The Reaper Virus (25 page)

I didn’t need any more explanation to know
where he was going with this. We both rifled through the black
mound. Our movements began to reflect the fearful desperation that
radiated from the fading light. I held up several of the dusty
shards only to have Phil give them a disapproving frown.

“How about this one?” I hoisted up a larger
one and waited for my busy partner to reject it. It was jaggedly
cylindrical, maybe six inches long and an uneven width.

“Perfect!” The volume of his excited outburst
startled and irritated me. I should give up our stealthy ruse,
because honestly, how stealthy can two guys walking on top of a
train be? “Give it here!” He said while grabbing it and busying
himself at the rope. Thirty seconds later he proudly held up a
raggedy rope rigging tied to a crumbly hunk of coal.

“Uhh… Phil,” once again I was too tired to
hide my real thoughts, “I don’t think that’s going to hold me.” I
was so defeated in my pain and exhaustion that I was ready to sleep
there in the train car.

He smirked. “Then it’s a good thing I’m going
first.”

1655 hours:

Phil’s confidence level impressed me. This was a
good thing too, since I had become so completely drained. Normally,
I would be anxiously watching as he secured a knot around the shard
of coal turned grappling hook. Now I simply sat atop the painfully
uneven pile of black rocks and attempted to muster up the strength
to care again.

“You going to be able to do this?” Phil
asked, noticing my lack of enthusiasm. “Because I have no idea
where to go once we get up that bridge. I’d also really, really
like to get some sleep and the middle of that bridge looks as good
as a Holiday Inn.”

I smirked and chuckled. “Is a Holiday Inn a
good thing to you or a bad thing?”

He let out a short, but dangerously audible
laugh. “I’m more of a tent or back seat of my Saturn kind of guy
so… it looks like a damn good thing.” He looked over his shoulder
at the fading light. In my mental master planning I had visualized
already being in a safe place by now.

“You drive a Saturn too?” I asked, forcing
myself to rise. The pain in my chest was severe. If several of my
ribs weren’t cracked, then they’d suffered one hell of a bruise.
“I’ve been a Saturn man for years. I have a feeling you and I will
get along just fine.”

By then he had already turned to prep the
rope and said, “Hey, I stopped worrying the moment you pulled me
out of the water.” This comment embarrassed me with the realization
that Phil had far more trust in me than I did in him. Long ago I
had been an overly trusting person; after years in the criminal
justice field, I waited until trust was earned. Even while watching
the man whose life I had saved, who had already saved me once, and
who likely would be saving me again in the next few minutes… I knew
that any trust he thought I had in him was false. For some reason,
I could not bring myself to trust my new companion.

With this, Phil held the rope with a good
foot and a half of slack between his hand and the anchor. He spun
the rigging around in a clockwise circle to build momentum. My
heart ceased while observing this display. The infernal pessimist
inside my brain kept poking at my thoughts with a visual of the
coal flying off and the two of us being stuck on the train. After
thirty seconds reality shot my thoughts down when Phil released the
line.

The coal flew out in an arc that took it
inches from the ladder’s lowest rung. Fortunately for us, the rope
stuck with the rock even when it splashed to the water below.
Philip hastily pulled the line back. We let off a simultaneous sigh
of relief when we heard the chunky anchor bouncing along the side
of the coal car a couple times, before it appeared at our feet.

Our eyes started adjusting to the lower light
as sunset shaded us with doom. I started to become aware of a
flashing light that came from the other side of the rail bridge.
Running parallel to our targeted river crossing was the main
highway bridge for the Powhite Parkway. Until just days before I
traveled this ten lane bridge twice a day for my commute to and
from work. Knowing how the other main roadways turned into
deathtraps I could only imagine what this one was like. My guess
was that the flashing was coming from an array of hazard lights
throughout the bridge.

The whizzing of the rope spinning pulled my
attention back to my partner. He released the line again. I heard a
clink and was ecstatic. Then it fell downward with a splash and my
short lived hopes were dashed. Thanks to the fading light I
couldn’t see how close it came. I assume it was closer since he
uttered, “Almost, God damn it!” a split second after I heard the
clink above the rapids. Phil once again reeled in our lifeline. We
held our breath until the coal anchor was within reach. He turned
to me and said with an overconfidence seemingly aimed at convincing
us both, “This time it
will
work.”

I was too anxious to respond. It was now
officially dark out and my heartbeat overcame the babble of the
river. My eyes had adjusted enough to see the immediate area and
some distant shapes. The river had a way of reflecting ambient
light to the point of an eerie self-luminescence. Philip went ahead
with a third attempt. We both paused and awaited the splash of rope
entering the murky James… only the splash didn’t ever come. The
rope remained taut at an oblique angle that indicated being affixed
to the bridge’s bricked tower.

“Hell yes!” Phil shouted. He spun around and
grabbed my aching hand to excitedly shake it. I knew we were being
too loud, but couldn’t care less. This was the first good thing
that had happened since he and I met. If all went well we would be
out of the reach of any infected that were drawn by our brief
jubilation.

“Is it stable enough to support our weight?”
I cautiously asked, prying my hand from a handshake that had gone
on long enough to venture into the realm of uncomfortable.

He gave the rope a little slack then pulled
it taut again. It was like he had been fishing and knew a whopper
was on the other end of the line, now he just needed to set the
hook. “Yeah, I think so. Do you have a flashlight?” I pulled one of
my flashlights from a snug corner of the survival pack. It had been
there ever since I was with Lance and Brad on Franklin Street. I
clicked it on while my left hand stifled the beam. A red glow
showed through the translucent skin between my thumb and pointer
finger. The brightness caught our dilated pupils off guard and we
shared a wince.

“Okay, if you hear me call out just spot the
light where my voice comes from,” he said. “I’ll find a way to get
the line back to you.”

“What if the rope snaps or the coal gives?” I
asked half rhetorically and half with concern. I tried to convince
myself that that didn’t make me the poster child of assholes
everywhere. With the inevitable awkwardness of any
“you are probably about to die”
situation, anything
you say would come across as rhetorical.

Phil chuckled. “Then you can get your wish
and sleep on the train and I guess I’ll be right back where you
found me.” I laughed in response. Perhaps my mistrust in this
newfound friend was just paranoia?

He stepped to the lip of the coal car and
pulled the rope tight. Both hands were tightly gripped a good two
feet apart on the line. I watched Phil shift his footing for a
moment then he was gone. For a split second I saw his body float
into the blackness like he was flying. I was left breathless at how
quickly it all happened. It may have been my imagination filling in
the blanks as it had enjoyed doing recently, but I could have sworn
that I could see his silhouette swoop over the rippling glow of the
river. By the time I recognized the distinctive sound of creaking
rope I heard a slap followed by a muffled curse. My heart
palpitated and stomach acid churned as I waited to hear him hit the
water, but the splash never came.

I didn’t care if I was telling all the
zombies around that dinner was ready; the tension was too much.
“
Phil!?!
” I hollered in the loudest
whisper I’d ever uttered. Silence followed. “
Come
on, man… tell me you’re still with me!
” Still nothing… My
heart ached at that point. After a minute I was positive that once
again I’d been left to fight through this hell alone. Despair took
the strength from my legs and I sat hard. Topping it all off was
the pointed piece of coal that greeted my fat ass.

I buried my face in both hands as I
compressed my throbbing muscles to curl into a ball. With
everything that had been going on I completely forgot about my
bandaged forehead. The contact shot searing pain from the covered
laceration above my eyes straight through my skull then bounced
down the length of my person. I arched my back and winced at the
sudden bombardment of razor sharp stinging. Every other woeful
muscle screamed back at the sudden jostling. The advantage to
having multiple injuries is that any specific pain is dulled into a
generalized agony.

At that moment something smacked into the car
right next to me. I hadn’t been that startled since getting
attacked in the parking deck. Throwing all caution to the wind I
turned on my light to see what manner of death had landed at my
side. I squinted to shield my tired eyes from the burning light.
Right away I was greeted with the heavenly sight of nylon rope
looped around a black mass.

“
Grab it and come
on!
” Phil shouted from the darkness.

“Oh thank God!” I yelled in response. By now
there had to be some nearby undead getting very excited by this
loud, teasing meal. “But is it—”

“I tied it to the ladder. It’ll hold! Just
watch out for the brick when you swing in. It just about knocked me
off the rope!”

All of a sudden I felt like I had been
transported back to getting pepper sprayed in the Police Academy.
That was the only other time in my life that came to mind where I
had no choice in doing something that without a doubt would hurt
a lot
.

“Alright just give me a second!” I shouted
back.

I pulled my “cleaning shirt” from where it
was looped on the outside of the survival pack. Even though I
couldn’t fully see it I knew the Kukri would be coated from recent
battle. After a few seconds of wiping I pulled out my belt enough
to remove the scabbard. It felt completely and utterly wrong to
disarm myself. As wrong as this may have felt, I’d rather have the
weapon I just about died to keep safe in the bag. Seconds later I
had everything packed tight. I knew that I was being overly
cautious, but at the same time I was stalling.

It only took a moment to untie the rope from
the coal anchor. Impulsively I took the end and tied it around both
straps and the top handle of my pack. The way I saw it was that if
I fell, it would either stop me or slow my descent. Although it was
equally possible that it would just snap and I’ll die painfully.
It’s always comforting to know that your immediate future will be
comprised of painful, exhausting life or painful, terrifying death.
Times like these prove I’m a natural optimist.

I stepped to the steel cusp of the coal car.
Reaching along the taut rope I tried to position my hands as Phil
had done. While stretching my body out over the edge I looked down
upon indistinguishable peril. The simple act of extending along the
rope filled my body with throbbing waves of pain. If just pulling
on the damn line hurt this bad then I had no idea how my life would
last longer than another few minutes. Over-thinking led to
uncertainty. If I didn’t step over the edge right then, I probably
never would.

Then suddenly I was flying. I stepped over
the ledge and gripped with fervent effort. The pull of gravity
attempted to rip me from this lifeline almost as hard as I
attempted to hold on. That was when the wall came. It hurt more
than anything I’d ever experienced. Force of the impact spun me
around the other side of a brick column. I came to a momentary stop
when my back slapped against the wall. If it hadn’t been for the
cushioning of the survival pack I would have likely been knocked
out the second that I bashed into the column.

Somewhere in the background I could hear Phil
yelling out for me to respond. I wanted to yell back, but breath
couldn’t find its way to my lungs. It could have been my
imagination, but I could swear I heard one of my ribs fully snap. I
scraped my right heel against the brick desperate to gain some
leverage. This debilitating strain had pushed me over the limit
two-fold. The will to fight that had brought me to this unthinkable
place began to acquiesce with reality. That reality was that I was
less than a second away from giving it all up to the James
River.

Another scrape of my boot found an
irregularity in the wall. It was enough to push up and lighten the
strain on both arms. I used the slack to loop the rope around my
wrist. It hurt like hell, but stabilized me enough to reach up to
one of the knots Phil put in the line. Not even a minute before I
was ready to give up and join the corpses drifting downstream. Now
ascent was possible. I worked out a smile knowing how luck can show
itself in the oddest ways. At least I think I smiled… everything
hurt too fucking much to be sure.

Thanks to the slight reprieve I’d been given
I was able to get a better hold on the line. I flipped to face the
slatternly wall. Ambient cool from the brick felt alarmingly good
on my battered knees. Some calculated flailing allowed me to clear
the far side of the column and hang directly beneath the ladder.
Phil must have heard my struggle. His cries for my attention turned
into muffled shouts of encouragement.