Free Severed-In the Beginning- Volume One by Sam Lang

Prologue
 
    A starving Sparrowhawk coasted into the city. She rode the thermals conserving precious energy. Her keen eyes spotted the shambling forms on the pavements. She spotted the black clouds of acrid smoke from the many fires around the city. A slight twitch of a wing was all it took her to avoid the pockets of superheated air.
    She swooped low at the promise of a meal from the green space of Peterson Park. Her eyes caught the movement of a legless human sliding along the ground. She banked away from this new type human that smelled only of death.
    Further into the park she spied a small scurrying form and swooped down to claim her prize; with the ruthlessness of a true predator, she ripped the mouse to shreds and swallowed the hot tasty flesh in a few quick gulps. With a flap of her powerful wings she was once again airborne with blood still adorning her hooked beak.
    As she flew in search of new prey she spotted a lone human form on top of a building looking down.
     
    The end of the world came not with a bang or a whimper but with the use of diet pills.
    EZ-Thin pills passed all clinical trials. They were hailed as they new wonder pill to tackle the western world’s growing obesity problem. Millions of people took them. The media called them a wonder drug and women everywhere started to lose weight. They continued to lose weight as the powerful appetite suppressant motivated them to eat less. The drug was not supposed to be addictive but people found themselves unable to stop taking them. There was one other terrible side effect. No one knew what went wrong. Unknown contaminants were blamed on the first batches. Some said it was an act of terrorism. People who had been taking the pills for a few weeks started to get a craving for human flesh.
    At first all but the weakest were able to resist. But as time went by the craving got stronger and stronger. Their unholy desires got the better of them and the media started to publish the horror stories. Husbands waking up to find their wives chewing on their legs. Others were less fortunate in their partner’s choice of things to chew on. Those bitten soon found themselves with an insatiable desire only for human flesh. And so the decline of the human race started.
     
    Several years on…
     
    London
     
    A sea of smoke hung above the ruined streets. A lone pigeon sat regally on a high ledge and surveyed the devastation that was now London. The stillness of the day was occasionally punctuated by the sounds of screaming and the muffled sound of distant gunfire. The pigeon did not even start at these sounds; they were everyday sounds and unexceptional. Flames licked up at the sides of Big Ben from dozens of burning vehicles. The great clock tower had long since stopped and was accurate twice a day. There was no one around to care in the desolated city. The pigeon preened himself briefly and took flight to hunt for food.
     
    Paris
     
    Notre Dame Cathedral lay in ruins. Eric scrambled through the wreckage of the once magnificent building looking for scraps of food or useful tools. His clothes were ragged and his ribs showed through rips in them. At only twelve years old he had seen more of life than any one young boy should. His piercing blue eyes were hard, cynical and determined. A loud crash from nearby made him look anxiously over his shoulder. A door from a nearby building had crashed to the ground and several shambling forms lurched from the doorway into the bright daylight. Some limped along on broken legs dragging their ruined limbs slowly along. One or two were missing an arm and tilted as they walked, as if they lacked the brainpower to compensate for the missing limb. Broken guttural groans issued from their mouths and it sounded eerie and at odds with the bright sunny day. Eric climbed up the pile of rubble as fast as his wasted muscles would allow. He skinned his hands on sharp stone and the blood dripped from them. He barely noticed as he climbed for his life.