Genesis Read online

  Written by

  Michael Francis McCarthy

  Adapted from the Motion Picture Screenplay

  ‘Genesis’

  by

  Michael Francis McCarthy

  Writers Guild of America, West #1567350

  Copyright © 2016 - All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any other means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the author.

  NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locales, without satirical intent, is entirely coincidental, except in cases where it is not.

  First Edition

  Preface

  Humans have much smaller brains now than we did five hundred years ago. Which is probably a good thing, as our species history has proven time and time again that a larger brain does not make one smarter; it simply makes one more capable of denying certain inevitable facts.

  Some say it was our ancestors’ big brains with their unique ability to deny even the most obvious of truths that got us where we are today.

  Novum obscuri.

  The New Dark Age.

  It has been a little over five hundred years since the collapse of industrialized society, and while many things have changed, most things have stayed the same. The strong still prey upon the weak. The wicked still outnumber the righteous.

  We live today like our forefathers did after the light of Rome had been extinguished. This new Dark Age, like the last, finds mankind once again battling a plague.

  It may be hard today to imagine a device once existed capable of accessing all of the world’s libraries and knowledge at the push of the button, but a mere five hundred years ago, that world did indeed exist.

  At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the average fifteen-year-old carried with them in their pocket a phone with more computing capability than was on board the spacecraft that carried man on the first voyage to the moon.

  But like most things of that bygone era, the ability to access the wealth of the world’s knowledge was simply wasted. Wasted on a generation that would bury their heads into their devices not to learn or share knowledge, but rather to share photos of their lunch.

  Wasted on a generation that was taught to consume rather than create.

  Wasted on a species whose own arrogance and vanity prevented them from seeing their true place in the world…as a part of life on the planet, not the pinnacle of it.

  Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, but it’s not like we didn’t have plenty of warnings along the way.

  Even from the very start, mankind was unable to follow even the simplest of instructions;

  ‘Then the LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and guard it.’ – Genesis 2:8

  ‘…to cultivate it and guard it. ‘

  The only plausible defense we might have as a species is that there may have been some sort of misunderstanding in translation.

  At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the world was engaged in such self-absorbed behavior that the natural planet was suddenly seeing extinction rates between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate…and hardly a single person noticed.

  The Garden was dying.

  If the low estimate of the number of species alive on the planet was true, that there were at one point maybe 100 million different species all co-existing with us on our planet - then this means that somewhere around the year 2012, humans were responsible for anywhere from 27 to 273 different species becoming EXTINCT on our planet EACH DAY.

  And unlike the mass extinction events of geological history, the current extinction event is one for which a single species – ours – was mostly, if not wholly responsible.

  By the year 2012, the food chain was collapsing and yet no one seemed to care. The two major debates of the era were if life started before or after birth and if two people who loved each other could get married - not what was going on with the health of the rivers or the oceans they flowed into.

  In what they ironically called their developed world - they actually made it a point to shit into their own water supply. Clearly that was not using their bigger brains to full capacity.

  In fairness, the few who were aware of the crisis the planet was in were powerless to do anything about it anyway. The planet had already had enough.

  We know that in the end mankind pumped pharmaceuticals into their bodies and sprayed vast amounts of petrochemicals on their food at astonishing rates. They allowed, even encouraged, biotechnology companies to create terminal seeds that were genetically engineered so that crops grown from them would produce sterile or no seeds at all. No more collecting and storing seeds. No more replanting without additional purchase.

  It might have made sense from a capitalistic point of view, but not a natural one. Companies created and sold genetically modified seeds whose natural ability to pass life ended with the season.

  It was a world in which seedless watermelon was all the fashion. (Like that one didn’t come back to bite humanity on the ass.)

  So it should be no great surprise then that in a geological blink of an eye, our big-brained ancestors poisoned the planet not only for themselves, but also for every living thing that was to come thereafter…

  Every living thing, except one.

  One thing seems to do quite well in this new world. But then again, that one thing isn’t technically alive.

  They used to say God created man in his image.

  They don’t say that as much anymore…

  The interval between the decay of the old and the formation and establishment of the new constitutes a period of transition, which must always necessarily be one of uncertainty, confusion, error, and wild and fierce fanaticism.

  John C. Calhoun

  (1782-1850)

  In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.

  Anne Frank

  (1929-1945)

  In spite of everything, I still believe…

  Authors Note:

  Certain people throughout the story have been given a *star before their names, alerting you to the fact that these people will soon be facing the ultimate Darwinian test of strength and wiliness. Those with stars before their names fail their particular test, and the reader should not become too attached to them.

  All this happened, more or less…

  A little over five hundred years ago…

  on a Tuesday.

  When it first opened, the graveyard’s secluded location on the banks of the South Platte River made it a popular choice for the city’s wealthiest families. The surrounding lush greenery made for a mini oasis where they could visit their loved ones’ final resting place in peace, blocking out some of the noise of the growing city of Denver just upstream.

  The railroad changed all that, like it changed so many things in the West. The opening of the Burlington Northern Railroad in the 1890s spurred heavy industrial growth in the neighborhood, and many of the wealthiest families chose to have their loved ones exhumed and reburied elsewhere.

  Still, some prominent families continued to be interred there, and the graveyard serves as the final resting place for hundreds of local historical figures.

  But long gone are the lush green trees and pastures.

  Long gone was any semblance of seclusion.

  Trees and pastures were gradually replaced by train tracks, industrial smokestacks, warehouses, gas stations, and the various petro-chemical industrial complexes set up along the river to supp
ort the oil refinery that had been built there. The only things green dotting the landscape now were the several large industrial marijuana grow operations that were guarded by high chain-link fences topped with razor wire to supply Denver’s booming legalized marijuana industry.

  *Cooper drove with purpose.

  It was hot inside his chemical suit, but that was needed for protection. He had some very deadly cargo in the back of his bright red VW van and something even more dangerous to pick up. Quite frankly, Cooper was a little surprised that he had not been pulled over yet. He was driving a candy apple red 1971 VW Bus while wearing a bright yellow chemical exposure suit with full head hood.

  Even though he knew the police tended to mind their own business in this neighborhood, Cooper was prepared if for some reason they decided today would be any different. But he didn’t want it to come to that. Not today.

  Soon enough.

  The bus puttered along, not exactly fast, but not exactly slow. It was hot for an early spring day, and the chemsuit was fogging up so bad that it was a good thing Cooper knew exactly where he was going. This was his last trip, and he was going to end all of this. Hopefully it would be the last time.

  Cooper was tired.

  Tired of it all.

  It was time for the nuclear option.

  It was time to end it all.

  The mausoleum was closest to the river, and no doubt a prime location back in 1867. But, when the railroad came, it was also closest to the new tracks, and was one of the first to be abandoned when the high and mighty made their exodus from Riverside. An empty mausoleum in a dying and decrepit cemetery, the perfect base camp if he was the villain in a movie.

  Cooper chuckled to himself.

  No chance of them ever making a movie about this.

  Still, he let his mind drift as he wondered who they might cast to play him. It would need to be someone with range of character.

  Clooney maybe.

  No, too suave.

  Perhaps Harrison Ford.

  No, too obvious.

  Cooper dismissed those thoughts as he parked his bus close the entrance and made his way to the mausoleum door. It was secured with a custom lock, almost space age in appearance. If someone bothered to look, it would be very out of place in the cemetery… if someone bothered to look.

  The gate down into the crypt was still secure. Cooper expected no less, but was relieved none the same. Grave robbers were not his concern, but rather any local juvenile delinquent who might stumble upon his stash and cause problems. It had happened before, and was the reason behind the space age lock.

  A few years back Cooper had come to re-supply and instead had to deal with the bodies of two ‘urban explorers.’ He remembered seeing a story about the pair going missing sometime back on the local news. None of their friends knew exactly where they were exploring, and the city was making a big deal of searching the sewers. Good thing they didn’t start their search in the cemetery. The kids had busted the old lock on the crypt door, gone inside to explore, and of course opened the lid on one of his drums. One of them even stuck his head down inside the barrel.

  Idiots.

  It wasn’t his fault, and he had to bear none of the guilt.

  What kind of person sticks their head into a half-full fifty-five gallon steel chemical drum labeled “U.S. AIR FORCE” and takes a deep breath anyway? Especially one that is well hidden and locked deep inside of a 150 year old crypt?

  Those stupid kids got exactly what they deserved.

  It was a landmark day because that was the day Cooper realized he was getting old. It was a lot harder dragging their bodies down to the river for dismemberment than he remembered dragging bodies to be. And these kids weren’t even fat. What if one of those fat teenagers found his way inside the crypt? What would he do then?

  But more importantly, that was the day when Cooper understood the problem.

  Up until then, he had been attacking it all wrong.

  This was a cancer.

  It wasn’t going to go away without drastic action.

  The gene pool needed some chlorine.

  Fast.

  Cooper had actually reached that conclusion once before, many years earlier while in this very same cemetery, but he lacked the ability at the time to do anything about it.

  Now he had the ability and the time, all the time in the world, and Cooper knew what he had to do.

  And he didn’t have any other choice really. How could he let that innocent child grow up in a world like this? How could he let any child grow up in a world like this? No, it simple had to be done.

  Cooper was in the middle of loading the last barrel of the chemical weapon into the back of his van when it occurred to him that he should say goodbye. This would be his last trip to the cemetery ever. He has to say goodbye.

  Cooper looked around and saw what he needed by the river. As he walked down to the water, his mind drifted back to what it must have been like long time ago. Even before the cemetery. Cooper smiled as he imagined some children from some long forgotten tribe playing in the water, racing their little reed boats down the river. Over there, by the reed boat, what was that?

  Cooper strained to see what it was.

  Was it some sort of tadpole?

  It was a used condom.

  Back to reality.

  Then the condom turned into a tadpole and swam away.

  Cooper hoped that his age was not causing his mind to slip, then he smiled. It was probably just the weed. He had smoked some particularly good herb that morning in anticipation of coming to the cemetery to help with his anxiety. The mausoleum was a great storage spot for his more particularly nasty concoctions, but he dreaded coming here. It wasn’t because death bothered him either. Death was part of life. Death was simply part of the natural cycle of things. One must die so that others may live.

  Coming here made him feel guilty.

  When he was here, all he could think about were his friends back in Vietnam. It was like they spoke to him inside his head, and not whispers, but more like hundreds of friends all shouting out for his attention all at once.

  People often speak of the courage by which men die, but more rarely do they ever speak of the courage by which men live. Cooper was one such man. A man who had seen so much in his life so far that it almost seemed unfair.

  But life is unfair.

  And Cooper knew that more than most.

  Cooper closed and locked the mausoleum back up, then got into his bus and drove to another part of the cemetery, a more rundown and dilapidated part. The low rent district where the State dumps the remains of the unwanted dead. Potter’s field.

  It was also the part of the cemetery where his friends were buried.

  As Cooper walked, he recognized many names. This one small area of the graveyard boasted the highest concentration of Medal of Honor recipients of any cemetery in the state. At least they had stones, he thought to himself, which was more than most of the people buried in this section had. The plots also had a very nice view of the railroad tracks, and a few lucky ones even got to overlook the petro-chemical refinery across the river.

  Cooper carried the sunflowers he had just picked down by the river with him into the field of uniform white stones. There were hundreds of them, all identical, all standing at full attention. It used to be an impressive sight, but now, with nothing but dirt and dead grass, it was even sadder than normal.

  The cemetery had millions of dollars in a trust fund set up to water and maintain the grounds; however, they claimed that recent economic events made it such that the interest earned that year on the trust had been less than half of the cemetery’s annual water bill.

  Cooper wasn’t sure if it was financial mismanagement, general incompetence, or worse, and a large part of him didn’t want to know.

  Cooper walked directly to the grave.

  He had been here many times, and recently so had many others, ever since the tombstone, and the story of the man buried under it, h
ad been featured in the story line of a local indie zombie movie of some notoriety a few years back. Ever since the film’s release, the grave had become a mini-tourist attraction of sorts. Cooper had never actually seen anyone there, but they left evidence of their presence from time to time, such as stuffed animals, flowers, rocks, and one time, a large bottle of Jack Daniels.

  At first it bothered Cooper. The grave was a place that he had learned to come to reflect upon all of life’s atrocities. It was a place of solitude, not a place to litter with stuffed animals, balloons and other crap made in China. With time, however, Cooper began to realize that the more people knew about Silas Soule, then maybe, just maybe, there was hope for this new generation after all.

  Maybe this generation could learn a lesson from Silas even if the previous generation could not.

  Maybe hope wasn’t lost after all…maybe there was a way out of this mess altogether that didn’t have to mean the end of mankind…

  That was before Cooper found the kid with his head stuck in his chemical barrel.

  *Hope was lost.

  She hated to admit it, but she was lost, and worse yet, she was late. Hope knew she would never hear the end of it…

  Assuming she even got to her destination.

  She was running low on fuel.

  She panicked just a bit, pressing her foot down on the accelerator - and the huge V-8 engine roared to life.

  ‘Going faster won’t help.’

  His voice was so real in her mind it almost startled her. Almost. But she was used to hearing her Cooper in her head. It was her brother Che’s voice that she was worried about hearing again. She had to tell him before it was too late.

  Cooper was calm, cool, collected. Just like she should be. He was reminding her, even now, of what needed to be done.

  She took her foot slightly of the accelerator, but her mind continued to race. Racing through the events of the past twenty-four hours. Even though she was prepared, it happened way faster than she expected.