The Reaper Virus (14 page)

Ever since we left Police Headquarters we had
lived in darkness. That was nothing compared to what stared back at
me. It looked like the pupils had become so dilated that they
enveloped the whole eye. My mind told me that the eyes rapidly
moved about. They searched for movement, for life, for
me
.

Something caught its attention and it darted
off to the east. I threw myself back from the window and
practically leapt to the door. However, before leaving the room I
looked back at where I was sitting to see if the creature returned.
A full outline of the drapes was visible again. Satisfied I moved
towards the stairs with all the stealth I could muster. Just
because the reaper wasn’t at the window, doesn’t mean it wasn’t
nearby; or at least that’s what my fear told me.

0220 hours:

With every blink I could see its face… the black
eyes searching for me; the feral mouth snapping at me, wanting my
flesh. I fell over with a dry heave – adrenaline was catching up
with me.

I should have been stretching or doing
something productive. Instead I was back in my room sitting
motionless, entirely lost in my own thoughts. My mind suffered
through a hailstorm of visions that attempted to distract me from
the matter at hand. I saw the smiling faces of my kids, of my
beloved wife. Then their faces would transform into the rotting
visage of what I had just locked eyes with outside. It was the
first time I worried that the horrors outside were clouding my
focus on where I needed to be. Another sobering bout of nausea made
me shake my head and clutch my gut. It passed and I focused on
thinking about nothing at all.

The forced trance became broken by the
irritation on my left shin. Hard to believe I forgot about the skin
I’d paved over with duct tape. I toyed with the idea of taking it
off. Discomfort aside, I couldn’t risk losing the messages I
recorded for everyone. That Micro SD card wouldn’t last long
against the ravages of infection or injury. I’d deal with removing
it and the scars that followed if I lived to see home again. Then I
had a disturbing thought about the nature of those infected with
the R33PR virus. I decided to leave my solitude and find the guys
to talk things over.

Brad was completely passed out. I opted not
to bother him and moved to Lance’s room. He was awake and ushered
me in when I cracked the door. I sat down in the chair across from
him and took a deep breath, recounting the events that just
occurred downstairs.

“The virus obviously rewires human physiology
in some way,” I said to Lance. “We know this because suddenly
you’re dead
and
moving.”

“And crazy as fuck… and hungry,” Lance
interjected.

“Shut up and let me finish.” He smirked and I
continued. “What if the virus spreads itself by turning the
infected into, like, a predator or something along those lines?
Pupils dilate to see better when it’s dark. That could mean that
the virus rewires people to be nocturnal hunters.”

He looked intrigued and burdened. “Now that I
think about it, the ones I saw before at H.Q. did move a little
faster when it was dark.” After a pause he hesitantly said, “So you
think it’s a bad idea for us to go when it’s still dark.”

“Pretty much,” I said through a sigh. “At
least in the daylight we would be able to see where we’re
going.”

“True enough. There are a lot of blind
corners.” He picked up his black forged stainless steel firearm
from the table and holstered it with a distinct click sound. “I’ll
go talk to Brad. You go back to the window and see if you can see
anything useful.”

* * *

0726 hours:

I spent the time leading up to sunrise gazing
out the window with periodic stretching breaks. As ridiculous as it
may have been, I also practiced some fighting moves with the Kukri.
Regardless of how absurd the practice felt, inside it prepared me
for the idea of plunging the curved blade into another’s skull.

Any attempts to catnap were fruitless. I’d
like to think it didn’t bother me; I’d given up sleep six years ago
when I moved to the midnight shift. I chuckled at myself. The
notion that I abandoned any hope for rest so long ago was as
ridiculous as it was true. I chuckled again thinking that I had
turned into a zombie before the virus even existed. It was good to
know laughter was still possible, even if it was at my own
expense.

While perched at the window I only saw two
infected pass near the building. Maybe it was because I had a
better knowledge of them now, but I could swear they moved faster
than the zombies I saw during the daylight. This reaffirmed our
decision to move at first light. In all actuality, I have little
basis for comparison. Any daytime sightings I’d had were through a
crack in the window or from a crappy security camera.

Twilight was skewed from all the new
pollution in the air. Sunrise should have been a little before
seven o’clock. We decided to meet and prepare ourselves near the
front door at about quarter till. All three of us were eager and
anxious to meet our fate, whatever it may be. Three days before, we
became trapped in this godforsaken city under siege of the undead.
It wasn’t unreasonable that we would desire
any
fate other than prolonged confinement away from
our families.

Now there we were, ready and willing to
plunge into an undead world. We’d been camped by the barricaded
front door for over half an hour. Brad and Lance were at the
doorway of the room with the bay windows. I was sitting at the
window where I came face to face with the infected earlier,
watching the street to determine the right time to leave.

The grim world became slightly more visible
by the minute. I could see the car wreck much more clearly than the
evening before. There was a body on the hood of the striking
vehicle. It didn’t move at all the entire time I watched it. More
than likely it was actually dead. I hoped it was dead-dead, but to
stay on the safe side, my instincts told me to keep the corpse in
mind anyways. Call it survival instincts if you want, perhaps some
of the training did sink in, either way, I was not going to take
any chances.

Everything was dull and drab in color. There
was no vibrancy, nothing spectacular distinguishing itself from the
hints of pestilence all around. It reminded me of watching some
indie film with a percentage of the color removed. I thought there
were pools of blood near the car with open doors, but it was still
hard to tell.

Something told me we’d be able to see
everything far too well once we were out there.

I inhaled deeply, held the breath for a
moment, then exhaled, trying to convince myself that I was ready to
take the leap into the unknown. I turned to my comrades and saw
that they were just as nervous. Obviously I couldn’t blame them,
but the time was approaching for us to leave this place.

“Hey guys…” I whispered loudly as I turned
from the window, “it’s time.” They both acknowledged with a nod,
saying nothing. Their response was to head to the door and start
moving the barricaded furniture. I collected my bag and went to
assist.

Moments later Lance had his hand on the
doorknob, gun drawn. Brad was close behind him with the mini
crowbar at the ready position. I pulled up the rear with my Kukri
in a tight fist at my side.

The door cracked and both Lance and Brad
recoiled in near blindness. It didn’t seem quite as bad to me since
I had spent the last half hour looking out the window. Gun or not,
I should have gone first. Fortunately there wasn’t a set of undead
jaws awaiting us. After a moment of adjustment, we crept out of our
safe haven, pausing to listen. A distant cacophony of bangs, car
horns, and shrieks could be heard in seemingly all directions.

A spherical hedge sat on either side of the
front door. This gave Lance enough cover to peek around and check
the area. After studying both east and west very carefully, he
motioned for us to follow with a directional head nod. Once I
cleared the hedges and carefully traversed the handful of steep
steps I got a look at the street.

There wasn’t anything moving nearby. A blend
of either fog or smoke put a veil over everything eastward. Looking
west I could see more cars, more debris and more death. Lance
motioned to the car accident. It sat in front of the Scott House,
an old plantation style home used for formal activities by the
university. The two fused cars blocked a cobblestone driveway that
led to an overhang area attached to the house, then beyond to a
small servants’ shack at the far southwest corner of the property.
A seven-foot stone wall surrounded the old Confederate style
grounds. Though it was never said out loud, in the name of stealth,
I knew our course would take us through the property and over the
wall.

I hadn’t realized that the building had been
blocking the background sounds from behind us. When we reached the
sidewalk I immediately became aware of the persistent banging still
echoing from Police Headquarters, which was situated to the north
of us. My first thought was selfish yet strategic:
“Thank God they are all still gathered around H.Q.”
I
tried to find some reassurance in this. Maybe all of the zombies in
the area would be around the building rather than waiting for us to
stumble upon them while fleeing in the opposite direction. At the
same time it meant that everyone was still trapped and help had not
come. I pushed it all back in my mind and focused on the mammoth
task before us. Our three man convoy moved with a silent
proficiency across the street and around the driver side bumper of
the striking car. It was difficult not to step on glass or debris.
Every movement of my foot brought about a gut-wrenching crunch
sound. Within seconds the true horror of the car accident became
apparent.

A lifeless, mangled body lay from the
windshield wipers to convergence with the other car. Its shape was
remotely human, but that was all that could be said about the poor
soul. With a foreboding glance I saw that little remained of the
head. I was confident this person would stay
dead
.

Whatever color this car once was, it was now
just a mix of dirt, dust, and blood. The windows were broken.
Inside the vehicle was a peppering of blood and obvious tissue. At
the point of impact was a visible soup of humanity that had little
resemblance to its origins. There was so much of it there that I
doubt it could all belong to the corpse on the hood. The twisted
arm of the driver blocked a full passing look of the horror. I’m
sure if I could have stomached looking closely enough, I would have
seen the undead fingers protruding from the gore beyond the arm.
Maybe then I would have spotted the fingers rooted to the hand of a
tethered ghoul; concealed and twitching about the viscera.

Lance followed the oblique angle of the
connected vehicles and stopped at the front passenger wheel of the
parked vehicle, facing the Scott House. Brad followed a few steps
behind him, crouched at the grisly impact point. I rounded the
bumper, checking behind us to make sure we hadn’t drawn any
attention.

Just as it had in the parking deck, time
slowed to a crawl. Turning my neck to pan my view and see where I
would stop - I saw it… from beneath the wreckage a disfigured,
infected torso swung towards Brad. Its arm, reaching upward and
sandwiched between the bumpers, became hyper extended in the
feverish movement. With a nauseating crack the lifeless flesh tore
and the arm ripped at the shoulder.

Freed from its tether, the creature fell from
suspension and landed in the puddle of blended horror I assume once
belonged to its lower half. It reached towards Brad with a
single-minded tenacity. Everything transpired so quickly I doubt
any of us would have been able to avoid it. Brad looked down as the
infected fingers latched onto his left pant leg. I watched his
expression turn from surprise to mortal terror and end with
pain-polluting rage. The zombie’s feral jaws found his calf, biting
with enough force to spray bright red arterial blood from the sides
of its mouth. In the back of my mind, the morbid sight reminded me
of biting into a ripe fruit.

Brad’s reaction was as quick as it was
devastating. The mini-crowbar swung downward in a left-handed fury.
Its forked carbon-steel edge met the infected skull just past the
temple with no resistance. The jaws released and the creature fell
to the ground. Brad let the crowbar, still embedded in the infected
skull, drop with his attacker. His legs gave way through pain and
the heaviness of knowing his fate.

We rushed to his aid. The wound wasn’t even
visible through the seeping blood. A large vein in his leg looked
to have been severed from the bite. Even under normal circumstances
we would have to get him to a hospital quickly from an injury like
this. Sadly the blood loss wasn’t what worried me. Lance gave me a
look – I’m sure he was thinking the same thing I was. Any bite to
an artery or vein as vital as this meant the person could turn in
minutes. We all gazed at the hemorrhaging wound, the dread
palpable.

“Shoot me, man.” Brad’s voice was eerily
calm.

Lance stuttered, taken aback by the demand.
“F-f-fuck no! I’m not going to be the one to kill you, you
motherfucker! Take my gun and go out on your own terms for Christ’s
sake. We can take it from you after.”

I said nothing. What could I say? I should
have been watching to see if the commotion got us noticed. I took a
few cautionary steps back and watched in absolute horror.

“Lance I need you to shoot me. Please!” Brad
repeated as more of a command. Pushing his hand against the car he
hoisted himself back to a staggered stance. He must have been in
excruciating pain.