Degeneration

by Mark Campbell

  The tires managed to gain some traction and the APC violently jerked as it pulled out of the mud.

  Richard whiplashed against the steering wheel and Stacy vanished, the dead solider took her place.

  The APC mowed a path through the infected swarmed around the front of the vehicle. It effortlessly plowed through the corpses and the windows were quickly covered with a thick layer of gore. It cleared the horde, shattered through the wooden fence that surrounded the Falls Lake camping area, crushed two picnic tables, and crashed to a grinding halt against a massive oak tree all within a few seconds.

  Branches and ash fell from the tree and a flock of startled infected blackbirds took flight.

  What remained of the horde staggered after the APC and followed the destructive path it created.

  Richard’s foot limply slid off of the accelerator and the diesel engine stopped giving growling protest. He groaned in pain, trying to fight the urge to faint. The pistol had slid off of his lap and fell onto the floorboard.

  The narrow windows were coated with gore from the outside, blocking all visibility. There was no way he would be able to navigate his way onto the freeway and get to Butner.

  “Damnit!” Richard screamed.

  “Now what are you going to do? Just sit here?” Stacy asked from the backseat. “You always were a coward.”

  “I’ll show you what the fuck I am going to do, you bitch,” Richard said. He reached down, grabbed the pistol from the floorboard, and forcefully opened the driver-side door.

  The door swung out and knocked a staggering infected man wearing fishing attire onto the ground.

  As soon as the fisherman fell, he snarled and tried to get back onto his feet.

  Richard leapt out of the armored vehicle and pointed the barrel of the gun pointblank between the man’s eyes and pulled the trigger.

  The gun seized; the round was a dud.

  The fisherman lunged forward and–

  Richard jabbed the barrel of the pistol deep into the fisherman’s left eye and then gouged out the man’s right eye, twisting the gun as he dug the barrel deep into the man’s skull.

  The fisherman let out a shrill scream and started convulsing as he clawed blindly at Richard.

  Richard let go of the pistol and shoved the fisherman backwards, sending him tumbling backwards down the ash-covered embankment towards the water’s edge.

  The infected horde chasing after the APC was only a few yards away. He didn’t have much time.

  Richard used his bare hands to scrape the gore off of the windshield. His efforts only afforded a few miserable streaks of visibility, but it would have to do given the circumstances.

  Richard wiped his blood-smeared hands off on the front of his pants and jumped back into the APC, slamming the door shut behind him.

  Richard threw the vehicle into ‘R’ and plowed a path backwards through the besieging horde as he backed-up onto the camping site’s parking lot. Once on the asphalt, he threw the transmission into ‘D’ and raced along the camping site’s access road, leaving the pursuing horde behind.

  The bright halogen lamps mounted on the roof penetrated deep into the scraggily forestry that surrounded both sides of the narrow dirt road. Many of the taller trees had toppled from the earlier shockwave. Infected animals scurried away from the vehicle while others uselessly charged against it, snapping their necks in the impact.

  The armored vehicle smashed through a pair of chained aluminum swing gates that blocked off the dirt access road from the paved street and flattened a sign that read ‘PICNIC AREA CLOSED’.

  Richard coughed.

  “You’ll never make it to Butner and you know it,” the condescending voice of his sister echoed once again from the center of his head.

  “Watch me, bitch,” Richard said.

  He turned onto the paved road and sped towards I-85, passing countless cars that had been bulldozed over into the ditches along the sides of the road.

  A park ranger staggered out from in front of a disabled sedan and stopped in the middle of the road. He slowly turned towards the approaching APC, snarling, frozen in the headlights.

  The vehicle hardly jolted as it struck the park ranger, rolled over him, and left his mangled corpse lying in the middle of the street.

  “Why do you go through all of this trouble? It won’t change what you did,” Stacy said.

  “Because I owe it to him, damnit,” Richard answered.

  He drove past a green sign on the side of the road: I-85 – 3 MI

  “He’s dead, now. He’s beyond your help. You know this…” Stacy said, her voice seemingly coming from in front of him.

  Her voice infuriated him.

  “No, Stacy, my brother is a fighter… unlike you. I made sure that you couldn’t run that fucking mouth of yours anymore, though,” Richard said. “I killed you.”

  “I’m not the only one you killed. I still know what I saw. I’ll tell everybody,” Stacy tittered.

  “You won’t say anything to anybody. I killed you. I killed you...”

  The vehicle passed a generator-powered roadside sign. Its lighted digital message of promised safe locations was obscured by a large piece of plywood. A painted message sprawled across the plywood read:

  FEMA CENTERS ARE OVERRUN! THE BIG CITIES ARE DEAD!

  NO HELP COMING! THERE IS NO VACCINE!

  33

  The APC veered onto the on-ramp of northbound I-85. The ramp was clogged with charred skeletons and burnt vehicular husks that had melted into the asphalt courtesy of the military’s earlier interstate bombardment campaigns. The vehicle maneuvered around the remnants of an overturned bus and turned onto the interstate.

  The military’s I-85 blockade a few miles away, just outside the Durham County border, kept the northbound lanes leading north from Raleigh and Durham mostly clear but had southbound traffic snared up for miles. By the time the blockade had been overran and the panicked drivers caught in the traffic jam noticed the first napalm bombs dropping, it was too late for them to escape. Their vehicles ended up becoming their tombs. The remnants of the vehicles in the southbound lands had melted down and coagulated together amongst countless blackened human skeletal remains.

  On the other hand, the northbound lanes only had a few scattered vehicles caught in the bombardment; a tall concrete median divided the freeway and kept the chaos that plagued the southbound lanes from spilling over into the northbound lanes.

  The trees along both sides of the freeway were charred black and everything in sight was covered in ash that continued to flutter down from the polluted sky.

  Richard kept his eyes fixated straight ahead and tried to read the burnt freeway signs as they swayed with the stale breeze. The low fuel indicator light illuminated on the dash display, but he didn’t pay it any mind; he was determined to reach his destination.

  He drove across the long bridged section of I-85 that crossed over Falls Lake.

  The lake was thick with bloated floating corpses and capsized fishing boats. Part of the southbound section of I-85 had crumbled away into the lake and left a multitude of vehicles ebbing in the water.

  He swerved around a burnt RV and pushed a wrecked highway patrol cruiser off the bridge and sent it plunging into the water.

  “Why the rush?” Stacy asked, sitting in the backseat, picking at her rotted flesh. “You already know that he’s dead.”

  “He can’t be,” Richard muttered, annoyed.

  He finished crossing over the dilapidated bridge and picked up speed.

  “You honestly believe that, don’t you? You honestly think that he is there?” Stacy asked, amused.

  “I know he is,” Richard said. “He is waiting for me.”

  He drove for miles across the desolate landscape, not noticing as the sunset behind the impenetrable ash-ladened cloudscape.

  The charcoaled scenery of the burnt forest along the interstate gave way to desolate farmhouses, empty fields, and darkened billboards advertising fast-food restau
rants as the vehicle escaped the interstate’s napalm strike radius.

  Infected started to meander onto the freeway in scattered droves as the vehicle passed. They shuffled aimlessly onto the pavement in-between stalled cars in hapless pursuit.

  Richard ignored the wandering hordes and kept his eyes focused on the interstate signs. His stomach was cramping and he felt noxious. He felt like the infection was finally starting to take hold of him.

  Finally, he saw the sign he had been waiting for:

  BUTNER – NEXT 2 EXITS

  He turned off on the first Butner exit ramp, vehicle running on fumes, and left the interstate behind.

  Day 4

  34

  Downtown Butner was situated along a two-way street. The street was desolate and there was not a car in sight. Boarded-up storefronts and empty parking lots lined the street on both sides. The streetlights and the town’s one stoplight were dark. The entire town was powerless. Flames lapped out of the Dollar General in the heart of town, illuminating the surreal scene in an ominous orange flicker. Near the edge of downtown, a darkened BP sign displayed gas prices at ‘NO’ a gallon for unleaded and ‘GAS’ for diesel. A thin layer of ash covered everything.

  There was not a single person in sight, infected or otherwise.

  Past downtown, there was nothing except dark farmhouses, acres of forest, and the state and federal prison facilities that paved Butner’s roads and put pennies into the town’s coffers.

  Aside from fallout, the distant nuclear blasts left Butner untouched for the most part. ‘PT-12’, however, was not as forgiving.

  35

  Butner, North Carolina

  48 hours earlier…

  “May I have your attention, please,” the crackled voice repeated through the speakers mounted on top of the army truck for the hundredth time. “This area has been exposed to a toxic biological agent. All residents are ordered to report to the Granville County High School immediately for inoculation. Please, remain calm. There is ample supply of vaccine. If you are sick, we can help you. Report to the Granville County High School immediately. If left untreated, the biological agent is deadly. If you are already ill, disabled, or otherwise unable to drive, we will be checking house-to-house and will provide you with safe transportation. Inoculation is mandatory. Attention, attention, attention. This area has been exposed to a–”

  The National Guard truck continued east along Butner’s main artery past a trickling procession of slow-moving cars headed towards the high school. Helicopters hovered overhead, observing the cavalcade below. Army flatbeds drove house-to-house along the town’s side-streets and loaded-up wheelchair-bound residents and elderly retirees.

  Guardsmen wearing respirators and toting assault rifles stood watch at sentry positions along the curb while hordes of people, many coughing, headed towards the high school’s gymnasium in a mass exodus in the early morning sun.

  Near the edge of town, at the North Carolina state prison, the inmates were getting restless inside their cells. Overnight, the guards had abandoned their posts and the dayshift guards never showed up for work. The inmates screamed and banged against their cell doors, desperate to get out. Their FM radios picked up nothing but static. Ironically, it was the inmate’s isolation from the outside world that kept them protected from the horrors of ‘PT-12’… initially.

  A few inmates in the segregation unit, oblivious to the events outside, resorted to lighting their mattresses on fire inside their cells. They thought that the guards were purposefully refusing to serve them their morning meal. Within the hour, all one-hundred and forty-two of the inmates inside the state prison’s segregation unit succumbed to smoke inhalation.

  A general population inmate inside one of the housing units managed to bash his cell door off of its hinges. He stumbled out of his cell wielding a prison-made knife, or ‘shank’, in each bloodied hand, ready to fight. He was surprised to see that the cellblock’s control station was empty and the door was open. He ran inside the control station and stared at the control panel. Smirking, he pressed the door controls. All of the cell doors made an audible click and slid open.

  Granville County High School’s parking lot was filled with flatbeds, Butner police cars, and even a few tanks. Civilians parked their personal vehicles in an adjacent grass field and were led single file into the school’s detached gymnasium by soldiers wearing gasmasks.

  The entire gymnasium was covered under a clear plastic dome with large machines pumping air into it, keeping it inflated. A steady procession of civilians marched through the open slit near the gymnasium’s entrance, flanked by armed CDC white-suits.

  Inside the gymnasium, people were amassed in a massive line that wrapped around the gym. At the front of the line, men in CDC white-suits injected person after person with the newer version of the antivirus serum they had kept in storage.

  The gym was decorated with balloons, orange lights, and a large disco ball. At the front of the gym, a banner read ‘Welcome to the 20th Annual GCHS Harvest Dance!’ The gymnasium had a DJ booth sat up in the corner. The white-suits had CDs, previously reserved for the school’s dance, playing in a continuous loop on low volume in an attempt to keep the restless crowd pacified.

  “Attention, please,” one of the CDC officials announced over the loudspeaker, “after you receive your inoculation, please go to the left side of the gymnasium and have a seat in the bleachers. We have to keep you under observation for thirty minutes. We promise that we will have you out of here as quickly as possible.”

  A handful of townspeople muttered and shuffled over to the left side and climbed up into the bleachers as instructed while pop music played overhead.

  Behind the gymnasium, soldiers wearing white-suits unloaded red gas canisters labeled ‘Hydrogen Cyanide’ off of a flatbed parked next to one of the machines pumping air into the plastic dome. The military had their failsafe, should the antivirus fail.

  “How much more time do you guys need inside?” one of the white-suits asked over the radio inside his suit. He sat down the red container down and groaned; the canisters of gas were heavy.

  “About ten minutes. Then we’ll have mostly everybody inside and will be able to see if the symptomatic ones display any sort of improvement and monitor for allergic reactions,” a voice crackled back over the radio.

  “What about Butner’s public safety department?”

  “We’ve started inoculating the local police and fire crews. We even–”

  Deafening screams rose out from inside the gymnasium, startling the soldiers standing outside. Automatic gunfire quickly followed.

  “SEAL IT! Seal it and PUMP IT! Do it NOW! It changed them into– into– PUMP THE–”

  The voice on the other end was cut-off abruptly.

  A few miles away, six military jeeps, loaded with armed white-suits, pulled into the parking lot of the maximum security federal penitentiary, USP Butner. It was situated a few miles away from the abandoned state facility. The penitentiary was a massive two-story cement building surrounded by double razorwire-topped fencing and eight guard towers. The guard tower windows were pitch-black and the outside patrol vehicles that drove around the perimeter fence were gone. Every prison window of the facility was dark and the parking lot was mostly vacant. Similar to the state prison, most of the staff at the penitentiary abandoned their posts during the night.

  The six jeeps slowed to a halt and the armed white-suits disembarked towards the prison.

  The prisons would not be evacuated. The government had other contingencies in mind.

  In downtown Butner, a white van adorned with the CDC logo sped down Butner’s main artery, headed east out of town towards I-85.

  “I knew this second batch was rushed from the start,” the CDC white-suit muttered to the passenger. “Fighting the virus with another virus? Didn’t the Wilmington tests teach them anything? Atlanta is getting desperate to contain this thing.”

  “Yeah, but, still… the lab tests were good.
It just doesn’t make sense. Either the anti-serum mutated, which is unlikely, or ‘PT-12’ mutated again into a new virulent form that adversely reacted to the–”

  A Butner police car pulled out from behind a vacant house with its blue lights flashing and siren wailing. It came to a stop in front of the white van.

  The van’s driver slammed on the brakes, sending the steel crates piled up in the back sliding forward.

  The van’s tires squealed as the vehicle skidded to a stop only a few feet away from the police car. The two CDC white-suits inside the van struggled to calm their pounding hearts.

  Two men, one hispanic and one black, wearing orange jumpsuits exited the police car, each armed with a Remington shotgun. The orange jumpsuits read ‘NC D.O.C.’

  Before either of the white-suits could react, the inmates raised their shotguns and opened fire on the CDC white-suit in the passenger seat.

  The buckshot shattered the windshield and peppered the white-suit, shattering through his clear plastic visor. He convulsed and collapsed against the dashboard.

  The inmates turned their guns towards the driver.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” the driver begged as he raised his hands.

  “Get out of the fucking van!” the black inmate shouted as he racked another shell into the chamber.

  The driver opened the door and staggered out of the van in his bulky white-suit, shaking.

  The second inmate, a heavy-set Mexican national, spun the white-suit around and shoved the barrel of his shotgun against the man’s plastic visor.

  “Please! Don’t kill me! I can help you!” the white-suit begged.

  “Shut up with that bitch shit and tell us what is going on before I aerate your face.”

  “V-vi-viral outbreak! It’s a new strain, airborne, and very contagious! We’re here to help you!”