Desolation
Authors: Mark Campbell
Mark D. Campbell
This is a work of fiction.
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Author: Mark D. Campbell
Editor: Alex Proctor
ISBN-13: 978-1493520473
ISBN-10: 1493520474
© 2013 Mark D. Campbell
I
n a period of carefully orchestrated insanity during the Cold
War, America’s government created what would eventually prove to be its
own demise.
In the early eighties when nuclear proliferation between Russia
and the United States had reached its peak, both governments devoted
their research into more subversive means of attack. They started to
covertly dabble in microbiological weapons despite the Biological
Weapons Convention agreement both countries signed and ratified. While
Russian scientists struggled, the United States flourished.
America created a slew of toxins capable of wiping out the Red
Motherland, but it was the eighties and biological research was still in its
infancy. Therefore, most of America’s creations were accidental in nature
and they did not understand many of the abominations they created.
In the rush for microbiological proliferation, ‘PT-12’ was born.
Like many others, its creation was an accident. The virus worked in two
stages. First, it killed the host in a matter of hours. Second, it reanimated
their necrotic tissue and turned them into savage shells of their former
selves. The reanimated corpses were slaves to the virus and served only
one purpose: to infect others and spread the disease. The reanimated
husks were capable of staying active for weeks until rot and decay finally
subdued them.
America should have incinerated the virus but in their arrogance
they not only pretended to understand ‘PT-12’ but also pretended to be
able to control it and kept it as a possible weapon. Fortunately, before
they could unleash the virus on Russia, the wall fell, the curtain lifted, and
America was left with numerous creations they feared and could not
understand.
Time has a mysterious way of making governments forget their
atrocities. America forgot how dangerous ‘PT-12’ and their other Cold
War creations were and, as such, grew complacent as the months rolled
into years. It was through that complacency and a chain of human errors
that ‘PT-12’ was accidentally released and allowed the dead to walk the
earth.
The dead’s reign was a short one but it cost mankind dearly.
Those who were fortunate enough to have survived the plague
were left to shift through the ashes while those who once held power
struggled to regain it.
the old one, doomed to repeat the sins of the past.
The United States of America
Y
ou may know me but then again you may not.
It doesn’t matter.
Nothing really matters anymore.
I work for a government I’m not sure exists outside of name.
states that are no longer there.
We’re supposed to be the ones tasked with rebuilding all that was
lost. How can we do that when we're too dependent and pathetic to do
anything about it?
How can we rebuild anything if all we do is hide behind the walls
of the few FEMA relocation camps left scattered throughout this
desolated country, afraid to even venture out into the unknown?
We wait for some unnamed remnant of the military to drop off
cases of food like manna from heaven. I’m not even sure where they’re
flying from. I’ve always assumed that they’re flying down north from the
Capital, Camp Seven, but nobody knows for sure. We just sit and listen to
their propaganda about how they’re rebuilding the big cities and how
they’re making America safe again.
anymore.
Last week they dropped off cases of seeds! No food. What a joke!
They spun some tale about how their supplies and aviation fuel were
running low. I still can’t believe that they had the gall to tell us that we
needed to become self-sufficient after they spoon fed us from the start.
agricultural officer.
Imagine that… Hell, before everything happened, I was a used
car salesman. The next thing I know, after the plague, they gave me a gun
and told me that I’m a soldier. Now I’m supposed to be a farmer?
What the fuck do I know about farming? I grew up in Detroit!
Besides, we can’t grow any crops in-between the thousands of barracks
inside the concrete-covered campgrounds; like I said, we’re too afraid to
venture outside the walls and FEMA doesn't allow it anyway. I’m no
farmer, but maybe you could throw my body over the wall and use me for
fertilizer? I’ll even stuff some seeds in my pockets before I shoot myself.
Who knows? You might get lucky when you bury me.
I doubt it though… We do live in Arizona. That was some
excellent foresight for a camp, huh? Like we could grow something in this
wasteland… idiots.
today. We have no food, no supplies.
for it.
Somebody please tell Kara Phillips in dormitory sixteen that I am
sorry.
Jeffrey T. Mallory
FEMA Camp 6
United States Armed Forces
J
erri stretched out across the uncomfortable cot and grumbled as
the sun shone through the cracked skylight. Granted, after a year of being
jarred awake by the sound of gunfire and air raid sirens, it was nice to be
able to sleep in but that didn’t stop the desert sun from being a cruel
mistress to those just waking up.
She pulled the green army blanket over her face to block the
sun’s intruding rays but stifled a gag when she caught a whiff of the
stench of mothballs that lived inside the blanket’s fabric. She threw the
blanket off and slowly got off of the cot. She stretched and popped her
back. The time spent on that bare-bones military cot had not been
friendly to her spine. As she looked around her room she realized that
nothing there had been especially friendly or appealing to her.
Her room was a standard civilian dorm room, consisting of a cot,
a small dresser, an in-wall disk player (but no television to watch it on), a
window air-conditioning unit (that leaked onto her floor and grew mold
on the wall), a small desk, a plastic chair, and a table lamp with no shade.
The lack of décor and the general dilapidation would bother most people
but the disk player and no television irked her most of all.
She wasn’t entirely positive but she was fairly sure that the camp’s
massive solar generators could handle a few televisions. Not that it
mattered anyway. She left her movie collection back in Phoenix and she
was pretty sure that HBO wasn’t on anymore.
She hated the dull room and would have adamantly protested
living in such conditions if things were the way they were before the
outbreak. At twenty-three, she was not too young to remember how
things used to be but she was not old enough not to care anymore. It was
an odd age at an odd time.
The only thing about her room that made it bearable was a
collage of pictures and snippets from magazine covers she had pasted
onto an otherwise featureless wall. She liked to stare at the pictures on the
wall and remember what the world used to be like. Sometimes it made her
thankful that all the moronic celebrities and vapid shells in the media were
gone. Other times it made her miss them and the simpler time they
represented.
Her eyes lingered on a TV Guide cover that featured a television
show about zombies. She remembered catching an episode or two. The
TV show was wrong. Everything about zombies was wrong when it came
down to it. Fiction. Eventually, the zombies did die off and society and
government had a funny way of continuing onward. The society she lived
in was pretty fucked but it was some semblance of a society nonetheless.
She yearned for
something
she just couldn't understand or even
begin to wrap her mind around. It was like an itch she just couldn't
scratch no matter how hard she reached for it.
She wanted to see if they were serving anything in the kitchen so
she figured that she should get to the shower while the hot water was still
available; it went away pretty quickly in the mornings. The thought of
food made her stomach growl.
The kitchen hadn’t cooked a decent meal since the helicopter
stopped arriving but they still managed to serve small slithers of
overcooked meat from time to time so she remained hopeful.
She sighed, grabbed her hygiene kit, and put on her overcoat to
cover her nightgown. Her coat also did a good job concealing the two
things she valued most; her ration card and her switchblade. She almost
got raped three times in the camp, and the knife became a necessary part
of survival. The last man who tried to attack her lost the tip of his penis
and part of his right ear. Jerri doubted he'd be so eager to victimize
another following their incident.
She put on her slippers and walked out into the hall. She didn’t
bother locking her room; the locks didn’t work in her building anyway.
Besides it wasn't like there was anything worth stealing.
As she walked down the moldy hallway, she glanced at the ceiling
and saw that the center tiles were sagging even more noticeably and a few
of the soaked tiles had fallen onto the stained blue carpet. A pipe was
clearly leaking but she doubted anybody cared. She wondered how long it
would take before the whole ceiling simply collapsed.
Things were definitely getting out of control in Camp 6, but she
supposed that’s what happens when you pack over three-hundredthousand souls in an area meant for half of that number. Over a quarter
of the population lived in tent cities strung up between the dorm
buildings. The camp was overpopulated and underfed. Living conditions
were atrocious. The buildings were falling apart, sewage lines were
backing up, and violent crimes were on the rise.
Despite the camp’s oppressive police tactics, most of the officers
had grown apathetic in their duties and only punished the most overt of
offenses.
slippers were soaked and she didn’t even make it to the bathroom yet.
God only knew what horrors awaited her in the shower.
Last time she saw a bunch of rats feasting on one of their dead
kin and almost broke her neck as she scurried out of there half-naked.
Unsurprisingly, given the food crisis, the rat population seemed to be
disappearing so there was some good news in a world full of
disappointment.
She hated roaches.