Deadlocked 4

by A. R. Wise

  "Are we ready to do this?" asked Billy.

  "What side are we hitting?"

  "Slam against the floor." Billy slapped his hand against the metal bottom of the truck. "On three."

  "Fuck it," said Levon. "Let's Leeroy Jenkins this shit. One, two, three, go." He finished the countdown quickly and slammed his back against the floor.

  Billy and Clyde did the same and the entire vehicle shuddered from their combined effort. It tilted and groaned, but stayed erect. They continued their assault and the truck began to move as the water level beneath them shifted.

  Billy couldn't see anything as the truck moved, but he heard Levon cry out in pain just before the truck broke free of whatever had been holding it up. The back fell slowly and the water beneath them suddenly rose as he tried to stay standing.

  There was an unrelenting force pulling at his legs as the water level changed and he took a desperate gasp of air before he was dragged under. There were hands groping at him and he punched at the things that dared to touch him as he continued to grip the vials of the Alpha Squad's antibiotic.

  His stomach felt as if it were being dragged into the bottom of his waist. It was a sensation similar to being on a roller coaster as he tried to make sense of what was happening and where he was. The force of the fall, and the rush of water into the rear of the truck, had sent him spiraling into confusion. He didn't know where he was, or which way was up, as he blindly swam through the arms that tried to hold him down.

  He grasped at something metal, but he didn't know what it could be. Something wasn't right. What was he touching?

  A flash of blue light exploded from within the front of the truck and he was able to see where he was. He'd been sucked out of the truck's open door and was outside of it now.

  When the truck had fallen, and the air was pulled out as the water rushed in, he must have been sucked out along with it. He didn't have time to ponder his luck and he used the top of the truck to push himself in the direction of what he hoped was the surface.

  He was out of breath and had no idea how deep he still was. His lungs ached and his muscles twitched as he propelled himself up through the depths of the bay. Was he deep enough to suffer the bends? Would he even make it to the surface? Were Levon and Clyde stuck in the truck still?

  He closed his eyes and waited to find out.

  * * *

  "We let too many things get in the way." David held Laura's hand and guided her through their house. She looked around as if unfamiliar with her surroundings.

  They walked through the kitchen and she noticed that the granite countertop of the island was cracked. She didn't remember that happening and she marveled at the moss that had grown inside the jagged crease.

  "We should've spent more time together." David guided her to the stairs and started to go up. She stopped, let go of his hand, and continued to look around the house she should have recognized. The kitchen, dining room, and living room were all together, separated by a counter that sat between the kitchen and dining room. Their table was missing its legs and was set flat against the floor with the four chairs pushed away. She saw Annie's highchair in the corner with a collection of discarded cereal in a circle around its base.

  "Are you coming?" he asked from the third step as he held his hand out to her. "We have all the time in the world now. Everything will be better."

  She looked up at him and saw a bloody knife at his feet. It was the kitchen knife that she'd used to fight off their neighbors, Alfred and Kate, when the two broke into the house on the first day of the apocalypse.

  "I'm not going without the girls." Laura backed away.

  "They'll be here soon."

  She hated him for saying that and put her hand over her mouth as she started to cry.

  He stepped down and onto the knife, but it squished beneath his foot as if made of cloth. "Don't be sad."

  "Stay away from me."

  "Laura, I'm here because I love you."

  "You left us."

  "You left them."

  "Fuck you," she snarled at him.

  "It's not your fault."

  "Fuck you."

  "No one can stay forever. All that matters is that we make the most of the time we're got."

  "Mommy." Annie's voice came from the top of the stairs and Laura was startled to see her daughter smiling down at them.

  David turned around and seemed surprised to see Annie. He laughed and pointed up at her. "Look, Laura, Annie's here."

  A glimmer of sunlight sparkled across the hallway at the top of the stairs before dissipating back into the grey that pervaded their home. Annie waved at her from the top of the stairs.

  Laura began to tremble. "No."

  David looked at her with a mix of sympathy and sadness. "Honey, this is a good thing. We can be a family again."

  "Annie's dead?"

  "She's with us." David held out his hand as Laura stared up at their daughter. "We can be together now."

  "Annie died?"

  "Isn't it better that way?" David smiled up at their red haired little girl. "She's safe now."

  "What about Kim?"

  David looked morose and stared down at the knife beneath his foot. She looked at it as well and saw that it wasn't a knife. It was one of Annie's stuffed cats. He moved his foot and Laura stepped forward to pick up the sodden animal. It dripped as she lifted it and she wondered if Annie had put it in the tub again.

  "What about Kim?"

  David took the soaking wet animal away from Laura. "She'll be here soon enough."

  "David?"

  "Yes, honey?"

  "We didn't deserve this."

  "No one did."

  "The girls didn't deserve this." She looked up at Annie and saw her smiling down at her. "They never hurt anyone. How could we let them get hurt? How could I let them see such evil things?"

  David looked back at Annie and blew her a kiss. She pretended to catch it and cradled it against her rosy cheek. He turned back to Laura with a smile and tears in his eyes. "I don't spend much time thinking about good and evil anymore. The bad guys don't wear black, and the good guys don't wear white. Everyone's just a mix of gray."

  She looked around at their dilapidated house. No sunshine escaped the cloudy sky to peek in through the windows and there were pieces of shattered concrete littering their floor. A gust of wind scattered leaves around her feet and she looked to her right, toward the shattered back door where their neighbors had broken in. There was black water rolling down the hill in their backyard, and it seeped over the threshold of their house.

  "It's cold in here." Laura crossed her arms and shivered as the wind chilled her.

  "Only down here." David looked back up the stairs at Annie. "It's warm up there." He turned back to Laura and held out his hand. "You're still stuck in the hurt and the cold."

  She glanced out the door, into the mess of black water and chilling winter wind, and then she took his hand and left it all behind.

  CHAPTER SIX - REVELATION

  Billy surfaced and gasped for air before spinning to see where he was. Water sloshed against the concrete basin that sat twenty feet ahead of him and zombies lined the edge. They saw him emerge and cried out in anger before leaping in after him. There were thousands of them, dripping with slime as their skin was eaten away by the acidic powder that had been poured on top of them in the plastic coffins. The sound of their bodies hitting the water turned his stomach.

  "Levon?" He screamed out over the angry mob that tried to reach him. "Clyde?"

  He was the only one that made it. It had been an incredible stroke of luck that he'd been pulled out of the vehicle with the air bubble. There was no way the others could've survived. It was impossibly dark in the back of the truck, and if they had suffered a similar disorienting experience but had been trapped in there, it would take a miracle to get them out.

  He called out to them again, but the only answer he received were the cries of the dead along the shore. His friends we
re gone.

  Something jarred his feet. He didn’t have time to wonder what it could have been as a bubble of air suddenly burst up from underneath him. It snapped at him like a fart in a bathtub but stank far worse. It smelled of death, just like the back of the truck had smelled when the fetid dead things filled up inside it.

  A man's head burst over the waves and he gasped for air before looking around to see where he was.

  "Clyde!" Billy swam over to the paramedic. "Where's Levon?"

  "I don't know. It took me forever to find the latch. I don't know what happened to him." He sputtered and coughed through his explanation.

  Billy tried to dive down and open his eyes to search for Levon. The salt water stung his eyes and it was far too dark to see anything below the surface. He came back up and wiped his eyes to look around for his lost friend.

  Then Levon emerged with a flurry of splashes and a well timed, "Fucking shit!" He gasped and sputtered while Billy cried out in elation.

  "You scared the shit out of me!" Billy swam over to Levon and wrapped his arms around his friend in an emotional embrace.

  "Me? I was down there trying to find your white ass."

  "What?"

  "When the truck fell over I tried to grab you, but you got sucked out of there. You fucking bastard. I kept trying to grab you, but you fought me and disappeared. I nearly killed myself trying to find you. I thought I had you, but I must've grabbed a fucking zombie. I grabbed the thing's arm and the skin just slipped right off. Fucking gross."

  "You tried to save me?"

  "Of course I did, you dumb bastard."

  "Damn dude," said Billy with an unwavering grin. "You're working pretty hard to be my favorite person alive."

  "Well then stop trying to get me fucking killed."

  "All right," said Clyde. "Break up the love fest and let's figure out what we're going to do now. We can't sit out here and doggie paddle for the rest of our lives."

  "We'll have to get on that barge." Billy pointed at the long vessel that was docked beside the train yard. "There's probably a ladder on it somewhere."

  "That's where they were storing those crates," said Clyde. "That's not where we want to go. Trust me."

  "Well we're not going to go there." Billy pointed at the bank where an army of slimy walking dead had gathered. "And there's no where else to go. That barge is our only chance."

  "But it's filled with the coffins."

  Billy looked up at the rusted, iron behemoth docked beside the train yard. He could see the familiar plastic coffins stacked on top of it.

  "They look quiet to me. If they're full of bodies, it doesn't look like they've woken up yet."

  "Billy," said Levon with a laugh as he stared up at the barge. "Do I really need to say it?"

  "What?"

  "This plan sucks."

  "Well, what do you want to do? Do you want to try and swim along the shore and hope that army of walkers doesn't follow us?"

  "No, man," said Levon. "I'll get on the boat. Every plan you've come up with so far has sucked, but I ain't dead yet."

  "After what we just went through," said Clyde as he struggled to stay above the waves. "You want to go get on a boat filled with coffins?"

  Billy leaned into a backstroke and started moving to the barge. "You can stay here if you want."

  "You're out of your mind." He watched Billy and Levon swim away, shook his head in frustration, and swam after them.

  * * *

  Covington set his tumbler on the edge of his mahogany desk and twirled it so the scotch inside sloshed along the side of the glass. He watched the oily texture it left behind as it spun and then set it down before pushing it away with the tips of his fingers as if he'd grown tired of it.

  "In the mid seventies, a researcher at Vexlab identified an antibody that could target specific protein structures in viruses. Not only that, but some people's immune systems were able to mimic the antibody's action. It was a major breakthrough, but the pharmaceutical company that owned the patent was reluctant to release any information about it."

  Reagan kept his eyes on the barrel of the General's Desert Eagle for any sign of the man's aim wavering. He would only need a second to make it across the table, and if he had the opportunity he was prepared to take it. He had no desire to hear an explanation for why Richard had unleashed an apocalyptic plague on the world; Reagan was determined to choke the life out of the man he once loved like a brother.

  The General was smart enough to keep his gun steady as he spoke. "They worried that this antibody would devastate their bottom line." He grimaced and shook his head in disgust that he expected Reagan to sympathize with. "One of the scientists snuck copies of the research out of the lab and got it into the hands of someone in the FBI. He claimed that the pharmaceutical company was deliberately withholding the information and had canceled all further research. Imagine that, Charles - they had the chance to develop a drug that could wipe out all viruses on the planet, but they squashed it because that would've hurt their bottom line."

  "How does this explain why you helped murder six and a half billion people?" Reagan kept his legs perched under his chair in a runner's stance. He watched the General's gun.

  Richard took a deep breath and sighed as if this conversation was tiring for him. "This research, combined with what we know about bacteria, meant that we could stop the majority of non-genetic diseases known to man. Think about that, Charles."

  "Sounds great. Can you stop pointing that gun at me now?"

  The General smiled and shook his head. "Not yet. Before we go any further, let me ask you this: What are the two biggest problems facing mankind?"

  "You and your zombie plague."

  "No." Richard frowned as he grew tired of Reagan's self-righteous reactions. "The first problem is the end of evolution."

  Reagan's shoulders dipped as he sighed in disgust. "Don't tell me you don't believe in evolution now. Jesus Christ, Dick, what happened to you?"

  "No, you misunderstood me. One of the biggest problems for mankind is that we've stopped evolving. Today, everyone lives to a ripe old age even if they have to spend the majority of their lives sucking down prescriptions and tied to medical equipment. Human evolution was replaced by medical science. We aren't evolving anymore, and any advancement of the human species is due to technological and industrial achievements. It has nothing to do with how our bodies work, and as a result, we're getting weaker as a species."

  "Are you suggesting we go back to survival of the fittest?" asked Reagan with a smirk as he stared at Richard's rotund belly. "Cause if that's the way you want it, then put the gun down and let's get started."

  "No, that's not what I'm suggesting. What we want is for the human race to wake up and realize that if we're going to survive, and better ourselves as a species, we have to become proactive and take steps to make it happen." He tapped the hilt of the gun on the table for emphasis as he kept it pointed at Reagan. "We need to adopt a eugenics program that will ensure our children will be better, and stronger than we were."

  "So you're a Nazi now? Well, this is all starting to make sense." Reagan's words were laced with sarcasm and he was amused at how much he reminded himself of Billy and Levon.

  "Stop trying to piss me off, Charles. I'm not a Nazi, but I'm also not a fool. Just because Hitler believed in eugenics doesn't mean it's wrong. I'm not looking at this in a racist or anti-Semitic way, I'm saying that we should embrace a program that focuses on people's strengths and weaknesses and pairs them appropriately so that their children will be stronger and healthier than they were."

  "Sounds great." Reagan didn't bother trying to mask his disgust. "It's like an online dating service that's run by Goebbels."

  Richard sighed and leaned back. "If we were to release a drug that could wipe out disease, then we would put an end to human evolution completely. It wouldn't be responsible for us not to try and develop a method to strengthen our species before we released that drug. And while on the subjec
t, let's talk about the second biggest problem we're facing right now: Over population."

  "Well, you took care of that one."

  "Exactly. Charles, I know you think you're the one sitting on the high horse here, but that's only because you're not thinking this through yet. You're letting your emotions get the better of you. This planet is running out of resources at a frightening rate. I'm not just talking about oil here. I'm talking about water. Before this plague, we were only a few years away from massive drought and famine because of water shortage. Imagine if we released that drug, and suddenly people all around the world stopped dying. How long would it take for the water to run out?" He leaned forward again and pounded the hilt of his Desert Eagle against the table. "Think about it, Charles."

  "I am, but I'm a long way from agreeing that the solution was to kill six and a half billion people."

  "Then what's your solution? What would you have done if you were given the chance to release a drug that could wipe out disease?" He waited for a response, but Reagan didn't offer one. "Would you release it, or would you hide it away and watch as the people you loved died of diseases you knew could be prevented?"

  "Then you should've released it."

  "And the world would have come to a sudden, terrible stop. Population would've exploded, resources would've run desperately low, and the corporations that owned the remaining resources would've taken over all government. Trust me, Charles. We had think tanks running over all possible outcomes, and none of them were good. We spent billions trying to come up with a way to fix this, but nothing worked."

  "Is everything working according to plan now? Does it make you happy that women and children are dying out there?"

  "No, of course not. But if sacrificing our generation means that the future of this planet is safe, and that our ancestors will never again suffer from the diseases that plagued us throughout history - then it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

  Reagan had no rebuttal.