The Foliage (The Foliage Series Book 1) Read online

  While everyone unpacked, Josh took a wander to check the surroundings to make sure it was safe… He took his time, and soon got the measure of the place, and then he sat down on the cold floor, feeling exhausted, as he thought over all his wanderings through this place had uncovered:

  This place it was supposed to be a stronghold for the UNA, until it was overrun. The camp had been there for twenty four hours now, and on every break he had come down to this room to watch archived transmissions, those transmissions went back years, so far back that it even went as far as they days when they first pitched the ideas behind the fungus plot.

  When the day came that finally saw this facility was overrun, it was the day the entire UNA had retreated from every country as every branch fell back to one position, to what could only be described as the UNA command, which was a sound infrastructure sixty miles west of their current position... Hearing the story played out like that was chilling, but the facts were cold and hard and much like the floor where he sat, set in stone as fact. This was the story of the people who had brought about the end of life and normality on planet Earth...

  Josh's heart felt heavy as he thought of those who had fought back, trying to stand their ground, engaging the infected with powerful weapons - but ultimately, what could be done against something that has a higher mass and strength and seemed invincible, something… alien to the remainder of humanity...

  Josh got up off the floor and took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he silently reminded himself that for now, his people were safe - they also had weapons and equipment they never expected to find there, but it still left an an answered question:

  What now, where to next?

  Where to next?

  Josh closed his diary, the place where he had chosen to keep his written thoughts even though the cover bore a UNA logo in the corner. He grabbed a pen off the desk of the control room, licked the nib and scribbled and scratched on the floor with it until the ink started to flow. Then he raised it to the cover and wrote on the front, “Josh Levett, The journey.”

  Chapter 4 – UNA

  The UNA uniform was heavily military based, with many the soldiers clad in layers upon layers of clothing and armour in a pure white render, all UNA , whether they be scientists or soldiers, on leaving the facility, were always covered entirely, their heads encased by helmets to protect against any form of infection - at this stage it is known that the infection travels through saliva and blood spillages that find its way in to the animal organism's blood stream - but it can only be a matter of time before it evolves and becomes airborne...

  Graham had been observing for a while, but then he stepped out of the tree line to a vast open area of grassland, where he knelt down and pulled a pair of binoculars out of one of the stolen rucksacks.

  “The UNA, doing one of their daily sweeps,” he murmured as he continued to watch.

  Then he noticed one of the soldiers dragging a sack of bodies in to the back of what seemed to be an electric powered vehicle.

  He continued to watch as he turned over his own take on the situation he faced:

  The enemy had to be operating close to this position, as their vehicles will need a recharge before the day was out... But why would they be collecting bodies?

  Perhaps what was left of humanity was past testing for a cure, all they wanted to do was survive and they certainly wouldn't be seeking out a cure that would extend to everyone – especially not those who could think for themselves and put up a fight for their liberty...

  Graham pulled a rifle from his back to his chest, raised its scope to his eye, then he aligned the marker within the scope and targeted the head of one of the soldiers.

  “Armour piercing...” he said in a low voice, and without another thought, he pulled the trigger.

  The force of the kickback from firing the weapon knocked the rifle back, thumping it into Graham's eye socket as the bullet fired smashed through the soldier's helmet - an instant kill. The body collapsed almost as if in slow motion as the group of six UNA soldiers turned and stared at their fallen comrade, they then looked sharply at Graham, who had fallen back holding his head being possibly a little over dramatic.

  The soldiers approached began to surround him, aiming their advanced rifles at him.

  “On your knees, put your hands behind your head… If you do not comply you will be executed!” barked one of the soldiers.

  Graham got up from his knees, taking his hand off a bruised eye that was already turning a shade of purple around his eye socket. He put his hands behind his head compliantly.

  One of the soldiers removed her helmet and stepped in front of the others, her cold gaze fixing on him.

  “There will be no executions today, this one fits the charter, I think we can find a use for him...” then she paused, addressing the prisoner,“I’m Commander Houghton, founder of the UNA, the United National Alliance.”

  Graham's eyes reflected shock.

  “Those people, in the bag… what are you doing with them? Why are you killing everyone?” he demanded, trying to stay strong as he tried to forget the pain of his injured eye and the way it was making him feel like passing out was a real possibility.

  “I can assure you,” the Commander replied, “ The people in containment are safe… we aren’t killing anyone, the infected are doing that, they are wiping out the human race at a faster pace than we ever expected, sooner or later the planet will be beyond repair!”

  She turned to walk away as Graham felt his anger boiling over.

  “You killed our families, the day this all started, you burned our homes…and now... What happens to those people you're taking off the streets?” he yelled.

  She stopped walking and turned back as a flicker of regret was briefly in her gaze, and then it was gone again.

  “We… made a mistake, we had to neutralize the threat, the threat we had deployed ourselves, it was our attempt at making things right… and we failed. We’ve eliminated the infected in all mainland areas, we have saved families. But some don’t want to know us, the majority of this world are reforming as a rebellion, their intentions are unknown to us but they are discovering our secrets, invading our lost outposts - and sooner or later I fear the infection will be like a common cold, overlooked as a new danger arises,” she walked back towards him, and fixed him with a steel gaze adding, “You see good sir, we are here to save the human race…to protect our people from the newly forming rebellion, so I ask you now: Whose side are you on?”

  A year passed by.

  Josh and his group had only lasted two nights at the warehouse beside the sea before something had attracted unwanted attention from nearby infected:

  A female in her twenties, a part of the group, had discovered a dozen sea gulls on the roof of the warehouse, they had begun to mutate, growing what would be seen as similar defects to the humanoid hosts of the fungus virus, but the sea gulls weren’t returning, weren’t reanimating – apparently. But no one stayed around to find out.

  Josh and Austin took the decision to pack up and hit the road, they travelled a few miles inland, taking all the forest and field routes, using the space as an advantage to see oncoming attacks, and to be able to avoid them.

  They managed to travel twelve miles before they ran in to a spot of trouble.

  Chapter 5 – The freedom fighters

  Josh reached down on the ground for a rock, scrabbling around and then he felt a good sharp one, picked it up and started to engrave a marking into the tree next to him. Then Austin wandered over from the newly set up camp site.

  “Everyone’s settled, we’ve got what’s left of the food on the stove, will you be joining us?” As he spoke, concern reflected in his eyes as Josh continued to attack the tree, slicing short marks into the bark.

  “Yeah… of course I will, can you see what I’m doing?”

  “No, I don't see...What is that? You’ve been scribing it in to walls and trees for the past mile or so, why?”

 
“It's us,” Josh replied as he scored more deep slashes in the bark, “ It's who we are now, these lines represent our camp fires, a symbol of hope, a home to those with nothing left, we’re the last good people on Earth”

  “Don’t say that,” Austin replied as his concern for his friend deepened.

  Josh paused, the sharp edge of the rock hovering over unbroken bark beside deep scars as he looked at him.

  “But it may well be true… and this is who we are, free men… and if anyone is out there I bloody hope they find these and manage to join us!”

  “But what if the UNA spot them and end up tracking us down and slaughtering us like they did our families? I couldn’t have that on my shoulders! It's your choice Josh - but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone!”

  Austin turned angrily and walked away to join a small group around a camp fire who were cooking up some fish.

  Josh watched him walk away, he then turned back to look at the markings and fixed his gaze on in intently, as he considered Austin's warning.

  And then he spotted it, from the corner of his eye, whiteness began to fall, then a snow flake landed and he brushed it from his nose as his eyes widened and he looked skyward and started to smile.

  “It’s snowing! It's snowing! Everybody look!” he yelled.

  Josh ran over to Austin, grabbed him and pulled him to his feet, then he ran over to a young woman named Sasha who was cooking up the fish and pulled her to her feet, too.

  “I… I remember building snowmen with my son, and laying with him in bed watching the snow flakes fall past the window waiting for him to drift off to sleep, I haven't seen snow in … Well, since everything was normal, I can almost feel it, while I stared at the window that was lit by the warm yellow street light, the love, the harmony… life was tranquil...Life! I remember life!”

  Tears were flowing from his eyes as Austin grabbed him and pulled him into a tight embrace. As he let go again, Josh was still tearful, his eyes shining with the joy of the memory and the pain of all he had lost.

  “You know mate,” said Austin, “ Perhaps it’s a sign from God, telling me how wrong I was to say what I said, we have to build upon what we have, if we’re ever to put a stop to the UNA.”

  Josh wiped his eyes.

  “OZ, you couldn’t of been more right about what you said… but that sign, that symbol… from here on that’s us, the freedom fighters of England… and out there somewhere the UNA are tucked up in bed, with warmth and food laughing at us all… they’ve taken what we held dear to our hearts and now its our time!”

  “And I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say, we trust your choices, as group leader... you'll do what's right for us all,” Austin agreed.

  “It’s about time we took a jab at their hearts,” added Josh.

  Then he looked across at the camp of around twenty men and women and smiled in hope of a better future, then he grabbed the last bottle of wine they obtained from the UNA outpost, cracked the wrapper off and popped the cork.

  “Grab a glass or cup of some kind…I want to raise a toast to everyone of us still here, we mark this day as a achievement, an end to the start of our journeys but the beginning of something much brighter, we stand together, my friends!!

  Josh began to walk around, sharing out the wine to celebrate as the snow continued to fall in the forest of Herringfleet .

  On the other side of the enemy divide, Graham woke from a deep sleep, he sat up feeling rested and then got up, wearing branded white overalls given to him as a gift from the UNA.

  He rubbed his eyes and tried to focus and adapt to the bright light reflecting around his room, the walls were pure white, it was only a small box room with a single bed, but it was enough.

  Graham wandered out of the room and began to walk down the corridor, where he stopped a woman who was walking in the opposite direction, as they passed each other his hand brushed her arm and she stopped and looked at him.

  “Excuse me my lovely,” he began, “I don’t suppose I can get my hands on a little Charlie around this place? I mean, I'm loving this white theme, it would only be fitting, Charlie for breakfast eh?”

  The women looked at Graham in disgust and then walked off sharply, continuing on her way as she held on tightly to her clipboard and pen.

  “Fucking women...” he muttered.

  Then a nearby door opened and Miss Houghton emerged.

  “Graham, good morning my friend... Right, today as promised is the day you'll join your people.” And then she walked up the corridor briskly. He broke into a run to catch up.

  “You mean, I'm going to meet everyone?”

  “Indeed you will - every last human being ever saved from the perished land.”

  Chapter 6 – Behind the Door

  Graham and Houghton came to a halt at a closed doorway.

  “But, I’ve spent so long shut away in a bedroom, I'd almost given up - Why now?”

  “We needed to make sure you wouldn’t be a threat to us and our .. community…Shall we call them that? Our new community,” she replied.

  “Fair play I guess,” he agreed, “Sounds like an intelligent thing to do! Any news on the rebels? Any activity been spotted?

  “We anticipated one group within the perimeter, and when they arrived they fired on us, so we had no choice,” she told him.

  “What did you do to them?” he asked, recalling the bodies he had seen in the sacks.

  “Offered them what we offered you, they murdered one of my colleagues and we incinerated them, quite literally.” Houghton smirked at the thought of the corpses burning along the treeline, “Today we will be launching a new self controlled drone that will help us hunt down all forms of the rebellion, so fear not - we are winning. This doorway is now unlocked to you, on the other side you'll find everything you need to join your people… Have a lovely day, Graham.”

  She walked away, and Graham headed down a corridor where the bright lighting began to dim, as he headed for a doorway that was almost shrouded in darkness...

  As he approached the door, Graham got the oddest feeling...as if something wasn't quite right, but he couldn't work out what:

  Was this just too good to be true?

  He placed his hand on a scanner beside the doorway, and the scanner recognized his identity, allowing the doors to slide open. As that door opened, he wore a look of hopeful anticipation, but that look was replaced by one of horror as his heart raced and sweat began to shine on his flesh. His legs gave way as he fell to his knees, and for a moment he could only focus on the ground, but then he raised his head once more as his face turned ashen and the look in his eyes changed to one of absolute terror.

  Houghton had gone back to the command deck of UNA, where she had glanced at monitors to check all was running smoothly, and then she turned to one of the technicians.

  “Is the first drone ready for deployment?”

  “Unit one standing by, co-ordinates set to a 10 mile radius, locate and observe surrounding rebels,” the technician replied.

  “Affirmative, carry out the order,” Houghton said.

  The technician activated the drone.

  Outside command facility a large metal doorway began to rise and slowly a white robotic device hovered out, with LED lights flickering around the front acting as a high powered scanner .

  The drone circled on the spot, learning its current location and programming itself with commands sent from Houghton. It made a few bleeps and clicks then shot off in to the nearby field, with its antenna constantly rotating on its dome as it scanned, searching for hostiles, and then it vanished off into the mist and falling snow.

  Far off in the woodland, a figure approached a tree stump and leaned against it, then raised its hand and rubbed along the bark of the stump. Its dirty fingers with mixes of blood stains and mud under the nails began to move in a back and forth motion on the symbol that Josh had engraved in to the tree. Just then, a woman from the freedom camp spotted the male figure against the tree, she gave a gasp and
dropped her gathered bag of nuts, no longer caring the carefully gathered food was now scattered off rolling in all directions.

  The man beside the tree raised his hand and three other humanoids appeared from the foliage, one grabbing the woman, putting his hand over her mouth to silence her screams, while the other two grabbed her legs and lifted her off the ground.

  The man who was leaning against the tree turned away and wandered over very slowly, then he put one hand into his pocket then very slowly extracted a small metal object, he pushed a button and a sharp blade sprang out.

  The woman could only watch in panic as she was restrained, terror shining in her eyes as the hand over her mouth stifled her screams as the other three men held her down securely.

  As the man leaned in closer his facial features became more apparent, but his scarf and hat partly obscured his features, but one prominent feature she could make out was his dark brown eyes, that and a scar on his left brow, it was short but deep, and looked fresh.

  The man leaned in so close she could feel his breath as he started to sniff all over her before getting even closer still, and then he whispered in her ear:

  “We’re hungry.”

  The woman began to struggle, and the men holding her tightened their grip.

  “I'll let you speak,” the man said, “But if you scream, this knife will find its way in to your skull, do you understand?”

  The woman makes a slight nod and stopped resisting, the hand covering her mouth loosened and moved away, down towards her neck.

  “We have food!” she said as desperation shone in her eyes.

  “Are there more of you nearby?” he asked.

  “Yes… Please don’t hurt me, we can help you all!”

  “We’re just hungry, dear,” said the man, “We never intended on killing you… we're just... hungry…”

  The three men detaining the woman began to laugh in a low, sinister tone, and then the man with the knife began to cut off the shoes from the woman's feet.