Hey all. This is the infamous 'Stand' story I've been talking about forever. Some interest was shown in it, so I put it up. This is only the first part of the story (there will probably be three to five different parts just to lower the reading intake). I will also remind that this was only my part of the story, so characters who weren't under my influence (sucks for them) didn't get written about. To clarify, my characters were: Jack, Kate, Sun, Jin, Hurley, Sayid, Boone, Danielle (I think that's all of them). Anyways enjoy. And one final apology for the jumpy writing.
The Stand
Part 1
The skies were red with blood and death, the crimson and titian swirled together making the looming clouds that violently covered the sun. Cars lay piled and abandoned in the streets, crashed into each other, or buildings or people. Some buildings and trees stood weakly on fire, just enough to add a black smog to the atmosphere that increased the fright.
Jack stood in the middle of the street, his suit blowing with the musty, humid wind that carried in the smell of rotting corpses that lined the street like Christmas lights. He knew it had gotten bad two day ago, when nearly everyone in the hospital had that same cold.
At first all the medical officials had just thought it was some rare outbreak of the flu in the middle of summer, but then slowly the casualty numbers increased until panic was at an all time high. Soon there would be no one to count the death toll, because they too, would just be another number in the statistic.
He had gone to work two days ago, ready to help with all the persistent cases of this flu. He had been one of two doctors well enough to continue working, the next day his healthy colleague had become deathly ill, and died in front of Jack later that afternoon.
This morning he had gone in to the hospital, among all the bodies slew chaotically on gurneys, on the ground, in the cafeteria--the morgue had long since run out of room. He still went in, hoping to find someone alive, or to offer any help to any of those still dying, a listener or a friend in their last few minutes, but it was useless.
Jack's eyes began to water as the decaying smell became more pungent with a strong northern wind. His father had died from it quickly, one of the first casualties, but then again he had lived where the outbreak occurred, America. Jack had phoned mother's house, but the operator on the line had informed him that the number was 'out of service' which meant she had passed and someone had ransacked their house. Jack didn't mind that thought, for only .8 percent of the population would live through this, which meant that there was a 99.2 chance that the burglar had passed.
What really bothered him was the fact that he hadn't been able to get an answer from the Sydney Prison phone for this day. He drove over yesterday, but the hacking guard had told him to turn around and drive home.
Jack rummaged in his pocket for the keys to his Aston Martin that his father had given him for his last birthday, then took another look at the roads. There was no space to drive; it was cluttered with car wrecks, cadavers, and garbage.
He shoved the keys back into his pocket and began to make the long run to the prison, remembering his hurdle training in high school to dodge the bodies. All of this, this Armageddon seemed ethereal to him, the burning sky giving him a nightmarish sense.
Not stopping at the corners, his body temperature began to raise, his lungs burning from the intake of rancid, acidic air. He kept pushing himself to go one more block, then one more after that, until he came to the great walls that guarded the periphery of the prison.
At the guard's station, the arm on the meter kept rising and falling sequentially; as soon as it was lowered it moved back up again. As Jack walked closer he realized that this was due to the fact that the guard, who wouldn't let him in yesterday, was lying over the control panel, face down. The weight of his body pressed against the button that elevated the gate.
He walked over and examined the lifeless body of the guard, mucus exuding from his nostrils and his mouth, seeping into the control panels, infecting them with death. Jack cringed and reached inside the guard's pockets, pulling out a large set of keys.
He sighed, he had somewhat come to grips with the fact that he couldn't save anyone, he wasn't God and this had long since evolved out of his hands. As he made his way around the almost bouncing arm of the meter, he hoped to God she was okay.
In the paper it had explained what had happened over in America, the so called flu was engineered by the army to be used as biochemical warfare if the time called for it. Well apparently something had gone wrong with the security systems, causing this whole mess. Billions dead, only few born with the antibodies capable of fighting off the virus.
His dad had always told him he was lucky, and in this situation, he certainly wouldn't have argued. But she, he could freely say, without a shred of guilt on his conscience, that she was the most ill-fated person he'd ever met. Maybe that was part of the attraction? That old cliché of 'opposites attract' floated through his mind.
But she was strong, if anything she was strong. Strong to physical pain, to the torture of being cooped up in this hellhole of a prison for the last month, nothing could break her spirits. But like any other person, she got scared.
Jack shuddered as he stood before the cold, steel doors of the prison. Looking back to the swaying arm and the skyscraping, concrete walls that were lined with barbed wire, all of it was useless now.
He investigated the door and picked what he hoped was the right key, they all seemed to look the same though, this one was much larger in stature. After inserting it, and several others into the keyhole, he finally picked the right fit. Breaking in was definitely not like the movies.
Though she should know that first hand, before she had met Jack, her life had been a little rocky, to be described benevolently. The police however had finally caught up with her, charging her with aiding and abetting, credit card fraud, assault with a weapon, robbery, and theft. She had explained that she was forced into the crimes in fear of her own life, but the jury didn't believe her.
Jack on the other hand did, she had been truthful to him, and he knew that she could never freely be capable of all those crimes. He came to visit her anytime they would let him, talking through the Plexiglas, hearing each other's voices through the static of the phone. She always put on a brave face for him, but he could read right through it, they both knew each other so well.
The clopping of his shoes echoed in the emptiness of the prison, one guard laid sprawled out over a desk before the prison doors, dead of course, his head buried in papers that were pasted to his face by his own sweat and mucus.
Jack solemnly walked over and began searching the drawers for some kind of layout of the prison so he could find her quickly. She was alive, he knew she had to be, something as little as a virus couldn't kill her.
Fumbling through what seemed like trees and trees in papers, he finally came to a diagram of the jail, listing all the prisoners and where their cells were located. He ran his finger down the list at the side until he came to her last name, Austen. He had never gotten the chance to marry her, or even ask for that matter.
She was on the main floor, cell number 815. Jack quickly glanced at the door, noticing that it needed a cardkey for entrance. He looked down at the guard, lying lifeless, his eyes opened and bloodshot, staring directly ahead at no point of interest.
On the desk beside him was a white card key that mimicked a credit card. Without thinking twice, he snatched it up, hurriedly made his way to the door. He scanned the card in and silently prayed that the prisons generators had kicked in. The power had shut off last night, that's when he knew it was bad.
The door clicked and after opening the immediate stench of rotting hit Jack like a sack of bricks. He coughed and swiftly moved up the collar of his shirt, tarnished by all the fumes in the outside air.
Instantly a gust of cold air hit him, even though it had been scorching outside for various reasons, the cell area of the prison felt like a freezer. Even the concrete floor had commenced in collecting bits of ice, making it hard for Jack to keep balance.
The bars of the cells were like metal poles found on a New York street at Christmas time, the dark metal incandescent with a layer of frost. The kind of bars that teach that poor kid not to stick his tongue to them twice.
As Jack wrapped his suit jacket around him tighter, and pulled up his shirt color even more so, then as a sick, acrid taste rose in the back of his mouth, he realized what the jail's warden had been trying to do. Instead of getting rid of the bodies, he realized that all the prisoners where going to die eventually and just turned the holding area into a big fridge to preserve the bodies. Anyone who hadn't died of the disease would starve or freeze to death.
As his breath escaped his mouth in little wisps of gray air, he prayed that somehow she'd survived this. He could handle loosing his parents, his friends, his house, his job, and everything else, but she had to be there with him. Or else all was lost.
He walked at a quick pace horizontally until he came to the eighth row of cells. He proceeded down them, glancing in a cell now and then at the gray and ashen faces of woman convicts claimed by the plague. Some looked like they'd been here since the first outbreak, over a week ago.
He stopped before cell 815, the iron bars were bent from kicking and throwing of sturdy items, but it was futile, the bent bars weren't distorted enough to escape through. Looking in the small cell seemed vacant, that is if you ignored the lump under the blankets of the bed.
"Kate?" Jack whispered hoarsely, pulling his collar down from obscuring his face. The tiny puff of air from his mouth drifted up towards the ceiling, diffusing into nothingness.
The lump didn't move, and Jack's agitation began to grow. He rummaged through his pockets, pulling out the set of keys he'd taken from the guard and proceeded in trying everyone on in the keyhole until one of them fit.
"Kate," he nudged with his voice gently, "Kate, Sweetie, if you're alive, just give me some kind of sign," he begged as he frantically switched keys. Still nothing, only the sound of Jack's voice echoing though the jail.
"It's a slaughter house," Jack stated quietly as he switched keys, "It's nothing but a damn slaughter house!" He yelled and the keys unbeknownst, slipped from his clammy hands, hit the ground in Kate's cell and slid three feet across the floor in one swift movement.
"Dammit!" he yelled, the cadence in his voice shook the room, almost cracking icicles that hung from the ceiling.
Suddenly there was a shift under the blanket, a lethargic, lolling movement, but a movement none the less.
"Kate?" He questioned once again, moving over to get the closest he possibly could to the bed, "Kate if you can hear me, do something," he pleaded, "Anything."
"Jack?" a small muffled voice came from under the blanket, it slid down some to reveal the brown tresses, and jaded eyes of the woman he loved.
"Kate," he cried happily as he exposed his hands to the cold, wrapping them around the bars of the cell, "Oh God Kate, you're alright."
She pushed herself up from the bed dizzily, the blanket sliding down, revealing the notorious short-sleeved orange top, and orange pants. They swam on her, looked much too big.
"Jack," she smiled with tears in her eyes as she did her best to make it over to the bars of the cell. She stopped and kept her eyes on him, sparkling, shining with that hope he'd longed to see.
He reached his hand through and cupped her cheek, "I knew you'd be okay."
"I've missed you so much," she stuttered quietly, the cold having some effect on her as the little puffs broke out into the air.
He smiled, "We have to get you out of here," he explained lightly, "I dropped the keys in your cell, can you get them for me?"
"Yeah," she replied her voice raspy; she moved over, gripping the waist of her pants tightly so they didn't slide down. She picked up the keys and gently placed them in Jack's hand.
"It might take me a minute or two to find the right key," he announced, Kate nodded and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to conceal warmth, "Kate, you can go sit down," he offered, "You need to stay warm."
She nodded, her teeth almost chattering at the uncanny arctic temperature.
Soon enough Jack heard the grateful click of the door being unlocked as it slowly creaked open. Kate stood up, the blanket wrapped around her, waiting for Jack.
He stepped through the threshold, and in an instant held Kate in his arms. Just standing there, holding her frozen, frail form. He dipped his head, capturing her lips, "I love you Kate," he announced, "I love you so much."
"I love you too," Kate replied, sliding a cool hand to his cheek as she weakly leaned up to kiss him. The blanket dropped to the ground and his hands moved under her top, scoping her waist.
"You've lost weight," he declared as he lightly ran a finger over her ribs, he could almost count them without looking.
With her cheek pressed against his she dimly stated, "The last time they fed me was supper one night ago," she explained, like she was some species of animal that was caged in a zoo, "After that they just stopped coming in with the food."
"What?" he asked pulling her back, staring into her faded eyes that she barely had the energy to keep open.
"I kept drinking the water from the sink," she informed, shooting a hand out, making a feeble attempt to point for the ancient, sullen sink, "But they shut the water off this morning."
Jack set his jaw in vexation, how could they do this to her, just let her waste away into nothing. Treating her like some damn circus animal, he sighed in irate and placed his chin back on her shoulder, glad he'd gotten here on time.
"Is it bad?" she whispered into his ear, she had been unable to see the outside world for the past month. Only the windows that stood high above the ground, blocked off by bars.
"Yeah," he nodded as he pulled back, gently tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. Her face was white, but her cheeks were rosy, and she reminded him of one of those porcelain china dolls, "Yeah, it's bad," he replied.
She nodded in response and he moved away from her, still gripping her hand tightly in his, "Let's get out of here," he suggested, "We'll get you something to eat, and then some new clothes," he explained lightheartedly, "Are you okay to walk?"
"Yeah," she replied softly.
He nodded and began to lead her out of the cell, walking the icy corridor until they reached the entrance room where the temperature greatly changed. The refreshing warmth was soothing at first, but then instantly turned into a great discomfort.
"This is what it's like outside," he began to explain as they slowly walked to the door, "Except with less bodies, and smell and fire," he painted a verbal picture for her, with a solemn smile.
Leading towards the door she halted suddenly, making him turn back and gaze towards her, "Is something wrong?" he asked concerned.
"Umm," she stammered, her voice cracked with tears and Jack's heart sunk, she never cried.
Taking a deep breath in he cleared his mind and moved a hand to her face, clearing it of tears, "What's the matter?" he questioned, softly, lovingly.
"Jack," she openly sobbed now as she anxiously wiped away the tears, like if she got them away fast enough he would never have seen them.
"Kate its okay, we're going to be fine, I promise," he explained gripping both her hands in his, standing directly in front of her with that relaxing smile.
"It's not that," she replied her voice like a mouse's squeak, her eyes seemingly unable to meet his.
"What is it then?" he questioned, placing a gentle hand under her chin, tilting up her head so he could meet her eyes, trying to mollify her.
With her lips pursed she rolled her eyes up to try to drown out the tears then focused on him once again, "Well, ummm," she was terrified about something, Jack could tell. His eyes held all the love and understanding she needed to continue without him saying a word.
"I think I'm pregnant," she divulged, her eyes glassed, her cheeks stained red, and the corners of her pursed lips tilted up in the slightest, to give her the smallest splash of a smile.
The wind blew heavily as he rounded the corner, the rubber tires screeching against the steaming asphalt of the road, leaving burnt black streaks stained into the ground. He didn't slow down, he wouldn't. His foot pressed the gas pedal against flat against the bottom of his Porsche. The top was down; the wind was wiping his short hair around his face, over his sunglasses, sometimes obscuring his vision. But he wouldn't stop.
He didn't have any place to go, but he was determined to get there fast. He didn't have a long time, and he knew it. He thought he'd be one of the lucky sheep in the flock, one of the ones who didn't choke on their own mucus, or have a fever so high that their body charred from the inside out. But he wasn't.
His fever was high; the aspirin helped a bit, but not a whole lot, mainly just took off the edge that would be back in a few minutes. He could tell he was going, swallowing became harder, the mucus clogged his throat so he was forced to spit it out. Not that it mattered there were no cars behind him, mostly everyone was already gone.
She was gone, he hadn't seen her since he flew to Australia from America to come and get her, but he new she was gone. There was no way that she could survive this when he couldn't. Why would God choose to spare her? The girl who thought that shopping stood on a higher pedestal then religion. Who would choose a MasterCard over a bible any day of the week. The girl who went to the hair salon every Sunday to get her roots re-dyed while she watched soaps instead of going to mass.
He wasn't going to lie, he wasn't an overly religious fellow himself, he didn't attend Sunday masses, but he always went on Easter and Christmas, just to show the higher power that he understood what he had been given and that he was grateful. At least he had set a foot in a church without the intent on screwing one of the alter boys or something.
He didn't know why he was so bitter; perhaps at the end of life, everyone becomes bitter. Bitter for things never done, bitter for the stupid things that came first.
The car began to skid from one side of the road to the other now, crossing over the white dividing like a needle stitching both sides of the road together. He finally saw it necessary to stop, at a resting area to the side of the road that extended over the side of the cliff, over looking the rigid and jagged rocks that lay below, waiting.
He stopped the car perfectly straight overlooking the vast scenery. He pulled back the emergency break, something that took most of the strength from his body and listened to the music that fluttered through the radio. Some sappy love song about being linked eternally or whatever, he couldn't really focus his fever had returned and his mind wandered over the thousands of 'what ifs'.
What if he didn't have to die with this disease? What if the overzealous American government intent on starting some biochemical hell, didn't? What if he was fine right now, sitting on the balcony of his nice mansion that hard work and a solid education had paid for? What if Shannon wasn't his step-sister? Then would his guilty feelings about that one night be any different? Is that why he could never get her out of his mind?
He took in a wet, wheezing breath, then coughed and spit a chunk of phlegm onto the sandy ground outside. He did his best to try to relax, staring at the warm colored sky that looked comforting and swirling like cotton candy. It seemed to reach out to him, to placate him.
The rocky shore underneath no longer looked like monster's teeth that could shred metal, but like fluffy clouds that would carry him away, that would lull him gently, to sleep. Make him forget all his sins and wrong doings. Make him forget about all the pain, the metal, physical, and emotional pain.
He blinked his eyes at a sudden thought, then turned his head and coughed another tennis ball sized lump of phlegm. In a different life, it would have never come to this. Before the virus he wouldn't have done this, for many reasons, maybe because he was too good. But right now he was too good for this virus and it seemed to be the only way to get rid of it.
A warm tear slid down his face, his eyes stinging like battery acid. No, he would've never done what he was about to do. The pain in his mother's eyes as she read about Boone Carlisle driving his car off a cliff, the young twenty-two-year-old ending it all. But now, there was nothing to end, no one he knew was still alive, his throat was slowly closing, becoming swollen and irritated along with the supple skin underneath his eyes. He was seeing hallucinations, his head on fire. He'd be damned if he was going to die like this.
He slid the emergency break back, and revved the car's engine, hearing that soft purr turn into a ferocious growl, and he cracked a smile. He put it into drive and was pushed back against the leather seat as the car made its way to the edge of the cliff.
There was a brief jolt and an audio discomfort when the metal at the front of his car mingled and shredded against the metal from the safety railing as it broke through. The car tilted down, falling like a feather towards the downy, whipped cream land below.
Taking one look back, he saw the faint outline of someone, squinting his eyes it became clear, Shannon stood watching in horror as his car fell to the bottom of the canyon. Her engineered blonde hair wavering in the wind, following the direction of her miniskirt. He would've been mad about his mind hallucinating again, but in a few seconds, all his pain was gone.
She held his hand gently, his pallid fingers pressed together in the strength of her grip. Her knees dug into the covered floor, the spot where the tiles lined up leaving an indent in her knees, bruising them.
Her husband lay on the gurney before her, as he had the day before, and the day before that. His body was now almost completely white, like the satin curtains that hung in their apartment back in Korea.
His face was empty of emotion, eyes rolled back in his head, jaw locked. His soul had long since left his body, entered into the after life, yet still here she knelt by his side four days after his death.
He had been domineering in life to say the least, but never physically overbearing. He would never slap her or beat her, but the look he sent sometimes made her blood run cold.
A silent tear trailed her cheek as she ran a hand through his hair lovingly. He had always been in business with her father. It was the only way her father would allow them to marry, but that meant that he was always working, always to busy for her, traveling to England, the US, or Australia. They never had time for a honeymoon; he stated that work was far more important.
He had made her wait; wait for everything she wanted in life. A job for herself so she could contribute, a proper house instead of the apartment they were living in now, even a child. He told her it would take up to much of his spare time, to wait five years so that all other aspects of their life were settled.
She hated him for it, having her life scheduled like common appointments, but then when she looked at him, she knew that he really loved her, and that he was doing this, in some way, for her.
She had traveled with him on his last business trip, that's how she ended up here, in Sydney. He had become quite sick after the first day; she just assumed it was food poisoning from one of the restaurants they'd attended. Then it grew, turning into a flu like virus, he began to come down with a high fever, unable to even move.
She'd given him aspirin, but that had barely taken off the edge. When she woke up in the middle of the night and found him struggling for breath, she phoned 9-1-1, explaining his condition the best she knew. She had some medical training, but this virus had stretched and depleted her knowledge.
He died after an hour of them shocking his heart, willing it to start, until he finally flat lined and his soul was released. They wheeled him into the hall, stating that they'd get him down to the morgue once they had a chance. She waited with his body all night and no one came to take it.
She fell into sleep next to him on the ground and in a half awake moment, she heard medical officials stating that there was no room left in the morgue. So she stayed with him ever since, watching the hospital morph into a breeding ground for this disease, and becoming surprised when she never caught it herself.
Soon doctors stopped coming in, nurses stopped coming around. She moved from her spot only twice a day, to get food and to go to the washroom. Each day she saw the same doctor, in his guilt for not having the ability to help anyone, his eyes so full of shame.
Where ever he was, she thought as she leaned her back against the gurney, cuddling her bruised knees to her chest. She hoped he was with loved ones.
And there it is. I have to warn that the characters, don't always stay in character. If this story were to continue the character pairing were: Jack and Kate, Sayid and Sun, and a triangle with Shannon/Sawyer/Claire (who weren't my characters). I have an affinity for breaking the rules.
Remember to review!