After the Pandemic: Archangels (CONCLUSION... This one is long.) (1643 hits)
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Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2005-03-23 17:26:49 EST
After the Pandemic: Archangels (CONCLUSION)
Part One here http://www.ubersite.com/m/61513
Part Two here http://www.ubersite.com/m/61755
Part Three here http://www.ubersite.com/m/61985
Part Four here http://www.ubersite.com/m/62289
A breeze coming off of the Mississippi River grew in strength, and the Reverend sniffed at the cooling air. The fog was crossing the ground and moving overhead in sheets and tatters. There was a tremendous grinding reverberation, and the outer door to the immunes inner sanctum started to collapse.
*
They paused on the fifth landing, halfway up the arch. Five hundred and some stairs were behind then. Five hundred and some remained. As they passed each landing, the maintenance stairway became more and more narrow.
"So Smith," Billy said, sucking air. "What's your real story? If we're gonna die tonight, I'd like to know who I'm dying with. I'd like to know who is helping to save my son."
Smith leaned against a wall, checking the bandages on his half-dozen wounds. He considered fibbing. Then he realized that the truth really didn't matter. The odds of both of them surviving were slim. Billy wanted to get back to Shally. Maybe the kid could make a life here. Smith just wanted to get gone. He would soon be outside the arch, and outside was where he was going to stay. This wasn't the first time he had seen that gleam in a doctor's eye that said, 'We can use you, Smith. We can take you apart bit by bit and use you all up until there is nothing left.'
"Okay, kid," Smith said. Here it is. My mother was a leech. My father was a recently infected muncher. It was all part of an experiment."
"Lord God and sonny Jesus," Billy said. "Who would do such a thing?"
Smith shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not even sure those in charge were immunes. They could have been leeches. It was an underground facility, north and west of here. I don't remember much of it. I ran away when I was small."
While it was true that Smith couldn't remember the exact location of the facility (he wandered for weeks before coming across his first immune settlement), most nights his dreams took him back to that place... until the girl in his dreams called to him, and calmed him, and gave him reason to go on.
His mother had been an injured, weakened leech, attacked and impregnated by a still-turning muncher, and instead of being a combination of both perversions of humanity, perhaps one of the mythic variant C's, the child was a double immune, very mortal man.
"I age slow." Smith said. "I heal fast. I'm double immune, but that's it. Otherwise I'm just like you."
Smith remembered the dormitory he shared with other children like him. Rumor had it there were hundreds bred in experiments similar to the one that created him. Most of the children were killed in the womb or at birth, muncher infants trying to eat their way out of their mother's bodies, leeches leaving their mothers weak and anemic, children far too strong or deformed to be allowed to live. Smith's earliest memories were of a full dorm, dozens of children he played and fought with and slept beside. The men in white coats took them away one by one. When Smith escaped there were six others remaining, children who were like him to varying degrees. When he left, he let the others know the route he would take through the air circulation system to the surface. He liked to think some of them followed and were now living free somewhere. He doubted any of them had survived.
"Ready?" Smith said?
Billy rolled his yes and nodded. "This hero stuff sucks a donger."
"That is does," Smith said, as they started up the next flight of stairs.
*
The Reverend stepped forward as the outer door partially collapsed onto the inner with thunderous noise. The inner door was weakening, and large pieces of concrete were dropping into the space below.
The cool breeze blew strong, died down, shifted, and blew again.
He heard a muffled shout of, "Stand back!" and the crunch and clatter of falling stone inside the chamber below.
They were very close now.
*
Once upon a time the space Smith and Billy entered had been an observation platform. Families would stand in front of long, narrow windows and enjoy the view. Now it was a watchtower.
The windows on either side of the space were open ports. On the floor below the ports were wooden shutters that could be slipped into place in bad weather. To one side was the river. To the other was the city. The river was dark. In the city, a far-away light sparked and died.
There were food containers and water bottles and bedrolls and thick cables leading to a radio recharger and a rifle rack and boxes of ammunition and old books and magazines, including a stack of nekkid slicks that were remarkably well-preserved. A wooden ladder lead to a hatch in the top of the arch. The hatch was open. The arch was waiting.
Billy and Smith were strapped into harnesses. The harnesses had thin ropes attached to them in tight coils, a lead rope, and a guideline that would connect them in case of trouble.
"We use these harnesses when doing maintenance on the solar panels," One of the two Rangers in the watchtower said. "It's a safe rig if you don't play around out there."
The other Ranger helped them with their radios. "You can talk to Taganashi, or us, or each other. Be careful out there. These radios are hard to come by."
They went up the ladder. Smith went first. Billy watched him hesitate, and then climb out of sight.
"Careful of the solar panels," a voice said in their ears. "You'll have to walk past them before your descent really begins."
Taganashi spoke up, his voice a distant crackle. "I don't mean to rush you, but we are about to lose the outer door and it won't be long before munchers start dropping from holes in the ceiling."
Thinking of Shally, Billy went up the ladder and stepped onto the arch.
The stainless steel skin of the arch was beautiful, smooth, and slick with moisture from the fog. A gust of wind like an angry shove knocked Billy on his butt.
He shouted, "Minimal wind my ass, Taganashi!"
"Sorry," Taganashi said.
The heavy bags of alcohol and the flares were passed up to them, and they helped each other strap the bags to their backs, looping the rip cords over their shoulders. Their ropes were tied off to a weathered metal post welded to the arch long ago.
Two more small cloth bags were passed to them. "What's this?" Smith asked.
He opened one of the bags. It held half a dozen jimmy-jackets full of something.
Billy took a look. "What the hell?"
"Double-layered condoms," the Ranger at the hatch said. "Full of blast powder. Toss them at the munchers once the fire gets going. Clip the bags on your belt."
Smith nodded and stepped away. Billy watched with dismay as the hatch was closed tight.
To the lookouts Taganashi said, "Drop another flare so we can get a good look at what's happening up top."
Feeling unsteady, Billy crawled past the first solar panel on his hands and knees to where Smith was hunkered down like a man in front of a campfire.
Billy wasn't happy with the situation. "These cuelos didn't tell us the solar panels were so big!"
Smith nodded. "I'd say there's about ten inches of space on either side of these panels. Not a lot of wiggle room."
Billy looked down into the darkness. "How high up are we?"
"Sign inside said over six hundred feet."
"Oh," Billy said, having no real concept of how high that really was. He peeked over the edge.
A flare was ignited and dropped out of a porthole under their feet. As it descended on its chute it passed through layers of mist. When it reached ground level it bounced off of the head of a muncher who stomped it out.
Before the light was extinguished, Billy got a good look at the door. It was tiny. The munchers were milling specks.
Billy bent over the side of the arch and vomited.
"Don't feed them, boy," Smith said with a laugh. "It'll only encourage them!"
They made their way past all of the solar panels as quickly as they could, carefully feeding out rope, the weight of the alcohol bags already bearing down on them.
When they were past the panels and the slope of the arch became more obvious, they started passing their ropes through small metal loops, installed along the center of the outside of the arch to make inspections easier. Without securing their ropes they could slip off of the slick metal surface and be left dangling from the center of the arch, hundreds of feet over the ground.
Soon gravity took over and made their descent both easier and more difficult. They were dropping, instead of crawling or walking, but the weight they were carrying seemed worse than ever.
At forty-five degrees along the arch they paused to tie off their ropes on the last of the inspection loops. Now if they fell off of the arch they would not swing far from the north leg. As they tied off and paused to catch their breath, Smith noticed that Billy's sleeve was pulled up. There were little purple half-moons imprinted on his skin by Shally's fingernails.
"No rest stops from here on in," Smith said. "You ready?"
Billy gave a quick nod, his face white with fear. "Ready."
*
The Reverend was making a close inspection of the work in progress when the ground dropped out from under him. He was standing beside the partly-collapsed outer door when the door and a slab of concrete still attached to it pivoted like a seesaw, spilling him and three munchers into the space below. The slab pivoted again, locking itself back in place with a grinding crunch.
Before the first shot was fired the Reverend was knocking aside immunes and racing down a hallway, leaving the munchers behind as a distraction.
The Reverend ripped out two throats and took a few bullets to the belly before forcing open a sturdy door (ripping off a few fingernails in the process) and finding a quiet room in which to hide. He thought he was alone, and safe for the moment, when he heard a voice behind him.
Virtue backed out of the storeroom. Shally was lying on a cot, propped up with a pillow, a wool blanket wrapped around her. An alcolamp guttered on a table beside her.
"You'll be okay in here," Virtue said. "This storeroom has a reinforced steel door. It would take—"
He looked over his shoulder. One the other side of this admin office a leech was closing the hall door, and turning to face him.
Virtue pulled the door shut. He locked it and intentionally snapped the key off in the lock just as the leech leaped for his throat.
*
The further down the arch they climbed, the better and worse things became. The wind wasn't as strong, but the shifting mist was thicker. They were going to have to dangle right over the muncher's heads to douse them with any accuracy.
They dropped further, their arms feeling a great deal of strain now. The mist thickened, thinned, built up again.
Smith reached out and tapped Billy's shoulder when he realized that the ground was only thirty feet below
It was time.
*
The Reverend seemed to float across the room at an almost dreamlike pace. He saw a heavy, cluttered desk pass under him, and saw the man in the dark uniform drawing a handgun. He slapped the weapon across the room and let his body slam into the man, and as he found his feet the immune fell onto all fours.
Virtue was seeing black and white spots before his eyes as he sucked air and tried to get his lungs working again. He felt like a deflated balloon.
The Reverend rolled the man over, exposing the neck. He was astonished to see a network of scars on the skin of the immune, as if this sad little creature had successfully fought off a Hemophagist at some time in the past.
The leech paused, staring at his neck in shock. Virtue slipped a balisong knife out of one pocket, flipped it open, and slashed at the tendons behind the knee and ankle of the leech's left leg. The leech screamed and grabbed for Virtue, who was already rolling away. Instead of having his arm torn off, or the bones shattered, Virtue came away with finger-sized punctures in skin and muscle. The leech tried to leap at him again and stumbled.
"How does it feel to be hobbled, ringwipe?" Virtue got to his feet and made for his gun on the other side of the desk as the leech came after him, dragging one leg but still moving terribly fast.
The Reverend was furious. As he moved on the immune he wondered exactly what it was that made his left leg such a desirable target.
Virtue reached the gun first and emptied his clip into the leech's right leg. The creature shouted and fell face first onto the desk.
When the door to the hall had been forced open, the wood and steel jamb had bent and splintered. Virture pulled an intact length of wood free of the jamb and returned to the leech. He put everything he had behind driving the makeshift stake through the leech, pinning it to the desk.
Missed the heart, the Reverend thought, closing his eyes and feigning death. He might make it out of this embarrassing predicament yet, if he was careful.
Virtue sagged against the wall and took a breath. His arm hurt real bad. He glanced at the bleeding holes in his arm, and then cursed the leech, noticing for the first time that it was missing a few fingernails, its fingers drooling sluggish leech blood.
He picked up his weapon and rammed it into his mouth, chipping a tooth. There was a dry click. He let the handgun fall to the floor.
He thought of the woman in the storeroom, hoped she would be okay, and then wondered why she had really come to mind.
Virtue stepped out into the hallway. He heard a noise and looked down the corridor. His men were shooting at something. He heard the sounds of a struggle and realized a muncher or two had made their way inside.
He looked the other way down the corridor. A muncher was entering the hatch that led to the emergency maintenance stairs. Virture moved as fast as he could.
When he reached the hatch the muncher had already moved up out of sight. He started up the stairs and saw what was drawing the muncher on - small smears of blood left behind by Smith and the man's many bandaged wounds.
Virtue started up the stairs, after the muncher. The virus worked fast. If he was infected, he wouldn't be working for the good of Fort Saarinen very much longer.
*
Smith and Billy checked their rigging. When they were all set, Smith moved to the edge of the arch. He looked past the wall of stainless steel and down. The munchers were right there.
With a resounding boom the outer door completely collapsed on the inner door. Taganashi shouted in his ear, "The hydraulics are going to go any minute and then the whole thing will drop into the lobby. Hurry up out there!"
"Here goes," Smith said, swinging inward under the arch and over the heads of the munchers.
*
The Reverend looked at the inner door of the office, not far away. He saw the stub of the key jamming the lock. Reinforced steel. That would take some time to force open. But there was a woman behind that door. He could smell her. And she was pregnant. He could smell that too. A meal, and desert, he thought.
He tried to reach the wooden shard pining him to the desk and cursed. It passed between his shoulder blades. He couldn't get any leverage on it, reaching over or under. Still, snapping off most of the shard's length was easy.
The Reverend planted both hands flat against the desk and began pushing his body upward off of the stub of wood that remained in him and the table.
"I will not perish here today," he said.
*
Virtue tried to pace himself. As he passed the fourth of ten landings he could hear the muncher, not far ahead. He was getting a little winded. The muncher wasn't moving as fast, but it wouldn't run out of steam.
*
Smith swung out over the munchers far too low for comfort. They all looked up. One or two fell over. Smith tucked his knees against his stomach and pulled the rip cord on the vinyl bag. The alcohol soup splattered at least fifty munchers as he passed over their heads. He released the buckle holding the bag on his back (any residual alcohol in the bag would just be fuel for the fire) and swung back toward the arch. He was a foot shy of the steel wall when his momentum died, and Billy, watching from the edge, easily reeled him in with the guideline.
"Go kid," Smith said. "It's a snap."
Billy nodded, and swung out into the open.
*
The Reverend was nearly free; he just had to shift a little since the wooden shard was caught on his sternum. He heard a click and looked up. The broken key in the lock of the steel door didn't prevent anyone from inside the room opening the door, and it swung open without a sound.
The pregnant sheep stepped out of the room, her eyes widening in horror when she saw the Reverend.
The Reverend grinned and wiggled his upper body, trying to free himself.
*
Virtue caught the muncher on the sixth landing. He knocked it down, and with a dozen kicks and stomps his heavy boots turned its brains to mash.
He sat for a moment to catch his breath. He looked at the rancid blood on his boots and his stomach turned over. Then his stomach growled. He wasn't nauseated. He was hungry.
Realizing the virus was working in him, Virtue used the last of his free will to race up the stairs, away from the innocents below.
*
Billy swung out over the munchers, releasing his load of alcohol at the beginning of his swing. He splashed more of the munchers than Smith had.
Smith, looking on, nodded with admiration. He reached into one deep pocket for the flares. The munchers were still milling around and sniffing each other, but there was no telling when they might start spreading out or moving away.
Billy tried releasing the buckle on the straps holding the vinyl bag to his back, but the mechanism was jammed. Figuring he could release it on the other side of the north leg once he had a chance to tie off his rope and free up both hands, he let his momentum carry him close enough for Smith to reel him in. The moment he grabbed the edge of the arch and started working his way to the far side, Smith swung out, igniting the flares.
As Billy rested a moment, his back against the arch, he didn't notice the rivulet of residual alcohol running from the bag on his back to the stainless steel skin of the arch. The rivulet oozed down the leg of the arch towards the ground.
*
The Reverend watched the little sheep hug the wall, and then study the floor, not so much fearful now, as curious. She kneeled, dropping out of his sightline. The Reverend wondered what she was doing. When he realized what she could be reaching for he braced himself for a mighty push away from the wooden shard trapping him.
The sheep was faster. She stood, her fertile belly inches from his hungry eyes, and before he could lash out at her she drove the long broken end of the wood from the door jamb down into his back a second time. She didn't have the strength to pierce the desk, but her aim was better than that of the man in the black uniform, and the Reverend felt his old heart punctured and torn.
"Die, you fucker," Shally said.
The Reverend was unhappy to oblige.
*
Virture wasn't far from the top now, and he knew two of his men were in the watchtower. He had to hold himself together just a bit longer.
*
Smith swung toward the center of the arch, igniting the flares and waiting for his return swing to drop them. He started swinging back toward Billy when something trapped his right foot. He looked down and saw the vinyl bag he had dropped moments earlier snagged on his boot. It had been swung by the straps like a butterfly net. Holding the buckle at the end of the straps was one of the bigger munchers Smith has seen on monitors underground, the one that had been operating the jackhammer.
I'm in trouble here, Smith thought, feeling his momentum disappear. He came to a stop over the heads of the munchers. The flares he was holding were burning down, and he had no backups. The big muncher who had snagged him looked up at him with brutish concentration.
"Fuck it," Smith said, kicking his shoe free of the bag and dropping the flares.
*
Shally found Virtue's gun. She popped out the empty clip and went back into the storeroom. There was a whole box of bullets in one corner. She slid bullets into the clip until it was full, and then slapped the clip home. She cocked the gun and stepped out into the hallway.
*
Virtue stumbled and fell on the ninth landing. He blacked out. His breathing slowed, and his body began to change.
*
The fire spread from the flares so fast it seemed as if two-thirds of the munchers were spontaneously combusting. Fire passed from muncher to muncher as they stumbled into each other, igniting many of those without a drop of alcohol on them.
Billy saw flames licking at Smith's boots and he began drawing in the guideline.
Many of the munchers on the periphery of the conflagration simply cut out and ran. Smith and Billy heard cheers crackling in their radios from the Rangers underground, and neither noticed a muncher with head and arms aflame, run blindly into the North leg of the arch and crawl a few feet before collapsing.
A thin line of blue fire began climbing the arch.
*
Shally went down the hall to the lobby. She saw a pair of Rangers pushing two muncher corpses to one side of the lobby and heard rubble falling onto the floor. Through gaps in the roof she could see flashes of orange and yellow as if a torch-bearing mob were just outside. She headed for the viewing room to see what was happening out there.
*
Billy glanced down and saw flames snaking up the arch towards him. He could smell the alcohol still clinging to and dripping from the bag on his back and realized instantly what was happening. Smith's vinyl bag was gone. If he and Smith changed places, they just might make it.
*
Smith wondered what the hell was going on. One minute he was being drawn in on the guideline, the next he was left dangling again.
*
Billy was right. He was just too late to do anything about what was about to happen.
*
Smith saw the kid push away from the opposite side of the arch they had been swinging from. The guideline tensed and then yanked him toward the North leg. As he and Billy passed each other he saw that the pack on the kid's back was burning, the flames already eating away at the rope just over the kid's head. As the kid reached the full extent of his swing under the arch, Smith reached for the steel edge of the North leg. His fingers grazed it, then the guideline went slack and he was swinging away from his only sure escape route.
*
His back was burning. His hair was burning. Yet Billy had hope that he might survive. After undoing the guideline to ensure Smith's safety, he thought he could still make it, right up to the second the burning rope snapped over his head.
For just a moment, he felt as if he were suspended in air. In his mind he saw Shally safe, holding a baby in her arms, each of them smiling at the other. Then he fell.
*
Shally stepped into the view room and watched something that looked like a falling star. When she realized what she was seeing, she screamed.
*
"No!"
Smith swung to where Billy had been just a moment before and saw the kid drop at an angle, hitting the ground and rolling to a stop a few feet away from a crumpled, burning mass of bodies. If he had been moving just a little faster, he was sure he could have grabbed the kid.
The kid hit the ground hard, rolling through the dirt. The good news was that his roll had extinguished the flames on his back. The bad news was he was hurt so bad he wasn't going anywhere, and the remaining munchers, perhaps twenty or thirty of them, were closing in on him.
*
Billy was lying on his back, looking up at the arch, looking up at Smith. His radio was gone. Distant reflections of fire made the arch glimmer like a phantom rainbow, and Smith hovered over him like an angel. He tried to move and something flared in his back and legs. He wasn't going anywhere.
He heard shuffling feet and air rasping in and out of ravaged throats. He was nearly surrounded by mobile munchers, the creatures avoiding the dead and burning munchers to one side.
He raised one arm and called to Smith.
*
Smith saw that the kid was moments away from becoming a hot meal. If he cut his rope and tried to help he'd just be killing himself.
He saw the kid raise a hand and shout.
Smith nodded, and reached for the pouches on his belt.
*
"The jimmy-jackets," Billy called again. "Toss 'em down."
One pouch landed beside his head. One hit him in the stomach.
He opened the pouches and gathered all of the jimmy-jackets in one hand.
"Make sure Shally is safe," he called to Smith.
Then he rolled onto his stomach, screaming with the effort, and began crawling toward the flames.
*
Shit, Smith thought. I don't need to be saddle-bagged with a woman and a kid. Not now.
He watched the kid crawl closer to the burning munchers and suddenly realized he might be a bit to close to what was going to happen.
Smith started climbing up his rope.
*
A muncher grabbed one of his legs and bit into it. Billy didn't even scream. He only had to go another foot or two. His left arm was twisted, the bone popped out of the socket, his fingers and thumb eaten like pretzels. He pulled his blood-slick hand free of the muncher's grip and crawled on.
*
Shally walked to the wall and reached out, one hand touching Billy's cold image, one hand touching her belly and feeling the warmth of the life they had created inside her.
"Be over soon, baby," she whispered. "Be brave."
*
"Better you than me kid," Smith said, looking down. "But I thank you."
*
Billy raised his arm over a smoldering, huddled form.
"I bet it's a boy," he said.
He let his arm drop.
*
The blast was considerable.
The remaining ambulatory munchers were blown to bits.
The hydraulics failed on the inner door and the metal mass collapsed onto the floor of the lobby, leaving the stairway unobstructed. The sky wasn't as dark as it had been before. Dawn was coming.
Virtue was jolted awake, hungry, fully aware of the two men not far above.
Smith was raised almost gently on a rush of hot air, and then he dropped again. Something in his rigging snapped loudly, and he fell into a haze of smoke and flame.
Shally went back to the storeroom to get her pack, and Billy's. It was time to get moving. She couldn't stay here.
Virtue raced up the last flight of stairs, past his two lookouts, and with the last of his human will he threw himself head first out of one of the portholes.
When a third body dropped from above Taganashi let rip with a hysterical laugh and said, "At least we know the law of gravity hasn't been suspended!"
*
A half hour later the Eastern sky was salmon pink. Shally started up the stairs tightening the straps on a heavy pack, one of Virtue's guns strapped to her hip.
Taganashi approached, unable to look her in the eye.
"You would be safe here. You should stay."
Shally said nothing as she shouldered the pack.
"One day somebody will have to tell your child what his father did here," Taganashi said. "I'd be proud to do that."
"Fuck you," Shally replied, adjusting the holster on her hip and walking out into the coming daylight.
She walked back to the car that had brought her and Billy here. The hood was closed. She raised it and saw makeshift repairs on the hose and belt Smith had mentioned. She knew they wouldn't last long, but at least they would get her down the road. Billy had said there was a safe immune settlement about ten miles South.
She started the engine and it ran better than it had before.
"Thank you!"
Shally didn't feel the least bit foolish shouting out like that. She knew Smith was out there somewhere.
*
Once he had been a man. Now he writhed like a worm, burrowing in the earth.
Virtue felt only two things. Hunger, and the pain of a thousand broken bones.
He burrowed under the dirt and ash, knowing that he would feel far worse if the sunlight were to fall upon him.
Virtue would hide, and heal. A day. A month. It didn't matter. He was in no hurry. There would still be blood for the drinking whenever he walked again.
*
With the arch far behind him, Smith heard Taganashi's voice in his earpiece, tiny and distorted with distance.
"I think we're going to be okay. Let's get this place cleaned up."
Smith took off the two-way radio and threw it away.
He had lost his guns and the few supplies he had been carrying in a small pack when he first saw the arch. He had a long walk ahead of him and a lot of things to do before dark.
When he had been on the ground, blinded by smoke, he had heard the girl of his dreams calling him to again, even though he was awake. Following her voice he had stepped around the flames and walked away from the arch.
She was very far away. Across the sea. In a city far to the north. It was a place called Edinburgh. There was a castle on a hill there. In the castle was a leech lord. In the dungeon, was the girl.
Her name was Trina, and he had to rescue her.
Smith picked up his pace, heading East, letting the rising sun warm his face.
--
Index by date posted
After the Pandemic: Intro
By Jack McCallum http://www.ubersite.com/m/61238
After the Pandemic: Corrigan
By Jack McCallum http://www.ubersite.com/m/61296
After the Pandemic: Variant C
By Jack McCallum http://www.ubersite.com/m/61350
After the Pandemic - The Onion Run - Part 1
By Snark http://www.ubersite.com/m/61446
After the Pandemic: Outbreak
By spedmonkey http://www.ubersite.com/m/61453
After the Pandemic: Rebirth
By kre8rix http://www.ubersite.com/m/61490
After the Pandemic: Warriors of Fire
By hpark http://www.ubersite.com/m/61495
After the Pandemic: Origins of a Conflict
By Adamdidit2u http://www.ubersite.com/m/61496
After the Pandemic: Apocalypse
By Dannie M http://www.ubersite.com/m/61498
After the Pandemic: The Enemy of My Enemy (part 1 of 2)
By TheCaes http://www.ubersite.com/m/61505
Before the Pandemic: Briarwood Academy
by stardamage http://www.ubersite.com/m/61510
After the Pandemic: Archangels (Part One)
By Jack McCallum http://www.ubersite.com/m/61513
After the Pandemic: Resistance (Part One)
By Genko http://www.ubersite.com/m/61527
After the Pandemic: Unnatural Born Killers
By Circe http://www.ubersite.com/m/61530
After the Pandemic: Unnatural Born Killers 2
By Snark http://www.ubersite.com/m/61538
After the Pandemic: Sacrifice of Nine Men Part 1
By Chronic Masturbator http://www.ubersite.com/m/61539
After the Pandemic: Flesh of My Flesh
By Anthony Locascio http://www.ubersite.com/m/61542
After the Pandemic: White Noise - Chapter One
By Steve's House of Pancakes http://www.ubersite.com/m/61545
After the Pandemic: the Transformation
By Brdn_Nkd http://www.ubersite.com/m/61553
After the Pandemic: (The quadrometric plexus)
By WhatTheHell http://www.ubersite.com/m/61554
After the Pandemic: Briarwood Academy - The Speech
By stardamage http://www.ubersite.com/m/61569
After the Pandemic: Genesis, The Beginning
By BLITZKREIG_BOB http://www.ubersite.com/m/61587
After the Pandemic: Sacrifice of Nine Men Part 2
By Chronic Masturbator http://www.ubersite.com/m/61597
After the Pandemic: Suffer
By Id http://www.ubersite.com/m/61613
After the Pandemic: The Enemy of My Enemy (part 2 of 2)
By TheCaes http://www.ubersite.com/m/61614
After the Pandemic: I am the pandemic
By Bob=the roxo0rs http://www.ubersite.com/m/61615
After the Pandemic - The Onion Run - Part 2
By Snark http://www.ubersite.com/m/61621
After the Pandemic: Purge (Part One)
By Artificial Insanity http://www.ubersite.com/m/61660
After the Pandemic: The Guardian
By Professional Peon http://www.ubersite.com/m/61730
After the Pandemic: Rebirth Pt 2
By kre8rix http://www.ubersite.com/m/61747
After the Pandemic: Archangels (Part Two)
By Jack McCallum http://www.ubersite.com/m/61755
After the Pandemic: From Simple Beginnings...
By spedmonkey http://www.ubersite.com/m/61760
After the Pandemic: White Noise - Chapter Two
By Steve's House of Pancakes http://www.ubersite.com/m/61779
After the Pandemic: Vegas Infection
By Snark http://www.ubersite.com/m/61786
After the Pandemic: Final frontier
By Coyote http://www.ubersite.com/m/61795
After the Pandemic: Origins part deux!
By Adamdidit2u http://www.ubersite.com/m/61876
After the Pandemic: The Guardian (Part 2)
By Professional Peon http://www.ubersite.com/m/61890
After the Pandemic: A Case of the Mondays
By RawrG http://www.ubersite.com/m/61891
After the Pandemic: Recollections
By fudgepacknuts http://www.ubersite.com/m/61896
After the Pandemic: Death Cult Cabal
By sword http://www.ubersite.com/m/61920
Before the Pandemic, the Rhienholt Hurgurtz initiative.
By Bigmike http://www.ubersite.com/m/61935
After the Pandemic - The Onion Run - Part 3
By Snark http://www.ubersite.com/m/61941
After the Pandemic: Archangels (Part Three)
By Jack McCallum http://www.ubersite.com/m/61985
After the Pandemic: The Guardian (Part 3)
By Professional Peon http://www.ubersite.com/m/62064
After the Pandemic: Crikey
By FuckTheArmy http://www.ubersite.com/m/62198
After the Pandemic: Crikey (part two)
By http://www.ubersite.com/m/62282
After the Pandemic: Archangels (Part Four)
By http://www.ubersite.com/m/62289
After the Pandemic - Markus
By http://www.ubersite.com/m/62291
After the Pandemic: Briarwood Academy - Evacuation
By stardamage http://www.ubersite.com/m/62320
After the Pandemic: Squire
By Biz http://www.ubersite.com/m/62403
User Reviews
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2008-06-29 14:50:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by zakalwe (user info) at 2005-09-23 19:18:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
wow.
wow.
Edinburgh?
wow.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-08-03 12:19:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Supreme Overlord damage control...
Submitted by Supreme_Overlord (user info) at 2005-07-21 22:29:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
shite
Submitted by notyou (user info) at 2005-07-12 15:37:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2005-06-30 10:52:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
And, the inevitable conclusion... Billy had to go,
the Rev had to be extinguished, and Smith walks away
with nothing but his dream.
I was relieved to see that you didn't link Smith
and Shally romantically in hollywood style... but
I agree with the other reviewers about the overquick
cuts between scenes.
All in all, a very well-constructed and satisfying read.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2005-05-20 20:43:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-05-20 16:56:08 (#)
Ranking: -2
At least today is Friday.
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2005-05-12 17:55:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I have just got done reading these all and I have enjoyed them all. Great work everyone, +2's for all!
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2005-03-29 22:16:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome story.
Submitted by spedmonkey (user info) at 2005-03-28 21:04:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I missed this before. A satisfying conclusion, although with just a bit of cliffhanger involved...
Submitted by Id (user info) at 2005-03-27 18:17:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very well done.
Though I fear that the entries for your grand experiment are starting to come in at a much slower pace.
This worries me.
Submitted by Supercords (user info) at 2005-03-25 15:41:35 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Dannie (user info) at 2005-03-25 14:06:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by hcp28 (user info) at 2005-03-25 13:32:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
awesome
Submitted by Auron (user info) at 2005-03-25 03:53:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome post. Awesome series. Crack open a beer and smile proudly.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-03-24 11:04:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by mbstateside (user info) at 2005-03-24 09:39:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very, Very good.
Submitted by domenad (user info) at 2005-03-23 23:16:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Thanks for the support, Jack. You and I both know though that it can't be about hits or reviews - in the end, it's just putting pen to paper (figuratively) that endures.
This series was awesome. I have a few of these left in me, I think.
Submitted by tlozoot (user info) at 2005-03-23 21:59:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I really liked how you switched back and forth a lot. Very cinematic. In fact, almost all of these installments would make a great movie.
Also, I was glad you didn't take the obvious route with Smith dying and having Billy's kid named after him blah blah blah.
Submitted by DavyJones (user info) at 2005-03-23 21:17:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Yea Jack, switched so often it was kind of distracting, but it was still real good.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-23 19:18:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-03-23 18:57:39 (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked how you had different story threads running concurrently, though I thought you switched back and forth between them a little too often.
<<Sometimes I go overboard with that shit, but when I write it's like a movie playing in my head, and I have to follow the jumps from scene to scene, so to speak.>>
Poor Billy.
<<I hate killing off the good guys, but I seem to do it a lot.>>
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-03-23 18:57:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
That was a great, great post. I liked what you did with Virtue (cool name for a character, by the way). I liked how you had different story threads running concurrently, though I thought you switched back and forth between them a little too often. Otherwise, that totally ruled.
Poor Billy.
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2005-03-23 18:43:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
you rock my world
fuck conclusions...keep going.
i guess you can continue Smith's story under a different title...i like him as a character...i want to see what he does
Submitted by Bizantine (user info) at 2005-03-23 18:37:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
*Hastily constructs an alter with an effigy of Jack McCallum*
I have found my deity
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-03-23 18:10:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by SilvrWolf (user info) at 2005-03-23 18:01:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Bravo
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-03-23 17:47:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking... there are no words. Utterly kickass.
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2005-03-23 17:28:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
here's a +2 in advance because i am so excited that this got posted just as i was thinking, "i hope jack maccullum posts an other archangels shit.
i'll let you know how it is in about 45 minutes
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-23 17:28:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Well, that's done, and I'm damn near brain-dead after cranking that out and being busy as hell here at work. I hate how real life always cuts into your fucking around time.
Hope you all enjoy this.