Chapter Five

The Bastards from Baltimore

October 21st

I wish this were a work of fiction.

Would that the past two years had never happened, that the world, as imperfect as it was then, could be restored.

But it can’t. Nothing can be the way it used to be.

Two years ago, on October 17th, the world ended.

As I write this today, my story is yet to be completed. Granted, it could end with a slit throat as it almost did last night with those cannibals, but as of this writing, I’m still alive. I’m still surviving.

Gloria Gaynor would be proud.

The irony is that by the time you, my reader, find this, I could be long dead. As I’m stupid and sentimental enough to tote these notebooks around with me – eight of them filled so far, each one a hundred and fifty pages – if you’re reading this account, it either means I had to jettison the backpack or you’re discovering it on a corpse. Or I guess it could mean you captured me and plan on killing me.

If that’s the case, fuck you.

If not, let’s go with the notion that you found my backpack because I had to abandon it. And let’s imagine I’m still alive because I hate to imagine otherwise.

The will to live is uncanny. So many times over the past two years I’ve been close to death. But because I’m a bullheaded pain in the ass, I didn’t give in to despair, didn’t acquiesce to my fate.

Acquiescence isn’t my strong suit.

Neither, apparently, is staying focused.

Isn’t it funny how we as a species seem to excel at not talking about the most important things? We’ll discuss the weather, our favorite sports teams – I’m talking past tense here, of course, since for two years no one has played any sport except killing each other – or perhaps our favorite foods. We were shallow before the world ended; I’d like to say we’re better adjusted now, but I can’t.

So let’s talk about the end of the world.

Of all the countries I would have bet on to destroy humanity, I never would have guessed the one that actually did. If you’re finding this record, you’re presumably a survivor and know about how everything went down, but just in case you’re from some distant future discovering these notebooks the way paleontologists used to unearth brontosaurus bones, let’s see if you can pick which one of these countries ruined everything:

North Korea.

Russia.

China.

Iraq.

Have you guessed yet? Okay, that wasn’t exactly fair, as the answer is None of the Above.

It was the United States.

Of course, that’s not really fair, is it? It wasn’t our government that orchestrated the launch of the six bombs but rather a cadre of extremists working in conjunction with some rogue scientists at the Applied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins University. Heard of the Applied Physics Lab? I hadn’t either, not before the bombs were launched.

When we finally did learn who was responsible, we realized the extremists had been planning the end of the world for years. That they were able to keep their plot a secret speaks to their devotion. Or to the obliviousness of the American government.

I mean, Johns Hopkins wasn’t exactly in the middle of nowhere. It was in Baltimore, for God’s sakes, and the plot involved more than a dozen leading professors and scientists, as well as a hundred or so individuals employed by Four Winds Aerospace.

Four Winds, of course, is where the apocalyptic event got its name.

I’ll talk about that later.

Again, I’m going on the assumption that whoever is reading this is reading it in the distant future, which means it’s important you know as much as possible about how the world ended. With that in mind, let’s dispel one notion right now:

The missiles were not nuclear.

A group of Johns Hopkins professors, it turns out, was on the cutting edge of biological warfare. And genetics, particularly the study of human DNA.

Yet ‘the cutting edge’ doesn’t do their research justice. Wherever the edge was, they were about fifty steps beyond it, and light years ahead of the rest of the world. Had they used their insight for positive ends, who knows what they might have accomplished? A cure for cancer. An end to world hunger. No more infant mortality.

Instead, they devoted it to eradicating the human race.

Let me provide a little context.

In the year prior to the apocalypse, nuclear tensions had escalated. Rogue nations had acquired the wherewithal to blow up the world, and the supposedly civilized nations had amassed arsenals that could blow up the world a thousand times over.

I won’t lie. It was scary.

The professors at Johns Hopkins found it even scarier than the rest of us. And the extremists at Four Winds Aerospace found it intolerable.

Let’s face it. Deep down, the human race is – or was – pretty goddamned selfish. Oh, we talked about empathy, but when it came down to it, we wanted our lives to be better, wanted our children to be safe. If you asked a man whose life meant more, his or his neighbor’s, he’d don a Zen-like mask and claim that all life was sacred.

But if he had to, he’d cut his neighbor’s throat to survive.

The group at Four Winds Aerospace – and believe me, I’m loath to give them any credit – they understood man’s hypocrisy. They recognized the threat of nuclear annihilation, and they knew it would only take one itchy finger, and the world would be plunged into another dark age.

Because if we can’t survive, we don’t want anyone else to either.

It was probably this sort of selfishness that motivated the Bastards from Baltimore – that’s what many called them, and I suppose it’s as good a name as any for the people responsible for the transformation or the slaughter of all but a handful of the world’s population.

Uh-huh. I know you caught those words in the above paragraph: ‘…responsible for the transformation or slaughter of all but a handful of the world’s population’. Slaughter you understand. Everyone understands that.

But what, you ask, do I mean by transformation?

Four Winds Aerospace prided itself on research. In fact, shortly after the bombs flew but before the Internet was knocked out for good, Jason Oates – the leader of the colony – looked up Four Winds Aerospace and printed out all the information he could. One particular paragraph from FWA’s front page struck me so powerfully that I recall it verbatim, despite the fact that I read the article years ago:

‘Progress remains liberated from governmental shackles and must, as a matter of course, embrace experiments and risks.’

To your eyes, that passage might seem innocuous. Admirable even. But to my eyes, eyes that have witnessed horrors no one would have dreamed possible, the words are absolutely chilling.

Experiments and risks. What images do those words conjure? Laboratories and test tubes? Petrie dishes and beakers?

How about the manipulation of human genetics?

No one saw their plot coming, which meant the human race was uniquely unequipped to deal with the fallout once it began.

Here’s something no one else knew: The reason why the same legends show up in all cultures is that the legends aren’t really legends.

Vampires.

Werewolves.

The Wendigo.

Satyrs.

Psychic powers.

Even the myth about a cannibal’s superhuman powers.

They were all based in fact.

You’re probably laughing. Or, at the very least, cocking an eyebrow in disbelief. Which is what the rest of the scientific community would have done had the Bastards shared their research with anyone.

But they didn’t. All they did was unravel the mysteries of human DNA.

And human nature. You see, it all makes sense in retrospect. We’ve been around for quite a while, we humans. And for as long as we’ve been walking upright, we’ve been discriminating against those who are different than us.

In unlocking the mysteries of genetics, the Bastards learned that, long ago, the creatures you hear about in horror novels were all pretty much real. But because of these creatures’ defects – the vampires’ lust for blood, for instance, or the satyrs’ overwhelming desire for sex – the creatures were either hunted down, forced into hiding, or had their tendencies suppressed.

Do you take my meaning?

All of these creatures were human beings.

All species are hardwired for survival, and humans are no different. But what separates us from other animals are our sophisticated methods of justification, our ability to commit evil acts in the name of virtuous pursuits.

Long ago, there were humans with vampiric tendencies, others with the ability to transform into werewolves. Some possessed the talent to manipulate objects with their minds, others the power to plague their enemies with curses.

Yes, I’m talking about witchcraft.

But as mankind grew and its population doubled and quadrupled, procreation and persecution either bred the aberrant tendencies out of people or diluted them to the point that no one sprouted horns or fangs anymore. No one feasted on the flesh of other men in an attempt to acquire power. Or at least they didn’t do so where their cannibalism might be discovered.

Over hundreds of thousands of years, monsters disappeared entirely, though some – like the Wendigo-like Children and what we now call the Night Flyers – simply went underground, where they dwelt for eons.

Until the Four Winds.

By the time the monsters disappeared from the Earth, their genetic codes were so altered that anyone experiencing an unnatural desire would, if he were smart and civilized enough, overcome that desire and keep his ignoble urges to himself. By the time the twenty-first century rolled around, every unwholesome whim could be explained away by psychology.

Not that I can relate.

I’m what’s called a Latent. This means I have no extraordinary powers. The term itself is rather ridiculous, of course, because it implies there are powers within me that haven’t yet been expressed. When the truth is that if I had any powers they would have revealed themselves by now.

So ‘Latent’ means ‘Powerless’. Which is why, when a Latent utters the word, it’s always in a tone of shame. When a monster uses the word, it’s spoken with a sneer.

I need to get moving. The shadows are elongating, and dusk is approaching. I need to find a safe place to hole up for the night. Shelter is what you miss most when you go on the move. Well, that and food. As you’d imagine, food is a constant source of anxiety.

Even so, when you have a reliable place to sleep, one where the creatures can’t scent you and the elements can’t batter you, the constant hunger isn’t quite as soul-sucking. What meager sustenance you scrounge goes further and tastes better when you have a place to hide for more than a night. You also figure out where the fruit trees are, where the animals like to water.

I haven’t settled in one place for going on seven months now. Yet I know I’ll have to locate a safe haven soon. When our bunker was discovered, it was March. Yes, it was cold then – March is almost always cold and miserable in Indiana – but it wasn’t full winter.

But it’s late October now, and that means winter is coming. There’s no way I can keep wandering through the end of the year, much less the brutal months of January and February.

I’ve always despised the cold.

Now I fear it.

Enough. I have to go. When I sat down to write a couple hours ago, I was certain that Stomper and Paul were far away, that they’d decided not to pursue me.

Now?

I’m not so sure.

Time to move.