Transmission: Voodoo Plague Book 5 (4 page)

We had been walking for about an hour and hadn’t seen a sign
of any other survivors.  The countryside was eerily silent, even the birds
having abandoned the area or were too afraid to make any sound.  I was pretty
sure they were just gone.  The wind blew steadily in our faces as we moved
eastward, providing the only environmental noise other than our boots on the
asphalt. 

Gabbert was jumpy as hell at first, constantly looking
around and over his shoulder with his rifle held high and tight to his chest.  I
had to remind him several times to keep his finger off the trigger and along
the receiver of the weapon.  Now, after a few miles in the hot afternoon sun,
he was tiring.  His eyes were only on the road directly in front of him and
he’d let the rifle hang down his back on its sling.  I’d made him move it to
the side so it was at least readily accessible if he needed to fight.

The terrain around us was almost perfectly flat as we closed
in on the river.  We crossed the occasional small lake, but the pavement didn’t
even change elevation, just continued on concrete pilings that stuck up out of
the water.  Far to the south I could see what looked like a cluster of small
businesses, and toyed with the idea of checking them for a vehicle.  I don’t
mind walking, but I needed to be covering a lot of ground quickly, not plodding
along at four miles an hour.

Making my decision, I motioned for Gabbert to follow me. 
Clear of another lake, we climbed over the guardrail on the edge of the
shoulder and down a dirt embankment to the field below.  It may have been a
rice paddy at one time, but now it was just chest high grass and weeds.  Ahead,
maybe a mile away, I could just make out the top of the sign for one of the
businesses and assumed it was a truck stop.  There had been an exit a quarter
of a mile back, but I hadn’t paid any attention to the signs that let travelers
know what services were available if they got off the freeway.

We hadn’t gone far, maybe a couple of hundred yards, when my
little sixth sense started tickling the hair on my arms and running up and down
my back on tiny mouse feet.  Without breaking stride I casually looked around,
then checked over each shoulder, but didn’t see anything.  The feeling didn’t
go away and I came to a stop, holding a hand out to halt Gabbert.

“What’s wr -,” he started to ask, slamming his mouth shut
when I glared at him and held a finger to my lips.

Rifle now up to my shoulder, I started a slow, 360-degree
scan.  The wind was blowing harder with strong gusts, and the vegetation in the
field moved constantly in waves.  Several times I paused in my scan, thinking
I’d spotted something, but it was just a larger weed or bush that wasn’t moving
in tandem with the surrounding grass.  I paused; a full circle completed
without finding anything, and was preparing to start a second scan when
Sergeant Gabbert screamed.

He was a dozen feet behind and to my left, and was already
vanishing into the tall grass by the time I swung my rifle around in his
direction.  Before I could even take a step, his scream was cut off as the
vegetation surrounding the area where he’d disappeared starting shaking
violently.  What the fuck?

I moved towards the spot, but didn’t make it before I caught
motion out of the corner of my eye.  Not one to normally shoot without knowing
what I was shooting at, I spun and fired six fast rounds at the location where
I’d seen movement.  The grass shook in a way that wasn’t from the wind, then a
faint grunting sounded briefly.  Not detecting any more movement, I turned to
face where I’d last seen Gabbert.  The grass was shaking, independent of the
strong wind, and I could hear more grunting sounds.  I wanted to put some
rounds into the area, but if Gabbert wasn’t already dead, I might finish him
off.

Taking a step, I froze when the grunting stopped.  There was
a rustle in the grass and a bush shook as whatever it was started coming in my
direction.  Back pedaling, I focused in on the wake I could see in the waving foliage
and started firing in burst mode.  Nine rounds expended, my blood ran cold when
there was a squealing scream, then it changed direction and moved swiftly away
from me.  I tracked the movement of its passing, and it was moving fast.  A lot
faster than I can run.

Moving forward again, I kept a close eye out for any more
danger as I looked for Gabbert.  I found him easily, and he was dead.  Vacant
eyes stared at the sky.  The grass was pressed down under what was left of his
body.  Scanning the area again for movement, I didn’t see anything, but that
didn’t make me feel any better.  Glancing down at him in between scans of the
immediate area I could see damage to his right leg, abdomen and throat.  His
lower leg was slashed open to the bone.  His abdomen also ripped open,
intestines spilling out onto the ground, and most of his throat was torn out.

Fuck me!  What can do that to a full grown man in just a few
seconds?  At first I thought it had to be an infected, but dismissed that.  The
infected only had the teeth and nails they were born with.  A human, no matter
how enraged, simply cannot inflict that kind of damage on another with bare
hands.  Besides, even the smart infected scream once they start attacking, and
I hadn’t heard a sound until after I had put some rounds into whatever it was. 
I wanted to go check the spot where I’d fired on the first movement, but the
little voice in the back of my head was screaming at me to get out of that
field as fast as I could.

Now if this had been a horror movie I would have ignored it
and gone stumbling around until something equally horrible happened to me.  But
this wasn’t, and I like to think I’m at least a little smarter than film
characters, so I started backing toward the pavement.  Rifle up and constantly
scanning I moved carefully, expecting to have my legs slashed out from under me
at any moment.

The wind continued to pick up, tossing the grass around like
the surface of the ocean in a strong storm.  If there was still anything moving
in the field other than me, it had the perfect cover.  I’d never spot a
disturbance in the grass in time to defend myself.  Glancing over my shoulder,
I noted I was just under 200 yards away from clear ground where I could see and
effectively fight whatever this was.  Walking backwards, I did a quick magazine
change.

Wading through chest deep grass when there’s something, or
several somethings, that are most likely stalking you is not my idea of a
pleasant stroll.  I tried to watch in every direction at once.  Continually the
wind would ruffle the top of the field and for a brief instant I would think I
was seeing the wake of an approaching threat.  But nothing attacked, and the
ground finally started rising as the grass and weeds thinned out.  My instinct
as I moved into a more open area was to dash for the road, but there was no way
in hell I was going to turn my back on the field.

Finally at the guardrail, I swung a leg over without taking
my eyes off the grass.  Back on the asphalt, I calmed my breathing, rifle up
and scanning across the large field.  Whatever had attacked and killed Gabbert
was either gone, or being completely masked by the undulating surface of the
grass.  Shaking off the creeping feeling that was resting on my shoulders, I
flicked my eyes up to the business that had been my destination. 

There was a reasonable chance I could acquire a vehicle
there, but I wasn’t about to try crossing the field again.  That meant a
quarter of a mile backtrack to the exit.  Glancing to my left, east, I looked
for any sign of habitation.  Nothing for as far as I could see, which was a
good distance in this terrain. 

Decision made, I stepped off to the west and headed for the
exit.  I kept the rifle up and ready as I moved, not relaxing until I had made
it back out over the waters of the small lake I’d crossed earlier.  Continually
checking behind me I was moving slower than I liked, but when a predator is in
the area, possibly stalking and waiting to strike, speed over caution is rarely
the right way to go.

I reached the exit without incident, tempted to cut across a
narrow arm of the field, but rethinking that idea and sticking to the
pavement.  The exit cut through a corner of the field, the pavement half the
width of the main freeway that I had been walking on.  There were narrow,
gravel shoulders on each side, the tall grass pushing right up to the edge.  It
was even taller here, nearly to the top of my head, and it felt like I was
walking in a tunnel.

Only a dozen yards down the exit road, I paused and surveyed
my surroundings.  Standing in the middle of the road there was maybe ten feet
of clearance to either side, then the thick edge of the field started.  Ten feet
is nothing.  I could cross that in less than a second.  Depending on what the
predators hiding in the field were, they might even be able to leap all the way
from hiding to where I was standing.

Ahead of me, the road stretched out perfectly straight for
what I guessed to be a half of a mile, and I could make out two large
structures.  From where I stood they appeared to be a truck stop and a cheap
motel that probably catered to long haul truckers.  I could also see the sun
glinting brightly off of several vehicles parked around the buildings.  But was
the risk of running the gauntlet of the field worth it to maybe find an
operable vehicle?

Eyes scanning up and down each side of the road as I weighed
my options, I tried to come up with what kind of animal I might be facing. 
Unfortunately I didn’t know this part of the country well enough to even make a
guess.  Whatever it was had to be big and powerful to have killed Gabbert as
swiftly as it had, and there just weren’t that many large predators in North America
that I could think of that were capable.  A bear?  Panther?  No, those didn’t
fit.  His leg has been taken out from under him first, then his stomach torn
open and throat slashed as he lay on the ground.  This was something built low.

Giving up on trying to figure out what it was, I decided I
didn’t really have a better option than to proceed and find a vehicle. 
Stepping off I moved deeper into the canyon of tall grass, eyes constantly
scanning, rifle up and swiveling back and forth in sync with my eyes.  The wind
was still ripping through, creating a loud sighing sound and rustling all of
the vegetation in the fields.  It was causing so much noise I wasn’t able to
depend on my hearing to alert me to an impending attack.  Frequent checks of my
rear were consistently negative, but I also knew that without constant
attention something could emerge from the weeds and bring me down from behind
before I knew it was there.

I had covered half the distance to the truck stop when
movement to the front brought me to a stop.  As I watched, three low, hulking
figures trotted out of the grass and onto the road no more than thirty yards
away.  They had massive shoulders and necks and long bodies, nearly five feet,
with narrow hips and were covered in a dense coat of black, wiry fur.  Their
heads were cruelly shaped and held well below their front shoulders.  Gleaming,
razor sharp tusks, several inches long, jutted up from their lower jaws and
each animal had to weigh at least 300 pounds.  Razorback hogs.  Oh shit!

I didn’t know much about razorbacks, but what I did know
scared the hell out of me.  They are faster and stronger than any human, generally
nasty tempered, and with their sharp tusks I now understood how Gabbert had
been taken down and eviscerated so easily.  But the question was, had we
stumbled into them, or were they hunting us?  I didn’t think the hogs were
predators that would come after a human.  As far as I knew they would just
defend their territory, but I didn’t know enough about them to understand why
they had killed him and come after me.

They stood there staring at me, blocking the road.  The
largest one was closest to me, and his head was lowered as he made a popping
sound with his mouth.  I could see foam forming along his lips and splattering
onto the black pavement.  If this was a dog my first thought would have been
rabies, but I wasn’t so sure that’s what was going on. 

Rifle sighted in on the leader’s head, I reflected that I
had the same problem now that I’d had with the bear I’d encountered in
Tennessee.  The M4 rifle does not fire a heavy bullet.  Certainly wouldn’t be
my choice for trying to take down a 300 pound wild hog.  Or three of the damn
beasts.  With my thumb I checked to ensure the fire selector was set to burst,
then decided to try something a little more devastating.

Moving slowly so I didn’t trigger an attack, I reached to a
pouch on my vest and pulled out a grenade.  Carefully I pulled the pin and let
the spoon release into my hand rather than spin away and clank across the
pavement.  As soon as the spoon came off the actuator I started counting.  At
three and a half I tossed the baseball sized explosive at the razorbacks.  I
was too damn close for this, but I needed a knockout punch on the half ton of
pork that looked like it was ready to charge.

I followed the grenade with my eyes, trying to time my move
with its arrival on target.  I had tossed it underhand with a high arc so it
would come down in the middle of them.  If I had timed it right it should
detonate a couple of feet above the ground.  Optimal placement for a
fragmentation grenade.  Unless you’re standing within the damage radius of the
metal fragments that would be propelled outward faster than the speed of sound
when it detonated.

Dropping to the ground a fraction of a second before the
grenade exploded, I successfully avoided the jagged metal that whizzed overhead,
but was still pummeled with the concussion of the blast.  And deafened. 
Popping up I snapped the rifle on target.  One of the razorbacks that had been
standing to their rear had taken the worst of the damage and lay on the road
dead.  The grenade had apparently gone off just a few feet in front of its
face, destroying the animal’s head. 

The second hog from the rear writhed on the ground,
squealing in pain.  I couldn’t see the extent of his wounds from where I lay,
but he was down and no longer a threat.  The largest one, the one who had been
foaming at the mouth, had damaged hips and rear legs, but was dragging his
badly bleeding body in my direction with his front legs.  I pulled the trigger
and pumped three rounds directly into his face.  He spasmed once before collapsing
to the ground, dead. 

One of the lessons I’d had beaten into me in training was to
not relax just because the enemy in front of you is neutralized.  That lesson
had been reinforced a few times in combat over the years.  Now it was
automatic, and I quickly got on my knee and scanned behind me.  Finding
nothing, I stood and walked slowly to where the last razorback was sprawled
across the asphalt, writhing and squealing.  I stopped a few feet away and
looked at him.

Fragments of the grenade’s casing had apparently severed his
spine and also torn open his body on the side facing the blast.  As he thrashed
about, blood and body fluids gushed out of the rent in his abdomen.  He saw me
standing there looking at him and began trying to drag his shattered body across
the pavement to attack me.  As he moved, his head turned and the sun shone
brightly on his face and for the first time I got a good look at his eyes. 
Blood red.  Just like an infected human.

I was stunned.  Rooted to the spot in horror at the thought
of the infection spreading to animals.  I had idly wondered earlier about the
possibility of birds being infected, but hadn’t thought about pigs.  I should
have.  The swine flu has been a problem for as long as humans have been keeping
and raising the animals.  Now a virus has jumped the other way?  That’s just
marvelous.

Firing a single round into the animal’s head, I moved to
check the other two.  I was dismayed when I pulled back each of their eyelids
and saw the same red eyes.  What the hell did that mean?  Were they going to
hunt us the same way infected humans did?  I still didn’t know if this whole
encounter was because we had stumbled into their territory, or if they had been
stalking us. 

I didn’t think an animal like this would stalk.  They weren’t
predators the way a wolf, a big cat or a bear are, and stalking wasn’t part of
their nature.  But was it now?  And were these male or female?  I stepped to
the back of the biggest razorback, and using the toe of my boot raised one of
its rear legs. It, he, had an enviously huge set of balls. A quick check of the
other two revealed they were both female.  I guess slow and stupid was
exclusive to males of the human race.

Reminding myself to not get caught up in over analyzing
things, I stood and checked the area around me.  Still clear.  For the moment
at least.  Were there more of these waiting for me?  Putting those thoughts
aside I resumed walking toward the truck stop.  I was on high alert, moving
slowly with my rifle ready to go, but I made it to the far end of the field
without encountering any more of Miss Piggy’s cousins.

I was downwind from the truck stop and could smell the
bodies well before I got there.  I reminded myself to not only watch for
infected, but also keep an eye out for razorbacks and aggressive scavengers.  It
was to the point that I was ready to shoot anything that moved.

The truck stop was massive.  There was no other description
for it.  In front were 20, slightly elevated islands with four gas pumps per
island.  To the side, 10 islands with two diesel pumps each.  The building was
all glass, half of it shattered out and twinkling in the afternoon sun. 
Peering inside I could see what looked like an only slightly smaller version of
a shopping mall.  Aisle upon aisle of merchandise stretched farther into the
structure than I could see.

Dozens of bodies littered the floor inside, several more
lying on the concrete apron between the pumps.  They all appeared to have died
a violent death and were in various stages of decomposition.  Some were bloated
with gasses, others already having ruptured, spilling their gelatinous contents
onto the ground.  A few hadn’t started bloating yet and I guessed they had only
been dead for a day at the most.  Definitely no longer than that in this heat and
humidity.

Insects were everywhere.  Flies.  Ants.  Beetles.  More than
I had ever seen, all busily consuming or laying eggs in the rotting flesh. 
Checking closer, several of the fresher bodies showed injuries consistent with what
the hogs I’d just encountered could do.  Legs and torsos slashed open.  Throats
ripped out, ribs crushed under the weight of the heavy animal as they’d
probably stood on their victims to finish them off.

Well, that answered one question.  The razorbacks hadn’t
been defending territory.  They were actively aggressive.  I could only hope
they’d be as aggressive with infected humans as non-infected.  I made another
slow scan of the area to check for any approaching danger.  All I saw were more
bodies in the motel parking lot.  Then the missing piece struck me.  No
scavengers other than insects.  There should be crows and vultures and other
birds.  Coyotes too, and possibly even domestic dogs that had gone feral.  None
of the bodies showed any sign of having been fed on.  Where the hell were the
scavengers?

Deciding I’d seen enough, I started looking around for
transportation.  The first thing that caught my eye was a silver Shelby Cobra
Mustang with a fuel nozzle still sticking out of its filler neck.  I took one
step in that direction before stopping myself.  I wasn’t here to find a car
that would be fun to drive, and I didn’t need one that could go fast.  I needed
something tough and practical.

I turned a slow circle, looking at vehicles, but also
checking my surroundings.  Nothing was moving and I spotted a ride that suited
my needs.  A brand new Lexus GX SUV sat at the farthest fueling island. 
Walking over I took a second look around, but it was the only four wheel drive
vehicle in sight.  Bending as I approached, I checked under to make sure
nothing was lying in wait, ready to grab my ankles and yank my feet out from
under me.

Looking in the window I made sure there wasn’t a decomposing
body waiting for me.  Seeing nothing, I opened the driver’s side door,
gratified when the melodic tone of an alarm started up.  The keys were in the
ignition.  I took another look at the rest of the interior before reaching my
arm in and turning the key.  It started easily, engine noise barely audible
even standing outside.  The gas gauge read full.  Thankful the owner had
finished filling up before whatever had happened to him had happened, I hopped
behind the wheel and pulled the door shut behind me.

The seats were leather, as were most of the surfaces inside,
other than the thick carpet that was immediately stained by my filthy boots. 
Air conditioning came on automatically.  A moment later soft jazz started
playing.  The luxury was almost surreal after weeks of running, fighting and
surviving.  Shaking my head I played with the touch screen in the middle of the
dash until the music was shut off then found the navigation and brought up a
street map.  A dot pulsed in the middle of the screen, marking the big
vehicle’s location.

Shifting into drive I pulled out of the truck stop and
followed the map until I reached an entrance ramp that would get me back on
I-40 east.  The Lexus accelerated smoothly and rode like there was only glassy
smooth pavement beneath the tires.  I had never driven a Lexus before, always
having had an aversion to Japanese cars, but I had to admit this was nice.  But
give me a kidney busting Ford four wheel drive any day.  This damn thing was
too nice to ever think about taking off road.  Well, not any more I guess.

Within a couple of miles of getting back on the Interstate I
saw a vehicle approaching.  I slowed and rolled down the tinted window so I
could get a good look at it and the occupants.  It was an old Ford Bronco,
filthy with mud.  There were a couple of cleaner spots and it looked like it
was painted orange.  The Bronco slowed as well, and I looked across the median,
meeting the driver’s eyes.  He looked back at me, as did the man sitting in the
passenger seat.  The driver nodded a cautious greeting.  I nodded back, then we
passed each other and continued in our directions of travel.