Degeneration

by Mark Campbell

The two inmates glanced at each other. It was the same story that the two soldiers told them right before they executed them.

  “I can help you!” the white-suit stuttered again. “I-I can get you out of here safely! Everyone is leaving! The military is pulling out of Butner, we’re done here. I-I-I can take you with us! I can hide you in the back! B-both of you can fit! I won’t tell anyone! I promise!”

  The Hispanic inmate pressed the shotgun barrel the white-suit’s visor, bending.

  The black inmate stared at the CDC logo on the van, coughing.

  “What’s in the back?” the black inmate asked, staring at the van’s rear doors. “Is someone back there?” He raised his shotgun towards the rear doors.

  “N-nobody is back there! It’s just stockpile of a cultured counter-viral vaccine, but we just tried this batch and…”

  “A vaccine? Guess we have what we need.”

  The hispanic inmate immediately opened fire.

  The white-suit collapsed to the ground in a pool of blood, twitching.

  He racked another shell in his shotgun and walked over to the back of the van, joining his companion.

  The inmates opened the rear doors of the van together and brought out one of the large insulated steel crates labeled ‘TST BATCH 002 – BUT’.

  “Well, let’s get this shit back to the DC boys. We’ll divvy it up with your crew and make things right. After this, the virus shit can’t touch us and this whole fucking town is ours,” the black inmate, a gang lieutenant, said. He erupted into a coughing spasm.

  The hispanic inmate, a lieutenant of a rival gang, nodded and grinned. He quickly raised his shotgun and opened fire on the DC lieutenant.

  The buckshot sent the black inmate into the ditch where he lay motionless.

  The hispanic inmate sneezed.

  “Sorry, homes, nothing personal, but my crew will be the only crew running this shithole town. Your boys are out of luck.” He put the shotgun down, opened the metallic crate, brought out one of the individually wrapped sterilized syringes, tore it open with his teeth, and injected himself.

  Back at the high school, poisoned air churned steadily out through the gymnasium’s ventilation shafts, rustling the ‘Welcome to the 20th Annual GCHS Harvest Dance!’ banner. The gym was eerily silent.

  The disco ball slowly swayed in the middle of the gymnasium and caught the sunlight coming in through the skylights. The ball threw reflected circles of light across the thousands of corpses that lay strewn across the gymnasium floor and slumped in wheelchairs.

  In the corner of the gymnasium, slow-moving reanimated corpses were amassed on top of each other, devouring the dead…

  36

  The APC crushed a blue wooden police barricade as it neared the edge of downtown Butner.

  The engine was sputtering.

  It rolled across the railroad tracks and passed the National Guard Armory. The front doors of the armory were wide-open and the military vehicle storage lots had been emptied. Richard contemplated stopping and searching for any weapons that the soldiers left behind, but he thought that he saw something moving inside the armory’s darkened windows.

  He decided to keep moving.

  He drove past a BP station on his right. The station was deserted and looted. All of its windows and glass doors were shattered.

  The engine continued to sputter as it passed a Subway restaurant and a row of shuttered shops. Just a block ahead, a Dollar General store burnt wildly out of control and threw flames high into the nighttime sky.

  Lightning arced through the sky and ash continued to flutter down.

  The engine coughed on its last drop of fuel before finally dying.

  The heavily armored vehicle slowly coasted to a stop in the middle of the street and its lights greatly dimmed.

  “Damnit,” Richard muttered. He cranked the key in the ignition, causing the lights to briefly flicker brighter but otherwise no avail.

  “You need gas,” Andy said from the passenger seat, arms folded across his chest.

  “You think I don’t know that?” Richard sighed and peered out the window for infected. He couldn’t see through the falling ash and the darkness that consumed the town.

  Richard opened the driver-side door and stepped out onto the street. It was eerily quiet; even the sound of crickets and cicadas had ebbed. All he heard was the crackling flames of the Dollar General.

  His stomach suddenly twisted in an excoriating cramp as lightning arced across the sky.

  Richard collapsed onto his hands and knees. Once his hunger pains subsided and his head stopped spinning, he stood and staggered towards the sidewalk.

  “You’re weak,” Andy said, walking besides him.

  “I know,” Richard muttered as he stumbled onto the sidewalk in front of the plywood-covered Subway restaurant. He stared at the covered front door and begun walking towards the building, keeping a wary eye out for infected. “I need to eat something… I feel like I am going to pass out, Andy…”

  “Come over here and have something to eat with me then,” a man wearing a blood-stained sweater and dirtied khakis said from in front of the Subway. His chest had been stabbed multiple times and his forehead had a deep gash in the middle of it, giving him a grotesque third-eye. The man smiled warmly at Richard.

  Richard narrowed his eyes, staring at the familiar face.

  It was impossible.

  “Dad…?” Richard said, stepping towards the Subway.

  “The power is out! Any food in that restaurant will be spoiled by now!” Andy shouted into his face. “He’s just trying to slow you down and trick you!”

  The man in front of the Subway frowned and vanished.

  Richard clinched his aching stomach. His throat was parched and his tongue felt swollen.

  “Besides, you need to find a way to get us some fuel. You’re so close to the prison and so close to breaking me out!” Andy pleaded, exasperated.

  Richard looked over at the BP station. Lightning arced across the sky and the heavens opened up. Heavy rain started to fall and rinse away the irradiated ash. He was soaked within seconds. Puddles quickly formed on the asphalt.

  “Don’t fuck this up and stop being selfish! Did it ever occur to you that I’m hungry too?” Andy asked, glaring at him.

  Richard cupped his hands together and collected rainwater in his palms. He greedily gulped down the water and collected a few more handfuls.

  “I bet it’s cool and refreshing, isn’t it? You’re a selfish bastard. I’ve been drinking toilet water in my cell. I’m wasting away inside here,” Andy reminded him, looking up at Richard from the puddle’s reflection.

  Richard shuffled towards the BP station, sloshing through the puddle, dissolving Andy’s visage. Cold rain continued to pelt against his back and stifled the fire at the Family Dollar.

  Lightning arcs flashed across the heavens and lit the town in white strobe.

  In the white flash, he caught something in his peripheral vision. It looked like someone was standing on the other side of the street.

  Richard spun towards the person, but the lightning had subsided and the town was shrouded in darkness once again.

  He turned his attention back towards the BP station and shuffled onto the parking lot, limping past an abandoned Butner police car parked underneath the BP canopy next to one of the pumps.

  Richard leaned against one of the fuel pumps and reached for the black nozzle.

  “Diesel, Richie. That armored vehicle takes diesel,” Andy said, his voice seemingly coming from two directions at once, disorienting Richard.

  He reached towards the green fuel nozzle, the diesel one.

  “You’ll need something to carry it in, idiot. Not that matters anyway. The power is out so the pumps are worthless. You’ll need to figure out something else,” Andy said, voice coming from the center of Richard’s skull.

  Richard winced and massaged his temples. He heard his sister snickering at his frustration. Her laughter got lost in a legion
of voices.

  “Shut up!” Richard hissed, swatting at the air. He stumbled backwards and caught himself on the pump.

  “Focus, goddamnit!” Andy shouted, rising above the other voices in Richard’s head.

  Richard closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. Once the voices and laughter subsided, he opened his eyes and stared at the Butner police car.

  Richard pushed himself off of the fuel tank and looked inside the police car. The keys weren’t in the ignition. He opened the passenger door and searched the glove compartment, both visors, and looked in the center console.

  He found nothing.

  Distressed, he got out of the car and kicked the fender.

  Andy’s visage stood next to him and pointed down at the pavement.

  “Maybe he still has them,” Andy said.

  A trickle of dried blood led from the police car through the BP station’s shattered glass doors.

  Richard staggered along the trail and entered the station.

  The shelves were ransacked. The only light inside the station came from battery powered emergency lights in the corners of the store. Candy and trinkets littered the linoleum floor. The cigarette and the lottery ticket displays had been emptied out and the cash registers were missing.

  Glass shards crackled underneath his feet and a putrid smell overwhelmed him. He gagged, repressed vomiting, and covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve.

  He glanced ahead and saw the spilt candy bars lying in the middle of one of the ransacked aisles. Entranced, he immediately forgot about the smell and let his ravenous hunger consume him.

  Richard ran forward into the aisle and collapsed to his knees. He tore open packs of half-melted candy bars, consuming each of bar in two or three bites. Chocolate smeared his lips and stained his fingertips.

  “Now is not the time, selfish bastard!” Andy yelled, standing in front of him.

  For once, he ignored Andy. He snatched up a bag of trail mix and tore it open with his teeth, downing the bag in a matter of seconds.

  “RICHARD!” Andy’s voice billowed from all around him and items went flinging off of the shelf into the center of the aisle.

  Richard startled and almost choked, spewing a mouthful of raisins and peanuts onto the floor.

  “Find the cop’s fucking keys! Now!” Andy ordered, voice rumbling.

  Richard shoved a few melted Hersey bars and crumbled protein bars into his pockets and got back on his feet. He walked back down the aisle towards the entrance, stopping along the way to grab a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. He twisted the cap off with his teeth and chugged half of the bottle down by the time he reached the trail of blood by the shattered entrance doors.

  He took another swig of Pepsi and followed the trail deeper into the station. He looked ahead and froze.

  At the back of the store, in front of the bathroom, the corpse of a police officer wearing a gasmask lay sprawled out on the floor in a pool of dried blood underneath a flickering emergency light. His lower extremities were hidden behind a tall stack of beer cases, leaving only his upper torso visible. His arms were splayed over his head and a Remington riot shotgun lay near him amongst a number of scattered spent casings.

  Richard turned abruptly back towards the entrance doors.

  Andy was standing there, blocking his path.

  “And run where, pussy? Where is there left to go?” Andy asked.

  Richard froze, heart thumping.

  “You need those keys unless you want to walk to the prison,” Andy said, smirking.

  Slowly, Richard turned back around towards the corpse…

  “Besides, he’s not even moving. Be a man and go get his cruiser keys,” Andy said, gently shoving Richard forward.

  Richard stumbled forward and then, begrudgingly, crept towards the dead man. The coppery stench of blood mingled with the stench of decay and made the air thick and noxious. He held his breath and dropped the Pepsi.

  The sound of horseflies was almost deafening.

  Richard reached the corpse and prodded the corpse with his foot.

  The corpse didn’t move.

  Just to make sure, Richard prodded it again, harder, and then stepped on the corpse’s hand, grinding his heel into the man’s palm.

  The corpse didn’t react.

  Feeling some confidence, Richard stepped over the corpse, shooing the flies away. When he looked up, he gasped in terror and stumbled backwards against the wall.

  Another police officer, a female, was hunched over the officer’s eviscerated lower abdomen.

  She pulled out handfuls of the officer’s innards and shoveled them into her gullet. She looked up at Richard and stood, chewing on a piece of fat as she staggered towards him. She reached a shaky hand out towards him…

  Richard reached down and grabbed the Remington shotgun off of the floor, quickly leveled it at the woman’s chest, and fired.

  The woman’s chested erupted out through her back as she was flung backwards onto the ground, sliding back against an emptied beer cooler.

  Richard chambered another round and watched in horror as the woman struggled back onto her feet. He quickly crouched down and rummaged through the eviscerated officer’s front pockets, but didn’t find the keys. The male office wasn’t carrying them.

  The female officer staggered towards him with a gaping hole in her chest.

  Richard stood and leveled the shotgun between her eyes and fired.

  The blast took off the top portion of her skull and sprayed the beer cooler behind her with hair and bits of brain matter. She stumbled forward a few more steps and collapsed face-forward.

  Richard chambered another round and cautiously stepped towards the woman.

  She remained motionless.

  Richard kneeled down and rummaged through her pockets. He slid his hand down into her left pocket and pulled out a set of car keys.

  He heard something moving behind him and froze.

  The male officer was clawing his way across the blood-smeared tile floor towards Richard, snarling, with his innards trailing behind him.

  Rather than wasting another shell, Richard backed away towards the beer cooler, turned, and ran down another aisle, terrified, sprinting as fast as he could.

  He bolted outside and collapsed against one of the fuel pumps, breathing franticly, trying to compose himself. He squeezed the keys tightly in his hand, reassuring himself.

  “You don’t have time to rest! They’re almost inside my cell!” Andy shouted.

  Richard jolted at the sound of his voice and ran towards the Butner police cruiser. He froze as lightning arched across the sky and illuminated the dark horizon.

  Hundreds of corpses wearing tattered orange jumpsuits were lurching towards the gas station, emerging out from the seemingly vacant shops and alleyways.

  The lightning subsided and the town was bathed in darkness once more, but the sounds of shuffling feet and low moaning filled the stale air.

  Richard dove into the cruiser, slammed the door shut, and shoved the key into the ignition with a shaky hand.

  The engine turned over effortlessly.

  The headlights and the blue rooftop police strobes powered on immediately and bathed the area in light. The siren blared loudly, attracting even more unwanted attention.

  The headlamp’s glare reflected off an enclosing horde of corpses shuffling towards the front of the cruiser. They moved with a slow but determined gait, arms stretched out in front of them.

  Richard fumbled with the dash toggle switches and powered off the siren and the flashing blue lights.

  “Richie! They’re in here! Those creatures! They’re inside my–”

  Andy’s voice came through the car speakers before abruptly cutting off.

  “Andy? Andy!?” Richard shouted as he threw the transmission into ‘D’.

  Andy didn’t respond and Richard started to panic.

  “I’m coming,” Richard yelled, pressing down on the accelerator, “I’m on my way, just hang on a l
ittle bit longer!”

  The car jolted forward, jumped the curb and spun-out onto the street.

  The ravenous horde continued towards the rapidly approaching police cruiser unabated in their determination.

  Richard didn’t take his foot off of the accelerator.

  The cruiser sent the first few corpses hurdling over the top of it in twisted and contorted positions and plowed its way through the grotesque crowd of cadavers that cluttered the street.

  A series of fine cracks spread across the windshield as bodies pelted against it and coated it with a thick impenetrable layer of gore.

  Richard struggled to peer through the crackled grass which proved to be an impossible task as body after body struck against the racing cruiser and splashed the glass with blood. Within seconds every window in the car was covered from the onslaught as the vehicle jostled its way forward, crushing corpses.

  Richard didn’t let up; he knew that Andy was in trouble.

  The car finally cleared the undead horde and gained speed as its blood-slickened tires caught traction on the asphalt.

  Richard drew his fist back and struck the crackled windshield, blindly speeding forward.

  The shattered windshield crumbled away and sent a shower of glass bits pelting into the car, striking Richard’s face.

  Richard quickly shut his eyes and flinched. He reached a hand up, quickly brushed the pebbles of glass off his face, and opened his eyes.

  He slammed on the brakes, but it was too late.

  The speeding cruiser, tries squealing, jumped the curb and crashed against a brick sign that read ‘Town of Butner Department of Public Safety’.

  The wrecked car’s engine clunked a few times and then fell silent as it smoldered, dead.

  Richard lay slouched over the steering wheel, on top of the deflated airbag, barely maintaining consciousness.

  A few blocks behind him, the massive horde lurched down the street towards him.

  37

  As Richard teetered on the brink of consciousness, the sound of an approaching helicopter roused him back to his senses.

  He had crashed in front of Butner’s public safety headquarters. The small town had a conglomerated fire, EMS, and police department that operated out of the one building.