The 22, A Series, Episode 1

 

The 22 series, Episode 1

Covid-19, December of 2019 to August 2021; estimated deaths 2,652,000. It was just the beginning…. and way off.

The Covid-19 Virus came in strong and then just slowly petered out; hundreds of thousands of deaths in nearly every Nation worldwide, then into the millions; vaccines, vitamins, herd immunity; finally, the mutations.

It all started in China’s Wuhan metro’s wet market and then overwhelmed the health care of China and spread like wildfire throughout the provinces of China and then the world; or was it from a lab? It’s all history now, no need to waste time going over the details. You either lived through it or your dead.

Covid-19 started as two distinct forms the “L” and the “S” strains. Unlucky to get the “L” you were dead period. Those with the “S” struggled to stay alive and most did with a kill rate of just 2% to 5% overall, now it’s mutating into all kinds of different strains, we’re fucked has flashed more than once in my head. I thought myself rather lucky and survived the first and second wave. I learned my lesson and had a huge stock pile of food, water and all other things I’d need to hide out for months………. Yep full bunker mentality…. I want to live.

January 1^st, 2022 a date that will live in infamy as they say; the second new round of Wuhan Covid now the 22 the deadliest disease in the history of man; say hello to the world of virus mutations.  The 22, most mutated virus known, 50 plus mutations and only second to smallpox infective rate.

This is my story and I intend to live and write it.

January 1st 2022. The new year started off with huge fanfare having millions gathering in New York to watch the ball drop and tens of millions worldwide packed tightly together bringing in the New Year; it was nearly hysterical all these idiots thinking a mask would save them; the Covid was over, we’d won.

January 5th to the 15th was the darkest days in the history of man; the news flash was that in India some new form of respiratory disease had just sickened over seven hundred thousand people across the Country and appeared to be spreading rapidly in the general public. Here, New York’s hospitals were suddenly overrun with sick people.

January 16th brought headlines that suddenly there was a new illness effecting tens + millions all over the World; this was the beginning of the end.

Mass hysteria broke out within hours of the news……… Covid-22 was a killer, a slate cleaner, it had an incubation period 5 to 14 days give or take. This was serious business and I went underground immediately; a kill ratio percentage of between 98% and 100%. I was shitting bricks.

I have a small two-bedroom house on the out skirts of Denver, CO. I don’t know my neighbors and they don’t know a damn thing about me. I keep my distance and my windows closed. My two-car garage is a warehouse of MRI’s and dry frozen packs. I have several hundred gallons of water in storage, two generators and a wood stove; wood shed full of wood, should keep me going through the winter. I don’t need a damn thing and owe no one anything; my small fortress should keep me safe.

This last December now just a two months ago I had a company come out and install film on all my windows that makes it hard to break them and all my doors have been reinforced to withstand a good kicking……. I’m as ready as I can be; I knew it was going to come back and I’ve gotten ready since I was sick and managed to live, my personal armory is well stocked. Let it come…

The worlds gone crazy; I haven’t been outside in six days; sitting in the dark no lights on to give away that someone is home, I watch the news channels as the world falls apart; hundreds of thousands were dying, now it’s millions. Videos of bodies lying in the streets; now new video of people walking and dropping-dead mid-step; I’m numbed by the pictures.

New talking heads on the TV as the old known ones drop dead and are replaced. The Government has gone silent in the last 12 hours as the President and cabinet have all come down with the disease. A news flash says the Senate majority leader will address the Nation at six p.m. tonight. Well see…….

Nothing to do now but wait. I haven’t’ seen any movement outside the small neighborhood my house sits in. I’m the last house on the short street and it turns into forest from my house; so, I can sit and watch for anyone moving around down the street about a quarter of a mile with my binoculars. I have heavy curtains on my front window; need comes to bugout…. seventy feet from my back door and you’re in the woods; invisible.

I was just looking through my binoculars at one of my neighbor’s houses three down from me. The car in the driveway has the driver’s side door standing open; I hadn’t noticed that until now. The house is on the right so the driver’s door is facing away from me towards the front of the street; the late afternoon sun is casting a heavy shadow and I can see the outline of a body laying next to the open car door, just a shadow under the car but I’m sure that’s a body making the shadow outline. I wonder how long it’s been there? It’s been in the high seventies for the last couple days……. You know what I’m thinking, ewwww…….

10pm and the power just went out…… again. That’s twice today; I wonder if they have enough crews available to keep the outages under control. I guess time will tell. The TV’s just been playing old reruns and the Senate majority leader was a no show, not a surprise but it’s shocking how fast things are stopping.

March 12th about quarter of seven in the morning, it’s been really quiet for the last week, the weather has switched back to full winter mode, four inches of snow on the ground and the powers out, freakin cold in the house but I don’t want to start the woodstove and let everyone know I’m alive here.

I’ve been sitting in my front room with two blankets over me looking down the street towards where it T’s into S.W. 25th, about a quarter of a mile from my front window. I saw movement along one of the houses on the right side of the street; four down from the “T” so that makes it eight up the street from my house. Could have been an animal maybe a deer, just saw something of good size move along the side of the garage. My eyes are watering straining staying on the binoculars; whatever it was is either gone or I didn’t really see anything after all, another five minutes and I’m going for something for breakfast.

I’m not seeing things…….. not one but three somethings, burglars, wearing all black, carrying sacks to put things in. One has a rifle strung over his back; all are moving really slow, must be worried that someone might be alive and put up a struggle. I slowly open the right front window glass slider and pull the window screen off the outside of the house; I move the curtain a little towards the center of the pane from the edge giving me about five inches of clear open space; a nice narrow slot to shoot through without damaging the screen or the windows. Grabbing my chair and bi-pod I get lined up so I can see the street as the sun comes up higher brightening the long deep shadows along the houses; snow turning to water pores off the roofs and falls in clumps from tree limbs.

I didn’t have to go far to get my guns, I’d already pulled out my rifles and shotguns from the gun locker since the city had gone berserk and people are really going crazy; everything’s been laid out ready for action if it came this way.

Forty-five minutes and I haven’t seen them again, they must really be checking every inch of the house I saw them working or they are moving down the backside of the homes keeping away from the street.

Ahhh…. There they are five houses down; sacks are light, I wonder what they are stealing? They must have been moving down the back of the houses but have come up to a fence that is too hard to go over or through. Coming around the houses garage and turning towards the front door the first burglar kicks the front door hard; they are getting bold; once, twice and it must blow open on the third kick, he turns and nods to number two behind him. They go inside, but number three spins around and is facing the house across the street. He’s moving fast crossing the street and heading up the driveway leaving my field of view. I slide my chair and bi-pod to the right up against the wall just picking him up as he’s heading for the front door of that house. Pulling the chair forward along the wall getting the angle I see him deck the home owner with a over hand right, he’s down; I bring up my .308 and spin the scope power setting to 12 and find him standing over the homeowner yelling in his face; the scope is rock solid, I’m holding my breathe. Out comes a pistol; he’s bringing it up. Scope centered on number three’s head; the explosion is deafening; I see red mist as the scope bounces up and away from the ass holes head. Finding the front porch again in the scope, the homeowner is crab crawling backwards into the safety of the house, the full-length small window to the left of the door explodes and I hear the bang from down the street. Sliding my chair to the left I find number one or two using the truck mirror in the driveway as support for his pistol as he fires a second round at the homeowner across the street. Scope cross hairs planted firmly on his left temple I squeeze slowly, again my hearing screams at the explosion as the round runs down range and 3200 feet per second nearly taking his head off as my field of view fly’s upward with the recoil. Coming back on target I see he’s laying next to the truck and number three is running ass hole and elbows down the sidewalk towards the end of the street; a pretty hard thing to do with melting slick snow flying with every boot hitting the concrete. Placing the scope cross hairs on the back of his head I knew with the expanding yardage the round would end up going high in the back or as low as center mass; I’m already cringing at the pain that’s going to hit my ears. Number three arms shoot straight up in the air as the round takes him mid back just above center mass, two long steps and a partial third lands him face down sliding along the sidewalks concrete, he rolls over and that’s that. I’ve got some cleaning up to do; this is a whole new world, I think I’m gonna puke.

I’ve sat most of the day looking down the street for any movement or for the police to show up, nothing, two bodies on the right, one on the left, eerie quiet. An hour before sunset it’s time to clean up, I move slowly along the left side of the street towards the house with the huge mess that needs to be worked. I pulled the body behind the house and rolled it down the short hill into the high brush. From my front window I knew there was some scrubbing that needed to be done so I brought my push broom with me. Using the garage spigot and melting snow I scrubbed the red now gone brown stains and splattering’s off the garage and front porch walls; I leaned a spare rifle against the door jam and laid a pistol next to it at the front door. I yelled through the broken window “get the hell out here and pick up these guns, your gonna need them.”

I crossed the street and dragged the other two bodies behind the houses so they couldn’t be seen from the street and washed the driveway and the sidewalk down with water, pretty easy with the snow melt.

Clean up job done I made the mistake of walking down the sidewalk on the right side coming home; yep, sure enough the open car door in the driveway had a full-blown maggot covered decaying body lying next to the open car door; I puked way past being empty, dry heaved half the way home. Just three houses down you’d think I’d be able to smell it from home……

I pulled my mask and gloves off, washed my hands until they were bright red; face and neck were next. I’ll hole up for a couple days and hope those pieces of shit didn’t have the 22.

It’s been totally quiet now for nearly two weeks; I’m so stir crazy; I’ve got to get out of this house even for a few minutes. I’m trying to figure out how many people should be left alive if the kill off rate was a full 98% as one of the last radio broadcasts I heard was spouting, along with some crazy Jesus’ stuff, doesn’t exactly make you believe the rantings. No way to really tell for sure just how many are out there but with a population of just over 705 thousand that would leave someplace around 14 thousand survivors, holly shit…….

Oh……… waters gone; not a drop as you open the spigots; forgot to even mention the powers been out for a week also……… I seem to be getting lax in my writings; I’m just so bored.

Got up this morning and had six deer eating in my front yard; watched them until they fed between houses and out of sight. I think that’s a good sign……. I’m going for a walk.

Since I don’t want to see what’s remaining of the body a few houses down, I’ll walk down the left side of the street and give my one neighbor a shout as I go past, I hope he/they made it.

Well, the rifle and the pistol I left for them at the door is gone and the side door window has been boarded up. “Hey neighbor, you still alive!” I yell not quite at the top of my lungs……… again……. nothing. Oh well, not like I’m going to go up to the door and knock. It’d be my luck to get shot with one of my own guns for being a fool.

I walk all the way to the T intersection with my street, nothing but birds and squirrels; nice weather now that it’s about the first of June. No engine sounds, no airplanes, nothing. Looking both ways down SW 25th nothing seems out of place. No cars parked in the middle of the road, nothing along the sides of the road that are out of the ordinary, pretty damn empty.

Somethings just not right; I can’t put my finger on it but the hair on the back of my neck is standing straight up….. I run and duck around a corner of a fence and flatten out on the grass. I can see down the South side of SW 25th and if I look between the boards, I can see most of the North side, probably about three hundred yards, flat and straight. Ahhh… there it is, an engine noise, so faint I can just barley hear it, just a soft deep purr in the distance.

Now I see truck head lights……. way down the street, just shimmering over the pavement. I’m hearing other sounds; high pitched, mixed with low guttural sounds. That little voice you have in your head wakes up, mines screaming now, deafening klaxon horns going off in my head.

Time to run……..

Quarter mile give or take to get to my front door and safety; I run straight down the middle of the street adrenaline drive, arms flapping in frenzied terror. I run knowing but not knowing, primordial deep amygdala brain just pushes a full sprint to safety, I have no thoughts, my deep primal brain is in charge.

I hit the door full force wrestling with the handle; I collapse on the flood; how long has it taken me to run the distance? Two, five minutes……. I can hear the screams over my heavy breath, the quarter mile doesn’t soften the dim of voices.

I stand in full view in my picture window as a huge flatbed truck rumbles by the opening of the street in clear view. I have telephoto vision, I can see the carnage, the cages full of half dead people, bodies strung by rope dragging along the sides of the truck, some staggering some dragged. Raggedy monsters lash those still staggering on dead feet. Another truck; then scores of soldiers pouring down the sides of my street ant like in their numbers, it’s a horde spreading out both sides of the street kicking doors like a flash flood.

I have maybe five minutes before they reach my front door; fight or flight? Either way I know I’m a dead man.

Bug out bag and rifle over my shoulder I clear my back fence and into the woods.

The end is here…. Flight.

t