Lockdown Fantasy #5: Lockdown, #18

By Black Hare Press

Fantasy stories for LOCKDOWN.

 

FEATURED AUTHORS

The Frame Job by Karen Avizur

In the North by Caylee Tierney

The Enochiac Virus by Chanelle Loftness

The Dogfate by Christopher T. Dabrowski

Darkness Rising by J.W. Garrett

The Statue by Joel R. Hunt

The Old Wizard Wrote a Letter to His Ex by L.T. Emery

The Puckwudgie, or Thomas Clay and His Convictions by Patrick Winters

Griffon Eggs by R.A. Goli

The Final Spell of the Archmage, Astromote by Shawn M. Klimek

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Hare Press
• Release date: Sep 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215046630

Book preview

LOCKDOWN

FANTASY #5

A picture containing drawing, riding, man Description automatically generated

Compiled & Edited by

D. Kershaw | Maggie Pawsey | S. Jade Path | S.N. Graves

Also available and coming soon

from Black Hare Press

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DARK DRABBLES ANTHOLOGIES

WORLDS

ANGELS

MONSTERS

BEYOND

UNRAVEL

APOCALYPSE

LOVE

HATE

OCEANS

ANCIENTS

666

NOM NOM

BHP WRITERS’ GROUP SPECIAL EDITIONS

STORMING AREA 51

EERIE CHRISTMAS

BAD ROMANCE

TWENTY TWENTY

SCHOOL’S IN

SWORD & SORCERY

KEY TO THE KINGDOM

BEYOND THE REALM

OTHER VOLUMES

GRIMDARK

WHAT IF?

DEEP SPACE

DEEP SEA

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Website: www.BlackHarePress.com

LOCKDOWN FANTASY #5 title is

Copyright © 2022 Black Hare Press

First published in Australia in September 2022 by Black Hare Press

The authors of the individual stories retain the copyright of the works featured in this anthology

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this production may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

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Cover Design: Dawn Burdett (www.dmburdett.com)

Formatting: Ben Thomas (www.blackharepress.com) • S. Jade Path (linktr.ee/sjadepath)

Editing: D. Kershaw (www.blackharepress.com) • S. Jade Path (linktr.ee/sjadepath) • Maggie Pawsey • S.N. Graves (www.sngraves.com)

Special thanks to the Lockdown Read Team

Alice Lam • David Green • Holley Cornetto • Jennifer Hatfield

Jodi Jensen • Lyndsay Ellis-Holloway • Stacey Jaine McIntosh

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE ENOCHIAC VIRUS

DARKNESS RISING

GRIFFON EGGS

THE DOGFATE

THE FINAL SPELL OF THE ARCHMAGE, ASTROMOTE

THE OLD WIZARD WROTE A LETTER TO HIS EX

THE PUCKWUDGIE, OR THOMAS CLAY AND HIS CONVICTIONS

THE STATUE

IN THE NORTH

THE FRAME JOB

THE ENOCHIAC VIRUS

By Chanelle Loftness

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The freezer trucks appeared two days after the Enochiac V Virus appeared. I didn’t actually realise what they were for until the people in white plastic suits and yellow-rimmed protection glasses started loading them with bodies. They were mobile morgues, right outside my front window. Right outside my front window. When I moved into my house, across from the general hospital, six years ago, it never occurred to me that one day I’d look out my living room window to a freezer full of dead bodies.

EVV had appeared on a Tuesday. It was a rapidly moving virus that left people who had contracted it dead within hours. Their respiratory and neurological systems crashed almost simultaneously. The call to shelter-in-place came in around 9 a.m., three hours into my shift. I’d already heard some disturbing stories from my other early shift co-workers about people dying in the subway cars or people falling onto the sidewalk dead. 

I had no intentions of sheltering in place at work and headed out immediately. I walked home, twenty blocks, scarf wrapped tightly around my mouth and nose. Over those many blocks, I watched as the city started shutting down around me. Store owners pulled and locked the doors and gates to their stores. Buses rushed down the street and spurned waiting riders as they continued on towards the hub. I began to count the bodies as I walked around and by them, their mouths open in their struggle for air, eyes wide, fingertips blue.

The first hours home, showered and terrified, I sat at the dining room table and waited for the arrival of symptoms. The man on the radio started reporting deaths. The onset of the EVV had happened in every country at the same time. It hadn’t spread like a wave crashing and flowing out over sand like most viruses. They had no explanation for its inception or appearance. In the United States, the IDC announced its expectation that over 8 million people in the US and 40 million worldwide would die in just a few days. 

Eventually, my eyelids drooped and I lay my head down on the table. I prayed my kitchen floor wouldn’t be where people found my body, days, weeks, maybe months later, when there was infrastructure to start searching for victims that didn’t tumble in the view of public or in a hospital.

I woke up the next day at the table, head resting on my forearm. I took inventory of my body was that a sore throat? No. A headache? No. A body ache? Yes, but probably just from falling asleep at the table.

The second day the freezer trucks moved in. That night the moaning cries started. The crying wasn’t just happening on my block, though. I learned through the radio and Twitter that the definitely still-dead bodies of EVV victims had taken to wailing and moaning. The doctors had yet to understand what caused the disturbing occurrences. That was the day I stopped listening to the radio.

The third night the wailing brought me to my living room. I went to the window and lifted a small corner of the blind. Outside, the two men guarding the trucks stood far away from them. I couldn’t read their lips because of their masks, but their hands gesticulated in a frenzied motion. I dropped the blind when piercing light shot out through the seams of the trucks, and I ran back to my bed. The wailing didn’t stop until dawn broke the night.

The fourth night my neighbour, Karl, called just near dawn, as the wailing continued. I’d forgotten we’d exchanged numbers in case of an emergency years ago. Nowadays, we only spoke randomly when we’d see each other in passing.

Anya?