The next feed was footage from the bar district — the same streets I'd driven out of that morning. A line of yellow police tape had gone up, thick and ugly, sealing off the whole block.
Inside the tape, police were firing smoke rounds into the crowd, trying to shove the mob back, trying to contain the riot — and getting nowhere. The smoke was full of bobbing heads and sudden screams. Cars sat rolled or smashed; ambulances were trapped at the center of it, their crews long gone. A crowd had tried to run, and hadn't made it out.
"Back! Everybody back!" At the tape's edge, an officer was screaming at anyone who drifted too close.
"The scene is—" The reporter's face was serious and strained. "The cause is still unknown. Let's see if we can find a witness—"
He spotted a wounded man staggering out of the smoke and ran at him, camera crew behind. "Sir! Sir, can you tell us—"
A scream. The camera lurched and spun through a whole compass of sky and pavement — the cameraman had been hit too. When the lens smacked the ground, the last thing it caught was the reporter going down under the man from the smoke, and then a sheet of blood splashing across the glass. The feed died.
Across the city, everyone watching the live broadcast went very still. I watched the local channel flatline and raised an eyebrow. I'd gotten out just in time. An hour later — half an hour later — and nothing about that drive would have gone the way it went.
I surfed on. The next channel up the chain — the state affiliate — was still on air, but only because it was still airing yesterday's copy: newsrooms are always downstream of the truth. A business segment, then the anchor, smiling on schedule, pivoting to the weather: "Flu season continues. Officials are asking everyone to limit outdoor activity and avoid cross-in—"
A man came out of nowhere and onto the set — covered in blood, an employee, something wrong with the way he moved. He folded over the anchor's desk and did not get up.
The anchor's composure cracked — panic first, then confusion — and he glanced toward the control room. Whatever he saw there finished the job: pure animal fright filled his eyes. "Director, cut—" New chapters come out on NovelPing first.
He never finished. The man on the desk launched at him. A beep — and NO SIGNAL.
It wasn't one station. It was all of them, staggered like dominos — the early ones already gone, just static and snow; the late ones dying live, on camera, in front of the whole city.
That day, every institution in the country fell in line, one after another. I cycled through channel after channel. A few automated ones still played cartoons and syndicated dramas on schedule; everything else was black.
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And then every dead channel came back at once — all of them carrying the same thing. Black screen. White text. The Emergency Alert System.
EMERGENCY ALERT. *Widespread violent attacks are underway nationwide. All residents: stay indoors. All schools closed. All businesses and public institutions closed. Secure your doors and windows. Await rescue. Await rescue. AWAIT RESCUE.*
They cut every feed in the country and put that on loop. Three times: await rescue.
I knew this broadcast by heart. In my first life, the stations put up the exact same notice. In the beginning, everyone believed it — everyone was sure this thing would be stamped out within days.
Nobody knew it was a death sentence. There is no cure for that virus. Nothing works except sealing everything down at minute one and putting down every infected person — including anyone carrying so much as a scratch.
By the time the people in charge understood what they were dealing with, it was already everywhere. Then the rescues stopped being promised. Then the notices stopped altogether. Everyone on their own. The machine had come apart.
And by the time ordinary people figured that out, their pantries were already empty. Nobody was coming with supplies. That was the day the real apocalypse started — the day everyone understood they'd have to go out and find things themselves.
In my first life I got lucky once, right at the start: I was standing at ground zero — the hospital — and I watched the first turn with my own eyes. I knew exactly what that virus was. I got Beth home, told the family to shut every window, lock every door, and open nothing for anyone. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
That one piece of luck carried us through the first wave. Our complex screamed for three days and three nights. Every household that opened a door was wiped out to the last person.
Then people worked out the rule — stay quiet, stay sealed, and the things outside lose interest. And once everyone was burrowed in and hiding, I went out. In those early days the things were slow and weak, and almost nobody had reacted yet; the whole neighborhood was crouched behind their doors. Suited up, wrapped head to toe, weapon in hand, I moved careful and quiet to the supermarket on our block and emptied what mattered. A clean run, straight home.
And when I knocked — my own family wouldn't open the door. They were afraid I'd turned.
What changed their minds was Summer — barking behind the door, louder and louder, dragging more and more of them toward our entrance. They let me in because they were afraid the dog would get the whole family surrounded.
Then they checked me over, found no wounds, found the mountain of supplies — and their faces changed like weather. Suddenly everyone was warm, circling, eager to please.
Back then I still believed they were my family. A few sweet words, a little scolding of myself, and I let it go — shared the supplies out, handed over everything I knew about handling the things, and then took Chase and their father out again and again, running runs while the rest of the world was still too scared to move.
Eventually the neighbors copied us. Stage two of the apocalypse: it stops being survival and starts being looting.
The stores around the complex were stripped bare fast, and a whole batch of residents died fighting over shelves. I stayed careful the entire way through — and when neighbors came for ours, I pushed them back hard, more than once. I kept the family alive until word came that relief was coming.
Stage three: rescue. I heard it on the radio — convoy routes, relief points — and moved the whole family out toward one.
Nobody wanted to go. With me around, home felt safe enough, they said.