Degeneration

by Mark Campbell

  Mathis approached the man and fired another shot into the back of the man’s head, blowing out the back of the man’s skull.

  The man collapsed back to the ground and lay motionless.

  Mathis darted towards the driver-side door of the van and climbed into the cab, slamming the door shut behind him.

  The key was missing from the ignition switch, despite FEMA’s motor pool regulations.

  He started searching frantically for the key. The front seat was cluttered with stacks of folders, paperwork, empty coffee cups, and germicidal masks.

  A charred corpse, sex unrecognizable from the severe burns covering its entire body, slammed against the outside of the van’s driver-side door and started slapping both open palms against the glass, gurgling.

  Mathis hurriedly pressed the door lock button and created an audible click as the van’s door locks engaged. He leaned over the passenger seat and dug through the cluttered glove compartment.

  The infected converged around the van en-mass and pounded it from all sides, snarling and screaming. They rocked the vehicle from side-to-side, trying to bash their way in.

  An infected SWAT officer wearing full tactical gear punched the passenger-side window and created a large crack down its center.

  Mathis shut the glove compartment and searched the driver-side visor but found nothing. He pulled down the passenger-side visor–

  A single key fell to the floor.

  He leaned over and snatched it off the passenger-side floorboard.

  The SWAT officer punched the window a second time and the glass erupted into small fragments. He reached both arms into the vehicle towards Mathis, snarling.

  Mathis shot back up in the driver’s seat, aimed his pistol at the SWAT officer, and pulled the trigger–

  ‘CLICK’

  His pistol was out of ammunition.

  “Goddamnit!” Mathis shouted. He dropped the gun, slid the key into the ignition, and cranked the engine.

  The van started-up effortlessly. The blue strobe lights in the van’s grill started flashing and the siren started wailing, attracting more infected to the scene.

  The SWAT officer, undeterred, started to climb in through the shattered passenger window and claw his way across the seat towards Mathis.

  Mathis threw the van into drive and floored the accelerator, plowing a path through the besieging infected gathered around the front of the van. Bodies crumpled against the front bumper and slathered the windshield with blood. The van jolted violently as it crushed corpse after corpse.

  The SWAT officer slid backwards but held onto the passenger-side door with both hands.

  The van broke free from the horde and careened through the desolated parking lot while the SWAT officer clung to the passenger door, steel-toe boots throwing sparks as they drug across the pavement.

  Ahead, Mathis saw the chain-link fence marking the edge of the parking lot. Before the lot had become a temporary FEMA and military motor pool, it served as one of downtown Raleigh’s numerous pay-per-hour lots. Behind him, he saw that the sprinting horde was falling behind. He focused his attention ahead again, bracing for impact.

  The van tore through the flimsy chain-link fence.

  Mathis’ head whiplashed in the impact and the loose litter in the front seat briefly went airborne as the van jumped the curb and struck the asphalt hard. The side-view mirrors were torn off, the emergency siren weakly warbled and silenced, and the blood-smeared windshield shattered into small fragments.

  The SWAT officer was flung off of the passenger door and struck the blacktop headfirst, snapping his neck.

  Mathis quickly regained control of the vehicle and steered it along the street, veering around the burnt vehicle husks and building wreckage. The van’s blue strobes struggled to shin through the smoky and hazy atmosphere. He careened through a deserted intersection, passing underneath a dead stoplight swaying in the breeze.

  The infected gave up their pursuit as the van turned the corner and fell out of sight. They went back to aimlessly wandering the street and alleyways, shambling through shattered storefronts and wandering into flame-gutted buildings.

  Soon, Mathis was many blocks away from what remained of the Meymandi Concert Hall and where so many of the men under his command had been left behind.

  He didn’t slow down and didn’t dare look back.

  17

  Richard knew that he didn’t have much time before he succumbed to the infection, but he wasn’t ready to give up.

  He was determined to get to Butner and rescue his brother.

  First, there was the matter of making it to Butner before the disease claimed his life. Richard didn’t feel sick, yet, but he knew that his fate had been sealed when the orderly vomited on his face. He tasted the blood-laced bile and knew some had seeped into his mouth.

  Still, he knew there was no time for self-pity. There was only time enough to rescue Andy.

  Time was of the essence.

  Pieces of the flame-ravaged hospital started to break loose and collapse in front of the lobby, only inches away from crushing him in some cases.

  He had to keep moving.

  He stumbled forward, frightened.

  The building noticeably sagged and warbled as flames enveloped the entire structure. Pieces of plaster, mortar, brick, and glass trickled down and pelted the ground below. Windows were shattering and the building made loud groans as the structural support beams weakened.

  It wouldn’t be long before the building collapsed.

  He knew that he had to distance himself from the doomed building quickly and, if he ever hoped to get to Butner, he needed a vehicle.

  He carefully surveyed the parking lot.

  Even though the hospital had been spared the blunt of the firebombing, most of the vehicles had been reduced to smoldering skeletons. Smoke plumes drifted lazily into the air while hundreds of infected shuffled amongst the vehicle carcasses, mindlessly navigating the parking lot maze. The only sounds in the parking lot were the low persistent groans the infected made and the sound their feet made as they shuffled across the pavement.

  Richard crept down the steps in front of the emergency room entrance and walked towards a Wake County EMS ambulance that was parked up on the walkway in front of the hospital. The ambulance had been badly burnt and its tires were flattened.

  A woman wearing a tattered Red Cross uniform staggered onto the sidewalk from the parking lot just a few feet away from Richard and stood motionless, hair matted with blood. She gazed forward absently, unaware of his presence. Slowly, sensing something in what remained of her peripheral vision, she started to turn her head towards–

  Richard took cover and dove against the side of the ambulance. He pressed himself tightly against the vehicle and held his breath, praying that he moved fast enough to dodge her gaze.

  The woman gave a low guttural moan and then turned her head back towards the hospital, staring at it.

  Richard crept along the side of the ambulance and stopped at the rear as he peered out into the parking lot.

  A car, Richie, we need a car!

  “You think I don’t know that?! They are all burnt up and not worth a shit,” Richard whispered.

  A SUV and two sedans were wrecked against each other just a few feet behind the ambulance. The wreckage blocked Richard’s line of sight into the parking lot.

  The front-half of the SUV was on the hood of one of the sedans, the result of a panicked driver attempting to flee a very crowded parking lot. Both of the vehicles had their driver-side doors open and the occupants were gone.

  But the occupants of the flame-ravaged third sedan were not as lucky– their burnt skeletal remains sat inside their smoldering car.

  Richard stepped out into the clearing behind the ambulance and ran towards the SUV, staying crouched down.

  He reached the rear of the SUV and froze… waiting to hear the clamor of approaching infected–

  Silence.

  Hesitantly he stood an
d peered through the SUV’s rear window…

  He saw a bus in front of the SUV through the crackled grass.

  Surprisingly, the bus seemed rather unscathed aside from some minor burns.

  Richard found his ride.

  You have to get over there and get inside- fast!

  “Working on it,” Richard muttered to Andy’s voice.

  He planted one foot on the bumper of the SUV and held onto the roof with both hands as he climbed on the roof of the vehicle.

  Behind him, the rear doors of the ambulance swung open in the faint breeze and something started to thrash inside the back of the burnt ambulance.

  He heard the sound behind him and froze. Slowly, he turned towards the noise in the ambulance.

  A charred woman was strapped to a gurney inside the ambulance. The flames had burnt off her clothes and her blackened skin hung off of her in clumps. She stared at Richard with her one remaining eye and twisted and contorted in a futile attempt to free herself from the tattered yellow nylon straps that restrained her. The gurney rocked side-to-side as her struggle intensified. She kept her eye on him while white foam and bile seeped out from the corners of her mouth.

  Richard let out a sigh of relief when he saw that the restrained woman couldn’t do little more than stare at him.

  He climbed onto the roof of the SUV, ignoring the thrashing woman in the ambulance behind him. He stood shakily on the roof and surveyed the parking lot from his new vantage point. His expression sunk in dismay.

  Across the entire parking lot he saw hundreds of infected wandering aimlessly in-between the vehicles, but none of them noticed him as he stared at the bus.

  Aside from a few broken windows and seared paint, the bus in front of him appeared drivable. Throughout the lot he spotted a few other unscathed vehicles that were scattered amongst inaccessible regions of the infested parking lot.

  He knew that the bus would be his best bet for escape.

  The woman in the ambulance behind him stopped thrashing against her restraints and let out a shrill cry, spewing saliva and bile.

  Richard badly startled and nearly fell off of the SUV’s roof.

  Every near-by wandering infected man, woman, and child within earshot of the woman’s cry stopped pacing and looked up at Richard, staring. Giving a unified feral cry, the horde of infected charged towards the SUV.

  Richard panicked, tripped off of the roof of the SUV, bounced off the hood, and landed hard against the pavement on his shoulder.

  In the distance, he heard the horde quickly closing in. They activated car alarms as they bumped against abandoned vehicles.

  Richard gripped his aching shoulder and hurried towards the bus.

  The bus had a burnt and tattered Red Cross banner tacked on its side and its folding doors had been left open.

  He ran towards the open bus doors when a screaming businessman wearing a charred suit careened from around the corner of the bus.

  Richard threw both hands out just as the man lunged towards him and shoved the man back.

  The businessman rebounded quickly, leapt forward, and bit Richard’s left hand.

  Richard cried out in pain and quickly tore his hand out from the man’s mouth. His wounded hand bled profusely.

  The man, blood dribbling down his chin, lunged at him again.

  Richard drove his foot into the businessman’s chest and sent the man sprawling backwards onto the pavement.

  As the businessman struggled to recover, three more infected emerged from both sides of the bus and two more infected clamored over the top of a nearby sedan.

  The infected were closing in on Richard from every direction and the crescendo of car alarms they were activating became deafening.

  Richard held his bleeding hand against his chest and ran inside the bus.

  The inside of the bus was littered with empty water bottles and opened suitcases. Some of the seats were burnt and some of the interior plastic molding had melted away. Near the back, a few corpses sat slumped over in their seats and their bodies were mutilated by multiple bullet holes. A sign in the front of the bus read:

  FEMA Evacuation Bus Guidelines

  Keep your mask on at all times. No talking.

  Do not touch other passengers. Do not approach the driver.

  Obey all orders from military staff.

  As Richard scanned the inside of the bus, the businessman who had bit him ran towards the open bus door with a multitude of infected following on his heels.

  Richard grabbed the door control lever and swung it forward, sending the bus doors folding shut with a hydraulic hiss.

  The businessman slammed face-first against the shut doors and savagely clawed at the glass, screaming.

  Richard stepped back from the door, hyperventilating as looked around the bus, terrified.

  The infected had swarmed around it from all sides, screaming and slamming their open palms against it. They had torn the Red Cross banner off the side of the bus and clawed at the small shattered passenger windows, trying to crawl inside.

  The businessman at the closed bus doors continuously scratched at the narrow door windows, unmindful of his well-manicured fingernails as they tore from his fingers. His bloody fingertips smeared the glass.

  Richard stared down at his bit left hand, trembling. If there was any question before…

  Well, if the vomit didn’t do you in, then that damn bite did.

  “I know that,” Richard hissed at Andy.

  Face it. You’ll never make it to Butner, Richie.

  “Have a little fucking faith. I made it this far, didn’t I?” Richard snapped back. He searched the floor for something to wrap the wound with. He thought the clothes on the corpses slumped in the back seats, but decided that he didn’t have the nerve to get near them if he could help it.

  Outside, more infected gathered around the bus and caused it to rock side-to-side.

  Near the front of the bus, Richard found a dirtied plaid shirt lying across one of the seats. He tore a strip off of it apart with his teeth and went to work wrapping his wounded hand.

  In the last row of bus seats near the emergency exit, behind two slumped bullet-riddled corpses, a man wearing a bloodied Red Cross shirt slowly rose to his feet. His left eye was gouged out and burnt flesh hung off of the left side of his face in clumps, exposing muscle and bone. ‘Volunteer’ was etched across the back of his shirt in black lettering and a silver key ring dangled off of his belt. His right eye was fixated on Richard, who had his back turned towards him.

  The man took a single step forward towards Richard, causing the keys attached to his belt to jingle.

  The jingling of keys, so quiet and innocent compared to the ruckus coming from outside of the bus, somehow rose above the ambient noise and snatched Richard’s attention.

  Richard spun around.

  The man charged towards Richard with his arms outstretched, screaming.

  The horde gathered outside the bus went into frenzy.

  Richard panicked and turned to run towards the front of the bus, terrified.

  The volunteer dove onto Richard’s back and latched on. He bit into his shoulder, immediately causing blood to seep through Richard’s shirt.

  Richard screamed in agony and spun around, viciously shaking side-to-side, trying to throw the man off of him.

  The man kept his arms wrapped around Richard’s chest and kept his legs fastened around his waist.

  Richard threw himself backwards against the dashboard as hard as he could–

  There man’s back smashed against the metallic door lever that protruded from the dash and his spine made a sickening sound. The hydraulic bus doors gave a slight hiss as they folded open just an inch…

  The man screamed, let go of Richard, and sunk to the ground.

  Richard backpedaled away from the man, frantically hyperventilating.

  The man, unable to use his paralyzed lower extremities, started to drag himself along the aisle with his hands towards Richard, sn
arling.

  Richard screamed at the top of his lungs and brought his foot down on the back of the man’s head… again… again… and again, allowing himself get lost in fevered repetition.

  What remained of the man’s head looked like a gory mesh of tissue, hair, blood, and small fragments of bone. The man lay motionless.

  Richard stepped back and tried to compose himself. One leg was covered in the man’s blood. He stared down at his hands as they trembled uncontrollably.

  The folding doors at the front of the bus opened up another few inches as the infected gathered outside slid their fingers between the doors and started to pry them apart.

  Richard sprung forward and grabbed the door lever with both hands. Using all of his bodyweight, he pushed the lever back to the left and the hydraulic mechanism locked back into place.

  The bus doors snapped shut on the intruding fingers and created a series of audible cracks. Some of the fingers plumped and burst open, spraying blood, while others snapped off and fell to the floor.

  The infected outside cried out in protest and rocked the bus even more violently.

  Richard plopped down on the driver’s seat and stared out the cracked windshield.

  The infected were clustered tightly all around the bus, but past the mass of bodies there appeared to be nothing but scattered vehicles littering the parking lot and past the parking lot he saw the street…

  You’ll never make it out. This is a goddamn city bus, not a bulldozer. You’ll never make it Butner to save me…

  “NO! NO! I will make it!”

  You’re infected. You’re as good as dead. I was counting on you…

  “Shut up. I told you that I’ll save you.”

  Richard reached for the ignition switch–

  No key.

  He turned towards the Red Cross volunteer’s corpse lying on the floor and stared at the keys attached to the man’s belt.

  He quickly leapt towards the man and unlatched the keys from the corpse’s belt.

  The rear emergency exit door’s window shattered and a multitude of arms reached into the bus, feeling desperately for the door release handle.

  Richard ran back to the driver’s seat, slid the key into the ignition, and cranked the engine.