Variance - Book 1, Issue #7

Georgia

Four months earlier

Day 21 of The Rise

     The chaos was in full effect.  Nearly half the city of Savannah had either fled or been killed.  The ones who stayed were caught in a perpetual state of denial.  They would not last long.  People were dying.  Or they were going mad.  Between madness and death, the line was fine over the more desirable outcome.  

     Things in Atlanta weren’t nearly as dire.  The city limits had been quarantined by the National Guard, but the flow of information had stalled.  Those inside the quarantine zone hadn’t a clue as to why they were being held.  This did not bode well for the National Guard.  As reports came in from other states that the National Guard was quarantining every major city, the panic evolved into universal cabin fever.  

     The National Guard did the best they could, sending out troops during the day to bring back civilians by night.  On one particular occasion, a team of six was sent out in the early afternoon.  It was close to sundown, but distress calls suddenly came pouring in from Newnan and Peachtree City.  The team was dispatched, almost at once, with very little hesitation from the commanding officer.  It did not take long before the evening sun slipped below the horizon and the bright sky transformed into a dank grey.  The team leader, Higgins or Hodgkins (something like that, though now irrelevant), radioed to base they had thirty civilians and were en route back to base.  Three minutes later there was radio silence.

     It was nearly midnight when Higgins or Hodgkins wandered back to the quarantine zone.  The ones there to see it said it was the most horrific scene they’d ever laid eyes on.  Though the stories became muddled and exaggerated, the horror remained constant.  When the perimeter guards saw Higgins or Hodgkins wandering through the night, he was holding his severed left arm with his right, his pale face a ghostly vision in what seemed like the blackest of nights.  His screams were said to be more agonizing than the image, though many found this hard to believe.  He ranted of the Variants cutting through the darkness, murdering the others, then vanishing like a cloud of smoke.  He would be dead by dawn. 

     The doctors claimed it was blood loss, though the terror in his eyes suggested otherwise.  Fear took him from this world, and Higgins, or Hodgkins, or whatever the hell his name was, was said to be more than willing to go.

     Two hundred fifty miles away, at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Savannah, Captain Richard Blake woke with a start.