Degeneration

by Mark Campbell

  The virus reached Durham at 5:53 A.M., despite numerous police roadblocks, barricaded side-streets, and stringent military checkpoints.

  By 5:58 A.M. Maj. Gen. Yates moved his compromised forward operating base from the outskirts of Durham deep into the forest near Falls Lake. The large lake was situated in-between Durham and the small town of Butner. Washington ordered him to stay in the area and promised him additional resources.

  Half of Raleigh’s power grid went dark around 6:02 A.M. The few households that still had electricity and were healthy enough to remain conscious watched an emergency briefing from the White House that was being broadcasted across all stations. The president urged the nation to stay calm and insisted that FEMA had the North Carolina situation under control. A lethal viral weapon dubbed the ‘Piedmont Flu’ was being blamed. He said that the group responsible behind the brazen attack was a domestic terrorist cell. He promised that a vaccine would be forthcoming, and asked everyone to keep those quarantined inside North Carolina in their prayers.

  At 7:21 A.M. the infection reached the military quarantine line on I-85. Thousands of frightened people were lined-up at the blockade and the lanes were gridlocked. Most people had abandoned their vehicles and had gathered at the front of the blockade to argue with the soldiers. Many in the crowd tried to barter their way through with money and even sexual favors.

  The soldiers kept their gasmasks on and their weapons ready as they stood their ground. They didn’t allow a single person to cross the quarantine line.

  Suddenly, somewhere deep in the crowd of frightened crowd of civilians, a man who had been steadily coughing collapsed to the ground and turned.

  The infection spread like wildfire along the clustered interstate and the people panicked. The crowd trampled through the soldiers, toppled the wooden barricades, and climbed over the tanks as they ran towards freedom.

  A squadron of F-16s responded quickly and firebombed both northbound and southbound lanes of I-85. Flaming corpses flailed off the sides of the interstate and collapsed along the medians. The rest of them died where they stood and collapsed atop the melting asphalt amongst countless burnt vehicular skeletons.

  At 7:30 A.M., the small town of Knightdale fell.

  By 7:51 A.M. a squadron of USAF B-1 Lancer’s started corralling the massive red zone in a wall of flames. After the red zone was fully encircled in napalm, additional waves of bombers would keep the flames amply fed with white phosphorus.

  At 8:28 A.M., a lone tank rolled along Milbrook Street in a Raleigh subdivision, flattening abandoned vehicles and crushing corpses sprawled out across the pavement. Debris and scattered red flyers detailing FEMA Safe Haven locations blew freely along the road as the tank passed. The driver of the tank was coughing, feverish, and struggling to breathe. His suit’s oxygen canister had run dry hours ago so he took off his helmet.

  The other three soldiers inside the tank were already dead. They suffocated inside their oxygen-depleted white-suits. Even in the very end, they didn’t want to remove their helmets and breathe the toxic air.

  The driver erupted into a spasm of coughing and wiped the fever sweat off of his brow.

  The tank veered around two abandoned police cars that were haphazardly parked on the sidewalk with their blue lights flashing and their windows smashed. Next to the two cars, an electric utility sign surrounded by sandbags flashed a message in flickering green letters:

  FEVER CHECKPOINT

  1 MI AHEAD

  ALL TRAFFIC MUST STOP

  The tank passed a smoldering overturned fire truck and turned left onto Lynn, driving past a massive pile-up.

  An empty ambulance sat next to the pile-up with its rear doors open. The doors swayed in the morning breeze and the inside of the ambulance was splattered with dried blood and gore.

  The tank started to swerve as it drove off the road and veered into a park. It crushed a swing set, rolled through some picnic tables, and rolled into Lake Lynn.

  A startled gaggle of Canadian geese took flight as the tank sunk to the bottom.

  A new day had begun.

  15

  The overhead fluorescent lights were dark when Richard awoke. A single wall-mounted emergency lamp in the corner of the room bathed the windowless hospital room in dim yellow light. The scent of smoke hung thick in the sour air. He groaned, rubbed his aching head, and sat-up with a wince.

  His IV hung dry and flat.

  He grabbed the red call button that dangled from the monitoring equipment beside his gurney and mashed it, but there was no response from the intercom. He mashed it again, but was met with the same silence. He stared at the monitoring equipment on the cart and saw that it was dead.

  His head pulsed with pain as his withdrawal symptoms worsened. He reached his hands up and roughly massaged his temples. The whispering inside his head started to surface and sounded like fingernails grating against a chalkboard.

  Muffled in the distance out in the hallway, he heard somebody laughing.

  Groaning, he swung his feet to the floor and stood, keeping a supporting hand on his bed. The gurney rolled away from him and his head spun with sudden vertigo.

  He staggered backwards against his IV pole and sent it chattering against the floor. The IV tube ripped out of his arm and the needle spurted a few drops of blood onto the tile floor. He steadied himself and looked over at Terry.

  Terry’s face was pale and his clothes were soaked with sweat. He was still deep in an uneasy sleep.

  The hospital room shook violently and the metal gurneys rattled as fighter jets flew over the building. Plaster ceiling tiles shook loose and shattered against the floor.

  The laughter in the hallway intensified.

  Terry shifted in his sleep and rolled over onto his side, coughing.

  “Nurse!” Richard hoarsely yelled.

  You’re all alone, Richie.

  “Shut up and let me figure this out, Andy,” Richard said to the intrusive voice. He knew that the voice wasn’t real, but it was real enough to be an annoyance.

  Terry shuffled on his gurney again.

  Four gunshots echoed from the hallway as the laughter rattled on manically.

  Richard ran towards the door, tripped over an overturned stool, and collapsed against the medical monitoring equipment cart. The cart overturned and the computer monitor shattered against the floor.

  He stumbled over the toppled cart and reached for the light switch. He flipped it on-and-off to no avail.

  You’re all alone and they left you to die in the dark.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Richard hissed at the voice. “Nurse!” he screamed again, panic evident in his voice.

  Outside in the hall, he heard more gunshots.

  He turned the doorknob and opened the door slowly.

  The hallway was splotched with blood and the floor was caked with dried vomit. The overhead fluorescent lights flickered weakly as they operated on the emergency generator’s dwindling power reserves. An overturned supply cart was toppled in the middle of the hall and its contents were sprawled out across the floor amongst tattered bloody bandages. Most of the patient rooms had their doors opened, but a few of them were barricaded by overturned hospital beds. Two mangled corpses were sprawled in the middle of the hall next to the toppled supply cart, one was an elderly man and the other wore bloodied nursing scrubs.

  The maniacal laughter bellowed out from one of the rooms.

  “Hello?” Richard timidly called down the hall.

  A teenage girl stumbled out of one of the open rooms at the end of the hall and stopped in the middle of the hallway. She stared at the ceiling, mouth agape, with blood smeared all over her hospital gown.

  “Hello?” Richard repeated, voice shaking.

  The girl turned towards the sound of his voice and snarled. Dried gore was smeared around her mouth and matted into her long hair.

  A chill ran down his back and he froze in place.

  The girl sprinted towards Richard in a rabid frenzy,
tripped over the overturned supply cart, and slid across the tiled hallway. She quickly leapt back onto her feet and continued her mad dash towards him, screaming loudly.

  Richard ran back into the room, slammed the door shut, and fell backwards onto the floor. He scooted across the floor and pressed himself against the wall, panting. He stared at the door with wide-eyes.

  Terry groaned and sat-up in his gurney, letting his sweat-soaked sheet fall to the floor. He erupted into a spasm of raspy coughs.

  “What is your problem?!” Terry hoarsely shouted, glaring at Richard with blood-shot eyes. A dribble of blood ran out from his left nostril.

  Richard looked over at Terry, mouth open, lips quivering, but words wouldn’t come out.

  Terry looked around at the room, disoriented.

  “What’s going on? Is the power out?” Terry asked. He doubled-over in a violent spasm of coughing.

  The girl started franticly pounding against the door, making both Richard and Terry startle.

  “Quiet!” Richard hissed as he slowly got back on his feet. He stumbled to the table between the two gurneys and reached for the TV remote with a shaky hand.

  Terry swung his legs off of the gurney and steadied himself against the gurney, coughing. He slid the pulse monitor off of his finger and stared at his empty IV. He pulled the IV needle out of his arm. “What the fuck is going on!?”

  Richard repeatedly clicked the ‘power’ button on the remote, but the TV remained dark and the pounding against the door grew louder.

  “I don’t know! Just… be quiet and let me think!” Richard yelled as he threw the remote on the bed. He paced and stared down at his trembling hands. He spotted the hospital phone that Terry had thrown earlier on the floor. He snatched it up and cradled the receiver against his ear.

  “Dead,” Richard announced as he dropped the phone back to the floor. “What about your cell phone?”

  “My what?” Terry wheezed, disoriented and in shock.

  There were more gunshots in the distance.

  “Your cell phone! CELL PHONE!” Richard screamed, agitated.

  Terry blinked and fished his cell phone out of his front pocket, fumbling with it in his hands.

  “Still no signal,” Terry muttered. He tucked the phone back in his pocket and staggered towards the pounding door.

  Richard watched him walk towards the door, frightened. He ran towards Terry, shoved the gurney out of the way, and pushed him away from the door forcefully.

  The pounding against the door intensified.

  “Don’t fucking touch me!” Terry yelled. He erupted into a coughing spasm and staggered back towards the door.

  Richard’s words fell into hysterics as he begged Terry not to open the door.

  There was a gunshot outside.

  The pounding against the door immediately ceased and the only sound echoing in from the hallway was the sound of laughter in the distance.

  “Get out of my way,” Terry said. He pushed past Richard and carefully turned the knob.

  The door flung inward as the teen girl rushed into the room, knocking Terry down onto his back. She straddled Terry and pinned him against the floor, holding his arms down with her lacerated hands.

  Terry looked up at her blood-smeared face and screamed. He struggled in his sickly state, but she kept him pinned down.

  Richard stood frozen in horror, trying to calculate his next move.

  The girl lowered her head closer to Terry and vomited directly on his face. Coagulated chunks poured into his gaping mouth and covered his eyes. After she finished regurgitating her bloody bile, she immediately lost interest in him and turned her head towards Richard.

  Richard panicked, turned, and grabbed one of the metal IV poles next to the gurneys.

  The girl leapt off of Terry and darted towards Richard, reaching out for him with blood-stained fingers, screaming.

  Richard swung the pole at the girl and struck her in the side of her head.

  Her head contorted to the side with the blow and she went stumbling backwards against one of the gurneys.

  Richard raised the IV pole above his head and brought it down against the top of her head, hard, repeatedly.

  The girl’s feral screams stopped and she collapsed against the floor. Blood began to pool out of her shattered skull.

  Terry rolled over onto his hands and knees, dry-heaving.

  The laughter in the hall continued unabated. There was another gunshot, closer.

  Richard stared at the blood-streaked pole and threw it down. He ran over and closed the room door. He stared down at his trembling hands and leaned against the closed door, heart beating madly.

  Someone from the hall started pounding against the door.

  Richard bolted away it.

  Terry slowly stood up, trembling, shirt caked with vomit.

  “What was wrong with her?” Terry asked, voice shaking.

  Richard wrung his hands together and started pacing back-and-forth in the room, staring down at the ground.

  Terry stared at Richard, coughing, heart beating wildly.

  Richard stopped pacing and pointed up at the television.

  “You saw the news. Remember the quarantine? That’s what this is about… That… flu virus or whatever they were calling it,” Richard said, pointing at the dead woman. “That’s what this is! The virus on the news!”

  You’re smart, Richie.

  (Stop mocking me.)

  No, I’m being genuine. You always were smarter. I mean that.

  (I know you are mocking me, Andy. Stop it!)

  No, I’m not mocking you… but he is.

  Richard looked at Terry and saw that the man had a smile across his lips.

  “You’re… serious aren’t you?” Terry muttered. He let out a roll of frightened hysterical laughter. “You honestly think that this is the flu?! You’re fucking insane!”

  He thinks you’re a lunatic.

  Richard spun Terry around and pinned him against the wall.

  That’s right, kill him. You can’t trust him.

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” Richard screamed into Terry’s face. “Stop laughing at me!”

  He’ll never stop. He thinks you’re insane!

  “Shut up, Andy! You’re not really him!” Richard shouted, spitting as he yelled.

  Terry paled as he stared into his homicidal eyes and weakly tried to struggle free but Richard kept him pinned firmly against the wall.

  “Stop… let me go… please…” Terry cried.

  Richard pressed his forearm against Terry’s throat, gagging him.

  Do it! He thinks you’re a fool!

  “I said SHUT UP! Look, I don’t care what you think about me, but we have to get the hell out of here. I have a plan. It’s simple, but it’s a plan. And to do it, we have to leave this place. You can either come with me, or stay here.”

  Richard relaxed his grip some, and Terry gasped for breath. The frantic pounding at the door continued.

  “I don’t know how things look outside the hospital, but I imagine it’s not good if the hallway is any indication. So if you do come, be ready to fight. These people… are sick and crazy. They butchered each other in the hall. There is blood everywhere,” Richard said as he lowered his arm and let Terry go.

  You should have snapped his neck. Those doctors and their pills really did castrate you, didn’t they? You’re going to let this man disrespect us? He called you crazy!

  “Stop it… just…. Shut up,” Richard muttered to himself.

  You can’t shut me up anymore. I’m here to stay, brother.

  Terry sat on the gurney, coughing, rubbing his throat.

  “So… um… are you coming with me or are you staying here?” Richard asked.

  Terry glared at him, and then stared down at the dead woman, saying nothing.

  Richard picked up the bloody IV pole and reached for the doorknob with one hand while holding the IV pole like a spear with the other. He slowly turned the knob.r />
  “Get ready, I’m opening the door,” Richard said.

  “Jesus! Don’t!” Terry cried.

  The door flung open and a doctor rushed in with half of his face gnashed off. He lunged at Richard, snarling and yelling.

  Richard shoved the man backwards and drove the IV pole through the doctor’s mouth. The pole shot out the back of the doctor’s skull, coated with gore.

  The impaled doctor froze, collapsed backwards, and slid down off of the pole.

  “Fuck,” Richard muttered to himself. He quickly backed away from the corpse, trembling, gripping the bloodied IV pole. He looked over at Terry.

  Laughter echoed from down the hallway.

  There were two more gunshots, making Richard and Terry flinch.

  “I don’t want to stay in here with them,” Terry said as he pointed towards the two corpses on the floor. “What is your plan?”

  “We’ll go to Butner,” Richard whispered.

  “Butner? Why?” Terry asked in disbelief.

  “I’m going to break my brother out of prison. I’m not about to let him rot away inside a cage, starving to death, just because the world is going to hell,” Richard whispered while peeking out cautiously into the hall.

  Terry scoffed.

  “And you assume that the guards will simply… hand him over?” Terry whispered back.

  He’s mocking us, again.

  Richard tried to mask the rage that contorted his face.

  “I’m going on the assumption that they’ve either turned into homicidal lunatics like the people in here or that they left the inmates behind to die,” he said coldly.

  “So you assume this… virus or psychosis or whatever… made it all the way to the piss-poor town of Butner and got inside the prison? And that your brother survived the virus, somehow, if it did?”

  Richard clinched his fists tightly around the bloodied IV pole.

  “My… brother is a fighter. And if I am wrong, and if it’s still business as normal and virus-free at the penitentiary, then I will simply continue on my way north far away from this shit. Butner is right along I-85, which is a straight shot into Virginia.”

  Richard paced back-and-forth in the room, deep in contemplation.