The Reaper Virus (20 page)

In reality the creature was already on the
ground and my Kukri was lodged in its skull, like a head on a pike.
My left hand let go and the right maintained its permanent grip.
His black eyes stared blankly at me. The only motion coming from
him was from my pulling on the blade trying to free it. If this
didn’t end soon I would end up vomiting on the bastard too. Somehow
that felt like overkill.

I shook and pulled on the Kukri. It moved
very little from where it protruded at the lower part of its
forehead down between his eyes and along the bridge of his nose. At
least he was quiet now and dead…again. After a second I couldn’t
take it anymore. I couldn’t bear the putrid sight and couldn’t
waste any more time here.

My grip on the handle loosened enough to
reposition. The sole of my right boot met his face and pushed out.
Between the push of my foot and the pull of my arm the blade freed
itself. The sound it made coming out was enough to send my stomach
over the limit. I turned away from the pathetic, infected corpse
and spewed blue Gatorade vomit all over the sidewalk.

Both hands were trembling; the Kukri shook
with my arm. It was coated in black muck all the way to the curving
center of the blade. Imagine the way a kitchen knife looks after
you spread peanut butter. Only the peanut butter was black
God-only-knows-what and the jar was a walking dead man’s skull.
This brought on a fit of dry heaving. I could have curled up in a
ball right there. Every inch of my body hurt. Saying that I felt
tired would be an understatement.

Towards the university I heard a bang
followed by a car alarm… one of them must have set it off. This was
enough of a cue to keep moving. I went over to the crippled,
actually dead, zombie. Thank God he was face down now in a small
pool of oily black. I bent over and wiped the Kukri on his dirty
pea coat. It wasn’t clean, but it made looking at the weapon less
stomach churning.

Reverence had no place here. I gave the
one-limbed corpse a nod and jogged to the next block, only stopping
when I couldn’t see the crime scene I had just left beyond the
obstructions. My lungs were burning already, and I would have to
walk at a purposeful, cautious pace going forward. If I wasn’t
careful, there wouldn’t be any energy in me to use if I had to go
in a hurry.

Now that I was traveling along Hollywood
Cemetery I had something pleasant to look at. Gazing through the
wrought iron fence I was captivated by the solemn beauty of
monuments from another era. It also made me wish I could have found
a way over the fence to walk through the grounds. I was sad and
amused that the idea of walking through that graveyard was so much
more appealing than walking through
this
graveyard. Fortunately, the area I was in wasn’t highly
trafficked.

It wasn’t long before I could see a change in
the road ahead. I stopped to catch my breath and evaluate the new
development. There was an older model Dodge pickup missing a
tailgate two car lengths up. I climbed aboard the truck to get a
better vantage point. Fortunately the clunker was too old to have
an alarm – any newer truck would have been blaring away with my fat
ass climbing on it.

It was the first time on my journey that I
was flanked by trees on both sides. It was a small but peaceful
piece of road. The tiny grouping of trees, east and west, provided
a sense of false security as I looked to the road ahead. From what
I could tell, the road completely ended three-quarters of a block
up. Beyond it was a sloping ravine peppered by some small trees,
bushes, rocks and crap I didn’t want to walk across. To the left
was another street that provided an outlet for any cars. The fence
for Hollywood Cemetery followed the gap seemingly without
interruption.

I was frustrated by the diversion, but was
left with little recourse. Then my attention caught something else.
In front of the final row of houses were bodies… enough bodies to
raise an eyebrow. None of them looked to be moving. They were
scattered around from the sidewalk to the street in no particular
order. I wondered if it had something to do with the gunshot I
heard a little while before. I wracked my brain trying to remember
every detail of the sound that snapped me away from daydreaming
earlier. Directionally it fit, but I only heard one shot, and there
were easily a dozen bodies.

I opted to sit in the truck bed and rest for
a moment. Although I might not know what waited ahead of me, I
wouldn’t handle it well in my current state. Ten minutes to sit,
listen and rehydrate would do me a world of good.

1327 hours:

My break was a silent one, with few sounds beyond my
breathing and gulping. Occasionally a distant reminder of chaos
would break the peace of the moment. Holding still for a few
minutes can do a world of good for the post-apocalyptic escape
artist. I had finally caught my breath and retained some fluids.
The bed of a truck had never been so comfortable. It took extreme
willpower to not pass out on top of the leaves that had collected
there.

I wished that I had brought a different
jacket. My uniform jacket had patches on it that made me look like
law enforcement. Even though I know it was just my paranoia, the
police appearance made me feel noticeable. Really, my active pulse
was all I needed to be noticed.

The area around the truck was clear. I
dismounted the truck bed and took hesitant steps toward the array
of bodies. This was a scenario where my recent desensitization to
grisly sight proved useful.

There wasn’t much point in counting them. As
long as all remained “dead” I didn’t care how many of them littered
the ground. The closer I got, the more disgusted I became. Corpses
in unnatural final positions lay everywhere. The ones I
could
bring myself to look at directly
showed obvious signs of cranial damage. Gore spattered near their
bodies led me to believe that the re-fatal wounds came from a
bullet or two.

I stopped at the fringe of this hallowed
ground. A foot beyond laid a female cadaver that was perfectly
faced-down in her own spilled undead blood. Looking around, I
confirmed there wasn’t any way to bypass the killing field. About
two houses past the last bodies was the break in the road.
Squinting, I could see the road pick up again after the ravine.
That was good news. If need be, I could hike through the dip in the
terrain and avoid any detours.

On the other side of the dead woman I became
overwhelmed by the sick game of “mine sweeper” I had to play.
Slowly and carefully I started across the area of corpses. I tried
to focus more on where I was putting my feet. Doing this kept me
from looking at the violent crimes I was walking past. Hopefully,
I’d detect any movement from them in my peripheral vision – God
knows I wasn’t looking for it any other way.

It all changed when I was about halfway
through. The corpse to my left looked like it was in the middle of
a stretch routine before working out. The zombie’s torso was
twisted awkwardly so that his legs were down like he was on his
back, but then twisted for him to be on his side. It twisted to
face west, in the direction of the cemetery, towards me. I was
spared looking into his face, because there wasn’t anything left.
In fact, I only assume it was male in life because the clothing was
fairly androgynous and the face was missing from hairline to chin.
Behind the stomach churning wound was a blend of blackened innards
that seeped from the gape like Jell-O in an overturned mold.

The same moment my throat filled with vomit
from looking too closely the abomination lurched forward. His
position lost its awkwardness as the corpse violently flipped over
to his stomach. The sudden movement startled me so much that I
could have missed the crack from the rifle that caused it. A bullet
impacted the zombie on his right shoulder, the one not pressed
against the pavement, and its subsequent forced caused the body to
turn. It was surprising that my pants leg didn’t get covered in
organic mist from the wound. If that happened to a living creature
I would have been coated in biological spray.

My brain raced to process what had just
happened.
Wait...
- even my thoughts
sounded out of breath -
That was a fucking
gunshot!
I threw my arms up in the air. The Kukri, in all
its filthy glory, went right up over my head with my arms.

“Don’t shoot!” Screaming was a bad idea. All
the work I had done to remain incognito went to hell in a second,
but when a rotting corpse moves towards you because of a bullet
that was fired
at you
… well I don’t think
I could be faulted for yelling. “I’m not one of them… I’m
ALIVE
.”

I saw the pattern then. All the bodies were
scattered in a way that indicated they had been moving towards that
point in the street. That point being the one in front of a house
that had someone alive barricaded inside. It just so happened that
the person was armed and either was a great marksman or had a ton
of ammunition.

Frantically, I looked at the house, my
pleading glances searching for someone to show that I wasn’t
infected. The house’s third floor had a tiny window. Every other
window and door was heavily boarded. Under normal circumstances the
house would look like it was condemned, rather than defended. The
small ovum shape of a window looked like maybe it was a vent for an
attic or something. I thought I saw the glint of a rifle scope peek
through the darkness within. The awning and flower planters beneath
the window were littered with spent shell casings.

“Please! I’m with the police!” I used my
non-weaponized hand to point to the large patch on my jacket.
Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad about not having a different jacket
to wear. “I’m just trying to get home to my—”

My desperate calls got cut short. The first
shot that hit the corpse was my warning shot. The next was meant
for my head. It cut through the air so close to my left ear that it
popped from the disturbance in pressure. Pleading wasn’t going to
work. This person was going to take me out - zombie or not. I threw
caution to the wind and ran faster than I thought possible, each
step wider than the next. I had to practically jump to avoid the
corpses littered around.

Another crack from the rifle echoed
menacingly from the sniper’s nest. The round missed me and hit the
wrought iron fence for Hollywood Cemetery. Its impact made a sound
like a gong. Ricocheting, it went through the rear passenger side
window of the white two-door Saturn parked a few feet ahead. I’d
have been more pissed off that the person was still shooting at me
even though I was running away if I wasn’t scared completely
shitless.

Adrenaline carried me through the bodies and
to the guard rail for the ravine. I was in such a rush that I
didn’t even notice the street detour to the left. At full speed I
leapt over the rail and tumbled down the hill on the other side. It
was a miracle I didn’t lose any of my things on the crash course
down the hill. If I had hit one of the trees or other obstacles I
would have probably killed myself. My momentum ceased after I had
tumbled down a majority of the downward slope where a holly tree
broke my fall.

I hurt everywhere. The fear that one of them
had followed me down the hill or that one was waiting for me at the
bottom overcame any pain. Tiny pinpricks from my spiny leafed
resting place kept my focus to the immediate area.

I rolled out of the bush and leapt to my
feet, the Kukri never leaving my grip. Trying to regain my balance,
I pushed it against a tree and remained still long enough for my
vision to stabilize. I frantically spun around looking for the
undead that had to be waiting for me. Not scoping out an area
before literally diving into it was just plain stupid. My inner
pessimist was convinced that this ravine would become my grave.

After an anxious moment, I finally exhaled. I
was alone. Thank God the gunshots had stopped. An eerie peace
covered this break in the road. Relief at the lack of immediate
peril made room for the pain to be felt and boy did I ever feel
it.

My chest was filled with a dull ache. Sharp
pangs made their way through the generalized pain with any deep
breath. “Shit. I bet I cracked a rib or two,” I grumbled to myself.
There were small abrasions over parts of my exposed skin that
joined their stinging into a combined irritation.

The world looked blurry and my eyes burned. I
hadn’t released the Kukri from the safety of my fist since hopping
the fence at Cary Street field. With a tender respect I inserted
the blade into the dirt so that I could gather myself. I leaned
against a tree and took off my pack to rummage through it. My eyes
still stung. Even with the low temperatures I was sweating like it
was July.

Water had never tasted so divine. I found a
semi-clean undershirt in my bag to wipe down with. It seemed unwise
to clean myself off with anything that could be contaminated, like
my sleeve or shirt. I took the shirt to my brow in hopes of
restoring my sight. I was astonished when the shirt returned soaked
in blood. Using my hand I searched every crack and crevice of my
forehead. Everything I touched was numb and tingly from exposure to
the biting winds. It didn’t take long to follow the slick of my
blood to the gash above my left eyebrow.

Trying not to think about the bacteria my
“clean” shirt could be harboring, I used it to apply pressure to my
forehead. I was more worried about the numbness in the area. The
more I pressed, the more I
felt
the wound.
After a couple of minutes I pulled the shirt back. It was soaked in
my blood. How strange that I found my red blood comforting. God
knows it was better than the black blood I’d been seeing so much of
lately.