The Black Rain Chronicles: Part 1 (© Bam Stroker) This contribution is part of a series:- 1. The Black Rain Chronicles: Part 1 (3-Sep-2010)
| When violence sweeps up through the south and falls directly on the head of a few unlikely survivors, they must do all they can to continue to survive. | 2. Black Rain Chronicles: Part 2 (9-Oct-2011)
| A continued glimpse into the end of the world. |
Page 1 Prologue/Foreword This
story’s origins lie in a somewhat political standpoint, having to do with the
BP situation in the gulf. The pollution that devastated that eco system ended up
causing some.. Unforeseen problems. An unknown company has dumped another type
of unknown pollution into the gulf and the mixture of the two caused an
atmospheric phenomenon to occur; A black colored rain fell from the sky in the
general areas of the gulf. It caused many people to be sick and later to turn
grisly and violent. What the rest of the world saw through the filtered eye of
the censored newscast, was that random outbreaks of violence had begun to
spread throughout the gulf region, and in the days that followed, it began to
spread its bloody fingers up northward through the southern United States. By
the time the violence reaches Georgia it is well known that the violence was
the product of an outbreak of a new strain of rabies spread by a wild animal to
someone living on the Bayous of Louisiana, who then spread it onward by unknown
means. It is
when the violence reaches the heart of South Carolina that our story begins. In
a world where violence has become so common place we have desensitized ourselves
to it, we will see the error of our ways. I hope you enjoy it.
Chapter 1: A Night On The Town Standing outside my house and looking up
the road for signs of headlights, I waited on my friends, Rusty and Haley to
pick me up. I took a drag off of my cigarette and tossed the spent butt into
the gravel driveway. Becoming anxious because of the wait I checked my phone
for missed calls, and when that was to no avail, I began playing Tetris. It was
around 3 or 4 minutes later when headlights came hauling ass around the turn
before my driveway. I began walking down it to meet them at the end. Once they
pulled in I jumped into the car, I said my greetings and they said their’s back
as we drove off down the road towards Concord, or better yet, our destination
in Concord, a karaoke place we referred to as the Diner. Living out in bumfuck
Egypt as we did, there wasn’t much else to do. "Hey Rusty, you mind stopping at
Walgreens so I can pick up some cigarettes man?", "Nah, that’s cool man." Rusty
replied. "So have either of you guys heard anything else about this Rabies shit
or whatever it is?" Haley spoke up and said "No, not really… nothing more than
whats been said the last few days… they keep saying its getting closer to us
but I think its overblown bullshit." I nodded and said "Yeah… I feel you… if it
isn’t the war in Iraq killing all our mother’s sons… it’s a spill in the gulf…
or something just as fucking fear invoking. I honestly stopped giving a fuck."
We kind of chuckled at that and went silent for a while. The silence becoming
too boring, I put my headphones in and turned on my Zune. I just watched the
road pass by under the treads of the tires and letting song after song just
drift through my ears. About 20 minutes later I saw the big, ugly, dirty ass
sign that read "Concord Family Restaurant" and we passed it by as we sped into
the parking lot. As we
got out of the car and resituated our clothes to make sure we at least looked
as decent as we did upon entering the car in the first place. We lit our
cigarettes and began our march up to those ever nostalgic doors. Being that
since the NC Talking Heads Society, (a.k.a the basic rule Nazi government of
NC) had outlawed smoking indoors, we stood out front and made idol chitchat
with whatever other smokers had ventured their own ways into the parking lot.
They all talked amongst themselves and I even through in a "Hey man, whats up?"
every now and again. But ever since I had seen the more recent details in the
news broadcasts, I just couldn’t let my mind wander away from it, no matter how
my opinion itself differed on the fact that it could simply be another fuckin’
gigantic media disaster made from the parts of a small town influenza outbreak
story… or making mountains out of mole hills as anyone else would say it. We
finally flicked the useless stub of our cigarette butts out into the parking
lot and we all headed inside to sit down. We noticed upon arrival that a lot of
the patrons were gathered around the TVs and watching with utter awe. It did
appear that since this morning the broadcasts seemed to have gotten
increasingly worse. Last I had seen the outbreak had reached the heart of
Alabama and on up into Georgia. But now the TV brought forth imagery from South
Carolina. It was getting closer. [ Continue to page 2 ] |