To be safe, I tied Lucullus to my wrist with a cord and went to sleep. If someone or something approached the camp, the cat’s keen senses would detect it long before I did, and he’d wake me up when he moved.
Two hours later, my safety precautions paid off. A pack of feral dogs came sniffing around at the bottom of the hill. They were a motley mixture of mutts, a golden retriever, and a huge pit bull. When Lucullus starting hissing, I jumped up, gun in hand. I shouted and threw rocks at them, but they just stared at me. They seemed shocked to find a lone human in the middle of nowhere. They must’ve decided I was too dangerous, because they finally turned and walked away, the pit bull in the lead. I breathed a sigh of relief, but didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I’d pay dearly for that the next morning.
40
JUST OVER THE MISSISSIPPI STATE LINE
DAY 4
I was going to make it. I was less than fifty miles from Gulfport. The sun was setting, but I was elated. That morning I passed a sign telling me I was entering “The Great State of Mississippi.” I’d traveled two hundred and fifty miles in two days. I was making great time. But as I got closer, I came across more and more towns that were hard to skirt. In some cases I had to race through them at breakneck speed, ducking between houses, not knowing if I’d come to a dead end.
At the same time, it was getting easier to make it through even the bigger towns. Too easy. In towns that should’ve been overrun by Undead, I only saw a couple dozen. I easily dodged them on the bike as I snaked among the ruined buildings and cars. Nearer the coast, where the humidity was higher, every creature I saw was infested with that fungus. On some, it covered just their face or wounds. Others looked like Persian rugs with legs. Many were so consumed that they just slithered along, unable to use their legs. The worst were those whose brains had been colonized by the fungus. They moved erratically, like robots whose programming was failing. And thousands of mounds of bones, each covered by a layer of orange, green, or violet fuzz, marked the spots where Undead had fallen, unable to lift their own weight.
I realized with a shudder that this trip would’ve been impossible just a few months before. The plague was slowly being devoured by one of the oldest, most primitive forms of life on the planet. In a few years, the world would be habitable for humans again. Thinking about that made me angry. I didn’t want to die now. Not so close to the end.
Occasionally I came across towns that were burned to the ground. I passed through one abandoned town that looked like the set of a movie someone had forgotten to film. But I only stopped for ten minutes to fill the tank with gas from an overturned minivan.
Up until then I’d kept TSJ at bay by taking a swallow of Cladoxpan every two hours. The moment I started sweating, I stopped, took another drink, and drove on.
That drug didn’t just keep me in the world of the living. My craving for it got stronger and stronger. I didn’t know if I was physically or psychologically hooked on the stuff, but the craving was as real as the back pain I felt after long hours on a bike with bad shocks.
Still, I was close. Very close. And that made me feel happy and relaxed. Combined with fatigue, that proved to be a lethal cocktail.
I was on a stretch of winding road in southern Mississippi, a region full of swamps, lagoons, and dikes. The Mississippi River spreads out in all directions as it nears the ocean, which made it harder for the Undead to move around. I pictured thousands of them trapped in the muddy waters. I hadn’t seen a single Undead for an hour, and I was starting to feel sleepy. Time to stop and find a place to sleep.
When I came around a bend, I was stunned by what I saw: a white ice cream truck with a giant ice cream cone on the top. Its side doors were flung open. Dead leaves covered the speakers that had once blared out little tunes to attract customers. I’d only seen ice cream trucks in American movies. It was so out of place in the swamp that I looked away from the road for a second.
That was enough. In the middle of the road was a pile of decomposing bones (the driver of the ice cream truck?) covered with blue mold. I didn’t see it until I was nearly on top of it. I swerved, but it was too late. A femur bone caught on one of the footrests, causing the bike to fishtail. I cut the handlebars in the opposite direction, but the rear wheel skidded on the rotting leaves that covered the pavement.
I hit the ground to the sound of twisting metal and snapping plastic. The bike slid sideways for about sixty feet, my right leg caught under it. Fortunately, the side defense rod didn’t bend. If it had, my entire leg would’ve been reduced to a bloody pulp mixed with gravel as the bike dragged me along the asphalt. I felt a lash of pain in my ankle before I was thrown into some underbrush.
I rolled several times before landing in some bushes. For a moment I just lay there, blinking and glad to be in one piece. I gingerly felt my body. I couldn’t believe it. At the speed I was going, I should’ve died on the spot.
I lay there on my back in silence, listening to birds chirping as the sun filtered through the trees and cast strange shapes on my face. Suddenly I remembered Lucullus. I jumped up, but when I put my weight on my right foot, I let out a scream of pain and fell back down. My ankle was broken. And it hurt like hell.
I straightened up again, careful not to put much weight on my injured ankle, and limped to the middle of the road, fearing the worst.
A ball of orange fur burst out of the brush, chasing a lizard. The lizard darted into a crack in the pavement. My cat clawed furiously at the crack, meowing in frustration.
“I’m fine, Lucullus, thanks for asking. By the way, I think I broke my ankle, you little shit.”
Lucullus looked at me, hesitated for a moment, and then went back to his game. To him, it was just another adventure he’d survived without a scratch.
With a jabbing pain in my ankle, I hobbled over to the bike, which had come to rest against an oak tree. I realized I had a very serious problem. No! Hell, no! I’m so close! This can’t happen!
The front wheel had smashed into the tree and the bike’s fork was bent at an impossible angle. A dark pool of oil was spreading under the Daystar. It had gone its last mile.
On top of that, it had fallen on its right side, crushing the saddlebag. That was where I kept my supplies. And half my supply of Cladoxpan. With a heavy heart, I tried to lift the bike. That was difficult under normal conditions, but even harder when I couldn’t stand on one of my feet. Using a tree branch as a lever, I finally raised the bike enough to drag out the battered saddlebag.
When I opened it, I detected a familiar, sweet smell. The glass bottle with half the Cladoxpan was broken and the medicine had spilled on the ground.
I slumped against the tree in despair. The situation couldn’t get much worse. It was getting dark, I was in the middle of a swamp full of dangerous creatures, and I had no transportation. I couldn’t walk because of my broken ankle. The worst part was that I’d lost half the medicine that kept me from becoming an Undead. Just when I was almost to my destination. I wanted to shoot myself.
An hour passed and night fell. I wallowed in self-pity for a while, then struggled to my feet. I had to go on as best I could. No one was going to rescue me. I got out my knife, cut a low tree branch, and fashioned a crutch as Lucullus darted around after the flying wood chips. When I was finished, I studied it with a critical eye. It was the ugliest crutch in history, but it would have to do.
I couldn’t carry much weight, so I decided to leave all my water behind. I was surrounded by streams and ponds, so I wouldn’t need it. I packed the army rations, pistol, compass, and the remaining bottle of Cladoxpan. I draped the saddlebag around my neck and tied Lucullus’s leash around my waist. My little pal would have to walk the rest of the way.
After two hours, I stopped, exhausted. I’d only gone about a mile and I was still surrounded by deep swamp. At that rate, it’d take a month to get to Gulfport. But I wouldn’t be alive in twenty-four hou
rs, given the amount of Cladoxpan I had left.
Disheartened, I collapsed in a clearing by the side of the road. I struggled to light a small fire and ate the last army ration. The fire would keep any creatures away. If it attracted a human being, so be it. No matter how hostile that person was, it’d be better than dying there alone. The thought of dying made the rest of the night seem even longer and more hopeless. Demoralized and weak, I fell asleep next to the fire. Game over.
41
OLD BOUIE SWAMP, MISSISSIPPI
DAY 5
The next morning I was awakened by Lucullus licking my face. I grumbled and turned over, eyes shut tight. I didn’t want to wake up. I didn’t want to get up. I just wanted to lie there and transform alone. When the time came, I’d put a bullet in my head and end it all.
Lucullus kept licking me. His huge tongue covered one whole side of my face, from my chin to my eyebrows, soaking me with drool. With another lick, drool ran into my nose and down my entire face. Puffs of his hot breath rifled my hair. When he didn’t get any attention, he let out a loud bray. A bray?
I opened my eyes and bolted upright. A dappled mule gazed at me with interest, waggling its ears. When it saw me react, it licked me again. Until you’ve been licked by a mule, you don’t know how disgusting its breath is, but I didn’t care. I rubbed my eyes and pinched myself to make sure I was awake.
“Hello, sweetie,” I whispered soothingly. I didn’t want to scare the animal.
It was a young female, medium height, in pretty good shape. She stood there, caked in mud to the tip of her muzzle. She was very docile and gazed intently at me. She seemed very happy to find me.
“Where on earth did you come from?” I ran my hand down her back and scratched behind her ears. There was no one in sight. I called out a few times, in case someone was watching from the bushes, but nobody answered. She must be alone.
She looked like she’d been living in the swamp for quite some time. Her shoes had fallen off and the nail holes in her hooves were almost closed up. Her brand was barely visible. Maybe she’d been abandoned at the start of the pandemic and hadn’t seen a human since. So when she found me in that clearing, she approached me. I couldn’t be sure, but she seemed to be as glad to see me as I was to see her. Lucullus watched us, his eyes wide as saucers.
She didn’t have a saddle, but that wasn’t going to stop me. Fate had given me another chance, and I wasn’t going to waste it. I fashioned a halter out of a strap from the saddlebag and tied it around her neck. I settled the saddlebags over her back and tied them below her belly with the last strap. The mule stood quietly, as if she were used to this ritual. I stuck Lucullus in one of the saddlebags and climbed on.
I hadn’t ridden a horse in a long time—and I’d never ridden a mule—but riding a horse is like riding a bike. You never forget how. I clucked softly and kicked her sides. As if that were what she was expecting, the mule started walking briskly down the road.
I ran my hand over my face in disbelief. One minute I was thinking about the best way to end it all, and the next minute I was headed for Gulfport on a mule. My guardian angel was definitely working overtime.
The road widened slowly and the vegetation became less dense. The sooner we left that swamp behind, the better.
“Just thirty miles, sweetheart,” I whispered in her ear. “Think you can do it?”
The mule pricked up her ears and trotted faster, as if she understood. She seemed glad to hear a human voice. Maybe she thought we were headed to a nice, warm barn.
“You need a name. How about Hope?”
The mule trotted along, oblivious to my ramblings. I was so happy to be alive that anything put me in a good mood. Then suddenly I realized my Cladoxpan supply would only last another day. I figured we were only about thirty miles from Gulfport, but in my condition, Hope would never get me there in time.
Stay calm. Cut your dosage in half. That’ll make it last twice as long.
Great idea. But what if the fucking TSJ isn’t satisfied with half a dose?
What choice did I have?
I bellowed, helpless. The mule pricked up her ears, alarmed. I had only one card to play, so I cut my ration in half.
Just then, on cue, my whole body started to sweat. That was the first warning. My transformation had begun.
Two hours later, the cramps started. I drank only a tiny sip; the cramps lessened but didn’t go away. I was sweating so hard I had to take a drink more often.
By noon, the cramps were unbearable. My hands shook so violently I nearly spilled my dwindling reserves. The temptation to take a long drink was very strong, almost unbearable, but I controlled myself.
By the afternoon I had a burning thirst. I stopped Hope next to a stream so I could get some water. As I climbed down, one of my feet got tangled in the saddlebag. I waved my arms, but couldn’t keep my balance and fell face first on the ground, hitting my head and reopening the gash on my forehead. A few drops of my blood fell into the stream, and the current slowly carried them away in lazy spirals. I stared blankly at the bloody water. What would happen if someone drank that water downstream? He’d probably contract TSJ. How many liters of water would those drops contaminate? For how long? That damned Italian doctor could’ve answered those questions if he weren’t such a lunatic.
After several failed, tortured attempts, I finally got back on the mule but only by walking her over to a crumbling wall and climbing on that way. She looked surprised, as if she wondered how anyone could be so uncoordinated. The shooting pains I felt weren’t just from my broken ankle. My legs were starting to fail.
I rode for only fifteen minutes before I was dying of thirst again. The same gurgling stream ran alongside the road, so I stopped the mule again. This time, I plunged my face into the stream and gulped down a lot of water. As soon as I finished, I violently vomited all that water back up.
I put my head back in the stream and drank more sparingly, trying to rehydrate myself. But that didn’t quench my thirst. At least not for water. I reached for the bottle of Cladoxpan and uncorked it. In a final act of self-control, just before it touched my lips, I stuck the cork back in. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
I don’t know how much time passed. The mule walked at an easy pace down the road, sidestepping abandoned vehicles. Fortunately we were in an uninhabited area, so there were no Undead. If we’d crossed paths with any, I know what would’ve happened. I could barely stay upright, let alone fight.
Hold on tight. Don’t fall. Don’t fall. You can’t fall.
“Oh, go ahead and fall,” Greene said cheerfully as he unwrapped an ice pop and eagerly sucked on it. “Just relax and let go. Everything will be much easier.”
I turned my head, confused. The reverend was walking beside me, Bible under his arm. The crimson ice pop in his hand left a dark stain on his lips that looked like blood.
“What’re you doing here?” I muttered between chapped lips.
“The question is, what are you doing here?” replied the reverend, lasciviously licking the ice pop. As he did, I caught a glimpse of his rotten gums, teeming with maggots. “You should be dead by now. You know that, don’t you?”
“I think he wants revenge, Reverend,” said a voice on the other side of the mule. I turned my head and blinked. To my left walked Grapes, pulling cats out of a backpack. He slit their bellies with his knife, ripped out their guts, and popped the entrails into his greedy mouth. “He wants to come to Gulfport to kill us, but he doesn’t know he’s already dead.”
“I’m not deeeeaaaad,” I protested weakly. I realized, scared, that I was slurring my words. “And you’re not heeeerrre. This is a fucking hallucination.”
“Oh, of course we are,” said Greene. When I looked over, I saw that the reverend had turned into Ushakov, the Russian captain from the Zaren Kibish. “We’re dead, too, you know. We’re all dead be
cause of you.”
“And you’ll join us very soon,” said Grapes. He wasn’t gutting cats anymore. Now he cut out bits of his own guts and popped them in his mouth. “Want some?”
My gut roared and my mouth filled with saliva. That hot, bloody human flesh looked so appetizing . . . I reached for it, but Grapes pulled the piece back and gave me a sly look. He shook his index finger in front of my face, like a metronome.
“No, no, no. Get your own. Like the rest of us.”
“Like the rest of us!” shouted Greene/Ushakov.
Beside them walked the sailor who’d tried to rape Lucia in the Canary Islands. He was so covered in that fungus, I could hardly make him out. It had grown over his tongue so he couldn’t speak, but his gestures were unmistakable. The guy shook his pelvis lewdly. Then he put a piece of human flesh in his mouth and chewed furiously. Every time he bit down, a couple of teeth fell out and landed in the dust, like blood-soaked pearls.
“Gooo to heeellll,” I cursed. My tongue was so thick I could barely form the words.
“Where do you think you are?” Greene whispered in my ear. Now he was riding behind me on the mule, clutching me around the waist as if we were lovers, holding his Bible open in front of me. “Look what it says in the book. Repent of your sins. You’re dead.”
“No!” I roared and gave him a shove. My arm flew through the air. Greene had disappeared, along with everyone else.
Trembling with panic, I uncorked the bottle of Cladoxpan and raised it over my mouth, but not a drop came out. The bottle was empty. I stared at it as if I were clutching an alien’s arm.
I looked up at the deep-orange sun. It was starting to set. It was much later than I thought. I’d completely lost track of time.
This is the end. The fucking end.
With clumsy fingers, I struggled to get the gun out of the saddlebag. I had to do it now while I still had an ounce of control over myself. A growl came from inside the bag and I stopped. Lucullus was scared to death—of me. Or rather, of what I was becoming.
The Wrath of the Just (Apocalypse Z) Page 24