Flight: In the Beginning

By Colin Etherington

Flight is the main character in this work of fiction. Told from his perspective the story tells of how he survives a cataclysmic event created by mans error in judgement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491882887

Colin Etherington

Colin Etherington lives with his wife, Pauline, in the family home in Morley, Leeds. A retired plumber and gas fitter, his vivid imagination and questionable sense of humour have tormented his children and grand children for many years. They, eventually, sent him upstairs to write!

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© 2013 Colin Etherington. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/30/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8287-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8286-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8288-7 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Not On Our Own

Nothing But Emotions

Could Anything be Worse?

Realisation

A New Day

New Found Talent

The Mini-Exodus

Up and Away

All Clear

After a Nice Day

Only Words

Nothing to See

A Place to Stay Forever

A Peaceful End

It’s Coming

Off With The Old

Part 2

What’s In Store?

Big Boys Rule

Where Was Common Sense?

Terminal Decision

Unshared Memories

Nightmare Fodder

From Bad to Worse

Cold Comfort

Epilogue

Prologue

My own perception of how it all started may not be very precise as regards dates, the reason being that it all happened a long time ago.

We had for many years, been well and truly brainwashed into believing that our poor little planet Earth was suffering an imminent catastrophe with the climatic changes that were occurring at this moment in time and would seriously deteriorate as each year passes by. We, the population of Earth, have been extremely frivolous with the world’s resources.

According to the scientists and great thinkers of our time we have created huge holes in the ozone layer by our prolific burning of carbon producing fuels. Our polar icecaps are melting and shrinking dramatically causing the sea levels to rise to a level that will cause problems that humankind cannot hope to contend with. The devastation and loss of life will be horrendous, as the damage is expected to run into hundreds of millions of human beings, plus countless billions of other life forms destroyed.

Rulers of many powerful countries decided to try and force their people to undertake major changes to the lifestyles that they had become so reliant upon. They, the various powers that be, hoped that producing energy by such methods as wind turbines, tidal wave technology and solar power would, in itself, stem and reduce the need for fossil fuel consumption. Millions upon millions of pounds, dollars and other currencies, all heavily taxed revenues from unhappy populations, were thrown at and wasted on these propaganda based theories. My own views were that all that money would have been much better spent on the only power source that could be harnessed without using fossil fuel, Nuclear power, as all other means were reliant on the unpredictable climate forces around the world.

With time elapsing and after all the pontificating that had been going on around the globe about our enormous financial, religious, cultural and climatic problems we, the so called master species, united in our uselessness, had come up with absolutely no solutions except to carry on as we had in the past. Accordingly we, the people of Earth, unwittingly allowed eighty world leaders to plan a course of action they said, Would steer us away from harm.

We really were that stupid.

Chapter 1

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Not On Our Own

I didn’t take a great deal of notice when, back in mid January 2009, the television and newspapers talked about a new influenza outbreak occurring in South America; afterall it wasn’t all that unusual at that time of year. Apparently it was a lot worse than we were initially told about. Within a matter of only two to three weeks the flu virus, named Guano Flu, had spread out and appeared in a number of different countries around the world.

The explanation given out for such an occurrence by the World Health Authority (WHA) was that they thought the virus had been transported to the various countries by contaminated people who had been on vacation and contracted the illness in South America.

People had started to die. At least one hundred and fifty deaths in Mexico, forty seven in the United States and Canada had sixteen fatalities. Next, we were informed that New Zealand and Australia had a number of deaths but, at that moment in time, the authorities were reluctant to admit a flu problem as none of their nationals had been in direct contact with anyone from the affected areas. At the same time as these outbreaks happened similar occurrences were appearing all across Europe and the Baltic states. As yet we hadn’t received any information from the African or Asian continents, which wasn’t surprising as statistics from these hugely populated countries were difficult to acquire. China and Japan, much to their credit, after the terrible experience with the Chicken Flu epidemic, had been extremely quick and efficient in trying to prepare their people by issuing them with anti-flu inoculations and face mask protection.

The World Health Authority had, on the 9th February 2009, up rated the outbreak to a Pandemic scenario. They stated that it was a Code Red Emergency and United Nations Emergency regulations would be brought into immediate effect. All border controls would be under police and military authority. Only Authorised personnel would be allowed to enter into neighbouring sovereign countries.

Later that same day, 6 pm to be precise, Government and Opposition Leaders, led by the Prime Minister, came onto radio and television sets on all channels and radio wavebands to tell the Nation of the situation regarding the expected Pandemic. Provisions had been made for mass inoculations and information would be forthcoming via local radio and local TV about who, when and where to obtain this treatment. The Minister also stated that there were more than enough vaccines available for each and every member of our society. He then gave us all the, Do things the British way and things will all work out, speech. He also informed us, quite pointedly, that the armed military personnel were only there on our streets to ensure public health and safety. Anyone found to be uncooperative or troublesome would be dealt with strictly and firmly. No question about that…

Through the media on the following day the country was given the latest statistics in relation to the flu. They were not good, not good at all. There were 984 people positively diagnosed with Guano Flu. All had been inoculated and signs for their recovery were very promising according to the British Health Authority (BHA). As yet there had been no information as to anyone actually dying; we all kept our fingers crossed.

The first indication of how bad things had become in Great Britain was when we were told that all military personnel, regardless of age, rank or gender, had been ordered back to bases in Britain regardless of where they were stationed in the world. We learned, at a later date, that most other countries had given the same instructions to their own armed forces. Within days our little island was turned into a fortress. Things that were occurring now put us, or people old enough to remember the Second World War, into a state of heightened anxiety. The Royal Navy, apparently, had instructions to mount a total blockade of all vessels, large or small, entering our coastal waters until further ordered. The skies above our heads saw quite a bit of activity from the R.A.F.s planes, but I couldn’t say I’d noticed any civil aircraft of any description flying in the sky.

Although there wasn’t any official word I was strongly beginning to get the feeling that my country was now under Marshal Law. It wasn’t a feeling I was happy about but over the next few days people seemed to resign themselves to await whatever turned up next in relation to the emergency. The NHS and the forces medical staff were extremely efficient in dealing with the process of injecting sixty million arms, but having said that we were a captive audience. Approximately 100,000 medical and military staff were employed full time for weeks giving the public the vaccine. It was common procedure for a soldier, sailor or airman to have very advanced first aid training in our forces and quite normal for a soldier to be giving injections, or so I’ve been told. Anyone who didn’t want the jab wasn’t forced to partake but was informed that there wouldn’t be any second chances and that was official.

On the 11th February 2009 at 6 am, information arrived via satellite news channels and it couldn’t have been more frightening. The reports were coming in thick and fast about enormous numbers of people dying in other countries from the Guano Flu outbreak.

In the South American countries, North America and Canada the estimated death toll was running close to 5,000,000 and rising. Europeans were having the same massive losses; as for Australia and New Zealand virtually 50% of their population had perished. From Russia and the Baltic States and the entire Asian continent came no information at all.

There was a total media blackout in these regions and we were getting no news from our own Government. I and many other people around me were getting very uneasy. This was, to me, now beginning to look very much like the dark ages Bubonic Plague—which decimated half the World’s population. Oh Boy! Was I wrong?

Roughly, at about 3 pm on the 18th of February, all media networks and all communication links, including mobile phones, from or to anywhere abroad were discontinued. Internal lines were open but they were totally swamped by sheer volume of calls. For some reason the British were being kept in the dark. At the time none of the people I spoke to could understand why there had to be all this secrecy or why we were all being treated like children or worse, idiots. All the television was now showing were very old movies depicting wartime Britishness and stoicism in the face of adversity until, eventually, at around 7 pm, a Government Minister arrived on our screens. He had an exasperated, panicky nervousness about him and started to try to explain to us that our people and our country were holding up very well and that there was no need to panic. He told us that due to major technical difficulties in maintaining any contact with countries abroad he was unable, at this time, to be offering any information as to what was actually occurring in these places. Suffice to say that as soon as any news was available we would immediately be informed.

The Minister then went through a list of new rules and laws which were to be implemented immediately, such as a new traffic law. No vehicle, other than emergency transport vehicles, would be permitted to park on any ‘A’ designated highway. The reason for this was to alleviate problems for the emergency vehicles. All minor roads or streets approaching the said ‘A’ roads would, temporarily, be free from any parking restrictions. Most of what he said went in one ear and out the other. Eventually he broke the news we all wanted to know about, the virus. He was visibly upset when he looked at the camera. He then went on to give us the latest tragic figures. Throughout the United Kingdom approximately 2,850,000 people in all age groups were known to be infected with the virus; as yet, no figures had been released in relation to fatalities. The people of this nation would be kept informed as and when any information was available. We were then asked to keep the channels open and await further developments. This was heartbreaking.

Chapter 2

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Nothing But Emotions

By the 26th of February things had gotten seriously out of hand. I didn’t really need to watch television all the time now as the silent assassin was already amongst our local community creating havoc. People were running scared. Reports were coming in by the hour. The devastation was all over the country, every Hamlet, Village, Town and City. Every person still alive had family or acquaintances who had suffered bereavements and it was soul destroying. It was truly unbelievable how quickly this monstrous killer had spread out over our country and the World and of what use were the mass vaccinations? They weren’t worth a candle in the wind.

I spoke to an old friend, Mick, about the things happening around our area and he mentioned that a lot of local folk had packed up all their belongings and moved to the coast in the hope of finding cleaner air. Mick had asked a corporal in the Para’s if this was a good idea. The trooper told him it would be a wasted effort as they were all infected anyway. I never gave that solution another thought as the soldier was probably correct. Sadly, I never saw Mick again.

My wife and I were at home watching the TV when the programme was interrupted by a newsflash; it was the Prime Minister speaking to the nation. He told us that top scientists had just notified the House of Commons that after full and extensive tests they had come to the