Rotters
Page 5
The cadavers had stopped coming, the road into Kilae was completely blocked with a writhing pile of bullet-riddled corpses.
Amazingly, several of them continued to move despite the massive injuries they had sustained. Broken, bloody corpses pulled free of the mass and then drug themselves towards us on their bellies, leaving serpentine blood trails across the dirt road.
Robinson and Blythe continued to fire short controlled bursts into the pile.
“Captain, I’m clean out of nine-mil ammo,” Dyson calmly reported. He pulled his fifty-caliber up and fired off a full magazine from the hip, completely decapitating the approaching cadavers. Even without their heads they continued to twitch and feel about.
Keyes pulled out the camcorder and recorded the carnage, her hands shaking badly.
We stood there for a long moment, staring at the wall of wriggling, bullet- riddled flesh. I could not believe my eyes.
“Let’s move out people,” the captain finally ordered. We all fell into line behind him.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Around Kilae,” he replied, not looking back.
We backtracked along the road the refugees had followed, but quickly detoured to the south, swinging far away from Kilae.
I realized that most of the sick people we had seen would probably be dead by the next day, and reanimated with ACS sometime after that. I just didn’t know enough about the virus, and what I had seen flew straight in the face of all accepted medical doctrine.
“Capt. Christopher, I believe I owe you an apology,” I offered.
“Forget it,” he replied. “Just figure this mess out.”
There was no one else in sight, so the captain let everyone wander along and talk about what had occurred. The mercenaries and Sgt. Dyson walked along laughing and chatting like school girls as they recounted the combat in Kilae. Keyes seemed very withdrawn; I assumed she was still coping with the events of the day.
Once we were well clear of the town, the captain brought everyone to a halt.
He took me aside and looked back at the others. “Well?” he inquired.
“Well what?” I asked.
“Typical Doctor,” he laughed. “Book smart, no common sense. Do you want to call in the air evac now?” he asked.
I hadn’t even considered it. The whole time we had walked along I kept trying to figure out how the ACS could be real. Even now, I was having a hard time getting it into perspective.
“No,” I said firmly. “I need to know how this Ambulatory Cadaver Syndrome works. I can’t leave now.”
The captain laughed again. “Fine, I knew I hadn’t misjudged you, Doc,” he said.
He pulled a small GPS unit from his jacket pocket and turned it on. Then he unfolded a topographic map, and studied it for a moment, comparing the GPS coordinates with the map. “I will arrange a rendezvous with the supply plane so we don’t lose any time waiting around,” he explained.
He had Keyes set up the communications array and dashed off a request for more ammunition and water to be dropped ahead of us at a predetermined position. There was little chance it would be stolen.
“Can I get a pepperoni pizza with that order, Cap?” Dyson requested.
The captain reestablished a battle order, and pushed everyone back onto the savannah.
Sgt. Dyson wandered ahead, his fifty cal at the ready. We traveled at a steady pace across the grasslands. Keyes walked along beside me, she seemed very nervous.
“Dr. Barry, we need to talk,” she whispered. I could tell she was still upset.
“The captain will listen to you. Ask him to call in the helicopter,” she pleaded.
“I can’t do that.” I replied. “I have to see how this virus works. Nothing like this has ever happened before; I have to figure it out,” I explained.
She laid her hand on my arm. “You are an educated man, not a Neanderthal like these other assholes. Don’t throw your life away. We can still go back to the real world,” she concluded as she moved closer.
I decided not to tell her that I could call off the operation, the captain had been right.
“Look, Keyes, I don’t like it here anymore than you do,” I retorted. “I don’t like guns, I don’t like being chased, I don’t even like walking. If things get really bad, I’ll talk to the captain,” I promised.
“How much worse does it have to get?” she mumbled as she moved away.
As we crossed the savannah I pondered how the virus could possibly reanimate a dead person. I honestly didn’t have a clue. I would have to wait until I could examine a victim. With nothing barring our progress, we trudged along for another two hours, sweating in the sun.
The captain guided us toward the rendezvous point, and we dimly heard the drop plane’s engines. We topped a slight rise and then saw a large crate, draped in its olive green chute, laying in the grass a short distance away.
Robinson attacked the crate with his hand axe, and had it open in short order. Packed neatly inside were twenty ammo boxes, each full of nine-millimeter ammunition, and a dozen green plastic jugs of fresh water. The mercenary handed these out.
“We should strike a road if we turn slightly east here,” the captain said as he put away his map. “It will lead us to a small village called Lijia. There could be more ACS victims there. Be alert.”
We all carried as much extra ammunition and water as we could manage. I stumbled along with two plastic canisters of water. I had never realized how heavy water was. Fortunately, we didn’t have far to go. We covered two more miles. I stopped occasionally to rest my arms. The water jugs grew heavier as each hour passed.
We walked out onto a dirt road and turned to the south. The village of Lijia was less than a mile away.
Several abandoned vehicles sat parked along the track, and I could see the steeple of a Christian missionary church in the distance. At Capt. Christopher’s order the men spread out around me.
Dyson took point; he carried his KGP-9 cradled in his arms. His Barrett sniper rifle was slung across his back; its barrel almost touched the ground.
We walked in silence down the nameless road.
Robinson and Blythe walked to either side, guarding the flanks.
Keyes shuffled along beside me. She looked like a scared kid, on some field trip gone horribly wrong. I nudged her in the ribs, and smiled, trying to cheer her up. She smiled back half-heartedly.
The captain brought up the rear. He constantly paused to look behind us for any signs of pursuit.
Sgt. Dyson carefully checked each vehicle as he approached them. I noticed that all of them had been burned, and several had charred bodies inside. We stopped just outside the village.
The captain motioned for all of us to sit down. I gratefully sat the water cans in the road. He whispered orders to Blythe and Robinson. They moved to the two closest vehicles, and stood guard, watching both directions.
Dyson moved ahead to scout out the village. He loped down the road, half bent over, his machine gun thrust out before him.
The captain waited with us, using his binoculars to scan the village and the area around us for any signs of activity. Nothing stirred in the early morning heat except a few buzzards that circled overhead. I stifled a yawn. Dyson had only been gone a few moments, but it seemed much longer.
The captain stood up and motioned the mercenaries in. Sgt. Dyson was slowly walking back down the road towards us.
“It’s clear,” the captain stated bluntly. “Let’s go.”
I picked up the water cans and fell into line with the others. We walked down the narrow dirt lane until we reached Dyson. He had stopped to wait for us, and stood in the track lighting a cigarette as he scanned the landscape around him. I could tell by the look on his face that something was wrong.
“It’s clear, Cap,” he stated. “But some bad shit went down here.”
He looked at Keyes. “You might not want to see this,” he said.
“I’ll be fine. Don’t patronize me,�
� she shot back.
“All I’m saying is, some things you see, you can’t ever get back out of your head,” he explained.
“He’s right, Miss,” Blythe added. “I’ve seen things I wish I could forget.”
“Keyes goes straight through with us,” the captain decided. “Everyone put on your masks.”
The captain led us into the village. Even before we entered the smell hit us. A stench hung on the air, of old gasoline and burnt, rotting meat. We passed a collapsed clapboard hut and a scene straight from Dante’s Inferno lay before us.
The village street was choked with blackened, half-burned corpses.
The broken bodies of children hung from the eaves of each hut and house we passed, like obscene Christmas ornaments. Huge blowflies and maggots crawled in and out of their gaping mouths and empty eye sockets. Dozens of buzzards flapped angrily away, as we picked our way through the grisly village of death, stepping over and around the clutching, burnt-out husks.
Keyes paused to photograph the carnage.
“They must have tried to stop the virus here,” Robinson deduced. He kicked a melted plastic gasoline can out of his way.
I bent down to examine the unburned torso of a man that lay facedown in the road. Everything from his waist down had been charred to the bone.
Something struck me as odd. I took a pencil from my shirt pocket and pushed it through the man’s shoulder and upper arm. I tossed it aside and looked around at the other victims nearby.
“These people didn’t have the virus.” I stated.
“What?” Keyes gasped.
“Judging by the level of uniform decomposition, I can reasonably ascertain that these people did not have the virus when they died. Someone made a horrible mistake.”
“This is Africa.” Blythe said matter-of-factly. “This probably had nothing to do with the virus. These people kill each other for no reason at all.”
“Can we just get out of here?” Keyes asked shakily. I could tell the experience had shocked her.
“Actually, this might be a good place to rest.” I suggested.
“What? Why ever would we want to stay here?” Keyes asked.
“These people didn‘t die from the virus.” I explained. “There doesn’t seem to be any ACS victims about.”
“Any port in a storm,” the captain added. “Let’s check out the church.”
We cautiously entered the mission. I half expected it to be filled with bodies, but it was empty inside. “Dyson, get your ass up in the steeple and take first watch,” the captain ordered.
“Wait, I can take first watch,” I offered. “You guys have been running nonstop since we hit the ground.” I added.
The captain considered my offer. “Both of you go up,” he concluded. “Dyson can sleep while you watch. Don’t you fall asleep on me, Doc.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
“God help you if you do,” he added.
Dyson and I climbed the small stairway that lead upwards behind the altar. It ended in a tiny bell tower with four windows overlooking the countryside around us, a perfect vantage point.
“Wake me up if you start to fall asleep, Doc,” Dyson suggested.
“I got this,” I replied.
Dyson leaned back against a wall and pulled his Marine cap down over his eyes. He was asleep in less than a minute.
I sat quietly against a small windowsill, looking out at the peaceful landscape. Nothing moved in the evening heat except the scavenger birds and insects. I was very sleepy, but somehow I managed to keep myself awake.
I was just about to wake Dyson up when the captain stuck his head into the small room and did it for me, “Dyson, keep watch. I’ll send you up some coffee and food.”
“Okay, Cap,” he replied sleepily.
“Thanks, Doc, I owe you one,” he said as I passed him to go down the stairs.
I descended into the church. The mercenaries had appropriated the communion table, and were fixing a meal atop it. I noticed they had found a bottle of wine.
“Leave it to you guys,” I said.
Blythe grinned like a cat with a canary. “We Afrikaners can always find something to drink,” he quipped.
A small pot of soup was simmering on the primus stove, and there was half a loaf of bread on the table. I took half the soup and bread, and sat on a pew to eat. I was ravenous. The captain took the rest up the stairs to Sgt. Dyson.
“So, Doc, have you figured anything out yet?” Robinson asked. He had stripped down to the waist and was sharpening his axe with a small whetstone.
I didn’t know if he was being sincere or sarcastic. I had thought about the virus a lot while I was on watch.
“I don’t think the victims are human anymore,” I offered. “They’re just vehicles that the virus utilizes to spread itself.”
“But they were people,” Keyes argued. “You can’t dehumanize them like that.”
“That is exactly what the virus does, Keyes. It dehumanizes its victims by turning more and more of its host’s cells into the virus,” I explained.
“You shouldn’t feel badly about shooting them,” I continued.
Both Blythe and Robinson laughed uproariously. “Thanks, Doc, my conscience was really bothering me,” Robinson quipped.
“You don’t have a bloody conscience, mate, same as me,” Blythe offered.
“I meant that Keyes shouldn’t feel bad; oh, forget it,” I trailed off.
“I am fairly sure that the body is no longer functioning on any normal human physiological level,” I continued. “No respiration, no blood flow, no brain activity. Somehow, the cadavers can still sense living humans, we’ve all seen that, so the senses are somehow preserved or even enhanced.”
“So, what we’re dealing with is zombies,” Robinson deduced.
“No, they are the cadavers of the dead victims, reanimated,” I explained.
“They’re fucking zombies, Doc!” Robinson stated flatly. “It’s just like in the horror movies. Somebody dies, and then they get up and try to bite you. Zombies.”
“Fine,” I agreed, not wanting to argue. Robinson scared me. “For lack of a better term, we’ll call them zombies.”
“I don’t think the zombies can see very well,” the captain offered. He had crept down the stairs and was listening to our conversation. “Their eyes are dead and, the lenses have milked over. If they can still see I would bet their vision is blurred,” he concluded.
“You’re probably right,” I agreed. “I think that somehow the virus maintains just enough cellular activity to keep the host’s body functioning at a very low level; muscle and nerve tissue, some of the sensory organs, perhaps parts of the brain.”
“How is any of that possible?” Keyes asked.
“Anything is possible with God,” Blythe quoted, holding his arms outward.
“Great, a believer,” Robinson groaned.
“Actually, I’m just hedging my bets,” Blythe replied. “A man in our profession should be ready to die at any time. Besides, I was raised a Christian. I went to a small church like this when I was a child. I can remember the preacher describing Hell. It sounded a lot like how Africa is now.”
“Africa is Hell,” Robinson agreed.
“Do you think God sent the virus, and the zombies, to punish Africa?” Keyes asked. “To punish all of us?”
“There is no God,” Robinson said.
“Oh there most definitely is a God,” Blythe retorted. “He is an angry, vengeful God, and he strikes down the wicked and the unholy with a strong and deadly hand. He has cleansed the world before with the great flood. Perhaps he means to cleanse the world again,” the mercenary finished.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” the captain interjected. “If God wanted us all dead, we would all be dead. He gave man free will, and it is my will that we shall overcome this disease, and save the world.”
“Or die trying,” I added.
“Or die trying,” the captain agreed.
“We’ve all had something to eat,” the captain concluded. “We’ll hole up here for the night; it seems safe enough for now.”
He spread his map out upon the table.
“We are here, in the village of Lijia.” He placed his finger on the map, and slowly pushed it southward. “We’ll leave just before dawn, and try to reach the rain forest tomorrow.”
I spread my sleeping bag out upon the wooden floor and quickly fell asleep. After the day’s walk and the combat in the town, I had no problem sleeping. I was exhausted.
REPORT FROM RECON CHARLIE 2107 HOURS
INSERTION COMPLETED
POSITIVE CONTACT WITH ACS VICTIMS VILLAGE OF KILAE. REPEAT, PREVIOUS REPORTS OF ASC ACTIVITY CONFIRMED. VICTIMS OF VIRUS REANIMATE AND POSE IMMEDIATE THREAT.
PROCEEDING 0600 HOURS
NO ADDITIONAL INFORMATION TO REPORT AT THIS TIME
TRANSMISSION ENDS CAPT. CHRISTOPHER US ARMY
Chapter 5
05:15 a.m. Zulu
Village of Lijia
Central Africa
The captain woke me just before sunrise. There were reconstituted eggs, thin gravy, and the inevitable instant coffee. I brushed my teeth, and gathered my gear up in the darkness.
We left the church and moved out just as the first light of the new day brightened the gray dawn. No road led south from the village, so we struck out across country.
The morning passed by slowly; the captain pushed us along at a good pace.
We stopped to rest every couple of hours. The captain and Sgt. Dyson would smoke a cigarette while Blythe and Robinson kept watch. I noticed they were always careful to put the cigarettes out. Dyson would crush the butt between his thick fingers, shredding it until there was no trace, then stick the filter in his pocket.
Keyes and I walked along together; the captain was never far away. Keyes was withdrawn, and quiet.