I was in Georgia for a visit. It doesn’t matter who. What matters is that there is a ceremony for this certain person. I was told to drive one of my relatives’ cars as they wanted to leave for their hotel after and they were already driving a friend’s car. I got into their sedan and hung the phone on the windshield stand. The drive was more than 2 hours. I didn’t mind this though, as I wasn’t in any rush to go to said ceremony. I found them to be a waste of time. This certain one anyway. I’m keeping things vague on purpose. Don’t want to be giving hints to whoever could be trying to track where I am. Fast forward an hour and I’m driving down a highway with nothing but green plains left and right. I had an urge to eat so I took a road through a forest that led to a small rest stop with tons of fast food restaurants. On the way through, I saw buildings down the hill. It looked like a small town. The buildings seemed old and unkempt. Black and green had covered the church tower penetrating the forest as a somber reminder that it’s still standing. This excited me as I was always an explorer and it was early in the morning so I had considered exploring the town but I had a mission and an empty stomach. I got to the rest stop. Parked my car, ordered food, received it, and started eating. The town was still at the front of my mind and I couldn’t not explore it.
After breakfast, I got back in the car and started driving up and down the road searching for a way in. I couldn’t find one road leading towards the direction of the town. I picked up my phone and drove to the spot where I saw the church tower and opened my gps app. I had zoomed in and out and paned around my area but where I was looking was buildings. The gps app had told me that what’s in front of me is nothing but a stretch of forest for miles and miles. This didn’t strike me as odd, maybe they had made a mistake. A couple mistakes mapping the entirety of earth couldn’t be far from the truth. I parked my car into the dirt and started my way down the hill. The trees I passed further into the forest had radiation signs stapled to their bark. They were all rusted over and some were torn from the trees so I thought enough time had passed where the radiation had lowered to safe levels. While walking through, I noticed loose clumps of gravel mixed into the forest dirt. I could tell that the open areas in the forest were narrow. About as wide as a road. I kept going forward following the narrow clearing.
This was a long walk but I had finally made it to the outskirts of the town. Rusted fences seemed to wrap around the town and before me laid 3 sections of said fences toppled down. As I walked forward, a cling sounded near my feet. I could tell at first glance that these were bullet casings. I wasn’t alarmed at this. This is Georgia. We have a lot of guns and we do like shooting them . Some of us anyway. I was debating on entering the town but the sun laid directly over me. I was already late and I couldn’t stay. I turned and ran down the narrow road. I was thinking of what I could see at the edge of the town. It looked almost lived in. like the population had lived inside the town until the town fell over. Street lamps had flicked on when the town was nearly over the horizon of my vision. I had reached my car and drove to the ceremony. It was boring but I slugged through it until the next morning. Armed with my car and a sense of adventure I left the hotel and gunned for the car. I shot a quick text explaining that they should enjoy eachothers company as I was heading back to retrieve something I had forgotten. It was a long drive but I could finally see the church tower against the morning sky. I had stopped at a department store and gathered supplies.
A flashlight, bookbag, compass. machete, whistle, rope, and a gun that had been sitting in my glovebox for god knows how long. I made my way down the same hill, took the same passage until I was at the edge of town once again. It was still early morning so I turned on my flashlight and started going down the street. Cars were abandoned in perfect conditions. Doors left open, and shops neon open signs were flickering all around me. The church tower was still at the other side of town near the center it seemed so i kept walking towards it until I reached the city center. Posters sprawled the ground beneath with what appeared to be a message to the government. After reading the short paragraph . It was urging the town that it’s safe to sleep. I felt perplexed by this but was quickly distracted when the lights around me started to dim.
| They all were flickering to a small hum when an ear piercing siren covered the town. I stumbled and covered my ears as I was jerking on the ground pressing my ears harder than I ever had before. The sound volume had started to lower until it was somewhat bearable. I stood but the ringing of my ears had not stopped. I tried to knock on my head a few times to see if that would help but no. Little by little my hearing was recovering and I could hear a slight siren. The same one that had pierced my ears. I tracked the sound to a nearby electronic store. I shined my flashlight into the interior and laid my eyes upon a contraption. Speakers and megaphones covered a tv surrounded by wires. The tv itself said “test 145 | Morning Call Success. Good Morning “I was confused to all living hell at this point. The government had told these people it was safe to sleep but had woken them in a bizarre, borderline inhumane way. Most of the wires were leading into the back room so I had followed them until they led under the door to what seemed to be a basement. |
The door was unlocked and I headed down the stairs into what I could only describe as a mass grave. The stench was more than I could handle and I vomited profusely on the floor. I was heaving and hoeing with every movement as I was arching my back preparing for the next round of puke to make its way up my throat pipe. Some time had passed but I stood up and cleaned my mouth with my sleeve. I covered my nose with my non-puked sleeve and shined my light on a lot of them and noticed something strange. They had peaceful faces, it’s as if they were going to sleep for the last time. I looked for the wires and noticed they ran towards the direction of a computer on the far side of the room. I moved slowly and tiptoed across the room. Men and women of all ages huddled together. Some were mothers holding onto what I could only assume are newborns based on their size. The room was littered with bugs and every step was accompanied with a loud crunch. Whether I stepped on a bug or bone, I didn’t want to know. Seeing these people holding their loved ones was almost enough to make me cry when Mid way through the room, I heard a plane approaching overhead. I paid it no mind and reached the computer with a slumped man in a trenchcoat. The computer had sprung to life when I moved the mouse and a document was open.
Document 742
The chemical mixture known as FS seems to be working on humans the same way it worked on other smaller animals. No symptoms are present when the virus infects its host. As with smaller animals, behavior is normal. Nothing is shown to be abnormal and its fatal effects are dormant until sleep is..
At that point a hand reached out and grabbed my shoulder pulling me down on one side. It was the man in the trench coat. He had a gas mask over his mouth and nose. He had put one finger over his mask and shushed me. There would be silence if not for the plane overhead. He then forced a similar gas mask onto my face and pointed towards the stairs I came down from. A green thick smoke started to flood the basement and I could feel his grip shoving the gas mask into my face harder. He jerked his head up and nudged me to hold my own gas mask. I complied and held my mask tight. Moments passed and the smoke settled to the floor. The man started walking towards the stairs and gestured to me to follow him. When we were topside, he practically sprinted to the door into the middle of the street. I followed as quickly as I could but the sudden movement caused me to trip and lift my gas mask letting some air seep in. I quickly moved my mask back in place. The green smoke and the virus that document talked about could be one and the same. I didn’t want to risk that so I went outside the store and the man’s gas mask was on the trunk of a car and he was smoking.. I had assumed this meant the air outside was safe. I took off my gas mask,dropped it to the floor and breathed in. I was coughing so violently that I was almost to the ground before the man rushed over to me and caught me.
“Easy there, keep your head up where the good air is.”
He said. I didn’t get a good look at him but his voice made me realize that he was old. Probably late 50’s his eyes were so deep into his skull, I thought they would pop out if he had tripped forward. His eyes had bags upon bags and I could tell that he didn’t get any sleep for a while . I regained my composure and started to talk to him. But before I could get a word in, he told me to wait until we were on the edge of town. He opened a car door, grabbed a notebook and stood there for a moment. I couldn’t tell what was inside the car where I was looking from but his body language said he wasn’t happy to see it. He then closed the car door and started walking. We were walking the same path I took to get to the town center but due to the dim light of dawn, I wasn’t able to see my surroundings very well. Shops had broken windows, cars had dents and broken windshields. It was honestly like looking at a different town. He had stopped in the middle of an intersection and asked me what was in the backpack. I had told him and he then asked to borrow the rope and whistle. I obliged and he told me this.
“We are gonna make a stop at the school before we go back. It’s not far from here.”
“What’s at the school and what happened here?”
This question stopped him in his tracks and he turned to me while holding up the notebook.
“This will answer all your questions but as for why the school. I’d do this alone if I could and send you on your way but I need someone to hold the rope.”
He continued walking, not letting me respond. As we reached the school. It was very eerie. School buses lined both ends of the streets. As we were walking down the street i had glimpsed into the school bus doors to see a child-
“Eyes forward!” He suddenly barked.
I listened to him and walked forward oblivious to what’s on my right or left. I only looked at his back and occasionally looked down to walk around certain obstacles. The school doors were swung open but it was near pitch black inside.
“You said you had a flashlight right? Toss it.
”I tossed him the flashlight and he urged me to look only where the flashlight shined and the only other place to look is down to move around the bodies. This sent chills down to my core. I was walking into a school of bodies. The brief glimpse of the child at the steps of the bus door appeared in my mind and if I could vomit. I would have but that didn’t stop me from gagging. He said he didn’t want me here for this but that this was a two man job. We walked into the school and i’ll spare you the details of what I saw. Just know it wasn’t pleasant. The stench was just as bad but I had pushed my nose deep into the fabric of my sleeve. It was my puke sleeve. It was my dominant arm so it was by accident. Instinct and all that but the smell of puke was far batter. Entering the gymnasium, we were on the second floor of the gym looking over the main gym floor. It was far too dark for the flashlight beam to reach the bottom and the man knew this. He had thrown one end of the rope over the railing and handed the other end to me.
“I’m not young enough or strong enough to pull myself up so I’ll have you do the heavy lifting. When I whistle. Pull me up.”
I nodded as he began to drop down the side of the bleachers. His flashlight was like a dot of white light in an empty room. I couldn’t make out anything and the rope was still. I could hear his steps echo. It stopped after a while and what I could only assume is the sound of someone being slapped started. At first it was quiet. Sort of a playful tap. Then it was violent. I heard shaking and yelling. He was telling someone to wake up. Silence filled the gym until I heard a small whimper. I was going to yell out but a familiar sound had echoed above us. A plane engine. The whimpering had stopped and the sound of the plane engine filled the building. Rapid steps followed with a few tugs on the rope. I pulled up as hard as I could but it was tugged on again. Prompting me to look over the edge. The flashlight had illuminated the man’s face, it was obvious he was crying before but he was yelling something. He paused and let out a scream. his screams pierced through the sound of the plane engine.
“GAS MASK!!!”
A chill ran through my spine. My gas mask was back at the store along with his. He had thrown his flashlight over the railing and yelled GO!!. I grabbed the flashlight and ran as fast as I could. Clearing each hallway paying no mind to my surroundings. Leaving the school behind me, as I turned to face the sound of the plane. A thick trail of smoke followed the plane’s tail. Covering a part of the town in green mist, I couldn’t out run that plane. My best bet was the gas mask. I turned my head and kept running. Kicking it into a higher gear then i thought possible throwing my gear to the side of the street. Everything around me was irrelevant. I was only focused on one thing. The gas mask. I turned the corner on the street my gas mask was on and kept running towards it when green smoke started to surround my legs . The ground before me was covered in smoke, no doubt a prelude to what was to come if I stuck around. The smoke was up to my knees and the plane was nearly overhead when I jumped onto the ground reaching for the mask.I moved my hands faster than i ever did before. I must have been in the smoke for a second. The gas mask I had launched myself towards was glued to my mouth.I was safe.
The plane flew over me and I could rest but it was short lived .The plane was heading towards the other end of the city where the school was and I was looking at his gas mask on the trunk of a car. I grabbed his mask and took one step before I collapsed to the ground. My lungs were on fire and breathing through the gas mask wasn’t making it any easier. I had to take one step at a time but I couldn’t run. The cars around me probably wouldn’t run. We would have taken one if it could. It was then that I realized that we were on a downhill slope. If I could get a car into neutral .I could use the hill to catch the smoke and beat it to the school. I went from car to car and turned the keys but they were all empty. I had thought of taking off the plastic cover for the gear shift with my machete and putting the car in neutral manually but it was back with my backpack on a street 10 mins from here.Finally a car was partly dismantled and had its gear shift plastic taken off. I manually pulled down the lever and the car started to move down the hill.. I had to rely on my memory of the town running up here to avoid any cars I passed.when a car appeared i had seconds to react if i was lucky. The smoke had covered everything and with no headlights to help guide the way. I was almost through the smoke. I erupted from the wall of smoke only to hit a car in the middle of the road.
I woke up in the middle of the day and the smoke was long gone. I opened the car door and rushed towards the school hoping he found a place where the smoke couldn’t reach him. I entered the school and wandered to the top floor of the gym. I then climbed down and started yelling as hard as I could through the gas mask. The flash light didn’t help much as the smoke was trapped in the gym. It was then that I heard a faint whistle. I followed the whistle to a door labeled locker rooms. As my hand reached the handle and started to turn, a loud knock erupted from the door.
“Do you have my gas mask!” he yelled.
“Yes!” I replied.
He opened the door slightly and a torrent of smoke broke through the crack and started to fill the room as he reached for the gas mask around the door. I placed the mask onto his hands and he slammed the door shut. I could only hear loud breathing on the other side of the door. After a moment, he opened the door and motioned us to leave. I climbed the rope and pulled him up afterwards. He then told me that the plane had only visited at dusk and dawn. That this was abnormal and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. We walked to the edge of town where I entered. He took off his gas mask and I took off mine, offering it back to him. He had refused, pushing back my hand with a notebook and putting my other hand on top of both.
“Learn our story.”He said as he turned to leave.
“Come with me.” I yelled
.He simply put a finger on his heart and smiled.
“Home,” he said.
The day was coming to an end and I was well on my way home. The gas mask and notebook on my passenger seat and I couldn’t help but relive my short time in that city. My sense of adventure was quickly sated but I wanted to go back. I went to the hotel and hid my things in my car. I had forgotten my backpack there but I thought I could always go back. I decided to write this and tell my story as I come to the sobering thought. There was many close calls where i “almost”Breathed in the smoke. How much do you have to breathe to be infected? I want to sleep right now. I’m tired but will I end up a corpse if I do. Will I look peaceful when I go. I want to read the notebook
but If I go to sleep, will I wake up?