Phoenix Protocol- the Middletown Omnibus

by Brent Abell

  “Ignorance is bliss, they say,” Jason added.

  Bryce looked up at the sky. He scanned the treetops, trying to find flames or something marking the crash. In the dark, away from the cities, the absolute black made it hard to see any smoke. Following the last of the flashlights disappearing into the night, he thought he saw a haze bellow across the ground. He shined his light on it, and the black haze grew thicker.

  “It must not be far,” Bryce said. His words woke the group from their stupor, and they shined their lights where the smoke rolled in from the woods.

  “Let’s go,” Maria said, leading the way deeper into the night.

  ***

  When the first people emerged from the trees near the twisted plane, they were excited. The music and drugs, mixed with copious amounts of alcohol and rage, left the group whipped into a frenzy. They poured from the woods flooding out from the dark. Circling the fiery crash, they chanted and cheered. It wasn’t the presidential effigy the festival-goers wanted to see burn, but any fire they could view as a blaze against the establishment; they’d gladly cheer.

  And cheer for the flaming plane they did.

  Two guys picked sticks off the ground, hurling them into the inferno. Others followed suit, throwing anything they could find at the fire. When they did, the growing crowd erupted in cheers. Some took it to the extreme and stripped naked. The nude ones danced and circled the flames while they chanted and screamed obscenities to the sky.

  Nobody cared if there were survivors; they wanted to revel in the tragedy, a perceived blow to the man.

  In a matter of minutes, hundreds of festival-goers emerged from the trees to join the party. The people crowded in from every direction. Some removed their clothes to dance while others stood off to the side in stunned silence.

  One man leaned against a tree howling at the moon like a wolf. He found the display amusing and loved the way the people partied down. It brought out an animalistic urge deep within him to become one with the night. A strange smell hit his nostrils, and he gagged. It wasn’t an overtly bad smell but like hot meat and candy. Sniffing the air, he turned back to the forest, and he saw a man standing close to him, a few feet away. The man swayed back and forth in time with the chanting people.

  “Hey man, you want a drink?” he asked the figure and offered his flask. He belted out another loud howl.

  A low moan answered him.

  “So, is that a yes?”

  The stranger took a few steps closer and stopped again. The firelight reflected off the metal on the stranger’s jacket, and the man recognized them as military medals. Dark spots streaked the uniform, and he squinted to see them better.

  “Dude, is that blood? Are you okay? Were you in the crash?” the man asked, approaching the figure in the woods.

  Growling, the man in the army uniform grabbed the extended arm and yanked him closer. The man screamed as the officer’s teeth tore into his arm. The teeth sank deep into his tattooed flesh. Incisors chewed into veins, and blood poured out around the mouth attached to his arm. Kicking the officer, he yanked his arm free of the vice-like grip the mouth had on his arm. Skin and meat ripped from the bone, and he stumbled backward, breaking free of the crazy man in the uniform.

  “You motherfucker!” he cried out.

  He felt a warm burning sensation at the bite, racing up his arm. The muggy night made him sweat, but the heat coursing through his body made him feel like he was on fire. His vision blurred as the officer pushed past him. He saw the name tag identifying the man as Harris. Judging by the stars on his shoulders, he was also a general.

  Before the hunger gnawing at his gut completely took over, he watched Harris grab another person and tear out their throat.

  After a few more moments of horror about what his body felt like, he joined Harris in feasting on the people.

  ***

  “Do you guys hear that?” Jason asked the group.

  They’d been slowly making their way through the woods to where they thought the plane crashed. The smoke grew thicker, and at times, it blotted out the moonlight. The night had become eerily quiet before shrieks broke the silence.

  “Sounds like screaming,” Bryce said.

  Jade stopped and shined the flashlight in front of them. “Sounds like it's coming from up ahead.”

  “Did the entire burning party move out here to the wreck?” Maria asked.

  Grant walked in the commotion’s direction. “One way to find out,” he said, turning back to the group.

  “I wouldn’t go that way if I were you,” a voice said from the dark.

  Jade jumped and dropped the flashlight. The light’s beam cut through the dark and landed on a woman limping out from behind a tree. Blood covered the woman, and black streaks stripped her filthy clothes. Jade saw the rips to her sleeves and skirt and grew uneasy.

  “Holy shit!” Bryce called out in surprise. “You scared the shit of me.”

  “Turn around and get far away from here,” the woman cryptically warned them.

  Maria rushed to the woman. “Oh my God, are you okay? Are you from the crash?”

  “I was in the plane when it went down, but it won’t matter if I’m okay or not if we don’t get the fuck out of here,” the woman replied.

  Jason stopped to look at the woman. “What’s the big deal if we get out of here or not?”

  “The end of the world’s here,” the woman retorted.

  “What the fuck do you mean by that? Are you part of some weird cult or some shit like that?” Grant snorted.

  “No, I’m the person who stole a sample of a virus from my former employer and shoved it in an Army general’s mouth. Oh yeah, when I kicked his mouth, the vial broke, and he died.”

  Bryce shrugged. “If he’s dead, I don’t see what the big deal is. We can go back to the festival grounds and call the National Guard or some shit to come and lock it down. I’ve seen it in the movies plenty of times.”

  “He’ll come back,” the woman said.

  “What do you mean, ‘come back’?” Maria asked.

  “Look, he’ll start biting people, and they’ll die and then come back to eat you. My name’s Victoria Davis, by the way.”

  “How far is the crash? A large group from the festival went into the woods to look for survivors,” Jason added.

  “They’re dead,” Victoria stated.

  “But, I thought I heard them,” Grant said.

  “Trust me, they’re dead and coming for us,” Victoria warned.

  Off in the distance, loud screaming pierced the night.

  “We need to get back to the campsite and get out of here,” Bryce said.

  “Good idea,” Jason said and led the way back to the festival.

  4

  These people are fucking idiots, Victoria thought.

  She let the others lead the way back to where-the-fuck-ever they were going. They said something about a festival and the idea of Harris and his undead horde crashing a party that size brought a pang of regret to her. In her hatred of Harris, she may have doomed the rest of the world.

  She only wanted to release it in the Center to kill the people pulling strings from their perches hidden in the shadows. They owed a blood debt to the world, and she planned on collecting payments on it. If she survived, she knew the weight of her actions would eventually crush her. The fires cleansed Middletown and Manhattan, but she didn’t kid herself into thinking what she did would bring about the apocalypse. She knew the virus would get out somehow, and humanity’s downfall would happen anyway regardless of her role.

  “So, who are you really?” Bryce said, stepping up beside Victoria.

  Stopping, Victoria looked Bryce in the eyes. “I’m someone you don’t want to fuck with.”

  Bryce backed off and put his hands in the air. “Okay, I get it.”

  “Look, I’m sorry. Let’s say I’ve not had a good thirteen hours.”

  “We should catch up. Welcome to our little group,” Bryce said, taking off afte
r the others.

  Victoria shook her head and frowned. They seemed like okay people, and how could she tell them they were all going to die.

  ***

  Flames spread from the crashed plane to the dry vegetation around the wreckage. Embers danced in the air and found willing partners high in the trees and on the undead skin milling around. A few gutted festival-goers littered the ground, and the zombies eating their bowls didn’t flinch or bolt when the roaring flames engulfed them. Bodies shambled around the woods like tiki torches and caught anything they touched aflame.

  Harris stalked a figure rushing further into the woods. He sniffed the air and detected the coppery scent of blood and the sourness of fear oozing from its pores. His stomach rumbled, and the hunger driving him since he rose from the dead gnawed at him.

  General Harris paused a few feet from his prey. His body became still as he ceased to pursue the woman running to get away from him. Her scent again made him want to carry on consuming her flesh and drinking her blood, but he couldn’t make himself go on.

  His mind pictured the woman who made him a member of the undead.

  Zombies around him looked up at him and came at him. The closer they got, they caught his scent and peeled away from the general. He watched them and flashes of thought and memory fired across his brain in bursts.

  Hunger filled him, but so did his need for revenge. His brain couldn’t comprehend what was happening within him, and he grasped at the images of the woman in his head. Snarling, he sniffed the air and catching a familiar smell, followed Victoria’s trail away from the fire like a hound.

  Other zombies saw Harris go off into the woods, and soon they all filed into the darkness after him. Like the Pied Piper, Harris led the zombie pack to the festival and as much food as they could eat.

  5

  Victoria popped out of the woods behind the rest of the group and gasped. Working in the biological pharmaceutical field; she’d seen tent cities in poor developing countries, and the festival grounds reminded her of those images.

  “We should keep moving,” Victoria said, pushing past Grant and Jason.

  Grant grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Why? What the fuck is going on?”

  “Listen, do you hear the people in the woods?” she asked.

  “No,” Jason replied.

  “Dead people don’t fucking talk is why,” Victoria retorted.

  Jade cleared her throat; they all looked over at her. “Why the hell do you keep saying everybody back there is dead?”

  “If you want to survive, come with me,” Victoria offered the group. She felt in her pocket to make sure the ID card she stole from Harris was still in her possession.

  Bryce shook his head and laughed. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell us what the holy fuck is going on.”

  Victoria sighed and sat down in the trampled grass. “I worked for Xen Pharmaceuticals as a special assistant to the CEO Markus Franke.”

  “I know them; they make the cancer drugs my grandfather took before he died,” Jason said.

  “Well, we did much more than that. There were also government contracts involved, and under the headquarters building in Manhattan, we ran a covert lab to develop some nasty things for the military. Three years ago, a sample came in from the Amazon, and the researchers discovered it could kill a person in a matter of minutes,” Victoria explained.

  “Is that’s what the fuck is loose out there? A virus that’ll kill us in a minute,” Grant exclaimed.

  Victoria looked over at Maria and saw her frantically typing on her phone. “You can report this all you want, but it’s too late.”

  “The public has a right to know about this,” Maria replied.

  “I haven’t told you the fun part yet,” Victoria said.

  “You mean it gets better?” Bryce quipped.

  “When you die, you don’t stay dead,” Victoria replied with a smirk.

  Maria stopped typing notes on her phone, and her mouth hung open. “What?” she asked in surprise.

  “Did you hear about the Middletown tragedy yesterday?” Victoria asked.

  They all shook their heads in the affirmative.

  “It wasn’t a gas line explosion; it was something called the Phoenix Protocol. A sample of the virus was sent to a researcher at Middletown University. A triggered timer broke the sample vial releasing the virus for a field test. Well, something happened that never occurred in the lab testing. It was the first human trial, and unlike the monkeys or the rabbits, the humans came back after they died. My cousin died there when the town was firebombed to cover up the situation and burn the virus in the open,” Victoria told them.

  “And Manhattan?” Grant asked.

  “The virus got loose in the Xen building, and a subject escaped to the streets before the lock-down was complete. I had a sample vial and managed to get a ride with a General Harris who’d been pulling the strings behind the scenes to cover the virus release up.”

  Bryce squatted down next to her and locked eyes with her. “Where’s the vial now?”

  “I shoved it in Harris’s mouth and kicked him in the teeth,” Victoria declared victoriously. “Fuck, I told you this earlier.”

  “You are one bad bitch,” Jade said in awe.

  Victoria smiled. She only did what she felt she had to do. “Thank you. Now, let’s get out of here. I have a feeling it’s about to get ugly around here.”

  Something rustled in the trees, and Victoria turned to see a bloodied man stumble out from the brush. Gore streaked his face, and large chunks hung from his agape mouth. In the lights surrounding the camping area, she saw bite marks covered him. Some bites were small punctures, but others left massive crimson wounds. The blood seeped through the man’s shirt and ran down his bare legs. He fell on Maria before she even had a chance to scream and the man ripped her throat out. All Victoria could hear where gurgling sounds as the zombie chewed into her windpipe. Blood showered him, and he chewed on her flesh, tearing large chunks out. Maria went into shock and let the man rip into her.

  Victoria backed away and glanced around for shelter. She knew Maria never stood a chance. In the woods, she heard more of the zombies approaching the camping area. Tents and makeshift shelters dotted a majority of the field. A few campers and RVs sat circled closer to the stage entrance. She looked back and forth between the advancing horde and her new companions.

  “Get to the campers!” Victoria shouted and raced through the tent city.

  Bryce looked dumbfounded and hesitated. A chorus of low growls sounded from the woods, and he watched a wave of bloodied figures emerge from the darkness. The bodies fell over each other, and he reached for Jade’s hand. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly. He returned the sign of affection with a quick squeeze back.

  “Bryce, Jade! Fucking run!” Jason called out and bolted after Victoria.

  Bryce tried to move, but the others watched him stand his ground.

  Victoria reached the closest RV, and she stopped when she took her first step up the ladder in the back. She saw Jade tugging on Bryce’s arm, but he didn’t budge. Grant and Jason trailed her, and they were only a few moments from reaching the RV. Finally, she climbed the first two rungs and stopped again.

  “Bryce! Move your ass!” Victoria called out.

  Victoria knew it was pointless. Jade yanked her arm free and rushed away from Bryce at full speed. Bryce raised his arms in the air and welcomed the zombies. They fell on him and tore him to pieces in a frenzy. She winced and scurried to the top of the RV, not wanting to watch the ravenous undead reduce Bryce to a gory pile of body parts. She highly doubted they would leave enough of him to reanimate.

  ***

  Jade wept. She heard the wet sounds of Bryce being torn to shreds, followed by the loud smacking of the undead lips feasting on his flesh and blood. Jade felt bile in her throat and resisted the urge to vomit. She knew any hesitation would be her death. Bryce’s screams chilled her, but he chose to stay. He told her to
run. His final words to her left a void in her soul, and she didn’t know how she’d survive without him. Bryce was her rock and the glue holding her together.

  Now, she was alone.

  Jade pumped her legs as fast she could, but the RV never seemed to get any closer. She watched the others all make it to the top and frantically wave their arms at her. Their voices cried out for her to hurry, but she couldn’t go any faster.