Plastic Killer

By Davide Cassia

In the whole world, in few seconds, plastic disappears. It's total chaos and the entire planet is hit by disorder and anarchy. Many die, others survive, some commit suicide. This is the story of some of them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Davide Cassia
• Release date: Nov 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781547542246

Book preview

start.

1.

High volume music beat the air, the notes of Don't Fear The Reaper by the Blue Oyster Cult bounced in the cabin and then launched outside through the wide-open windows of the car, from which were entering rushes of a refreshing cold wind. Archimede Starbini was behind the wheel of his shining caramel Audi TT, mainly busy in slaloming the cars in the centre of Milan, singing aloud. He was hurrying to go work right in the middle of a mid-January grey day; thermometer had reached 2 degrees below zero. Arcy was wearing jacket and tie, with a white stainless cotton shirt, and wasn't cold at all.

He was facing a crossing ignoring the priority sign, when the wheel crumbled in his hands and so did the dashboard and everything it contained. In few seconds the seat, the doors, then the roof and the tyres crumbled too. The windscreen fell on him without breaking. In less than a minute he found himself right in the middle of the road, just with the shell, the engine and the mechanic parts of the car. Luckily he was not going too fast and the Audi, or at least what remained of it, halted without throwing him on the asphalt.

Arcy was astounded, or better terrified, his many-thousand-euro purchase had dissolved like snow in the sun in few seconds. He threw the windscreen towards the engine, enveloped in a dense white smoke. Every car or what remained of it was motionless in the centre of the road with some drivers still seated or laying on the shell, while others, like him, had come out and there was who, shocked, was watching his own car and who instead was looking around, terrified.

Electric cables had been uncovered and you could see just the copper and the electric conduction parts, but it seemed they were no more fed, because now the street lamps were off and also the traffic lights were blind, even without the cover of the lamps. The bus shelter had disappeared and there remained just some posters of a local heavy metal group.

Even the paint of the cars shells had disappeared and every electric part and Arcy realized that even his artificial leather bag was no more, just some brass parts remained. Of his mobile didn’t remain anything, actually, just some iron elements, and of his glasses remained just the lenses; even the case had gone.

Someone cried very next to him and Arcy saw that even the walls of some buildings were crumbling. More than a person began to run, others were paralyzed; a man with just his underwear on passed next to him, running as if Satan was behind him.

Finally, Arcy understood. He was not a chemist, he had studied to become a surgeon, but suddenly he remembered a lesson during his high school, when the teacher had explained to the class how you can obtain plastic, how it is produced and used everywhere. It seemed that all plastic on Earth had disappeared in few minutes.

2.

Even if he thought it impossible, Arcy realized that the situation was getting ever worse. Explosions began, afar at first, as if they were some New Year’s crackers, then he saw the glass windows of most of the buildings breaking and then, a little afar, a house went up in flames.

Now in the streets there was complete panic, people were running away. Arcy saw a wounded woman with a piece of sheet in her forearm, probably part of a crushed car; blood was abundantly spilling, covering her hand in vermilion and creating little pools on what remained of the asphalt and on the pavement. She was ashen, with widened eyes, hollow cheeks and half-open lips slowly moving as to repeat a question nobody could answer in that moment.

Arcy thought whether helping her or ignoring her and he chose the second one.

He gave a last look to what remained of his car, took the little torch laying on the asphalt and that once was in his dashboard, the keys of his house and the tubular of the jack as a weapon.

He decided to walk towards home: the hospital would have been in total chaos, with wounded people asking for help and surely there would have born fights to get medicines.

At first he began to walk fast, then he decided that it was better running at a jog trot to leave the city centre as fast as he could, because he thought that very soon there would have been much confusion. He lived outside the city, about ten kilometres, but he thought that he would have managed to reach his house in less than an hour.

Most of the people he met had a lost glance, others were shocked, some in a total confusion, just few were organizing.

He crossed the trait separating him from the highway he usually covered to reach the centre and he realized that it was full of the skeletons of hundreds of cars and that many people were wandering there like zombies. He decided it was wiser going in a lateral street, nearly parallel to the highway. Along the street he saw mountains of garbage with no more bins, with no more bags to contain it, the stink filled the air and some animals were already acting: a couple of cats and a smangy dog by now and he suspected that very soon there would have arrived the big rats from the sewers. He went over one of those mountains, making fly just for few seconds the felines crowded there, and he went on keeping himself in the middle of the carriageway.

He was now about to reach the end of the road, when from a door went out a completely naked man, wearing just an amaranth wool cap covering his apparently bald head. Arcy couldn’t help from noticing his outstanding penis leaning in front of him like an asynchronic pendulum. The man went in front of him nervously waving his hands.

Do you see? It’s the end of the world! Five minutes ago I was laying on my sofa and then everything has disappeared. The sofa, my clothes, the clock, the television, even the microwave oven. This is Doomsday!

After having said this, the mad man began to run towards the motorway, making his pudenda scandalously dancing. Arcy had been on the lookout during the few seconds of the performance, holding the tubular of the jack. Danger passed and he started again to walk more cautiously, fearing to have again strange meetings.

Even if he didn’t feel the cold very much, at last he began to feel the rigorous climate of that morning: he was wearing just jacket and shirt and under it a cotton underwear T-shirt, because he had never tolerated wearing wool on his bare skin. The windcheater he had put on the rear seat that morning had dissolved, leaving just the zip and some buttons. He had to cover several kilometres yet and he would have reached his house cold and frozen, risking to get some disease, something that, in that situation, was surely not the best perspective. He had many medicines at home and maybe running he would have warmed enough, but it was a risk he wanted to run. So he noticed the first clothes shop at his disposal and entered. As he had imagined, there was no shop assistant welcoming him, also them had run away as fast as they could when everything had happened. Also there many clothes had disappeared, but he immediately found something that could be useful for the occasion. It was a long leather dustcoat, just like the one worn by Neo in The Matrix. It was absolutely not his style, but it was perfect to protect himself from the cold. Being there, he searched the cash looking for something useful, maybe a more practical and useful weapon than the tubular of the jack, but he found just money. He took it, it could be of use, anyway. In a compartment on the left of the cash there was a wool cap, exactly like the one worn by the naked man. He took it and put it on his head. Matched with the dustcoat it created a nearly clownish effect.

Outside it had begun to snow, little insignificant flakes threatening to become many more in a short time. Arcy was satisfied to have taken also the funny cap.

He had just exited the shop when a disquieting hiss filled the air, he took his eyes to the sky, just in time to see some parts of a plane falling on the city. He didn’t know where it was going, but seized by panic he began to run, fearing to be hit by bricks or pieces of burning metal.

After few seconds he heard a rumble behind him and, seized by panic, he tripped, fell ahead and hardly hit the ground with his left temple. For a moment his sight darkened, but clenching his teeth he was able not to faint.

He was able to stand up, seated and realized that something hot was dropping on his eyebrow. It was blood.

He looked at the point in the sky where the plane was and saw flames and black smog coming out from behind the tops of the buildings, flying sheets and screaming people. It reminded him a dramatic scene of a 9/11, afar but never forgotten. It was better going away as soon as possible.

He stood up. For a moment the world tottered, but he was able to resist yet. He had to heal the wound and disinfect it. He took the handkerchief he always had in the pocket of his trousers and tried to somehow stop the haemorrhage. Then he went on walking, looking for a pharmacy. 

3.

Reaching home had not been simple and the more he went away from the centre the less he had met people and problems, but however he had seen the unmistakable sign that the catastrophe had hit quite everywhere. He had found a pharmacy still not sacked. He had healed his wound and then took some indispensable medicines.

Now he was in front of the gate of his house, still standing but without power supply. It opened just with a hand. The door was still there, built in wood and steel it had not been subdued to any privation, save for the sheath isolating the lock.

Inside there was complete mess, everything made of plastic had disappeared, just some metallic parts of the television and of some pieces of furniture remained there as witnesses, but most of the household appliances had disappeared. Vanished the furnishings and even some pictures he would have never said to be composed by plastic materials. Of the interphone remained just copper wires and also some chandeliers and most of the covers of the books had vanished. Of his favourite arm-chair he had bought as made of real leather remained just the frame, not even the padding.

It was very cold, nearly like outside: every frame was gone and the glasses had crushed on the floor. Curtains were still at their place and now they were fluttering like the sails of a ship going adrift.

Going back home he had thought to find a safe place where he could spend the night and think about what to do to survive in a world that had become already hostile. But there he risked to freeze to death in few hours, even if he had worn wool sweaters and padded boots. Maybe going downstairs in the cellar and burning some wood he could have been warm. He reminded that his parents’ old house had wooden frames, a stove and walls a span in width. But, pity, it was nearly forty kilometres from Milan and, without the chance to use a mean of transport, he didn’t know how much he would have taken to cover such a distance. He should have searched for a house of the like in the surroundings, a still isolated one and not warmed by electric energy or methane.

He went in his bedroom, wore a wool sweater he didn’t even remember to have, a gift by one of the many flash-girlfriends of his rich sentimental life, he didn’t even remember her face nor name. He decided to keep the coat he had taken in the shop, because now he liked it and anyhow most of his jackets had disappeared.

He took the sack he used for excursions on the mountain and filled it with spare clothes, a more powerful torch with an escort of batteries, some glass bottles with mineral water he didn’t even remember to have, the medicines he had taken in the pharmacy and all those he was able to find in the house, then went in the garage and added an axe to his kit.

Of his mountain-bike remained just the spokes of the wheels. Was it possible that quite everything surrounding him before the disaster was made of plastic and resins coming from petroleum? If it was so, so even petroleum and its derivations had disappeared? He didn’t remember to have seen oily spots behind or under the cars, but he had not watched very attentively, busy as he was in saving his life and going back home. It was sure that the asphalt of the streets had vanished.

He had to look for bikes belonging to another age, those built with an iron material, still not involved in the industrial revolution brought by plastic.

He thought about what he could still need. Some food, of course, not perishable. From the cupboard next to the garage he took several boxes, some chips sacks – that, miraculously, were made of paper – and dried fruit. Then he remembered to have a pocketknife, a multipurpose one, he didn’t exactly remember where it was, but now it had become precious and useful to solve many problems. He searched for it in the cupboard, in a toolbox, and at last he found it hanging near some tools and wondered why he had put it there, maybe just to remember about it.

He went out, he was not of the kind to feel nostalgia or melancholy, now it was nearly afternoon and he had to find a place to spend the night which was dry and warm as soon as possible.

It was not snowing anymore, but the sky was still of a grey verging to sand not promising anything good and the temperature had not increased very much. The sack was heavy but he was in very good form, thanks to the gym and the footing he had always been practising.

In the village there were several houses that could be the ideal place where to dwell, but the problem was to have an agreement with their owners. Maybe with a bit of fortune he could find an empty one.

He went away from the luxury residential area where there were just houses the same like of his, to move towards the oldest part of the village. He didn’t meet a soul.

On a rise he looked at the horizon and noticed, afar, some columns of smoke, fires going on in near villages, probably more planes fallen because of the lack of structural parts.

In a while he found out an interesting place, a just restructured old farmstead, that had maintained wooden frames and where actually plastic had not been used for any fundamental part. Also the door seemed firm and solid. The gate was locked and it was not a good sign. He was able to deftly climb over it, launching the sack in the other part and going over it in few wise movements.

Now you will pick up that sack, re-climb over that gate and go away, threatened a voice behind him.

On the door of the house had appeared an old man holding a hunting rifle that had seen better times.

Hey, keep calm, Arcy tried to calm him down. I’m just looking for a safe place where I can spend the night.

Well, surely you’re not going to spend it here.

It doesn’t even shoot.

Just remain there ten seconds more and you’re going to discover it on your very skin.

Even if he looked very old, he looked like a smart one and Arcy didn’t dare to contradict him.

Okay, I’m going.

The old man went on keeping watch with his rifle aimed and his finger on the