Emergency Broadcast

Jonathan reached over to tap a button on the dash and radio sprang back to life. There was still a lot of crackle in the signal but the polished voice of a news announcer could be understood without too much effort.

“...the army have so far been deployed in four cities across the country to help keep crisis in check, but further deployments are expect shortly. Government officials have issued an advisory warning to all citizens within 20km of the affected zones to remain indoors for the next few hours, to prevent the any further spread of the infection.

Additional, they are advising civilians to avoid contact with — even to provide medical assistance — anyone they believe to be showing signs of infection. Due, in part, to the high risk of violent outbursts.

The clearest known symptoms of the infection are as follows. Severe red eye, the appearance of **** inebriation, clammy or feverish complexion...”

At this point the radio suddenly fizzled back out into static. One or two more disjointed words made their way through, but after that the radio merely played the omnipresent song of the universe.

“What the hell was all that about?” Mina asked, clearly disturbed by the broadcast.

“Don’t know. Virus outbreak by the sounds of it. A bad one.” Jonathan tapped the seek button and radio noisily scanned through the peaks and troughs of static for any other signals.

“Maybe it’s terrorists.” Lucy mused. “You know, like bio-terrorism or whatever they call it.”

“But what disease gives people violent outbursts? Are they crop dusting PCP or something?” Mina asked as she stared at the radio.

Jonathan cracked at hopeful grin “Hey, wait. It’s halloween, remember?”

“You think it’s just a radio drama, like War of the Worlds?” Lucy guessed.

“Could be.”

“I don’t know.” Mina cut back in. “It didn’t really sound much like a radio play. It didn’t have the right amount of, I don’t know, ‘ham’ you usually get from stuff like that.”

Everyone was silent for a long time after that.

“I guess we’ll have to wait until we get where we’re going before we find out for sure.” Jonathan said.

“Yeah sure.” Mina replied in tired voice. Her head starting to droop a little.

“You okay Mina?”

“No. I feel. I feel really drained all of a sudden.”

“Lucy, what about you?” Jonathan looked at the back seat. Lucy lay with her eyes close, totally unresponsive. “Lucy!”

He turned back to Mina. “Mina, can you hear me? Try and stay awake. I think something is wrong with you and Lucy. I’m going to speed up. I need to get you two into town, pronto.”

“Dangerous... fog. You... might be ill... too.” Mina slurred.

“Pray that’s not the case, or we’re all very fucked.”

Mina tried to focus on Jonathan’s panicked words, but the world was rapidly fleeing from her. Leaving only blackness in it’s place.