Riposte (The Redivivus Trilogy Book 2)

Riposte

Book Two of the Redivivus Trilogy

Kirk Withrow

PROLOGUE

Humanity has always walked a fine line between existence and extinction—a delicate balancing act so complex that the very factors that cause it to teeter along this continuum are scarcely understood. With order continually devolving into entropy, the odds are with extinction every time, and humans rarely do anything to stack the deck in their favor. Whether by sheer dumb luck or the will of some higher power, humanity persists despite its best efforts to the contrary. Like a spoiled child, mankind works under the assumption that it can do whatever it desires, heedless of the consequences of its solipsistic actions. As with anything, there are places where one should not venture, lines that should never be crossed. When such taboos are violated, the repercussions are often dire.

THRENODY

Less than a month after being released into the wild by one of the very scientists responsible for its creation, the lyssa-niuhi virus (LNV) underwent a mutation that carried catastrophic implications for the human race. LNV was engineered to be the perfect bio-assassination weapon, and may well have reached its full potential, were it not for the paranoid psychosis of one of the lead scientists on the project, Dr. Marcus Johnson.

Based on a replication-deficient retroviral vector, LNV was designed to be highly lethal, undetectable, and untreatable. Another key feature of LNV was its high specificity; after a target was inoculated, the disease could not be transmitted due its inability to replicate. Like a guided missile, it was designed to eliminate its intended target without collateral damage. It was that aspect of the virus’ biology that underwent a dramatic alteration when an infected primate released by Dr. Johnson had a chance encounter with an effeminate American tourist in a rural Brazilian market. Upon biting the man’s hand, thousands of copies of LNV in the monkey’s saliva mingled with millions of copies of a very replication-competent retrovirus: the human immunodeficiency virus.

By stealing the genes necessary for viral replication, LNV acquired the ability to hijack the host cell’s bio-machinery, thereby forcing it to create innumerable copies of itself. With one single bite, LNV unknowingly transformed itself into the most lethal malady the world had ever known; in essence, it became an unstoppable monster. Due to the reckless actions of few, the fate of the entire human race was in jeopardy.

In retrospect, there were warning signs in the weeks leading up to the pandemic’s world tour, but only a select few Brazilian officials were privy to them and they lacked the necessary understanding to deal with the events unfolding around them. If anything, their efforts to cover up the outbreak of the new, highly contagious infectious disease, out of fear of inciting public unrest, helped facilitate its spread. Using the concurrent epidemic of influenza and encephalitis lethargica as a scapegoat, they effectively buried the heads of their people in the sand and served them to the violent plague victims on a platter. With the world’s population unaware of the existence of the new pathogen and its dangers, the virus spread wantonly through the seemingly endless pool of susceptible hosts.

Victims of LNV infection became violent, feral, inhuman shells of their former selves, seeking out anyone who remained uninfected. This
active
mode of disease transmission represented a significant deviation from the typical passive, random pattern of spread seen in most infectious disease outbreaks. In less than two months after LNV’s fateful mutation, humanity was on its knees—unable even to beg for mercy.

By the time Dr. Lin San, a neurobiologist with expertise in the field of autoimmune encephalopathy, boarded a Brazilian military transport plane headed for the United States, LNV was already far beyond any hope of containment. Led by General Montes, a small contingent of Brazil’s Special Forces Brigade fought desperately to escort Dr. San safely to the CDC labs in Atlanta, where they hoped she would find the necessary resources to develop a cure for the relentless plague.

A continent away, Lin’s long-time friend, Dr. John Wild, was completely unaware of the maelstrom into which he descended. Having been on an isolated Native American reservation working in a medical clinic, he had been insulated from the events taking place in the outside world. When he landed his single engine Cessna at Huntington Field, he found the small Alabama airport nearly deserted except for a lone man lying on the tarmac, apparently sick or injured. Rushing to aid the downed man, John was caught off guard when the man clambered unsteadily to his feet and began pursuing him aggressively. Fortunately for John, a stalwart aircraft mechanic, Reams Wilkins, watched as the events unfolded and intervened on his behalf. After ferociously bludgeoning the would-be attacker, he ushered John to safety and tried in earnest to explain what was happening.

Initially, Reams’ words fell on disbelieving ears; his sensational story far more likely to be the plot line of a bad science fiction movie than actual events occurring in John’s home state of Alabama. After Reams showed him the reality of the situation from the roof of the hangar, he could no longer deny the truth behind the younger man’s words. Disheartened, confused, and concerned for the safety of his wife and daughter, John convinced Reams to help him find his family. When John received a broken cell phone call from Dr. Lin San, one of the few people left with the knowledge needed to stop the outbreak, the two men vowed to assist her once they found his family. Their friendship bloomed quickly, and the two men became a nearly inseparable team as they navigated the post-apocalyptic landscape. In addition to the abominable revenants spawned by the epidemic, they encountered some of the most depraved elements of humanity scattered across the now lawless world, every moment serving as a test of their courage, strength, and resourcefulness.

When the two men finally reached John’s home, they found a horrific scene of carnage, and the ruined, lifeless body of John’s beautiful wife, Rebecca. Despite the grief and misery that accompanied the discovery, John clung to the smallest glimmer of hope that his daughter, Ava, somehow managed to evade the brutality and destruction all around them. Battling impossible odds, they searched for Ava desperately, and along the way bore witness to society’s desolation. Despite not finding Ava, John refused to give up hope as he and his small band of survivors prepared for the perilous journey to Atlanta, where they hoped to discover an end to the nightmare. 

1

September 26, 2015

Gaston County, NC

Connor Roan had been planning for years. As a young man he realized that the world he was a part of was not an equitable one. For as long as he could remember, everything in his life always seemed to end the same way—with his being slighted and treated unfairly. Certainly there were instances in which that were actually the case, but in his mind that was
always
the case. In the eyes of justice, he drew the short straw every time. Some people bear such indignations with grace, but Connor Roan was not one of those people.

At age 34, Connor was a well-educated college graduate. After college, he briefly served in the Army, entering as an officer after the successful completion of Officer Candidate School, OCS. During the course of his basic combat training and OCS, he received many accolades including being selected as a distinguished honor graduate and earning expert marksmanship qualification for rifle. Despite all his apparent promise, however, Connor once again found himself a victim of the cruel and unjust world when he received a general discharge after unproven allegations of inappropriate sexual relations with a female officer surfaced. To him, it did not matter that the allegations were true; what mattered was that he was discharged and she was eventually promoted.

No longer subject to military orders, Connor returned to his hometown in North Carolina and tried to start his life anew. Unfortunately, the allegations did not fade away, and the story ultimately became the center of a heated scandal that was heavily reported in the media. Just like that, Connor Roan’s fresh start was over before it ever began. He moved to a secluded mountain retreat in nearby Gaston County, North Carolina—away from all the unwanted media attention and the critical eyes of the citizens in his hometown.

For Connor, the entire incident served as the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Tired of accepting the unjust hand he was continually dealt, Connor Roan refused to be a mere passenger any longer; tossed about by life’s stormy currents. He decided it was time to take the helm, to become the captain of his own destiny, in a sense. He decided it was time to make them pay—to make them all pay—and to make the world finally see him, as he knew he was supposed to be seen. Deep inside his damaged mind, something yearned for retribution; he needed the world to respect and fear him, if not understand him. Given what he was planning, he knew when he was finished with the world, it finally would.

Armed with his innate intelligence and military training, and fueled by a lifetime of resentment and blame; he painstakingly formulated a meticulous plan that covered every possible contingency. To be sure, his plan, albeit malicious and frankly evil, seemed about as infallible as a plan can be. He spent years on its construction, ensuring there were no chinks. The last thing he wanted was for his coup de grâce to end in the same way as everything else in his life—flat on its ass. When he was absolutely certain his plan was flawless, he settled on a date to launch his reign of terror: January 1, 2016. “Why not start the year off right?” he said to himself. Much to his dismay, he soon learned that there was one contingency for which he had failed to plan.

When he saw the first news reports of the bizarre plague wreaking havoc on the population, he watched with sheer fascination. After all, pain and destruction wrought on mankind by anyone or anything was still pain and destruction wrought on mankind. It was not until he understood the apocalyptic scale of the epidemic that he realized that, once again, he had been beaten to the punch. Connor was livid at the thought of the subversion.
Years of planning, and for what? I was going to make them see! Make them pay! Now this!

The anger he felt at the unanticipated derailing boiled inside him, bubbling up and filling his eyes with white-hot rage as he gathered a few tools of his trade. As much as he hated mingling with the dregs of society, which in Connor’s mind was all of society, he needed to see this thing firsthand. He needed to stare into the eyes of the thing that had thwarted his plan, no matter what it was. If the Devil himself had come to his world, then that is whom he intended to face. For if there was one thing Connor knew, it was that one has to deal with one’s demons before they deal with you.

As he made the twenty-minute trip into town, Connor listened to the news reports on the radio:

“This epidemic, which appears to have started in Brazil several weeks ago, has since spread beyond that country’s border, with cases being reported in nearly every country across the globe. At this point, Brazil and the United States have been hit the hardest with most population centers in those countries reporting increasing numbers of cases. Officials still do not know the source of this infection, which is unlike anything ever seen. The lethality of the disease, combined with the pathogen’s unique ability to facilitate its rapid dissemination through populations of healthy people, have led many top authorities to suspect bioterrorism…”

Appalled by the insinuation that this was not a natural event—that
someone
had managed to trump him yet again—he turned off the radio, unable to stomach the broadcaster any longer.

When he reached the outskirts of town, Connor did not immediately notice anything out of the ordinary, and he harbored a brief glimmer of hope that the media had blown the outbreak out of proportion—as they often tended to do in such situations. He passed several houses, all of which appeared as plain and boring as usual. There were no frantic people racing about or crazed, infected monsters giving chase. There were no people at all for that matter. The small shopping center located just past the neighborhood also appeared rather dead. Aside from a few cars sitting idly in the parking lot, he saw no signs of people there either.

With a grunt of disgust, Connor said, “Damned media pissed me off over nothing! There is no limit to what those assholes will do to boost their ratings!” He had worked himself into such a rage that he was driving nearly seventy miles per hour on the small road by the time he decided to turn around. Thinking he might have misinterpreted the reporter’s words, he momentarily shifted his attention from the road to the radio, intent on getting the real story. Movement in his peripheral vision caused his eyes to flit back to the road. Having only slowed to forty miles per hour at the moment of impact, the thing that drifted into his path did not stand a chance.

Connor’s entire world slowed to a crawl as his brain processed the impossible thing before him. In the instant before what he assumed was his last, Connor Roan’s life did not flash before his eyes. Whether because it was not something he wished to relive or simply that his unbelieving mind was unable to rectify the inconceivable horror he was witnessing, he did not know. Truth be told, it was likely both in equal measure.

Directly in front of him, oblivious of the roaring hell barreling down upon her, stood a petite female. Clearly ambulating despite all probability that she should be dead, the woman unblinkingly staggered into the road in front of his vehicle. He watched as the hood ornament lined up with her like the sights of a gun as his enormous truck raced toward her. Although he slammed on his brakes, the shock at what he was witnessing left his reaction time rather blunted, resulting in very little speed reduction prior to impact. Several irreconcilable differences between the woman in his path, and what he had come to accept as the normal range of physical characteristics compatible with human life, caused his brain to falter as it processed the information.

What he could see of her face appeared normal enough, perhaps even pretty in an odd way. As if hearing the throaty clamor of the massive V8 engine blazing toward her for the first time, she paused momentarily trying to localize the noise. In a comparatively slow, awkward arc, she turned toward the sound of the oncoming truck. When she finally squared off with him, the image Connor saw was a dramatically different one.

The side that faced him initially was clearly her good side, as the rest of her face was essentially nonexistent. Her flesh was rived from the skull, exposing the underlying muscle and bone crusted with thick, dark red and black blood. Her jaws clacked together repeatedly like the dyskinetic movements exhibited by some psychiatric patients. Like an angry serpent, her vile tongue slithered around within her mouth, continually finding its way to the hole in the side of her face where it poked through, daring someone to club it as though it were some macabre version of
Whack-A-Mole
. So much blood covered her neck and chest that it was impossible to say what injuries she had in those areas. Her abdomen, on the other hand, was a different story.

By comparison, her distended midriff appeared wholly out of place on her small frame. The skintight, formerly white tank top she wore was stretched to its breaking point, appearing to be on the verge of rupture at any moment. The bottom edge of the woefully inadequate garment rode up, exposing the lower portion of her protuberant belly. It was stained with blood from a six-inch hole just south of its equatorial line. While no blood oozed from the nasty wound, what Connor saw was singlehandedly the most disturbing thing to ever seer its image onto the surface of his retinas.

From the nightmarish depths of the jagged chasm, a small hand attached to an equally small arm jutted out and flailed wildly like a captive animal trying to grab something just out of reach through the bars of its cage. Tiny, searching fingers opened and closed as if trying to find purchase on something that might provide the necessary traction to complete its ongoing excavation. If the wretched woman stumbling toward his rapidly approaching truck noticed that little detail at all, she gave no indication, despite the small abomination’s feverish efforts to free itself from the cage its mother had become.
That’s not a person—it’s a thing.
Connor Roan knew, without a doubt, that he was doomed to see that vile image forever burned onto his hard drive every time he closed his eyes.

A split-second later, Connor barely felt the plangent thud of his brush guard crashing into the wretched thing. He saw the body fold forward with a snap, doubling over at an unnatural point above her waist. Its arms whipped up and over from the force of the impact, slamming onto the hood hard enough to leave a shallow imprint. Similarly, its long hair slung around in an impressive arc with enough speed to make a heavy metal rocker jealous. The thin strands of hair smacked against the hood so forcefully that Connor swore he saw flecks of paint flying off, as though stripped away by the tenacious strokes of a metal wire brush. The last thing he saw before the darkness was the head attached to the hair as it collided face first with the hood. Perhaps most unsettling of all was the lack of expression on its face as it flew forward. A sharp crack erupted as its head contacted the metal hood before rebounding off with equally impressive speed. The brutalized body instantly disappeared from view, sucked under the truck like an insect being pulled down a drain.

Thunk, clunk…thump!

Had he been capable of looking in his rear view mirror, Connor would have seen something more akin to a life-sized ragdoll than a young woman being hurled out from underneath his truck. The incident’s effect on the truck was far less than that on his calloused brain, as the culmination of what he saw and felt wormed its way into the last remnant of his flagging soul. In a subconscious response to the inordinate amount of pain this caused, he jerked the steering wheel violently to the left. The deafening screech of rubber on pavement heralded the truck’s dramatic shift in direction, as it careened off the road directly into a telephone pole.

Nothing.

All the chaos, horror, and agony of the last two seconds were finally gone, leaving only an impenetrable blackness that was mercifully devoid of everything.