Andy's eyes force their way open. The taste of hours of sleep is fresh in his mouth. His eyes are crusty and dry, it takes him a few moments to really come too, his head is spinning. And his vision is still a little blurry. His head was pounding as his heart pumped blood to the constricted vessels, making his headache seem a thousand times worse. As he blinks, trying to get the vision back, shapes and colours start to make themselves out. And as his vision fades back in, so does the sound of a soft song playing on some radio somewhere. Suddenly he can make out where he is, his room, in London. His posters, paintings and pictures are hanging on the walls, the sun shining in from the open window, the blinds fluttering as the wind passes through. The song is one that his mother used to listen to when she would do housework "Abide With Me" was the name of the song, Andy never really asked who it was by. It was a song that he used to dislike hearing, but now it was somehow comforting. He was dressed in the same clothes he had left london in, but somehow they were clean now. He stood up from the bed and slowly started to make his way through the house, pushing open his door and seeing the empty hallway leading to the stairway. He stepped passed Tammy's room, the door just cracked open, peeking inside he could see that Tammy was nowhere to be found.
The song was getting louder, as if someone was turning up the volume on the record player. He rounded the corner at the stairs and stepped down into the kitchen. Their family pictures spread out across the front of the refrigerator. The one picture he took with him that day was replaced, sitting in the exact spot he had taken it from. He pulled it down softly, looking it over as best he could, but somehow the picture was changed, blurred, his mothers face was smudged over. He folded the picture in half and tucked it into his pocket. He rubs the sleepy sand out of his eyes as he steps into the living room, his father Don is sitting in the chair near the television. As Andy enters the room Don turns to him, his face warm and inviting. That same smile that Andy had grown to love about his father.
"Sleep Good Then did Ya?" He said with that scottish accent that Andy had come accustomed to. Andy nodded his head slowly, he hadn't really come too yet. His head still spinning he sat down on the couch, the smell of perfume had started to fill his nostrils, the smell of his mothers perfume, god it had been so long since he had smelled it. It filled him with a sense of safety, security, in knowing that everything was as it should be. Just as he remembered it. His mother stepped through the doors leading out to the backyard, she carried with her a dirty clothes container and a few clothes that she had taken off the line out in the back yard. When she stepped through the door she set the container on the ground and walked towards Andy, she embraced him, and in that moment Andy felt free. He felt like he used to feel, happy, warm, home.
"How'd You get so Handsome Andrew?" She asked, holding his head up so she could see him. She kissed him on the cheek. It was then that Andy hugged her, tighter than he had ever before, he could feel her, smell her, to him she was real. The music playing softly now in the background, he could feel her soft hair against his cheek, everything was as it should have always been.
"Wheres Tammy Honey?" His father said, not looking up from the television. "She's been gone for almost three hours."
Tammy was always leaving and coming, out and in with her friends. Tammy was always the social one of the two, always the one on the go. While Andy sat at home most of the time, he had friends back in school, but so many kids at his age were constrained by their parents. When Andy did find time to hang with his friends it was usually at his own house, jumping on the trampoline, skateboarding in the front street, or playing video games in his bedroom. His life was just like everyone elses, and when it all came crashing down it was hard for him. He missed Tammy when she would leave, she was always there when he would get nightmares, or when he just felt down about something, she was always the one that could make him feel better, its not Don and Alice were bad parents, sometimes they just didnt understand the way Tammy did. Andy remembered when he would wake up late at night when he was little, crying, and Tammy would lay with him. Running her hands through his hair, and reminding him that no matter what happened all her had to do was open his eyes and she would be there, no matter what.
He shook his head, his mother had begun to step back towards the kitchen now. But as she got farther and farther away his vision started to blur again. And his head started to pound, his father looked at him with a smile on his face, he was asking some sort of question, but Andy couldn't make out the words. As his vision blurred his fathers face changed, the smile fades into a bloody scream, and his eyes filled with such love and warmth turned to dark, red, hateful so terrifying. For a moment he saw his fathers face as clearly as he had back in London, in that parking garage that he had been locked inside of. The first time he saw his father infected, he remembered how hopeless he felt. He remembered how abadoned and alone it made him feel. As the vision of his father blurred so did the setting, the walls of the house started to fade away, dropping off like falling dominoes into a black background. The ceiling began to crack, and peices of it began to fall down onto Andy's head, it was as if the world was being pulled away, broken down. Destroyed by some godlike force.
Andy tried to stand, but as he did the floor at his feet gave way, crumbling around him as if it was made of glass. But as he fell he didn't feel weightless, he didn't feel like he was floating. He felt calm, and sure of himself as he crashed through the floor beneath him. He reached his hand up to grab onto something, but all of a sudden the world he was just in, was gone. And all there was left was blackness. His feet hit the ground, but as he looked there was nothing there, just the same blank, dark abyss that was all around him. Somehow he could see himself, but nothing else, he looked down at his hands that were once clean and had now been stained a shade of blood red. The spots on his shirt and jacket had returned. Timidly he began to take tiny steps out to the front of him. And with that, he began to hear voices, familiar ones.
"How Old Are you Andy?" The question Scarlett had asked him when he first got back to London.
"Twelve." His own voice answering the question. Echoing throughout the emptiness of the abyss. "My Mother...my Mother...my Mother...She Did." his words repeating over and over again, in a sort of tone distortion. His voice went in and out, dropped low and then high.
He blinked his eyes, being met with a flash of light, blinding him. As the light faded he could see the terminal again, he was standing in the center of the long hallway, at the end there was a single soldier standing. Waving his hand in the air as people walked in slow motion passed him. He could move normally, but everyone else was moving sort of slow, he stepped to the end of the hallway. Looking out the window, looking out at the clean-up crews down on the street, bringing bodies out of the houses below. A Soft rumbling started in the back of his head, and as he watched more it only got worse. As the soldiers began bringing bodies out of the houses, Andy could only make out on face, his own. Every single body that was laid out on the street was his, a blank, accusing stare in his eyes, glossed over, pale, lifeless. The breath is taken right out of his lungs, his heart begins to pound and his head begins to throb again. He takes a couple steps back grabbing his chest, feeling his heart about to explode out of his chest. It is then "They" round the corner, Tammy and Andy.
He blinks his eyes to make sure that he's seeing straight, but it is him, walking alongside his sister, holding her hand as they step passed the armed guards in slow motion. Andy steps up behind them, he reaches his hand out, thinking that if he could maybe just warn himself, maybe it all could be avoided. But his hand passes through, molds into his own shoulder, as if only touching water, the alternate Andy's body ripples, and distorts. He turns to see who tapped him on the shoulder, but his image stretches as if being pulled violently into some alternate reality. Part of him keeps walking forward, while the other half meets himself in that hallway, their blue eyes meeting each other. Just as it happens the image fades back, flashing the one half of Alternate Andy back inside himself. Andy takes a couple of steps backwards as Tammy as his alternate self continue down the hallway. There is nothing he can do to stop what is about to happen, and thats whats killing him the most. He folds his hands over his face and rests his back against the wall, slowly sliding down hopelessly into a sitting position against the wall. The shadows of people walking by pass across him, unhindered by his presence.
Tears have now begun to well up in the pits of his eyes, he shakes his head back and forth and rubs the droplets of water from his face. He takes another long look out the window, that day the sun was shining, and a thin layer of clouds had begun to float across the sky. It was beautiful, he remembered how it felt to finally be able to get back to his home, his town, his family. He remembered the feeling of seeing his father for the first time in what had seemed like ages. How happy he was to at least have him, if no one else. He hated thinking that his mother died alone, scared and sad. He closed his eyes again, trying to fight back the feelings that were crashing into his head. The warmth from the sun in the window faded, back to the cold, dry nothing of the darkness. He openned his eyes and thast where he was again, the blackness. He hated this place, it reminded him of those air ducts, he didnt know really where to go or what to do. He began stepping forwards again, trying to find his way out of this place. But then came the voices again, this time of his father, his sister.
"Your Mum and I were Hiding In a House...we were attacked." He remembered the regret in his fathers voice telling that storry about their mother. He remembered never seeing his father really cry like that before, he wished he could have been there, maybe he could have made a difference.
"Was there nothing you could do...?" A soft voice muttered, it was his voice, the voice that echoed through the blank corridors of this reality, only his.
"There was nothing I Could do..." His father's reply.
"We're just happy your still alive...still alive...still alive..." Tammy's voice now plays again and again like a skipping record. Suddenly all the images come crashing back to him, the airplane from the mainland, walking down those hallways. His mother's bloody face, pulling back her skin to reveil his own. He remembered charging through deserted london, riding that mo-ped through the empty city streets where he once played with his friends. He saw his father, that smile that he came to love fading into the terrible murder face that he wore the last time he saw him. He remembers the sound of the bullets ripping passed him as he ran through the street that day. Remembered never having felt so much fear in his life, but somehow pushing through all of it. He remembered the feild, the man in the helicopter. How he refused them then, he could see them all running, Doyle shooting backwards as they ran seemingly in slow motion. He saw Scarlett, the last thing he ever saw from her was her face, full of fear and anger. He remembered his sister, screaming for him, he could hear her voice echoing in the darkness now, just as it had in those subways. He saw before him his father, standing there staring at him with that rage filled look upon his face. He remembered the tackle, the fear that ran through him as his father looked down on him. Then suddenly...the pain.
Andy's scream echoed now, and seemed to get louder as it passed through the emptiness of this place. As if something out there was reflecting it back towards him, or maybe there were a dozen different Andy's experiencing the same thing, whatever it was didn't really matter. Between the sounds echoing in the darkness and the shooting pain now running down the left side of his body Andy couldn't even think straight. His father faded off now, and the darkness collapsed, as if folding over into the distance. And suddenly he was met with that same flash of blinding light, and then the final vision, the picture Scarlett had taken of his eyes, put together to make half brown, half green. As he looked on the color of the white changed, from healthy white to that shade of red, his retnas scarred and yellow lines started to break through the redness of the blood spilling into the whites. He screamed now, feeling the udder helplessness of the entirety of the situation, he was infected, and he could feel it. And suddenly it all came to a stop, the pain, the light, the vision of his own infection that has been present right to his face. And he falls now, his legs finally giving in. He cries now, openly, sobbing into the darkness. Slowly he rests his head against the invisible floor, the tears from his face drop off, as if nothing is there at all, falling into the dark abysmal nothingness.
It is then he feels it, someones arm's wrapping around him. He opens his eyes to meet his Mothers, she brushes his brown hair out of his face and looks deeply into his eyes. His mother, has the same lost look as he does, the same lament, the same tears. She puts her hands gently against his cheeks and presses her forhead against his. He takes her hand as she stands up now, calmly, as if all the worries in the world have been washed away. She points out into the nothing, and as Andy turns to see what it is the bright flash comes back again. Painting the portrait of the city streets of London, it is Mid-morning, and the sun is just now cresting the tops of the buildings. He can hear a siren off in the distance, like the horns of the apocolypse. And he can feel the ground at his feet begin to shake, only slightly, but ever so noticably. His grip on his mother's hand tightens as what must have been a hundred infected came charging around the corner. He tries to turn and run, but his mother only stands, her grip on his hand tightening like a vice. He pulls at her.
"Mum lets go! please!" his voice breaks under his fear as tears begin to pour down his face again. But Alice on the other hand, calmly turns her head to him, her face gently smiling towards her sun. She slowly puts her finger against her lips, and somehow it comforts him. He looks into her eyes, the same bloodshot look that he finds himself with. Suddenly he can feel them, the infected, charging forward in a chaotic manner, he can feel their anger, their pain, their suffering. And suddenly he finds himself not crying for himself, he cries for them. Tears of blood running down both their cheeks now the crowd engulfs them, but instead of ravaging them, they pass them by, as if they weren't there at all. Running around them, Andy can feel them as they hit his shoulder as they pass. He can see their lives, each one that touches him, the place they came from, the people they were. Businessmen, waiters, construction workers, family men, house wives, those Terrific kids the bumper stickers promote. All lost now...lost in Rage. He looks up at his mother, but her gaze is drawn to the horizon. She slowly turns to her son, gripping his hand for one last time before stepping forward, she lets go of his hand now, he tries to step after her but something holds his feet against the the ground.
"The time for sorrow is over Andy...you have to be strong...strong for whats to come...I am gone from you, but I am apart of you...I love you Andrew...your father and I both...you can't look back anymore." Her voice echoes like an angel in his head, her calm face, mouth unmoving, as if projecting the words directly into his head. And even though Andy still finds himself sadness, there is strength in the words his mother has said. She looks at him, as if sad for him, as if scared for him, but through it all, she can only leave him with a smile. As she dissapears into the sun just above the buildings the horizon lifts skyward, bringing a wall of buildings into the sky. A Strong wind takes Andy backwards off his feet, but instead of meeting the hard pavement the blackness engulfes him again, plumeting him downwards. And just like that...its all over.
His eyes spring open now, and have to once again adjust to the light of the room. He can hear the soft sounds of the rain falling onto the roof above his head. The ceiling has been stained a shade of yellow, brown in some areas. As he starts to come too he looks around the room for a few moments. His head is throbbing now, but as he begins to rub his forehead the pain retreats just a little. Enough to where he can at least sit up on the bed. The blood on his hands has been washed off, he can't remember that happening, now can he remember how he got to where he was, or why he was dressed like some sort of in-patient. There was a small pain on his arm, where the needle had peirced his skin. There was a small pool of blood that had run down his arm from the mark, and had formed in the center of his hand. He shook it off and stepped down from the gurney. His legs felt weak, maybe it was from all the running he had done, maybe it was from the stress, or maybe it was because whatever they used to put him under was still having effect, suddenly he remembered, the helicopter, Price and the rest of Delta Squad. The nurses holding him down, and the shot. He clenched his fist, feeling an angst come over him that he hadn't felt before.
The door was locked from the outside, the knob was tight, and peeking through the small separation between the doors was useless. He could only make out the light from the other side, a yellow wall on the other side of the hall. Where had they taken Tammy? He thought to himself, for the first time in a long time, Andy had openned his eyes, and she wasn't there. He looked around the room for anything he could use to get the door open. Flying through cabinets filled with medical equipment, nothing was really usable. The window was barred up from the outside, smashing out the window would only alert the medical personel to the fact that Andy was concious. Helpless, he sat back down on the gurney, but the thought of his sister still hung heavy in the back of his head. What were they doing to her? Was she alright? What did they plan on doing to them? Just some of the thoughts that were rattling around in his head. Frustrated he rested his head in his hands, looking down at the floor with deep regret. Suddenly it hit him, he got the answer he was looking for. Just below where he was sitting was a small crack in the cloor, where the rest of the panelling on the floor was parallell, this was perpendicular. He jumped down from the gurney again, shoving it out of the way. Sure enough, there was a trap door.
Yanking it open presented a cloud of dust, and an empty stairway leading down into darkness. He hesitated momentarily, at first scared, but then he remembered all the feats he had accomplished only a few hours before, the fear he had felt then, made the fear he felt now seem so insignificant. His first steps down were slow, paced, like he wasn't quite sure of himself yet. And as he stepped down, every step seemed to make everything seem darker, blacker. He felt a light touch on his forhead, and at first he jumped, swiping away the spider or whaver it was that had just touched him. But as it passed through his fingers he could feel metal, the beads of a light switch. The light kicked on as Andy pulled the switch downward, reveiling to him the room he had entered. It was a huge room, a storage area for all the stuff that this place had been before it was turned into a medical center. Benches, Chairs, dinner tables, everything that this place was, was now here, as if buried. There was a smell of emptiness in the place, like the smell of their old spare bedroom his grandparents would stay in on visits. Like it hadn't been used in quite some time.
There was a long bar along the one side of the room, and from the looks of things thats what this place used to be, an old bar. The alcohol still lined up behind the counter in front of a huge glass mirror, something written across it was now covered by the four months worth of dust that had covered everything else. The air was still, like it had been for a long time, no wind ever found its way down here. He looked around for any way to get back to the ground level, there must have been a set of stairs somewhere, and just as he thought there, he saw them. The door marked Exit At Your Own Risk on the other side of the room. He pulled the door open but as he did he realized that he couldn't get out this way. There was something pushed over the top of the stairs at the top, as if boarded up by someone. Frustration was setting in, he let out a slight moan as he turned back into the room. He started looking around again, frantically searching for a way out. He couldn't be trapped in here he thought to himself. Then it presented itself! An old transporter shaft, used to get drinks and things to the floors above, just big enough for Andy to crawl into.
As he gripped the rope in the center he could feel another strength begin to come over him, as he pulled the rope his body weight seemed easier to lift. As he reached the first floor, he could hear people conversating on the other side of the hatch. He couldn't come out here, they would grab him and throw him back into the room, give him another shot and it would be back to the crazy darkness of the dream world. He shook his head before pulling himself up another story to the room above. Here there was nothing, he waited for a few moments to make sure someone wasn't just sitting in there filing paperwork or something. He slowly pushed the hatch open, letting the light from outside fill the shaft. He peeked around the corner of the door for a moment, the room was clear, quiet. He locked the elevator in place and stepped out onto the floor.
The floorboards creaked and moaned under his little bit of weight, apparently this place was pretty old, by the looks of it at least 25 years of age had befallen this place. Andy moved towards the door, sliding his bare feet gently across the wood floors, making almost no noise at all. He had to find his sister, but he had no idea where to look. Peeking his head out the door he could see some doctors conversating at the end of the hall, he was the only kid in this place, so getting passed them was going to be rough. He looked around for a moment, trying to search for a way to divert their attention. Then he saw it, just beside where his head was resting against the wall, the fire alarm. Overhead the sprinkler system would no doubt turn on, but either way, its raining outside, Andy thought to himself. He looked back out the door again, making sure they were still there so that he wasn't doing it for nothing. He took a few deep breathes, he knew he had to sprint, find his sister and get out of this place.
The fire alarm blared to life, as a shower of cool water began pouring from the ceiling. As the water began to saturate the hair on the top of his head he peered back into the hallway, nurses and doctors running for the exits, covering their heads with papers and lab coats. Andy moved out into the hallway, virtually dissapearing behind the walls of white coats, just as they had in london the crowds momentum pushed Andy down the stairs. He quickly jumped out of line and pressed himself firmly against the wall. Shuffling sideways towards the corner, he recognized this place, this was where they had brought him in, where they had seperated him and Tammy. He peeked around the corner at the groups of people still making their way out of the building. He moved as quickly as he could into the next room. Finding himself right where Price had found himself earlier, Intelligence. There was now another print-out of the kids faces, something that Andy instantly noticed. The same big red lettering across the bottom of the page. "Eliminate."
Andy's heart dropped into his stomach, the words made him sick. He shook his head back and forth, they were going to kill them, both of them, they didn't even know if they were infected or not. The anger started to build again, the american government had already done too much to the people of England, and now there was this, staring Andy in the face was his own death warrant. He had to find his sister, and fast before the military got hold of this report, chances are they already had it, chances are Tammy was already dead, Andy knocked the thought out of his skull, she couldn't be dead, not now, he didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to her. He knew she was clean, infection free, so why they would kill her was still up in the air. Maybe it was because the Military was covering their own asses he thought, maybe they had seen too much destruction, maybe they didn't want the truth getting out. Whatever the reasoning behind it was, Andy knew that he only had one more shot at keeping the one last family member he had in his life. He nodded his head, and just then, the alarm.
"Prisoner Escape! I Repeat Prisoner Escape! Look Out for A Small Child, A Boy, Age Twelve." The voice over the com-link was clear. Blasting throughout the entire base. He looked to the window, he could see Delta Squad, Peyton, Bronze and Davis making their way across the feild towards the medical center, the rain pouring down on their heads. As he looked around more, it appeared as if they were the only men on the base at the time, in the distance the helicopters were making a turn, and in a few moments they would be right back ontop of them. The soldiers were running up to the front of the building, in almost like a combat formation. Andy didn't know what to expect from these guys, if they were anything like the soldiers back in England, this was going to be tougher than he thought. He had to act fast, find his sister and leave, at least now she knew...he was coming for her.