The Laughing Plague - A "Crossed" TL

[gillan1220]

Now we are two past the POD, we can compared what happened to OTL and TTL

George Floyd is probably still alive as the huge butterflies would have prevented the incident from taking place. The Coronavirus will all but be forgotten.

[49ersfootball]

Jun 30, 2020 8:30:54 GMT gillan1220 said:

Now we are two past the POD, we can compared what happened to OTL and TTL

George Floyd is probably still alive as the huge butterflies would have prevented the incident from taking place. The Coronavirus will all but be forgotten.

Taking notes of doing a Sci-fi TL. 

[kspence92]

"We're empty." Ben grumbled as the ambulance rolled to a gentle halt on the quiet country road. There hadn't been much fuel to start with but at least it had got them far enough away from the slaughterhouse that was Basingstoke that they were relatively safe.

"Shit. How far is the nearest town?" Nicole asked as she looked in the mirror. Her makeup was streaky from crying. At least the shaking had stopped.

"A sign back there said Cobblemouth is a mile up the road. We better get a move on. Come on." The two exited the motionless ambulance and made their way up the road. Both sides of the road were flanked by green bushes and no other traffic passed by.

"People must be staying indoors." Ben remarked at the quietness. Not even the birds were singing.

"Wish I was. Feels so exposed out here." Nicole said as she held her arms across her chest and looked around anxiously.

"Don't you worry ma'am," Ben said feigning a posh English gentlemen's accent and flexing his muscles "You have a big strong man like me self to look after you."

Nicole giggled in what felt like the first time in forever. "Oh god don't tell me that's your chat up line in the club."

"Well, no wonder I'm still single." Ben said with a smile.

"Well, perhaps you can be my knight in shining armour. If you knock the cheesy chat up lines." Nicole smirked.

"Well,I would offer to take you for a drink but since every pub in the country is closed we'll need to take a rain cheque." Ben said and added with a sigh "fuck what I'd for an ice cold pint right now."

"Shit." Nicole said as she halted dead in her tracks. Ben looked ahead and saw what she was staring at. There were a group of people up ahead. A tractor and trailer blocked the road.

"Stop right there!" A man shouted down the road .

"You think he's once of them?" Nicole whispered.

"We would know by now if he was, believe me."

"Identify yourselves or I will open fire!" The man said, aiming a double barreled shotgun at them. Judging by the cap and Wellington boots and the fact he had a gun Ben judged he must have been a local farmer.

"My name is Ben!" He shouted back with hands raised. "The lady here is Nicole. We're not infected."

"Very well. On you come." The farmer said with his tone softening. The roadblock seemed to be manned by some kind of hastily put together militia. Only the farmer had a gun. The other seven men were armed with an assortment of cricket bats, hammers and tire irons. They all wore a facemask and gloves.

"Sorry for the rude introduction." the middle aged farmer said as he led them past the road block. "We can't be too careful with those bloody mad bastards that are running about. You two look like you've been though a tough time. Come from down south ?"

"We were at the hospital in Basingstoke when it was overrun. It was...bad." Nicole said in a bit of an understatement.

"Well you're safe here. We have a shelter in the church. The vicar has been handing out sandwiches and tea for everyone."

"Id kill for a cup of tea." Ben said. "Id rather have a beer though" he was only half joking.

"Well I don't know about beer but I do believe the good vicar may have a bottle of whisky that he may be inclined to share if you ask nicely." The farmer said. "Let's get you too settled."

The village of Cobblemouth was small. A population of a little over six hundred. A cosy little place that looked like an excellent retirement option but definitely not a young person's place . It was eerily quiet. Since March ,the British public had been told to stay indoors and only venture out for essential supplies or to go to work in key industries. The world had been turned on its head.

The church looked to be an old building, with grave stones dating back three hundred years. Inside the thick brown double doors the church was abuzz with activity. The vicar was going from person to person offering them tea and biscuits. A few tables had been set up in the corner and sandwiches put out for people to help themselves to. Around fifty people were using the church as a shelter, all refugees from Basingstoke and surrounding areas. Many looked absolutely shell shocked. A few people were sobbing loudly, including one man holding a teddy bear with a pink ribbon who kept sobbing "I'm so sorry baby" over and over.

"Oh hello." The vicar beamed as he came over. A tall, gangly man with thinning grey hair. "I'm the vicar around these parts. Tom my name is. Pleased to meet you." He shook hands with both them with a warm smile. "A nasty business that's going on but we have really pulled together in the village."

"Thanks for having us vicar. We've had a hell..uh..heck of a time." Nicole replied with a smile.

"It's the least I can do. So you're from the hospital?" He asked, glancing at her blue NHS nurses uniform.

"Yes. I'm a nurse at Basingstoke hospital. Ben is a paramedic." She said, choking back tears thinking of what had happened to her patients she couldn't save.

"Excellent. You may be able to help. If you'd be so kind as to follow me." The vicar led the way to a back room where a number of people were sitting around on chairs and on the floor.

Nicole's heart sank as she saw the state of the people. There was ten police officers in the room. All of whom were sat either with their heads in their hands or staring blankly into space. One was leaning against the wall with his knees hunched up against his chest and arms wrapped around his legs rocking back and forth, tears streaming down his eyes.

"What happened to them?" Nicole whispered.

"I don't know. All I managed to get out of them was that they barely escaped from their station when it was attacked. Perhaps you can help?" Tom said with a shrug.

"Poor bastards." said Ben sympathetically. "They're in shock. Probably PTSD. They look physically fine but it's the injuries you cant see that are the issue here. Get them some blankets and a hot drink, it'll be a start."

The vicar nodded and went to fetch the requested goods.


"The screaming." One young policeman said, barely a mumble. His hat was missing and his uniform torn.

"My name's Ben. I'm a paramedic, I'm here to help." Ben kneeled down in front of the shaking police officer.

"The screaming. The screaming. The screaming." He kept repeating.

"We were using the station as a evacuation post." The cop next to the shaking man spoke up. He seemed a little more with it, but only barely. He spoke haltingly, not making eye contact. "We had evacuated the primary school and took them to the station whilst we tried to contact the parents." The officer stifled a sob. "The parents turned up. They had caught whatever the fuck this thing is. We tried to fight them off but they managed to get in. The kids had been herded into the canteen. We were forced to retreat to the superintendents office upstairs. It had a window that looked right down into the canteen..."

"Go on." Ben said gently as he held the crying officers shoulder.

"The kids thought their parents had come to save them. They ran into their arms. Some of them died quickly. But the others...they held their kids down and murdered them with...with cheese graters." He started vomiting whilst the other officer next to him piped up again.

"The screaming. Screaming. They don't stop screaming. Make it stop. Make it stop." He rocked back and forth.

"His daughter was down there. He saw it. He heard it. His wife done it. She was six. Six years old for Christ sake." The officer nodded his head to his broken colleague. "We ran. Ran like fucking cowards."

Ben didn't know what to say. What can you say when that kind of information is dumped on you?

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." He mumbled and left the room so nobody could see him cry.

"God help us all." He mumbled at the crucifix on the wall.

[ukron]

kspence92,nice to see you back online.

[kspence92]

Jul 23, 2020 13:53:03 GMT ukron said:

kspence92,nice to see you back online.

Thank you. I have been busy at work the last few weeks but will try and update more frequently now.

[lordroel]

Jul 23, 2020 18:17:16 GMT kspence92 said:

Jul 23, 2020 13:53:03 GMT ukron said:

kspence92,nice to see you back online.

Thank you. I have been busy at work the last few weeks but will try and update more frequently now.

Not a problem, any update is a good update.

[49ersfootball]

Good to see you back!

[kspence92]

The IDV outbreaks in the United Kingdom and the United States were progressing at a stunning pace. Swathes of destruction were being carved wherever the Crossed set their twisted sight's upon.

Washington DC has been devastated with untold thousands dead and even more infected. Observation drones sent over by the air force confirmed that the city was entirely in enemy hands. The White House had been lost. The Capitol was aflame. The monuments to presidents past had been desecrated and the streets ran with blood.


DC police and national guard units had been caught unawares and subsequently overrun before they could mount an effective counter attack against their inhuman enemy. A contingent of army personnel were deployed to protect Fort Mede from the advancing horde. Fort Mede would turn out to be one of the few bastions of resistance to hold out against the virus during the early stages of the outbreak. The Crossed set their sights on the easier and more opportune target of Baltimore. The airport was quickly swarmed by a rampaging mob coming up from DC. Maryland State Police and national guardsmen held on for several hours before abandoning their positions and retreating into Baltimore proper, having given time for tens of thousands of citizens to evacuate.

Like DC, Baltimore was unprepared for the madness coming its way. Police roadblocks did little to stem the tide and soon hundreds of state and local police had joined the ranks of the crossed. The Mayor - who had stubbornly refused to leave his city - had been hung from a lamppost in front of city hall, his limp body swaying in the wind whilst fhe crossed took turns "making use" of his body. Gunbattles rattled from all over as cops and guardsmen fought to hold back the tide. A few miles north of the city, the Maryland National Guard and State Police began to form a robust defensive line in an effort to prevent the crossed advancing further. Time would tell if their efforts would be successful. The biggest issue the troops faced was that their enemy was fearless. They would not stop. You could blow off a leg and they'd drag themselves towards you and laugh all the while doing it.


Eight hours. Just eight hours had passed since KLM6187 unloaded its unholy cargo at Reagan National. Eight hours in which the nations captial had been laid to waste and untold thousands murdered in a senseless orgy of bloodlust.

"Is that all it's been?" 46th President Mike Pence muttered from his bunker in Virginia. "Only Eight hours?" He stared blanky at the wall upon which an electronic map of the East coast was situated. Red dots covered the DC area and parts of Virginia and Maryland. On the screen next to that, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was speaking from his command post at the Raven Rock bunker in Pennsylvania.

"Mr Vice Pre...uh forgive me i mean Mr President, we have had to pull back our remaining assets in Baltimore. Too much ground to defend and not enough combat effective units to defend it. We evacuated as many people as we could northwards but we couldn't save everyone." General Milley said mournfully. "We train our men and woman for every eventuality, but you can't train anyone for this. This has been completely unprecedented, sir."

"We need to save as many as we can general. Not just for moral reasons but also practical : every person we save is one less to fight." President Pence said.

He looked around the command center in the bunker. It was half empty. A skeleton crew from Homeland Security was running the place with some support from DoD staff. There just hadn't been enough warning to get everyone there on time. Much of the cabinet was missing. Congress had scattered. A few dozen representatives and twenty senators had been rescued by Marine units that had been specially trained to evacuate officials in a national emergency. Of the cabinet, only the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and the Secretary of Energy had made it to Mount Weather. What few Assistant Secretaries and Under Secretaries who had been lucky enough to be airlifted out found themselves elevated into positions they never expected.

"I've also been advised we are going to lose Richmond in a matter of hours." Milley said skimming a sheet of paper an aide just handed him. A hijacked cessna overflow our checkpoints and crashlanded on the interstate a mile north of the city with infected passengers. Richmond PD tried to hold it but they're joining right in with the madness now too. Its a goddamn mess sir."

"I want everything in the air to land at the nearest airport now. If they refuse, take them down. We did it on 9/11 we can do it again." Pence said sitting upright. "And it goes without saying i don't want this abomination spreading any further. I've already declared a federal state of emergency. All national resources will be geared to fighting this is it comes to it. What do we have in place to contain this?"

"We're moving the 10th Mountain down from Fort Drum and the 82nd Airborne is moving northwards out of Fort Bragg. We're hoping to contain it between the two forces and then hammer it back down. Make no mistake sir it will be bloody but its our only option right now." Miley said with a shakey voice "Forty years of service. I never thought I'd be sending tanks against Americans."

"General, those are no longer Americans. Do what you must to save our country." President Pence said grimly. He felt like he was dreaming.

"Yes, sir." The General saluted and cut off the screen. The President sank into chair. He would be making his first address to the nation in a little over thirty minutes and he had no good news to tell.

The cut off base at Quantico fell during the early hours of the morning following a brutal siege by the infected citizens of nearby Fredericksburg. The marines fought until their last bullet which they would use on themselves. By this point, the virus had swept across parts of southern Maryland and northern Virginia. At least half a million were dead or dying and perhaps double that infected.

The outbreak had spread rapidly largely due to many crossed using vehicles to transverse large distances in a short period of time. The saving grace with that came in two forms: Number one was that those infected with Inhibition Deficiency Virus often had little to no self control and would literally crash their vehicles into a tree for fun. Number two was that those who possessed a larger degree of self restraint started to struggle to drive very far as the major roads became jammed with evacuating citizen's. This slight slowing of the outbreak would be vital for the authorities in moving resources in place to counter the epidemic.

[gillan1220]

spanishspy Looks like you are Crossed in this timeline already

[stevep]

Jul 28, 2020 6:38:27 GMT gillan1220 said:

spanishspy Looks like you are Crossed in this timeline already

  We know now that kspence92, plan is obviously to take out all the members of the board.  Go into hiding Lordroel quick!!

  The trick with the cessna is something that's likely to happen in Europe and repeatedly so going to be virtually impossible to stop the infection spreading unless your able to shoot down every a/c in the skies.  

[49ersfootball]

I guess VA Governor Ralph Northam (D), MD Governor Lawrence Hogan (R) & DC Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) didn't make it ?

[ukron]

Jul 28, 2020 9:42:55 GMT stevep said:

 

" DO YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH ME! HAHAHAHA"

[lordroel]

Jul 28, 2020 11:16:26 GMT 49ersfootball said:

I guess VA Governor Ralph Northam (D), MD Governor Lawrence Hogan (R) & DC Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) didn't make it ?

Do the states officials not have their own facilities they can go to.

[49ersfootball]

Jul 28, 2020 14:52:31 GMT lordroel said:

Jul 28, 2020 11:16:26 GMT 49ersfootball said:

I guess VA Governor Ralph Northam (D), MD Governor Lawrence Hogan (R) & DC Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) didn't make it ?

Do the states officials not have their own facilities they can go to.

They have their respective Homeland Security Emergency Center facilities in terms of US State Governors & Big City Mayors you're referring to.

On the Governors: National Guard troops are deployed, locked & loaded to kill the crossed virus.

[lordroel]

Jul 28, 2020 17:03:23 GMT 49ersfootball said:

On the Governors: National Guard troops are deployed, locked & loaded to kill the crossed virus.

But once they run out of bullets and get infected you have a lot more problem.