First Activation

“Yeah, it does now, but back then, I stood in shock. The lady’s husband fell to the ground before reaching the body, we couldn’t bring him around. He might have had a heart attack or something. Mike was sick all over my shoes; Chris ran over to the old lady and confirmed she was dead. We were stuck in the open and scared, two couples ran back towards the airport.”

“Why did they do that?” I asked.

“I’ve got no idea. Before they reached the end of the overpass, a screaming man appeared; he pushed one of the females straight onto the road below. Her partner started fighting with the man but he was killed as well…”

“Wait a minute, this mad-man killed two people?” Jack asked.

“Yes, the guy had a knife and stabbed him in the neck a few times.”

“What did he do after that?” Jack said.

“He ran away after that towards the airport.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“None of it makes any sense, Jack,” I replied. “Maybe he was only half affected?”

“Why would anyone be only half affected? We haven’t seen that anywhere else?”

“I don’t know. But it doesn’t really change anything, he still killed. We don’t let anyone close.”

Jack nodded.

“I don’t get why he ran away, what happened after that?” Bernie asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. The other couple both huddled against the wall, I think they just froze or couldn’t take it anymore. Chris suggested that we had to find some shelter. I called to the couple to join us and get moving, but they told me they were going it alone and waved us away. Only six of us made it to Manhattan.”

“What was that like?” I asked.

“What do you think? A woman came sprinting out of an alley holding a bread knife and headed straight for us. I turned and started running as fast as I could, I had no idea where I was going. When I stopped to catch my breath, only Chris and a lady called Deb were with me. The others must have made-off in other directions. I looked down the street and she was still coming for us.”

“Shit, what happened next?” I said.

“A man stepped out of an entrance to an apartment block and hit her in the face with a baseball bat. He smashed her head all over the sidewalk with another few swings. He was like a fucking machine. I tried to thank him, but he ignored me, picked up the dead woman’s bread knife and sawed at his own throat until blood was pouring out. He dropped to his knees, and then fell face first onto the sidewalk.”

“Did you start to see a pattern?” Bernie asked.

”I wasn’t really thinking straight, but looking back I can. We ran into the apartment block the man had come from and found a door open on the second floor. We sneaked inside and searched the apartment for any signs of life, it was empty, so I locked the door, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.”

“It was like that when we got to Bernie’s. Is that where you tweeted from?” I replied.

“Yeah, it had internet access, food and drink, so we decided to wait there until we could figure out what was happening. Chris was really worried about Mike, and Deb wouldn’t stop talking about conspiracy theories. In the end, we both told her to shut up.”

“Did you see or hear anything outside?” Bernie said.

“No, none of us looked out of the window in case it brought some unwanted attention, if you know what I mean?”

I nodded.

“A fire alarm close by prevented us from hearing anything outside, I heard a few loud bangs near the apartment, but we kept the lights off and curtains closed. Just after we had dinner, there was a loud banging at the door—”

“Here we go,” Jack said.

“Chris looked through the spyglass and saw a man in a blue uniform. He said he was building security and wanted to come in so he could check that everybody was okay.”

“Right,” Bernie said, shaking his head.

“We didn’t know did we? In hindsight, we should have ignored him, but at the time, we were desperate to reach out for any kind of help. Chris put the chain on the door and opened it up. The man kicked the door really hard, it flew open and sent Chris flying backwards into Deb and me. The man came inside, he had a large tool or something like that above his head, you know? Like what a mechanic has.”

“A wrench?” Bernie replied.

“Whatever. He swung it down towards Chris’ face. Chris rolled out of the way to avoid being hit, but he exposed Deb, who took the full force of the blow to the side of her head. I wriggled backwards to get away from what was happening, it took me a few seconds to get my feet free from under Deb’s body. I was screaming, the man carried on hitting Deb’s head with the tool. Chris tried to grab his leg, but was kneed in the face. The man checked Deb’s pulse; I don’t know why, half her head was caved in. He walked out and I heard a window smash.”

Lea paused and drank her vodka.

“I’m sorry, Lea that sounds horrific, you’re lucky to be alive. What happened after that?” I asked.