V-Virus Infected 1

by Dahlhaus, Jacky

  That was the cue for us to run.

  “To the river!” Charlie yelled, and we dashed in between the RV’s and camper trailers, taking the shortest route.

  I could hear at least two people following us in hot pursuit. I was worried for Charlie and his short legs, but boy, could he run. We didn’t have much of a head-start, and our pursuers were soon gaining ground. I heard loud swearing behind us and threw a glance backward. One of the pursuers had tripped over a piece of heavy furniture in front of one of the camper trailers.

  Thank you so much, boring person!

  We kept on running until we reached the tent field. The field lights lit up an eerie scene that gave us the scare of our lives. There was a whole bunch of infected here, herding people together while more and more were being added. Those infected hadn’t seen us yet, so we continued our sprint for the jetty. Sue was in front, her long legs giving her the edge. For some strange reason, she ducked under the upturned dinghy.

  “No! The canoes!” Charlie and I both screamed at her.

  I tried to reach for her as Charlie grabbed my arm. At that same moment, the closest chasing vampire caught up with me. He seized the arm I had the flashlight in, and I couldn’t fight the guy off me with it. Charlie didn’t waste any time thinking as he swung around and planted the bottom of his blowtorch right in the man’s face. The shock made the man lose his grip on my arm. I tried again to reach for Sue, but Charlie pulled me toward the canoes.

  I followed him, running onto the jetty, and we jumped into the furthest canoe. Charlie worked frantically on the rope to get it loose. It was old and broke, allowing him to push all the canoes away from the landing stage. As he did this, I noticed Sue hadn’t followed us. She must have stayed under the dinghy. My gaze was drawn by movement from the center of the field. Some of the infected there had spotted us and ran toward the jetty. I knew they would never be able to reach us as we had already drifted more than three feet away from the jetty. I searched for Sue again and saw that the second chaser had caught up with the first one who was clutching his nose. My heart stopped as he pointed to the dinghy and number two then dragged Sue from under it.

  “Sue!” I screamed, fear pulling on every nerve in my body.

  Sue also screamed. It had no effect as they dragged her struggling body with ease toward the center of the field. A man from the crowd tried to free Sue from her captors. I couldn’t believe what I saw next. One of the infected, not an overly big one, picked the man up above his head and threw him away from Sue, away from the crowd of people.

  This is unreal, superhuman, movie stuff.

  At first, I thought I hadn’t seen it right and blinked.

  “Did you see that?” Charlie said.

  I turned to him with eyes wide open and nodded. We looked back to the tent field. More and more victims were added to the prisoners. Like Sue, they hadn’t escaped the hunt.

  The infected who had run onto the jetty halted. They realized they’d never be able to catch us and returned to their captured victims.

  Charlie and I watched as the infected gathered around the humans. What happened next chilled me to the bone. As one, the vampires fell on their victims. It was a true feeding frenzy. People were screaming, fighting, clawing, desperate to escape. But the infected were stronger, their hunger was great, and the resulting bloodbath was like a scene from a horror movie.

  “Nooo! Sue!” I screamed again at the top of my lungs, nearly tipping the canoe over. “Sue! Sue! Sue …” I looked at Charlie and back to the field again.

  I was frantic, panicking. I had never been so scared in my life. I wanted to help those people, to help Sue, but I couldn’t do anything. I wanted Charlie to do something, but of course, he couldn’t either. Charlie and I both were safe here in the canoe, and they weren’t.

  “Sue …” I whimpered.

  This time I felt like someone wasn't simply grabbing my insides but was ripping them out. I had to fight for breath, to stay conscious. I became lightheaded and fell forward. The black water was coming closer and closer to my face.

  It suddenly backed off. A strong hand had grabbed me by the scruff and pulled me back. It was Charlie. He embraced me and turned my head, so I couldn’t see what was happening on the tent field. I could still hear the screams and wailing, though, as we were only slowly getting further and further away from them.

  “Deep breaths,” Charlie said in between his own sobs. “Deep breaths.”

  Slowly the current of the river had us drifting away from the campground, and eventually the screams faded into nothing. We sat in the canoe hugging each other for what seemed like an eternity, both of us crying for the loss of Sue’s life, for the loss of all those lives.

  Chapter 11

  The canoe followed the river which wound and bent like a slithering snake through the landscape. I huddled at the front end of the canoe, Charlie sat at the back. As we meandered along, my memories drifted back to when I had first met Sue.

  We had met in the hardware store where I was looking for paint to do up my new home. We bumped into each other trying to grab the same can of paint. She was the most colorful person I had ever met. When we started chatting, I found out she was the new English teacher at Bullsbrook High. We immediately clicked and were like two peas in a pod from that day on. We spent most of our time together, helping each other paint and decorate our new homes. Then school started, and our time was spent teaching long hours in the classrooms as well as at home preparing lesson plans.

  How I wished I had spent more time with her those last few weeks. How I wished I’d saved her. How I wished I still had my friend.

  We drifted for hours. When we got too close to the shore, Charlie pushed us off with a branch he’d broken off from an overhanging tree. We didn’t talk. We didn’t want to be heard by any infected onshore. Besides, we didn’t have anything to say to each other. Sue was gone, people were dead. What was there to say?

  If I hadn’t given her that lamp, we might have all escaped together.

  If I had run faster, she would have followed me to the canoes.

  If I hadn’t followed Charlie, I may have helped get Sue get free.

  I went through all the possible scenarios over and over in my mind. I couldn’t stop it. It was as if my mind had a subscription on repeats lately. Though my brain knew I couldn’t change what had happened, my heart seemed to refute that fact. It kept telling my mind to try to find a loophole to undo past events.

  ***

  When the first rays of sunshine climbed over the horizon, it created glittering sparkles on the water’s surface. Birds had already begun singing earlier, and life seemed to continue as if nothing eventful had happened.

  All of a sudden Charlie spoke.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  I wasn’t facing him. Silently, I pondered his words for another minute before answering.

  “Yes, it is. If I hadn’t given her the lamp, she’d still be alive.”

  “You don’t know that.” His voice was devoid of emotion. Calm, if anything.

  “Don’t give me that bullshit about Karma.” My breathing sped up a notch. I heard Charlie sigh.

  “Look, if you want to blame somebody, blame me. I was the one that grabbed and saved you instead of Sue.”

  I finally turned to look at him and saw his sad eyes.

  Oh my god. He thinks he’s to blame for Sue’s death.

  “It’s not your fault either,” I said.

  He didn’t reply, which was on par with my verbal refusal of his words. We let the silence linger. There was no use wasting our breath on words that had no bearing on changing the situation. I let my arm drop outside the canoe, fingers gliding over the water’s surface. The cool, little waves lapping against my hand were all I had to keep me from drowning in my sorrow.

  ***

  I had no idea how far we had drifted down the river. When houses began to appear, we could only guess we’d reached Bullsbrook. We got off at the first jetty we came ac
ross and moored the canoe.

  I felt like a fugitive as we moved through the town, dashing from house to house, huddling in the shadows against the walls. We stopped at every sound we heard as we didn’t know if there were any infected here, and we didn’t want to find out either.

  Before we had gotten out of the canoe, we had decided to go to the school. There was a ribbon of pure magnesium in the science storeroom. I had explained to Charlie that magnesium, when you set it on fire, gives off an extremely bright light, including UV-light. I knew it was only a tiny piece, but Charlie agreed it might be our only chance to escape from an attack by the infected in a dire situation. The school buildings might offer a safe place to hide as well. Who would want to go back to school during an apocalypse?

  It took us a while to find out which part of town we were in, but soon we recognized where we were and set off for the school on a more direct route. We arrived there without incident. Bullsbrook High was the only high school in the area. It also housed the only local adult education facilities; hence the school wasn’t a small one and consisted of multiple buildings. We went straight to my science classroom on the second floor of the main building.

  Chapter 12

  At the front of the classroom was the door that led to the storeroom. We hurried into the room, and I searched the boxes on the shelves with consumables from top to bottom. Charlie let me get on with it. In the meantime, he examined pieces of equipment, like beakers, cylinders, and clamps.

  “Gee, you need to do some dusting in here, Kate.” I saw him wipe his fingers over the surface of an Erlenmeyer before wiping his hands.

  “Yeah, I meant to, but I haven’t had the time for it yet. I’ve been having too much fun teaching them about magnets and electrical fields.”

  I continued my search. The boxes were almost empty, so it didn’t take me too long to find the one I wanted.

  “Ah, got it,” and I showed Charlie the small, silvery piece of ribbon in a little zip-lock plastic bag filled with oil. The magnesium strip was about five centimeters long.

  “Is that all?” Charlie said.

  “Yes, unfortunately.” Even though I had known it wasn’t much, I was as disappointed as he was.

  “How long is that going to last?” Charlie asked.

  “To be honest, I have no idea. If I remember correctly, not long, but I don’t want to waste it trying.” We both looked at it a while longer. “Let’s cut it in half, so we each have a piece.” I put the package on the desk and opened a desk drawer.

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea to make it even smaller?” It was obvious he didn’t think so.

  “Where’s a zip-lock bag when you need one?” I rummaged through the contents of the drawer.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to keep it whole, to keep it burning longer?” Charlie tried again.

  I stopped my search to think about that.

  “Yes, possibly, but what if we’re attacked from two sides? We need to be able to ward them off from different directions.”

  “Hmm, you’ve got a point there. But if we are attacked by hordes, we won’t get out, anyway. At least, it’ll be very unlikely.”

  “Ah, but you’re forgetting this stuff will make them have seizures, and we can just step over them to get away.” I continued my search for a small zip-lock bag.

  When I finally found one, I took a pair of scissors from one of the wooden blocks on the shelves. I took the ribbon of magnesium out of the bag and cut the silvery piece in half. The metal was soft and pliable. I carefully poured half of the oil into the new bag and dropped a piece of ribbon into each one. I closed the seals and held out one bag to Charlie.

  “Don’t lose it through a hole in your pocket,” I said.

  He took it, looked at it for a moment, and put it in his pocket. I rummaged some more through the desk’s drawers.

  “What are you looking for now?” he asked.

  Turning around, I held up two lighters. “These!” I said triumphantly. “We need to be able to light the magnesium.”

  He smiled and held up his own lighter, retrieved from his pocket.

  “Got one already. Need one to light my blowtorch, remember?” His face had a smug look as he picked up his blowtorch which he had set down for the time being.

  I looked at the cheap-looking lighters in my hand and again at the silver-colored, engraved lighter in his hand before dropping my arms.

  “You win. Your Schwartz is bigger than mine.” I threw one of the lighters back in the drawer and pocketed the other.

  “Sorry,” Charlie said, but he was still smiling.

  I leaned against the desk. “You’ll have to scratch the surface of the material before you light it to get rid of the oxidized layer, otherwise it won’t light. Actually, I don’t know if my lighter will do the trick as we normally use Bunsen burners in the classroom.”

  Charlie gave me another smile, cheeky this time, and held up his blowtorch again.

  “I’ll try to stick to your side,” I yielded. “Oh, before I forget, once it burns, water won’t stop it. It will only fuel it.”

  “Great stuff for a campfire on a rainy day.” Charlie’s face lit up.

  “No, no, no! You can’t look into the flame! I nearly forgot to mention that. The light will be so bright, it’ll be like looking into the sun. Remember it emits UV-light. So don’t look into it unless you want to give your retinas a tan. Sorry.”

  Charlie’s smile faded. He took the little zip-lock bag out of his pocket again and looked at the tiny piece of metal.

  “As long as it hurts the fuckers, I can live with that.”

  Chapter 13

  We decided to go to down the staffroom. We had agreed it was a good idea to get some sleep on the comfy couches there. I wasn’t sure if it was the physical discomfort of the canoe or the emotional drain of last night that made me so tired, but I desperately wanted to lie down and sleep. When we entered the staffroom, we were surprised to find a man lying on one of the couches with a newspaper over his head.

  Charlie pushed me behind him and sneaked up on the stranger, ready to clobber the man with his blowtorch. I followed him. As we came closer, I recognized the tweed jacket. I stopped Charlie by grabbing his shoulder, and he turned around to me with an annoyed look. I mouthed Mr. Finkle’s name to him. Charlie sighed and seemed reluctant to lower his blowtorch.

  We watched Mr. Finkle and waited for him to notice us. When nothing happened, Charlie cleared his throat, but it still didn’t wake Mr. Finkle.

  “Mr. Finkle,” I said. No response. I moved a bit closer. “Mr. Finkle,” I said a bit louder and shook his shoulder.

  He scared us to death when he suddenly jumped up, waving his arms and scanning the room in total disorientation. The newspaper that had been on his face drifted to the floor, an old article about the infected attack in Portland on the front page.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Finkle,” I said to try to calm him. “It’s only us, Charlie and Kate.”

  “Oh, you two. What are you doing here?” He adjusted his tie and tucked his shirt back in.

  “We could ask you the same question,” Charlie said.

  Mr. Finkle looked down at Charlie.

  “I am here to protect the school from looters, what else?”

  “Yeah? You and what army?” Charlie sat down on one of the chairs opposite the couch.

  “What do you mean?” Mr. Finkle asked. When Charlie didn’t reply, our head teacher looked at me.

  “We better sit down,” I said.

  Mr. Finkle sat down on the couch. I took a seat in a chair next to Charlie and told our story. Mr. Finkle listened with bright eyes. He didn’t interrupt me. When I had finished, he sat back, took it all in for a while.

  “That is one hell of a story.” He nodded. “It is obvious that you have seen too many sci-fi action movies,” he added as he folded his hands and pointed his index fingers at me.

  My jaw dropped. He looked at me as if I had told him a fancy fairy tale.

  M
ixed emotions welled up in me, one after the other; disbelief, frustration, anger.

  “Sue is dead, Mr. Finkle!” I shouted at him as I rose. I put my hands on the low table between us and leaned over to him. “And many more people have lost their lives.” I pointed at the newspaper on the floor. “This is really happening. Don’t you get it?”

  Mr. Finkle looked at the newspaper and chuckled.

  I straightened up and ran my hands through my hair.

  “People lifting other people above their heads and throwing them about as if they were mannequins,” Mr. Finkle said. “Come on, Kate. You must have had a bad dream, that’s all.”

  I turned to Charlie for help, but he just looked at Mr. Finkle in disgust, not coming to my rescue at all. The situation was so frustrating.

  Charlie, you’ve got to help me out here!

  I suddenly realized that this was how Charlie had felt before when he had gone to Mr. Finkle for help about his problem with the other staff. Ever since Charlie had started at Bullsbrook High, Mrs. Sloan had hated him. She had taken offense that Charlie had been offered the job of Arts teacher, not her nephew, and took it out on Charlie. She had coerced her teaching friends to call him names. Not too long ago, it had progressed into hurting him, bumping into him on purpose and stating they hadn’t seen him. Charlie had asked Mr. Finkle for help, but he had pretended the issue wasn’t there, saying that his most respected teachers wouldn’t stoop so low.

  Pun not intended.