Midnight Rider on a Graveyard Run

by Gary Koz Mraz

  “How many are there and where are they?” Yang rattles in Mandarin. He tells her there are only 40 or so soldiers left here. The city was abandoned by the army a month ago. The remaining army personnel are on the first floor, while officers in command are based on the top level. He is easily convinced to show us where their weapons are, then Yang dispatches him.

  Yang hands out machine guns, pistols and ammo. “This mission will not be in vain,” she states. “If there is information here, I am going to get it. You both stay behind me.”

  Armed with machine guns and grenades, she kicks open a large door into what looks like a commissary. Dozens of stunned, unarmed Chinese army men stare in shock. Yang opens fire. Within 15 seconds, everyone is dead. Passing what looks like a communications station, she tosses in a grenade.

  Yang directs us into the elevator and commands, “Take it to the top, and when the doors open fire into anything in front of you.” With that, she disappears into the stairwell.

  Voodomama's heart is racing. Liz, too, is in shock. This is happening too fast. They're highly trained agents, but not for this. They're not Navy Seals or Commandos. Ten floors to the top…9…8…7… 6… 5… Liz checks the machine gun. Holy shit, the safety was on. Click, safety off… 2… 1… 0. The doors open and they let loose with a fury of gunfire into an empty hallway. As they slowly inch out, covering each other's backs, they see Yang. She's sitting in a chair, cigarette in hand and machine gun aimed at three officers.

  “Nice work, ladies.” Yang smiles.

  With a little coaxing, the officers confirm that the city was all but abandoned a month ago. They reveal that the lab adjacent the building still houses several scientists. Yang tells us to take the stairwell down; she’ll meet us on the first floor. Halfway down, we hear machine gun fire and already know the outcome. Neither Voodoomama nor Liz has what it takes to be a ruthless, cold-blooded killer. Yang, their sister and daughter, is a methodical, heartless murderer, China’s best assassin..

  “For Christ's sake, Yang, I'm glad you're on our side!” Voodomama gasps.

  “You should be, and there are two of me.”

  “How did you get to the top so fast?” Liz asks.

  “I’ll show you someday.”

  They surround the small building adjacent to the central command. The doors are wide open, and again “666” is emblazoned over the exterior doorway. As they slink slowly into the building, they are all suddenly darted. Small air gun darts hit them in the neck, legs, and body. They've been drugged. Voodoomama and Liz stagger over to a wall and then collapse. Yang, too, staggers and falls. Three men in lab coats creep out of the corners. They chatter in Mandarin and move in closer to the women. One is holding a handgun stating they are American Goldlance and must be killed immediately. As he approaches Yang, she rolls over and wastes him with machine gun fire, then jumps up and commands the others to drop.

  “Get down, hands on your heads, now!” Yang demands. They drop. “What was that you shot us with?” she barks in Mandarin.

  They plead that they were just trying to defend themselves and that they are not warriors. They tell her it's a powerful sedative with a large dose of T-Gondii that should have knocked her out cold. She, of course, is impervious to drugs.

  Yang radios the team. “We have a problem. Liz and Voodoomama are down. They are unconscious and I have the two scientists who drugged them.”

  “You need to get to the hideout; we are sending Sandman to come to get you,” Cleaning Lady replies.

  “We are on our way, over” Yang confirms.

  At that very moment, a voice blares over the loudspeakers that deadly enemies have breached the city and must be killed. Obviously, someone is still alive in the headquarters.

  “We heard that. You better get back here fast,” Cleaning Lady warns.

  The two scientists carry Voodoomama and Liz as Yang leads them to the hideaway. The PA system endlessly blares the warning of intruders and describes us in detail.

  As they creep through the corridors towards their hideout, the ToxoZombies turn and stare, stop their tasks and begin shuffling after them. Yang points her machine gun at the scientists. “You move, or you die. Get going!” She shoves her machine gun into his ribs. With ToxoZombies on their trail, they run through the corridors inside the complex and meet up with Sandman.

  “It's clear ahead. Keep running and I'll cover you,” Sandman insists.

  The group heads down a long massive hallway then disappears. Sandman hears sounds from behind him. Toxos are heading his way. The doorway has a large, metal sliding door on casters; he slams it shut and locks the bolt. As he turns and runs to follow Yang, Sandman trips over a metal pipe sticking out of the wall and goes flying spread-eagle. He hits the concrete floor hard, and his machine gun slides thirty feet. He clambers up only to see ToxoZombies standing in front of his machine gun. They start pouring in through hallway doors. Sandman backs against the wall and scrambles over to the large metal door he just closed. With his ear to the cold metal, he listens, hoping the Toxos went another way. Flinging it open, he sees hundreds of Toxos standing silently, staring at him.

  The room fills. Slowly, Toxos shuffle towards Sandman, staring emotionlessly. Six feet… Three feet… They press against him. The room is deadly silent. Sandman is shaking in terror with sweat pouring from his face.

  He is just a driver, a courier. He has a family, including a 17-year-old daughter named Angel. He begins to cry. The Toxos now press in hard against him. A young girl close to him has the same hair color as his daughter. He looks into her eyes and whispers “Angel.” She whispers back, “Angel,” and reaches out to take his hand. Suddenly the Toxos around him hold each other's hands and whisper “Angel.” They, too, are quietly crying. “I'm sorry,” Sandman whispers. “I'm sorry” the Toxos whisper back. “Please let me go,” he says louder, more forcefully. They again mimic him and an echo of “please let me go” ripples through the large hallway. Sandman starts inching his way through the horde, pleading loudly “please, please, please.” The room fills with the echo of hundreds chanting “please, please, please” over and over.

  Sandman gets ten feet into the mob, but now it's a human wall packed so tight he can't move another inch, and more Toxos keep cramming in. They stare aphasic, watching his every move. He pushes hard at a tall man blocking his path and the man pushes hard back. Sandman's terror turns to anger, and he begins yelling, “Let me go, let me go!” The room roars, mimicking his rage. Furiously, he tries elbowing and punching a path, but the Toxos start punching and kicking back. The harder and more desperately he fights, the more ferociously they fight back. Frantic, flailing arms and feet become a churning human meat grinder, exploding into a spasm of blood and body parts. The Toxos quiet down and become motionless. The shredded remains of Sandman's butchered body lay strewn about the bloody floor.

  Yang and the scientist carrying Liz and Voodoomama reach the iron gates to their hideout. They freeze as the distant wailing subsides. Suddenly, ToxoZombies begin dropping from the pipes high above. As Yang lights up her machine gun, a door opens, and the corridor begins filling with grasping, shuffling zombies. They grab one of the captured scientists and he falls, dropping Voodoomama. By the time Yang picks up unconscious Voodoomama, the scientist has been dragged screaming into the seething ToxoZombie mob. Yang unloads her remaining ammo and tosses the machine gun. She and the remaining scientist carrying Liz race to the open gates and the team slams and locks the gate behind them.

  “We have to get the hell out of here right now! What firepower do we have?” Yang asks Yin.

  “Only a few handguns and small explosive charges.”

  Yang, Yin, Cleaning Lady, Fifi, the Chinese scientist, and I gather our wits. Carrying Liz and Voodoomama, we exit the compound. After crawling through the air ducts we pop out an exterior vent and tumble into the harsh mid-day sun. It's dead-quiet, with not a soul in sight. We take off running towards the hidden Range Rover about 1000 yards away from the compound.
The Chinese scientist behind me starts yapping frantically. I turn around to see thousands of the ToxoZombies pouring out of the massive structure, all heading our way. We run faster. We make the vehicle and all start cramming in. Both Liz and Voodoomama are still unconscious.

  “What about this guy?” Cleaning Lady asks while pointing to the scientist.

  “He goes with us. He will be of use,” Yang declares.

  As we pull onto the road towards our cave hideaway, we can see thousands of humans pouring out of the massive structures, all moving in our direction. It looks like someone smoked a beehive.

  “This isn’t good,” Yin cautions. “How far would you say the cave is?”

  “Twenty-two miles exactly,” Yang replies.

  “Humans jog at about 5 miles per hour,” Yin advises, “which means that we could have several hundred thousand zombies on us in four hours. You know just by their sheer numbers we’ll be found.”

  As we crest the mountain to scavenge all the remaining resources, we overlook the entire valley. There is a two-lane road into the city, and it's obvious the whole population of Dead City, hundreds of thousands of ToxoZombies, are all heading our way.

  We assess our options at the cave. Either we stick together or we break into groups on motorcycles and the Land Rover, then head into the mountains to hide. We opt to combine resources, pack critical supplies, and remain together.

  Yang strategizes, “With all the remaining gas from the motorcycles and about five left in the gas tank, that’s maybe 13 gallons total. Fully laden, the Land Rover gets 15 miles a gallon, which gives us a range of 160 miles. The closest fuel is over 300 miles away.”

  “I suggest we put a bike on Rover's carrier,” Cleaning Lady reasons. “We need a plan B to get somebody out if all else fails.”

  “An extra 600 lbs. will hurt gas mileage, but I agree we need a plan B.” They load a Triumph Trophy onto the motorcycle carrier mounted on the rear of the Rover and the team heads back to the road. Once on the highway, Yang straps on a seatbelt, opens her passenger door and hangs the captured scientist halfway out of the moving Land Rover.

  “We don’t need the extra baggage. You either tell us everything you know right now, or I toss you out for zombie food,” she barks at the scientist.

  He spills his guts. The Chinese government has genetically manufactured a trigger virus that activates the dormant Toxoplasma. It's estimated that two-thirds of the world's population is currently host to the T-Gondii parasite. He tells us that the trigger virus was transmitted by 300 Chinese travelers targeting 100 major airports worldwide. Three Chinese infectors arrived at each of the major international airports at different terminals, and as they exited the airport, they spread the virus with sprays, powders, and ointments all masked as cosmetics and personal hygiene products. They contaminated their path and stopped in every bathroom in their exit, spreading the trigger virus on every surface and effectively creating 100 contamination points worldwide, all on the same day.

  A quarter million people pass through the Atlanta airport on one day alone. Calculations have determined that within three days, over a million people will have the virus. Within 10 days, a hundred million will have it, and within one month, a billion. The trigger virus is super virulent and immediately activates the T-Gondii parasite. Within hours, it alters the host's nervous system severely. He tells us that the contamination began two days ago.

  The first symptom of activating the dormant Toxoplasma parasite in a host's brain is sleep. The infected host will sleep for 15 hours a day and feel drowsy while awake. A hypnotic state develops in which the host becomes increasingly susceptible to the power of suggestion. Within several weeks, the parasite will ultimately grow around the frontal cortex brain centers. Within a month, regular sleep cycles return, and infected hosts regain a normal sleep-cycle but are quickly put into a trance state.

  “Did you develop an anti-virus or anti-toxin?” Yang queries.

  He claims they did not find an anti-toxin, but the trigger virus seems to have no effect on hosts at higher elevations. Also, Asians are inherently immune to the Toxoplasmosis parasite. His team’s objective was to determine why.

  Liz had come out of her drugged state to overhear the conversation. She tells Yang to get her Black iPhone. It's a direct link to Operation Thundertaker. “Tell them to extract the team out of the Gobi Desert immediately,” she mumbles. Yang makes the call. “This is Agent Liz Duran. We need immediate assistance.”

  “Thundertaker Command,” a voice crack over the phone. “Voice print ID, please repeat the following.” They give her a series of voice commands to authorize access. “Voice print authorized.” (She is Liz’s clone after all)

  “We need emergency extraction immediately. We are in the Gobi Desert,” Yang declares.

  “Hold please… Yes, we have you triangulated. We must Code Red you. Please standby.” After a moment another voice gets on the line.

  “Agent Duran, this is Colonel Wallace. Do you know what is occurring in most major cities across the world right now?”

  “No sir, but our intelligence reveals that an epidemic is imminent.”

  “Imminent is an understatement!” he responds. “We have an international state of emergency at airports, railways, highways… Almost all means of transportation have been completely shut down globally.”

  “Sir, we are the primary intelligence team for Operation Thundertaker. We have vital information and need to be extracted from our location within twelve hours, or we will all be killed.”

  Silence echoes at the other end.

  “This is a secure line. Can you relay this intel to us now?” he asks coldly.

  “We have captured a key scientist. You need him.”

  “Understood, but you are in the middle of China, and that complicates matters greatly. We are looking at a 48-hour window. We will push that, but you need to take evasive action for survival. If we can expedite extraction we will contact you. That is all, Agent Duran.”

  “Sir, we don't have 24 hours!” The Colonel hangs up and the line goes dead.

  “Get my personal phone,” Liz mumbles. “Call Richard Branson… and call him Richard. Tell him everything…” As Liz blacks out again, Yang does as she asked.

  The phone is fingerprint locked but of course Yang can easily access her numbers and dials Branson. “Richard, its Liz Duran.”

  “Liz, it’s so good to hear from you. Things have gotten a bit dicey since we last spoke.”

  “You can’t imagine just how dicey,” Yang replies. “I need your help, Richard! If we don’t get out of the middle of the Gobi Desert in 12 hours, we will all certainly die. My government can't reach us in time and you are our only hope.”

  “You do know that within the last 48 hours the world has gone mad? With this so-called Airport Sleeper Sickness, virtually all transportation is shut down.”

  “That’s exactly why I am here: to expose who is behind this epidemic. I have intel and a captured scientist who is mission critical. We need a way out.”

  His voice becomes somber. “Listen, Liz, I have a friend that operates out of Paro Airport in Bhutan. At 18,000 feet, it's considered one of the world's most challenging airports and only eight pilots in the world are certified to land there. He is one, and that’s his base. He owes me a favor, but all I can do is ask. There are no guarantees.”

  “We are on a newly built highway, the perfect landing strip.” She is pleading.

  “I will contact you as soon as possible. It’s a simple yes or no. All I can do is give it a go, Liz.” Richard hangs up.

  Five hours into our 10 hours of gasoline and we are sitting ducks in the middle of the open desert. We have nowhere to hide. Liz’s phone rings. “We are a go,” Branson proclaims. “We have you triangulated with your cell phone and if anything changes, you call to abort. It's a six-seat Piper Cherokee. He will be visual within five hours.”

  “There are eight of us,” Yang replies.