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Description
Day 2

  Sam awoke the next day just like every other day; He rose at the same time, ate the same breakfast, listened to the same radio station and dressed in the same uniform. He had completely forgotten about the events of the day before and was fully prepared for another soul-crushing day. Sam stepped out into the kitchen and began making breakfast; Lenny's hoarse, grunting snores reverberated through the room as he sat down to eat. While he flipped through the pages of the morning paper, he began to feel uneasy. He couldn't tell why, but something was out of place.

The feeling stuck with him as he left the dirty, but unusually empty lift. As Sam entered the small reception area he began to notice how empty it was. Usually around this time there was always one or two of his neighbours leaving for work. But today there was no one in sight, increasing his feeling of foreboding. Sam stepped out of the building into the chilly autumn air. The sun had just begun to rise and did little to warm the freezing winds that bit at his hands and cheeks, as he began walking Sam noticed that the street was completely abandoned. No commuters, no cars, not even light turned on in any of the buildings. He felt like he was the only person in the entire world. Just as this thought entered his mind, a van trundled around the corner, an exhausted postman at the wheel. The sound of the van's grumbling engine caused something to suddenly click in his mind. He stopped walking and stared back in the direction of the motorway. The reason he had felt uneasy, and why he was suddenly feeling so paranoid, was because of the motorway. Every day he would wake up to the background noise of thousands of cars making their way out of the city. But today, there was only silence. No one was using the motorway and no one was on the streets, obviously something very strange was going on. Sam looked around him for a moment, then put his head down and hurried to work, hoping there was a logical explanation.

The silence in the store was overwhelming. Sam's footsteps echoed loudly as he stepped through the employee entrance. "Hello?" Sam called out, hoping there was someone in the store. No answer. Sam looked around and considered just leaving and going back home, but then dismissed it, if Mickelwhite found out he would probably lose his job. Searching the branch office yielded the same result, the entire store was deserted. Sam was about to turn to leave when he noticed the message indicator on the phone's display. He hit the play button and sat down at the desk. "You have, 26, new messages." Sam's eyes widened, 26 messages this morning? "First message: Hello branch 257, this is Jerry Wood from home office administration. Unfortunately due to a large outbreak of illness we don't have any drivers available to deliver any stock to your branch. We are trying to sort out the personnel issue as quickly as possible, but at our current state we expect to get a delivery to you during next week at the earliest. We apologise for the inconvenience and hope you will bear with us in this difficult time." The message ended. Sam sat back in the chair and tried to calm his nerves. That message proved that it wasn't only just in London that this was going on; it was in other cities as well. But what was this illness that had infected nearly everyone in this area? Was the rest of London as bad? What caused it? Sam hit the next button, but he was sure he already knew what the next 25 messages were going to be. "Second message: Hi, this is Laura. I'm really sorry, but I won't be able to come in to work today…" He had been right; each message was the same. Every single member of staff except himself was ill. Sam sat back in the chair and reasoned with himself. There was no one else here, it was unreasonable and would be impossible to get any kind of meaningful work done today. And who would notice if he just left? Everyone in the entire of London seemed to be ill, no one would notice if he just closed the store back up and went home.

Sam kicked back the chair and switched off of the lights, he strode with purpose down the hallway, and was just about to open the door to the stairs when a noise behind him made him stop dead. "M-Milner? Is that you?" Sam turned. It was Mr. Mickelwhite. He looked awful. His face was bloodless, dark bags hung from his sunken eyelids, his eyes were dull and bloodshot and his usually impossibly neat hair was unkempt and dirty. "Milner… excellent, I thought everyone was ill today…" He spoke softly, in a rasping, stuttering voice. "Although, we can h-hardly run the store with just the t-t-two of us, but I suppose something is better than n-nothing." Sam couldn't believe he'd actually made it into work, if everyone else was as bad as him, then this was far more serious than he'd thought…
"Sir?" Sam asked tentatively, "You really don't look well sir. Perhaps you should take the day off and leave the store closed for today? I don't think we'll be getting many customers anyway."
"Don't be ridiculous Milner, I'm fine, we won't be opening the store today but that doesn't mean I'm just going to let you laze about. Now go and take an inventory count on everything we have." Mickelwhite's cold, harsh response took Sam by surprise. As he headed for the warehouse Sam scorned himself for being so stupid, he had almost felt sorry for him.

Counting every item in the entire store by himself was as backbreaking as it was monotonously dull. It took hours, and by the end of it Sam was exhausted. Throughout the work Sam couldn't help thinking about how bad Mickelwhite had looked. He had looked like he could barely stand, and his speech was certainly impaired. Sam was worried, so many questions nagged at him. What if everyone in the city was as bad as Mickelwhite? Was Lenny okay? How did it spread so fast? Why hadn't he got this mysterious illness? The clock on the wall pointed to twelve o' clock, although it seemed to have been moving at a snail's pace all morning. Sam headed to Mickelwhite's office to see what other unpleasant tasks he had in store for him. "He'll probably make me clean out the rubbish bay next." He muttered to himself. The office door was ajar; Sam knocked and entered before there was a reply. Mickelwhite was sat at his desk, his head in his hands. The curtains were shut, the glare from the computer monitor being the only light source in the room. He looked up sharply as Sam walked in.
"Finished have you? It's a-about time." He slumped against the desk cradling his head in his hands. "All right then, now you can… you can…" He sat there deep in thought for a few seconds, staring at the desk. Eventually, he looked up. "Well I think we've done a-a-all we c-can today, I think I shall t-t-take your ad-advice Milner. I shall close the store, g-go and enjoy the r-rest of your S-Saturday." Sam couldn't believe what he'd just heard. Mickelwhite had never shut the store early in the entire 4 years that he'd known him; he had even tried to get the store open on New Year's Day. "Uh… well if you think that's best sir, I'll see you tomorrow I guess…"

The flat was in the exact same state that Sam had left it. Sam crept over to the door to Lenny's room and listened carefully. Nothing. Sam considered the possible scenarios. Either Lenny was as sick as everyone else, and needed his help, or he was just being lazy. Knowing his character, Sam found both of these options were equally likely, after a moment of thought he decided checking up on him couldn't hurt. He gave a short knock and opened the door. Lenny groaned and threw his hand in front of his eyes, "The fuck do you want?" he groaned.

10 minutes later Sam and Lenny were sat around the kitchen table. After ensuring he wasn't ill, several minutes of nagging and a few threats, Lenny had finally gotten out of bed.
"Why the hell aren't you at work?" Lenny grumbled.
"They closed early, why aren't you?" Sam replied.
"Got a phone call from my boss, everyone else is ill."
Sam stood up and began pacing around the tiny flat. After a minute or two he stopped and turned back to Lenny.
"Something weird is going on here."
"What do you mean?"
"Have you looked outside? No one is out there! The streets are just empty! The entire Saturday staff called in sick today and by the sound of it so did everyone at your work too. It's not normal!"
Lenny rolled his eyes, "You're being paranoid. I'm sure it's just some really bad bug or something. Besides, look on the bright side! We've got an entire Saturday afternoon to kill!"
Sam sat back down, Lenny was probably right; he shouldn't get so worked up about. After all, it's not like he was affected, except getting an entire afternoon off. "You're right, what do you propose we do then?"
Lenny thought for a moment, "Do you reckon the pub's still open?"

Sam and Lenny stepped out of the garage lift into the building's car park. The building's basement was a large car park for residents that opened up on one side to give access to the street, the lift led directly down to the basement floor. Lenny shivered as they stepped out into the freezing cold.
"Jesus it's freezing out here! Should we take the car?"
"It's only like, a 20 minute walk Lenny. Besides we'll have to walk back either way."
"Yeah but on the way back we'll be too blitzed to notice."
Sam sighed, there was no way Lenny was going to walk. "Fine, but I'm driving."
5 minutes later Sam was parking the battered old Ford Escort in the back of the pub's dingy backyard car park. The King's Guard was an old pub sat in the centre of the neighbourhood. It was a small, dark, gloomy pub with very few customers other than the regulars from around the estate. However Sam and Lenny preferred this. It gave it a cosy, friendly atmosphere where everyone knew each other and got along.  A small plaza sat at the front of it, while houses surrounded the other three sides. The plaza was usually filled with old ladies gossiping or kids smoking, but today it's only occupants were several pigeons. Sam and Lenny walked around to the front of the building.
"Do you really think it's going to be open?" Sam asked "I've only seen two other people today and one of them wasn't exactly looking all that great."
Lenny pointed to the large "open" sign hung in the window and grinned.

Sam and Lenny trudged through the door, grateful to be in the warmth of the pub. Lenny glanced towards the bar, "Afternoon Harry." Harry Williams had been the owner of the King's Guard for nearly 20 years. He was a few inches taller than Lenny, with a short crop of grey hair and slight weight problem. Harry had always been a great friend to Sam ever since he was 16. He would sell him and Lenny beers out of the back door for half price and never told a soul. He was always a bit nostalgic, and would tell stories of his "glory days" to anyone who would listen. Harry looked up, the look of surprise quickly faded.
"How did I know you two would show up?" He went back to cleaning his glass. "Not a single customer all day until you two. How come you're not at work?"
"No one else was in, they all called in sick." Sam answered
Harry looked out of the large window at the front of the pub. "Yeah… definitely something out of the ordinary going on here, seems like everyone's ill today. Haven't even seen the milkman come past."
"Enough of all this conspiracy rubbish!" Lenny banged his fist against the bar. "I came here to get drunk. Let's forget why everyone is ill and make the most of it! Harry, you up for it?"
Harry peered out of the window again. The abandoned square was devoid of all life now, the only movement coming from several pieces of litter floating in the wind. He sighed, walked over to the door, locked it and put up the "Closed" sign. "Right then," he said. "First round's on me, what can I get you two?"

Several hours later and Sam could barely stand. The three of them were sat around the largest table they had, which was plastered with bottles of all shapes and sizes. Music blasted out of the jukebox as they listened to another one of Harry's stories. "So there we were, running in all directions. I had the booze of course as I was the one that nicked it, but as I was running around this corner this copper steps out in front of me and grabs me." Harry paused for effect to captivate his audience. "So the copper has me by the scruff of the neck see, no way I'm getting out of this one right? That's what I thought. But as he's about to cuff me, this drunk comes out of nowhere, stumbling and slipping, and decides to puke all over the copper!" The three broke out into waves of laughter, after wiping the tears from his eyes Harry continued. "So anyway, he drops me and starts having a go at this bloke who's just puked over him, and I leg it as fast as I could down the road. And I hung onto the beers!" Harry sat back in the chair, with the vacant gleam in his eye that he got whenever he told one of his stories. Wiping the tears from his eyes, Sam checked his watch; it was 3 in the morning. "Ah damn it's late, come on Lenny we should probably go." After much complaining from Lenny ("The night's young!") they were just about to say goodbye and leave. "Hold it!" Harry barked, suddenly stern "Give me the car keys lads, I don't want you two getting any funny ideas." Grudgingly, Sam handed him the keys and left. The cold air bit into his face as he and Lenny stumble out of the square. The streets were still empty and silent, as if they were the only people in the world. As they tried to make their way down the road they heard the sound of glass smashing. They both stopped dead. "Did you hear that?" Lenny asked. Sam nodded; they listened for any other noises. Footsteps, a car door, anything. But there was nothing. Eventually Sam shrugged "It was probably just someone knocking over a bottle or something." They continued walking, intent on getting back home.

Had they been sober, they might have noticed the figures in the darkness, watching them in utter silence, the orange glow of fires burning in the distance, or the soft screams drowned out by their pounding footsteps.

After 5 minutes spent searching for a key, Sam and Lenny finally made it through the front door. Sam made sure the door was locked and bolted behind him. He didn't like to admit it, but he had had a feeling he was being watched the entire time they were walking. As he bade Lenny goodnight and collapsed onto his bed, Sam thought about the past couple of days. The man in the car park, the number of people calling in with a sudden and mysterious illness and now this, he couldn't hep feeling it was connected somehow. As Sam drifted off into sleep, he hoped he was just being paranoid.

Description
Day 2

  Sam awoke the next day just like every other day; He rose at the same time, ate the same breakfast, listened to the same radio station and dressed in the same uniform. He had completely forgotten about the events of the day before and was fully prepared for another soul-crushing day. Sam stepped out into the kitchen and began making breakfast; Lenny's hoarse, grunting snores reverberated through the room as he sat down to eat. While he flipped through the pages of the morning paper, he began to feel uneasy. He couldn't tell why, but something was out of place.

The feeling stuck with him as he left the dirty, but unusually empty lift. As Sam entered the small reception area he began to notice how empty it was. Usually around this time there was always one or two of his neighbours leaving for work. But today there was no one in sight, increasing his feeling of foreboding. Sam stepped out of the building into the chilly autumn air. The sun had just begun to rise and did little to warm the freezing winds that bit at his hands and cheeks, as he began walking Sam noticed that the street was completely abandoned. No commuters, no cars, not even light turned on in any of the buildings. He felt like he was the only person in the entire world. Just as this thought entered his mind, a van trundled around the corner, an exhausted postman at the wheel. The sound of the van's grumbling engine caused something to suddenly click in his mind. He stopped walking and stared back in the direction of the motorway. The reason he had felt uneasy, and why he was suddenly feeling so paranoid, was because of the motorway. Every day he would wake up to the background noise of thousands of cars making their way out of the city. But today, there was only silence. No one was using the motorway and no one was on the streets, obviously something very strange was going on. Sam looked around him for a moment, then put his head down and hurried to work, hoping there was a logical explanation.

The silence in the store was overwhelming. Sam's footsteps echoed loudly as he stepped through the employee entrance. "Hello?" Sam called out, hoping there was someone in the store. No answer. Sam looked around and considered just leaving and going back home, but then dismissed it, if Mickelwhite found out he would probably lose his job. Searching the branch office yielded the same result, the entire store was deserted. Sam was about to turn to leave when he noticed the message indicator on the phone's display. He hit the play button and sat down at the desk. "You have, 26, new messages." Sam's eyes widened, 26 messages this morning? "First message: Hello branch 257, this is Jerry Wood from home office administration. Unfortunately due to a large outbreak of illness we don't have any drivers available to deliver any stock to your branch. We are trying to sort out the personnel issue as quickly as possible, but at our current state we expect to get a delivery to you during next week at the earliest. We apologise for the inconvenience and hope you will bear with us in this difficult time." The message ended. Sam sat back in the chair and tried to calm his nerves. That message proved that it wasn't only just in London that this was going on; it was in other cities as well. But what was this illness that had infected nearly everyone in this area? Was the rest of London as bad? What caused it? Sam hit the next button, but he was sure he already knew what the next 25 messages were going to be. "Second message: Hi, this is Laura. I'm really sorry, but I won't be able to come in to work today…" He had been right; each message was the same. Every single member of staff except himself was ill. Sam sat back in the chair and reasoned with himself. There was no one else here, it was unreasonable and would be impossible to get any kind of meaningful work done today. And who would notice if he just left? Everyone in the entire of London seemed to be ill, no one would notice if he just closed the store back up and went home.

Sam kicked back the chair and switched off of the lights, he strode with purpose down the hallway, and was just about to open the door to the stairs when a noise behind him made him stop dead. "M-Milner? Is that you?" Sam turned. It was Mr. Mickelwhite. He looked awful. His face was bloodless, dark bags hung from his sunken eyelids, his eyes were dull and bloodshot and his usually impossibly neat hair was unkempt and dirty. "Milner… excellent, I thought everyone was ill today…" He spoke softly, in a rasping, stuttering voice. "Although, we can h-hardly run the store with just the t-t-two of us, but I suppose something is better than n-nothing." Sam couldn't believe he'd actually made it into work, if everyone else was as bad as him, then this was far more serious than he'd thought…
"Sir?" Sam asked tentatively, "You really don't look well sir. Perhaps you should take the day off and leave the store closed for today? I don't think we'll be getting many customers anyway."
"Don't be ridiculous Milner, I'm fine, we won't be opening the store today but that doesn't mean I'm just going to let you laze about. Now go and take an inventory count on everything we have." Mickelwhite's cold, harsh response took Sam by surprise. As he headed for the warehouse Sam scorned himself for being so stupid, he had almost felt sorry for him.

Counting every item in the entire store by himself was as backbreaking as it was monotonously dull. It took hours, and by the end of it Sam was exhausted. Throughout the work Sam couldn't help thinking about how bad Mickelwhite had looked. He had looked like he could barely stand, and his speech was certainly impaired. Sam was worried, so many questions nagged at him. What if everyone in the city was as bad as Mickelwhite? Was Lenny okay? How did it spread so fast? Why hadn't he got this mysterious illness? The clock on the wall pointed to twelve o' clock, although it seemed to have been moving at a snail's pace all morning. Sam headed to Mickelwhite's office to see what other unpleasant tasks he had in store for him. "He'll probably make me clean out the rubbish bay next." He muttered to himself. The office door was ajar; Sam knocked and entered before there was a reply. Mickelwhite was sat at his desk, his head in his hands. The curtains were shut, the glare from the computer monitor being the only light source in the room. He looked up sharply as Sam walked in.
"Finished have you? It's a-about time." He slumped against the desk cradling his head in his hands. "All right then, now you can… you can…" He sat there deep in thought for a few seconds, staring at the desk. Eventually, he looked up. "Well I think we've done a-a-all we c-can today, I think I shall t-t-take your ad-advice Milner. I shall close the store, g-go and enjoy the r-rest of your S-Saturday." Sam couldn't believe what he'd just heard. Mickelwhite had never shut the store early in the entire 4 years that he'd known him; he had even tried to get the store open on New Year's Day. "Uh… well if you think that's best sir, I'll see you tomorrow I guess…"

The flat was in the exact same state that Sam had left it. Sam crept over to the door to Lenny's room and listened carefully. Nothing. Sam considered the possible scenarios. Either Lenny was as sick as everyone else, and needed his help, or he was just being lazy. Knowing his character, Sam found both of these options were equally likely, after a moment of thought he decided checking up on him couldn't hurt. He gave a short knock and opened the door. Lenny groaned and threw his hand in front of his eyes, "The fuck do you want?" he groaned.

10 minutes later Sam and Lenny were sat around the kitchen table. After ensuring he wasn't ill, several minutes of nagging and a few threats, Lenny had finally gotten out of bed.
"Why the hell aren't you at work?" Lenny grumbled.
"They closed early, why aren't you?" Sam replied.
"Got a phone call from my boss, everyone else is ill."
Sam stood up and began pacing around the tiny flat. After a minute or two he stopped and turned back to Lenny.
"Something weird is going on here."
"What do you mean?"
"Have you looked outside? No one is out there! The streets are just empty! The entire Saturday staff called in sick today and by the sound of it so did everyone at your work too. It's not normal!"
Lenny rolled his eyes, "You're being paranoid. I'm sure it's just some really bad bug or something. Besides, look on the bright side! We've got an entire Saturday afternoon to kill!"
Sam sat back down, Lenny was probably right; he shouldn't get so worked up about. After all, it's not like he was affected, except getting an entire afternoon off. "You're right, what do you propose we do then?"
Lenny thought for a moment, "Do you reckon the pub's still open?"

Sam and Lenny stepped out of the garage lift into the building's car park. The building's basement was a large car park for residents that opened up on one side to give access to the street, the lift led directly down to the basement floor. Lenny shivered as they stepped out into the freezing cold.
"Jesus it's freezing out here! Should we take the car?"
"It's only like, a 20 minute walk Lenny. Besides we'll have to walk back either way."
"Yeah but on the way back we'll be too blitzed to notice."
Sam sighed, there was no way Lenny was going to walk. "Fine, but I'm driving."
5 minutes later Sam was parking the battered old Ford Escort in the back of the pub's dingy backyard car park. The King's Guard was an old pub sat in the centre of the neighbourhood. It was a small, dark, gloomy pub with very few customers other than the regulars from around the estate. However Sam and Lenny preferred this. It gave it a cosy, friendly atmosphere where everyone knew each other and got along.  A small plaza sat at the front of it, while houses surrounded the other three sides. The plaza was usually filled with old ladies gossiping or kids smoking, but today it's only occupants were several pigeons. Sam and Lenny walked around to the front of the building.
"Do you really think it's going to be open?" Sam asked "I've only seen two other people today and one of them wasn't exactly looking all that great."
Lenny pointed to the large "open" sign hung in the window and grinned.

Sam and Lenny trudged through the door, grateful to be in the warmth of the pub. Lenny glanced towards the bar, "Afternoon Harry." Harry Williams had been the owner of the King's Guard for nearly 20 years. He was a few inches taller than Lenny, with a short crop of grey hair and slight weight problem. Harry had always been a great friend to Sam ever since he was 16. He would sell him and Lenny beers out of the back door for half price and never told a soul. He was always a bit nostalgic, and would tell stories of his "glory days" to anyone who would listen. Harry looked up, the look of surprise quickly faded.
"How did I know you two would show up?" He went back to cleaning his glass. "Not a single customer all day until you two. How come you're not at work?"
"No one else was in, they all called in sick." Sam answered
Harry looked out of the large window at the front of the pub. "Yeah… definitely something out of the ordinary going on here, seems like everyone's ill today. Haven't even seen the milkman come past."
"Enough of all this conspiracy rubbish!" Lenny banged his fist against the bar. "I came here to get drunk. Let's forget why everyone is ill and make the most of it! Harry, you up for it?"
Harry peered out of the window again. The abandoned square was devoid of all life now, the only movement coming from several pieces of litter floating in the wind. He sighed, walked over to the door, locked it and put up the "Closed" sign. "Right then," he said. "First round's on me, what can I get you two?"

Several hours later and Sam could barely stand. The three of them were sat around the largest table they had, which was plastered with bottles of all shapes and sizes. Music blasted out of the jukebox as they listened to another one of Harry's stories. "So there we were, running in all directions. I had the booze of course as I was the one that nicked it, but as I was running around this corner this copper steps out in front of me and grabs me." Harry paused for effect to captivate his audience. "So the copper has me by the scruff of the neck see, no way I'm getting out of this one right? That's what I thought. But as he's about to cuff me, this drunk comes out of nowhere, stumbling and slipping, and decides to puke all over the copper!" The three broke out into waves of laughter, after wiping the tears from his eyes Harry continued. "So anyway, he drops me and starts having a go at this bloke who's just puked over him, and I leg it as fast as I could down the road. And I hung onto the beers!" Harry sat back in the chair, with the vacant gleam in his eye that he got whenever he told one of his stories. Wiping the tears from his eyes, Sam checked his watch; it was 3 in the morning. "Ah damn it's late, come on Lenny we should probably go." After much complaining from Lenny ("The night's young!") they were just about to say goodbye and leave. "Hold it!" Harry barked, suddenly stern "Give me the car keys lads, I don't want you two getting any funny ideas." Grudgingly, Sam handed him the keys and left. The cold air bit into his face as he and Lenny stumble out of the square. The streets were still empty and silent, as if they were the only people in the world. As they tried to make their way down the road they heard the sound of glass smashing. They both stopped dead. "Did you hear that?" Lenny asked. Sam nodded; they listened for any other noises. Footsteps, a car door, anything. But there was nothing. Eventually Sam shrugged "It was probably just someone knocking over a bottle or something." They continued walking, intent on getting back home.

Had they been sober, they might have noticed the figures in the darkness, watching them in utter silence, the orange glow of fires burning in the distance, or the soft screams drowned out by their pounding footsteps.

After 5 minutes spent searching for a key, Sam and Lenny finally made it through the front door. Sam made sure the door was locked and bolted behind him. He didn't like to admit it, but he had had a feeling he was being watched the entire time they were walking. As he bade Lenny goodnight and collapsed onto his bed, Sam thought about the past couple of days. The man in the car park, the number of people calling in with a sudden and mysterious illness and now this, he couldn't hep feeling it was connected somehow. As Sam drifted off into sleep, he hoped he was just being paranoid.