I Am Frank (Beginnings Series) Read online

  I am Frank

  by

  Frank Slagel

  With Dean Hayes

  I am Frank

  Copyright 2014 – Jacqueline Druga

  All rights reserved

  Disclaimer - This is part of the Beginnings Series and the Beginnings Universe. A novel within a novel. As depicted in the Beginnings Series Book, Consigning Fate.

  It also not only parodies the work of Jacqueline Druga and her Beginnings Series, it is a parody of other works combined, by the fictional character Frank Slagel.

  At no time is this to be taken as serious literature. Again, a fiction novel created by a fiction character.

  Thank you to Jenny S for all your help.

  Also, cool cover art provided by

  Christian Bentulan

  www.coversbychristian.com

  Dedication

  I, Frank Slagel, dedicate this book to all those who want to live in Beginnings. Not those who live there, they drive my nuts.

  Warning. Because this novel is penned by the ‘character’ Frank Slagel, in his own abrasive nature, this novel contains an abundance of graphic language.

  CHAPTER ONE - FRANK

  My name is Frank Slagel. I am a survivor living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was going to pick New York City but it’s been used too many times in end of the world novels. Besides, what do I know about New York? Not much. Been there, I think a few times, but not enough to care. I know Pittsburgh, that’s why I chose that city. When I was like eighteen and nineteen, I went to college there, which was before I made the stupid mistake of getting married. But I joined the Army, that wasn’t stupid. Joining the service was the smartest thing I did in my life. Maybe not, yeah, it was. I was on Smart Guy High. It was a show on TV, local cable access for really smart people.

  That was before the service.

  Imagine how smart I got. Not smart enough to avoid getting married before I was old enough to drink at the wedding.

  I should have just married El.

  I didn’t.

  I am married to her now, did marry her before, divorced her but got back, but that was after my first wife Kelly died.

  Not that I’m sad or anything, I was sad until I found out what she did.

  But that’s another story.

  A true one.

  This is a fictional tale with not so fictional people. Though I wish they were fiction sometimes.

  Man.

  Okay.

  As I was saying, my name is Frank and I am a survivor living in Pittsburgh.

  Thinking about it, I could have picked another city. I mean, I lived in other places longer than I lived in Pittsburgh. But who the fuck knows Ashtonville Connecticut, aside from the people who live there.

  Back to the story.

  I am not alone. There are others. Other survivors. I see them every once and a while, but I just don’t like them enough to live with them. For story purposes that is, in case any of them read it, I do actually like some of them in real life.

  There was a plague. A terrible plague.

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t a plague. More like a virus. No, fuck, wait, it was a biological weapon that turned into a virus and wiped out the world.

  Yeah.

  My Dad, Joe Slagel had a hand in it. In fact, he probably was responsible for ending the world.

  He’d say he wasn’t.

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t end the world.”

  “Yes,” I said. “You did.”

  “How?” he asked.

  “You chased the guy who was trying to save the world and he dropped the virus.”

  “Oh, Okay,” he said. “You’re right.”

  Maybe it didn’t go like that but close to it.

  How do you like that? Fuck. What a fuckin thing to carry with you.

  You think you found a bad guy, who turns out to be a good guy, but you treat him like a bad guy, and kill him like a bad guy, when all he was doing was trying to be a good guy by stealing the virus that would end the world, Then you turn the good guy into a bad guy, making him drop the virus, and you, trying to be the good guy, are actually the bad guy, too because you caused him to be a bad guy.

  Did that make sense?

  No.

  If you read it like three or four times it’ll make sense.

  So go back and read it. I’ll wait.

  Waiting.

  Waiting.

  Waiting.

  Fuck, what’s taking you so long.

  Got it now?

  We’ll move forward.

  Where did this virus come from? How did it come to be? What did it do? How many people died? Did fuckin’ Dean create it? Was Hal turned into some sick blood thirsty creature or did he just wear a civil war uniform? Did Joe Slagel ever feel guilty for wiping out humanity?

  That’s a lot of fuckin’ questions, and they’ll all be answered in the next chapter. Okay, maybe not just the next chapter. Over the course of chapters. It’s a book. You have to make it spread out. It wouldn’t be a book if I gave you all the information right away. It would be an essay, or a poem, I don’t write poems. I did but not well. Maybe now that I’m a writer I probably could just knock them off.

  And this isn’t one of those novellas either. Whatever that is. I think a novella is a female style novel or a gay romance thing. That’s not it. Not that I have anything against gays, Ben from Fabrics is Gay, so is Jess.

  Hal’s gay, too. Not in a gay way, but just gay.

  More to come. End of Chapter One.

  CHAPTER ONE - DEAN

  Don’t ask me why; it was his idea, and why I even agreed to it, who knows. Frank came to me and said “Dean, why don’t you and I write a book about being survivors in an apocalypse world.”

  I of course found this completely ridiculous, especially since we were survivors in an apocalypse world.

  He explained how it was going to be fiction, and how he and I would be the two normal survivors in this plague ravished world. A virus either killed everyone or made them monsters.

  I told him it was done.

  He said, ‘not by us’. Personally I think Frank wanted me aboard so I could do the spell checking. In any event, I agreed. It might be fun. He’ll lead the way in the story then I’ll tell my fictional account. Which I am sure will be much more educated and literary. Also, I probably can write whatever I want being that it is highly doubtful that Frank will ever read it. He tends to steer clear of anything above a ‘See Spot Run’ level.

  So here it goes.

  My name is Dean Hayes, I am a survivor living in Pittsburgh. I want to leave Pittsburgh and eventually I will, but for right now, I’m stuck, because I feel guilty leaving hard headed Frank alone in his delusion of being Charlton Heston.

  I didn’t want to be in Pittsburgh. Don’t get me wrong it’s a great town, it was before everything went to shit.

  So how did I get here?

  Well, to explain that allow me to go further back.

  Although I am not one to blow my own horn, I am the top virologist in the world. That’s why the Army kept me working for them.

  Anyhow, I also did lectures.

  People flocked to see my lectures. This one, in particular was sold out. I was speaking at Bethesda Naval base in Maryland.

  Always liking to make my entrance I was rushing inside when I bumped into this beautiful woman. Her name, Lucy. Through the whole lecture she was attentive, asked questions, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her.

  She seemed really interested in my work with viruses, so taking a chance I asked her to have lunch with me.

  She accepted and one thing led to another.

  We ended up spending the weeken
d together and she informed me she was from a little town in Ohio and drove down just to hear me speak.

  I knew I had to see her again, who cared that I lived in Nebraska, this woman was it for me.

  That Monday, getting ready to head back home, I had just hung up the phone with Lucy when I received a call telling me about a mysterious outbreak in Pittsburgh.

  Mysterious outbreak. If I had a nickel for every time, every town had a ‘mysterious’ outbreak that ended up being food poisoning, I’d be rich. It was unnerving to me.

  But Pittsburgh was close to Lodi, I figured I’d go in, explain the illness and cut out. No problem.

  No problem?

  Yeah, right.

  A mysterious outbreak? Mysterious wasn’t the word I’d use to describe it.

  Frightening.

  In all my years never have I seen people transform, almost as if their DNA changed instantaneously.

  I was brought in early. The outbreak was reported in two different hospitals. Knowing what I did about viruses, I was certain there were more cases unreported.

  First symptom was a high fever, very high, causing weakness, general malaise, that was the first day, second is when the cough and vomiting started. Now granted people would believe they have a hell of a dose of the flu. By the third day, when they weren’t feeling better, that’s when they sought medical help.

  I came in on day five when the health authorities figured something was up.

  By day five the blisters formed, day six, they worsened to the point they began to seep, and by day seven, you die . . . or worse.

  The fever burns something in the brain causing delirium and massive hallucinations causing the patient to be violent and attack. Out of the 234 flu cases, 70% died, the rest turned into these . . . things.

  More people were coming in with this flu, not hoards, trickles, which was good. It was steady. But, still there was so much to learn. I had to isolate the virus, see if I could figure out a cure, determine how it struck, incubation period, all of that. Before I did any of that, one thing was certain.

  There had to be a quarantine.

  CHAPTER TWO - FRANK

  This is where my story begins. The real story. When I write, it is the action thriller parts of the novel, so you may want to skip right over Dean’s. He lies. Plus, I’m sure at this point you’re already bored with what he said.

  For the record when I say real story, I mean fictional real story. I know I used the word, ‘real’, so don’t confuse this with real life. My real life is fuckin’ fiction compared to this shit, but I’ll try to make it interesting, But, just so you know I may put real life into it, so just pretend it’s not real life.

  People think I’m dumb. I think I have them fooled. My father, a great man, used to see right through me.

  I get up every morning and face the day. I exercise, you have to. I don’t want to get fat like my dad did. Not that he was fat, but as he got older he shrunk and got thick. Hal’s gonna get that way, I can see it now. Hal’s my brother. He’s already losing his hair. Mine’s just gray. Not gray. How’s this for literary … it looks like snowflakes danced in my hair.

  Wait.

  Fuck.

  Makes it sound like I have dandruff. Scratch that.

  Specks, yeah, specks.

  Fuckin’ gray looks cool like I been out in the snow or something.

  Anyway, I live alone. Okay, maybe not. Let’s say I do for part of this story. Oh. Fuck. Wait. I got it. Scratch it. Never mind.

  I live alone. It’s a lonely world. I had a pet. A dog. Not a cat. I hate fuckin cats. If I had a cat I’d never find it ‘cause cats find a way to wander. Did you ever notice that? No matter how much someone says they watch their cat it ends up in your fuckin garbage or wandering the streets. But the neighbors say they don’t let the cat out, so how do they get out?

  They open the door? I don’t think so. I think the neighbors let them out because people will think that cats get out on their own.

  I am so fuckin glad cats died in the plague.

  Not all. I have one now. Not now in the book now, but now in my real life.

  But I don’t know where it came from. Future. Past. Something like that.

  Anyhow, I had a pet. A dog. A German Sheppard, it was a friendly dog and I’ll get to what happened to it.

  But first let’s talk about the virus that wiped out the world.

  The one that Dean made, my Dad started, and some guy named George wanted.

  George was the master mind.

  He wanted to rule the world.

  Own all of it.

  Be the big fuckin’ shot.

  I tried to kill him several times. It’s one of the few killings I failed at.

  I wonder why that was?

  Anyhow, George had this plan.

  “Let’s kill the world.” George said.

  I don’t know that he wanted to kill the world, just lose some people. Which in hindsight, having a few less people isn’t bad. Did you ever see how crowded the malls get at Christmas? Or McDonald’s at lunch time? How about Sunday on the roads. Where do all these fuckin’ people come from?

  So George wanted to get rid of some of them.

  Which I would have been fine with me if he did it the right way. Start a war, drop a nuke there. Whoops, was that a terror attack?

  Things he did before.

  But instead he wanted to be sneaky. Quiet. Have people not know it was him.

  So he went to this little guy named Dean. Who I think you already read his lame chapter. Anyhow . . .

  Dean was the smartest man in the world next to me.

  I wonder if I should make myself a scientist in this book. Nah, I’ll be a soldier.

  Dean’s the scientist. He’s a little man with big attitude. He’s not little in a midget way. He could be if I were like five 9, then in comparison he would be a really little man.

  Why is it all short men have big attitudes? I don’t get it.

  Back to Dean.

  Dean’s not a bad guy, he just had some bad breaks. The Army used to pay him to melt people. He created this one chemical that they made him fuckin’ bury in the desert. You know it’s bad if they bury it in the desert. Fuck. What if it wasn’t a desert when they buried it and Dean’s chemical made it that way.

  So fuckin George knew about this. Because he was the president. I voted for him. That was before I knew he wanted to kill the world.

  George was a chubby guy with gray hair. Some people wouldn’t call him chubby. For the sake of this book pretend he’s chubby, okay? And he would mess around with his hair when he wanted to look Latino hot.

  He wasn’t Latino. He couldn’t be Latino and be president. Okay, he could be if he was a citizen. Elliott Ryder is Latino, even though he says he’s German.

  Dean says he’s Latino. It’s in his jeans. I don’t know what Levi’s have to do with it.

  So George goes to Dean in his Army lab.

  George said, “I need a virus.”

  “I have lots of viruses,” said Dean. “What do you need one for?”

  “It’s none of your business,” George said.

  “It is. What if I give you the wrong virus?” Dean asked. He was a scientist. They asked valid questions like that. “What if you want a virus that makes people vomit and I give you one that makes people cough.”

  “I want a virus that makes people die. I want a virus to wipe out the world. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

  “I cannot give you a virus to wipe out the world,” Dean said. “That is wrong. I don’t do wrong things on purpose. I may sleep with other men’s wives in the future when they don’t know, but I would not wipe out the world.”

  Then George tried to reason with Dean.

  George said, “People must pick on you because you are short and are a nerd guy. Don’t you want to get back at them? You can help me kill the world and be with me when I rule the world. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

  “No,” said Dean. “I do not want to wipe out the world. If I do I will
never lose my virginity.”

  Then George became like Satan. Horns and everything. Okay, maybe he didn’t have horns, but I sure some fuckin’ nubs were hiding under that gray hair.

  “Dean, you have to give me the virus.”

  “No. I will not.”

  “You must. I am the president. You are in the Army. I am in charge of you. That is an order.”

  I hate when people do that fuckin’ shit. Say that’s an order then you have to choose between what you want to do and what you have to do.

  Dean, even though he was an officer, knew what was best.

  “No.”

  Fuck. He not only disobeyed a direct order. He disobeyed a direct order by the president. But, you know, I don’t know how the president would present that at a court martial. If it would even hold up. I mean, what’s he gonna say, ‘I wanted to wipe out the word and Dean wouldn’t do it.’

  I don’t think it would stand up. That’s just my opinion.

  So George tried another route.

  “I will make you.” George threatened.

  “I will never give it to you,” Dean said. “It is locked in a secret room, with a secret code that only I know.”

  “I will tell your father that you used to lie to him. That you used to put Playboy Magazine covers on science magazines so he thought you were a normal kid.”

  Dean did not like being threatened. He got little man mad and stood his ground. “Go on tell my Dad. I will never give you the virus.”

  “Tell me the code!” George ordered without saying that’s an order.

  “Never. I will never tell you the secret code is one, one, two, two, three. Never.”

  “Then I will hurt you and steal it.”

  See? Did you see how fuckin’ crafty and sneaky George was? He got the code and Dean did not even notice he gave it to him.

  George grabbed a clipboard from the counter. Scientists always have clipboards handy. George hit Dean on the head with it, and you know what happened. Dean was knocked out.

  So what did George do? He went to the back room marked ‘viruses’, went in, found the drawer that said, ‘end of the world plagues’ and put in the code. It opened and George stole the virus.