The Reaper Virus

by Nathan Barnes

  “Those people aren’t people anymore. They are dead. The virus takes over them and turns them into something else. If you give them a chance they will tear you apart and infect you too.”

  Phil’s expression grew distant. I knew I’d been too cold in what I just said. He had no idea what I’d been through and I was just as clueless with him. I mentally kicked myself for being so matter of fact about this hell we now live in.

  “Yeah I had a feeling, but my girlfriend wouldn’t listen. A little while later we saw the first ones in the water that still… moved.” A tear cleared a path through the muck on his cheek. “I told her to leave them be. I told her that they were sick, but she wouldn’t listen! She paddled over to this guy that looked mostly normal. The closer we got the more I noticed the black lines around his neck. Until we got right up on him… his neck was turned away from us.”

  He was tearing up and stuttering words now. “Phil you don’t have to. I’m sure you did what you could and now we’ve got to move.” The man was in pain and it was my responsibility to help him fight through it.

  “We rowed up next to him and she reached out an oar. He jerked his head around and I saw the black eyes, but it was too late. The motherfucker grabbed her oar and tipped the canoe! We both went in. I tried to get to her, but I couldn’t swim against the current. I shouted and shouted. She never called back. I swam around, but kept hitting logs and shit that was floating by.”

  His cheeks were the cleanest part on him. The tears flowing from his puffy brown eyes took the grime with them. I put my hand on his shoulder and passed him a bottle of water. At that point, consoling him was all I could do. I wanted him to get it all out so we could get the hell out of there.

  Past us a cluster of five still bodies floated by as he took a swig of water. Phil’s trembling body calmed as his voice became more broken. He glanced behind us at the fading sun. Whether or not he realized the importance of being somewhere safe at sundown didn’t matter. My anxiousness indicated that some urgency was required and he seemed to pick up on it. With considerable effort I forced myself to stand. As I rose, Phil went on.

  “When I got close to shore I saw all of these torn up looking people at the water’s edge. They saw me and started scrambling in after me… There wasn’t anything I could do. I just grabbed onto a log and floated with the river. The cold started to make me black out. I zoned out for… I don’t even know how long. Next thing I know I’m near the shore and there’s this branch there, so I grabbed it. My arms were goin’ numb, so I started hollering. I have no idea how long I was there, but then you came along.”

  I found a dry shirt in my pack and tossed it to him. My initial intent was for Phil to use the shirt to dry off. Instead, he removed his wet jacket and the long sleeved thermal shirt underneath without hesitation to put the dry shirt on. He tried to stand, but fell back.

  “Did any of them get to you while you were in the water?” I asked while making no attempt to hide my deadly serious tone.

  This seemed to catch him off guard. “Umm…no, I… I don’t think so.” His teeth were still chattering. Hypothermia was a concern second only to exposure to the Reaper virus.

  “Phil, I’m not sure you understand me.” My palm drifted over the Kukri’s handle. It occurred to me that this motion had become instinct. I had no intention of threatening him with this action, but I’m sure that’s how it came across. “If you were bitten you need to tell me so we can deal with it.”

  I realized that my new friend and I had entered a slippery slope. Phil didn’t know me or what I had done in the last couple of days and I didn’t know him. For the time being we had to trust each other enough from the simple fact we both had a pulse.

  “Deal with it?”

  “I just want to make sure we’re both healthy enough to keep moving… that’s all.” My hands moved away from their defensive positions and became involved in the conversation. I had to turn this around, otherwise I’d have living enemies to contend with too. “The world is so ass-backwards that I’m just paranoid. I’m sorry if I came across as hostile.” In a last effort to repair this rift I extended an arm to help him up.

  “Don’t worry about it.” He took my outreached arm and soon returned to a wobbly bipedalism. “I’m just glad you came along when you did. So where are we going?”

  My backpack was returned to its proper home and I took a tired breath. “Hope you like train tracks and are up for a walk,” I said, knowing that I had lost all ability to sensor my professional level of sarcasm.

  Phil had found a branch that he used to drape the wet clothing over. He then put it over his shoulder so that the clothes could drip and dry behind him. “Do I have a choice? Because I was really hoping you had a car nearby.” As he spoke I began to think the hostility of a few minutes before would be the last between us.

  I had already started back on my previous path. A grin worked its way to my mouth as I peered over my shoulder to respond. “Nope, but you can always try the river again.”

  He let out a laugh. “Nathan, even though we just met I’m starting to think you’re a bit of a smart ass.”

  Phil had fallen a few feet behind. I stopped long enough for him to hobble up and snickered, “With the long walk we’ve got, you’ll be pretty confident of that soon enough.”

  The dead continued to float past us. Having another living person in my presence should have made me feel more at ease. Instead I found myself more anxious than before. Internally, I was bottling it all up under the guise of stress. After all, I had just pulled a person out of a river from certain death. It was understandable that I would be feeling uneasy afterwards.

  We walked for another twenty minutes with only light conversation punctuating the silence. Exhaustion has a way of keeping conversation to a minimum. I was also concerned about anything finding us, but this seemed like less of an issue the more we traveled.

  Our current section of track was in the middle of nowhere. Wilderness flanked us on all sides. The land around the parallel train tracks began to thin. Water was now on both sides as the passage turned into a sort of land bridge. My tension eased knowing that the landscape would prevent anything from sneaking up on us.

  The tree line thinned as the rails started to bend with the curvature of the James River. Rounding the curve I saw something in the distance. Phil nearly tripped as I stopped abruptly.

  “What’s wrong?” His face was stricken with paranoia.

  I pointed dead ahead. With the thinning tree cover the towering trestle bridge revealed itself on the landscape. The bridge had been my goal. The rail line that went over the bridge served the CSX freight line and Amtrak. It ran all the way to the far end of town – exactly where I wanted to go. Of course this was all assuming we could even get up to it.

  The bridge wasn’t what drew my attention. A few hundred feet from where we stood, the southern track wasn’t clear. A mammoth freight engine faced us. It was completely still and trailed by an endless parade of coal cars. The northern track, which bordered the far tree line, remained barren.

  Phil knelt down and fussed with his right ankle. I had been walking closer to the water on his other side and couldn’t tell what he was fiddling with. He obviously picked up on my hesitation.

  “So what? We’re on train tracks… what’s wrong with seeing a train?”

  “The president shut down all interstate travel when the virus started hitting major cities.” As I spoke he raised an eyebrow in curiosity. He stopped fiddling with his leg and rolled his pants back down. I went on, “I don’t think they would leave a perfectly good train filled with miles of coal just sitting here.”

  His expression went from curious to concern. “No. I guess that doesn’t make much sense.”

  “Not at all…. Something is very wrong here,” I said and slowly started closing the gap between us and the motionless metal monster.

  Chapter 17

  Desperate Times

  1610 hours:

  We cautio
usly crept up to the blue and yellow marvel of machinery. The locomotive was daunting in its eerie stillness. Normally something like that was viewed from far away or while in a moving car. I had forgotten how awe-inspiring one could be up close. While we approached, I scrupulously examined the area around the engine. Something caught my eye and I halted my approach. That of course concerned my already jumpy companion.

  “What? What is it?” Phil asked in a painfully loud whisper. Rather than doing anything more to advertise our position I held a finger to my lips, requesting his silence. Embarrassment flushed over Phil’s face as he mouthed “sorry”.

  I returned my right hand to the scabbard comfortingly affixed to my side and pulled the blade free. Phil had yet to see this weapon removed in the short time we had known each other. Considering that it was impossible for him to not know I had the Kukri on my person, I was sure he’d taken a look. We’d been fortunate enough for it to remain on my side until now.

  He took a respectful step backwards as I removed my beloved killing tool. Since his eyes were focused on the blade I decided to use it to motion to what drew my concern. I pointed it towards the lower left side of the front of the engine’s, to the gore caked in multiple streaks along the base plates.

  All it took to convince Phil to stay put was a light point at the ground. I crept around the side expecting to see a pile of bodies. Much to my delight, as far as I could see there wasn’t anything but more gravel and the occasional branch. The streaks of horror looked more like impact marks than anything. I had no interest in examining them more closely though. I cautiously knelt down to see under the giant metal serpent.

  My overactive imagination placed a legless zombie beneath the train ready to devour my flesh. Once again I was relieved. It was comforting that my imagination could still be proven wrong in this newly unimaginable world. I took a few cautionary steps away and waved over to Phil. “Come on over!” I said at a normal volume. “The train looks abando—”

  A loud slap cut my sentence short. It startled me so badly that I nearly fell down the gravel embankment. Phil looked as if he would turn and run. We waited to see what had given us both minor heart attacks.

  Another slapping sound, but it was quieter than the first. Then another… trailed by another. It hit me that the sound was being made by flesh on glass. I jogged over to where Phil stood paralyzed with fear.

  He pointed a shaky finger at the windows of where the conductor would have sat. A disfigured face was pressed against the spot that was formerly the engineer’s privileged view. Smeared next to it was a hand. Then another hand flopped onto the opposite side. Fluids, which I couldn’t even begin to identify, trailed from the dead flesh as rotting epidermal layers stuck to the spot.

  “What should we do?” Phil asked hesitantly.

  “Nothing,” I said shrugging. “He looks like he’s trapped in there. As long as we move on and he doesn’t make too much noise, then I want nothing to do with him.”

  This seemed like a moot point to me and I expected my companion to accept this without question. Instead he looked bothered by my cold tone. “What if he’s hurt? Shouldn’t we help him?”

  “Help him?” I snorted. Phil was visibly bothered. I should have just let it be, but frankly I was too damn tired. “How are you planning on doing that? Will you cure him? Will you somehow make him un-undead?”

  Phil stammered a rebuttal to no avail. I had gone way too far. It was easy to forget that I wasn’t the only one suffering. The man did lose his girlfriend and nearly died. Suffering was now the regular state of things. Not accepting that fact was an endorsement on your own death.

  Once again I find myself trying to repair a “friendship” that had just begun. At the very least, I didn’t have to pretend to be sorry.

  “Phil, I’m sorry. In the last couple of days I’ve been attacked by these things, attacked these things, watched as they consumed friends, and ran helplessly as they consume this city. There is no helping what cannot be helped. My optimism died the moment the dead walked.”

  “No, no. Don’t be sorry, because you’re right. Things are different now and I need to get that through my thick skull. The train conductor is better off caged up in there anyways. At least he can’t hurt anyone.” I found Phil’s tone to be somewhat odd. It seemed like he was conceding, but didn’t believe a word I said.

  “Well, he may be able to stay put, but we can’t. The bridge is up ahead.” I glanced back and noticed the cloudy sky changing to reflect the waning light. The conductor tried to get our attention with his pathetic groans. “The train line we need to get to is on the bridge.”

  “All the way up there?” Phil said while hinting at the dread I shared.

  The bridge looked even more menacing with every inch we drew closer. I had no idea how we would get up to it, but knew it was probably the only safe place we could spend the night.

  “You better believe it. We’ll get up there one way or another. I’m sure there’s got to be a ladder or something. I doubt the rail lines were too worried about people climbing up with this entire area being fenced off. Hopefully there is a maintenance ladder.”

  He shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

  I adjusted my grip on the Kukri. “That’s the spirit. Let’s go with ‘fuck it all’ and just wing it.”

  Phil and I shared a short, yet subdued laugh. We started walking once again. The safest course would be to remain in the center of the tracks, to the right of the never ending train. This gave us a few feet of cushioning from the train and provided for the most escape routes. When we reached the bridge we’d have to find a way to cross under and get to the other side. That was the plan at least.

  After a few minutes of cautious walking we noticed more gore marks on the train. This beast had quite a story behind it. I imagined it plowing through undead crowds until its conductor joined their ranks, but it was a history that lay unrecorded now. Who knew what had truly happened?

  During the seconds I spent lost in thought, I nearly tripped over a severed arm. Phil pushed me aside in the last second and it took extreme effort to stop from falling over altogether. I looked down at the pile of flesh and was astonished more by my lack of reaction. The mangled arm was removed to include part of the upper body. A ragged scapula protruded from the discolored mass of human. I glanced over and saw Phil looking the other way. It was relieving to know we both hadn’t become completely desensitized.

  Eastern clouds began to change colors indicating that night was approaching and unfortunately we were still on the ground. I suggested to my new friend that we pick up the pace. He had looked back and came to the same conclusion. We both jogged until only three coal cars were between us and the massive pillar.

  “We need to get on the other side of the train.” I panted. It took every bit of concentration I possessed to not focus on the pain that radiated throughout my body.

  Phil pointed to the break in the next pair of cars and led the way between them. We had to carefully pass a six foot long section where the tracks had no bottom. This strip’s reinforced tracks hovered over a drainage outlet for the water on the north side of the rails. Beneath it was a drop about man-size in height to the caliginous water below.

  The pseudo-bridge was wide enough to casually walk across, yet we still tiptoed over it like children. I’m sure we looked ridiculous. It was too bad the undead didn’t have a sense of humor, because they would have had the chance to point a rotting finger and laugh. Our fear was not without warrant, as up until now the railroad tracks had been a solid gravel-filled hike. Back on solid ground we had reached the entry point in the train. I looked farther down the tracks to see if the end of the coal train was visible. The lengthy beast appeared to have no end. It dizzyingly continued in an optical illusion-like eternity.

  The area where the two coal cars coupled together was filthy. I was sure every connection in the miles of cars looked exactly like this one. It only took a minute for Phil to hobble over the greasy obst
ruction. He extended a hand and helped pull me over. I landed awkwardly on the other side, immediately surprised by our proximity to the water’s edge.

  Any time for familiarizing myself with this new side of the train was cut short once we realized we had company. Coming up on us from the area of the bridge was a pair of undead. They quickly saw us and excitedly advanced along the graveled trackside. There wasn’t time to plan. By the time we knew the zombies were there they had already closed to within a train car’s length. Phil looked at me in utter panic. He didn’t need to say anything as his face screamed for guidance.

  “There!” I shouted while pointing in the direction of the hobbling ghouls. Phil ripped his stare away from the enemy and followed my point to the metal ladder built into the frame of the railcar. Only problem was that the ladder was located mere feet from the zombies. I glanced behind us and saw that the gravel dropped off at the drainage inlet we’d just crossed. The only way now was back over the coupling or up that ladder.

  I yanked the Kukri free and sprinted towards the two infected. “Phil, get up the ladder!” I shouted without even looking back. Phil already followed my lead and was jogging to keep up. The undead excitedly picked up their pace and started thrashing towards me. In seconds I was within their lunging radius. Simultaneously, Phil began to pull himself up the ladder. I knew that we needed to buy time to get up the metal rungs and beyond their reach.

  The first reaper threw its festering arms up and launched at me. I anticipated this and sliced through the air with my blade. Metal met the rabid man’s infected arm just above his elbow. Force from the blow pushed the Kukri into the bone. Time slowed further as I watched the arm recoil and hyperextend at the joint. Lacking any living elasticity, the tendons snapped and his flesh followed suit. His forearm tore and ripped free; transferred kinetic energy offered the severed limb to the bordering waters of the James.

  My victim was thrown off balance by the attack and followed the direction of his lost limb. He fell to the gravel and tripped the other zombie that trailed a few steps behind. I was growing disturbingly comfortable with having to attack something that could have shared a beer with me two weeks ago, all for the sake of giving myself some extra time.