Threnody (Book 1) (24 page)

“Plus, they never seem to tire, and they don’t seem to have any fear or sense of self preservation.  This whole thing is almost like a grotesque, life-and-death version of the tortoise and the hare.  You can run as fast as you want, but eventually you will tire, or stumble, or get hungry—you get the point.  While you are doing something other than running for your life, they are continuing their slow, relentless pursuit.  They don’t sleep, shit, piss, get sick, or even have an off day—they are beyond all that human shit! Truthfully, that and their sheer numbers are their greatest strengths.  In a fight, it may be you and a few other uninfected humans if you are lucky, but there may be thousands of them.  And while most people with at least some balls can make short work of a couple of them, it’s a different story altogether when you are cornered by hundreds of the bastards.  It becomes simple math, a game of odds.  Even the baddest ass mother will eventually succumb, maybe not even due to his own error.  Maybe a gun jams or the blade flies off an axe handle, or he slips in a puddle of blood…Lady Luck is a fickle broad to be sure.  So my advice to you is, ‘know your enemy.’  Study them and learn all you can.  All that Sun Tzu bullshit about attacking swiftly like a hawk with the ferocity of a river broken through a dam will just get you killed these days!  Don’t get me wrong, I think ‘The Art of War’ is just about the best book ever written, but nearly everything in it is based upon the pretenses of human nature.  A small army operating as Sun Tzu described can strike fear into the hearts of their adversaries, making them feel as if they are being attacked by the Devil himself.  Trouble is these things don’t get afraid—they don’t get
anything
.  They just are.  That, and hungry, I guess.  On the other hand, when he talks about ‘invisibility’ and of ‘knowing while being unknown,’ there’s some shit you can take to the bank.  Now ya’ll probably ain’t gonna believe this, but a couple of days ago, on my way back to Hermitage, I found my path blocked by fifty or so infected.  It was getting dark, and the only other route would have taken me way off course.  So what did I do?  I walked right through the horde all ninja-like and came through completely unscathed. Invisible!”

“Bullshit! Let’s see the bites then!” John chided him.  Although he had known Ethan only a few hours and had nearly blown the rest of his mangled face off, John already knew he liked the guy.

“Bites?  Would I be sitting here if I had bites to show?  I ain’t lying, that’s the God’s honest truth.  I crept up to the edge of the horde and waited patiently until a couple of them wandered a little too far from their brethren.  I moved up on their six and took them both out without either making a sound.  I slashed straight across their throats separating the trachea from the larynx before I wrenched their necks around, snapping the spinal column, and severing the spinal cord. Only problem was that I got their rancid blood, or whatever the hell it is, all over me.  I smelled so rank I thought I could probably pass for one of them with no trouble.  For some strange reason I remember thinking how hungry I was.  Ever notice how you seem to get hungry at the strangest times?  Anyway, that thought gave me an idea.  I crept back over to the two I had just taken down with the plan of taking one of them with me.  I started to load up, but damn, that was a lot of dead weight!  I knew I was going to have a tough time toting that guy all the way back, so I set to work trimming down my load. I cut the legs off the skinny guy and strapped one to my back.  I held the torso tight to my chest, and went on a leisurely stroll down cadaver lane.”

Reams sat quietly, stunned and repulsed by what he was hearing.  He noticed John’s face turn a sickly, unnatural shade of green as he listened intently to Ethan’s story.  Before either man could object, Ethan continued his gruesome tale.

“Just as I expected, those dead bitches barely even noticed me. On the far side of the group, one of them seemed to take interest in me, so I bear hugged the torso I was holding a bit tighter effectively masking my scent with another squirt of
Eau de Morte
, ” concluded Ethan, clearly pleased with the effect his gasconade was having on his fervent listeners.

After being appalled by the narrative that sounded like the beginning of some demented, low-budget cannibal movie, John began to see the genius behind what Ethan did.  He was amazed at the quick thinking that allowed him to become virtually invisible while remaining in plain view.  At that moment he realized just how much the younger man reminded him of his late father.

John’s quiet reflection was shattered by Reams’ uproarious laughter.  Clearly the tension that had been building within Reams as he listened to the story finally reached its peak before he realized that Ethan had actually used the revs as a sort of cloak.  Soon, both John and Reams were laughing their asses off, fueled in part by the whiskey. They envisioned a crazed half-faceless ninja with rotting body parts strapped to him as he walked through a sea of revs.  Reams did his best ‘wax on, wax off’ impersonation as John said, ‘Daniel San, look eye, always look eye!’ just before rolling out of the chair onto the floor, crippled with laughter.  Neither man was quite sure why they found all of this so hilarious.  Perhaps they were laughing just to keep from crying.  To John, at least, it seemed like they had discovered the Zen master of revenant combat—a man clearly in possession of some serious Sun Tzu badassery.

When they finally regained some sense of composure, the Ethan continued in a more serious tone, “Laugh it up, but I’m telling you never let them stack up on you no matter how safe you think you are.  Clear them out or stay on the move.  Remember a few revs are a nuisance, but a few hundred, that shit’ll ruin your day.  And for God’s sake, don’t do anything stupid like climb a water tower!  Always consider your egress!”

Chapter 26

October 18, 2015

Dawn came, ushered in by the brutal rays of the early morning sun blazing through the second story windows.  An intense beam of light scorched a path across John’s face as his eyes tried in vain to flee the glow of the merciless orb.  Though the high jinks of the preceding evening were a welcomed deviation from the routine their lives had fallen into since the start of the pandemic, it was not without a heavy price tag.  Both John and Reams suffered from skull-splitting headaches, as well as a certain amount of digestive unrest that worsened with both movement and any thought of food. They also felt as if they had missed an entire night of sleep, even though Ethan stood guard for most of the night, allowing them both a little extra shut-eye.

“What the hell did we do?” asked Reams as he bravely tried to open his eyes to face the sun’s unsympathetic luminosity.  He dropped his head in defeat as his eyes snapped shut like shades.  When he heard no reply, he continued, “I’m never drinking again.”  Though he could not muster the stamina to raise his head to see his friend and drinking partner, Reams heard John chuckle lightly at his last statement.

“Me neither, buddy.  Me neither.  I swear, I won’t drink another drop until the next time,” quipped John as he thought about every patient that had quit smoking or drinking just as they were walking into his clinic.   

After a slow, reluctant start to the morning, the three men sat eating the remainder of their meager food stores.  Not anticipating the detours of the previous day, John and Reams packed only enough provisions for the short trip from Hermitage back to Al’s.  Ethan had taken to scavenging on a meal-to-meal basis and thus did not have much of a larder from which to draw.

With their livers finally finishing up the arduous task of detoxification, both John and Reams were feeling better by the time they discussed their plans for the ensuing days, just before noon.  The previous night, John asked Ethan to join them as they continued to look for Ava, and then went to assist Dr. Lin San.  Despite the presence of the alcohol, this offer was not merely the hollow, meaningless chatter so frequently thrown around by the inebriated; John truly hoped he would join them.

Ethan, for his part, indicated that all of his family lived in Mississippi, but he found none left alive when he arrived.  He had nowhere else to go, so he agreed to join the two men.  He, too, felt a certain degree of kinship with the two survivors.  Having encountered what he considered to be some of the worst dregs of society since the outbreak began, he was glad to see there were still good people left in the plague-ridden, new world.  Given the horrors he witnessed at his parents’ house, he also welcomed the chance to exact revenge on the invisible enemy that decimated his family before they ever knew they were under attack.  He would gladly do his part to help eradicate this wretched plague.

More than two weeks had passed since John flew home to find his little world torn apart and, despite their efforts, he felt no closer to finding his daughter, Ava.  Though he and Reams followed many possible leads during that time, the end result was always the same. John remained true to his word to the best of his abilities, returning to his former house as often as he could, hoping against hope that one day he would find Ava sitting there waiting for him.  He never saw so much as a shred of evidence that she or anyone else had been in the house.  In stark contrast to all the evidence and rational thought, John knew in his heart – as only a parent could – that Ava was still alive.  He spent countless hours debating this with himself, wondering if this belief was merely the result of a parent’s blind love, so strong and capable of overriding even the most contrary evidence, or if he truly believed she was alive.  In the end he always settled on the latter.  In fact, he believed it so vehemently that Reams, too, accepted it as fact.

Since his conversation with Trenton, John often wondered if the girl the lawyer saw hurrying along the road outside his office had been Ava.  The thought enraged him every time it crossed his mind.  If it was, then she had been so close, yet that cowardly, selfish asshole did nothing to help bring her to safety.

Their original plan was to spend two weeks combing the area for his daughter, after which, they would switch gears and try to find Dr. Lin San in order to help her with her efforts at finding a cure for the infection.  As strongly as he believed Ava was still alive, he believed Lin was capable of finding a way to stop the plague.  Despite the fact that they had searched without luck for more than two weeks already, John felt he had to investigate the possibility that the girl Trenton saw was Ava, for he knew he would never stop wondering – and never forgive himself – if he did not.  He discussed this briefly with Reams, who agreed they should follow the lead.  Reams, despite having never met the girl, thought of Ava as his family as well, and was not eager to abandon the search for her either. 

From their current location they would have to pass Hermitage Estates in order to get back to the part of town where Trenton’s office was located. Having agreed to join the men, Ethan asked his new companions to help him with something as well.

“When you guys were at Hermitage Estates, did you notice the infected were paying particular attention to two houses at the far corner of the neighborhood?” asked Ethan.

Both John and Reams nodded in affirmation.

“I’m sure you also noticed the vehicles just outside the neighborhood as well?  The old truck by the gate and the motorcycles? A few days before you guys showed up, a group of unsavory characters came looking to capitalize on the abandoned wealth of the former residents.  That alone didn’t bother me too much, as I moved into one of the vacant houses within a few days of being in Alabama.  I could hardly judge them for that.  The difference was that these guys, who looked to be a mixed group of five or six biker types plus several hillbilly rednecks, weren’t there to sustain and survive.  They were loud, drunk, and ignorant to the fact that their actions were drawing more and more of the infected to the area.  They were marauders—there to take advantage of the situation and to prey on those left helpless by it.”

Ethan paused as if struggling to continue.  John watched the blanched, white knuckles of his clenched fists shaking slightly with the effort of his fierce grip.  He thought he might soon see blood dripping where Ethan’s fingernails were surely digging into the flesh of his palms. 

“There were a couple of women with them as well, and they looked almost identical to the male bikers, only with slightly smaller frames.  Their skin, no doubt weathered by sun exposure and years of hard living, made the biker women look far older than their true chronological age I’m sure.  The bikers seemed to be the dominant faction within the group; the less numerous rednecks seemed to be tagging along to enjoy the spoils of war and perhaps for strength in numbers.  I got the sense that the whole lot was trouble, so I chose to remain invisible.  That first night they got completely wasted and disorderly.  Smashing glass and shooting guns, the imbeciles made enough noise to effectively triple the local plague population, I imagine.  All of the infected within the walls of Hermitage converged on the two houses they occupied, with a significant increase in the number plastered outside the adjacent wall.”

Listening intently, John decided that he would not see any blood as Ethan’s fists were clenched so tightly now that the pallor of the skin indicated there was no significant perfusion to his hands.  Ethan continued his story with a disturbing look that could only be described as murderous rage marring his damaged face.

“I knew then I needed to intervene before they got everyone killed.  I entertained the idea of approaching them and asking them to either leave or curtail the noise.  They didn’t seem like the type of men to weather such a request well, so I was ready for that.  I was not ready for what I saw as I neared the first of the two houses.  There were screams coming from inside the house.  They were distinctly female, yet they were not screams of pleasure or elation.  Instead they were screams drenched with agony, fear, and pain. I had heard such desperate pleading before, and the sound immediately sickened me.  The cries sounded far too young and far too feminine to be coming from the swollen, ratty, smoke-cured vocal cords of any of the biker women. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw the front door of the house burst open and one of the biker guys stumbled out.  He clutched his bleeding face, and shouted all manner of obscenities clearly directed toward a female in the house.  Moments later another biker came out laughing and carrying a battered, bloody, and nearly lifeless body. What happened next was…unspeakable…”              

John and Reams were not sure if Ethan’s difficulty finishing his story was due to the implied horror or the fact that his gritting teeth were clamped so tightly they would not allow words to escape his mouth.  The frequency and intensity of his breathing increased to the point that his nostrils began to flare like a bull preparing to charge a matador. 

In a low, guttural voice—cold enough to chill even the hardest man—Ethan said, “He
fed
her to them. She knew what was happening but did not have the strength or the will to fight.”

After hearing his story, John and Reams saw the same transformation, reflected like a mirror image on one another’s face, and completely understood the impetus behind the frightening change they witnessed in their new friend.

Though he would be lying if he said he took no satisfaction in what he did to the men in that house, Ethan certainly did not wish to relive the memory of that wretched night.  Unfortunately, he was no more able to control it than the riverbank is able to control the rising floodwaters after a torrential downpour. 

“I have to go back to that house,” said Ethan in a cold, distant tone. “I cannot sit idly and allow whoever is in the other house to meet the same fate as that woman.  Men like that cannot be permitted to live.”