Riposte (The Redivivus Trilogy Book 2) (21 page)

Shifting their focus back to the map, Plant pointed out the approximate location of Ann’s sister the last time they had spoken with her. She and a small group of survivors had been clearing the infected in an attempt to establish a safe haven near Mobile. At last communication, they were making good progress, with an area of about two blocks walled off and a little over twenty survivors. It was the largest group of non-criminal uninfected that any of them had heard of since the epidemic gutted the country more than a month ago.

Seeing the small settlement as a tiny beacon of hope for the future, both John and Ethan immediately saw the value in their mission. The pained expressions on both of their faces told Plant that they, like everyone else in the plague-ridden world, had lost people and understood the responsibility to family. When Plant finished, John outlined the route they planned to take to the CDC facilities in Atlanta. He told Plant about Dr. San and the brief, broken communication he had with her at the beginning of the outbreak. When he finished with all the details, John gave Plant a tentative look before asking him one last question.

“You guys travelled along I-59 before turning south to get here, correct?” John asked.

Plant nodded his head in affirmation.

“Did…did you happen to come across a little girl—eleven-years old, curly blonde hair, emerald green eyes? Her name is Ava. She’s my daughter,” John said, his eyes shifting toward the ground as if unwilling to leave his pain on display for all to see.

As he was looking away, John did not notice the look of recognition that slowly spread across Plant’s face. “Ann, do you remember those two people we found hiding out in that old farmhouse four or five days ago?” Plant asked.

John’s head shot up, threatening to explode with unabashed excitement.

“Brad and Emily? Yeah, why?” Ann replied without taking her watchful eyes off of their surroundings.

The look of utter despair that swept over John’s face was the antithesis of the expression he bore only a second earlier. The change was so sudden and dramatic that Plant wondered if that was what happened to people who were said to die from shock, fear, or any other emotion for that matter. Feeling impossibly small, Plant said the only thing he could manage.

“Dude, I’m sorry.”  

16

October 24, 2015

Dallas County, AL

They drove in silence for a long time after parting ways with Plant and Animal. John sat in the passenger seat staring vacantly out the window as Reams drove east.

Kate watched a solitary tear rolled down John’s cheek. It sat undisturbed for so long that it finally evaporated, disappearing into the world around him. She worried that very same thing might be occurring inside John; the thought made her shudder.

For a long time, John thought only of Ava—about the impossibility of his little girl surviving in this harsh world on her own. On an intellectual level, he understood that all probabilities pointed to his little girl being gone forever. Even so, he refused to accept that answer. Somehow he knew otherwise, despite his heart breaking for what felt like the millionth time. In light of the elation he felt at the possibility that Plant had seen Ava recently, the precipitous plunge to a place so dark and miserable it could only be the sub-basement of Hell nearly crushed his soul. Fragile things like souls are not designed to withstand such extreme fluctuations. Still, he managed to crawl back up from those great depths once again, back to the surface, and what little light remained in the bleak world.

For the next several days they made slow, steady progress across Alabama’s black belt. The population density in the impoverished region was low, having been on the decline even before the epidemic. Now much of the area was little more than a string of ghost towns. Rather than the rampant chaos and destruction seen in the larger cities and population centers where panic and the mob mentality reigned supreme, the manifestations of society’s demise in this part of the state were those of dearth. They saw no uninfected people, and very few of the infected. Even so, they knew the revs were there, lurking unseen.

They drove through more than one jerkwater town that appeared as though the few individuals that had lived there simply disappeared as if in the rapture. No bodies, no burnt husks of buildings, no smashed windows, no trash strewn about everywhere—just business as usual for the little one-horse towns. A glaring exception to this relative normalcy came as they drove through a wide spot in the road called
Wilmer’s Crossing
, population 5. A crude, rusted, wrought iron arch stretched over the road. The town itself was so small that the sign, which read: ‘Wilmer’s Crossing – Gateway to the East,’ served to welcome traveller’s both coming and going.

Directly over the road, hanging by the neck from the center of the sign, was the nearly mummified corpse of a man—swaying like a cadaverous piñata at a birthday celebration for the damned that had been cancelled indefinitely. Dressed in a dirty, white, short-sleeved shirt and tie, his stringy, white gossamer hair fluttered in the breeze like a windsock. His eyes had been plucked from his head, likely by the very raven that sat protectively atop his shoulder. The handwritten sign around his neck read:

“Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it.”

              —Isaiah 13:9

Reams pulled to a stop, gaping at the disconcerting scene in stunned silence. He closed his eyes momentarily before driving forward, swerving to the left of the man’s lifeless body. At nearly seven feet wide, the big truck was too wide to maneuver around the suspended corpse. As a result, the driver side mirror collided with the pair of dangling legs, knocking one of its shoes off, and sending the body careening away.

Rebounding from the impact, the lifeless, sock-covered foot swung like a pendulum toward the truck, crashing into the window directly next to Kate’s face. Startled, she let out a shrill, involuntary shriek as she jerked away from the window. In doing so, she landed on Ethan, who sat with his eyes closed, lolling in and out of a light stupor.

“Holy shit! What is it? What the hell’s happening?” Ethan demanded, his heart thudding wildly in his chest. Quickly realizing that there was no immediate threat, Ethan tried to marshal Kate’s emotions. “Slow down, take it easy. There’s nothing to worry about,” Ethan said.

Reams cringed when he glanced in the truck’s rearview mirror and saw the man’s suspended remains, twirling and swaying in sync with the displaced raven, as if the two were dancing a waltz at a formal ball. The raven moved forward as the body swung away until gravity interceded to reverse the roles. Throughout the obscene burlesque, the sign flapped lazily in the breeze as though it wanted no part of any of it. It seemed to mock them for even trying to resist the plague, and Reams considered the validity of the sign’s message.
I wonder if he’s right? We’ve certainly got plenty of desolation and cruel wrath. But surely even a vengeful God wouldn’t unleash a plague like this?

Aside from the run-in with the pendular prophet, the trip was rather uneventful after the incident at the hotel. While stalled vehicles and other debris periodically blocked their path, none caused any significant delays. Driving in shifts, they stopped as infrequently as possible to relieve themselves and refuel the truck from the gas cans strapped to the roof. Whenever they stopped, the first one out always scrambled up to the roof rack, where he or she dutifully scanned the surrounding area for any sign of danger. On the rare occasions when any of them found sleep, they did so within the safety—and discomfort—of the H2. Despite the cramped confines of its interior, none of them were eager to venture too far from the truck and risk another close call like that experienced at the hotel.

With the only radio stations still broadcasting playing looped recordings of the State’s emergency broadcast system and the sole CD in the truck being a country Christmas anthology, the four survivors found very little with which to pass the time. What little conversation they engaged in nearly always triggered a deluge of painful memories of times before the plague. The dour atmosphere that inevitably filled the cab proved far more painful than the boredom they were trying to chase away.

Reams half-jokingly proposed an off-color variation of a game he and his brother played on long car rides as a kid. When they would go on trips, they would see who could count the most cows before they reached their final destination. Not having seen a single cow since the start of their expedition, Reams said, “Let’s see who can count the most revs. The winner gets an all-expense-paid trip to Disney World.” Any interest in the perverse game died off quickly when they encountered a prodigious group of over one hundred revs. Like a plague of locusts, the horde blotted out the horizon as they streamed over a low rise, pouring into the shallow gulley below.

The Hummer idled one hundred yards away. Ethan, who was behind the wheel, asked, “You see them up ahead? What should we do?”

From the back seat, John said, “I think we should see where they’re heading. I’d say there are over one hundred in that group, and until now, we’ve barely seen ten total in the last few days. I’ll check the map to see if there is a large enough town nearby to account for a group that size. Either way, I think it’s safest to sit tight and see what they do. Agreed?”

There were indifferent nods all around.

“I guess the other question is:
why are they on the move
? As far as I know those things don’t just decide to go out for a leisurely Sunday stroll,” Reams said.

“It’s Sunday?” asked Kate. Her question was answered with three pairs of incredulous eyes. “Sorry, I was just wondering what day of the week it is,” she added.

After pulling off to the side of the road, Ethan crawled into a prone position on the roof rack. Through his binoculars, he observed the shambling movement of the infected mass. At first he saw the hideous conglomeration as a single entity, creeping forward with the colubrine movements of a colossal basilisk. As he watched longer, however, he began to see the individual ataxic subunits that comprised the larger monster—each rev like one of the serpent’s vertebrae. In much the same way that a single drop of water posed no real threat, Ethan knew that a single rev was of little consequence. On the other hand, if enough drops of water—or revs—combined, they could form a tidal wave capable of massive destruction. Instinctively, he held his breath as he followed the meandering, serpentine line.

Ethan’s gaze settled on a lone figure staggering approximately twenty feet ahead of the horde, walking with the distinct chorea he had come to associate with LNV infection. Although it was difficult to ascertain all of the details at this distance, Ethan noticed additional signs of infection.

The man was shirtless and the bones of his left forearm were clearly visible where the flesh and muscle were missing. His gaunt face was filthy, streaked with all manner of blood and grime. Nestled in the squalid mask, the man’s eyes blazed with a brightness that was completely incongruous with the rest of him.

Additionally, Ethan swore the man kept shooting furtive glances over his shoulder at the approaching horde.
It’s almost like he’s keeping tabs on the revs behind him, as though he’s leading them.

Astonished by the sight, Ethan called for John to come up and have a look. “You need to see this. I’m not sure what the hell it is. It’s like some sort of half-rev mutant or something,” Ethan said as he handed John the binoculars. “Check out the guy just ahead of the pack.”

John did as Ethan asked, but did not immediately see what was causing him such alarm.

“Keep watching him,” Ethan said.

Soon John noticed hints of purposeful movement as well; mostly head movements and carefully planned foot placements. When the man turned and stared directly at John, he thought he saw both fear and vitality in his eyes.

“He’s not infected! At least not like the others!” John exclaimed. His gaze locked on the man leading the group, like some infernal pied piper of the damned.

The man stepped up his pace, widening the gap between him and the pursuing revs. When there was approximately fifty feet of separation, the man did the most bizarre thing they had seen thus far—he stopped.

Stepping out of the trajectory of the oncoming horde, the strange man went completely still. To John, it looked as though he was simply accepting his fate at the hands of the monster snaking toward him. He watched in amazement as the cortège of revs filed past the motionless man without paying him the slightest attention. Despite being within arm’s reach of the revs shuffling past, the man inexplicably became invisible while still remaining in plain view. Once the last of the horde moved beyond him a safe distance, the man crept back onto the road cautiously before ambling back in the direction from which he came.

“What the hell is going on? The revs just walked right past him as though he wasn’t even there, like Ezzard, except that guy
looks
like one of them,” John said incredulously. His entire worldview, already redefined by the plague, came under fire in that instant. A thousand questions swam through his head, each vying for answers that did not exist.
How can he possess traits of both the infected and uninfected? It’s almost like the infection started to take hold and then stopped, leaving some human abilities intact. How did he go unnoticed by the infected swarm? Where did he come from, what was he doing, and where was he going now?

Handing the binoculars back to Ethan, John said, “We have to follow him and see where he is heading. We need answers.”

The two men scrambled down from the H2’s roof. They tailed the gnarled man as he loped along the road, taking care to stay back far enough to remain out of sight. Ethan drove while John kept the binoculars trained on the man, noting that he intermittently glanced over his shoulder as he walked.

“Stop!” John exclaimed, his eyes still pressed against the glass of the binoculars. “I think he sees us.”

The man had done an about-face and now stood unsteadily in the middle of the road as he scanned the surroundings. Instinctively, John surveyed the area as well, looking for any sign of what had triggered the strange man’s alarm. All of a sudden, with a degree of speed not typically seen in the infected, the man slipped off the side of the road and disappeared from view.

“Shit! He’s on the move. I lost him,” John said. Still seeing no sign of imminent danger, he considered whether the action was proactive rather than reactive. That possibility further added to the confusion the man had introduced into John’s current understanding of the world.
What the hell was this guy?

“What should we do now? I saw where he stepped off the road. We could drive a little closer, but then we’d have to go on foot,” John said.

“I don’t like it. What if it’s a trap? I mean, we don’t know who or what this guy is. Maybe he’s the next generation:
rev 2.0
. It’s too risky,” Reams said from the backseat.

“You’re right,” John said. “We know shit all about this guy, which is why we have to follow him. Think about it. A big part of why we are alive today is because of what we learned about these things. If the rules have changed, we damn well need to know it if we are going to maximize our chances of surviving. What was that Sun Tzu shit you told us about knowing your enemy, Ethan?”

Ethan nodded in agreement with John’s logic, but Reams remained skeptical. “I see your point, but there’s got to be another way. It just seems too risky, traipsing off into the woods after some mystery rev on his way to who the hell knows what,” Reams said. “Maybe he’s going to some A-list rev-only party. Ever think about that?” John’s mind flashed back to a dream in which he found himself at a black tie affair, surrounded by elite sophisticates that turned out to be bloodthirsty revs. By the time he realized what was happening, he found himself inexplicably incorporated into a grotesque human hors d’oeuvre, eagerly sought after by the revs closing in from all sides.