First Activation

“We can’t just start shooting people on sight,” Linda said, shaking her head.

“The people with a pulse that we have come across so far have appeared completely normal, until they managed to find an opportunity to kill. We can’t afford to let them get close enough,” Jack replied, looking sympathetically towards her.

“There is one way,” Bernie exclaimed, “we don’t have to shoot if we see two or more people together who are alive.”

“What do you mean, Bernie?” I asked.

“Think about it,” he explained, “if they all need to kill someone before they can kill themselves, they are more likely to kill another person than travel with them. So far, we’ve only come across individuals who were looking for somebody to kill, or who were locked away.”

“If we see two people alive who are thinking like the man in the cage, then the chances are they’d be trying to strangle each other. So, do we need to split up so we are not seen in a group?” Jack said.

“No. It wouldn’t make a difference, would it? It certainly didn’t stop Maureen or that guy behind the door. But if others are out there that have worked out what is going on, then they’ll recognise that we are not trying to murder each other. We should stay together,” I replied.

“How did all of this happen? We know what they are trying to do, but why are they doing this?” Bernie was beginning to sound distraught.

“He said it was the only objective he ever had, that obviously isn’t true, but he believed it. So sometime in the last day, everybody here was affected. It isn’t that much of a stretch to think that the loss of communications might have something to do with it,” I replied.

“But how could this happen?”

It was an impossible question, and I certainly didn’t have the answer.

“I don’t know, Bernie, we’re all working on the same information as you here,” Jack said.

His tone was slightly sarcastic, and although unhelpful, it was understandable in our current position. A short period of awkward silence followed.

“Ninety-nine percent of the people we have seen are already dead. Besides the guard who approached the plane, we have only come across a man who was already locked up and a woman who walked over from a nature reserve. How far do you think this has spread? Could the city be affected?” Linda said, sounding close to breaking point.

I couldn’t help but imagine the scenes in front of the terminal when this deathly impulse took hold of its victims. There must have been stabbings, shootings, suicides, blood and screaming everywhere, everyone with the same purpose.

A thought struck me.

“Jack, those tweets you received right after we landed…”

“Yeah, what about them?”

“They were probably from people trying to draw you in after finding the original message about coming to New York.”

“Why me though?”

“I doubt it was you specifically, I imagine they would have tried anyone they could find after searching twitter for New York.”

Jack was still looking at me blankly.

“Think about it. There was somebody in a wheelchair, a guy in a hospital, and a farm owner. All were in a similar situation to the man in the cell — unable to get their hands on another human. They were in remote locations or unable to move anywhere without putting themselves at risk.”

“I was being stalked on social media, Jesus.”

“Remote locations? Let me have a look,” Bernie said, as he quickly shuffled towards Jack.

Jack pulled out his phone and briefly checked it.

“I’m not picking up any networks, here you go.” He passed the device to Bernie.

As he read the tweets, Bernie’s mouth slowly opened wide.

“What is it, dear?” Linda asked.

“The addresses in the tweets… one of them is in Manhattan. Worse still, the farm is in upstate New York!”

“We’ve got family and friends all over the state, Bernie. Are they all caught up in this too?”

“Don’t think about that now. We’ll get out of here and then we will find them,” he said.

“We’ve two friends in the Manhattan area as well,” Jack said.

Bernie and Linda had lived in New York for years and probably had a whole network of friends and family nearby. Linda was obviously concerned, but neither she nor Bernie were paying much attention to us at the moment.

“The captain said other airports had the same issue. Could this be happening on a wider scale?” Jack asked.

There was no reason to hold back at this stage, but I could have done without the further worry. The thought of our own family and friends being affected was too much at the moment, we had to remain switched on to the situation. I had to hope that whatever we were witnessing, was confined to the state of New York, but my head told me otherwise. Although we didn’t know which airports the captain had tried to contact, the lack of communication made it seem like this was not a local phenomenon.

The plane. We’d all forgotten about it. I ran over to the blinds and created a gap in them with my fingers. It was dark outside. We’d missed our agreed cut off.

“I’m not going out in the dark, no way,” Bernie said.