today’s upbeat generation.) Apparently!

Dressing myself is an ineffective exercise, I am offering my mind and body to a day of persecution, deprivation, anguish. I wipe at the mirrored glass, stare; the individual reflecting, a fragile bearded portrait of what I was. I sniff my hair, it stinks, my beard brushing my rib cage. I have no designs on transforming myself; I am long passed caring how I look. The selfie times, periods of vanity, excess left behind, buried in 2022. My nasal passages are used to my stink. Today the stench flowing from my pores resembles a mix of a maggot infested bin bag and boiling cabbage.

I guess you are waiting for me to tell you of a cure, a miracle antidote, let me explain.

The leading pharmaceutical companies lauded their promises to billions of blind mice in search of cure. Vaccine after vaccine a failure, babies born of a drug induced impairment, people collapsing in the street, we did not listen. The earth, the scavenging inhabitants turned to shit. Animal meat rocketed in price, humans had no choice, to satisfy their starvation they had to feast on each other. With each mouthful of human flesh swallowed, toxins existing in the dead took altered natural behaviour. Feelings of love, empathy disappeared. Women, men alike, selling their bodies to abate the hunger. The more human flesh you ate, the more zombified the mind, each person at different zombification level, dependent on their greed. The dead, a grave not their ultimate destination, sent to a slaughterhouse, processed for distribution. They became our only source of sustenance.

That is part of the reason, promise after fucking promise, nothing. Another part of today’s reality is each country handled the deadly spread in their own style. The United States pursued a herding scheme which, with the war included, wiped out 99.98 percent of their population. Canada followed suit. Their actions killed everybody. We use both these countries for oil, human meat, etc. Money, gold, diamonds, worthless. If you cannot eat it, it has no value. What remains is an empty, blackened earth, starving for food, zero hope.

Animals on the brink of extinction, the stench of their rotting bones filling the air with excruciating memories. Cannibalism is the norm. World War Three nuked everything else into the scorched, blackened earth. I overheard talk they kept the remaining animals locked away in MaxCorp, a division of Sorbius, the six hundred acres, armoured fortress in Winchester the master’s called home. The rest of us eating putrid remains of the dead, no matter how long you cooked it, the result was always tough and chewy.

Many years ago, the newly formed militia hired by the master’s controlling the population attempted a coup on Sorbius. They failed, their decomposing heads displayed on wooden poles, warning those who would attempt such an act. The masters control everything, headed by one man, Maximillian Luther.

(Maximillian Luther, Head of Sorbius, ex Professor of Scientific Studies, Oxford University, self-proclaimed diviner, 65 kilos, skills, greed, lies, mass murder)

Talk, the scientists at MaxCorp have created a vaccine capable of recreating the senses lost through cannibalism and protecting the remaining population from M. E. R. D.20. Rumours this new vaccine will be accessible by Christmas. I do not believe any of it. Max Luther, along with his snivelling minions, has been paying lip service to this for years. They just throw it out to their militia, who feed the vein of the brain dead yearning cure. So, today’s bullshit patter by Devron, I take with a pinch of salt. I no longer want to consume the verbal faeces; I want to die in my bunk so I can remove my mind from this fucked up reality, simple as that.

My existence in this ten foot by twelve plastic dome is my future grave.

My Isopod, four rooms, kitchen, comprising a small one hob cooker and sink. Bedroom, single bed, small window. Prayer room, self-explanatory and pointless to me. Washroom, toilet, shower. I can wash if I choose what’s the goddamned point, hygiene is the least of my problems. You couldn’t swing a cat in any of these rooms if there were any left. They had fallen prey to the human hunger years ago. Their bones share the soil with dogs and humans et al., a marker to their extinction.

‘Jake, Jake, Jake Steel’ I mumble, staring without purpose into the mirrored glass, attempting to hold on to the crumbs of sanity. I scratch my crotch, pull on my pro suit, open the pod door to the happy smiley fucked up sunshine world.

Nobody in sight, just a dusty graveyard. I used some bone matter to make a border to my flower bed outside of my pod. I planted no damn flowers, if you are not food, to me you are a nothing. I stretch, scratch my arse, and embrace the stench.

‘Steel, ten minutes to the meeting, shift your arse,’ shouts a voice in the distance, it is an Overlord.

I glare at the fat bastard standing thirty feet in front of me, porky pig looking motherfucker. This fat balding bastard is Derek, one of thirty men, women chosen to shepherd us through the field of despair. I yearn to release my bowie knife, peel the bacon rind from his smug face and eat it. That action would result swiftly out of here. One bullet to the back of my head would be the only cure I need. I glare at him and remain silent.

I drag my carcass toward the speak pod. They are in attendance, Devron, the militia members, the inhabitants of seven. They grovel, scrounging urchins, hoping for a few scraps from the big table. The scumbags vex me, everyone, everything does. A couple of militias eye me, I stare back; they cower, wise decision, I am in no bloody mood to entertain this bullshit today. Devron’s presence spews rage from my core. I have to stay calm. Knowing what diarrhoea spills from his putrid mouth this morning will decide my actions. Mount the podium, remove his head, collapse into a comatose slumber. I need sleep, but the hunger fills me with insomnia.

‘People of seven, welcome, I have received news of a new vaccine, its name Maxan twenty one. The antidote, created by Maximillian Luther and the scientists at MaxCorp is ready.’

My ears prick. The gossip mongers got it right. The drivel falling from the moron’s mouth is real. My eyes scan the crowd, I wonder how many of the imbeciles staring at him even know what he is saying.

‘The new vaccine is in transit, ready for administration. The masters have chosen us for the trials,’ spews Devron.

I view the zombified bodies that stand two feet apart from each other. Their faces blank, their heads empty. I spot the woman whose flesh I yearned to consume. I am relieved the remaining tiny piece of humanity rattling around in my subconscious halted my actions.

The real me wants to get onto the stage and cut his throat. A reasonable side of who I am wants to tell him to shut the fuck up, but I can’t I have to obey the rules, for now.

‘Tomorrow, at 9 am, you will come here collect your meat parcel along with your vaccination.’

His drivel compels me to voice. We have heard these words on so many occasions it is akin to water torture.

‘This vaccine you speak of, how do we know it will work’ I shout, the room stops, stares at me, I don’t care.

‘Well Steel, it meets with the standards of the MaxCor…….’

‘MaxCorp scientists, yeah, fuck that, I have heard this rubbish, what of those who have died, the lives lost. For longer than I care to remember I have crawled the bone infestation of this shit hole, promise after promise and nothing comes it, you talk of standards Devron, what fucking standards are they?’

The militia twitch in my periphery, slowly lowering their hands to their weapons. Here comes that bullet.

‘Steel, the standards are stringent, we all hope for some better, a change. I want to go back to better days, we all do,’ he vomits. The brain dead onlookers grunt, raising their hands, bloody Neanderthals. He accepts their agreement with open arms. He thinks he is a fucking saviour, a god. The puke expelled from his public schoolboy educated gob, falling onto my boots.

‘It’s bullshit Devron all of it. My life will never be the same. Every time I stand here, another production line of bullshit. I have no regard for you, your promises, your miserable cronies or the stinking rat race that is sector seven.’

He stares, two guards slowly step toward me; they are aware of who I am, my past, my training, they act with caution.

‘Steel, if we give up now, what is the point of it all. We have all lost loved ones, to give up, after all these years is unacceptable.’

He is right, the exasperating little tosser. I will not sound my agreement. I know I cannot call it quits; this existence I live goes against everything humane. The consumption of human flesh is part and parcel of everyday life. It is vile. I feed sparingly, to cling onto my remaining ounce of humanity. The more you eat, the more brain dead you become. My way of life yearns change, I demand a way out of this prison, suicide, or cure, I don’t care.

‘I will be here tomorrow, 09:00 hours, or thereabouts,’ turning my back, I walk away ‘fucking idiots’ I mutter.

I have zero time for niceties, small talk. I spot Malcolm, the only member of the militia I have any time for, not really. He brews liquor. This being the only is the reason I approach him.

‘Malcolm.’

He sighs, ‘Steel?’

‘Any chance of a bottle of your liquor?’

‘What do you have to trade?’ It’s at this point I want to press my thumbs into his eye sockets and push until his screams absorb my eardrums. The favours I did for this bastard in the past and he cannot spare one bottle. I know I have little, I can’t relinquish my knife, I need it for hunting. I reach into my pocket, pulling out an old automatic watch I took from the wrist of my friends rotting carcass.

‘This, I have this’ placing the timepiece into his hand. I look at him, he studies it, my stomach hurts, my brain pounds, my anger increases.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a watch. What does it look like?’

‘What do I want with a watch?’

He is right, watches are useless, no need to monitor time, not now, Devron spoon feeds time and everything else.

‘Your boots.’

‘What?’

‘The watch and your boots.’

I stare blankly at him, wondering if he is for real; I look at his shiny boots and stare at my old, ripped footwear. I want to rush him, remove his gun, push it into the hole he calls a mouth and pull the bloody trigger.

‘Fuck you, you would take my boots, the only pair I have, really?’

‘If you want the liquor Steel, I want your boots.’

His inane grin is yanking at my last milligram of calm.

‘Fuck you, my boots are not for sale.’

I walk back to my pod, liquor in hand, bare feet cold. They are filthy; I need to wash, maybe next week. For today, my dealings with the filth of sector seven are complete.

The virus of 2020 hit the world like a fucking scorched meteor, lockdown introduced, most ignored the guidelines. The dead, their unmistakable stench developed into the air we inhale. Food supply became non-existent. The hunger started; I remember popping my cannibal cherry, cutting away at the face of a rotting old lady lying in her own faeces. The taste vile, my stomach expelling part of her cheek in a wash of bile. A future of human meat consumption took months to acclimatise. The ones who were greedy bastards, ducks to water, feasting on the dead. Each bite they consumed, the stranger their behaviour.

The so called masters are a mix of ancient Etonians, corrupt politicians, and the elite. They are self-elected bastards, living the life of Kings, we bottom feeders fight with each other for human meat. It did not matter how many vaccines they injected into us guinea pigs. None worked. Each year we wait, yearning change, hope, each year another attempt to cure, every fucking time a big fat fail.

I recall the good old days, days of ‘I don’t give a shit what the government says’, takeaways, supermarkets, and diners, I remember what it was like to observe the obese, trudging the pavements in exploration of their next processed treat. I crave to be such a character, to wiggle my big heavy belly over my jeans. Today, the fatter you are, the better off.

‘Steel, I need a word, if I may,’ It is Devron, the snooty four eyed tosser. He is walking toward me.

‘Yeah, what do you want?’

‘Look, that outburst in there doesn’t help, we need you on our side Steel, the others, they look up to you’

‘Others who? The braindead, most of the bastards cannot count to two, look up to me my arse.’

‘Jake, they do. You have played a vital role in sector seven from the early days of helping people cope with the dramatic change to assisting in control of the population. What the hell happened to you?’

‘What happened to me, are you kidding, life if that’s what you want to call it happened to me. This fucked up shit hole, your rules, you, the militia, walking around thinking you control the place. Getting your greedy hands on luxury items while the rest of us receive fuck all, apart from lies and dead flesh, that’s what happened to me.’

‘I understand how you feel, I…’

‘You have no idea how I feel, you don’t know me.’

‘All I am saying Jake, is that we need you, there is always a place for you in the militia and…’

‘Militia are you having a bloody laugh, you are a goddamn schoolteacher. Malcolm, oh I am sorry Zeus, a fat carpenter, I know another worked in a library. You call yourselves the bloody Overlords, it’s a joke. Devron, I am gonna be straight with you, so you understand. I exist quietly in this shit hole and live with the fucking hand dealt to me. I want nothing to do with your merry band. Never, I repeat, never pull me up in the street. Is something else on your mind?’

His response to my last question will decide his future.

‘Look, Steel, it’s only a suggestion. I don’t enjoy this existence either. My wife, three children gone forever to the virus, the war. I know how lonely, isolating our lives are, we must remain positive, this vaccine can give us all a brighter future,’ He looks nervous, his eyes sunken into his skinny skull, fear is rife on his miserable face, he twitches, I do not care about his words of sorrow or loss, I just want to pick up a rock and smash his head in with it, I need to leave, my liver craves ethanol.

‘I will be here tomorrow for another dose of Luther’s bullshit,’ turning my back on the loser, aware if he pulls me up again, I will release my bowie knife, cut him deep, jugular to jugular.

‘Steel, wait, I implore you; we need to talk, please, after the meeting tomorrow night I will come and see you.’

I am done passing the time of day with the sorry excuse of man. I protract a final pitiful glare and turn to make my way through the boneyard.

The trek home is long and not without obstruction, I clench the sacred bottle of alcohol; I am aware I no longer have boots, tiny fragments of human bone scratching the souls of my feet, but to be the need for liquor takes precedence over them. I will at some point retrieve the boots by any means necessary.

I arrive back, weary, the flesh on my feet torn. My pod entrance is ajar, stopping to kneel behind foliage twenty yards North East of my plastic home. I see an individual through the gap in my door. A brainless idiot is looting. Devron has something to do with this, obvious he was trying to hinder my return with his spew of ridiculous hope. Reaching into my suit pocket, I pull my steel blade from its sheaf, edging closer to my isopod. My heart is beating fast, sticky alcohol infused beads of sweat falling from my face. This could be my chance to quell my craving for human flesh. Peering through, I spot a stout figure dressed in standard issue militia attire. I rush him, sending him crashing to the floor; I press my knife hard against his throat.

‘You have twenty seconds of your miserable life remaining, talk.’

‘Wait, wait, orders from Cornelius.’

‘Orders to do what?’ I press my knife, I watch as the blade pierces his skin, the sight of the crimson liquid droplets on the steel brings the hunger in me to the fore.

‘Checking for weapons,’ he splutters.

‘Get up, get out,’ I scream, gripping him by the throat and throwing him out.

‘I need the knife Steel, we forbid weapons.’

‘If any of you want my knife, you know where I am. I may die, but I promise you I will fucking slay as many of you bastards as I can before I do. Now fuck off.’

‘We will be back’ says the fat pig lying on the dusty ground.

‘If you ever enter my home again, you die.’

He is trembling, whimpering like a baby next to the bones on the ground. Nothing but a bloody coward. I close the door, reach for my prize, and take a seat. I should have removed his head from his shoulders. I couldn’t, not today, all I care about is swigging on the contents of my bottle, I have no energy to slice through flesh, sinew, and bone, not today.

Plan for today.

One: Drink.

Two: Gut anybody who comes to my door.

Three: Shave.

Four: Not shave.

I reminisce back to my technologically infused days before M. E. R. D. 20 ripped my heart out. The internet, mobile phones, consoles, online chat. Those moments almost seem like they had not existed. I can still recall the Prime Minister announcing the virus and putting in measures to control it. Rules the miserable world population didn’t conform to, left wing anarchists marching together, claiming their human rights taken away, they died. Oh, the irony.

The door knocks, number two of my plan looks promising. I wipe the blood soiled blade of my knife against my jeans. I open the door, a stranger stands before me. A woman, five foot three, blonde hair tied back, mid-forties, slim to athletic build, dressed in a black military uniform and boots. Her attire, the only reason I offer her a moment of my precious drinking time.

‘What do you want?’

‘To talk with you.’

She moves closer.

‘Back up you can talk to me there.’

‘Okay, no problem, my name is Eleanor, and you are Jake Steel twenty Second regiment, Secret Air Service, please, just five minutes of your time,’ she begs. A sense of curiosity comes over me, I slam the door in her rotten face.

I open it again.

‘Make it quick lady.’

I move to one side. She brushes past me and takes a seat. I glance at her, eyes fixed directly on my bottle of liquor.

‘Go on then talk,’ I utter, my mouth parched and ready for alcohol remedy.

‘Tomorrow, they are going to kill you, Jake.'

‘What are you talking about, who is?’

‘The vaccine, the one Devron announced, is useless, a ploy. Human meat has become so scarce that the masters have ordered the shutdown of sector seven.’

‘First, there is no point talking to me about useless vaccines, I have experienced them for fifteen years. Second, I have no idea who you are, where you have got your intel and why the fuck you have come to my pod?’

‘Like I said, my name is Eleanor Lamont. I am part of a group. Our plan is to get to Sorbius and take down Maximillian Luther.’

I giggle, she doesn’t, she is serious, or completely raving mad, I opt for the latter.

‘Listen lady, let me be clear, I exist in this shit hole to serve my purpose, I keep my nose out of everyone’s business. I have zero interest in your miserable existence or Luther or in fact anything. To me, you are just my next meal.’

‘They will come for you. Orders are orders. The man, part of sector sevens militia in your pod today...’

‘How did you know someone was here?’

‘I explained to you, I am part….’

‘Yeah, part of a group I have never heard of or seen until you show up here today with your bullshit.’

‘Don’t you want to know if something better exists on the other side of the wall?’

‘Listen, lady, I am not interested, what part of I am not interested, don’t you bloody understand? I have spent fifteen years surviving each bloody day on repeat. I keep myself to myself and that’s just how I like it.’

She eyes the liquor bottle one more time. ‘Is this truly what you want, Jake, this existence?’

‘No. it isn’t. What I want is to drown in alcohol until I gasp my last breath, both of which I fear I will not get today.’

‘You are ex S A S; soldiers of your calibre don’t give up’

‘Soldiers of my character, what the hell. You don’t know me. I exist, every fucking day, hoping to have the courage to lift this blade to gouge my wrist. Fifteen fucking years I have been trying to end my life. I pray each night not to wake, to relive another day. My eyes open in the morning as I cry, the realisation that I am conscious, pushing me closer to the edge. Voices, yes that’s right, I hear fucking voices ordering me to release myself from purgatory. You see lady, I can’t, I am too much of a fucking coward, you know nothing about me, get the fuck out.’

‘Look Jake, I get it okay, you assume you are the only one who has lost people in your life, you have no fucking idea. You walk around feeling sorry for yourself, you are not the only goddamn person on this godforsaken planet. You think I haven’t thought about killing myself, I bloody have. The reason I choose life over death, is that I wish a better existence, a better life than this death infested grave I find myself in. I am happy to leave, you can kill yourself if you choose, but I am not leaving until you have heard me out’

‘You have five minutes, get on with it’

Eleanor explains. Her plan is to make their way south till they reach Sorbius. The mission is to stop Luther causing absolute catastrophe by any means necessary. The escape must happen at 22:00 hours, which is the time the knobheads hold their nightly meeting.

‘Look at me, what do you see?’

‘I see a man, a man who has witnessed his fair share of pain and suffering, yet I know inside you, somewhere deep, is a man who wants to live again.’

‘I don’t want to live in this, a shitty virus-ridden crap hole, you are wrong.’

‘Then we can change it Jake, we have a choice and a chance.’

‘We need you, Jake, more than you will ever know.’

I think for a moment. The years in seven have been bearable, I keep myself to myself; I steer clear of the knuckle draggers; I do not cause problems, a muted existence. Every day I wake is another opportunity to die.

‘I am not making any guarantees; I have no interest in you, your group, to me you are flesh. With that said, I will meet the others and take it from there.’

I did not why I would agree to this. The look in her eyes, my hatred for Devron and this life, or something else, who knows.

‘We are meeting tonight at 00:00 hours at the old pharmacy on the far east, do you know of it?’

‘Yes, I know where it is, like I say I am making no guarantees I will be there.’

‘I understand, if you show, I will explain a little more when we rendezvous.’

Eleanor leaves. Whatever tonight brings, I am content to listen, willing to pull my head from the pile of shit, if only temporarily.

I choose plan three, shave. The water is frigid; I press my bowie knife against my cheek, drag the blade downwards ripping at the dirty matted hair. The stinging sensation tells me I am alive. Eventually I remove my beard, I wash with the tiny shard of soap I have kept for a special occasion. My face is clean, the icy air tingles against my cheeks and neck. I stare at the liquor bottle on the table.

‘Clear head Jake got to get your shit together,’ I mutter. I pick up the bottle and empty the contents down my throat before collapsing onto my bunk.

I need to rest if only a few minutes; the room is spinning before my eyes; I rest one leg on the floor. A blackened nap, take me away, release me from the shitty squalor. I prefer brief naps, dreams, a nightmare, they bring a flood of visions, my mind imprison. Memories of my parents, my apartment, Ophelia, my cat Oscar. The room, still spinning, just a brief nap…

‘Steel wake up,’ whispers a voice, cutting through the stench of the cold air.

I jump, startled, gripping my bowie knife. The light has disappeared, a cloak of blackness covering the window. I must have slept for hours. I open the door, it is Eleanor ‘Put these on, we need to move quickly’ she says handing me a pair of boots.

My head is banging, mouth parched from earlier liquor consumption, I have no idea why I tie the laces on the boots. Eleanor seems agitated.

‘Hurry Jake, the clock is ticking.’

I follow, tired and disorientated through a cloak of blackness. We run close to the perimeter wall to evade the militia. If caught, they will shoot us on sight. The curfew means everybody must stay in their pod from 10:00 hours.

‘Jake, this way’ she says. I trip on the skull of a child before gaining my composure, lifting myself to my feet. I follow her, three strangers in the room, two men, one woman, I do not recognise any of them, I haven’t seen them at any meetings, just as I had not met Eleanor until earlier.

‘Okay, we are here, let’s get started.'

‘Is this it, I mean, no offence, we need more than this if we are going to take down Luther.’

‘Five is all we have Jake, if we don’t leave soon, we never will. You may as well sign your own death certificate.’

I look at my options, stay or get away, I am tempted by the former.

‘Okay, well I am here, so carry on’

‘Jake let me introduce the team. This is Samson…’

‘Really, so let me get this straight, your true name is Samson?’

‘Yeah’

‘Your parents named you Samson?’

‘Yeah, what’s your bloody point?’

‘My bloody point is, you’re a big fella, massive in fact, just coincidence that your parents named you after a man who was also an enormous fat head. Which one are you, Delilah?’ I say pointing to the pretty blonde woman.

‘Talk about my parents again and those words will be your last,’ he snarls.

He look’s serious, no sense of humour, a hulk of a man. At least a month’s food supply if I can push my blade through the muscle.

(Name: Samson, ex Royal Marine Commando. Six foot seven, shaved head, scar under left eye, eyes brown. Sculpted physique, 120 kilos, speciality - hand to hand combat.)

‘Second, we have Aurora.’

(Name: Aurora Rose, ex Special boat Service X squadron, fight foot six, blonde hair, green eyes. 61 kilos, special skills - Hand to hand combat, adept in Muay Thai, Ju-Jitsu, Karate)

‘Third, we have Jax.’

(Name Jax Marshall, ex R A F Squadron leader, five foot eleven, 80 kilos, hair black, dreadlocks, sculpted face, brown skin, brown eyes. Speciality, piloting jets, helicopters, and a self-taught marksman with a rifle)

‘I am a scientific assistant and special forces. Team, this is Jake Steel, Twenty Second regiment, Special Air Service,’ notes Eleanor.

I study them. These humans are my meal ticket out of this dump. They are nothing to me. Dead they are my food; alive they are a shield to protect myself from gun fire.

‘At exactly 09:00 hours tomorrow the people of seven will gather at the distribution tent, Devron and his cronies will hand your meat supply and a vaccination, the vaccination is merely a placebo, take it, do not falter,’ says Eleanor.

‘How do you know all of this?’

‘It’s my job to know, we are running out of time Jake I need you to listen to me. The meat they are giving us contains one millilitre of Dimethylmercury (Dimethylmercury, a man made neuro toxin fatal at as little as 0.1 percent) you need to take the meat parcel, do not eat any of it, just take it back to your pod. I will rendezvous with you all tomorrow evening at 22:00 hours. Sector seven will be a cemetery by then.’

‘Why, I don’t understand, why would they do this to us?’

‘Max the mad man Luther has eight elements of a vaccine that will save humanity. He is on the cusp of recreating what he believes the ninth element. Rumours that the new vaccine will be ready in seven days. He plans to combine all the elements on August 24th at noon’

‘Yes, what does that have to do with me?’

‘Jake, it has everything to do with you. Luther stole the elements to what he believed was a cure in its entirety, many years ago. However, the two scientists he met and subsequently killed were wise to his plan, they gave him eight elements and a placebo. Luther has spent over a decade trying to recreate the ninth element, but what he has created is more deadly than the virus itself, if he adds his version of the ninth element, it kill everybody who takes it, he will nullify the vaccine for good. Humankind can say goodbye to any type of future. Do you hear my words, Jake?

‘I hear you; to be honest, I am not the saviour type. I gave up on the filth announcing themselves as human many years ago. I am not worried, I appreciate what you are saying, I think I will just take my chances and eat the meat parcel’

‘Then tomorrow you will die, Jake.’

‘Yes, maybe I will, death is a better option to me than life’

Crazy lady walks toward me.

‘Jake, you are not well, I can see that. The following few days are going to test your strength, physically and mentally, beyond anything you have ever experienced. Tomorrow, we will come back to sector seven, you are vital to this, we need you.’

I just don’t know what good we can do, I am not being negative, apart from the incredible skulk over there, I don’t fancy our odds.’

‘You are right, Jake, we have little or no hope of making it, I will not lie. However, I would rather die knowing I had tried to make a difference. Luther will stop at nothing to save himself and end the rest of us.’

‘I get that, what I don’t get is why would someone create a vaccine, withhold an element, and why would he steal it?’

‘Simple Jake, to hold the vaccine, you hold the world in your hands. With that kind of power, you can control the people, I guess whoever hid the ninth element knew that Luther and his cronies were in this for their own selfish greed.'

‘Why is Luther so intent on creating a vaccine if his only plan is to kill us all?’

‘A long time ago, Luther’s wife and children became infected with the virus. He has kept them alive for over a decade on machines which constantly clean and transfer their blood. The reason he has been hunting down those not infected is to bring them to Sorbius and use their clean blood. If he injects what he believes to be the ninth element into his wife and children, they will die within days and the vaccine will die with them.'

‘I don’t care what he does to be honest, his wife and fucking kids can die with my blessing, look I am not being funny, but this is a waste of my time.’

I turn to walk away from this nonsense.

‘Would you do it for someone you once loved?’

My mind wanders back to Ophelia, the love I had and lost. The loss of her the excruciating cross that weighs down on my very soul.

‘Yes.'

‘Look Jake, Luther is a diagnosed psychopath, hellbent on power, the formula he has for the vaccine is incorrect, the true ninth element is in the dome, three klicks north of Sorbius.’

‘So, let me get this straight, Luther wants to save his family and kill everyone else?’

‘Let me explain something to you. Max Luther has no interest in the country or the commoners. He has his eyes on a bigger prize, that doesn’t involve anyone in the sectors. His task is to stay at Sorbius until he has merged the ninth component, vaccinate the chosen one’s and leave. He started the construction of Maxtron, back in 2025, a sustainable world in Alaska. It is nearing completion. He has already ordered the militia to kill each inhabitant in their sector.’

My ears and pounding head are struggling to comprehend.

‘He does not want to leave any traces. The militia are unaware of his plans to kill them off after they have decimated the people in each of the sectors. If they knew of his plans, they would attempt to overthrow him.’

‘So why not just tell the militia, let them sort him out?’

‘Do you think they would believe me, Jake; do you think they care about us; the militia don’t give a rats arse about you or anyone else.’

‘So, his plan is just to leave, declaring the of end of England and eventually humanity?’

‘Quite the opposite, he plans on the rebirth of a new human race. He has a dozen or more prisoners locked away in Sorbius since they were children. Luther plans on using these men and women to start a new population, he doesn’t want the end of humans, he wants a new beginning.'

‘So, what’s your involvement in all of this Eleanor?’

‘Only me and the two scientists who died by the hands of Luther know of the ninth element. It has taken years of underground communication to locate its whereabouts. We have eight days on foot to get to it. After securing the ninth element, we to get to Luther before he nullifies the other eight elements. Murders his wife and children and presses the launch button on the United Kingdom. Tomorrow August sixteenth is day one.’

I look around at the people in the room consuming her words like dogs lapping up dirty water.

‘I do not understand why Luther is planning all of this. Vaccinate the people, start a fresh from there. Surely that’s the right thing to do?’

‘Luther has no plans on vaccinating the cannibal population in the sectors, why would he?’

‘I don’t get it, all of this shit you are spouting seems a bit farfetched to me. Anyone if their right mind would vaccinate what remains of England’s population, why won’t he?’

‘Because the people in the sectors are less than human to him, their minds corroded by the years of cannibalism. To him, they are just meat supply to the other sectors.'

‘So why haven’t you become like them, none of you resemble the knuckle draggers in sector seven, from what I see you all look healthy. Maybe not of sound mind, but healthy?’

‘The answer to that is simple Jake, just as you have held on to your human instinct by consuming as little human meat as possible, so have we, but with one big difference.’

Eleanor reaches into her bag and pulls out an odd looking bunch of green weeds.

‘What is it?’

‘A herb, named Casten, a plant that has grown from the ashes of the nuclear war. Each leaf packed with nutrients. Three leaves daily are equivalent to five fresh fruits and vegetables. We have enough supply to last us for eight days.’

‘It looks like a nettle and stinks; I think I will stick to human flesh.’

‘Hey Steel, we have all gone through the pain you will feel over the next few days. If you can overcome the hunger, you will change and so will your mind.’ declares Samson.

‘Yep, whatever.’

‘Jake, tomorrow evening we leave sector seven, I will explain in more detail at ten pm, back here. Do not be late, tomorrow is the beginning of a long journey, with you by our side Jake, we stand a greater chance of completing the mission, will you join us?’

I look at them, vile creatures, all of them. Their body weight alone would offer many more bottles of liquor to feed my craving.

‘If I am here tomorrow, then I am here.'

I arrive back at my pod without being spotted. The words spoken only minutes before exploding in my mind. Luther is clearly mad and determined to leave the world decimated of life. I have no interest in their lives, or anyone else’s, yet if it means I can leave this shit hole, then maybe I will leave with them. They can act as a barrier to my end goal, a better existence for me and only me.

‘Where the effin fuck is that bottle?’