John Killed Everyone
Background: "John Killed Everyone" came about as the result of plotting for another story I've been working on for about five years now, "Soundless." In that world, 97% of humans speak telepathically as the result of a manufactured virus that killed everyone on the planet who didn't have a certain set of genes that predisposed one to having telepathy.
Eventually, I started wondering how the the whole "mass murder" thing happened and lit on the idea that it wasn't actually a concerted effort by a series of eugenics-obsessed governments, but rather a single terrorist trying to take out the United States.
Unfortunately for the world, that terrorist, infected with her own virus, encounters the unluckiest man to have ever lived.
Enjoy.
-- Mike
P.S.
This is my story and isn't being given away; i.e. all ideas are mine unless otherwise noted. See my copyright page for details.
Featured Image source can be found here.
John Washington didn't mean to kill 97% of thepopulation.
It just kind of happened, which is really thestory of his life.
In 2052, the man who would eventually murder 9.8billion people was born in the new Automated Pediatrics wing of Crouse MemorialHospital in Syracuse, New York. By all accounts, John was a perfect littlecherub, with ten tiny tan toes and ten chubby fingers that liked to grasp atthings like infants do.
That's how, at the age of eight months, Johnkilled both his parents.
During a long, cross-country road trip in theirnewly purchased auto-driving car, John's parents—Jesal and DeborahWashington—were napping when infant John fell out of his improperly installedbaby seat, proceeded to crawl atop his until-twenty-minutes-ago sleep-deprivedparents to grab hold of the shifter and drop the brand new Safety-is-Our-Mottofamily car into park.
Jesal and Deborah died on impact. John's fleshylittle baby body bounced around like a rubber ball, but he survived with abroken toe that would keep him from playing sports for the rest of his life,which, in and of itself, was a shame. He'd have been a fantastic JV soccerplayer otherwise. As it was, John focused on his studies and, surprisingeveryone but him, did very, very poorly.
His time in ASHS—or Automated Social HandlingServices (the 'H' was added after a failed marketing blitz in the early 60s)—wasjust as riddled with bad luck. At the age of ten, John, who by now had growninto a somewhat rotund and, even he'd admit, quite ugly boy, managed to killhis best friend, Dale, during a game of Hide and Go Seek. As Dale ran back toSafe, John squealing with laughter as he huffed behind, Dale took a step toofar to the left to avoid John's grasping hand, located an unmapped well fromthe 19th century, and plummeted to his immediate death.
John wasn't invited to the funeral.
After that, John didn't have many friends, thoughin the 10th grade he did manage to save a kitten during the Storm ofthe Century—the hurricane of '68. It was by all accounts only the sixthhurricane to make it up the eastern seaboard and hit Central New York, but thisone was the first to bring true hurricane force winds to bear on the aginginfrastructure of the area, resulting in a power outage that lasted seven days.
John, huddled in his otherwise empty bunk areaand surviving on old crackers and water bottles he found in the empty cafeteriafridge, nursed the small tabby back to life after he found it struggling in arushing stream running down Brighton Avenue. He named the little monsterHercules.
After the storm, when the power came back on andthe automated caretakers resumed their rounds, Hercules disappeared. John wouldalways tell himself the little guy managed to get out of his bunk, though inhis heart he knew what happened. The automated caretakers threw tiny Herculesinto the incinerator along with the cardboard box and old blanket John kept himin.
Eventually, John stopped making friends orinteracting with anyone at all. This was an incredibly smart choice on his partand for years no one died because of him.
After seventeen years in ASHS, John reintegratedinto society as an in-person delivery agent for Universal Shipping andReceiving Services. Most deliveries were done by automated services, but for asmall upcharge, people could get a real live person to deliver their packagesand mail to their door. As this type of interaction was the most face timeanyone got at this time thanks to the invention of full-immersion virtualreality, it was surprisingly popular.
Also, international law required all medicaldeliveries be done by a person rather than automaton. Strictly speaking, it wasn'ta logical law, but then again, that was the problem. Automatons constantlychanged delivery destinations for organs mid-flight based on standardprioritization rather than who paid the most for their new liver and that wasnot acceptable to shareholders.
Eight years later, and a spotless record formaking sure rich patients receive the organs they paid for, John had finallylet go of his guilt of killing his parents, best friend, and maybe Hercules,and fully embraced his job as a delivery person. In his mind, he did more thandrop off packages to lonely people and organs to the rich: he made livesbetter. Human connection was, in his uneducated opinion, the best medicine.
It was with that newfound hope he scheduled hisfirst trip out of the United States. The tickets and accommodations took everylast cent of his savings, but, weighing in at two weeks and seventeen stops,both in the US and abroad, he'd finally get to see what the world had to offer.He'd immerse himself in humanity and, he hoped, be better for it.
He'd be the last person to make such a trip fora hundred years.
On one summer day in July, John pulled up infront of Crouse Memorial Hospital. There was a bounce in his step he hadn't hadsince before his parents died, which means he had no idea he'd ever felt thischeerful. This was his last job before hopping on the puddle-jumper out ofHancock international to JFK airport, then on to San Francisco for a two-day layover.After that, John would be on his way to Hiroshima, then Hong Kong, New Delhi,Cairo, and a rapid-fire tour of Europe before finally ending with a tour ofMayan and Incan ruins in and around Brazil.
Perhaps if he'd known that happiness before,he'd have stopped rushing the paperwork. He'd have paid more attention to theflashing quarantine signs as he wheeled a set of lungs in a glorified coolerdown a long, pastel-painted hallway with LED room signs. Maybe he'd even havenoticed the "DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT HAZMAT PRECAUTIONS" signs plasteredaround the doors he roughly shouldered through while nurses and security wereresponding to a series of alarms around the corner.
Maybe he'd have heard the police screaming fromaround that same corner as they tackled a bioterrorist trying to get in to seethe patient that required such precautions, or seen the gaggle of doctors andnurses standing, hands to mouths, watching the events, backs turned to him.After all, it's not every day a woman infected with a contagious virus arrivesin Syracuse and tries to murder an entire population. Hell, the most excitingthing to happen around the hospital at that time was the Neu-MeatTMTaco Truck that served manufactured protein meals that almost tasted like beef.
Maybe if the intern that'd been left guardingthe only entrance into the quarantine area hadn't tried a Neu-MeatTMtaco earlier in the day, he wouldn't have run to the bathroom moments beforeJohn entered the building.
And maybe, maybe, if any of that hadn't beenhappening, or John had paid more attention, everyone would've been fine.
But he didn't. John made his way through thestrangely empty hospital hallways, whistling tunelessly as he thought aboutgetting seafood in San Francisco the next day, until he arrived at roomthirteen.
It was at this point John finally saw somethingthat gave him pause. As he'd been doing this for eight, going on nine, yearsnow, John had delivered several organs to patients with MRSA, or Methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus, as he took the time to learn. As such, the presenceof gloves and masks on the door gave him a solid heads-up, so he wheeled hiscart to a stop, put the gloves on—the masks were always an unnecessaryprecaution, as many a doctor had told him over the years—and gave the door aknock.
"Hello?" A weak voice answered.
John, still smiling his full smile—he took hisjob of making people happy veryseriously—pushed into the room. "Hello, Francine!" He hoped that washer name, anyway, since that's what was on the PO. "I've come bringing agift for you."
Hospitals always smelled weird. A mix of humanwaste, sweat, and astringent cleaner.
This was worse.
John froze as he entered. The harshness ofchemicals he couldn't identify made his eyes water. The sheer number ofmachines caught him off guard and, for barely a moment, his smile slipped.There were the usual heartrate monitors and IVs and such, but there wassomething with a series of pumps, some sort of crazy mad scientist setup in thecorner, and, to his left, a long, wall-length mirror.
"Well, that's new," John mumbled as herolled the cart in.
"It's so they can watch," a heavilyaccented voice replied.
John was drawn to the voice. On the hospitalbed, covered in white sheets spotted with flecks of red and sitting up throughthe grace of the bed alone was a skeleton with some skin on it. The hairlessskull swiveled toward him, bright, clear blue eyes following him like a wolf trackingprey.
Now, seven, even six years ago, John might'vescreamed, but this wasn't his first rodeo. He knew people in this situationjust wanted some dignity and respect, so he swallowed down the bile and smiledwide. "That's not very polite of them. Are you Francine?"
The figure on the bed cocked its head to theside. "Yes." Was it an Irish accent? Scottish? John had never beenvery good at identifying those sorts of things.
John smiled his big smile and pretended hewasn't about to vomit. "I brought you a new set of lungs. Fresh from thefactory." John slapped the cooler in front of him. It gave out a dullthud.
Francine stared at him for a long moment,something approaching a smile twitching across thin, chapped lips. "That'sfunny."
John let out a breath he didn't know he washolding. "I figure humor is the best medicine."
Francine made a noncommittal sound deep in herthroat. It sounded like grating sand.
"So," John said, rubbing the back ofhis neck. "Any idea when your doctor will be back so they can sign forthis?"
The suddenness of Francine's laugh caught himoff guard. "I'm my own doctor," Francine's eyes narrowed to a pointon his chest, "John."
John craned his neck awkwardly until he saw hisnametag. Right.
On another day, John might've gone back out andtalked to the front desk. He probably would've asked to see a supervisor. Buttoday, today he was leaving for a trip. Today, he absolutely needed to be atHancock by 4:15pm or he'd miss his flight and then the entire complicateditinerary he'd spent the last year fretting over would be ruined. And, afterall, the only name on the PO was Francine Waters. Who was he to decide shecouldn't accept delivery of her own organs?
John smiled and wheeled the cooler to the cornerof the room, next to the chemistry equipment. "Then I guess you're who Ineed to sign this delivery sheet."
"I guess I am," Francine said, eyesboring into his forehead.
John took a deep breath. He grabbed his tabletand sidled up next to Francine. Despite the heavy stink of the room, the odorof rot and blood filled his nose as he approached. John desperately tried notto wrinkle his nose or look too closely at the bed sheets. He didn't want toconsider the red spots he saw weren't polka-dots. He held out the tablet,disappointed it was shaking lightly in the air. "I just need you to signright here."
Francine's lips twitched again, then she drew ahand from beneath the covers.
John recoiled.
Her hand resembled her face—bones covered withskin, blue veins straining, any musculature she once had gone—with one mainexception. It was covered with dozens of tiny, oozing sores.
He averted his gaze so quickly, he didn't noticethe handcuffs securing her other arm to the bed.
"Okay there, John?" Francine asked,breathing out into his face, hand out for the stylus. "Need someair?"
Her breath smelled like roadkill. No wonder sheneeded new lungs.
Man, I should've worn the facemask, hethought.
John sucked in a deep, stale breath, then handedher the stylus. Francine's fingers brushed the blue latex of his gloves as shedid. Small brown streaks discolored the plastic.
Francine grimaced as she signed the tablet, thenslid the stylus back into the tablet instead of handing it to him directly."Thank you, ever so much, John."
John grunted some sort of assent, then hastilyretreated. "My pleasure, Francine. Best of luck on your surgery!"
John left to the sound of Francine's chokinglaughter.
Objectively, the entire situation was creepy andno one in their right mind would blame John for running from the hospital asquickly as he could. Even the intern who'd just gotten back from a very roughbathroom visit forgave the man who took off in a hurry. After all, the internhad other problems to consider in that moment.
What few people in their right mind wouldforgive him for was not reading the symptom charts plastered on all the exits. Orthe warnings to avoid travel if you entered the quarantine area with DoctorFrancine Waters, the woman who gene-edited the Ebola virus into a delayedreaction pathogen. Even fewer would take a blood-covered object from the deardoctor who, after her research was discovered, had fled the Irish Confederacywith the intention to infect the entire eastern seaboard of the United Stateswith a virus that had a 97% fatality rate. She was a firm believer in thetheory that the only way to save the Earth, and thus, humanity, was through aculling, you see.
He never meant for any of it to happen. Not hisparents, not Dale; certainly not Hercules.
Definitely not the deaths of 9.8 billion people.
But, as was mentioned at the beginning of JohnWashinton's tale, all of it just kind of happened.
It was, after all, the story of his life.
