Rife (2021): A Short Story

By J.L. Shojosh

Nine tenths of the world’s population is dead. A biological scourge, a dark blight swimming through human veins was to blame. Adam is thrust into a world of loss, and would no sooner set out in search of a woman, for whom he is willing to travel across the broken globe to see again, if only to serve as her piece of comfort for a loss that they both share. The lives of two parties from extremely different socioeconomic backgrounds clash as the apocalyptic world seems rather unsuited for Adam...will he ever find the figure of happiness that he desperately seeks?

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.L. Shojosh
• Release date: Oct 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005439972

J.L. Shojosh

I hope to show the universal humanity inherent in all of us. There's more that we as humans have in common with one another than the differences that sometimes pit us against each other. Through stories, I hope to highlight a few of those commonalities. Love conquers all.

Book preview

RIFE: 2021

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Short Story

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By J.L. SHOJOSH

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Copyright © 2020 Joshua Nsangi. All rights reserved.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by R.B. Publishers, Smashwords Edition.

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1

New York was a ghost town. To be more accurate, it was ghoulish scene of apocalyptic proportions. The pungent odor of decay and death that rose from the lofty metal and glass towers could be seen to change into a pale green color as the weeks rolled on. Nine tenths of the population rotted in their beds, couches, on the floors and even littered on the streets.

Beneath the ground, in a hastily built bunker, Adam Roark and several other overwhelmed and underfed citizens hid out from the spread of the rapacious contagion. Plastered on the walls in all of the forty two communal theaters that each housed thousands, were large thick white bed sheets, beneath which were two stadium-worthy speakers. The crowd of a four or so odd-number of hundreds of people watched as the evening news was broadcasted. In the common area, pensively peering at the large screen were those who hadn’t yet grown weary of the empty promises and dire pictures that flashed across the raised white bed sheet each evening.

"…Breaking news, we’re going over to John Mitchell in Charlottesville, North Carolina, who’s waited all day for Melissa Hans, the official spokesperson for Redu Pharma to come out and address the public. The giant pharmaceutical company has been working for months to come up with an antidote to the Maclid virus that has seen a total of over seven billion deaths world-wide. We’re now going to take you over to Charlottesville where we can see some of the Redu-Pharma associates filing down the steps…"

"Thank you for gathering here, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, Redu Pharma, like every other pharmaceutical company in the world has been solely devoted to finding a cure for the MC-59 virus. We ventured on a daunting task in the hopes that whoever found the cure first would share freely with the world, and as scientists and suffering people from all over the world risk their lives to get here, we’ve all come know the meaning of humanity. We are persistently resilient but we are as compassionate a species as they come. My fellow citizens of the world, watching across globe right now and crying out there for even a glimmer of hope, Redu-Pharma has come to answer those prayers…

We’ve done it. We have found a cure for the monstrous unknown flu virus that had sprung out of nowhere, moving from East to West like a plague. The hard work of all the scientists and all the men and women who went into making the last ten months …"

By this time the roars and applause in the large theater had