THE DAY THE EARTH TURNED

[Maharg67]

BEFORE IT CAME DOWN TO EARTH

Graham McMaharg

 

What was his name when it all began? Who was he? He was Graham something.... He lived in a small town in the Australian Outback fairly close to the big Australian Inland Sea, the Centre Sea as it was sometimes called. Or was there a sea back then? Did it really matter. He did live in a fairly isolated town. It had a train station on a major train line going all the way from the city of Adelaide in the south to the city of Darwin to the north. Darwin was on the northern coast but Adelaide was... well he was not sure.

 

It was the weekend and he was bored. The deskcomputer he had was fairly old and the internet service in the town was hardly what one would call highly sophisticated. Still he did his best. His father spent most of his time out with his buddies. His mother spent most of her time with her boyfriend that father knew about but did not give a damn about as long as the affair staid secret. It didn't of course, not in such a small town.

 

His little sister, looking bored, was lying curled up on his bed. He grumbled at her sometimes but both of them knew he did this only because he pretended he had not real 'emotional weaknesses'. No he was 'tough'. His father had taught him to box when he was younger and twice a week he did karate classes. The craggy old head instructor said he was good at fighting, had an instinct for it, just as his father did. Still Graham... if that was his name... he could not see much advantage in fighting with out just cause. So few knew of this ability.

 

What was the name of the town? Alice something? Alice Creek? Alice Springs? Alice River? Something to do with Alice, who ever she was, and water.

 

Hana, she was curled up there in one of her cute tomboy outfits, Micky Mouse for sure or was it Betty Boop or something else? She was twiddling with the cheap silver finger ring he had bought her. It was a little too big but she stuff it onto her thumb or turned it on her one of her fingers. What fun?

 

He had Windows XP2 up on his computer screen. He could also run a version of Linux also but today, well he was looking at an old encylopedia software program. It was an oddity, something brought out in which one could wander through a 3D museum and kind of shoot at 3D models or displays or symbols with a laser pointer thingy to bring up information. He liked it but would never admit so to his nerdy friends or his karate friends or more exotic friends. Truth was there was not many in any one of the categories.

 

It was kind of 12:00, either pm or am. No, it was during daylight so it must have been about 12:00pm, about noon.

 

It was hot and dry but he had the use of a small cooler unit and a swivel fan. Anyway the house was fairly well planned when it came to the sun and heating. This meant he could look out of his bedroom window at any time and get a good scenic view of brick wall on the other side of the side garden, the other side of the house facing the driveway and the garage. Was the brick wall slick and dripping with fresh spilt blood? No, he was pretty sure it was not. No, that sort of thing came later.

 

You know, later when he became a ruthless killing machine responsible for the death of many thousands... but the commentator is getting ahead of himself.

 

He felt the slight tremble in the ground. The tremble grew and he wondered if it could be an earthquake. Then the computer screen scrambled oddly. The air shimmered softly. He felt an odd tingle run through his body and he turned his old office swivel-chair to make sure his sister was okay. Five seconds later she was on his lap and was clutching her favourite dolly to herself. He hugged her to himself as the tremors, the shimmering went on.

 

It was weird, frightening and shocking but he was damned curiose to see just what was going on.

 

Which was when everything seemed to explode.....

Edited October 21, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

AMONGST THE RUINS OF HOME SWEET HOME

Graham McMaharg

 

Pain shot through his body as he awoke in his bedroom now changed shape with the roof caved partly in. First thing he did was to make sure his little sister was okay, despite the pain that seemed to go through him but which was already ebbing away. Hana was not just okay but was eating one of his energy foodbars. He hugged her, kissed her, and she didn't get niggly this time as she sometimes did. Indeed she snuggled into his arms. Of course she didn't speak because she had never spoken in her life but somehow he had lalways understood her as had mother, before she had changed.

 

Yes, he was shaken, but not as much as he would have previously figured he would be. Instead he found himself almost calmly taking in everything and assessing both threats and resources.

 

The thing was crashed partly through one wall. It was a ground, roughly globe shaped object of translucent jade like material that glowed softly from within. Its surface seemed to be made up of many very small square, hexagon and other such shapes with straight edges but there were some larger ones. When he looked around he realised that both the door and window were half crushed and that there was no obvious easy way out of what had been his bedroom.

 

His punching bag was down and its frame was broken. Many books were crushed under rubble. His wardrobe was partly smashed. His deskcomputer was okay along with the old wooden desk it sat on with its many drawers. The top drawer had odds and ends to do with the computer. The second drawer down had various software programs on DVDs, many of them pirated. The third drawer down had some glossy magazines being a mixture of commercial fanzines, softporn girlie mags, computer magazines and some odd ones out. The last drawer down had energy bars, cans of flavoured bulking up milk, bags of unsalted roasted peanuts and a tube of condensed milk with cofffee.

 

There was a small gap in the window looking out to where the wall had been and now it was but rubble. Beyond it he could see the side street running down past the house because the family property was on the corner. Across the other side of the street was the cornershop. It looked undamaged from the little he could see from where he was. So he went across to the window and crouched to look through the opening which had wire over it still, the glass having cracked and fallen away.

 

The doors of the cornershop were visible and open. What made the body sprawled over the shallow concrete ramp leading up to the doorway was the otherwise normal appearance of the shop with its newspaper display outside, its posters and the neon sign glowing 'WE ARE OPEN'. For a moment he did not recognise the body and then a chill went down his spine. It was the old man, the recluse, who lived direct across the main street from his house. The man lived in a big old Gothic style house with semi-enclosed balconies, bay windows and genuine gargoyles. It had been built by an eccentric millionaire and inherited by another one. It was said the building had not only two basement levels but hidden chambers full of treasure, long hidden dead bodies and strange cave temples to dark forbidden gods. Of course all of this was nonsense, it had to be.

 

Then a woman was coming out of the shop and was helping the man up. Both of them seemed, understandably, shaken up. He was pleased that people had seemingly survived so well. But then the opened her mouth to reveal rows of fangs and she bit the old man's throat out. With a curse and a feeling of sickening horror, Graham lurched backwards and then he was scrambling for his hidden weapons.

Edited October 21, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

GUNFIGHT AT YE OLD CORNERSHOP

Graham McMaharg

 

No, not the BB gun, .22LR rifle and powerful slingshot his parents knew about, though he would find both to be useful laterr, No, the powerful crossbow, the powerful Lee Enfield bolt-action rifle and the 9mm semiautomatic pistol that he had stolen from grandfather after the old monster went senile and before he had the good grace to die. Grandfather had been paranoid and had hidden lots of weapons and stuff in a big box. That big box was now under some loose floorboards in the bedroom except some items had been added. A few strange items he had considered throwing out but out of amusement and bemusement he had kept them. For his paternal grandfather had feared demonic monsters would one day invade the Earth and that zombies would infest the Earth. People would go insane as the very fabric of time and space went strange.

 

But when Graham got back to the window, all he could see was the dead body of the old man partly eaten and drained of blood for there was none but a tiny puddle on the ground. He was lucky he had been on so many hunting trips when he was younger and maybe lucky he had seen some other things as well. Graham made sure that Hana did not look at the scene but she seemed as calm as usual. She clutched her dolly and watched him steadily with big sweetly intent eyes.

 

Getting through the window turned out to be the easiest way out. He carried the heavy but powerful Lee-Enfield while his sister staid in the bedroom. He went as carefully and slowly as he could as he looked up and down the side street. There was a strangeness stillness and quietness except for some security alarms blaring. Trails of smoke were swirling up from parts of the town and there were birds circling over some places as they would the dying.

 

Most of the way across the side street a car shot along the main street, past him in the distance, full of people. Running after it, with amazing speed, were a mixture of adults and children but their skin was mottled strangely red and they had gaping mouths that showed fangs. Then the five monsters saw him and turned to come at him. He was very good with a gun. He was even better than his father and his father's father. He raised the gun, a bullet already breeched, and flew some brains out. Then he worked the bolt, swing across to shoot the first ones first. With a curse he downed the last one and then stood there with five bullets still in the fixed magazine so he breeched one just in case.

 

Sickening yes but somehow he knew that these were not humans that he had killed, that the actual humans had died when the bizarre and horrific transformation had taken place.

 

Which was when the dead old man stood up and stopped Graham from shooting him with a hand held up. "Its okay, I am not demonic." He pointed to a heap of white ash that had been hidden by his body. "She was demonic. Not her human self but her soul is free now and not trapped in limbo."

 

He frowned at a throat with no signs of injury to it. "Yeh, okay, what ever." He looked at the man's throat. "So she didn't drink your blood."

 

The old man sighed. "No, I destroyed her before she could and then had to restore my physical fullness. The glowing thing in your house, it was attracted towards you."

 

Graham snorted. "Just like that, right out of the sky then and they call me balmy."

 

The old man sighed and adjusted his buttoned shirt, wiping off some dirt, as if appearance still meant something. "Now, now, please show some basic respect. You don't like people much, do you, except for you odd selection of friends. Perhaps it was the time you spent locked away in that Psychiatric Hospital in Adelaide or before that in that maximum security hospital for the criminally insane. Until that is justice was finally done and you were released. Yet you were never fully accepted back again by society except for a few such as your friends, the karate trainer and a few others. Then there is the fact you need to report to the police station once a month. Your parents and the rest of your family betrayed you, abandoned you when they were most needed."

 

Hana had come out of the bedroom and she stood next to Graham so hefted her up, she was surprisingly light for her size, and held her against his side. Hana smiled warmly at the old man and was not her typically shy self as she was normally with strangers.

 

Yes, he found he trusted the old guy just as Hana did.

Edited October 21, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

DEATH ON SPECIAL AT THE CORNERSHOP

Graham McMaharg

 

They went to the cornershop, Hana walking and they looked in through the entrance with its propped open security screen door and thick wooden door. The woman who owned and managed the business, well she was dead and her partly eaten body lay sprawled over the counter.

 

Hana staid with the old man and Graham walked in, having topped up his rifle, and fixed the bayonet to it that was part of long dead grandfather's collection. When the demonic man came racing towards him, past the magazine stand and the on specials tray-table, Graham stabbed him in the solar plexus with the bayonet and then kicked him free. If he had killed people before, well perhaps it would not have come so easy to him. When the old lay sprinted towards him, he pulled the Colt .45 from its special made shoulder holster and blew her brains out.

 

Nightmare memories came in a flash back to him. Yes, Camp Campfire, where he had killed demonic humans and dogs, even a demonic canary that tried to peck him to death.

 

He became wary of wasting bullets, so he put the pistol away, slung the rifle over one should and chose some big kitchen knives from a handy display. He took one in each hand, gripping them as a professional knife fighter, and went looking with folks whose teeth were just too long and sharp to be natural. Demonics did not like cold, hated freezing cold, so he saved the old woman who worked at the shop. Led her to the entrance, after grabbing up a jumper from the dead old woman. Thankfully the jumper had no orrible stuff on it. The woman was so cold and in shock she did notice the brain stuff splattered over the floor. Graham was glad because he was worried she might demand he clean it up or something.

 

Graham filled up a cheap to buy shopping bag and filled it with some useful stuff like boxes of matches, cheese crackers, a loaf of bread, candles, a torch, a transistor radio, packets of chewing gum, a glossy softporn girlie magazine, a children's comic-book, tins of sardines, a can of powdered milk, tubes of condensed milk, tubes of condensed milk with coffee, tubes of condensed milk with chocolate, a couple more knives, a can of cat food and some other stuff. Oh, yes, a survival magazine.

 

The strange old man, the old woman and Hana were outside. The old lady kept staring at Hana in wonder and rubbing her small silver cross in a worried sort of manner. Graham sauntered over, grinned at the woman and spoke.

 

"See, I told you she wasn't dead."

 

The old woman, Italian background, shook her head and spoke. "She was dead but you could see her. Now, well I do not know but Hana is not evil, no I can sense that. The demonic ones, what happened?"

 

The strange old man frowned. "Wish I knew for sure but something drew them here, something allowed them to come through to this world from their home dimension of the Burning Hells."

 

Graham frowned. "Also known as the False Hell of the Prince of Lies. What happened to my home?"

 

It was fully repaired again, the wall was up and the roof was fixed. Yet even as he asked the question he knew that the answer was the strange glowing object that had come down into the bedroom.

 

From the distance came the muffled sounds of gunfire. Despite gun laws, lots of people owned guns in town. Some had hunting licenses that allowed them to have bolt-action telescopic rifles and basic shotguns. There was a target shooting sports clubs and one general gunclub. There were at least three gunshops and two shops that sold some guns along with other stuff. There were the police being the State Police and a few Federal Police Officers. There was one SWAT Team, SWAT standing for Special Weapons, Armour and Tactics. There were the Defence Force Cadets with their training rifles. There was the small Combined Defence Force Base with its range of units and various weapons but the base was out of town.

 

He said, "What now?"

 

The strange old man sighed. "We go to my place and relax. Demonics can not get into there and any demons who have not yet infested anybody, is now gone back to the false hell or the real one, the Hell of Blue Ice. In the first their Overlord will punish them for daring to leave with out his permission and in the second, they will be plunged into the blackness of the deep ice to pay for their sins."

 

Graham shook his head. "First I got to go and see if Toodles is okay. Toodles is our pet cat."

 

The old lady sighed. "Who was run over by a car a year ago."

 

But then Toodles the cat jumped up into view onto the wall and the ginger cat meowed loudly in greeting.

 

Graham grinned at the woman, Elene, and spoke. "See, I told you Toodles was not dead."

Edited October 21, 2010 by Maharg67

[grannywils]

You have a fascinating imagination. Warped... but fascinating. I like it, and the way you write.

[Maharg67]

Thank your for your fine feedback, grannywils.

 

Yes, my imagination is happily warped but in this case the perspective is actually from that of a 'warped' mind who narrates the action of the story. Also things are not what they seem or as straight forward as often it is stated to be at first.

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/demon-1.jpg

[Maharg67]

HOME SWEET HOME TRANSFORMED

Graham McMaharg

 

They went into the Geoffrey Houshold and there they found that not only did things look repaired but that the place was changed in an odd fashion. The house was much the same but all repaired and with lots of extras added as it seemed many items had been multiplied in number, some of them of odd choices. There were two or three or four or even five of many items now that there had once been only one of such as three wide screen TVs in the lounge room, both of which now worked properly. Hana's long locked up bedroom was now clean of dust and full of toys. The spare room was all fixed up. The attic was full of fixed up antiques instead of half ruined junk. Toodles, who name was given by Hana, followed them into the house as did a few cats, a parrot, two budgies, dogs, two ferrets, a goat, some mice and a pet rat. Somehow peace staid with all of them and nobody tried to eat each other.

 

The big glowing thing was not there.

 

But Graham knew where it might be and he knew, somehow, where the secret door was. It was in the cramped old basement that was now much improved but greatly filled with useful and semiuseful items. Brand new plastic model kit aeroplanes hung from its rafters. A big old coloured TV filled one corner. The secret door was inside at the back of wooden wardrobe both ornate and heavy. It was full of woolen coats that were not very useful in the local climate, having been bought for a childhood holiday that had gone to Great Britain and Continental Europe.

 

On the other side of the wardrobe was a hidden elevator chamber. There was enough room for everybody, including the animals, and then they went down to the new secret underground base.

 

It was both practical and luxurious plus ultramodern than it had been. There was a large kitchen, a large dining room, animal rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, a big commonroom, a disco, an indoor swimming pool room, a gym, a target range, a dojo, a museum, a library, a library-study, an art gallery, a cinema and more.The place was heavily stocked with spare equipment and supplies. This included a large walk in refigerator, a large walk in pantry chamber and a big freezer unit. There was also a big armour wall locker filled with weapons and ammo but not just guns and bullets. Another big locker had enhanced kevlar body-armour including helmets. There was a computer room with a minimainframe and four terminals plus four networked deskcomputers. There was a workshop. The garage-workshop was not only big it had a four new motor vehicles in it along with two new bicycles. There was even various tunnels, a big one which led out of the garage-workshop chamber.

 

The big green thing was in its own chamber, hexagon shaped, alien and glowing of glistening quasi-organic surfaces.

 

They explored the secret base. Elene sat down in the lounge room and had a nice rest for one of the small, clever and versatile roboremotes had served her a nice cup of hot tea. Oh, yes, there were the small dum robots, or roboremotes, that were guided by the super-computer network-system of the base. If she was astounded by what she saw, Elene did not say but then again she had been in a terrible war in her homeland once where as a young woman she had been a so called freedom fighter. That is somebody's freedom fighter and somebody else's terrorist. Hana had told this to Graham and he had never gotten around to asking Hana how she knew this along with many other odd items of information.

 

One tunnel led from the base to another hidden base in beneath the strange old man's house but he shook his head and sighed. "My base is not so good looking or modern as this one. I must go and have a look at something. I suggest you look around here and then come over. The animals came with you for safety. They sense goodness in you."

 

Elene wanted to go to her house and was pleased to know one of the tunnels linked the secret fantastic underground ultramodern base to the basement of her house. The tunnels seemed to be a big network running across below the whole town and, to some extent, beyond. Yet she staid in the lounge room with some animals as companions, she liked animals and they liked her. The roboremotes brought not only food and water for the animals, they brought litter trays and such like.

 

Graham was impressed. He sat down in the computer room, which was next to the strange hexagon chamber with the glowing thing inside it, and examined viewscreens that showed parts of the town through the public traffic-security camera network. Yet he also sensed what was going on in a way he could not quite explain even to himself, at least not in terms of generally accepted logic.

 

Not all of the town was dominated by death and demonics. The police, soldiers and volunteers were holding them off from the central city where many people had managed to flee safely. There was the main hospital, the main police station and the main .... well lots of important buildings including big shopping complexes full of useful goods. But other parts of the town where either full of death, frightening hiding people and monsters or were simply not part of the crisis. The airport, train station and long range coach terminal were all under guard.

 

Radio and television broadcasting was warning people what to do depending on what areas they were in and the government was phoning business, private and other telephone numbers to make contact with people. Soon it would start Emailing and contacting mobile phone numbers.

 

It was already fascinating but Graham sensed that it had just begun and that the situation would get worse before it got better; it would also get weirder.

Edited October 21, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME

Graham McMaharg

 

What he did was to take his deskcomputer and link it directly to the computer network-system in the base below through hidden links added by the changes to the house. This seemed innocent enough. Now he had his various programs stored in the big network-system as zipped, uninstalled programs. These were such as 3DWolfdoom, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, House-N-Gardens, WritingWindows, BooksWindows, CitySim, PixShop, TreeMaker, Typing-To-Win, PictureShow, Battlecars, Strip Poker Photo 3, including the encylopedia program. Of course there were the operating systems and others like for playing various files, running various hardware and much else.

 

After he linked up his deskcomputer to the network-system in the hidden base, only then did he actually think to explore what was on his harddisk. In truth he had not truly gone through it in a long time and had put on plenty of stuff that he had forgotten about. Yet when he first saw DemonsNzombies, he was not concerned. Why should he be? In the game three strange glowing objects comes down from space and one crashes into the house of the hero. The hero then has to get past demonics, zombies and other dangers to gain access to the other glowing objects. Only then can he save the world.

 

On second thought he froze in shock. His deskcomputer, he had discovered, was enhanced in hardware and software capacity. Now he was linked with the network-system below, he had some ability to find out what was happening down there. After searching through window after window display, heading through trees of subdirectories and using a sophisticated search engine, he found his programs as transferred from his deskcomputer. They had all been unzipped and installed but what did that mean?

 

Had the game called DemonsNzombies come into real existence somehow? Did it happen because of the thing that came down from space? But then again, how could that have happened whent he blue thing seemingly came from the game in the first place.

 

Nervous now, he went through all of his programs again and then subdirectories full of data such as pictures, cartoons, maps, articles, stories, short basic videos and such like. There was a fair sized section on his home town. Except he had added to it after printing it out for a school assignment. Yes, he had added some very wondrous and odd features. He wondered what was going to happen next.

 

A small but distinctive shudder and shimmer went through everything but this time his deskcomputer remained unphased as if protected somehow.

Edited October 21, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

WHEN MOTHER RETURNED WITH BOYFRIEND

Graham McMaharg

 

Well, she parked her car in the driveway and then mother fled into the house with her stupid, handsome thug of a boyfriend. Mother was shocked by what had happened to the house but then she was pleased. Even as she did so another shimmer shudder went through everything and the very ground seemed to shift a little though no damage was done. Such events were to continue to happen, on a regular basis, for some time as they were felt around the world.

 

Mother gave a jump when she saw Hana and at first was reluctant to touch her but then she hugged her daughter, lifting her up in her arms and holding Hana against her side. She spoke in a flustered, pleased tone. "You are the same as the day you died." Then she kissed her daughter. "I sensed you were here but I was frightened. Now, compared to those demonic humans, you are most lovely and wonderful."

 

Hana snuggled up to her mother, lay her head on the adult's shoulder and went to sleep.

 

They were in the kitchen and Graham put on a cuppa and started making some sadwiches. The boyfriend did not even bother to politely ask if he could help but sat at the kitchen table. He went to start smoking but one cold look from Graham stopped him abruptly; with a scowl the fool put away his expensive taylor made cigarettes that mother had most likely paid for. Brad was that kind of guy; that is a bully, a parasite and a petty criminal but attractive and charming to too many women. Mother kept control of him, though, unlike many other women. This was partly because mother had been into karate for years and could wipe the floor with him. Truth was, Graham could knock him down as well and now Hana, a visible girl who should be dead, scared the hell out of the fool.

 

Mother spoke. "The demonic humans, they were human until this smoke stuff went into them. Poor Brad was chatting to this young woman, trying to chat her up, when she turned monster on him. Gave him a nice slash on his arm."

 

Yes, Brad did have a bandage on his right arm but it was fairly small. Brad grimaced. "It hurt like red hot pokers."

 

Graham had to concede to that. "Being a demonic attack, it would. You should have that wound checked out. There is something about it that I do not like."

 

Brad scowled. "I am not going to see no doctor."

 

Graham refrained from hitting the fool.

 

Mother sighed. "Now, now, Brad, it would not hurt to go to the doctors. You could flirt with that nice young woman doctor, Nancy, though she does not care for you much. The soldiers and police seem to be getting the situation under control. Soon things will be back to normal, I am sure of it. The demonic monsters clawed my poor car so it will need repairing. How wonderful the house looks...

 

"No, the house is not going to be sold." Graham grinned mildly. The house was under his name since mother's parents had stopped trusting her before they died. Now he was legal, she would try to pressure him to sell up so she could get a share of the money and waste it. "You are quite well off. You do not need any more money. Neither does father."

 

Mother frowned at him and then shrugged. "Perhaps that is for the best."

 

Brad scowled for most likely he had been pressuring him to pressure Graham; Brad wanted more money to waste on expensive clothes, booze, cigarettes, nightclubbing, illegal drugs and other such goods and services. Suddenly a shudder went through Brad and he groaned, clutching his bandage. With shocking speed he died, falling to hit the floor and then it was a zombie that was rising from the floor. Mother cried out in shock, took a small revolver pistol out of her shoulderbag and shot Brad the zombie in the head. The zombie hit the floor again and this time it was just a dead body.

 

Mother growled. "I was just getting Brad fully house trained. Now I will have to start again with somebody else."

 

They carefully burned Brad's body and most of his stuff except for some valuables. Of course Brad had more cash than he had pretended he had to mother and of course one of his pockets was full of small notes with telephone numbers from various young women. Graham saw that one belonged to an ex-girlfriend of his, a short lived relationship because she was a cheater.

 

They had a nice lunch of tea, sandwiches, cold water and lemonade.

Edited October 21, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

ITS A FUNNY OLD NEW TOWN

Graham McMaharg

 

More shimmering shudders went through the area and changes took place. Ground expanded outwards in impossible ways. A large, exotic amusemet theme park appeared at the edge of the town called Dizzyland. It was covered with a big transparent dome and had inside colourful geodomes and spiral-towers. But that was not all, far from it. The big old medieval castle was just as imposing, if not more so, on another part of the edge of the town. Those were the easy to see changes from the top of the roof of his house which now had a hidden observation centre in the attic. Through cleverly made and hidden periscopes with big telescopic zoom lens, he could see the new structures and, less so, the new big hospital, cultural centre, military base, police complex, sporting-fitness complex, exotic games arena and more.

 

The sight of shambling zombies moving along the streets was a bit of a downer so he went out onto the roof with his rifles and shot a few of them down. It seemed the demonics passed on the zombie virus to those they bit or clawed and the virus was passed on through exchanges of bodily fluids. It made no sense; the zombies were often the last sort of people who would exchange bodily fluids in any known way and he doubted all of them had been given blood transfusions with zombie virus in them. Which was when he saw the monstrous over sized mosquito creatures flying through the air in swarms of three and knew these creatures were turning people into the shambling undead; each of them was about the size of a adult human hand but he had no trouble in shooting them out of the air, even at a goodly distance, with his Lee Enfield rifle.

 

After a time he noted armour suited soldiers moving along the streets and ways who shot down both the demonic mosquitoes and the zombies with their bullpup configured assault-rifles, squad machineguns and other weapons. They often moved with armoured military vehicles or with hastily upgraded civilian vehicles. He went down below, into the house, to make sure everybody was okay. The others were watching the new big screen TV in the lounge room.

 

That is except for the old woman from the cornershop. She had died in her sleep. The strange old man examined her dead body and found in her blood a virus that killed and mostly turned people into zombies but not always. The cornershop woman had been immune enough to die peacefully. Just to make sure, her body was cremated in the hidden base beneath the house which had all sorts of amazing extra facilities to it.

 

The TV News stated that everything was fine now. The demonics were dead or gone. The horrible mosquito creatures were dead and the last of the zombies were being hunted down and killed. The government had everything perfectly under control. Despite this martial law was declared and there was both a curfew and rationing of certain items. Also the military and police had some special emergency powers, etc. Graham was not too pleased. He had the conspiracy type view of government and suspected them much of the time of getting up to no good. Anyway, he had the sense that the troubles had only just begun.

 

When night time came, despite curfew, he went out into the dark and went looking to see just what was going on.

Edited October 21, 2010 by Maharg67