Threnody (Book 1) (34 page)

Chapter 36

October 21, 2015

In the quietude of the night, the old home popped and creaked like an arthritic struggling to climb a flight of stairs—each tiny explosion of sound like a susurrant protest against the presence of the invaders snaking through its passageways.
Ethan
took the lead as the group maneuvered down the corridors of the once imperial southern plantation home with slow, deliberate movements, pausing intermittently to listen for anything the house was trying to tell them.  Though the halls of the antiquated house were dark, none of them dared to risk broadcasting their presence by turning on a flashlight. There was just enough light filtering in from the rising sun on the horizon to allow navigation through the bowels of the seemingly vacant abode.

As she passed by one of the many open doors lining the hallway, Kate suddenly froze as a soft mewing emanated from somewhere close by.  The low, keening sound struck her tympanic membrane with less force than a gentle zephyr. Once the faint signal traveled the short distance to her auditory cortex where it was processed and interpreted against her cumulative life experience, however, the implications of the sound seemed rancorous and deafening.  It carried with it the promise of a thousand horrible things intended for her, and her alone, as it triggered alarm bells in her mind.

Uncertain of exactly which direction the sound came from, Kate remained rooted to the spot watching the three men ahead of her advance around the corner and out of sight.  Part of her wanted to scream for them, part of her wanted to run for them; all of her merely stood stock-still as though waiting for whatever was behind the sinister sound to take her.  Her breathing intensified making it all the more difficult to hear the soft, sad sonance. Though she knew it was likely coming from within one of the adjoining rooms, she still could not triangulate the exact direction from which it came. 

As the nearly inaudible noise, like that of a kitten stuck in a tree, reverberated in her ears once again, she sensed it originated from her left side.  Guardedly, she gazed into the dark abyss of the room and saw only blackness.  Her intense scrutiny of the room was shattered by a clinking sound like that of dishes clanging together somewhere behind her.  A nauseating sensation rose within her gorge as Kate realized she must have been wrong about the direction of the sound.  She could almost feel the deathly cold fingers tightening around her neck. 
Oh, my God! I’m going to die here!

Kate whirled to face her attacker as she backpedaled into the room she had been investigating.  Her heart nearly exploded as an obscure creature tore out of the room in front of her.  Its dark, foreboding eyes contrasted sharply against its pale face as it moved into the moonlight that weakly illuminated the hall.  After letting out a distressed snarl, the thing that she now recognized as a raccoon skittered off down the hall.

With a nervous smirk, Kate struggled to reign in her breathing as she collided with something that nearly sent her trundling to the ground.  The surprised expression on her face was instantly replaced with one of pure unadulterated terror as the original mewing sound erupted directly behind her, now truly louder due to its dangerously close proximity.

Pivoting around, Kate was finally face to face with the source of the terrifying sound that had been plaguing her.  As her heart seized in her throat, her eyes fell on a bewildering sight—simultaneously horrible, sad, and almost harmless.  To be clear, the thing before her did possess deadly potential but much in the same way as a bullet without a gun from which to fire it.  The rev sitting in front of her, forever doomed to remain strapped in the motorized chair whose battery had long since drained, was likely an incomplete quadriplegic before falling victim to the infection.  Its head lolled slightly from side to side as its jaws worked feverishly, snapping and biting the air around its searching head.  A gnarled hand at the end of a contracted arm still rested on the defunct control for the lifeless chair.

Kate deflated slightly, as she gazed down at the sad creature.  She felt immense pity for the rev, having been made to endure so much in life only to end up like this in the end.  Without warning, tears began to fall like rain pouring over a broken gutter.  Again, her tears were brief as the new Kate emerged from behind the walls of fear and helplessness of her old mind.  Standing tall, the new, callous, and strong Kate was not heartless, but rather possessed a heart surrounded by a nearly impenetrable shell forged from the abuses and horrors of the new world.

Knowing what needed to be done, Kate drew her knife and – without another thought on the matter – plunged it deep into the rev’s orbit.  With a sharp, violent twist of her wrist, she felt a slight shudder, and wondered if the tip of the blade might have set off an electrical storm that caused the entire life of the former lady of the house to flash through her dimming mind, as depicted in Hollywood deaths. In all likelihood, the synapses within the decrepit lady’s mind – previously hijacked by the merciless pathogen – had long since been discharged in much the same way as the useless battery sitting in her motorized chair.  Now the elderly lady, like the battery, was truly dead.  Pulling her knife free, Kate wiped the blade clean, and turned to walk away before pausing by the door.  Over her shoulder, she said, “I hope you’re in a better place.  You’re finally free.  Run.”

Moments later Kate emerged from the bygone house and joined the three men on the front porch.  Reams looked at her with a concerned expression on his face, “You okay?  I was just about to come looking for you.”

Managing a weak smile, Kate replied, “I’m good.  Something just caught my eye, and I had to check it out.  What’s our plan?”

The two listened in as John continued outlining the details of his plan to
Ethan
.  Pointing to a worn map for illustration, John said, “We are here, about a mile or so outside of town. The girl Trenton saw would have likely taken this route past his office.  Following that course we should reach Hood Street two or three miles after that.”

Chapter 37

October 21, 2015

Noiselessly, the four bone-weary survivors crept toward Trenton Wentworth’s former law office in the early, predawn light.  They each kept a watchful eye for any sign of danger, or Ava.  No one spoke, and John imagined this was as much a result of exhaustion as the desire to avoid alerting anyone or anything to their presence.  Though there was still a definite nip in the air, the early morning sun felt warm against the exposed skin of his face as he gazed up at the clear sky—the first subtle shades of sapphire daring to poke out from behind the slate and charcoal.  The nearly imperceptible breeze did not carry the repugnant smell of rot and ruin, but rather the pleasant earthy scent of the crisp, autumn woods.

Scanning his surroundings in all directions, a weak smile creased John’s face when he realized that for the first time in what seemed like days, nothing was pursuing them.  For a brief, wonderful instant, John almost convinced himself he might be feeling happiness; however, distant and fleeting.  No sooner than the thought crossed his mind, he wondered if it was merely the calm before the blustery, omnipotent, all-consuming storm, as if he had stumbled into the eye of a category 5 hurricane.  John was not a superstitious man, but given everything that had transpired over the last couple of weeks, he was seriously considering taking it up.

Regardless of any meaning behind the lull in the action, the period of relative calm afforded John a few moments to ponder the plague, the world, and his new friends as he walked.  He was thankful for the reprieve, as he had not had time to truly think about all that had changed over the last couple of weeks.  His focus had been almost exclusively on learning about the plague itself in order to survive, and on finding his daughter.  The events at Hermitage a few days back made John realize he had neglected to fully consider the impact of other humans—the potential
secondary kill.

As vile as the disease was, John knew there were still far worse things in the world.  Thinking back to the house in Hermitage Estates, he knew they had already witnessed some of them.  The infected, as best as he could tell, were essentially unthinking automatons, albeit with lethal potential.  Uninfected people, on the other hand, were still in control of their faculties and could be every bit as lethal, if not more so.  John accepted that human behavior was exceedingly complex and extreme conditions often led to equally extreme manifestations.  A cursory glance at people in the aftermath of any catastrophic event throughout history provided countless examples to support that.  To John, it seemed that nearly every action could be explained by examining it in the context of the motivations of the reward system in place.

What led some people to rise out of the ashes like a phoenix while others burrowed down into the mire like a serpent remained enigmatic to John.  Undoubtedly some individuals, such as the bikers in all likelihood, were already slanted toward such devious behavior and the evaporation of the justice system with its manmade consequences merely served as the uncorking of the bottle.  Such odious behavior occurring in the days immediately following the breakdown of society probably had less to do with the horrors of the outbreak itself, and more to do with the lack of any supervision, like the blatant opportunism exemplified by the mass looting after Hurricane Katrina and other large-scale catastrophes.

John feared they would encounter far greater evils from people irrevocably altered by the plague itself as time went on.  The psychological trauma associated with such profound loss including family, friends, society, and essentially everything else comprising a person’s identity would certainly push some individuals far beyond their breaking point—like PTSD on steroids.  Cultivated in the milieu of pervasive desolation, misery, and complete lack of support in the new world, some individuals would certainly be transformed into humanoid monsters, their depraved and twisted minds making them hardly recognizable as a member of the once dominant
Homo sapiens sapiens
, despite their outwardly similar appearance.

With a shudder, John thought such people would replace the revs as the scariest and most dangerous monsters in the land in a heinous continuation of the malefic evolution of a dying species.  Similarly, he feared the worst was yet to come as such people would not emerge immediately after the plague, but rather would be born out of the dust settling in the months and years following the world’s collapse.  Nurtured by the malignity strewn across the impious land, like some demonic nursemaid from Hell, the creation of such evil would certainly take time.

The morose line of thinking was forcing John’s head down into a dark, ominous place to which he did not wish to go. Still relishing in the natural beauty all around him at that moment, John willed his thoughts to a brighter place as he reflected on each of the people that joined him on his search.  He knew they each had their own reasons for doing so, and he was thankful each of them decided to come with him.  Life as it was over the last couple of weeks was infinitely harder than anything he had ever experienced previously, and John knew he would not have made it this far without their help and support.

Before considering his newfound comrades, John thought about how much he himself had changed in such a short amount of time.  He knew that any catastrophic event invariably leads to one of two possible outcomes in a person:  one is either overwhelmed by grief and despair, thus rendering them incapable of coping and surviving the horrors of the event; or he or she is polarized to action by the need to right all of the miserable injustices, and to reestablish some vestige of the life to which they had grown accustomed.

In light of this John considered where he fit into that algorithm.  He had certainly tried – even wanted – to go down the path of grief and despair.  The thought of how much easier it would be to no longer feel the unquenchable, bottomless pain that came from the loss of his wife, Rebecca, and likely everyone else he knew, made him want to throw in the towel even still.  Fortunately, that desire faded with remarkable speed when he thought of his little girl, Ava.  Despite all rational probability being that she, like nearly everyone else, had succumbed to the contagion, the fact that John did not know this for certain was a strong enough motivator to keep him going.  When coupled with the remote chance that his lifelong friend, Dr. Lin San, might be working on a cure at that very moment provided the proverbial nail in the coffin. John knew he would never give up no matter how much easier it would be.  For John, and he suspected for most everyone else as well, it all boiled down to two things:  hope and love.

John thought about his first encounter with Reams and how the big man had literally saved his life more times than he could count since that time.  Despite being dissimilar in so many ways, in a matter of a couple of days John felt closer to Reams than to any other friend before, perhaps even Al.  While he couldn’t explain it, he knew without a doubt that Reams would sacrifice his life for him, and he felt the same toward Reams.  Knowing that Reams lost his only real family when his brother died, John felt that the need to fill that void might be part of the motivation behind the big man’s strong allegiance.  Regardless of the reason, it was clear to John that without Reams, he would have succumbed long ago.

A veteran of innumerable military engagements,
Ethan
was by far the most skilled warrior among them.  While their first meeting with him nearly turned bloody, John had since come to rely heavily on his tactical skills and judgments.  After hearing the heart-wrenching story of
Ethan
’s family, he suspected the former soldier was motivated, at least in part, by the need to exact revenge on the thing that led to their demise.  John thought of his father, Ben Wild, and of the mentality of a career soldier; the need to make the responsible party pay for their wrongdoings is, at the very least, the banner flown over every military mission. That said, he did not downplay the man’s good nature, considering his willingness to risk his life to help Kate, a woman who he had never even seen.

Kate, being the newest addition to their band of survivors, was still somewhat of a mystery to John.  From the beginning, he thought he saw a lot of the very same emotions he experienced initially in the depths of her hollow eyes.  The ‘thousand-yard stare’ as Reams called it certainly could be an external manifestation of PTSD, but John thought a significant part of it was due to the fact that she was still coming to terms with all that had happened, and all that was likely to happen because of the plague. Though he knew she might be accompanying them simply to avoid being alone, he doubted this was her sole reason for doing so.  If she was responsible for even half of the carnage they witnessed back at the house in Hermitage Estates, Kate was more than capable of looking out for herself.  Of the survivors he encountered since the first day, John knew the least about Kate and how she came to be in that deplorable house.  Considering this, he turned to regard Kate, intent on trying to learn more about her, but was stopped short when Reams’ hushed voice broke the silence.

“We’re coming up on the main drag.  I can see the law firm up ahead,” whispered Reams as the group slowed to a halt.

John had been so lost in thought he had not realized they had arrived at the once bustling commercial district. He gazed ahead and took stock of the situation.  When John’s eyes fell upon Trenton’s former law office a bitter taste like black coffee, bile, and wormwood flooded his gorge as he thought of Ava racing past being pursued by those monsters.  His murderous glare held a level of disdain generally reserved for rapists, pederasts, and people who unlawfully park in handicap spots.  Like a dowser wielding a divining rod, John inexplicably
saw
the path his little girl had taken down the street in his mind’s eye.

“Come on,” said John as he broke from cover and eased forward without checking to see whether the others followed.
Ethan
gave Reams a thoughtful but concerned glance before they all stood and moved out behind John.  For the most part the street seemed eerily devoid of the infected.  John saw the decaying corpse of the gangbanging rev he and Reams put down before rescuing Trenton, and he recalled his buddy they left trapped in the adjacent building.

Reams quickened his pace to catch up with John.  Placing a hand on his shoulder, Reams said, “Hey man, you cool?  We got to keep our heads straight, okay?  We’re all here, so let’s do this together—nice and safe.”

John felt as though the big man’s words sounded like a reprimand of sorts and, for an instant, this aggravated him.  With a steadying breath, John reminded himself that they were all on the same team as he replied flatly, “Yeah, I got it.”

Just beyond the law office stood two lone revs on opposite sides of the street, as though merely waiting for a cab or a bus. The area around them was virtually devoid of any reasonable cover, so
Ethan
decided the safest option was to put them down. 
Can’t have them raising the alarms.
  He turned to Reams to indicate he should take the rev on the far side of the road when Kate stood and said, “I’ll take care of it.” 

Before anyone could protest, she drew her knife, and edged out of the shadows toward the seemingly dormant thing standing motionless on the curb save for the subtle swaying like wheat being nudged to and fro by the summer breeze.
Ethan
followed suit, drawing his Ka-Bar and inching toward the thing’s mirror image on the opposite side of the street.

As Kate approached her target, she was nearly overwhelmed by a nauseating wet dog smell like sweaty crotch rot and rotten potatoes.  A low, hissing sound like gas leaking from a pipe wafted to her ears, and she thought the thing might be trying to scent the air, as though vaguely aware that fresh meat was nearby.

Before the rev had a chance to further investigate, she nodded to
Ethan
, and leapt forward like a lion pouncing on the prey it had been patiently stalking.  With her left hand she grabbed the afflicted thing by its verminous hair and thrust her razor-sharp blade into the soft, fleshy divot at the base of its skull with the silent accuracy of a trained assassin.  As the rev crumpled to the ground at her feet, she saw that
Ethan
had done the same; he gave her an approving nod as John and Reams moved forward to rejoin them.

Pushing forward down the street, John strained his memory to recall every detail Trenton had said about the young girl he had seen from the upstairs room.  He imagined himself peering out of the second-story window, trying to see exactly what the diminutive barrister would have seen. Following the reconstructed path, John’s heart paused when he caught a glimpse of a small garment, filthy and ruined, lying abandoned in the squalid gutter twenty feet ahead.

Racing to the spot, he scooped up the bedraggled lilac jacket, desperately trying to remember if Ava possessed such a thing.  All at once he froze, terror-stricken upon realizing he was unable to conjure a mental image of his little girl at all.  No matter how hard he tried her beautiful face remained just beyond his mind’s reach, as if trapped in a labyrinth of shadows behind the traitorous synapses that dared let her slip from his memory. With that one simple neuronal glitch, the weight of the entire plague came crashing down upon John’s shoulders.  Frantically, as though he was in danger of forgetting who he was, John rifled through his pockets and produced the small photograph of his wife and daughter.  His eyes fell on the image, and he felt the air flood back into his world, as if he had been holding his breath and waiting for the wind to blow him away like the dust of decay.