March 31st
1 Week After Quarantine

Over the last couple of days at work, Charlie had had Sarah in working with him; a girl who had worked there for a couple of months but he’d worked enough shifts with her to know her pretty well at that point. The last few days had been strange times indeed. Sarah hadn’t been herself which hadn’t surprised him. The beach party of her teenage years were only just behind her and it was clear her mind still wasn’t ready to handle such heavy subjects as the human extinction; which it was certainly starting to look like if you watched the news. It had been obvious that people were taking their own personal lockdowns pretty seriously, but sooner or later they had to come out for supplies. He’d even seen it on his way into work that morning. The lines of them all outside the food stores and supermarkets. More than ever they’d all been fully aware of their distancing from one another; but upon seeing it, Charlie couldn’t help but think there was still far too many people gathered in one place. The news reports had said it was spread by moisture particles; but as far he he was concerned, if an illness could spread through water, it was communicable through the air. He’d always believed just walking behind someone with the flu would have been enough catch it from them and seeing them all on what little TV he watched, he’d already decided to himself they were probably already spreading it without even realising it. There’d been plenty of cases in the area; there had been deaths as well but he hadn’t been too sure on the actual numbers.
Some of the people he and Sarah had seen at work had seemed manic, as if slightly crazed. He’d seen a woman earlier in the day; a generally fat and confused woman who’d obviously lived her life with her fingers in too many not so metaphorical pies until of late. He’d seen her before but this time she’d been off, completely off. Her eyes an intense gaze of some kind of confused intent; suddenly he realised what a prisoner emerging from solitary confinement must have looked like. She’d rushed around the place not even noticing him or Sarah there before marching intently to the domestic items. She came back to the counter with a dozen tins of fly killer; she’d taken the remainder of their stock in one fell swoop.
“I take it you got flies?” Charlie had said.
“Yes….flies, lots of flies…everywhere.” She’d reached into her pocked searching for her purse; her head jerking slightly like an over ramped Energizer bunny.
Another person came through the door, the woman suddenly turning around with an as of yet unseen aggression to look at the other customer.
“You shouldn’t be in here yet!” She’d shouted at the other.
“Get back! Go on! Stay away! This is how it spreads for Christ sake!” The other person had just stopped completely still. After noticing her intensity he’d just backed the hell away back out the door.
Charlie looked over to Sarah, her face mirroring his expression. It looked as though having to stay indoors had taken its tole on some people. As it had seemed right there, staying in isolation obviously made you fear it more, made you more paranoid; which didn’t come as a surprise.
Over the rest of the day he’d seen plenty of people who, in spite of being understandably shaken by it all had seemed alright. Some were just more susceptible than others.

That evening he’d talked with Stacy for a good while; the call had been as much of a comfort call for himself as it was to her. She’d obviously been shaken up by it all, basically locked up in her apartment for all of the week looking at more news coverage of it that what was healthy by what she’d told him. He wanted to see her, right then more than ever and he knew that even if he saw her from a distance they wouldn’t be able to stay apart. He was working in a job being exposed to the public; it was an all too real threat that he may already have contracted the Plague. The damn thing had an incubation period of up to a week, meaning it could be spread by people who weren’t even manifesting symptoms for up to a week before the sickness set in. But it gave him something to focus on; to do what he could to keep her safe, to ensure that even if she did catch it, it wasn’t from him. He’d already let her know he was ready to try and get anything she needed in terms of supplies but by the sounds of it she already had that covered via means of emergency food deliveries. He was there whenever she needed him; any time of the day or night, no task too big or small. It was interesting to him how struggle forged stronger bonds between partners.

He’d been drifting, his unconscious mind empty as he rested in blissful sleep. Images, movements passed through his mind as he slept; but nothing as vivid as to be called a dream. Then it had started, screaming, hysterical screaming, from a child by the sounds of it. The voice tiny and full of energy; a distressed child suddenly wailing uncontrollably pulsed through his mind. Then he’d woken up, suddenly realising then it hadn’t been a dream but the neighbours child. Charlie turned onto his back, his eyes now open in the dark bedroom as the kids hysterical voice filled the darkness. Then it had come to him, something he hadn’t ever thought of until then. That hysterical screaming; the sense of a true, of a horribly real sheer terror had been conveyed over to him through the scream in the darkness. There was something about the intensity of the hysteria that a child could reach that adults most likely lost at some point growing up. A nightmare so intense it permeated every fibre of a persons being; that the terror had a way of changing, altering the world around them; a thing most adults had forgotten.

April 2nd
9 Days After Quarantine

A couple of days later Charlie had seen the guy from next door whos kid had been having nightmares every night since Charlie had been awoken by it.
“No Tyler’s been having nightmares recently.” He’d told Charlie whilst they’d passed each other one morning.
“Honestly I think it’s the worry and stress of it all. Y’know he’s got school work being e-mailed to him and he’s worrying that if he doesn’t get it all done he’s gonna’ be in trouble when he goes back to school. We try not to have the news on the TV either, y’know what kids are like they’re like little sponges, they just suck everything up and remember the tiniest details, latch onto certain things.”
“Yeah, it’s a difficult time, strange times.” Charlie replied.
“He’s been having nightmares, every night for the last several days.”
“Yeah I’ve heard.” Charlie said trying not to sound standoffish or irritated by it.
He wasn’t even a parent and it was obvious how difficult things had become, let alone for someone that had kids as well.
“Sorry, I really am…”
“Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. It’s just what happens, like I said, we’re in strange times.”
They’d talked a little longer before Charlie became interested to hear just a little more about the nightmares.
“He hasn’t been himself lately, he keeps dreaming about a baby whose skin had turned all black hanging by its feet from a tree because it has the Plague. Then he says about all these long things all come out of its body like an Octopus’ tentacles.”
“Holy shit, that’s pretty graphic.” Charlie replied with raised eyebrows.
“I know, and he doesn’t watch horror films or play scary video games or anything so we don’t quite know where it’s coming from, and he keeps having the same dream.”
“How is he through the day then? Is he still himself or?”
“No he’s been really quiet, lost his appetite. He keeps saying he feels like something’s following him, like he’s being watched all the time. He says he keeps hearing things, whispering,buzzing in his ears; it’s really weird. If it had been any other time I’d take him to see someone; a doctor, but with things the way they are.”

Charlie had carried on his journey to work; the news of the kids nightmares playing through his mind, another factor in all of it that made it all just a little more unsettling. Sarah, the girl he’d been working with lived on his usual route to work so they had an arrangement that he stopped at her place before both walking to work. That morning she’d seemed off when she answered the door; tired looking as if having next to no sleep and generally unsettled by the situation at large. She’d been going on that day about they surely shouldn’t have been at work anymore, that the situation had become far too severe for anyone to be working. It had actually surprised him that she hadn’t just decided to not turn up to work and phone in sick or something instead. Perhaps seeing all the people that had been cooped up for too long had helped her make the decision to go to work instead.
“Have you heard about the nightmare thing?” She asked him just after lunch.
“What nightmare thing?”
“What you mean is no.” She replied before pulling out her phone and scrolling through something.
“Here listen to this. Worldwide conundrum as millions of parents claim their children are experiencing horrendous nightmares. The widespread incident has experts stumped as to how and why such a high influx of vivid nightmares is being experienced by so many youths all across the world.”
“Funny you should see that cos’ the couple that live next door to me say their kid’s been having nightmares, he keeps waking me up in the night screaming.”
She took in a deep breath, shaking her head she rubbed her eyes. “It’s weird, all of this is really weird. To be truthful it’s freaking me out.”
But Charlie could still see the way back out from it all; there were eight billion humans on Earth, the Plague had claimed only a million of them. It couldn’t take everyone, surely.
“It’ll be alright, you’ll see.”

April 5th
12 Days After Quarantine

The Plague situation appeared to be steadying slightly over the last few days. He’d watched what little news he could stand but it had been enough to inform him that the infection rate had dropped by 10% and the rate of fatalities had reduced by 23%. He knew it would start tailing off sooner or later; perhaps the beginning of the end was really in sight.
It had been a bright morning while he’d walked to Sarah’s place while on the way to work. Birds sang as they darted from hedge to hedge; in fact he could have sworn there were far more birds flying around in the town than there usually would have been. While humans had been stowing themselves away, the local wildlife had quickly noticed their absence and taken the opportunity to move back in and reclaim what should have always been theirs anyway. The sun bathed the town in its light, some of the first warmth coming through now that the winter had finally passed. Just the bright sunny day had made him feel better; it had been dark days recently, literally dark cloudy days so the sight of the sun might have been all they needed to make it at least seem a little more bearable.
He’d knocked on Sarah’s door once he arrived at her apartment block; the standard triplet of raps on the door, then a pause. No answer; he knocked again, this time just slightly louder than before. Still no answer. He went and knocked once more before he heard her answer.
“Charlie…..I’m running late, you go on…..I’ll be around in a minute.”
He decided to just take her up on it but carrying on on his route to work, he couldn’t help but think something was off about it. She’d been slowly getting worse over the last few days; looking tired, worn out, almost sick looking. If he didn’t already know better he would have said she’d already caught the Plague, but none of her symptoms matched that of what Plague victims were describing. Of course if she were to test positive for the Plague, it almost certainly meant he’d got it as well; just the thought of it sent a cold chill through him in spite of the warm sun that morning.
He walked on past the supermarket on the other side of the road where a long line of people stood waiting outside to get in. His previous thoughts about too many people in one place came back too him. He kept himself well away on the other side of the road just glancing over occasionally when he’d then heard a commotion from across the road. From where he was, it looked as though someone had collapsed in the queue; they must have just dropped down as if fainting right there. A good few of the people kept their distance but a handful of them had rushed in to offer any kind of aid that they could. The rest of the line had remained what looked to Charlie to be undeterred by the thing playing out in front of them. It had been as if it didn’t matter what happened as long as they got their food and toilet rolls; as if no one else but themselves mattered; as if they were slightly crazed, focused on a single goal no matter what the cost. The show playing out in the line had only served as a demonstration that there were too many people gathered in one place considering the circumstances. But all the other shops and services were closed, they didn’t have anywhere else to go to get their food. But the scariest thing came to Charlie when he assumed the person that had fallen had already had the Plague. That would in turn mean at least a dozen of those people in the immediate area would have already caught it; which probably meant at least triple that amount would also have it by the end of the day, and double that again by tomorrow; just from that one event. The news had said the infection rate had gone down, but for how long?

Charlie had been at work then for over an hour and there’d been no sign of Sarah looking as though she were going to turn up. The place had been deathly quiet anyway and he’d seen only one person so far. It had been some guy he hadn’t seen before; he hadn’t said very much aside from replying that he wasn’t alright when after Charlie had asked how he was. Again, without saying very much he’d got the point across he couldn’t sleep, that he’d had ringing in his ears for the last twenty four hours and a splitting headache. Thank god there had been that screen between him and Charlie because if he didn’t know better he would have said the guy was infected. But once that had passed, Sarah was well over an hour late for work and she wasn’t answering her phone or replying to texts. He decided with it being so quiet to drop by again to at least see if she was alright even if she didn’t get to work that day.
Just like earlier, it had taken him three attempts to rouse her before she finally opened the door. Her hair a mess, her eyes greyish sockets ringed with red wrinkles; she was looking far more exhausted than she had done the previous day.
“Come on Sarah, shift started eighty minutes ago.”
“Ah, is that what the time is? I can’t sleep Charlie, I got this buzzing in my ears, I keep having these weird dreams as well.” She replied as she pinched the upper part of her nose between the eyes.
“Ah you too? You realise you sound like everyone else I’ve seen this morning? Well come on, we got a shift to work.”
“So go work it.” She’d said before closing the door again.

Once he’d got back to the station he had rung Aaron, the station manager to tell him about Sarah since he wasn’t supposed to be working on his own any more.
“Why what’s the matter with you?” Charlie had asked his manager after the guy had implied he wasn’t feeling himself.
“I’m just not feeling right, haven’t been sleeping well.”
“You haven’t got that damn Plague have you?”
“I can’t have, I’ve been isolating for the last twelve days, I haven’t seen anyone but Rose, my girlfriend.”
He’d then gone on and told Charlie not to work since it meant he’d be there on his own; he wasn’t missing much anyway, the place had been as quiet as a ghost town anyway.
By the end of all, that sunny morning had, in the end done nothing to make him feel any more settled about what was happening.

April 7th
2 Weeks After Quarantine

The last 2 days had seemed as a fairly significant shifting point to Charlie. That terrible uncertainty now seeming so much more real and awful to him; its unending tension manifesting in the knot in his abdomen, unconscious and ever present. Although he kept his watching of the news to a minimum, he always saw just enough to let him know what the general goings on were. It was all too obvious to him that something had obviously changed. It had been the first thing yesterday, he’d heard noise outside after he’d awoken; voices, shouting, the sounds of stress and tension from a people that likely saw no way out from it all. Looking out from the balcony he saw not just the normal queue of people two metres apart waiting to get into the supermarket; but a swath of moving bodies gathered around the entrance like a swarm of insects set to attack. He’d stood there and watched for several minutes as the mood in the air was undeniable; the calling out, the screaming of them all, their impatience, the quickening of their madness driving them on. His gut tightened, his nerves an electric readiness as he stood and watched what had to be an incident waiting to happen. Then within the next few minutes, it happened. They broke through the security checkpoint and into the store; their ebb and flow like that of water rushing through a dam and into the shop. He’d heard shouting, screaming from inside; the sound of things crashing to the ground like some giant monster of some sort had been throwing its weight around the place. The soundtrack of civilisation crashing down around him went on as people darted back out the shop; their arms full with boxes and bags of things he couldn’t put names to from where he was. They fought in the streets; tearing mere tins of food from one another, knocking each other down as they ravaged, fought, pillaged one another before the cycle continued. A whirlwind of maddened, confused violence playing out before his eyes.
After it had all happened there had been just silence, not even a police response. Even the kid next door hadn’t been having nightmares like he had been either. If there was ever a time for nightmares, Charlie had felt it was then more than ever.

It had been after the panic had appeared to reach its peak that everything had gone deathly quiet. He’d managed to get enough food for himself for a good several days thanks to his late night sorties when everyone had been quietly isolated before the panic had sent everyone into madness.
“As millions of people complain of horrendous nightmares almost identical to those that the Plague victims are said to be experiencing; crowds here in Adams Park run rampant as they fear the isolation measures have not protected them from the Plague.”
The news had gone on to show footage of the insanity playing out; chaos, madness as if it had been an image from hell. The breaking of the human spirit, the collapse of civilisation.
But Charlie had been adamant that he’d sit it out for as long as he could. He’d keep the news channel off, limiting himself to no more than five minutes at a time; but by the way thing had been going he wondered how long the news channel would even be broadcasting. Things weren’t looking good whichever way he looked at it.

His sleep that night had been disturbed and unsettled; the events of the last two days echoing through his mind. Tossing and turning in bed he couldn’t seem to settle his mind but he’d basically been fully awake when he heard movement from upstairs. A shuffling, a disturbance as if the couple upstairs had been rolling around on the floor in a struggle. Then right then he suddenly caught the sound of a scream from outside before a crashing sound. He couldn’t tell exactly where it had come from but it certainly hadn’t been a figment of his imagination. Swinging the balcony door open he’d peered over the balcony; two bodies led shattered and motionless in the street below, the warm blood still running from their broken forms. Horrified, he’d called out for someone, surely he hadn’t been the only one that had heard it; but he’d got nothing back, no reaction. It had been at that point that the sickening realisation hit him, the whole world was really going to hell.
All he could do with himself after had been to sit in his armchair with the lamp on. He’d got no response from the emergency services, they’d obviously been up to their eyeballs in it all. He’d sat staring at the wall, the sight of the couple upstairs all too present in his mind. There had been no kind of alarm, nothing to indicate that anyone else had even heard or seen it. Even by the morning the two bodies had been there just as they had been in the night; no police, not anyone of any authority had come by. The world had never felt so dead, and he’d never felt so sick.

Continues in episode 3