A story about a nameless person ignorant enough to think he had it tough, until he gets caught in the middle of something even more sinister.
Boring Days
My day started lazily, like the last ten days, for which I barely remembered any details. The most significant thing I remembered about them is that they were all boring. As usual I woke up from the midday sun that was already baking my face. The previous night, for a numerous time I was reading some article on the internet. For my misfortune, every time that happened I had to read the article in question in its entirety. My brain is unable to order my tired body to turn off the computer and to go to bed, after the process of acquiring information has started. The one hour turning around under the bed sheets became a ritual. Usually I was getting out of bed when I get tired from laying in it. And this day was no different. Or at least it looked like it. Before I start doing whatever, I turn on the monitor, computer and the sound system. I always turned them on in the exact same order. Without even noticing that has turned into an annoying habit. I had the strange urge to read the news, maybe because I haven't done that in over a week. Between the numerous banal political topics and paid ads masquerading as something that actually might concern a living being, one different stood out, that looked more like a warning. The title was concerning, but that was typical of the media searching for some sensation. "New deadly virus ravages the country." Usually every year a similar campaign is released, with the task to scare the population into vaccinating itself with substances from questionable origins. All of that accompanied with a good pay-off of course. After a more thorough examination I understood that they weren't talking about a bird, swine or any other type of flu from agrarian origin. Actually the article was a lot shorter than usual. The only description stated that the infected get aggressive towards other people and lose their sense of pain entirely. There was no information on how the virus is transferred or if there is any vaccine. The first thing I thought when I read all of these ramblings was: "They godda be kidding me!". In the same moment I noticed that the date was April first. But the date of publication of these "news" was a week old. It turned out all of the news on this site were a week old. I presumed that all of this was a clever April fool's joke from the authors of the site, but before I could have the chance to get onto the unravelling of this "conspiracy", my biological needs reminded me, what should someone do first after waking up.When I finished up with the mandatory activities, I went for something not that lesser mandatory - the acquisition of a sated stomach for the day. But the fridge was empty. I haven't even noticed that my provisions had dwindled. I was usually getting stocked up for a few days forward because I hated walking around every day for nothing. After a week spent in my "lair", it was time to go on a "hunt" to the nearest store. I got my last clean clothes on.
With
the opening of the front door a smell of something stale hit me on the nose. I
thought, I'd gotten used to smells like this because I didn't remember to often
ventilate my apartment properly, but apparently I was wrong. This was something
different, more disgusting, like getting inside the house of an old person, who
hasn't left it in years. Maybe even worse. It was illogical a stench like this
to appear in a few days. I tried to slow down my breathing and started walking
towards the elevator. I pushed the elevator button but I immediately knew that
it was stuck on the first floor. The thought of going down the stairs made me
cringe because I lived on the eight floor and for the fact that most of the
neighbours were hoarding all kinds of garbage on the stairways. And the newly
appeared stench wasn't going to help my situation. I started going down the
stairs but something didn't look right. There was more trash on the stairway
than usual and it was scattered chaotically. They usually tried to keep their
trash in some order at least but now even that was missing. I was going down as
fast as possible but there was a lot of broken bottles and all kinds of unidentifiable
rubbish, and because
of that, it was questionable how fast I was going. When I reached first floor,
I saw, that the front door of one of the apartments was wide open and from a
first glance the apartment looked abandoned. My curiosity got the best of me
and I went in to look around. After a closer inspection I realised that the
owners left in a hurry. Opened drawers and scattered clothes, jewels, even
money. They have taken only things of first importance. But what could possibly
make someone leave his home in such a way, like he doesn't have the intention of
ever going back? Maybe I wasn't asking myself the right questions then, but my idea wasn't to stay
there to think about it. On the ground level the stench was even stronger. I
was thinking, that the source was coming from the basement. There the scenery
by default looked worse than a décor for a horror movie, and I didn't even
think for a second to go down there. When I got out I took a calming deep breath,
but even here the foul taste in the air remained. The situation didn't look
that much different than the barricaded corridor I just got out from. Abandoned
cars, turned over garbage cans, trash reaching your ankles. On first look the
picture was apocalyptic, but no sound could be heard, everything was calm.
Whatever happened here, has passed. No living soul could be seen in sight.
Different theories were spinning in my head, about what has happened, but
something was a miss. The city was evacuated, but why? There were no traces of
an earthquake, and I'd notice that. Neither some terrorist attack or a war.
There was no evidence of explosions, only in the distance you could see fires
on some buildings, maybe caused by turned on and forgotten electrical appliances.
Like
everyone has evaporated. I continued down the street towards the store. The
idea, that I was the only one left in the entire city, vanished, when I saw the
silhouette of a small man, leaning towards a concrete column, very close to the
entrance of the store I was headed to. At first I accelerated my pace, so I can
go
and ask him if he knows what has happened, but just after a few steps I
stopped. Even from a distance it was obvious something wasn't right with him. I
got a few steps closer.
The man was standing still and was resting his forehead against the column. He
was wearing a business suit, but it was rather ragged and missing one shoe.The colour of
his skin was sickly, pale, greyish. I didn't know if the light was playing
tricks on me but I was seeing even greenish patterns. I heard, that he was making some kind of
noise, like he was mumbling something under his nose, but it wasn't speech, but
more like some kind of animal growling. He hadn't noticed me still. At this
moment I remember the news I read. That was more than a coincidence and I
didn't want to discover if the infected with this new virus were really getting
aggressive for no reason. My plan to go to the store as fast as possible and go
back has failed. Through the windows I could see that it was picked clean. And
even if there was something left, I didn't have the intention of trying to get
inside while that suspicious guy was so near the entrance. Then I got an
another idea. There was a gas station and a fast food restaurant very near to
my current location. I slowly walked the dirty street, trying to be as quiet as
possible. Afterwards I went through a smaller street going behind the store.
The street was leading straight to a small park, beyond which was the gas
station. On my way there I didn't meet anyone, but the view was dark and
depressing as before.
With
me entering the park I noticed a few slowly moving figures. They were all
walking towards the gas station. Across the tall hedges at the end of the park
you could see a big spinning billboard sign, which by a miracle had still
lights on. The sign wasn't far off my destination. I followed the figures with
their own tempo. It was starting to get dark and the light of the sign was
getting clearer. I made my steps faster, because I couldn't see the shadows any more, and I had to hurry before it got very dark, to have a better
chance of finding something to eat. Especially if there wasn't anything in the
gas station. The silence was starting to get replaced by some kind of
sound similar to
buzzing. It was getting louder the closer I got to the end of the park. At the
end of the park alley I could already see the gas station. To shorten my trip I
went through a couple
of hedges and for my relief I was just about fifty meters away from the
restaurant of the gas station. But for my misfortune I found out the source of
the buzzing. About two hundred meters to the right of the gas station was the
big spinning billboard sign. Hundreds of people, similar to the one I met
before, were crowded around the sign. They were shoving each other roughly, but
didn't pay attention to themselves.
All of them had
their arms lifted towards the sign and couldn't lower their eyes from it. They
were trying to get to the centre of it. And someone might think that a mass of
people like this would cause a lot of noise, but the only thing you could hear was
that disgusting similar to buzzing sound, that they were all producing
together. It was muffled but at the same time loud enough to be heard from my
position, adding an additional dark note to the sinister view. At this very moment I realised,
that this was going to be the end of the boring days in my life.
