The Reaper Virus (28 page)

Sounds from the Powhite Bridge disappeared
beneath the babbling rapids beneath me. I was so thankful to only
listen to the James River instead of the death floating downstream.
It took constant self-reminders to not glance in the direction of
the bus. Even though I didn’t see what had taken place a couple of
hours before, I knew enough to not want visual confirmation.

Today was destined to be completely foreign.
The only thing I had to be sure of was that by the end of the day I
would be in the arms of my loved ones. I’d follow the tracks until
I reached Hull Street. If the R33PR viral epidemic was any
indication, prayer was now a futile exercise. However, right then,
praying was all I could think to do.

I clasped both hands together over my chest.
Beneath the repenting grip, pain reminded me of the cracked bones
within. None of it mattered. I ignored the ache and I pleaded to
God. Regardless of the abominable things I had done I was desperate
for a chance at salvation. “Just deliver me home, Lord,” I prayed
aloud. “Judge me for what I have done later. Let me save my family
now. Bring me home. Bring me home and then hold me accountable for
the sins I have committed and likely will commit.” Dehydration
allotted a small trickle of tears down my filthy, stubble-covered
face.

My throat was dry and my stomach growled. In
my current state I wouldn’t make it far. I found the last bottle of
clean water towards the bottom of the survival pack. There was one
left, but it was filled a lifetime ago with Lance at the Cary
Street Field. Drinking this was to be a last resort. It was
probably just fine, but after all that had happened I’d be damned
if drinking tainted city water was what got me infected. I sipped
the clean bottle, hoping to retain every drop.

The November morning air was cruelly brisk.
Other than the supplies, my pack was stuffed with a few changes of
clothes. By then I was wearing all of them. Only the few that
became contaminated one way or another were exempt from this
layering. My stomach ached. A bubbling groan competed with my pain
killer-battered stomach lining. Breakfast seemed like a good
idea.

I slowly ate a Nutri-Grain bar and a little
bag of pretzels. Sustenance can be wonderfully humanizing. The nook
I had been resting in began to feel comfortable. Although I told
myself this was only because my ass was so numb from the cold. I
thought it would have been the undead that interrupted this
peacefully twisted morning campout, but it was the call of nature
that disrupted my rest.

A day worth of sweating and occasional
vomiting just about made me forget that there were other ways to
get rid of fluids. It had taken me so long to get to a state of
comfort that I didn’t want to get up. My hand explored the bottom
of the pack and emerged with an empty Gatorade bottle. Necessity
made all motions frantic. When you’ve got to go - you’ve got to
go.

I filled the bottle and capped it quickly. A
smirk formed over my chapped lips. All the time I drove on the
Powhite Bridge and looked over at these tracks I never once thought
about peeing on it. The truth was that I was disappointed to not be
going over the side into the water.

I moved the bottle on top of the railroad tie
next to my nook. Then the survival instinct kicked in again. I was
sleeping several stories above a raging river in mid-November and
there was a heated object sitting beside me. I sighed and grabbed
the cylinder of urine. Lifting up a few layers, I tucked it
securely by my chest. Immediate heat soothed the aching area. That
was not a proud moment, but desperate times call for desperate
measures.

* * *

0715 hours:

According to the time, the sun came up a
little while ago. Looking at the sky one would think it just
started to turn into day. For the second day in a row I have been
thrown off by the tainted post-apocalyptic sunrise. There was so
much crap in the air I wondered if I’d ever see a normal sky
again.

I started the pre-battle routine I used in
the secure house on Franklin Street. My muscles were sore and
tense. Hopefully the last two pain killers I downed a few minutes
before would start to limber me up. What I really needed to do was
to stand up and move around. The thought of doing this frightened
me to no end. I had been lying down since what happened with Phil.
Standing up would tempt me with looking either way over the bridge.
One direction I’d have to see the unspeakable horror of the bus. In
the other direction I might look down and see some remnants of the
man I killed.

A wave of nausea passed over me. Remnants of
my crime remained on the murder weapon. The precious life saver
that had served me so well in battling the undead still remained
caked in Phil’s blood. I used the tainted bottle of water to loosen
the dried coating. It took several minutes of scrubbing with the
same shirt turned
infected-blood-cleaning-rag
to see the silver shimmer.
The shirt was a soiled clump of evidence; I threw it to the river.
Then I rinsed my beloved Kukri off once more, before propping it
against the rail to dry. There was more to do before I could leave
here. Daylight was returning quickly and I should be moving in
minutes. The “chest warmer” lost any appeal after twenty minutes of
use. It cooled and returned to being gross. I tightened its lid and
set it atop the rail tie with the intention of disposal once I
started walking. All the layers I wore lightened the pack and it
became much more manageable.

While shifting, my pant leg caught on a
wooden splinter. The fabric pulled up slightly and revealed the
layer of duct tape underneath. I ran my fingernails along the
smooth contours of the area. After a second, I felt comforted by
the bump of the plastic wrapped memory card. That night I recorded
goodbye messages to everyone seemed like another life. My skin
tingled to the touch. I doubt the tape on my forehead or shin would
come off easily when all this was done. That trek through hell
would leave me with deep scars – both inside and out.

I’d been moving around like a disabled
jackass for a while now… it was time to stand up. I slowly got to
my feet. Internally I felt death would come from looking to the
north or south. In reality all that would be seen in those
directions was death. Every stiff joint made sure to remind me of
their objection to traveling. I worked my arms through the straps
and felt confident in their security. The Kukri stayed in its right
gripped home. Its scabbard hung close enough for me to stow the
weapon in an emergency. I painfully stretched back and confirmed
the crowbar was at the ready.

Following the tracks, my eyes looked behind
me without glancing to the side. The landscape was illuminated well
enough to see the end of the vacated bridge. In front of me I
happily observed the same. Around the equivalent of a half block up
the land embraced the tracks again. Gazing beyond the tree line I
could see haze, but little else.

It was so odd to look in a direction and know
that safety lay somewhere beyond it. There were no words that could
express how badly I wanted to be under a roof and in my own bed,
but as I stared at the misty bridge’s end I felt only egregious
fear. I could only compare it to standing on the crossroads between
levels of hell. To my front was horror that could prevent me from
reaching the ones I love. Behind was an urban wasteland that would
harbor no peace.

I began my trek along the bridge. Walking
inside the gravel blanketed area between the parallel rails
eliminated any temptation to look over the side. I’d never had a
problem with heights; I just didn’t care to see what was beneath
me. My morbid imaginative side was curious to look down at the
water. However, seeing the James River from the banks cascading
with death was an experience I’d like to forget. I doubted the view
would be much better from above. It was hard to believe that only
twenty-four hours before, I was venturing out into this pandemonium
with Brad and Lance. Since then I’d been through things no one ever
should. The gravity of having to watch Lance kill Brad was still
blocked behind a protective mental wall. I just hoped that I was
safe the moment I felt the full weight of what happened on Franklin
Street. If I were to allow myself to feel it all then, I doubted
I’d make it home.

My eyes had witnessed so, so much death.
Death walked everywhere now. Not just in those that succumbed to
the Reaper virus, but in
me
. Each step I
took carried a shadow of death. The black blood of the undead and
Phil’s troubled life would never be washed from my hands. I refused
to forget the faces of those I had turned my blade on. Those
remorseful memories were the only things that separated me now from
the reapers.

I was about to toss my bathroom bottle aside
when thirty feet from land something caught my attention. I don’t
know what it was, but it caused me to glance left over my shoulder
in the direction of the city. There was too much haze in the air to
see any outlines of the buildings. All I could see was the
billowing plumes of smoke rising from the landscape. It was good to
be walking away from Richmond. If those fires continued, I doubted
the city would last much longer. I looked at the smoky columns and
felt like I was at a wake for a friend. In the movies these times
of reverence always get the characters to say something
meaningful.

“This is pointless,” I said aloud to myself.
“What’s the point of a eulogy in hell?”

Something made me look down at the water.
That familiar pit in my stomach returned with a vengeance. It was
an abominable sight. Bodies traveled with the current like fallen
autumn leaves. Each discolored corpse moved at the will of the
rapids. They hit rocks, logs, the stone landings rising from the
waves and each other. Some moved and others remained still
human-shaped rafts. There was no regular interval at which they
came. The ultimate horror came from trying to imagine how they
ended up in the James to begin with. I wondered if I happened to
look at a point when an unusual flood passed or if this was the
normal amount. Once I recognized the splashing of zombies toppling
the guard rail of the westerly Powhite Bridge my wondering
lessened.

I stared for a few minutes completely
transfixed by the once human driftwood. Transfixed as I was, I
didn’t dare look down to the area where Phil fell. No level of
curiosity could tempt me with a chance sight of the man I killed.
Fortunately, the river was so wide I would have to intentionally
look in the area he landed to see it. So many happy memories came
from this body of water. Why is it that those memories will be
sullied by this last view? Now I’d never think of the James River
as anything other than a flow of evil.

Something closer pulled me away from my
trance. There was a more distinct splashing sound that combined
with a frustrated moan. I looked down and saw an infected male
snagged on some debris. He saw me and started splashing around in
frenzy. That one was fresher than the others. The creature was
completely nude, injuries peppering his mottled skin. Its level of
motion and awareness indicated that life left him recently. A rope
was tangled around his arm. The current continued to carry him, but
the rope would not release. This pushed him against the pile of
debris and somehow secured him there permanently. He looked up and
snarled a shattered smile.

I knew I had to keep moving, but some part of
this angered me. These infected creatures were so set in their
desire to eat me that any details preventing the meal become a moot
point. Even though he was a few stories down, naked, tangled and
battered by the ungodly waves, that bastard was still trying to get
to me.

“Fuck off, you ugly shit!” I realized this
was not my proudest moment, but I didn’t care. “You’re not going to
eat me! You can’t even get out of there. Enjoy your Jacuzzi, you
zombie asshole!” For whatever reason, I had been carrying the
Gatorade bottle mostly filled with my urine. I switched hands and
impetuously threw the bottle as hard as I could. It careened off
the ledge and splashed next to the anchored beast.

If someone had asked me last Thursday what
I’d be doing this Thursday, I doubt my answer would have been –
“throwing a bottle of my pee off a train bridge at a naked zombie.”
I nervously laughed aloud. This decaying life was no better than
complete insanity. My feet kept crunching away past the reach of
the river. I didn’t look behind at the distancing bridge. There was
no point in looking back any longer. The crimes and victims of
Richmond were now part of my past. Looking back would only be
chancing my own fate. Sarah and the kids were the only fate I
should be focusing on now.

* * *

0838 hours:

The last hour or so of walking were the most
frighteningly peaceful I’d experienced in a week. I did my best to
ignore the sporadic sounds of chaos that made their way to me.
Occasionally I’d hear gunshots, distant screams, car alarms hinting
at nearby paved deathtraps. I ignored them for the crunching sound
of the gravel beneath my dirty black boots.

In the post-apocalyptic world I’d been shown
that peace could not last more than an hour. The ground shook. I
froze and listened. My mind raced with possible causes for the
tremor. There was only one time I felt anything like it, and that
was during an actual earthquake. Back in my aborted college years I
made few attempts at studying. My final attempt was cut short when
the ground shook from one of Richmond’s rare minor earthquakes. I
saw this as an omen that my time would be better spent at the
billiard table.

I stood petrified by what could be going on.
Questions bombarded my confidence in a vain attempt to justify this
development. Was it an undead horde so large that their stampede
could shake the ground? Did God decide to wipe the Earth clean and
start over? Did the Government activate some nuclear contingency
plan attempting containment? Curse my imagination for making every
attempt at unnerving me in this vulnerable place.