Threnody (Book 1) (18 page)

The rev closest to the S.W.A.T. rev was about ten yards farther away, which John thought would give him plenty of time to dispatch the infected thing, but not likely enough time to remove the gear from the corpse.  Turning to scan the vehicle’s interior for ideas, his knee bumped his wife’s keys in the ignition.  He looked down at the carabiner attached to the keys and suddenly had an idea.  He reached for his sling bag and retrieved a length of 550 paracord.  Tying a figure eight knot in one end of the cord, he clipped the carabiner to the rope.  As he put the SUV in park he opened his door to get out.  “Reams, come around and be ready to drive.  I’ll be right back,” said John.

Before Reams could protest John was out of the SUV and slamming the door.  He ran around to the back of the truck and secured the other end of the paracord to the hitch receiver with a buntline hitch. Reams moved over to the driver’s seat and watched John in the rearview mirror.  John walked straight up to the S.W.A.T. rev, drew his handgun, and shot the thing point blank in the head.  Having already made enough noise to ‘wake up the dead,’ he was not too worried about the sound created by the discharge of his sidearm.  Holstering his weapon, he proceeded to clip the carabiner to the thing’s service belt before jogging back to the SUV. 

“Drive!” exclaimed John as he jumped into the passenger seat.

  Reams stared at John briefly with a concerned look of horror etched across his face.

“Drive, dammit!” added John.

Reams shifted the SUV into drive, feeling a slight jerk as the slack was taken out of the paracord, and the corpse began to drag behind them.  They could feel another thud as the S.W.A.T. rev plowed through one of the wooden roadblocks, sending it crashing down behind him.  After about fifty yards their surroundings looked clear, and John said, “Stop here.”  Reams did so and John jumped out of the truck.

Reams gazed into the rearview mirror and saw John doing something to the corpse they just dragged behind the SUV, though what exactly he wasn’t sure.  He was seriously beginning to question his friend’s sanity when John hopped back into the SUV, carrying what Reams thought might have been one or more of the rev’s extremities.

“Drive! Follow this road for a couple of miles, and I’ll tell you when the turn is coming up,” said John.

Reams stared at him blankly as images of Colonel Kurtz from
Apocalypse Now
flashed through his mind. He was still unable to bring himself to really inspect the load John brought back to the truck. “John, what the hell was that?” asked Reams. 

Perplexed, John proudly hefted a piece of the soft armor into the air before adding, “Riot gear.  I thought it would offer great protection against bites if we had to take on any more revs hand-to-hand, why?”

Reams flinched slightly at the sight of what he knew was going to be a severed arm being raised into the air before letting out a slightly embarrassed chuckle.  He shifted the SUV into drive saying, “Nothing, man.  Just seemed a little crazy, that’s all.”

“It’s a crazy world, my friend…a bat-shit crazy world,” added John with an air of finality.

Chapter 18

October 6, 2015

Albert Forrester was a close friend of John's who lived on the outskirts of town.  He was a survivalist and, accordingly, somewhat of a hermit.  John had known Al for about five years, and the two had become good friends over the last few years, in particular.  John, who fairly loathed proper social gatherings, first met Al at a party he was forced to attend with his wife.  Al stood out to John as he looked like the only person in attendance that seemed more uncomfortable and out of place than he himself felt.  Later, John learned that Al’s attendance at the party was solely due to the fact that his longtime obsession, Sylvia, was going to be there. John decided to strike up a conversation with Al at the party, and their friendship grew from there. 

Despite the fact that Al never even talked to Sylvia that night at the party, the two were married a few years later.  Al had obsessed over Sylvia for so long that it was almost as though she was a part of him even before they were married.  Though individually their personalities were diametrically opposed, taken together they merged seamlessly like true soul mates.

Al was extremely intelligent which was about the only commonality he shared with his wife, Sylvia. John often wondered if Al might be
too
smart. He worked as a computer programmer, a job that allowed him to work from home for the last five years.  This arrangement was absolutely perfect for Al, as his other strong characteristics, namely paranoia and OCD almost to the point of agoraphobia, made holding a 9-5 office job challenging for him at best.  In the time John had known Al, he learned very little about exactly what he did with computers, knowing only that his primary contracts in the last few years were with the Defense Department.  The irony that Al did a fair amount of work for one of the organizations often at the heart of Al’s myriad conspiracy theories was not lost on John. 

When his pessimism and cynicism were added to the mix and he was in full swing, Al could easily be mistaken for a crazed doomsday preacher, except for the fact that he almost never left his home to proclaim his theories to anyone, and he was certainly far from crazy.  John thought there was likely some truth behind most of Al’s wild theories, and that he likely just knew too much as is often the case in history when someone is labeled crazy because of his or her ‘unusual’ world view.  Maybe he just thought about everything too much. On more than one occasion John joked with Al saying that he should consider changing his name to Noah after the biblical doomsday preacher.

All of that, coupled with the ample free time and money that his work afforded him, allowed Al Forrester to make preparations.  For what exactly, John was never entirely sure.  In fact, John wasn’t sure if Al even knew exactly what he was getting ready for anymore, but the preparations that came from his OCD mind would have made an accomplished Eagle Scout feel like a Girl Scout on her first cookie sale.  Al literally thought of everything.  His primary residence was a moderate-sized two-bedroom house, but he constructed a more lavish though slightly smaller residence underground behind the house.  It could be accessed through the basement of his home or through a hidden hatch in the barn farther back behind the main house.  His paranoia about even workers learning about the shelter led him to learn the skills necessary to build the structure himself.  He fabricated various cover stories such as remodeling his primary residence to explain the need for the supplies in the event that anyone ever questioned what he was doing.  Additionally, he worked on the underground shelter almost exclusively at night. Though such extreme measures were far from necessary, Al stressed that such a structure was only as good as the secrecy surrounding it.  He set up two 300-gallon water reserve tanks with means for collecting, filtering, and purifying rainwater.  When he worried this was insufficient, he supplemented their capacity with a well equipped with a pump powered by a generator capable of using diesel or solar power. 

Upon reaching Al’s driveway, John considered the best way to approach the house.  As he was unable to call and alert his friend to their arrival, he wanted to ensure that Al knew it was him and not someone with otherwise nefarious intent.  Since he had driven the 4Runner to Al’s on more than one occasion, he thought it would be easier for Al to confirm his identity if he approached in the truck than on foot.  John thought it would be best if Reams stayed hidden in the back initially, if that was possible, as Al would not necessarily be expecting John to be traveling with an enormous black man whom he had never met.  Al was suspicious and a little jumpy on a good day, so there was no telling what the events of the last couple of days had done to his nerves.  As this thought crossed John’s mind, he could never have imagined just how bad the last couple of days had been for Al Forrester.

Al’s house was located sufficiently far back on his property that the house could not be seen from the road.  He had a driveway alarm that John thought would likely be connected to one of Al’s various backup power sources.  Before pulling onto the driveway, the two men rearranged the items in the back of the SUV, and folded the seats flat so Reams could lay hidden from view until John could inform Al he was with him.  John worried what Al might think if he saw Reams back there before he had a chance to tell him the big man was a friend but decided that was a chance he would have to take.  He was not aware of any booby traps deployed along the driveway but he thought it would be safest to assume there might be some given the degree of Al’s paranoia and preparedness.

With Reams hidden about as well as an elephant lying in an open field, John slowly pulled onto the driveway, and proceeded cautiously toward the house.  The driveway was about three quarters of a mile long, and John tried to think of anything that would facilitate recognition as he drove.  Midway up the driveway John noticed several areas where Al had been digging recently.  John surmised these areas were likely for booby traps and was thankful that whatever they were intended for didn’t appear to be complete yet.  John still saw no sign of Al though it appeared he had been working there quite recently.  A shovel, gloves, and a half empty water bottle with the lid off lay next to one of the holes as though they were just laid down to allow the worker a brief respite.

Upon reaching the house, things seemed as expected initially, but soon John sensed that something was wrong.  He stopped the SUV in front of the house and was more than a little unnerved that he had not yet seen any sign of Al or Sylvia. He was certain they would be home, and he doubted his approach would have gone unnoticed.  He wondered if they had seen him coming and failed to recognize him.  This caused him to scan his surroundings watchfully while trying to conceal his rising sense of panic.  John glanced at the trees and myriad areas of possible concealment among the scrub and foliage looking for movement, reflection, or anything that would warn of a potential muzzle pointed in his direction.  He dismissed this idea thinking that he would likely have been greeted with a shower of lead long before he got this close to the house had Al been lying in wait.  With this, his concern that something may have happened to his friends continued to mount.  Like a ventriloquist, John mouthed for Reams to stay put as he slowly stepped out of the SUV.

John’s concern for Al and Sylvia further increased as he approached the house.  He called for them softly at first, then louder after hearing no response of any kind.  Sylvia's truck was parked haphazardly with the driver’s side door open as if the driver had just ran back inside to grab something that had been forgotten.  He paused momentarily to see if this was indeed the case, but no one emerged from the house; he noticed no movement at all. The same eerie silence that now seemed omnipresent in this new world was there as well.  Even the typical sounds of the wind and animals seemed suspiciously absent.  In fact, the silence enshrouding everything around John was so profound he considered whether he might have suffered from sudden hearing loss until the sound of his own boots and breath assaulted his ears – deafeningly loud in comparison to the absolute sonic void.

As he stepped onto the porch, John tried to peer through the windows, but found that they had been blacked out.  The front door was slightly ajar, but he could not see any details inside through the miniscule crack.  Everything remained absolutely silent and completely still.

John’s mind raced as he tried to imagine what might be going on and what to do next.  He envisioned opening the door only to be greeted with a hail of bullets as he startled Al and Sylvia.  He promptly dismissed this realizing they would have certainly heard his voice. 

The hastily parked truck, the unlocked door slightly ajar, the apparent booby traps left unarmed in mid-preparation by someone in a hurry—all of these things led to a nauseating feeling that something bad had happened to his friends.  John knew Al typically locked his door even when he took out the trash, and he was not one to leave a project like that half-finished.  Bracing himself for whatever greeted him inside his friend’s home, John stepped forward and pushed the front door open.

What he saw within defied comprehension; a hail of bullets would have been less painful than gazing at the two lifeless forms on the floor before him. That so much death could have occurred in such a short time seemed impossible, and seeing his friends – the two people he would have declared most likely to weather such a brutal storm – dead before him was equally impossible.
If they had succumbed,
what chance do I or anyone else have for that matter?
Paralyzed by the grisly scene before him, John sank back against the doorframe, a forlorn expression of bewildered desolation adorning his face.  He shed no tears, though he very much wanted to cry out in rage.  He simply stared blankly and imagined himself, and indeed everyone he ever knew, being snuffed out just as Al and Sylvia were. 
When will that be me? When will that be me?

The heavy footfalls behind him signaled that Reams had decided to join him at the front door.  “John, you all right, man?  I saw you stagger there…” said Reams.  His words were cut short as he caught sight of the carnage within the house.  “John…I’m sorry.”

No words came to John as he stood in the doorway.  He could only shake his head in disbelief.  After several minutes, John found his voice, “Reams…we’re screwed.  What the hell are we going to do?  This thing has killed everyone I know in just a few days.  It’s everywhere. I doubt if there is anywhere left unscathed. Why the hell are we even trying?”

Reams regarded his friend with a look of sincere contemplation that quickly morphed into one of anger.  “That’s bullshit, John!  What about your daughter?  What about finding her?”

“I think we both know what really happened to her,” said John shaking his head as if not wanting to hear what the big man was saying. 

“What about the shoes, man? The footprints?” pleaded Reams, making it difficult to tell whom he was really trying to convince.  “What about your friend with the cure?  I’m not letting your sorry ass give up on me now!  Finding your family and your friend, that shit is the only reason I’m here!  I had already given up back at the airport, and then your ass came flying in talking all that crazy shit!  You wouldn’t let me give up then, so I’m not letting you give up now!”

John continued staring numbly at his two dead friends for several more minutes.  Slowly, he turned toward Reams, and said, “You’re right.”

Tentatively, John and Reams entered the front room of Al’s house and surveyed the scene. On the table next to the bodies John found a note that had been scrawled by Al and addressed, ‘To John or whoever finds this.’  The macabre letter spelled out exactly what transpired, providing the details about how this malevolent plague managed to claim the lives of his two friends.  As horrific as it was to finally reach what he considered his ‘safe zone’ only to find the disease had already swept through taking his friends with it, John found comfort in knowing the story behind their deaths.  He had seen so many dead and infected, and without having known them or how they came to be sick, it was easy to forget that they used to be people just like him.  It was hard not to think of them simply as ‘monsters.’  Al’s note provided a welcomed element of humanity and closure.

Parts of the note were illegible as the ink was smudged where drops of water had landed.
Not water—tears.
  There were also blood splatters dried to a dark crimson that John tried not to think about as he read the letter aloud.

"To John or whoever finds this:

I can't hope to put into words exactly what I experienced over the last couple of hours. I knew something was up after hearing the news reports and picking up some internet and ham radio chatter. I decided it might be time to 'batten down the hatches.' Sylvia had left earlier to go into town for some groceries. I tried to call her cell but was unable to get her. Despite worrying about everything else I wasn't too worried about her—she is tough as nails. When she pulled into the driveway, however, I could tell something was wrong. Her truck swerved erratically and her speed fluctuated oddly. As soon as she stumbled out of the driver’s seat, the horrible confirmation hit me like a ton of bricks, nearly tearing my heart from my chest. She staggered toward me trying desperately to speak. The front of her neck was injured and she looked like she had already lost a lot of blood but I still had no idea what happened. I raced to her as she collapsed into my arms. With each futile attempt to talk more of her life seemed to gurgle out of her neck.  I tried in vain to staunch the flow of blood but it continued to seep through the towel and between my fingers. How she was alive at all was a mystery to me. I could see the jagged edges of her tracheal cartilages in the depths of the wound as the gash bubbled and spat with every breath. She kept mouthing what I thought was the word 'head' or 'dead.' Then, the mouthing and the bubbling stopped. I knew what that meant, but I could neither believe nor accept it.