Hina saw that the Sun was about to set and then drew the curtains close. She had gone to college in the morning but had found it almost deserted. The Principal, who lived just off the campus, had looked at her as if she were out of her mind.
'Ms. Rahman, I would go home and be with my family if I were you.'
And so she had come home, but she had nobody or nothing to come home to. She realized that if her family had still been with her, she would have reacted very differently. She could understand why her colleagues were in a state of panic, because they were terrified about losing people or things precious to them in the chaos that threatened to engulf them when the Sun set. Hina had nothing or nobody to lose. And certainly she had nowhere else to run to. She had lived in this house for the last thirty years, and could not imagine going anywhere else. Her children were still not picking up their phones, and while she hoped that they were fine, she realized with a heavy heart that even when things had been normal, they had always been too busy to take calls from their forgotten old mother back home.
So she sat down in front of the one thing that was precious to her-her writing. The shelf in front of her study desk was lined with her books, and as she booted up her laptop, she wondered when people would read books again. Would there be a time in the future when people would write books about the time humanity had gone crazy under the influence of some mysterious plague and nearly destroyed itself? She certainly hoped so. It would be such a waste if nobody read books again.
She began typing, but found that she just could not concentrate with the sounds of panic coming from outside. The sound of people trying to get home; of people honking their car horns and of people shouting at others to get out of their way. As soon as the Sun set, she suddenly felt an ominous silence descend. It was as if some giant unseen hand had just pressed the `mute' button on the world. Hina peeked out through the curtains and saw that everyone on the street had stopped to look at the setting Sun.
Then it began.
The first sign of the chaos that was to come was the sound of guns being fired. There was a police station nearby and she figured the cops were trying to keep things under control. Then she heard screaming, and then the guns stopped firing. She had opened a new bottle of wine and finished her glass in a long swallow, her heart hammering as she wondered what would come next. People on the road were running now, and several were screaming. There were desperate cries for help outside her home, and Hina wanted to do something to help. But what could a frail, old woman possibly do?
Her home was an old colonial style house with two floors that would in today's market cost a fortune to buy. Her study was on the second floor, and she looked out the window to witness a scene that would forever be etched in her mind. There was a mob of people; no creatures would be a more appropriate description, transformed by the infection to mindless wild animals. They all seemed to be wearing black turbans, men and women alike, and with their tattered clothes, yellow skin and bloodied bodies, looked nothing like the people they must have been just a day ago. They wandered through the street in their stiff, loping gait and every time they saw anyone, they would attack like a pack of wild animals, surrounding their prey and scratching and biting till they brought them down. Hina saw one or two young men try and fight back, and she watched in horror as they were killed, their necks broken by their crazed attackers.
She watched a young girl, perhaps no more than fifteen, who was running from one house to another, pleading with the occupants to let her in, to give her some refuge. But there was no safety anywhere today. The creatures had entered several homes along the road and the screams coming from inside them told Hina what the fate of their occupants would have been. The young girl was now directly below Hina's house, and while Hina had turned off all the lights in her home, she saw her peeking out the parted curtains.
`Please let me in. Please help me.'
Hina looked straight at the girl's eyes and then saw four of the creatures moving towards her. Hina could have gone down and let the girl in, but then the creatures would no doubt see her. She stayed rooted where she was, paralyzed by fear, as the girl tried to run, only to be encircled and then brought down by several of her attackers. Crying at her weakness and ashamed at having done nothing to help, Hina hid under her study table, praying that they would think there was nobody home. When the sounds of the attack outside abated after about five minutes, Hina worked up the courage to part the curtains and look down. The girl was lying there, curled in a fetal position, blood all around her. Suddenly, her body twitched and spasmed and then after a sudden, violent jerk, lay still again. Then the girl suddenly sat upright and looked at Hina. Her face was yellowed and bloodied, and her eyes narrowed in hate. She scrambled around herself, as if looking for something, and then tore off a portion of her black skirt to tie around her head. Hina's heart was pounding. Everyone had said that the infection took one day to transform its victims. It seemed that the effects were now taking hold of their victims in ten minutes or less, transforming healthy, decent people into bloodthirsty, crazed killers. No wonder so many countries had gone under so fast. The girl pointed straight at Hina and emitted a shrill, ear-piercing scream. Several of the other creatures started to come towards her. Hina knew that she was trapped and with no way out.
Less than two kilometers away, Mayukh's mother was struggling to start the car, dropping the keys again because of her badly shaking hands. Mayukh saw that his mother was on the verge of a breakdown, and took hold of her hands.
'Mom, let me drive.'
She handed over the keys without any protest. His mother had believed that they would be safe in their government colony, with the armed guards who normally did duty outside. However, by evening, it was clear that she had been badly mistaken. When Mayukh had gone out at about four to see what was happening outside, he saw that all but one of the guards had left their posts. The remaining man had shrugged at Mayukh.
'They all have families. I can't blame them for wanting to get home before Sunset.'
The TV channels had reported that as the Sun slowly set over Asia, the darkness took hold over one country after another. The pattern was the same. As soon as the Sun set those who had been infected transformed into bloodthirsty creatures who savaged anyone in sight.
Mayukh inserted the keys and they left the colony. They had packed their car with as many provisions as they could, and Mayukh had the loaded handgun next to him. His father had called earlier in the day saying that if their colony did not appear safe then they were to try and get to the old Kotla stadium, which was being heavily fortified as a safe haven. Mayukh's mother had waited till the last moment, perhaps too long, to decide that they were better off trying to reach the stadium instead of staying at home. The Sun was about to set and Mayukh turned to look at his mother. He had often hated her for her nagging, but now he saw that she was looking to him to lead the way. Seeing his mother so vulnerable scared him more than anything else, reminding him that things were well and truly out of control now.
Mayukh was jolted back to reality by the repeated staccato sound of guns firing nearby.
'Mom, the firing seems to be coming from the police station. We can't go that way any more. Let's try and find another route.'
His mother just nodded.
While he did find another road, it meant he had to drive through a narrow road crammed with houses and narrow alleys on either side. That was why he never saw the three men who ran into their car. His mother screamed as the window on her side shattered and a yellow, bloodied arm reached in. Mayukh slammed his foot on the accelerator and their attackers were left behind as their car shot ahead. Another infected man came right in front of his car and Mayukh made the mistake of trying to swerve out of the way. The car hit a small shop on the sidewalk and Mayukh was temporarily winded as his head hit the steering wheel. He could hear his mother shouting.
'Hurry up, they're coming!'
Mayukh reversed the car, feeling the thump of an impact as he hit someone or something, and then resumed down the road. There were now people running all over the street, many of them pursued by screaming attackers.
A group of five infected men emerged from the shadows to their left and Mayukh turned the car into a gut-wrenching turn and sped into one of the alleys to his right. As he exited the alley on the main road, just a hundred meters to the right, attackers were beginning to break down the front door of Hina Rahman's house.
***
David came out of the Osprey, his rifle at the ready. In the fading light, he tried to make out if anyone was there at the airfield, but it seemed deserted. On their way in, the young pilot had tried to make contact with the Indian Air Force base at Hindon, just outside Delhi and also the International Airport. But both had been closed to all traffic, in anticipation of the chaos that was to unfold at Sunset. Instead, he had been advised to put down at the Safdarjung airstrip in central Delhi, which was used for microlights and gliders of flying clubs. With the ability to land vertically, the Osprey had no issue putting down. But now, David and the pilot, whose name he hadn't even asked, had to somehow make their way to the US Embassy. David wondered if that would provide any real safety, but it was better than taking one's chances on the streets.
'Kid, what's your name?'
'Stan.' The pilot looked pale and his hands were shaking.
'Get your handgun. Have you ever been in combat before?'
The pilot shook his head, and David wondered why he of all people had to babysit this kid.
'Look, just stay close and you'll be fine. When I ask you to shoot at someone, do it and aim for the head. Got it?'
Stan nodded, his eyes widening at the prospect of having to come close enough to one of the infected attackers to have to shoot him or her in the head. The streets of the Indian capital were in a state of complete chaos, clogged with cars and people who were trying to get to safety. David looked at his GPS. The US embassy was about ten kilometers away. In a straight line and without having to worry about being attacked by crazed mobs, he would have made it there in less than an hour and a half. But now, they would have to trek through a hostile landscape in the dark. They had been walking for no more than ten minutes when they saw the first evidence of the carnage around them. Cars were scattered across the road and people were running in a state of panic. David saw the cause for their panic when he spotted a group of a dozen or more of the infected walk into view. The streetlights were still on, so he could see the attack unfold clearly. They split into pairs and then attacked their chosen prey, one bringing the target down with a tackle to the leg or waist, and the other then coming in for the bite, usually to the shoulders or neck.
David watched, a bit stunned by what he saw. The black-turbaned wraiths he saw were not just mindless zombies, they were actually using some sort of tactics and thinking, even if that intelligence was as of now no more than what a pack of wild animals would have demonstrated. What he saw next was even worse. The victims seemed to lie lifeless for a few minutes, and then they got up, transformed into the same kind of creatures who had attacked them.
'Sir, let's get out of here!'
David realized that they had probably stayed too long, and then began to walk away when a young man ran up to him.
'Sir, please help us!'
The man looked like he had been trying to get home from office, and was wearing a tie and carrying a laptop bag.
This was not David's fight. He wanted to get to the Embassy and then somehow get back to the United States, so he began to turn away.
'Wait! You're soldiers, you're armed. Please do something!'
David would have kept going had he not been nearly deafened by the sound of a gun going off inches from his head.
'Shit! Stan, what in God's name are you doing?'
David watched as an attacker approaching the young man from behind was hit in the head and keeled over. Stan was standing with his gun in hand, and as another attacker approached, he fired twice, one of the bullets striking the young woman in the head. By now he had attracted the attention of the other creatures and all of them began approaching them, clambering over the cars that stood between them.
Now, whether he liked it or not, David was in the fight. He selected single-fire on his M4 and brought it up to his eyes. Three carefully aimed pulls on the trigger, three head shots. Their attackers had now stopped, standing in a state of apparent confusion, seemingly surprised at this sudden resistance. That gave enough time for the other people there to run. David looked at Stan and saw a transformed man. Gone was the nervous rookie. Stan was standing straight, holding his gun in both hands, screaming at their attackers to come on. He had often seen battle and stress bring out both the best and the worst in people. It seemed inside Stan there was a brave soldier, after all. The problem was that his bravery was likely to get them both killed. Stan gasped when the ones he had shot in the head got up after a few minutes, looking even more terrifying with the bleeding bullet holes in their heads. A young woman, or rather something that had once been a young woman, dressed in jeans and a bright red t-shirt, leaped over a car and ran straight at Stan, screaming. Stan was too shocked to react, but David put two rounds in her body, which slowed her down, and then a round to her turbaned head.
Stan was now shaking, his bravado slipping away by his realization of just what they were up against.
'Sir, what do we do now?'
David saw dozens more of the infected now converging on them.
'Now would be a good time to run for our lives.'
They sprinted through the streets, hearing the footsteps of their pursuers just behind them. Every once in a while David would turn and fire a shot or two. Running at full tilt, he had no hope of hitting them, least of all in the head, but he hoped that it would at least slow them down. When he saw that it was having no effect, he concentrated on running. The streetlights were now off, and they had no idea of what lay just a few feet away, let alone being sure of whether they were on track to get to the US Embassy. For now, immediate survival was about as far as they could plan.
Stan tripped on something and went down with a howl of pain. David's momentum carried him forward a few feet before he turned on his heels to go back to his fallen comrade. He saw that he was too late. Three of the creatures were now almost upon Stan, less than five feet away. David brought his rifle to bear, and with the night scope on, hit two of them on the forehead. Both went down and the third, a voluptuous woman who must have looked quite striking before her transformation, but now looked like a bleeding, yellowing monster like the others, took a three round burst to the chest which sent her reeling back.
'Stan, come on!'
But Stan did not move, instead he just gripped his ankle and looking at David with eyes that were blank with fear. David now saw several more shadows converging on Stan. The young pilot now looked David straight in the eye.
'Sir, please do it. Don't let me become one of them!'
David knew what he was being asked to do, but his hands felt as if they weighed a ton. Stan screamed again as the first of the wraiths was about to reach him, yellowed and bloodied hands reaching out for him.
'Please, for God's sake. Please.'
David took a deep breath, brought his rifle up and fired a single shot into Stan's head. A collective howl seemed to go up from all the creatures around as they realized they had been deprived. The one who had been reaching for Stan now crouched over his body, turning his lifeless head in his hands and then turned to look at David.
He must have been a middle-aged office goer, perhaps with a family of his own, no more than a day ago. Now his bloodied, yellow face was contorted with hate, and his clothes were in tatters. The black turban hung precariously from his head as he raised a finger towards David and screamed.
Kaaaaaaaaa….fffffff……r…….
David selected full auto on his M4 and a dozen 5.56MM rounds shredded the creature's head. David did not wait to see if it would get up, since a dozen more launched themselves towards him.
He ran as fast as he could, his eyes stinging from the tears that were now running freely down his face.
***
As soon as the woman had looked up at her and screamed, Hina had run downstairs, aware that she was now in terrible danger. She pulled a sofa in front of the main door, hoping it would at least slow the creatures now converging on her house. She was panting from the exertion and was trying to catch her breath, when the window behind her shattered, showering her with glass shards. A yellowed hand reached in and grabbed at her shoulder. In trying to get away, she fell to the ground, and got a closer look at the face that was now peering in at her through the broken window. She saw the crooked glasses, the yellow shirt, and realized with a stifled sob that this creature had till a few minutes ago been Mr. Patel, the man whom she used to buy her groceries from. However the friendly smile she had known for a dozen years was now replaced by bared, bloody teeth. His face was cut in a dozen places, and Hina realized he had used his head to smash the window. His face was yellow, and the skin seemed to be peeling away in patches and his hate filled, crazed eyes seemed more like those of a rabid animal than those of a human being. The turban on his head would have looked absurd had Hina not been so terrified. She heard several more hands beating on the door, and then the sofa, slowly but surely, began to slide back under the onslaught.
At her age, and especially after Imran's passing, Hina had thought of her mortality often. With Imran gone, and her children more a distant memory than a real family, she did not have too many things or people to live for, and on the occasional lonely night, she had wondered if she could bring herself to end it all. A bottle of sleeping pills perhaps. But now, faced with a horde of attackers beating down her door, she realized that she wanted to live. Whether or not she had anything to live for, she did not want to go like this. Most certainly, she did not want to become the kind of monster Mr. Patel had become. The door was now ajar and she saw a foot slip in. The yellow, bloody leg looked incongruous in a Gucci high-heeled sandal, but Hina did not have any time to contemplate that as she got up, looking frantically around for some way to defend herself.
Mayukh's car was now bobbing and weaving around the cluttered street, and in other circumstances, he would almost certainly have been stopped on suspicion of drunk driving. But now, all the cops around were either dead or had joined the marauding bands that were rampaging through the city. He braked hard when he saw a body lying just in front of his car. Both he and his mother looked at it, wondering what they should do. Even though it looked dead, Mayukh could not bring himself to run over another human being. He began to reverse his car so he could drive around it, when the body sat up.
It was a young man, perhaps not much older than Mayukh himself. Except that he was now one of them. He launched himself at Mayukh's car, his fingers smashing into the windshield, creating a spider web of cracks inches from Mayukh's face. He then began clawing at the glass, trying to get through.
'Drive!'
Mayukh hardly needed the encouragement from his mother. In blind panic, he floored the gas and their Honda City sped forward, carrying their unwelcome passenger with it. With his view blocked by the man hanging onto the windshield, Mayukh had now way of knowing what lay ahead, but he hoped that as he picked up speed, the man would be thrown off his hood.
Hina's door was now wide open, and she saw several figures crowding the doorway. It was pitch black outside, the streetlights having all gone off some minutes ago. Her lights were still on, driven by an old diesel generator, and seeing the shadows entering her house, she knew that her time was up. She closed her eyes, and began praying when she heard an ear-splitting crash.
She tentatively opened an eye and saw a sight that she had never imagined. A car had come to a halt just outside her house, and had plowed through the creatures trying to get to her. Some of them were lying scattered out on the street, and one seemed to be trapped under the car. The back door of the car had been flung upon in the crash, and the driver was revving the engine, trying to get away. Without thinking too much, other than the fact that she was finished if she stayed in her home, Hina ran as fast as she could toward the car and dove in through the open back door.
Mayukh had just started the car and was about to get away from the carnage when he sensed someone enter the car behind him. He spun around, his gun in hand, only to see a thin, old lady. He had no idea who she was, but she was not one of them. Relieved, he stepped on the gas and the car sped ahead. They drove in silence for some minutes, each of them still too shocked by what they had endured in the last few hours. Finally, Hina took the initiative and introduced herself.
'I'm Hina Rahman. I am, well I guess I was now, a Professor.'
Mayukh just nodded at her and told her his name. His mother said nothing. Mayukh looked at his mother, to see what shape she was in. She was continuing to try and call his father on her mobile, but all the networks seemed to be down. Her hands shaking, she finally threw the phone hard against the floor and began sobbing.
Hina reached out and held her shoulder, and this simple act of kindness seemed to make his mother further collapse into loud sobs. Mayukh's mind was blank. At one level, he was more terrified than he had ever been, but at another level, he still had hope. Hope that this was somehow all a bad dream he would wake up from, hope that there surely was some government in control somewhere. The world as we knew it couldn't all just end, could it? He looked at his mother.
'Mom, we just need to get to the stadium. The Army will be there. Whatever this infection is, they will contain it and get a cure. All we need to do is get to the stadium and we'll be okay.'
His mother seemed to take some heart at his words and they drove on in silence, their car's headlights providing the only illumination in the dark streets around them.
David had taken a bike he had found abandoned on the roadside and rode it, hoping that the US Embassy could offer some sanctuary. Given the chaos all around him, there was no way to be sure of that, but it was not as if he had any better options. After ten minutes of riding, he realized that it would be suicidal to continue riding in the darkness. They owned the night, and all around him, he could see groups of the infected gather, and while he could outrun them, with none of the streetlights on, it was but a matter of time before he stumbled into one of them.
He stopped his bike near what appeared to be a cluster of shops. With his small flashlight, he saw a broken sign saying 'Khan Market'. Not seeing anyone around David figured his best bet was to hunker down for the night, and then proceed in daytime. That was unless the creatures were now active in the day as well. He walked around the shops cautiously, using the night scope on his M4 to watch for any sign of trouble. The market seemed totally abandoned. After a few minutes of walking, he came upon, of all things, a McDonalds. He realized his stomach was growling with hunger, and the prospect of eating something other than MREs made up his mind for him. He kicked in the door and went in, sweeping the room in front of him with his rifle. There was nobody there, but it looked like the staff had left in a hurry, as food littered the kitchen.
David barricaded the door with tables and then went upstairs, where he finally took a breather after a day where he had spent every single minute trying to stay alive. He bit into a burger, and looked out the window. He was done with running for now. He would spend the night here, but there was going to be precious little rest. He couldn't afford to let his guard down, so he ate a couple of burgers, drank some Coke and then unslung his backpack. He set his rifle against a window that offered the best view of the road outside. He knew that he would have to conserve the batteries for his night vision scopes, so he turned the scope on his M4 off, planning to turn it on only if he really needed to. He saw a group of the infected, perhaps twenty strong, walk on the main road, some five hundred metres away, before they ran into one of the housing complexes nearby. He heard screams coming from the darkened houses, and he tried to block them out. He spent the next few minutes just staring out the window, hoping that none of the mobs came towards him. As much as he tried, fatigue and stress got the better of him, and he fell into an uneasy slumber.
Mayukh had never seen the city so dark before. All the streetlights were off, and none of the houses or shops lining the road had their lights on. Even if some of them had generators, Mayukh guessed the occupants were trying not to draw attention to themselves by keeping all the lights off. That was the dilemma in which he found himself. Without his headlights on, he could barely see what was on the road ahead of him, yet he knew that his headlights would be a magnet for any of the marauding bands of the infected now rampaging through the city. He didn't even know what he should call them. Were they zombies? He shook off the thought, reasoning that giving them a name would only make this nightmare more real. His mother had dozed off, the stress proving too much for her, and the Professor in the back seat had also not spoken for many minutes, realizing that she was better off letting Mayukh concentrate on driving in the darkness.
After a few minutes, Mayukh saw a faint glow over the horizon. As he came closer, he realized that the light was coming from the giant floodlights installed at the stadium. If the lights at the stadium were still on, it could mean only one thing-that someone was still in control there.
'Mom, look there!'
As his mother also looked at the looming lights, Mayukh threw caution to the winds, turned on the car's headlights and accelerated. This close to safety, he was confident he could outrun any mobs trying to pursue them on foot. Within seconds they were at the stadium, which resembled a war zone. Bunkers dotted the perimeter, with gun barrels sticking out of several of them. A few meters ahead of them, Mayukh saw some men in Army uniforms. They saw a sign in the middle of the road.
'Get out of the car and proceed on foot. You are safe here.'
They could drive no further since the road was blocked with barbed wire, and they got out of the car, looking anxiously around them for any attackers. Not seeing anyone, they broke into a run towards the soldiers.
Hina was the first to notice something was wrong. In a situation like this, surely the soldiers would be carrying guns? She was about to shout out a warning, when shadows leapt out of the bunkers to their right. Mayukh was now just feet from the nearest soldier when he came to a screeching halt. The man who had turned to face him was wearing an Army uniform all right, but his skin was the now all-too familiar yellow, and he shook a bloodied finger at Mayukh.
Mayukh's mother was just behind him and as the man leapt at him, she pushed Mayukh out of the way, going down with the man on top of her. Mayukh rolled on the ground and came up, finding that more of the creatures were now converging on the prone figure of his mother. He realized that he had forgotten his gun in the car, and started to move towards his mother, wondering how he could help her. She looked at him and shouted only once.
'Please run! Run! Hina, take him!'
More of the creatures now jumped on his mother, as he felt Hina's arms pulling him.
'No, let got of me! Let me go!'
Hina slapped him hard, and he faced her, shocked.
'Son, she gave her life so you could live. Don't let her sacrifice be for nothing. Let's go!'
She half pulled, half dragged Mayukh to the car, and realizing he was in no state to drive, got into the driver's seat and backed the car out of the approach road, driving away as fast as she could.
Mayukh sat next to her, his head between his legs, crying and screaming as if in absolute agony.