The Haze [Watty's Shortlist 2021]

The Haze (Chapter 1)

The Haze

Chapter One

"Please, please! I have a gun!"

I do not enjoy doing this, but I want to breathe. I have to breathe.

An apartment building in the middle of town was not the worst place he could have chosen to hide from me. There were plenty of nooks and crannies to crouch down and lay low until I passed through, but his sobbing narrowed down my search quickly. Apartment 36.

I had been tracking him over a few miles through The Void. His tank was already flashing red when I first spotted him. The poor soul was running out of time and when we made eye contact from across the street, I could see how tired he was. Sunken in eyes gave the illusion of a corpse staring back at me. The skeleton man gave chase through an alley and I lost sight of him. He left behind plenty of signs to track him though. He did not have much fight left. I had one green bar left before my tank too hit red.

Outside the doorway, I slowly pressed my ear against the wood, listening to his movements inside. I could tell he was somewhere to the right of the door, still crying. My eyes were closed, concentrating on the sounds.

I carefully checked the doorknob to see if he had thought to lock it. When it didn't give, I filled my lungs and squared my shoulders. Taking a step back before aiming a quick kick close to the doorknob. The door had seen better days, as had most of The Void, and it gave way after just a few kicks.

The tag darted into my line of sight from the right and scurried down a hallway to the left of the apartment. I gingerly stepped inside, careful of the debris from the door and general trash that littered the floor.

I was not surprised when I heard a shot go off. Humans get desperate when cornered. Even when they know they are going to die. Even when they are ready to die. Maybe even more so.

What I was doing to him, hunting him, was honestly more humane than what would happen when his tank ran dry. The Haze starts slowly, but eventually, you are left clawing at your own throat, desperate. The hives start forming soon after and your time is up. At least, for the most part. There have been reported cases of reanimation among victims of the Haze. Not like regular television zombies, this is something different. The infected are alive, but their brain does not enable them to follow basic survival functions. The reanimated wander unless given a target. Then they become violent. Be that target animal or human, if they spot something living, they become engrossed and give chase until they waste away. The reason for some to reanimate and others to just pass away has not been discovered officially yet. Some of the religious believe it might be some kind of twisted purgatory here on earth. Those that put their belief in science think it may be caused by genetic makeup, but either way, the man I was hunting was already living on borrowed time before I started tracking him. His reanimation was a risk I was well prepared for. The tank on his back had been stolen from The Bubble the day before and without it, he would have already been toast. He must have been banished from one of the local havens to still be out here on the street.

The Haze came for us in the middle of the day. She settled on the city like a child's blanket. Rolling fog. She took many people within the first few days. Temporary military-grade bubbles were set up over town, passing out oxygen tanks while we tried to figure out why we were dying and why some of our neighbors had come back to life, trying to kill us.

Chemical warfare was what was on most people's minds. It was no secret that there had been rising tension between neighboring countries, but before long, reports came flooding in from all over. Our town was not alone, The Haze was everywhere.

For humans to be so intelligent, we made a mess of our habitat. We now had to strap on an oxygen tank anytime we leave the Bubble or we die. No exception. The Haze is so potent that a simple gas mask will not filter out the toxins. We have to supplement with a steady supply of oxygen. Even a minute of exposure results in hives. That is what humanity's greed got us. We continued to pollute the earth until she poisoned us back.

The bullet was shot wildly and landed somewhere to the right, burying itself in the old cracked and faded linoleum flooring, nowhere near me. I stepped over a broken kitchen chair and peaked around the edge of the hallway to see he had ducked into a bedroom. The mirror on the dresser showed him crouched against the wall with his eyes covered by his arm. He was not even looking when he fired. That is how I knew the fight had left him.

I pulled a stinger out of the sheath running horizontally across the back of my belt. It was a nasty-looking little weapon, similar to an ice pick. I walked deliberately down the hallway, minding my steps to minimize noise. When I got into the bedroom, he still had not uncovered his face. He was sweating and quietly chanting a haunting mantra:

"No, no, no, no. Please, no."

He was shaking his head back in forth, in time with his chant, holding the gun lamely in my general direction.

I reached forward and took the gun in my left hand while I knelt in front of him.

"Shhh, I know."

I tossed the gun away from his slumped form and he finally looked up at me. His eyes were rimmed red. He took a shaky breath and nodded. I placed my left hand against his cheek and drove the stinger into the right side of his neck.

He never stopped looking at me.

I stayed crouched over his now still body with my head in my hands. A crimson puddle was getting closer to reaching the soles of my boots. After a few steadying breaths, I wiped the stinger off on the sleeve of his canvas jacket and sheathed it. I stripped him of his tank and lifted his left arm into my lap, feeling around with my fingertip for the familiar lump. I kept a scalpel in a sheath in my boot for extracting tags. I removed the blade and adjusted my hold on his arm. The small incision barely bled as I pinched the skin to remove the foreign object. A tiny disk with identifying information inside about the person it was inserted into. It holds a history of what you've checked out from the Bubble, your clearance level, etc.

The tank and mask went into my pack and the tag onto a necklace I kept tucked into my shirt. If I had to ditch my pack, I did not want to risk losing the tag too. The bedroom we were in was littered with a child's toys. An overturned crib lay in the corner.

I did a quick survey of the apartment for gear to salvage, conscious of the red bar that now glowed on my tank.

As I suspected, it was mostly picked clean. No different from most of the other parts of the Void now.

He had not been squatting here either, but rather just ducked in to hide.

How intimate it is to die in your own home, but even more so to die in that of a stranger's.

My search provided me with the deceased's tank and mask, a tube of superglue, a set of eyeglass screwdrivers and a new book for Addie.

I walked back into the room where the body lay and tucked his gun into my pack too.

When I made it back on the street, I removed my goggles and cleaned them with my shirt front. The Haze did not affect your eyes or skin, but I felt better wearing them. To me, walking in the Haze with no eye protection was similar to swimming in a chlorine pool with your eyes open. Possible, but uncomfortable.

The sun was still in the sky. I had enough time to turn in my tag at the Bubble before dark. I should even make it back with a few breaths left in my tank.