Devoured World: Volume One Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  DEDICATION

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  AUTHOR BIO

  DEVOURED WORLD

  Volume One

  © 2018 Ricky Fleet

  First Edition

  Edited by Christina Smith

  Cover art by Jeffrey Kosh Graphics

  Published by Optimus Maximus Publishing, LLC

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Electronic edition, License notes: This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the work of the author.

  ISBN-10: 1-944732-36-6

  ISBN-13: 978-1-944732-36-3

  DEDICATION

  To all my amazing beta reading team, thank you.

  Chapter 1

  June 14th, 2038

  Heathrow Airport.

  London, England.

  “What time’s their flight due to land?”

  “According to the announcer, twenty minutes ago.”

  Lance frowned at the arrivals board which hadn’t updated for over an hour. Turning to Helen, he shrugged and returned to the newspaper. Allowing himself a sneaky rub on the crumpled pages, Lance smiled. He’d always preferred the real thing to the electronic devices favoured by the kids. There was something in the rustle of a broadsheet, the struggle to manhandle it into submission so you could read.

  “I do hope they’re ok,” fretted Helen.

  Grunting, Lance didn’t look up from the story. Eastern Europe was suffering from a massive refugee crisis whose origins lay in the country once called Russia. Fanciful tales of cannibalism and murder without cause littered the news cycles.

  “It’s what those brutes have always done,” he muttered. Bloody commies. They were either killing themselves or some other poor population who happened to upset them.

  “They helped us defeat the United States of Europe though,” said Helen, reading the headline over his shoulder. She was used to his rants by now, but history couldn’t be changed to suit her husband’s biases.

  “We’d have beaten them in the end anyway,” he huffed.

  “Ok,” she sighed. It was pointless to argue.

  Glancing at him, Helen felt a wave of disgust and hid her grimace by looking out through the airport windows. It was becoming more and more difficult to put up with his attitude as time went on. The tick-tock of her life wasting away was an ever-present accompaniment to their day to day existence. If it hadn’t been for their poor daughter she would’ve already left him. We’d have beaten them? Ha, as if, she thought. He was a coward of the worst kind. One that was only too happy to snipe and moan and tell the real men what they were doing wrong. Helen could still remember the day the draft letter dropped through the letter box. Lance had quickly retrieved it, thinking he was unobserved when in fact she was watching from the kitchen doorway. The first went straight in the furnace. Her respect for him died as surely as the paper that burned and fluttered as ash up the chimney. She made sure to be ready when the final summons arrived. Lance was furious, and for the first time, Helen feared he would actually hit her.

  She could picture it as if it was yesterday.

  “How dare you open my post!” Lance sneered, fear tinged with anger.

  “It’s your final warning for the draft. You’re to report to the local barracks by Thursday. We should start packing,” Helen explained, holding the paper out of reach.

  “I’ll do no such thing! Bloody fools and their bloody war! I told you no good would come of those experiments!”

  “Still, you don’t want to get locked up. I’ll fetch the suitcase from the attic.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Lance almost shrieked, his voice rising into previously unmanageable octaves.

  “Well what do you plan to do? Hide?”

  “Of course not. I’ll just explain that I’ve got no interest in going to fight for a leader who has to use threats to recruit.”

  “But you have to,” Helen insisted. “If the European army makes it much further through the rebel lines they could be invading Spain next. Our daughter could be hurt or even killed!”

  “She was killed the moment she took that stupid pill.”

  The comment hit her like a physical blow. “You bastard!”

  “I didn’t force her to take it. I explicitly forbade it, but you had to insist, didn’t you? Always doing what the ‘experts’ tell you is best. Now you have to live with it.”

  Helen fell silent. As much as she detested his accusations, Lance was right. Corinne’s ailment was entirely her fault.

  “I thought it would help,” she said weakly. “It was meant to save mankind.”

  “Well it didn’t. Now give me that bloody letter!”

  Snatching it from her, Lance stormed into the back garden, disappearing through the bushes towards his vegetable patch. Helen sat at the kitchen table, sobbing quietly at the future she had stolen from her only child.

  A shrill cry broke into her thoughts and Helen rushed from the house. Cradling his foot, Lance was writhing on the muddy ground between the cabbages. An errant jab with the garden fork, which had stabbed through his boot, severing two tendons and shattering the metatarsals. An ‘accident’ he’d called it. Conveniently, it ended his ability to be drafted into the rebel forces to help in the civil war. Snivelling coward.

  “What was that?” Lance muttered, not taking his eyes from the paper.

  “Nothing,” Helen replied.

  A commotion was breaking out around the arrivals board. Helen stood to get a better view and her heart sank as every inbound flight was changing to a red ‘cancelled’ notice.

  “What on earth’s going on?”

  “Well that’s just bloody marvellous! What a waste of a day.”

  “How is picking up your daughter and her husband a waste of a day?” Helen demanded.

  Lance scowled at the vehemence of the question. “Is she landing? No. That’s a day wasted. Let’s go.”

  “I’m going to wait and see what’s happening.”

  “It’ll be a strike or something. You know how they love to moan and mess everything up as soon as they’re expected to do some work.”

  “What the hell ar
e you blabbering about? There hasn’t been a strike since before the war.”

  “They’re still lazy. I’m going back home, are you coming?”

  “I told you, I’m going to see what’s happening. I need to speak to Corinne.”

  “Fine, I won’t be coming back to pick you up.”

  “I don’t want you to. I think I’m going to spend a few days with my sister.”

  “What?” Lance was taken aback. They had never spent a day apart in twenty-eight years of marriage.

  “Just go.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Clear the way! Move, move, move!” Ten heavily armed security officers barrelled through the onlookers. More were coming, parting the crowds like Moses and the Red Sea.

  A fraught voice came over the Tannoy system. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re sorry for the inconvenience, but we must ask all members of the public to vacate the airport. The government has grounded all air traffic in light of a potential biological infection which is threatening to spread out of control. A curfew will take effect in two hours. More announcements will follow on the Divinity Alliance emergency broadcast channel.”

  “Oh God, I knew those reports were true. We need to get in touch with Corinne right now and find another way of getting her home. See if you can reach her on the phone.”

  “She won’t have it turned on.”

  “Can you just try?”

  “What’s the point? It’s not allowed.”

  Helen rounded on him. “Just phone her, you pathetic bastard!” she screamed, flecks of spittle hitting him in the face.

  Onlookers stared on, some shocked, others smiling to themselves as Lance’s cheeks turned a deep scarlet.

  “How dare…”

  “I said now!” Helen yelled, pushing him in the chest.

  “I…” Lance gulped, eyes scanning the laughing spectators. A look of confusion came over as he ferreted inside a coat pocket. Taking out the phone, he looked at it as if seeing it for the first time.

  “It’s Corinne,” Helen gasped, snatching the vibrating handset and pressing answer.

  “Mum? Is that you?” asked their daughter, the picture shaky.

  “Hi, sweetheart. Where are you?”

  “The pilot said we’re returning to Madrid. We’re directly over the airport, but we’ve been denied permission to land. What’s going on?”

  “I think the people getting sick are carrying something they don’t want spreading. Don’t worry, though. We’ll get you on a ferry out of Santander or somewhere as soon as possible. You’ll be home in a few days.”

  “Mum,” Corinne said, voice filled with dread. “There are sick people on the plane. A doctor who was travelling to London with us is trying to help one who collapsed.”

  A scream from onboard shrilled through the handset.

  “Corinne? What was that?”

  The picture became even more chaotic as she tried to shift and see what was occurring further down the plane. “I don’t know, mum.”

  More yells burst from the speaker and Helen nearly dropped the phone in shock. Unimaginable agony was evident from the tortured cries.

  “Corinne, lock yourselves in the toilet and don’t come out until they land, do you hear me?”

  The picture flashed with the movement of her arms, faces appeared and disappeared in an instant. Even in those brief snapshots, Helen could see the terror written plainly on each person’s face, the deep lines and fevered eyes. A clash of metal on metal preceded the snick of a lock being engaged.

  “We’re in there, mum.”

  “Did you see what was going on?”

  “I… I don’t know. I thought I saw the doctor, but he was covered in so much blood. I think he had a wound on his neck.”

  Lance was ashen, listening in to the conversation but paralysed by indecision.

  “You need to get help! Go and tell the guards that the planes need to land, right now!”

  He just gaped at her, mouth bobbing. Bringing a hand back, Helen slapped him as hard as she could. The blow rocked his head and the stinging pain brought him back.

  “Go! Now!”

  “Mum… Love… Going… I…”

  The garbled message was drowned out by a whining drone that grew in intensity before being cut off completely.

  “Everybody! Get away from the windows!” screamed one of the guards, urgently pushing at the uncooperative public.

  The missing whine returned, but not from the phone. Looking through the glass towards the landing pads, Helen’s mind couldn’t process what was happening. The vertical take-off and landing jet emblazoned with Air España plummeted from the sky like a rock. Crashing directly onto a twin craft from the German Federation, they erupted in a massive fireball. The displaced dust from the concussive wave raced towards the airport lounge, blowing the windows apart with a deafening roar. Adding itself to the din were the injured laying stricken on the polished floor. Helen probed gently at her face, feeling the trickling blood from multiple lacerations. Lance was nowhere to be seen. With the chaos of people fleeing and falling over each other, he could’ve been trapped beneath the crush of bodies. Helen realised that she didn’t care, and it wasn’t just from the shock.

  “Corinne?”

  Whispering her name, the heated air stole the word away. One of the engine blades still spun lazily from the rear wing which had torn free upon impact and buried itself in the lounge wall. The raging inferno was being hosed down with foam by the automated fire suppression systems of the landing bay. Emergency vehicles careened around the corner of the complex before pulling up to assist the machines with their own hoses.

  “Corinne?” Helen sobbed, dropping to her knees. Such was the emotional rending, she didn’t even feel the fragments tear into her flesh. Her baby was gone. Life was over.

  Nothing could possibly have survived the impact, much less the fire which tore through the aircraft. The white extinguishing foam flowed from the smouldering wreckage, draining into the steel grates below. Wait! Things were moving within the fire-retardant coating! Were there survivors? Helen’s heart soared with hope. Maybe the reaction of the automated hydrants had been quick enough. Maybe the craft was sturdier in certain areas. Maybe Corinne had been lucky.

  “I’m coming, sweetheart!” Helen yelled over the bedlam.

  Racing for the closest disembarkation point, Helen heard her name being called weakly. Coming to a halt, she looked around at the prone figures on the ground and discovered Lance. He was clutching at his throat, blood pumping through clamped fingers. One hand reached out imploringly towards his wife.

  “Help me,” Lance gurgled, crimson running from his open mouth.

  “No.”

  And with that, Helen moved through the tunnel and jumped down the steps two at a time. Landing awkwardly at the bottom, an ankle gave way and she fell to the concrete. The adrenaline was numbing most of the pain, but she screamed as the shards were driven deeper into her kneecaps. Clutching at a nearby rail, Helen stood up and stumbled towards the crash. Wincing as the foam-soaked figures dropped the remaining ten feet to the ground, her elation grew when they stood up, uninjured. Ambulance crews ran in without hesitation, ignoring the occasional flare of igniting fuel. Grabbing survivors, they tried to pull them away from the danger. Instead of complying, the injured passengers wrestled the paramedics to the ground. It must be the shock, Helen thought, leaving droplets of blood as she hobbled onwards. The jets of scarlet which sprayed from torn arteries ended that thought. White turned to pink as the different liquids mingled on the landing pad.

  “Get out of the way!”

  The angered shout caused Helen to flinch as the security team ran towards the scene of growing carnage. Water hoses washed the froth from the survivors, and she could finally see they weren’t survivors at all. Moving amongst the emergency workers, their charred flesh split open, leaking yellow and red fluids.

  “We have contact with the infected! Open fire!” yelled the commander.
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  Automatic gunfire tore through the assailants. Hit multiple times, some of the blackened creatures still came on, heedless of the threat. Thrashing on the ground, partly eaten first responders suddenly stood up on unsteady legs. Seeing the black clad security team, they shrieked. Surging forward, they were stronger than the scorched husks which had fallen from the jet. In seconds the men were overwhelmed, going down in a tangled heap, fingers still pulling the triggers. Bullets ricocheted around the enclosure, stray rounds whining as they passed dangerously close to Helen. A dripping monster approached.

  “Corinne?”

  The horrifically burned figure was no longer recognisable as a man or a woman. It lumbered forward, cracking lips peeling back to reveal white teeth. It fell upon her.

  As Helen was devoured, she watched the unfolding horror from a numbed mind. The base of the air traffic control structure was hit by another craft. Lack of fire indicated the pilot had jettisoned as much fuel as they could before impact. Unable to hold the weight of the circular viewing tower any longer, a support column imploded and started to topple. Doomed people leapt from shattered windows, hitting the ground with a sickly squelch a second before thousands of tonnes of steel and rubble joined them. Across the airport, more planes dropped from the sky, some trying to land, others out of control.

  Running between the buildings and landing pads were a growing crowd of crazed humans. Anyone they caught were instantly ravaged by teeth and clawed fingers. As flesh and organs were strewn far and wide, Helen wondered, is that what I look like? Before Helen could turn her head, another jet crashed to earth, ending her life and that of her attacker in a mushroom cloud of searing fuel. The infected swarmed from all corners of the sprawling airport, tearing through the meagre security or leaping the razor wire topped fences, spreading their contagion.

  In less than eighteen hours, London was lost.

  Chapter 2

  Present Day

  Quadrant PR-12

  Hazy visions. A winter’s morning. Ice crystals formed on glass. Warmth. Comfort. Fire. Children’s joyous cheers. Tearing paper. Excitement. A woman, smiling adoringly. Turkey. Feasting. Yuletide songs. Happiness. Contentment. Fading. Foreboding. An offering from the stars. Uncertainty. No longer alone. Friend or foe? Miracle. Cancer beaten. Disease eradicated. Celebration. Cooperation. Doubt. Mistrust. Rejection of the gift. Anger. War. Man killing man. Genocide. Revelation. Terror. Infection. Mutant War. Humanity against the risen. Teeth. Claws. Pain. Nuclear Armageddon. Eternal darkness. Blossoming light. Uncomfortable. Trapped! DROWNING! CAN’T BREATHE!