The Reaper Virus

by Nathan Barnes

  “Do you know why they are drawn to the bus?” I asked, assuming Phil had answers. I was certain he had heard me yet he did not respond. “Come on man, what is going on?”

  He sighed and spoke like he was delivering a cancer diagnosis. “Just… just watch it closely for a little while.”

  I stared at the bus unblinking. All I saw were rotting hands slapping and pounding against metal. It all looked like an exercise in undead logic until I saw it… a flashlight. “Are there people in that fucking thing?!” I gasped.

  “Yeah…a lot of them I think. Every once in a while I’ve seen that flashlight move around. The way it moves… it’s definitely someone that’s still alive.”

  I rubbed both eyes, painfully reminding myself that there was still a gash on my forehead. Seeing the condemned bus filled my heart with guilt. It was all reminiscent of the people I left behind at Headquarters. Now it made sense why Phil was so hesitant in acknowledging the situation on the paralleling bridge – he knew the truth of the situation. “You know we can’t do anything for them… right?” I felt like a monster for even saying it out loud.

  Standing up, he looked eastward towards the city. I could barely hear his response, “I know, but we get to think about that until we can get off this fucking bridge.”

  It took me a second to process what he had said. I hadn’t even considered this. Now that I was aware of what was going on next to us I’d have to listen to it until sunrise. Moving off of the bridge would be suicide. Looking down the track in the direction of home, I was shaken by not even being able to discern the end of the bridge through the unforgiving darkness. Maybe this was punishment for leaving all my coworkers behind. If I wanted to live through the night I’d have to listen to doom falling on a group of people I didn’t even know. This ordeal had shown on multiple occasions that karma was a sadistic bitch when it wanted to be.

  Silence fell over us again. There wasn’t anything that could be said. Pain kept me from moving. Phil apparently fared better than I did as he paced around the area. The crunching that came from his nervous steps became a pleasant distraction from the pending horror to the west. It also gave me some solace in knowing that we would hear any reapers approaching us long before they’d be able to strike.

  “Hey, Phil, we should rest, man. I hurt like hell and need some sleep. We’re as safe here as we’re ever going to be. God only knows what is coming tomorrow. Why don’t you settle in and take a load off?”

  He sat down a few feet down the steel rail and again scratched at his ankle. He spoke in words that were hollow. I fear the situation may be close to cracking him. “You’re right. I’ll try to nap.”

  The only thing that we could hear was the flowing water and eager banging. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to enjoy the grip of sleep.

  * * *

  0145 hours:

  Something stirred me from an uncomfortable sleep. There was a rustling sound nearby. I thought for a second it was made by my own shaking in the frigid air, but that wasn’t it at all. My eyes remained closed. Effort shifted to my ears. Hearing was probably the only thing about me not reduced at that moment. The cold numbed my body enough to put the ever-present pain to the back of my mind. I tried to hold still and listened intently.

  It was gravel. Something was disturbing the gravel, but that wasn’t everything. I could hear a person going through an array of sounds. There were moans. Then there were… sobs? Panic set in. Immediately I assumed the undead were upon us. Adrenaline burst into my system and forced my shivering body into motion.

  I threw my arm out and located the survival pack nestled safely to the right and within seconds had the Kukri returned to its proper home in my fist. My left hand found one of the small LED flashlights in the front pocket. A full body flash of pain was ignored to put me back on my feet. Panic overcame logical caution as I turned the light on.

  The light was blinding. This weak beam of light was brighter than the sun. Our eyes had lived in darkness long enough to make this light painfully foreign. I tried to see through eyelids squeezed into a squint. Anticipating attack, I swung to the east. The white beam illuminated about a hundred feet of empty paralleling tracks. Relieved, but still panicking, I flipped around to check over Phil on the western side. Again there was nothing in sight. Then it dawned on me. There were only two things on this bridge… and I was one of them.

  I flipped the light downwards to where Phil had been resting. He threw up his arm to shield himself from the blinding beam. Panning the flashlight down I saw that he sat up with one knee tucked to his chest. Phil’s other leg was stretched out with the pant leg rolled up. I could see the oval-shaped wound on his inflamed ankle. Blackened septicemic veins radiated from the opening. His skin was discolored and moist looking. I should have known this is what he had been fussing with all this time. I think I did know - I just didn’t want to be forced to act on it.

  “It’s not what it looks like!” he shouted and jumped to unsteady feet. Even in the low light I could see the dilated pupils. Sweat ran down his brow. Phil wiped his face with the shirt I had given him. When his arm rose to do this I saw more black lines spider webbing around exposed skin.

  Everything about this made my heart sink. Even from safety, this evil could reach me. “What do you think it looks like, Phil?” I shouted at my unfortunate friend. “You were bitten. You were bitten and now you’re infected! What did you think was going to happen?! Did you think you were immune and I’d never know?”

  He rubbed his head. “You don’t know that I’ll become one of them… once we get back to your house, maybe I can get patched up!”

  “You will NEVER get back to my house!” I hollered back at him. South of us the noise on the bridge increased. Our presence had been noticed by both the living and the dead. Phil’s face was ripe with betrayal. He opened his mouth to speak and I cut him off. “I’m sorry this has happened to you… really, I am. But you can’t stay with me.”

  Tears rolled down his face. “No! You don’t know that! We should—”

  “WE will do nothing. There is NO we. If you come with me then you WILL turn. I won’t let you stop me from getting to my family.”

  Rage bubbled through Phil’s panic. “What the fuck am I going to do then? I won’t become one of them, I know it!” He took a step towards me. I responded by stepping backward over the railroad beam. I stood in the area between the parallel tracks, in the center of the bridge, one hand keeping the flashlight focused on this new threat. My right hand unconsciously moved the Kukri to be level with the bottom of my ribs, pointed outward in a defensive stance. Phil noticed this and looked offended. “What are you going to do, Nathan?! Are you going to kill me or something?”

  Inside I trembled. Outside I was remarkably stern. “No, Phil. I’m not going to kill you. Those fucking things already did that.” He shook his head like a child denying wrongdoing. “You can’t come with me.” Both his hands went up in protest. The light revealed black veins going straight to the fingertips of his left hand. My next words were some of the most unflinching I’d ever spoken. “Walk – the – other – way… NOW.”

  His disposition changed completely. I had seen this many times over the years in mentally unstable subjects. The man I pulled from the river, the man I traveled with for what seems like forever, the man who saved my life – this man existed no longer. A deranged and broken human being now stood before me. Phil looked at the tracks and shook his head. In an odd calm he said, “You think I killed her… you’ve never trusted me because you think I KILLED HER.”

  I was completely thrown off guard. What in God’s name was he saying? “Phil… I don’t… I don’t know what the fuck you are saying, man. Just walk away!” This is madness. I felt like I needed to pinch myself to wake up from this nightmare, but the next moment made it clear that I’d never emerge from this bad dream.

  Phil jumped at me. He threw his body towards me with both arms out like a bear hug. I’ll never know what this man, stil
l as a living man, was trying to accomplish. The lunging advance came to an abrupt halt at the end of my blade. Still extended from my midsection at a ninety degree angle, the Kukri pierced Phil. He let out a startled gasp and just stood there. We both just stood there in shock.

  This weapon had kept me alive by eliminating the walking dead. I realized that it wasn’t my destiny to become a police officer, because the thought of taking a human life was too much. Now, when I looked down and saw the worn metal inserted into the body of another person, the blade protruding from a point of oozing life, the horror of my actions began to set in. I yanked the Kukri free and in the white light saw several inches of it coated thickly in blood.

  “Jesus, Phil! Why did you do that?!” I yelled at him. He took a step back and placed his trembling hands upon the wound. Flipping them over, we both saw that they were imbued with unctuous red. An odd calm overtook his face. He wobbled and stepped back once again. I had to finish this. “I’m so sorry,” I said, my words heavy and dreadful, “but now you won’t be like them…” The dripping blade rose over my head. In a second I was going to murder a man.

  He opened both eyes wide and stared directly at me. My heart sank further when I noticed one eye was already black. A demon was being born right before me. He stepped back again. The railroad beam caught him at his Achilles tendon and flipped him backward. Phil fell hard on the side of the tracks. The impact was so loud I felt my own breath knocked out. There wasn’t enough of the bridge to fully catch his fall. His head and most of his shoulders fell over the edge. A loud crack could be heard as Phil’s neck snapped back. Force from the fall somersaulted him backwards over the edge… and then he was gone.

  In the last second of seeing my friend’s legs disappear into the abyss I screamed out pointlessly to him. “PHIL!” This man was dead long before I stabbed him. I collapsed to the tracks. It didn’t matter that he was already infected – I had just killed a man. The pounding of my heart drowned out the sound of Phil impacting the water below.

  Behind me the Powhite Bridge became abuzz with activity. I felt like running to the west and away from this evil place. No matter what my brain screamed at them my legs would not move.

  Loud splashes turned my head around. I could barely make out the shapes flipping over the guard rail. From what I could tell, some of the more interested reapers around the bus obeyed their unflappable hunger. The ghouls walked towards the ruckus of my crimes and didn’t stop at the bridge’s end. They flipped over and joined the River Styx.

  Past them the darkness became dotted with frantic lights. The people in the bus must have noticed the diverted attention of their executioners. Desperation can make you believe salvation it possible anywhere. They waved every light source around. The bus was still heavily guarded by the undead. Those that remained pounded against the side more incensed than ever at the strobing lights within.

  Tears streamed from my tired eyes. I collapsed. My face was buried into the gravel. Every stinging pain collected into the agony of body and soul. We passed the threshold of too much days ago.

  What had I become? I was still so far from home. The only will to fight remained deep within the form of the three faces I loved so dear, but how would I face them after this? I was a murderer… a monster. Every moment I breathed would be that of continued life as a monster among monsters.

  Chapter 20

  Hell’s Eulogy

  0430 hours:

  I awoke from a sleep that I didn’t even remember entering. The increased sounds from the Powhite Bridge continued for over an hour. Eventually they simmered down to the boisterous level of before, which ended a little while before.

  First I heard the bending shriek of metal. It was followed by the shattering of glass. Then the hoard became uproarious. A combined moan joined the hammering against the bus. More glass shattering joined the chaos.

  Then the screams started. First they were muffled and I could barely hear them over the clatter of the zombies. My mind painted a vivid picture. There wasn’t any need to look. In fact, I couldn’t bring myself to peer past the steel rail. I put my hands over my ears to try and stop the sounds from reaching me. Nothing I did would save me. Nothing I did would save them.

  Those people I’d never met or seen were being ripped from their coffin. A woman punctuated the scurrilous chorus by releasing her last breaths in a scream. Without seeing I knew she was being pulled from the bus. My imaginative vigil showed me the cemented horror on her face as she was dispersed amongst the writhing congregation.

  The time I was subjected to the nefarious dissonance was grueling. I nestled my face into the railroad bridge. Gravel met me with coarse acceptance. The nagging pain from my wounds gave me something to focus on other than my hate.

  * * *

  0545 hours:

  I wasn’t fortunate enough to find sleep again. Sorrow has an odd way of controlling time. It numbs you to the true passage of events, even without focusing on a single horrific event. I was overwhelmed to a point of temporal ambiguity. The only thing that snapped me out of this state of suspended animation was a lightening in the sky. Daylight approached.

  Sounds from the Powhite Bridge disappeared beneath the babbling rapids beneath me. I was so thankful to only listen to the James River instead of the death floating downstream. It took constant self-reminders to not glance in the direction of the bus. Even though I didn’t see what had taken place a couple of hours before, I knew enough to not want visual confirmation.

  Today was destined to be completely foreign. The only thing I had to be sure of was that by the end of the day I would be in the arms of my loved ones. I’d follow the tracks until I reached Hull Street. If the R33PR viral epidemic was any indication, prayer was now a futile exercise. However, right then, praying was all I could think to do.

  I clasped both hands together over my chest. Beneath the repenting grip, pain reminded me of the cracked bones within. None of it mattered. I ignored the ache and I pleaded to God. Regardless of the abominable things I had done I was desperate for a chance at salvation. “Just deliver me home, Lord,” I prayed aloud. “Judge me for what I have done later. Let me save my family now. Bring me home. Bring me home and then hold me accountable for the sins I have committed and likely will commit.” Dehydration allotted a small trickle of tears down my filthy, stubble-covered face.

  My throat was dry and my stomach growled. In my current state I wouldn’t make it far. I found the last bottle of clean water towards the bottom of the survival pack. There was one left, but it was filled a lifetime ago with Lance at the Cary Street Field. Drinking this was to be a last resort. It was probably just fine, but after all that had happened I’d be damned if drinking tainted city water was what got me infected. I sipped the clean bottle, hoping to retain every drop.

  The November morning air was cruelly brisk. Other than the supplies, my pack was stuffed with a few changes of clothes. By then I was wearing all of them. Only the few that became contaminated one way or another were exempt from this layering. My stomach ached. A bubbling groan competed with my pain killer-battered stomach lining. Breakfast seemed like a good idea.

  I slowly ate a Nutri-Grain bar and a little bag of pretzels. Sustenance can be wonderfully humanizing. The nook I had been resting in began to feel comfortable. Although I told myself this was only because my ass was so numb from the cold. I thought it would have been the undead that interrupted this peacefully twisted morning campout, but it was the call of nature that disrupted my rest.

  A day worth of sweating and occasional vomiting just about made me forget that there were other ways to get rid of fluids. It had taken me so long to get to a state of comfort that I didn’t want to get up. My hand explored the bottom of the pack and emerged with an empty Gatorade bottle. Necessity made all motions frantic. When you’ve got to go - you’ve got to go.

  I filled the bottle and capped it quickly. A smirk formed over my chapped lips. All the time I drove on the Powhite Bridge and looked over at t
hese tracks I never once thought about peeing on it. The truth was that I was disappointed to not be going over the side into the water.

  I moved the bottle on top of the railroad tie next to my nook. Then the survival instinct kicked in again. I was sleeping several stories above a raging river in mid-November and there was a heated object sitting beside me. I sighed and grabbed the cylinder of urine. Lifting up a few layers, I tucked it securely by my chest. Immediate heat soothed the aching area. That was not a proud moment, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

  * * *

  0715 hours:

  According to the time, the sun came up a little while ago. Looking at the sky one would think it just started to turn into day. For the second day in a row I have been thrown off by the tainted post-apocalyptic sunrise. There was so much crap in the air I wondered if I’d ever see a normal sky again.

  I started the pre-battle routine I used in the secure house on Franklin Street. My muscles were sore and tense. Hopefully the last two pain killers I downed a few minutes before would start to limber me up. What I really needed to do was to stand up and move around. The thought of doing this frightened me to no end. I had been lying down since what happened with Phil. Standing up would tempt me with looking either way over the bridge. One direction I’d have to see the unspeakable horror of the bus. In the other direction I might look down and see some remnants of the man I killed.