Threnody (Book 1) (12 page)

In general, the passing landscape did not bear the same telltale scars of destruction they witnessed at the airport.  Aside from a couple of abandoned vehicles along the road, the stretch of rural intrastate just outside the airport seemed otherwise unmarred by the nightmarish plague.

Quietly hopeful, Reams wondered whether this might mean that the authorities experienced some measure of success in their efforts to contain the plague.

John, on the other hand, was silently thankful that this stretch of intrastate ran through a fairly rural, unpopulated area, knowing this likely meant less chance of encountering large numbers of infected.  He was, however, simultaneously fearful about what they might find in a few short miles when they entered the city.

For the time being, within the relative safety of the truck cab, the two survivors did not speak.  Instead, both men were content to reflect on their own divergent thoughts as they traversed the dark, still pavement – devoid of all traces of life and death. The combined stress, as well as the impossibility of what they had weathered at the airport, left them both mentally and physically exhausted and, unfortunately, oblivious to the maelstrom into which they were about plunge headlong.

What neither of them knew was that when the police barricade was set up near the bridge a couple of miles away in a futile attempt to curtail travel and quarantine possible infected, a makeshift containment center was also erected nearby.  The ‘center,’ which was actually little more than a haphazardly constructed enclosure comprised of portable sections of chain link fence with a few tents and awnings inside, had been hurriedly constructed well before the local authorities had any real idea of the severity of the tempest of death swirling down upon them.  As ordered, the deputies manning the barricade separated those individuals showing any signs of attack or injury and redirected them to the center.  The medical personnel within, who looked over-prepared to head into the next African hot zone to investigate an Ebola outbreak, dutifully tended to their injuries as they listened to what they were certain were the psychotic ramblings of individuals affected by some sort of chemical exposure.  Amongst themselves, they decided that the violent tales of vicious attacks and even cannibalism could be explained no other way.

Within hours the small makeshift structure was well over its intended capacity, with over two hundred ‘injured’ travelers already diverted to the enclosure.  The overcrowding, mixed with the overall feeling of panicked chaos flowing through the enclosure like an electric current, made the ensuing attacks within even more difficult to detect and, thus, to avoid.  By the time Cedric spoke to his brother from the bridge via cellphone, nearly every occupant of the ill-fated center was already infected and shambling about like morbific vectors of the plague of Hell itself. 

As the numbers of infected swelled within the confines of the containment center, the proximity of so many uninfected travelers incited a veritable feeding frenzy. The hastily constructed and woefully inadequate chain link walls readily buckled under the pressure of those hungrily trying to reach the buffet parading past them.  Carnage beset carnage as the malefic plague multiplied exponentially in mere minutes.  When no more uninfected remained, the horde – now over three hundred strong – continued to mill about with the apparent randomness of leaves blowing down the sidewalk under the force of a gentle breeze.  It was not until a terrific high-pitched sound punctuated the night sky, shattering the fragile silence and garnering the attention of all of the infected for miles, that the mass began to move with renewed purpose.  With a level of synchronization that seemed almost rehearsed, the mass turned in unison and began to trudge toward the sound they all would have recognized as a train horn before the infection erased such memories from their diseased brains.

Now, as the early morning sun climbed slowly above the distant horizon and the first rays of pre-dawn light peeked through the darkness like a nosy neighbor peering through the blinds, the tenebrific storm ahead of them continued to build steam.  It fed on all in its path, and at present was on a collision course with the fleeing truck of the unaware men.

Chapter 14

October 3, 2015

Reams drove cautiously, keeping his speed below thirty miles per hour, both to minimize vehicle noise and to allow ample time for surveillance of the environment around them.  They would continue on this road for approximately thirteen miles at which time they would turn west and drive an additional four miles into the town.  For now, the predominately rural landscape remained mercifully quiet as the two survivors drove in silence.  A few miles before the bridge where the police barricade had been established was the interstate junction that would take them toward the city.

“It would probably be best to pass the interstate and take the back roads running parallel between it and the Tombigbee River.  If what your brother said was true, then larger roads like the interstate are likely to be impassable snarls of traffic,” said John. 

Though Reams desperately wanted to know what happened to Cedric, he nodded his head in agreement.

About five miles north of the airport, they encountered the first hard sign that hinted at how the outside world was faring.  An abandoned minivan with all four doors ajar sat motionless with various items strewn across the surrounding pavement as though it had been disemboweled. Its occupants were nowhere in sight, and both men had an uneasy feeling about the implications of that fact.  The outside of the silver Dodge Caravan was smeared with blood along the driver’s side, and the windows were so caked with the blood and dirt of hundreds of ghoulish handprints that you could not see inside the van without the doors open.  After a brief survey of the scene from the safety of the truck cab, the two agreed there was no compelling reason to investigate the vehicle any further.  Had John happened upon such a scene just twenty-four hours ago, he would have been out of the vehicle in an instant, trying desperately to help anyone injured, and frantically calling for the assistance of emergency services.  Today, he did little more than glance around the scene before straightening in his seat without another thought on the matter.  With this realization, a tear nearly broke free as he considered how quickly he had changed. Indeed, the world changed, and he hoped it was not a sign of things to come.

Along the next few miles of rural road beyond the doomed minivan, they encountered several more vehicles in similar states—broken and abandoned.  They saw no people, living or otherwise, with any of the vehicles that were now the sole, unspeaking witnesses to the horrors that occurred in their midst.  The lack of conversation, and the sense of safety and security afforded by the truck, caused John’s thoughts to shift from his immediate survival to his family and their survival.  The last conversation he had with his wife and daughter replayed verbatim in his mind as he tried think past it to focus on better times.  Abruptly, he shifted to reach into his back pocket, and retrieved his wallet containing a single small, crinkled, and dog-eared photograph amidst the other contents.  John couldn’t help but smile as he recalled how his wife had chided him about the photograph, saying, “What, are we still in the ’90s? Who carries photos in their wallet?” as she pointed to her iPhone with its seemingly endless photo capacity.

The tear that had been threatening to come finally did—first pooling along the margin of his lower eyelid, then overflowing and sliding down his eyelashes, where it perched precariously for the briefest of moments before finally breaking free.  It tumbled peacefully through the void across which John stared longingly at the ratty photograph before violently crashing and shattering upon impact with the picture.  John wiped the tear from the photograph as he took note of every detail of the two beautiful females in the picture.  They were locked in an embrace that looked strong enough to withstand even the ravages of this brutal plague.  Both women faced the camera, and John was again amazed by how much his daughter, Ava, resembled his wife.  At age eleven, she stood a mere six inches shorter than Rebecca.  They shared the same curly natural blonde hair, though his wife rarely wore hers curly anymore.  Their high cheek-boned faces carried a subtle but fierce intensity that was only slightly softened by their alluring smiles.  Her smile was one of the primary features that drew John to Rebecca when he first saw her all those years ago. Seeing the same smile on his little girl’s face caused him more than one sleepless night, as he pondered the implications it would carry as his little girl grew into a beautiful young woman.  While Rebecca’s eyes were a brilliant steel blue color, his daughter’s eyes were emerald green and seemed to sparkle as if they contained traces of the precious gem itself.  He wondered if there would have come a time when he would have been unable to tell the two apart or if the ever-advancing hands of time would have always kept his wife one step ahead of his daughter. 

Reams took notice of John, who seemed lost in thought as he ran his finger lightly over the two individuals in the worn photograph.  “Hey buddy, you all right?” asked Reams.

He was pleased to see a smile crease John’s face as he tapped the picture thoughtfully before turning toward him, and saying, “My wife and kid.”

“May I see?” asked Reams, feeling a little sheepish about prying into his new friend’s personal life.

“Sure,” replied John as he handed the photo to Reams.

Reams studied it thoughtfully, immediately noticing just how much the two looked alike as well.

“They’re beautiful, John.  They could almost be twin sisters,” said Reams with a sincere smile as he handed the precious photograph back to John.

John returned the photograph to its proper place, and said, “You know it all just seems so impossible—that anything could destroy so much of humanity in such a brief period of time.  It’s simply beyond comprehension.  I keep thinking that any moment I’ll wake up and…”

John’s words were interrupted as a sudden bang erupted from the front of the vehicle, followed by a fierce shudder that caused the big man to jerk the wheel involuntarily to the right, as his eyes snapped back to the center.  The two men caught a momentary glimpse of the source of the sound, as a dark, bloody wraith of a man wearing a construction hardhat was violently sucked under the truck’s tires.  The ensuing loss of traction coupled with Reams’ startled overcompensation had the undesirable effect of sending the truck skidding dangerously toward the left shoulder of the old two-lane road.

Up until that instant they had not seen another human, pre- or post-obitum, since they embarked on their wayward journey away from the airport.  In addition to the thing that disappeared beneath the truck, John now thought he saw at least three others that exhibited the unmistakably awkward incoordination of the infected.  John doubted Reams noticed them, as he was busy trying to reassert some degree of control over the large truck.  Before he was able to ask, John experienced the unpleasant sensation of being viciously slammed into the seatbelt as it locked hard against his sudden forward momentum.

Steam hissed and rose in rivulets from beneath the crumpled hood before disappearing into the veil of fog hovering in the cool morning air.  The tree was so embedded in the front of the truck that it appeared as though the hood had been manufactured around its trunk.

“John! John, get up buddy we have to go!” Reams pleaded as he smacked John’s face, desperately trying to rouse him. 

John stirred and flinched away from the big man before mumbling, “Why the hell are you hitting me so damn hard
?
” 

“Sorry, John, but we need to move,
now
!  Are you hurt badly?” asked Reams.  There was a two-inch gash extending obliquely across John’s forehead from just above his right eyebrow to about an inch below his hairline, but Reams could see no other obvious injuries.  The dazed man’s face was so covered in blood Reams felt certain John must have other injuries that he was not able to identify.

“Never better,” replied John with a wince, “what happened?”

“That tree happened,” said Reams as he pointed through the shattered windshield now adorned with a thousand spider webs.  “I’ll tell you all about it later, but now we need to get going.  There are few revs about fifty yards away and heading toward us.  Can you walk?” added Reams as he tried to free the latch on John’s jammed seatbelt. After a short struggle, the big man emerged victorious as he felt the tension on the restraint release, followed by a low hiss indicating that John’s chest wall once again expanded allowing his lungs to reclaim some of their former ventilatory capacity.

“Yeah, just help me out of this heap, will you?” gasped John over the clear undercurrent of pain.

As they clambered out of the truck, they found the bed of the truck empty.  The packs with their meager supplies were nowhere to be found.  After a brief, unsuccessful search of the scene, they started on foot in the direction they had been driving.  They were thankful to see the interstate junction through the distant, early morning haze.  As an afterthought, Reams quickly retrieved the first aid kit he had stowed under the back seat of his truck.  He recalled questioning why he needed the supplies after he purchased the kit on a whim, but was now thankful he had done so.  While the scuffling infected could not be clearly seen through the fog, they still sounded as if they were a good distance behind them.  Reams silently hoped they were heading toward the sound of the smashed truck rather than toward their fleeing forms.

After trudging for about a quarter of a mile through fog so thick it seemed to physically impede their progress, John had to stop.  His head was still bleeding, though not as profusely as he had been holding pressure on the laceration since they started walking.  Reams offered the first aid kit in his hand, as John said, “Reams, unless you have a mirror, I need you to help me dress this wound.”

Looking paler than John would have thought possible, Reams replied with uncertainty, “Okay, tell me what to do.” 

John settled himself on the trunk of a fallen tree and rifled through the veritable treasure trove of first aid supplies, laying a few items aside before closing the small case.

John cleaned his hands with the alcohol hand sanitizer from the kit; Reams did the same.  He took the small bottle of peroxide and doused several gauze pads before gingerly cleaning the wound on his forehead.  Removing the gauze, he noted the wound was still bleeding, though only slightly. It looked like venous bleeding, and he was thankful the injury had not been an inch or so to the side, where it might have led to an injury to his superficial temporal artery.  Handing Reams a small packet of Celox, a topical hemostatic powder, he instructed him to pour some of it into the depths of the wound.  After holding pressure for another minute or so, John dried the skin around the wound and handed Reams the small package of butterfly bandages designed to hold the skin edges together.  John was pleasantly surprised to find the last two items in the kit—a small ampule of benzoin and a 2 x 4 inch occlusive dressing.  Cracking the ampule, he dabbed the pleasant smelling liquid on the skin around the wound.  It dried in seconds, and Reams applied the butterfly strips and occlusive dressing over the now clean, hemostatic wound.

“All right, that should do it.  Let’s get moving, that truck won’t hold their attention forever,” said John with noticeable strength returning to his voice.  At that instant, John caught a glimpse of a slow moving shape in a clearing on the opposite side of the road, partially enshrouded in the morning mist that was only just beginning to burn off.  Turning to Reams, John noticed his friend looked as if he had seen something as well. Unfortunately, Reams was staring back in the direction from which they had come.

As his brain registered confirmation of the straggling creature in the distance, Reams half-shouted, “Dammit! They’re already following us!”

John watched as the thing on the opposite side of the road suddenly staggered to a halt, turning its feral gaze toward the sound of the man it had just heard. Rising to his feet as he pointed across the road, John exclaimed, “Oh shit!” Not wasting another moment, the two men moved quickly and quietly into the steadily clearing fog. 

“We need to find some weapons,” whispered Reams, as they tried to put some distance between themselves and their relentless pursuers.

John had not realized he was empty-handed until Reams’ statement, and he suddenly felt extremely vulnerable.  Not seeing any revs in their immediate vicinity, the two began surveying their surroundings looking for anything they could use as a weapon.  John tried unsuccessfully to break a rather large tree limb into a size suitable for a melee weapon.  The soreness in his arms and shoulders, particularly his right shoulder, made it difficult to do much with his upper body.

Reams wandered about fifteen yards away to where he saw another abandoned vehicle on the side of the road.  He smiled as he rounded the vehicle to the passenger side and noticed that the former owners of the vehicles had been in the process of changing one of the car’s tires when they abandoned it.  A sizable breaker bar as well as a smaller lug wrench lay next to the bottle jack that currently held the old Buick up on three wheels.  Glancing through the open window of the old car, Reams saw a motionless corpse belted in the front passenger seat.  It was in such bad condition that it was impossible to tell if it had been a man or woman in life.  Regardless, it appeared to be dead in the original sense of the word.  It also appeared that the carrion scavengers had claimed their share as there were small piles of bird shit and feathers scattered throughout the inside of the vehicle.  Reams wondered if that meant anything about the state of the person before death. 
Would the scavengers eat a rev after it was put down?  If so, could they become infected, and in turn, spread the disease across the land like some baleful Johnny Appleseed with wings?