Desolation

by Mark Campbell

  He lost his smile as he stared down at the broken microscope lying on the floor. He spun towards the door– With Lt. Willow safely far away in the corner of the room, Jerri got up from her hiding spot and hobbled towards the sally port as fast as she could.

  “No!” Lt. Willow screamed as he lunged towards one of the cylinders in the corner. “You're not going anywhere!” He took the knife and drove it into the side of the nearest cylinder and then pulled it out.

  Green gas erupted out from the pressurized cylinder with a loud HISS.

  An alarm started blaring and the sally port door slammed shut just seconds before Jerri could reach it.

  She ran into the glass and fell backwards, dizzy and disoriented. “ Warning. Biological contamination detected. This area is now under quarantine,” a automated voice announced overhead as red strobes flashed throughout the room. “Stand-by for assistance.”

  “It's time you witnessed Lazarus,” Lt. Willow said, coughing. “We both know that you're not going anywhere... and neither am I.” He dropped the knife and fell to his knees, gasping for breath as the fog consumed him.

  The green fog started to expand its way across the lab towards Jerri.

  Jerri scrambled back onto her feet and frantically pressed the button next to the sally port. The door didn't open.

  “Quarantine activated. Decontamination portal is disabled.”

  Jerri ran over towards one of the tables and picked up one of the metal stools from underneath it as the fig gradually closed in on her. Screaming, she spun and hurled the stool full-force towards the glass door.

  The door shattered and erupted in a shower of glass shards as the stool barreled through it.

  “Danger. Containment compromised. FEMA security forces notified.” Jerri hurried into the sally port, picked up the stool, and hurled it through the second door. She ran out of the breached sally port, through the coatroom, and went back into the corridor just as the green fog started seep through the sally port.

  She slammed the door shut behind her.

  Red strobes started to flashed throughout the corridor and the alarm blared. “ Danger. Containment compromised. Facility-wide contingencies activated,” the few working speakers in the corridor announced. “Evacuate immediately.”

  Steel shutters started to roll down from the ceiling and cover the other laboratory windows. She didn't waste any time as she started to ran down the hall, glancing over her shoulder. She dodged the multiple overturned medical carts along the way and bounded over the decomposed corpse of a researcher.

  Two FEMA officers wearing blood-soaked riot armor and carrying shotguns ran out of the stairwell a few yards ahead of her and looked at her in surprise.

  Both officers leveled their shotguns towards her. Jerri turned her attention back ahead of her and nearly screamed as she skidded to a halt, knocking over one of the carts as she crash against it.

  “Whoa! Hold it right there!” one of the officers shouted. “What the fuck is going on?! Where is Lt. Willow?! He said he was coming down here to get you!”

  “He didn't! He went back there!” she shouted, terrified. “Get out of my way! We have to leave! NOW!”

  “Back there?” the second officer asked. “Back where?!” The steel door to the coatroom flung off of its hinges and slammed against the drywall. Lt. Willow stepped out into the corridor with his hands down at his side. His skin looked leathery, his eyes sunken, and his mouth was fastened in a scowl. Black bile seeped out of the corners of his mouth and ran out from his nose.

  Both FEMA officers, frightened, took a step backwards and pointed their weapons at Lt. Willow.

  “S-sir?” one of the officers yelled down the corridor. “He's infected, you idiots! He exposed himself to Lazarus!” Jerri shouted. Lt. Willow made a guttural growl at the sound of her voice and started to quickly walk down the corridor, hurling the metallic carts out of his way. He knocked the dangling fluorescent light fixture out of his way and continued pushing forward, moving even faster.

  Both officers opened fired.

  The shotgun pellets did little to impede Lt. Willow. Large sections of his body were eviscerated by the blasts but quickly regenerated. He started to sprint towards the officers. Jerri panicked and quickly ran in between the two officers towards the stairwell. She snatched a pair of handcuff keys of off one of the officer’s duty belt and started to unlock her handcuffs as she ran.

  The officers stood too transfixed to try to stop or even notice her. Instead they continually fired on their lieutenant. Lt. Willow reached the first officer and knocked the shotgun out of the man's hands. He then grabbed the man's face with one hand and crushed his skull like a rotten tomato. Red mist, bone fragments, and mushy pulp erupted out of the man's contorted head and trickled inbetween Lt. Willow's fingers and ran down his arm.

  The officer's body convulsed and then went limp.

  Free from the handcuffs, Jerri dropped the cuffs on the floor and ran into the open staircase.

  Lt. Willow dropped the lifeless heap on the floor and walked towards the second officer.

  The officer pointed the shotgun at Lt. Willow's chest and fired. Lt. Willow growled and stumbled backwards as a gaping hole formed in the center of his chest; his innards were splattered back on the wall behind him. He looked down at his wound and then looked up at the officer as his chest cavity started to heal and close itself back up.

  The officer, terrified, quickly chambered another round– Lt. Willow grabbed the officer by the throat and picked him off of the ground.

  The officer panicked and dropped his weapon as he struggled to get free from Lt. Willow's boney iron-clad grasp.

  Lt. Willow brought the man close and regurgitated a black bile into the man's face.

  The bile went into the man's eyes and mouth and made him gag and choke. His body started to convulse madly.

  Lt. Willow dropped the man onto the ground and stepped towards the staircase as the final marks on his body healed.

  The officer stood up behind him. His eyes were black, sunken, and black bile foamed out the corner of his mouth.

  Lt. Willow and the officer glanced at each other and then hurried towards the staircase together. Jerri bounded up the winding stairs two at a time, breathing frantically. The stairwell was dimly lit by flickering bulbs that ran the expanse of the wall. The handrail was rusted and the air smelled like burning gasoline. The staircase seemed to spiral up endlessly into the darkness above.

  She tripped on her dangling leg iron and fell backwards down a set of five stairs, dropping the handcuff keys beside her. Winded and disoriented, she groaned and forced herself to sit up. She snatched the keys off of the ground and hurriedly unlocked her remaining leg iron and hurled them over the handrail.

  Jerri got up, briefly massaged her swollen ankle, and started to run up the stairs once again. She glanced down below and nearly froze in shock–

  Lt. Willow and the officer were scaling up the side of the spiral staircase tenaciously fast. They were pulling themselves up along the handrails and leaping from one side of the spiral to the other, black foam gurgling from their mouth.

  Jerri let out a terrified gasp and kept running, nearly tripping and falling with each stride as her leg muscles started to fatigue. Out of breath, she finally reached the top of the stairs and found herself standing by an iron-wrung ladder that led up to an iron hatch in the ceiling. The hatch had a red circular wheel on it that was used to open it or seal it.

  As Jerri ascended the ladder, a clammy hand grabbed her ankle and pulled her down.

  She landed hard on her back and the air whooshed out of her lungs. The officer who had pulled her down started to climb on top of her, dribbling black goo on her shirt as his tongue lolled out of his mouth. He leaned down closer… ready to bite.

  Jerri shoved the man hard in the chest and sent him tumbling backwards off of her. She quickly got on her feet and started towards the ladder–

  Lt. Willow grabbed Jerri by the wrist and pulled h
er back towards him, grinning as he stared at her with listless black eyes. Black bile seeped out from his mouth and dark blood ran out of his ears.

  Jerri struggled to get away but his grip was steadfast. She punched him in the chest repeatedly but to no avail.

  The officer she knocked down rebounded back on his feet and quickly ran towards her, snarling rabidly.

  Jerri kicked the officer in the chest and sent him sprawling backwards off-kilter. The officer tumbled over the edge of the handrail and plunged down to the bottom of the spiral staircase. He struck the cement ground hard and his body erupted like a rotten squash, covering the bottom of the stairs in a strange mixture of black goo and blood.

  Lt. Willow kept his attention focused squarely on Jerri as she kicked and squirmed, trying to get out of his grasp. He leaned close and regurgitated black bile towards her face.

  Jerri twisted her head away just in time to miss the onslaught of filth. She tried desperately to pull her hand free from his grasp but it just wasn’t any use.

  Lt. Willow leaned back and made a gurgling noise as he got ready to fire another volley… Jerri reached up with her other hand and jabbed her thumb into each of his eye sockets, digging deep enough to feel his retinas tear to shreds.

  Lt. Willow let out a ghastly cry and let her go as blood poured out of his hollowed eye sockets. He swept madly towards her, clawing blindly at the air.

  Jerri backed away and started climbing up the ladder towards the iron hatch. Lt. Willow froze and looked up at her as his eyes started to regenerate inside of their sockets. He let out a guttural growl and ran towards the ladder.

  Jerri reached the top of the ladder and pushed the hatch. It was sealed shut.

  She frantically spun the circular wheel in the center of the hatch and heard it squeak as the hatch unlocked.

  Lt. Willow was right on her heels. He stopped and tried to bite at her ankle–

  Jerri kicked Lt. Willow as hard as she could in the head and sent him tumbling down the ladder. Lt. Willow struck the ground at the base of the ladder hard. His leg made a loud SNAP as it broke and contorted into an unnatural position. He howled in pain and anguish.

  Jerri pushed the hatch open and crawled topside. She squinted – the sun was rising. She took one last look down at Lt. Willow– His leg was straightening itself and he was already starting to ascend the ladder again.

  –and closed the hatch, spinning the wheel shut to seal it. She stepped away from the hatch and looked around in bewilderment. She found herself in an alleyway overgrown with weeds. The alley was behind a rather tall building that looked in disrepair; it looked like the back of the warehouse she saw earlier. A handful of bullet-riddled civilians lay strewn across the ground.

  A jeep sat parked idling nearby. A few sacks of provisions and two red cans of fuel sat in the back of the vehicle. Jerri quickly crawled into the jeep and started to drive away. It had been a long time since she had driven a vehicle and it showed. The jeep swerved from side-to-side and she kept over-accelerating. It took her a few minutes but she soon found her rarely used skill quickly improving.

  She flew down the alley, crushing a few shambling freshlyinfected corpses in her wake. She banked around the corner and the tires squealed as the jeep veered onto one of the main roads.

  As she looked around her surroundings she realized just how badly things had fallen apart while she was under. Most of the tenements were ablaze and infected meandered mindlessly in the street. Evidence of the bloodshed earlier made itself known by the dead bodies lying in the street and the numerous spent brass casings.

  A small cadre of engulfed police cruisers and Humvees surrounded a small building adorned with watchtowers on the roof. 'Central Command' was engraved in the building's marble facade. The seal of the United States of America was fastened over the building's open front doors and a tattered flag with fifty stars hung next to the seal.

  The building's watchtowers were empty and all of the windows were dark.

  Camp 7 belonged to the dead. As Jerri sped down the road the meandering corpses nearby turned towards her and started to shuffle after her with their arms outstretched.

  She turned another corner and found herself on the main drag, weaving in-between small herds of reanimated corpses. At the far end of the road she saw the exit gate next to a large empty gatehouse.

  The chain-link gate was closed and padlocked shut. A sign on the gate read 'Stop and Turn OFF Engine – All Vehicles Must Be Cleared by Control'.

  She took a deep breath and floored the accelerator. The jeep barreled through the chain-link gate and sent sparks flying as the rolling gate flew off of its tracks and bent outwards. Jerri's body jolted as the jeep swerved from the impact but she quickly regained control and kept driving. From what she could see the only damage was a battered front-end and two shattered headlamps.

  She glanced behind her and saw that a cluster of determined corpses had followed her through the breached gate and were shambling after her jeep.

  It didn't matter; they'd never catch up as the distance grew exponentially each passing second. She looked ahead and let out a bated breath. The flat North Dakota road seamed to go on forever. When she glanced in her rear-view mirror again she saw that Camp 7 had turned into a distant speck against the rising morning sun.

  A short while later, nothing.

  After hours of driving up highway 82 Jerri was finally nearing the Canadian boarder. It surprised her just how clear the roads were aside from the occasional abandoned car. She had driven through Minot around noon; it was a desolate ghost-town not populated by the living or the dead. It was there that she made the prudent decision to stop at a looted convenience store. She filled up her tank with one of the fuel canisters in the back of her vehicle and then decided to poke around in the store...

  It embarrassed her just how much she had missed junk food. She gobbled down three Butterfingers and was working on some Twinkies. She really hoped that the old rumor she once heard about them not having an expiration date was true.

  The best part? She didn't see a single soul since she escaped Camp 7. Living or dead. Feeling the crisp autumn wind in her hair, relishing the sun on her skin, and having her belly full was absolutely divine. She even managed to find some CDs in the store. She was listening to charttopping nonsensical pop from before the outbreak but she just didn't care. It felt great. She felt alive. She had no shame in blaring Katy Perry as she drove well past the speed limit.

  She opened a warm bottle of coke with her teeth and started chugging. Within a few minutes the coke was gone and she hurled the glass bottle out the window.

  She let out a loud burp and then giggled at herself.

  For once everything felt normal...

  And then she saw the boarder-crossing in the distance and reality struck her once again. The road became clogged with bullet-peppered abandoned cars loaded with luggage.

  She drove on the shoulder of the road to bypass the traffic and slowed the jeep to a stop and stared at the abandoned customs shack. It reminded her of a large tollbooth. The concrete sign overhead read 'United States Department of Homeland Security – Customs and Border Protection'. The road was barricaded by rolls of barbwire and concrete highway dividers. Large signage dominated the center of the highway and read 'Closed Due to Pandemic'. Two tanks, covered in vines, sat next to the customs checkpoint.

  She saw no sign of infected and didn't see any emerging from the ground. Maybe the rumors were true.

  Maybe the ones up north did die off during the harsh winter.

  She carefully veered off of the road and drove through the field to clear the customs screening area.

  On the opposite side of the customs area the highway was clear. Jerri veered back onto the highway and saw the Canadian border checkpoint a little over a mile ahead.

  She drove past a large green sign that read 'Welcome To/Bienvenue Au Canada'.

  “I made it,” she said to herself, smiling yet unsure. The Canadian side of the bord
er checkpoint was just as convoluted as the American side so she elected to go off road and bypass the mess altogether again.

  As she drove through the field next to the Canadian border patrol she read a hand-painted sign that contradicted the first sign she read– CLOSED – TURN AROUND OR WILL SHOOT She saw that the Canadians had a variable arsenal of weaponry and tanks pointed towards the American checkpoint. However, like the Americans, the derelict tanks and the turrets were unmanned and covered in vines.

  Jerri steered clear of the checkpoint and made it back onto the highway. The road was clear.

  She floored the accelerator and frowned.

  She turned off the CD just as another song she once remembered came on.

  For some reason she just didn't feel like listening to music anymore and drove in somber silence.

  A sign on the side of the road read 'Regina – 320 km'. She didn't really know where she was going or what she was looking for exactly but Regina seemed like a good place to start. It was nighttime and navigating the roads were difficult at best without any headlights.

  The air had become frigid and her teeth were chattering as her hands gripped the steering wheel. She narrowed her eyes and tried to peer through the consuming darkness but couldn't make out much of anything during the moonless night.

  She wasn't sure how far she had driven but she knew she had just gone through the last of her fuel canisters and her tank was nearing empty. She expected to run through some small towns at least but all she passed in her hours of driving were a few farms.

  It surprised her just how rural central Canada really was.

  Still, Regina had to be close.

  Seemingly out of nowhere a pair of headlights showed up in her rear-view mirror and badly startled her.

  She didn't come across a single person, living or dead, all trip but she knew her luck was bound to end sooner or later. Gut-wrenching paranoia overtook her and set her into panic mode. She didn't have any weapons on her and she wasn't exactly driving a race car...

  The car behind her closed the distance quick and was riding on her bumper.