Cordyceps Rising: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

by JE Gurley

  From a hallway window facing east, she had watched the fires blossoming downtown and in her beautiful neighborhood. The park across the street from her home would be gone, the church one block over, the houses that lined the quiet street. Only rubble would remain, where once, people carried out their lives with no thoughts of ever leaving.

  The military’s decision to house the survivors from Marlins Park in the hotel came as no surprise. It wouldn’t do to have them revealing just how many of the thousand people at Marlins Park had been killed by the soldiers. Perhaps her bitterness was misplaced. After all, a soldier whose name she didn’t even know had saved her, Tomas, and Benoit during the confusion, and soldiers had rescued her from the stadium.

  She saw her fellow survivors at meals and in the hallways, but most, like her, chose to remain cloistered in their rooms suffering in private as they tried to heal their emotional wounds. Hers would never heal. Too much death had tainted her, too much anger. In time, they would scab over perhaps, put forth the appearance of healing, but they would remain deep inside haunting her sleep for the rest of her life, just as they had troubled her sleep the previous two nights. Some moments she was ecstatic to be alive, giddy with delight at having survived all the death around her. At other times, she felt all torn up inside, as if some piece of her had gone missing, never to return. Benoit’s death had scarred her. His selfless act had saved her life, given her a future. She would never be able repay the debt fully.

  She fought back a tear. She was safe now, the general had assured her, but she knew she would never feel safe again. Now she realized just how much of her life was beyond her control. She had heard rumors that the plague was over for Miami, that most of the creatures had been killed. She had received the shot that they told her would protect her. Tomas had received his as well, but not as enthusiastically. He had cried for hours as she held his trembling body in her arms.

  At a soft knock at the door, she turned away from Tomas. “Come in,” she said. The door opened slowly. It was Detective Bane. “Hello, Detective,” she said. She was glad to see him, but he looked terrible. His face bruised and his cheeks were gaunt and hollow. His cold eyes seemed lifeless. His voice was cold as well, but she knew his animosity was not directed at her but at himself.

  “Are they treating you well?”

  She shrugged. “Well enough. The food is good and we don’t have armed guards standing over us. I’m clean for the first time in a week and I’m wearing shorts and a shirt from the shop downstairs, instead of white coveralls.” She touched her head with her hand. “My hair is even brushed.”

  Kyle didn’t even look at her. Instead, his eyes scanned the room as if he were searching for clues. “Where’s Tomas?”

  She pointed to the floor by the edge of the bed. Tomas recognized his name and clapped his hands together. “I want to thank you for …”

  Kyle’s cheeks reddened. “No need to thank me,” he replied quickly as if her gratitude hurt him.

  A tear ran down her cheek. “I heard about Little Havana. I guess I’m homeless now.”

  “You and half the city. Look, do you still have that photo of your husband?”

  She reached into her shirt pocket and pulled it out. “Yes, why?”

  “If you’ll let me borrow it to make copies, I’ll send it around to the other facilities and hospitals. Maybe someone knows where he is.”

  She clasped the photo tightly in her hand, fearing to relinquish it for even a short while. It was her only link to Ricardo. Her face became hard and cold. “You and I both know he’s dead.”

  “Perhaps, but there’s always a chance, isn’t there?”

  She nodded and handed him the photo. She didn’t know why the detective had taken it upon himself to find her husband, but she appreciated the gesture. Perhaps he wanted to assure himself that he was still a cop. “Find him,” she pleaded.

  “I will.”

  She surprised him by hugging him and then kissing him on the lips. Then she pulled away. “Thank you again.”

  As he walked away, she felt lighter. She didn’t know if he could find Ricardo or even if her husband was still alive, but Kyle had promised that he would try and he had so far kept his promises. There was nothing else to which she could cling except hope.

  * * *

  Kyle shoved the photo into his pocket after he left Rita’s room. Seeing her again had been difficult. It brought back a surge of memories he had been trying unsuccessfully to suppress for the last two days. He stopped in the hallway and leaned against the wall. Glancing up at the row of lights in the ceiling, he saw once again the bright flashes of napalm. The soft chime of the elevator was the chatter of machine guns and the sound of sizzling flesh.

  “Stop it!” he yelled, then glanced around to see if anyone overheard his outburst. He stood straight and waited for the door to open.

  He had to keep it together. He couldn’t save the city, but he could save one family. His life needed purpose again. Where would he start? The battle for Miami was over with no clear winner. Most of the zombies were dead, consumed in the napalm inferno in the Night of Fires as it soon became known, but there was no celebration. Thousands of non-infected had died as well, unable to escape the flames or killed by the escaping hordes of Cordyceps zombies. Large swaths of the city, including Downtown, Little Havana, and parts of Hialeah, lay in ruins, a blackened jumble of burned buildings, smoldering tree trunks, heat-bubble asphalt, and charred skeletons. A westerly wind arrived blowing the spores and the stench of death out to sea. The skies had opened up the morning of the tenth, quenching the rampaging fires and washing the city clean, or as clean as a graveyard could be. The army’s mop up operations had gone well. Zombies still roamed the city or lurked in dark corners, but constant patrols would eventually shrink their number.

  Surprisingly, survivors continued to show up at the remaining FEMA facilities. Thanks to Marli’s intervention, the facilities now ran as true decontamination and relocation centers. The survivors were emaciated, frightened, and in shock, but they weren’t beaten. Like Miami, its citizens were resilient and stubborn. It would take time, but both would recover. While production of the new vaccine was as yet just a trickle, Miami had been chosen as a test site. Marli spent much of her time making the rounds of the facilities and refugee camps administering the vaccine, which Marli now boasted had an eighty-percent effective rate. To Kyle, the remaining twenty percent seemed a defeat rather than a victory, but who was he to complain. The vaccine had so far worked on him, and his odds had been worse. Marli’s colleagues had also developed a simple finger-stick blood test to determine infection. This allowed for rapid detection of the infected and their separation from the uninfected. Kyle tried not to dwell on the scenes of families being broken up as some members tested positive. So far, there was no cure.

  Both Ginson and Walters had survived their night sorties, though Kyle had seen neither of them since the battle. He wasn’t sure if Ginson would forgive him for not joining them, but it was a price he was willing to pay to retain his sanity. To assuage some portion of his guilt, he had helped in the cleanup operations around what had been Marlins Park. Dozens of massive pyres still smoldered where the corpses had been burning for two days. It was dirty, sickening work with the cloying stench of death permeating his skin, impossible to shower away, but the physical labor had allowed him time to take stock of his future. It also permitted him time away from Marli, who was much too busy coordinating the vaccination program to commiserate with him. He didn’t blame her. He hated himself for his growing moroseness, but he still questioned his true motives for not accompanying Ginson. Fear was one factor, but he had faced his fears before. A sick-to-the-stomach uneasiness with the wholesale slaughter of what had once been human beings played a large part, but he had previously joined in the killing without reservations. No, the problem that plagued him was one of deep soul searching.

  He had enjoyed killing fungus heads. They were like paper targets at the pistol range.
He could vent his rage and his frustration on them for the interference they had caused in his life without recrimination. They were the ultimate bad guy, and he was the consummate dispenser of vigilante justice. Freed from the very laws he so carefully enforced, he had trod the fine razor’s edge of a criminal and its song beaconed to him like a sweet Siren. He was afraid one more killing would push him over the edge. It was a theory he didn’t want to test. He wanted to be a cop again, and he thought he might have found a way to be one.

  He went to the general’s new aide’s desk hoping to use his copier. He was surprised to see Marli walking out of the general’s office. He had been avoiding her, as she had most probably been avoiding him.

  “Oh,” she said, “I wondered where you were.” A smile flickered briefly on her face, but she made no move to embrace him. Though the distance between them was just a matter of a couple of feet, it felt like a football field.

  “I was visiting an old friend, Rita.” Did he see a flash of jealousy in her eyes? At one time, he would have cared. Now, it only annoyed him. “I’m going to find her husband.”

  Marli smiled. “I hope you do.”

  He nodded toward the general’s office. “What did you and the general discuss?”

  “I suggested that we designate Dodge Island as a resettlement zone. It’s isolated and there are several cruise ships at the docks and hundreds of empty homes that can be used as dormitories. It would be easy to resupply by ship.”

  “That’s sounds like a great idea. The survivors need some semblance of order and a chance to feel like human beings again.” He thought of Rita and suppressed an inner groan. Marli shuffled her feet, looking embarrassed. He didn’t blame her. His glum cast a shadow over everyone around him. He stared at her, but her eyes refused to meet his. His training told him when someone was trying not to say something. “What else?”

  “General Willows wants me to relocate to Philadelphia. They’re trying to reestablish a CDC control center there.”

  Marli leaving? Could he stand one more loss? “Are you going?” He knew immediately by her expression that his reply had not been what she had wanted to hear.

  “I really should.”

  She doesn’t want to go. Am I the reason she’s reluctant to leave? Perhaps there was hope after all.

  “Can’t you work from here? You have a lab.”

  “Do you … want me to stay?”

  She was laying it all in his lap. He surprised himself by saying, “Damn right I do. I’m stupid and slow, but I would have eventually gotten around to telling you how much I love you.”

  Her smile, tentative at first, but then exploding across her face, made his heart sing. He had no time even to think about what he had said before her lips were crushing his. He responded in kind, paying no heed to the soldiers who glanced in their direction. When she broke away, her face was more alive than he had ever seen it. He felt like a schoolboy on his first date, nervous but filled with glorious anticipation. Not all, but a portion of his despondency lifted.

  “I can work from here. Doctor Ozay will stay with me. I have more good news.”

  “I don’t know if I can stand anymore.”

  “Cordyceps infection is no longer rising. In fact, the infection rate is slowing in almost all major cities.”

  “That’s great news,” he said, but he was puzzled, “why?”

  She shook her head. “No one knows. Maybe the disease simply ran its course or maybe conditions have changed. It really doesn’t matter. Some predictions say new infections will end in six to eight weeks.”

  “Then it’s over.” Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. His instincts told him when a case was closed. This one wasn’t.

  “It appears so. Will you go back to your Special Investigations Squad?”

  He hesitated. That was a question he had been avoiding. Chief Inspector Gilbert had asked him the same question only a few hours earlier. He had been unable to answer. He had no reason to remain with Marli other than his desire to do so. As Gilbert had reminded him, all civil authority would be needed to replace the military when they moved out, as he assumed they soon would, to cleanse other cities of the Cordyceps Plague.

  “I don’t know.” He felt he needed to explain further. “I learned a few things about myself during the last couple of weeks, things I’m not proud of.”

  “If you mean about being a coward …”

  He stopped her. “No, not that. I’m no coward, but I don’t know if I have the same edge I once had. I don’t know if I can be a killer, but I can’t be a paper pusher.”

  “I can find a place for you with the CDC – security.”

  “Same problem. I’ve lost the instinct. I might see anyone who isn’t a crazed maniac as the good guy, and cost someone their life, maybe yours.”

  “What will you do?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know yet.”

  “I want you around me.”

  He smiled at her. “That can be arranged.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw soldiers running toward him. He stepped away from Marli, looked down the corridor and saw Walters. As he was wondering what the corporal was up to, Walters lifted his SAW and fired at the retreating men, killing two. A third fell wounded, bleeding from the leg. A frightened soldier raced by. Kyle grabbed him and spun him around.

  “What’s happening?”

  “He’s infected,” the soldier yelled and broke away.

  Kyle stared at Walters. The corporal had a look of rage on his normally easy going face. His chest heaved with exertion and his eyes roamed the corridor. Walters was a fungus head. The vaccine hadn’t worked for him. His fifty-fifty chance had not paid off.

  To Marli, he said, “Get out of here.”

  She didn’t hesitate. She ran around the corner and down the corridor as quickly as she could. One sentry took aim at Walters and fired, but only hit him in the shoulder. Walters fired a burst from the M-249 that opened up the man’s chest like a scalpel. Unlike the other fungus head zombies he had encountered, Walters still retained the knowledge to operate his weapon and he did so with deadly accuracy. How much of Walters remained? Kyle decided to find out.

  “Walters,” he yelled.

  Walters turned to him. He leveled the SAW at Kyle’s chest. Kyle held his breath, but Walters withheld his fire. There was no glimmer of recognition in the corporal’s eyes, but the fact that he didn’t immediately fire gave Kyle cause to hope.

  “Drop the weapon, corporal.”

  Used to following orders, Walters’ hand wavered. The barrel of the SAW lowered a few inches.

  “Where’s Ginson, Walters? Do you want to let him down?”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Walters raised his head and howled. Then he pointed the SAW at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. He ignored the chunks of plaster falling on him and continued to howl. Kyle hoped he would keep firing until the ammunition belt was empty, but Walters released the trigger. The two men faced one another, Walters hesitant, and Kyle trying to ignite some spark of Walters’ humanity. If Walters could change, so could anyone else who had taken the vaccine.

  At that moment, drawn by the commotion outside his door, General Willows stepped out of his office. The motion broke the stalemate. Walters’ mouth opened wide in a scream as he turned the weapon towards the general and pulled the trigger. Bullets raked the wall beside Willows, as Walters slowly brought the weapon to bear as if he was fighting the impulse from his enraged mind. Kyle didn’t have time to think. Instinct took over. He pulled his Glock and fired two rounds at Walters’ head, knowing any other target would not be enough. Walters dropped the SAW to the floor and stared at Kyle for a moment before collapsing to his knees. Kyle thought he saw a flicker of recognition in Walters’ eyes before he keeled over dead. Kyle’s heart went deathly cold. He had killed one of his few friends, a man he had come to love like a brother.

  He stared at Walters’ corpse as blood pooled around the body. Then he flung the Glock away
from him in disgust. He stumbled over to Walters and knelt beside him, cradling Walters’ shattered head in his arms as blood dripped down his arms. He felt Marli’s arms cradling his head as he wept, but could not answer as she whispered repeatedly, “It’s not your fault.” It was his fault. Walters’ blood was on his hands, figuratively and literally. The fact that he had killed Walters to save the general didn’t matter to him. Walters, the person that he was, had been alive somewhere inside the creature he had become, fighting to get out. He hadn’t given Walters the time to fight. How many other fungus heads had he killed that had been fighting to free themselves of their infection, how many peoples’ last thoughts were of loved ones or friends?

  He remained that way, clasping Walters, refusing to allow the medics to take away Walters’ body until Ginson arrived and pried Walters’ cooling corpse from his arms.

  “You did the right thing,” Ginson said. “He would have wanted one of us to stop him.”

  Kyle didn’t reply. Whether Ginson was right or not, didn’t matter. Walters was dead. He felt a sting in his arm and looked up at Marli.

  “I gave you a sedative.” Her voice was distant, receding even as she spoke. “You need rest.”

  He tried to protest but his lips refused to move. His entire body began to go numb. As his eyes closed, he wondered if he ever wanted to awaken.

  * * *

  July 12, MIA, Miami, FL –

  Kyle awoke in his cot in the hangar with a pounding head, residue from the sedative. His mind was slightly clearer, but he still felt as if someone else inhabited his body. His hands were clumsy as he buttoned his shirt. It took three tries before the buttons properly aligned with the holes. The image of Walters collapsing had repeated in his head during his unconsciousness, until it had become a mantra that remained with him now that he was awake.

  Someone had washed Walters’ blood from him, but he could still feel it staining his hands. He couldn’t tie his bootlaces, so he let them dangle. He panicked for a moment when he couldn’t find Ricardo’s photo, but someone had removed it from his pocket and laid it on his pillow. He shoved it in his pocket and slipped out of the hangar before anyone could stop him.