The Reaper Virus (15 page)

“No! Fuck you, man,” Lance said again. His
left hand met the right, returning his weapon to the forward ready
position.

“
SHOOT ME!
” Brad
screamed. With a single fluidic motion he reached into his belt and
removed his pocket knife. He lunged at Lance raising the blade
above his head.

I would have covered my ears to shield them
from the blast if I weren’t in shock. Lance fired. One shot was all
it took. Brad’s momentum took him to the ground face first. He lay
motionless in a growing pool of his ebbing life.

We should have stopped to mourn. However,
mourning was a luxury that went away with the living. The entire
ordeal broadcasted our position like a megaphone. Lance cautiously
checked for a pulse on Brad’s right wrist, his hand still in a fist
around the small knife.

It may have been paranoia, but I became
acutely aware that the background noise sounded much closer. I
pried my gaze from the fallen friend at our feet and started
looking about frantically.

“Lance, we need to go. I’m sure one of them
heard us.” He stood from checking Brad for signs of life and looked
around the same way I just had. While he did that I retrieved my
crowbar. I had to put my boot against the bastard’s skull just to
get enough leverage to pull it free. It emerged coated in black
filth. I tapped it on the curb to remove whatever gunk I could.
There was a dirty tee shirt in my bag. After the hazardous end was
covered I tucked the heavy piece of metal through a strap on the
bag.

“We can’t leave him here.” Lance knelt and
grasped both arms. “Grab his legs. We can move him behind the
bushes along the stone wall. Hopefully none of them will find him
and decide to snack.”

I moved to Brad and grabbed him by the shoes.
Hopefully he laced them tight – if I had to go any higher on his
leg I’d be touching where he was bitten.

After seeing me nod, Lance mouthed a
countdown from three. We stood and sidestepped our way over the
sidewalk to the cobblestone. Brad’s body was heavy and cumbersome.
It was difficult to fathom the fact that moments ago this was a
friend and ally who was unfairly taken. I tried not to dwell and
rather focused on the task at hand. It was even more difficult to
not think about how easily it could have been my body being toted
away.

Approaching the threshold for the stone wall,
I took another look around us. Fear surged through me when I saw at
least two of the creatures stumble out of the eastern fog. The dead
pair was coming towards us with all the speed they could
muster.

While doing his best to keep a good pace,
Lance must have seen my expression change. I was facing east and
saw them approach first. He turned and saw what was coming. Nothing
was said, but we did move faster.

Just ahead was a line of mulch for a garden
with tiny shrubs backed up to the wall. There was a couple a feet
between the fringe of the shrubs and the stone. I hoped this would
hide him. There were no flowers because of the cold that we were
experiencing, due to the seasonal changes. Flowers would have been
fitting for the makeshift grave. We hoisted Brad’s body over the
knee high shrubs and did our best not to drop him. The entire time
we carried him he was still face down. I don’t think either of us
wanted to see his face.

Our infected pursuers had reached the car
accident. I counted at least four now. Lance saw them too.
Practically dropping Brad in the dirt, we turned and sprinted to
the rear wall. Lance arrived first and scaled it with a skillful
leap. I’m not nearly as aerodynamic. Fortunately for me, my partner
thought to stay on top of the wall and extend his arm to help.

It took a moment of struggling against the
abrasive and uneven wall, but I made it over. If I live through
this, I need to lose some goddamned weight. Awaiting us on the
other side of the wall was an empty courtyard which would allow us
a few minutes of recovery before moving on. We jumped from the
ledge at the same time.

The small crowd of reapers was about even
with where Brad lay when we jumped. I don’t think they saw him. Why
pay attention to a dead meal when you can try to feast on the
living? Thank God there was no way the infected could have gotten
past the wall. For the moment we were safe. We were safe and our
friend was dead, face down in the dirt behind some fucking bush
with zombies all around his corpse. How fucked up is that?

I collapsed on a backless wooden bench. Now
the memory from the incident in the parking deck would have some
competition in plaguing my thoughts. I wanted to think that Brad’s
death would be the last horrible memory I’d have to contend with,
if we survived long enough to make it out of the city.

0810 hours:

We spent about ten or so minutes in the courtyard.
Neither of us said a word the entire time. Instead we caught our
breath and gave our bodies a moment to calm down before having to
throw them back into the wringer.

We used every idle second to listen,
attempting to discover whether or not we’d be brunch. We could hear
the small crowd of infected beyond the stone barrier. The wall was
too thick and solid to hear their fists pounding, but that didn’t
mean they were silent. A nauseating chorus of gurgles and moans
painted a vivid picture of the group in my mind. I imagined them
bumping and scraping against the stone, their dead hands pawing at
the abrasive wall until fingertips became bone.

Lance came over and sat on the bench next to
me. We spoke quietly. I doubted anything farther than a few feet
away would be able to hear us over the creatures beyond the
wall.

“You follow right behind me,” he started in
an unflinching and calculated voice. “Keep your sword out and
ready. I’m going to keep my ASP out so we stay quiet. If our quiet
defense doesn’t hold up then I’ll keep the gun drawn.”

I nodded in agreement. The Kukri was already
unsheathed and in my lap. I was running my finger along the blade
testing its sharpness when he came over. “Whenever possible we need
to keep to the walls. We avoid all doorways or inlets. Do you have
any ideas on how to keep us alive?”

This had already been on my mind for days
now. I’d been keeping sort of a mental list of zombie behavioral
observations. As a lifelong dork and
previous
fan of the zombie genre, I had to be sure any
tactical decisions made were the result of my own observations
rather than something I saw in a movie. My voice croaked as I tried
to speak quietly. “I don’t think we need to haul ass. They aren’t
exactly quick. The key will be to avoid any close encount—”

“Like the parking deck? I saw how that fucker
jumped at you,” Lance cut in.

“Exactly. There’s no point in wearing
ourselves out by running all the time. As long as we can stay ahead
of the infected and stay out of any bottle-neck situations I think
we should be alright.” My goal was to sound confident, to allude to
the notion that escaping this city would be as simple as staying in
the open. For a second there I almost believed myself.

Whether or not Lance believed in our chances
remained to be seen. He acknowledged my insight by removing his
ASP. A flick of his wrist extended the baton as he stood from the
bench. In a low voice he said, “Let’s just keep a low profile and
not draw any attention to our position, and don’t forget to look
where you’re walking… I’m not going to be forced to shoot you
too.”

“I appreciate that. Oh and speaking of that,”
I whispered with a grin, “don’t forget to aim for the head… not
that I have to remind you.” This whole end of the world thing has
forced me to give up so much of my own humanity. The last thing I
intend to give up is my twisted sense of humor.

“Asshole...” Lance chuckled. “Let’s just get
the fuck out here.”

I shouldered my bag and strapped it to myself
securely. Stealth was secondary only to survival. There couldn’t be
anything jingling or rattling. We didn’t know the infecteds’
hearing capability, and there was no point in needlessly giving
ourselves away with a damn key jingle.

“Try to keep up, fat ass,” Lance said through
a smile.

“That’s fine, that’s fine. I deserved that.”
I snickered. “Just remember that my knife is bigger than your
stick.”

After a proper display of his middle finger,
nothing more was said for a long time. We had a job to do.

Lance cautiously and intently started our
route. Though I wasn’t a hundred percent sure exactly what that
route would be, I followed closely behind him. I’m sure he had a
basic course set out in his mind, just as I did. The fact of the
matter is that we had no clue what we would come across. Our best
option was to head in a general direction and wing the rest of
it.

To the east of the courtyard was Hibbs Hall,
a fairly large classroom building that served as a cornerstone to
one of the campus’ more populated regions. Beyond the building to
the east were a dining center, several high rise dormitories, and
the rest of downtown Richmond. South of it was the campus library,
student commons, more classroom buildings, a recreational facility,
the downtown expressway, some old trashy neighborhoods and finally
the James River.

There was a good chance that a majority of
the people would be cleared from the campus owned areas since the
campus did close down right before the shit hit the fan. If the
horde around Police Headquarters was any indication, most of the
zombies would flock towards clearly populated areas. With the
university closed, most buildings should be largely empty.

My guess was that we had at least a mile and
a half to traverse. At that point we’d have to find the best way to
cross the water and beyond it, who knew? It clearly was one
enormous obstacle after another.

Hibbs Hall was located at the corner of Park
Avenue and North Linden Street. Park Avenue was an old street with
even older houses that closed to vehicle traffic at the point of
our courtyard. From there, cars continued southbound on Linden
while the remainder of Park became a large pedestrian vein for the
University.

I followed a step behind Lance along the wall
of the old classroom building. Approaching the brick corner, we
became exposed to the west. I anxiously looked down the vehicle
portion of Park Avenue. Thankfully nothing dangerous could be seen.
Lance inched up to the corner to peek around at the wide,
potentially dangerous, pedestrian causeway. After a few seconds, he
silently motioned for me to switch places and look for myself.

The sun had made a little headway in getting
through the clutter in the air. By now we were able to see about as
well as we should have been able to upon leaving West Franklin
Street. Dark clouds still coated the sky. The wind occasionally
blew low accumulations of smoke or ash above us. If viewed in a
photograph the atmosphere could easily be mistaken for preceding a
late-January snow.

I gazed beyond the wall and down the walkway.
My attention immediately went to the four figures standing
motionless maybe two hundred feet past us, and just before them lay
two mangled corpses in pools of carnage. The zombies all faced away
from us and their kill. Although I was thankful for that, I also
found it eerie and confusing. Why were they all looking the same
direction?

I shook it off and looked to their victims.
They had been torn to pieces… just days ago I would have been
nauseated by the sight. The zombies no longer had any interest in
their kill. Additional bloodstains were visible sporadically around
the walkway. Some had red drag marks leading to or from the pools
of crimson, which morbidly indicated their ravenous sprees.

Lance pulled me back from the corner by my
backpack. “We have to get past. Follow at
my
pace. If I run then you run,” he ordered in barely
a whisper. He stepped back in front without any need for my
acknowledgement. With a quick look to ensure the infected were
still looking away he slowly walked out of our cover.

We were completely exposed for maybe
forty-five feet. The distance felt like a mile. I had to watch
Lance to see if he sped up, but it was so hard not to stare at the
undead figures, which were standing just a shout away. The only
movement I could see came from one of the middle creatures. Its jaw
opened and closed like so many of the others I had seen. Sick,
rabid, monstrous. There wasn’t any other way to describe it.

In the moment of distraction the space
between Lance and I grew. He sped up. I had no clue why, but knew I
had to catch up. We were at a jog by the time the distance had been
cleared. A parked SUV served as suitable cover just beyond the
expanse.

Lance came to a stop ducked behind the large
car on the street’s side. I took the hint and ended at a crouch.
After catching my breath I cautiously peered back at the
infected.

All four had turned towards us. They remained
still. I don’t think they saw us. Now, I could clearly see every
sickening jaw snapping at nothing. A wet, percussive gurgle
emanated from the group, raspy moans accenting the clatter of dead
teeth chattering. For once, I don’t think my imagination was
filling in the blanks.

I froze upon seeing the quartet of unholy,
rotting eyes. We could have been surrounded by an infected horde
and my attention still would have been focused on the group ahead.
Sensing this, Lance tugged on my shirt and motioned with his head
that we needed to keep moving. I followed him at a crouching run.
Running on the street itself may not have been the wisest course of
action, but it seemed like a better option than risking exposure to
the curious group behind us.

At the end of the block Linden ended at Floyd
Avenue. Beyond it, the street continued as another pedestrian
walkway that cut a path through some of the largest classroom
buildings and student areas. Normally the notion of running through
an area as bustling with activity would be a death wish. My hope
was that the evacuated campus would provide safe passage. Assuming
all went well, Linden Street should take us to the outskirts of
campus all the way to the Downtown Expressway. A mile or two past
the expressway and we would reach the river.