Uncivil War: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

by B. T. Wright

  “Too many bodies. The RV won’t make it over them. You know it, and I know it. The only way forward is if they are out of the way. I’m going to get them out of the way. Just be ready to drive across that bridge when they’re gone.”

  “Jake!”

  Jake pocketed the radio and shot two more infected off the top of the hood. His gunfire had only drawn more infected to the RV. Which, at that point, was exactly what he wanted to see. Because that meant they were still attracted to sound. And with the RV’s engine off, all he could do was hope he could make enough sound for the infected to follow him.

  Away from the RV.

  The radio crackled again.

  “Jake!”

  Then the lights went black, and the engine shut off.

  28

  The only sounds Jake could hear after the engine went quiet was the thumping against the RV and the hissing and moaning of the relentless infected.

  And it was dark.

  The green glow of the Radisson Hotel sign off to his right and some moonlight was the only light that was close. Jake felt for his spare magazine and swapped it with the one that was nearly empty. He took the radio and turned the volume all the way up. Then, he pressed the strobe button, which was a safety feature on the radio, but he doubted it would be enough pulsing light to draw attention. However, when he scrolled to the call test, the ringing was good and loud. He let it sound continuously, like a cell phone with a stuck ringer.

  “Jake, please don’t do this!”

  Jess had popped her head up through the skylight.

  “We don’t have a choice. Keep the radio on and don’t stop driving until you get to the university. I’ll radio you once I get across the river.”

  “You’re not getting back in before we cross?”

  If he could see her face, he was sure it would be shocked.

  “Jess, I have to lead them away. If you stop before you cross and I bring them right back to you, what good would it be? If I’m going to leave you, it’s going to be worth it.”

  Jake crouched and walked over to the sunroof opening. “Just be ready and get across. I’ll find a way over. I promise.”

  “We’ll wait for you across the river, then. By the Reds stadium?”

  “Jess, you can’t. You have to go where the helicopter will be. I have no idea how long it will take me. Or if I will make it there at—”

  “Don’t,” Jess interrupted. “Don’t you dare say it, Jake. We’ll get to the university, but only to make sure the helicopter doesn’t leave without you.”

  Jess reached up, put her arm around Jake’s neck, and pulled him close. “Be careful. I’ll see you soon. And I love you.” Then she kissed him.

  All he wanted to do was crawl down into that RV and stay with them. But he couldn’t. Leaving was the only way to keep them––to keep her safe.

  “I love you. See you soon.”

  Jake stood up and walked around every side of the RV. The right side looked to have the least amount of infected. That was where he would jump. With the radio set to strobe and continuous ring in his left hand, and the AR-15 in his right, he moved to the edge of the roof. He could see a mass of them ramming into the side of the RV. Just beyond them, there was an opening.

  He pointed the AR-15 at the several just below him and squeezed the trigger. He shot five of them and leapt down on top of them, not stopping as he jumped off their bodies and ran into the clearing. He shouted the Star-Spangled Banner as he fired the AR-15 in front of him, sprinting off the interstate and down a grassy hill that led to the parking lot of the Raddison Hotel. In front of him he could see it was a clear path to the parking lot, so he stopped shooting and turned to see if it was working. About twenty-five yards up the hill, a mass of infected humans came sprinting down the hill after him.

  Jake thought he heard the RV start up, but he couldn’t be sure. It could have been the groans of the infected. It was still hard to hear over the test ring of the two-way radio. At that point it didn’t matter, because all he had time to do was run. He turned and sprinted down the hill. “And the rocket’s red glare!” His voice was never the best, but it was loud, and the audience liked it enough to follow him away from the RV. To him it felt every bit as good as a standing ovation.

  He clipped the radio to his belt line and just barely got the nose of his AR-15 back up in time to shoot into the crowd of infected that had come around the side of the Radisson. It made sense that he wasn’t only attracting them away from the RV, but from other surrounding areas, but he hadn’t thought they would come that fast. He made a hard left and ran toward the river. He didn’t know how much room he would have along the bank, but he did know running there would be safer. There would be less buildings to worry about corners, and less vehicles to block his line of sight.

  Jake’s weapon clicked and locked. His magazine was empty. There was no time to rifle through the bag on his back, so he shouldered the AR and pulled his Beretta from his hip holster. A glance back over his shoulder was a sight he would never forget for as long as he lived. It was the stuff of the worst nightmares. There he was, alone, running toward a river in the dark with a sea of bloodthirsty lunatic humans chasing after him. The crowd from the RV and the crowd of them from the hotel parking lot merged into one scary-as-hell wave of monsters.

  Up ahead, Jake could see the river water glistening in the light of the moon. He looked up and to the left and saw something that made the nightmare behind him disappear for the moment. He watched the RV’s headlights rolling across the bridge. His plan had worked. Unfortunately for him, he had reached the end of the best-laid plan. The rest was going to have to be improvisation.

  29

  “I can’t believe it worked!” Tyler shouted for about the fourth time since pulling forward onto the bridge.

  Jess could believe it. Though she obviously had never seen Jake in his element with Delta Forces, and he would never tell her how great he was himself, she had met a few of his fellow soldiers. Once the drinks kicked in, not one of them could stop singing his praises. And though that was great, this wasn’t what he had been trained for. This was something different entirely, and not a second would go by without worry until she saw him again.

  Tyler maneuvered around some cars on the bridge, and before they knew it, they were in downtown Cincinnati.

  “I have no idea where to go,” Tyler said. “Did he say where to meet him?”

  “The university,” Jess said as she opened the message Jake had sent hours ago with the turn-by-turn directions.

  “University? We can’t leave him behind like that. Are you crazy?”

  “No. But your friend is. It’s what he wanted. This way we can make sure the helicopter doesn’t leave without him.”

  Tyler was quiet.

  “Just stay straight on the interstate. I’ll tell you when to turn.”

  The road wasn’t nearly as crowded as she’d thought it would be. They were forced to creep along, but it was nothing they couldn’t get past. The lights of downtown were still shining bright. For whatever reason, she felt like it offered a glimmer of hope. She realized it was probably psychological, because the facts were that the only thing they’d seen in a hundred miles was a horde of dead humans trying to attack them.

  Can you believe they trapped us? How do you think it’s possible?” Jess said.

  “Jake and I have a couple of theories, but he thinks I’m crazy.”

  “Well, he’s right about that.”

  Jess leaned over from the passenger seat and gave him a solid pat on the shoulder.

  “But I figure crazy is where we are now, so you fit right in.”

  Tyler laughed. “Yeah. I guess. We both thought they were evolving, and obviously they are. We just don’t agree on how.”

  “So . . .” Jess waited.

  “So, I said it was obviously aliens getting used to their new hosts, and Jake just laughed at me.”

  “Laughed?”

  “Yeah, laughed.”

>   “Had he forgotten all the craziness that has happened today?”

  Tyler pounded the steering wheel. “That’s what I said!”

  “Well, like I said, you are crazy, but so is everything else. But you really think it’s aliens?”

  “Really? No. That’s just my twelve-year-old self’s fantasy. It’s probably just the effects of being infected. The virus shifting, allowing them to use their old brains a little.”

  Jess felt a lot better about that explanation. “Yeah, that makes much more sense.”

  Tyler had to slow down almost to a stop as he tried to find a way around a row of cars that nearly blocked the entire five lanes.

  “You see any open spots?”

  They both scanned the row of abandoned cars glowing in their headlights.

  “There. Over on the right. I think there is room between the guardrail.”

  Tyler turned the wheel to the right and eased over that way. “Looks like enough space.”

  “You got this? I’m going to go check on Amy.”

  “Yeah, but hurry back. I have no idea where I’m going.”

  “We’re looking for the Martin Luther King Jr. exit. But I’ll be back in just a second.”

  Jess left Tyler to navigate the opening on his own. She was proud of the way he’d handled everything. A couple of years ago the maturity level wouldn’t have been there to do anything on his own. When Jake had left for the Army, Tyler was lost. Jake was all the family Tyler had had for years. He dove deep into drugs and games, hardly even coming out of the house for air. But recently he had been using that gaming experience to actually make a nice living. It was good to see. And Jess was certainly happy she had the more mature version of him in the current disaster.

  After stopping for a drink of water, Jess quietly opened the door to the only private bedroom. Amy was sound asleep on her side, headphones still on––Jess could hear a beat coming from them. She felt great sadness when she looked at Amy. On a scale of horrible days, hers had to have been off the charts. She’d lost literally everything she ever loved in a matter of hours. Now she was rolling along with a group of strangers, without any idea where she was going, or what was going on. In an odd twist, though Amy had the worst day ever, she was also incredibly lucky. If Jake hadn’t risked his life for hers, she would be dead.

  Jess shut the door and took a quiet moment to sit on the adjacent lower bunk bed outside the bedroom. Jake had been doing a lot of saving over the course of the last day. Something that came so natural to him. She supposed that if she were a psychologist, she would say what drives him to continue to push to help and save people was that he was trying to save his parents with every new attempt. Maybe somehow it was healing for him in a way. Or maybe it was what was leaving him still so broken. She was sad that Jake and Colt had grown apart, especially since she remembered when they were so inseparable. But now she could certainly relate. Her sister was gone forever. And she hadn’t been able to get ahold of her parents in Florida. She hadn’t had time to grieve, however, because she was too busy trying to survive herself.

  The RV sped up and jerked her backward a bit. It wasn’t a natural acceleration. Something was wrong.

  “Jess!” Tyler shouted. “Jess, we’ve got company!”

  Jess jumped from the bed and ran to the front of the RV. “What? What’s going on?”

  “Someone is behind us!” Tyler was panicking.

  He pointed to the passenger-side mirror. Sure enough, a pair of headlights danced in the road behind them. Then they began to flash. Her first thought, a crazy thought born from her and Tyler’s conversation a moment ago, was that the infected had already figured out how to drive. But she shook that off when the memory of them still savagely trying to attack the RV flashed in her mind.

  “What do I do? Who the hell could they be?”

  Jess tried to keep calm. “I don’t know, but we can’t stop. Our exit is right up ahead. Just take it and maybe they’ll leave us alone.”

  “You really think they’re going to leave us alone? Probably the only other uninfected people they’ve seen in a long time? With a fridge full of food and Beritrix, and a hot woman on board? You think—”

  “Tyler!” Jess tried to stop his line of thought. “I said don’t stop. Just take this exit and we’ll try to keep moving.”

  The vehicle behind them began to honk their horn. Part of Jess wanted to stop. Wanted to find more people like them that were trying to survive. There was strength in numbers. Unfortunately, after what happened at Walmart, her and Tyler were both very wary of other people. Tyler turned off the interstate onto their exit. The truck blocking the road in front of them made their decision easy enough.

  They had no choice but to stop.

  30

  The woman in the white lab coat reached out her hand. “Hello, I’m Dr. Kendall, but please, call me Elaine.”

  She had a kind face. There were the beginnings of crow’s feet in the outer corners of her eyes and a few small lines in her forehead, but no gray to speak of in her dark hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. She wasn’t a tall woman, but she clearly stayed fit.

  “Dr. Fraser, but call me Emily.” Emily gave the doctor’s hand a firm shake. “Nice to meet you. I’m sure you are tired, as am I, so I won’t take up too much of your time.”

  “Time,” Elaine said with a smile. “Sort of irrelevant now, isn’t it? Especially down here in this hole. Feels like late afternoon, not one in the morning.”

  “I was wondering how it would be being down here for a while.”

  “I’ve been here for a year. You don’t really get used to it. Of course, I always went back up top to my home at night prior to, well, the world ending and all.”

  Another smile. Though she made it seem as if she wasn’t tired, she certainly looked it.

  Emily sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “It still seems like a nightmare I’m hoping to wake up from.”

  “My assistant tells me you were one of the first to see this thing blossom. I’d love to hear more about it, and I’m sure you want to know more about Karen in there.”

  “Karen?” Emily said.

  “She still had her purse on her when our men captured her on the street, if you can believe it. ID, credit cards, driver’s license and all.”

  “Guess there’s no worry of identity theft at this point,” Emily joked.

  She felt at ease around Elaine. It was nice. They shared a laugh.

  “How did this happen? Were you able to trace anything back to the first sign of infection in Syria?”

  “It wasn’t like Karen, I can tell you that,” Emily said.

  “In what way do you mean?”

  “I got called in from the cafeteria that one of the soldiers was acting strange. ‘Wigging out’ were the exact words. He wasn’t talking, but was pacing the room aggressively and lunging at other soldiers without touching them. I was lucky they had decided to strap him down. Otherwise, he probably would have killed me. I began running tests, but nothing seemed strange in his blood. Nothing viral was occurring, and I was beginning to chalk it up to a mental breakdown.”

  “Not even a fever?” Elaine said.

  “Nothing. Until the convulsions. They weren’t violent, almost more like tremors, I guess you could say. I gave him a sedative and he fell asleep for a few hours. Overnight, in fact.”

  “Any change in vital signs at all?”

  Emily thought it over. “His heartrate was increasing slowly, but nothing significant.”

  “When did you realize there was a problem?”

  “When I was woken up at four in the morning by military police. Three more soldiers had begun showing the same symptoms. But the convulsions had manifested faster. It was then that we started wearing masks, guarding against infection. At that point, though, it was too late. And of course I didn’t know it at the time, but if I hadn’t been on Beritrix, I would have already been infected myself.”

  Elaine walked over and took a sea
t beside Emily. “So others were becoming infected. What then?”

  “I had the MPs quarantine the infected, and those who had come in contact. It was too late for that as well, but it did slow the process. I knew we were in trouble when patient zero awoke about an hour later that morning.”

  “He was more aggressive?”

  “Yes, but that wasn’t what scared me.”

  “Was it his eyes?” Elaine said.

  “Yes,” Emily said. A chill ran down her spine just thinking about it. “It started at the outsides of his eyes and slowly moved inward until they were completely black.”

  “Wow.”

  “Right? After that, each soldier that became infected, it happened faster and faster. Like whatever infected them was getting better and better at bypassing the immune system.”

  “And now it’s evolved to the point where the aggression is slowly beginning to subside. At least that’s what we’ve seen in the three infected we have here. Were you able to watch Karen’s reaction to any words?”

  “Hungry,” Emily said. “She leaned in when you said hungry.”

  “Yeah, it’s creepy. She only reacted to emotional words. But we have a serious flaw in being able to determine the level of evolution.”

  Emily already knew the problem. “We don’t know when and how long anyone has been infected.”

  “Right. The only way we could know is if we infected a few people and watched from the beginning. Oddly enough, no one has volunteered as of yet.”

  They both laughed.

  Their moment of levity was interrupted when Elaine’s assistant burst into the room. “Doctor, you have to come quick!”

  Elaine stood up, and Emily’s heart began to race.

  Elaine said. “What is it?”

  “She spoke . . . Karen . . . she spoke!”

  Elaine looked at Emily––both of them were shocked to hear it.

  Emily couldn’t help but ask, “What did she say?”

  Elaine’s assistant had a bewildered look on her face when she answered.