Decaying Humanity (15 page)

Mason has been cured of her cancer, an amazing feat of medical science. There seems to be issues with the lingering Regeneros-8. When we take blood samples from her, it becomes difficult, as her body is trying to push out the needle and heal over the injection site. Regeneros-8 was supposed to combat illness and then die off naturally in the body. We are afraid that continued existence of the good virus may cause unknown side effects. Requesting additional testing.

The patient is exhibiting signs of increased strength and reduced appetite. She has asked questions about conversations the nurses had at their station, six rooms down. There have been trace quantities of a modified form of Regeneros-8 in the air of her room. We did tests and found that her breath actually contains minute quantities of an airborne strand. This is disturbing; due to the fact Regeneros-8 was created to die off instantly when removed from the bloodstream. Additional testing is required and all medical personnel should don all protective gear upon entering the room.

Patients in this wing are infected with a new strand of Regeneros. It seems to have spread into the air ducts. It is still mutating and evolving inside her body. Some of our patients have died, while others have turned into what could only be described as a dead but functioning cannibal. The time frame has been incredibly varied. Additional testing required.

Mason has infected everyone. I tried to contain it and the ventilation system was supposed to keep the air contained, but failed. Four of the nurses on the ground floor have displayed signs of infection. There is no telling how many people have come into contact with this virus now. This virus will spread rapidly and I can even feel it in my own veins. The hallways are filling with those creatures. I have emailed everyone I could think of at the Army medical division. They need to take her. She has become a carrier for this new virus, its host. It has made her stronger, but seems to infect anyone nearby. Injecting her blood directly into the infected has caused them to practically explode as the virus becomes neutralized. It basically re-kills the undead. Her blood is no cure, but it is lethal to those already infected. My time is over, but if the Army can do enough testing they might be able to modify her virus. It keeps changing so there is no telling what it will become if she escapes. I have locked the building down. They should get here soon. I will just rest until then.

    The car began to jerk violently to the side and I slammed my head against the passenger window. “What the hell are you doing!?”

    “Ungh,” the driver responded clutching the wheel like a mannequin.

    “Oh shit!” I yelled as I tried to remove his grip from the wheel. The car accelerated and slowed down randomly as his legs moved sporadically. I cringed as I yanked on the emergency brake causing us to skid across the road. We finally came to a stop and I ran around to his side and pulled him out of the car. He stumbled to his feet and began reaching at the oncoming traffic. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered to him as he wandered into a speeding 18-wheeler. I climbed into the car and drove to Freeport.

    It was a stroke of luck that I made it as far as I did, the gas mileage in that toy car was great. The highways were drivable, even though people were going over 100 mph. There were so many cars that had lost control and found themselves in the ditch. People were trying to wave me down for help. “
You don’t want my help mister
,” I thought to myself.

    The town of Freeport was a slightly different story. People had become gridlocked in most of the major stores and gas stations. The road was difficult to traverse, simply from all the obstacles. I was thankful that the man, who had given me a ride, chose such a small car. I bobbed and weaved through the streets and gunshots could be heard in the distance. Wow, if Medina was the birthplace of this virus, why was everyone losing their minds?

    The car began to tremble as the gas needle rested on empty. It came to a sputtering halt right on Main Street, just past the old building that used to be my job. Well I’m home, but I hadn’t really come up with a plan past that. I knew that I was a danger to everyone, that I should go kill myself in the woods. I just couldn’t, I was being selfish. I just wanted to live. The records had said that I was a carrier, so I wasn’t
the
monster, but it was living inside me. They also said that it kept changing, so maybe in a couple days, I wouldn’t kill people with my breath. Wow, that was something I never thought I’d have to worry about.

    In the passenger seat a book had fallen out of the girl’s backpack. I hadn’t noticed it earlier when I rummaged through the bag. There sat
Tale of the Black Sun
. I had started reading that book before I was diagnosed. I didn’t get very far, but I remember falling in love with the character, Shay. She had fought against everything to be with someone she loved. She died for him and by the power of his love (or his necromancy magic) she was brought back to life. They could be together forever, except she came back as an undead shell of herself. I didn’t have someone that would give their life for me; hell my parents sold my life for a few wire transfers. Both Shay and I had been brought back to life with some dark power. Now there was a dark hunger that slumbered inside of us.

    There was a black man in the middle of the street swinging a carpenter’s hammer at a small group of people. He had a large grey backpack on and he looked completely exhausted. The four people had surrounded him and two of them had guns while the others had hunting knives. They were a mismatched group, each with varied attire. There was the hunting outfit, the cop, a man in a black T-shirt and jeans, and someone wearing a blue Auto-Fixit jumpsuit. I sat in the broken down car, watching as he tried to keep them back.

    I cracked the door and I could hear one of them yelling, “Just hand it over.”

    “No! You already have a truckload, just leave me alone,” the black man shouted.

    I took a deep breath; he was going to be killed if I didn’t help him. Then again, if I got too close he might die. “
Sir, I have to take a chance I can save you.
”

    I walked out of the car, slowly moving towards them. “Hey, leave him alone!” I yelled at the men. They turned and looked at me and one of them just busted out laughing.

    “Hey little girl, best you turn around and leave. We are just collecting bags of food for the needy,” the hunter said.

“Just so happens we are very needy,” said the punk in the black T-shirt.

    “Guys, just let her go, all we need is the backpack,” the cop said to them.

    I shook my head in disgust, “You’re a cop and you are stealing from people on the street?”

    “Shut up, I’m tired of taking care of everyone else. I’m not dying for these people. Are you going to die for this stranger?”

    “No, I won’t … but you might,” I said as I walked closer.

    I was walking toward them with confidence, but deep down I started to get very scared. What the hell was I doing? The stark realization that I had no weapons, made me start to panic. A single shot blasted through the air and I felt a dull pain go through my cheek.

    “What the hell man, she’s just a girl!” the man in the jumpsuit yelled out.

    I touched the hole in my face and cringed; then, as the seconds crept by I could feel it healing over. There was suddenly a bone breaking pain in my hands. I held up my hands to examine them and they had become disfigured claws. I can’t lie to you—it hurt—but at the same time I felt so powerful, so different. I looked at the men and smiled.

    “What are you!?” were the last words I heard them say.

    It felt like a dream, my body moved with a fluid murderous instinct that I had no control over. I was watching from within but could not speak out or control myself. When it was over I stood there panting, surrounded by the corpses of men. I looked at the man I had defended, intently waiting for his next move. Part of me expected him to attack me.
“Attack me and you will die, I’m trying to save you
,” I thought to myself. He just looked at me with an amazed expression.

    “Hi,” I said awkwardly. My hands snapped back to normal as I held them to my side.

    “Hey,” he responded.

    “What’s your name?”

    “I’m Desmond.”

    “I just couldn’t let them hurt you. You can leave now I guess,” I said calmly.

    The man looked side to side like I was crazy. “Leave? I ain’t stupid. Girl, you a super hero, I’m gonna stick with you till the end,” he said, smiling.

    “Really? You aren’t afraid of me? I’m a monster.”    

    “Hell girl, a monster that saved my ass. I don’t know you, but you saved me when you could have walked away. That’s good enough for me.”

    “You need to know that, I may be contagious. My breath might kill people,” I warned.

    Desmond looked at me and laughed. He walked up closely and started to give me a hug. I tried to reject his embrace, but he grabbed me and lifted me off the ground briefly.

    “I hope your badassery is contagious,” he said. Desmond put his face right up to my mouth and sniffed loudly. “Phew, you right. Your breath smell like old people shoes.”

    I gave him a sarcastic laugh. I was praying that the virus had changed or shifted in the last four hours. Otherwise, Desmond you might not be cracking jokes much longer.

    “What’s your plan?” he asked.

“I don’t have one,” I replied.

    “Me, neither. Why don’t we see if we can stay at that motel for the night? We can let things calm down and then figure out our next move in the morning.”

    “Sounds feasible,” I agreed.

    “I didn’t catch your name,” he asked.

    I paused for a moment. “My name is Shay.”

    “That’s a hell of a story,” I said while running the blade of my machete across my palm.

    “Aren’t you mad at me for lying to you?”

    “It wasn’t so much a lie as an avoidance of the truth. I knew that was you in the picture. I mean, well, I was pretty sure,” I said while watching my palm slowly heal over the cut.

    “I never wanted to lie to you. I just didn’t want to get turned in to the Army. When I realized how much I liked you, I was already Shay.”

    “No, I get it,” I said.

    There was a moment of silence and she kept looking at me, waiting for something. “I’m pretty sure you are supposed to be pissed off,” she said.

    “That’s pointless filler for the movies, right? I mean, I get mad and leave you, only to later realize that I still love you. I already know that I love you. I knew that the first time I saw you. I love the way you laugh and smile and even how you scoop out people’s brains and eat them like candy.”

    She shoved me playfully, “Stop it, that’s embarrassing.”

    I laughed. “Seriously though, we only have each other. You saved my life by taking a gamble that our DNA would be compatible. Injecting me with your blood, that’s romantic … in a way, right?”

    She just cocked her head to the side slightly. “Really?”

    “What were the chances that I wouldn’t just explode from those injections?”

    “Well, it was called Regeneros-8 and each test group had at least ten people and I was the first to survive. So I’d say maybe, what, one or two percent?”

    “How many couples can say that? God, I just can’t believe that you cried on my shoulder when I brought up your parents. Did you lie-cry on me?” I accused, while running the blade across one of my fingertips.

    “Maybe,” she said smiling innocently at me.

    “You really had me going. I’ll admit, that was a pretty convincing,” I said while watching my fingers heal up.

    “Would you stop that, please?”

    “Stop what? Oh, the cutting?”

    “Yeah. That.”

    “Well excuse me. I’ve never had super powers before. You know, this power would be an emo-teen’s nightmare.”

    Shay busted out laughing, “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

    “So, are you Tiffany or Shay?”

    “Shay,” she responded quickly.

    “How come?”

    “I don’t know. I just feel like a different person. I want to move forward and forget my past.”

    “I get it; you want a cool alias. I want one, too. From now on you will call me Mij.”

    “That’s just your name backwards,” she said rolling her eyes.

    “I know; brilliant right?”

    “No Jim, it’s not. I’m not calling you that.”

    “Well, it was worth a shot,” I said before jamming a screwdriver into my stomach.

    “Holy shit, stop that!”

    The sun told us it was nearly noon as we finished gathering the last of our supplies. We laid them out on the table. The bright side of being assaulted was that we had amassed quite the armory now. With the massacre of all those raiders we acquired their truck. We now had enough weapons for each of us to carry a sidearm and a rifle or shotgun.

    Shay had been preoccupied with my condition all night, but now I felt fine. I would say better than fine—I felt like I could pick up a car. Now that everything had settled down, it was time to focus on saving Desmond.

    “So this healing stuff, what happens if we get shot in the head or something like that?”

    “It hasn’t happened to me yet. I’d imagine it’s game over.”

    “So, no adamantium skull?”

    “I don’t think so, Logan. No metal claws, either.”

    “Damn, so we still have to be careful. I didn’t survive the apocalypse, meet the girl of my dreams, and transform into a ghoul, just so a redneck can take me down with a rifle.”

    “Ghoul? Should I be offended?”

    “No, not at all. In my old game, zombies were level 3, but ghouls were level 10. So basically we are amped up super were-zombies.”

    “Wow you’re a nerd. I’m stuck with you … forever?” she jabbed.

    “I hope so.”    

    “So, you are saying we are walking, talking, shape-shifting, were-zombies? Just like in…”

    We both hesitated. “I don’t think I ever saw a movie with those,” I said.

    “Yeah, huh, what a shame,” she responded.

    “We need to hurry, Desmond needs our help,” I said, snapping back to our serious task ahead.

    “Yeah, save him…” she said unbelieving.

    “We have to try, he would come for us,” I said.

    “I know he would, I just don’t expect this to have a happy ending.”

    She was right. As much as I pushed it aside, I was afraid Desmond was already dead, or worse.

    Pablo stepped up and said, “Desmond es familia.” He nodded to us and pumped the shotgun.

    “Oh, Pablo, I don’t think you should go with us,” Shay said. Pablo nodded and pointed at his gear. He had made us three makeshift pouches full of ammo from one of the pillow cases. There was even a plastic bottle stuffed with dryer lint taped over some of the pistols. He pointed at them and smiled making a whispered
bang, bang
sound. I was impressed, like always.

    “You are a regular MacGyver, aren’t you? I just think we need to do this alone,” I said looking over to Shay for support.

    “I know that, we just have to figure out how to tell him that,” she replied.

    We found a map at the front desk and we played a long game of charades. We pantomimed driving to the woods, cutting down trees, and planting seeds. We drew a line to the area that we thought would make for a decent permanent camping spot. It was no national forest, but it was about 20 or so acres of somewhat dense woods off a side road.

    We made the motion of hunting and eating. It was a very frustrating ordeal for everyone. After trying our hardest to explain with our hands that we needed to split up for a bit, he understood. He handed us one of his silenced pistols and said, “Help Desmond,” with a thick accent.

    We looked at each other and nodded. Pablo pointed at the duffle bag on the floor that was now filled to the brim with everything we owned.

    “Wow, that’s everything we have,” I said.

    “Does that make you upset?” Shay asked.

    “Nope, all I need is you,” I said smiling.

    “Alright, let’s not overdo it,” she responded rolling her eyes.

    Pablo reached into the bag and pulled out a small can of chili. The only food item we found rolling on the floorboard of our attacker’s truck. He placed it in the center of our once bustling dinner table. It sat there alone, as if it were the last can of food in the world.

    “That’s it?” Shay asked.

    Pablo simply nodded and pushed the can in her direction.

    “I can’t eat that, you need it.”

    Pablo then tried to offer it to me.

    “You eat it,” I urged. After everything that has happened, I wasn’t sure if chili was the thing my stomach was growling for.

    As Pablo prepared the truck I slowly surveyed the main road. I hadn’t been on the other side of the fence in a while. On the ground was Desmond’s hammer, sitting alone a few feet from the gate. I bent over and picked it up. “I’ll make sure you get this back,” I said to myself.

    Pablo waved us over to the raiders’ truck. He had fixed it up the best he could and the engine idled with power. We loaded up the truck and Pablo jumped into the front seat.     I looked at him for a moment and thought to myself, you’re a great guy. He worked hard to help us with repairs and tried to make weapons, not all of them panned out, but you had to give him credit for trying. He never stole from us, never complained, and never left us when we were weak. I couldn’t say the same for some of our previous residents. I wish I knew how to tell him that I appreciated everything he did.

    We jumped in the truck and drove off, putting the Budget Motel in our rear view mirror. That was it, no turning back now.

    “There it goes,” I said.

    “Yeah, even though it has been rough, I might miss that place,” Shay said.

    As I sat in the seat, a dull pain began to flare up. I had felt invincible and reenergized ever since my transformation, but there was a constant nagging itch in my back. It throbbed and burned, but I tried to shrug it off. It was probably just … transformation pains.

    We had cruised along dodging the occasional zombie. We passed the video store and drove up the large intersection that would take us on separate paths. We came to a stop at the large four-way that always caught everyone with a red light. People coming and going from work would always get stuck at this crossing, even if it were only for a minute. There were no cars here today and the lights dangled lifelessly from their thick black wires. It was just another reminder of how the world had changed.

    We sat idling in the center of the intersection. To the right was Pablo’s path and straight ahead was ours. Pablo looked around at the handful of zombies we had stirred up on our drive here. Even at their impressive distance, they still staggered towards the vehicle. They reached out hungrily for Pablo as they grew closer. He looked down at the map and pointed at the circled area.

    “We will meet you there. Stay alive,” I told him.

    He nodded and shook my hand with a firm grip. He gave Shay a small hug and then we were standing in the middle of the highway watching the truck hum off down the road. The zombies started to follow him as he sped off. As he disappeared around the corner the zombies simply stopped in their tracks. They stood aimlessly for a moment and then began to close in on us. I had misjudged their numbers at first, something that was easy to do when you were behind a metal truck door.

    They began to reach and hobble towards us. There had to be at least twenty or more.

    “Uh, what are they doing? I thought we were carriers and they would leave us alone,” I said with a hint of worry.

    “Well, I know
I
am,” she said.

    “Wait, I might not be ignored? I just assumed…”

    “I did, too, but you know what they say about assuming,” she remarked.

    “I never thought the saying was, ‘It will get you eaten by zombies.’”

    The zombies began to close in and she effortlessly twisted her hands into jagged claws. I tried pathetically to make my hands do something and they just, well, did nothing. So there I was, squeezing invisible stress balls, looking like an idiot.

    “Cheater,” I said while pulling out the two machetes.

    “This is going to make things a hell of a lot more difficult,” she said.

    The zombies got within ten steps of us, the distance they would normally frenzy. This was it; I was going to have to fight through a mob of them to survive. I began to raise my machete to swing and a sharp pain in my back caused me to hunch over, nearly dropping my weapon. I looked up only to see them frozen in place, staring blankly in our direction. I took a step backwards and the horde shuffled forward. I took a deep breath and put my arm a few feet from a zombie in khakis and a button-up shirt. It kept its gaze on the ground and sometimes looked
through
us. They weren’t really seeing us and it was rather apparent.

    “Hot damn!” I shouted. The zombies heard the noise and perked up slightly looking around.

    “Phew, so you are invisible, like me,” Shay said while walking in the direction of Allmart.

    “Sweet, let’s go,” I said while waving my hand in the zombie’s face.

    We started walking and left the intersection. It was a mile or less from here.

    “So how do I get claws?”

    “I don’t know; it just kinda happens when I feel threatened. I guess I’m just a higher level than you,” she teased.

    “That’s emasculating…”

    “Ungh!” a zombie groaned from behind us.

    I turned around to see what was going on. Behind us was a misshapen horde of staggering dead. They were following us. In the distance ahead, I could make out more hobbling over to us. There were over a hundred now and I pondered what was suddenly drawing them out.

    “Are they following us?” I began.

    “No. They have never done that before. I think they are following … you,” Shay finished with a devilish smile.

    “Now who’s the higher level ghoul?”

    “I think we can find a use for them where we are going,” she said.

    “Yeah, I think so too.”

    We made our trek through the streets and closer to our destination. There was a stink in the air that was inescapable. The eighty degree heat made our mob of companions reek like rotten meat, which I figured was pretty accurate. Some of them hung back and others managed to keep our pace. What was truly impressive was that some of them actually walked in front of us, making small adjustments to our path without ever looking back.

    A few blocks from the Allmart was a car with its engine running. It just sat on the side of the road half-cocked onto the street. The vehicle was pointed in our direction and I swear the man behind the wheel had eyes of pure insanity. I held out my arm to stop Shay from going any further as he revved his engine. She stopped in her tracks and stared at the man waiting for his next move. The zombies began to move towards him like a river of dead, being channeled in a new direction.

    The man slammed on the gas and his vehicle lurched forward like a sick beast. His engine screamed of worn parts. Then he began to plow through the undead. The impacts had been more damaging to his car than I would have imagined and it made me glad we had always avoided them on the roads. They were pulled underneath his car and some went sailing into his windshield. The car almost immediately struggled to push through the group. They were just too thick. The corpses jammed under his tires and the flailing creatures began to pile up on his hood. Quickly his mad dash had brought him to a puttering halt. The zombies threw themselves at his car, reaching in through the broken glass and gripping parts of his shirt. He just sat there, honking the horn and pumping the gas. The car roared and spun in place without any results.