Endurance by T. J. Blake Page B

people’s clothing. People already infected carried the disease
out with them to infect everyone.’ There was another moment of
silence. The man continued to pace behind Tom, from left to right
and back. He then continued with his narrative, ‘I had to alert the
governing bodies. I told them what happened and they didn’t know
what to do. So I told them, they had to shut London down and kill
everyone who was infected, everyone in the London zone. This
allowed them to use new high-tech armory such as their hovercraft,
new guns and the new tank cars for the army. I presented a survival
presentation and gave them tips. They then decided it would be best
to destroy half of London and block anyone outside of London trying
to come in. Of course, it can’t spread worldwide, it would be used
up just from the population in London. The greater risk was people
leaving London who were infected. And to stop that from happening,
everyone had to die.’
    ‘ Do you think
you made the right decision?’ Tom awaited the answer but didn’t get
one. ‘If you do, then you are a fucking moron. You’re happy with
it…’
    ‘ Don’t you
dare tell me how I feel. You have no idea what I’ve been through.’
The man lost control and began to shout.
    ‘ I know
you’re a self-centered man with no morals. Reveal
yourself.’
    The figure
walked in front of the light. Tom tried to see his face, yet the
man still hugged the shadows.
    ‘ Reveal
yourself!’ Tom bellowed.
    The lights
went off. Tom was encased in darkness and greeted with silence. The
silence became eerie and unbearable.
    He tried
again to break out of his bonds. From what he could tell, his hands
were bound together with plastic of some sort. As he tried to break
free, the plastic cut cruelly into his wrists.
    The lights
came back on; the figure was standing in front of him.
    ‘ You wanted
me to reveal myself?’
    The lights in
front of Tom turned off and light from behind Tom turned on. Tom
looked at the man’s face. He had a black beard with some grey hair.
The hairs on his head are the same texture and color as his facial
hair. He had dark eyes and black roughed up hair, he wore a shirt
and tie, a long white jacket, grey trousers and black shoes. It
took Tom a few seconds to realize the man was his father, Ken
Williams. As he realised this, he let out a gasp and spat at him.
He felt both ashamed and enraged.
    It all became
clear. Tom didn’t react quickly to the chemicals because Ken had
the same blood; they were related. That was why Tom and Ken have
been cured easily.
    ‘ How could
you? You are fucking scum. I hate you. Why couldn’t you just be
dead?’ Tom’s rage clearly frightened Ken.
    ‘ Tom. I only
did this project to help cure your Mum. That’s how long this has
been going on. But by the time I got something together. She died.
Imagine how that made me feel.’ Ken began to cry. ‘My life was
over. I wanted to try to help people, not for all this to
happen.’
    ‘ You killed
Anna! You killed everyone. This is your entire fault. I’m going to
end this right here right now.’ Tom tried to break loose but it’s
impossible. Tom screamed in pain and fury at his father.
    ‘ I didn’t
decide to pulse the whole of London with a blast of electromagnetic
energy. That wasn’t me; that was the government’s doing. I found
Anna and brought her here to try and…’
    ‘ You had time
to pick up Anna’s body to experiment on, but not to look for your
son?’ Tom interrupted and stared at him in disgust.
    ‘ I tried to
help but realised she died from being hit by a car and not from the
chemical.’
    ‘ So your
instinct was to bring Anna back here and experiment on her and not
to look for your son.’
    ‘ No, Tom. I
couldn’t find you. They started blowing everything up. I tried to
look for you but I nearly got killed trying to find
you.’
    ‘ What a hero
you are.’ Tom said sarcastically.
    ‘ Please, Tom.
Don’t hate me. I brought Anna back to see if I