Degeneration (35 page)

“Where are you taking me?” Richard asked through the checkered grill
e
that
separated the front
seats
fro
m the
iron benches in the back of
the van.
“I need to get too Butner.”

Mathis glanced up
at Richard
in the
rearview
mirror and then focused his attention back to navigating the street. In truth,
he
didn’t know where he would take him. If the man was infected, he would be worthless. However, it seemed impossible
that the man could hav
e survived so long after being bit all while breathing infected air
.
He knew it highly improbable, but just maybe…

“
I asked where you are taking me!” Richard yelled. He spun around on the metallic bench and kicked
against the grill
e
.

“
You’ve clearly been bitten.
How do you feel?” Mathis asked.

“Fuck you!”

“Are you experiencing any fever, dizziness, nausea, or anything like that?”

“FUCK you!”

Richar
d repeatedly
kicked the grill
e
as hard as he could
with both feet
.

“Look, you’re not helping any. I need to know if you feel sick so that I can administer
the antidote
.”

“I don’t feel sick
yet
! Now take these fucking cuffs off of me!”

“In time, I have to be sure first,” Mathis said. Yes, it
was a longshot
, but if
the man was immune
then he had
f
ound his
ticket
out of the
quarantine
zone. He knew
from the earlier radio reports that
they
weren’t allowing anybody to leave
, but now he had a card to barter with; the key to
making
a vaccine
that actually works
.
He just hoped that his discovery was the first. Otherwise his bartering ticket was worthless.

“
Look, I’m not sick yet! So wh
y don’t you just give me the fucking antidote
and ease both of our minds?” Richard asked.

Mathis paused.

“Because there is none
,”
he
calmly said.

1
9

             
A
box sat in the center of Gen. Falton’s highly polished executive desk next to a red telephone. The box was filled with old awards, medals, and faded pictures of a younger him posed with presidents and congressmen.

The fact that his legacy, all that he had ever worked for, fit inside a cheap cardboard box depressed him. He slumped down in his chair inside his emptied office and stared at the box on his desk.

What it all came down to, he decided, is that he gave the order. He gave the order that cost so many lives. If only that helicopter stayed on the landing pad… If only they ignored his call and followed protocol… If only.

His guilt had whittled away at his very core ever since the Raleigh outbreak and nothing was abating its daunting weight. No matter how hard he tried, rationalization did not untie the knot sitting in his stomach. He no longer felt like the man he was, but rather like a war criminal.

             
“Sir, they’re sealing the bunker doors in twenty minutes, we have to go soon,” a man said from the hallway.

             
Despite everything that they didn’t know he did, they were going to protect and coddle him in their underground hiding hole.

             
Gen. Falton looked up at the man with exasperated eyes.

             
The man stood calmly in the doorway with his hands neatly folded below his naval, wearing a black suit, white shirt, and a red tie. Behind the man, people ran past in a panic, each hauling a cardboard box exactly like the one sitting on Gen. Falton’s desk.

             
“You can go, I’ll be there shortly,” Gen. Falton muttered, staring down at the box again.

             
“You’re a priority, sir. I’ve been instructed to escort you and ensure that you arrive safely,” the agent unwaveringly replied.

             
“I’m not a goddamn child! I said I will be there shortly! Now go!” Gen. Falton shouted, standing up abruptly.

             
The agent didn’t move.

             
Gen. Falton sighed, shook his head, and sat back down.

             
“Please? Just another minute,” Gen. Falton said, defeated.

             
“I’ll give you a few minutes to collect yourself, and then we have to go,” the agent replied, turned, and walked down the hall.

             
“If you knew what I was responsible for, then you’d be escorting me out in handcuffs,” Gen. Falton said to himself.

             
Nobody who was still alive knew about his little call to Fort Detrick.

             
The flight operations officer had been exterminated along with the rest of the Fort Detrick staff in the clean-up and cover-up operation once the virus arrived in Raleigh.

             
In the end, Gen. Falton would be able to maintain his legacy, but he knew that sooner or later his gnawing guilt would force him to tell the truth and that would be the beginning of his demise.

             
His legacy would be forever tarnished.

             
He refused to lose the only thing he had left.

             
Gen. Falton sighed and pulled the box closer to him, moving with the slow and shaky finesse of a decrepit old man. He reached into the box and brought out his medals, admiring and polishing each one of them as he methodically pinned them on his uniform.

             
He wondered if he was right to shred the latest, and final, memo from Atlanta. He knew that if his superiors found out about the latest mutation Atlanta had discovered then they would lose all hope.

             
Hope of some salvation was all they had left. Who was he to take hope away from them when he was the one responsible for unleashing the hell in the first place?

             
They had their hope while he had his legacy and his guilt.

             
What they held onto was finite, while what he had was eternal; it was his and he planned on keeping it.

             
He opened his desk drawer and reached for what was inside with tears in his crusty eyes.

             
The agent who was supposed to escort Gen. Falton to the underground shelter was standing inside a small break room down the hall from Gen. Falton’s office.

             
Another agent, an older veteran, stood next to him as they stared at the television screen next to the microwave.

             
The news was reporting around the clock about the catastrophic forest fires in North Carolina and how the USDA Forest Service had closed the state borders due the danger posed by the unprecedented scope of the blaze. The news said that rescue crews were having a difficult time getting people out of the affected areas and the loss of life was expected to be insurmountable.

             
“Unbelievable how they’re able to spin it isn’t it?” the younger agent said as he stared at the screen.

             
The veteran agent scoffed.

             
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” the veteran agent said, shaking his head.

             
A single gunshot reverberated down the hall from Gen. Falton’s office.

             
Both agents gripped their pistols and sprinted towards the general’s office.

             
Of course, they arrived too late.

20

             
“
W
hat do you mean ‘there is none’?! You told me that there is an antidote!” Richard screamed, pounding against the grille with his clenched, zip-tied fists.

             
“I lied,” Col.
Mathis said calmly, continuing to drive.

They were finally nearing the edge of downtown but the streets were becoming increasingly difficult to navigate. Rubble from collapsed skyscrapers blocked most of the streets and the other streets were so thick with burnt vehicles that they were rendered useless, forcing Mathis to turn the van around and try a new path.

They were driving in circles.

A horde of infected chased after the van as it sped along the downtown streets and the horde grew larger with each darkened alleyway and flame-ravished building they passed.

             
“So that’s it then?” Richard asked, nodding towards devastation outside. “There is no vaccine. Everybody is sick. This is all that’s waiting out there?”

             
Concern about Andy twisted his stomach into knots.

             
“The vaccine they had didn’t work. They are probably working on developing something else… how far they got by now, I have no idea. We were checking people in downtown, trying to find anybody resistant to the virus. All we found out is that some people were slower to succumb than others… The virus always won in the end.”

             
“These people… are they alive or dead?”

             
Mathis glanced up at him in the mirror.

             
“What kind of question is that?”

             
Richard paused and looked down at his hands.

             
“Some of the people I saw… they were so injured… they shouldn’t have been moving. It would be impossible…”

             
“Are they vampires or zombies? Is that what you’re asking?” Mathis scoffed. “They’ll die of their wounds in a matter of days, some sooner than others.”

             
Richard didn’t answer and didn’t bother pointing out that Mathis dodged the question.

             
“How did this all happen?” Richard finally asked.

             
“There was a terrorist attack. They used a novel biological agent.”

             
Richard stared at him.

             
“A novel agent that you just happened to have a vaccine for, right?” Richard asked, eyeing him suspiciously. “I think you’re lying to me.”

             
Us. He is lying to us.

             
Mathis didn’t reply.

“Who do you work for? Are you from the CDC?” Richard asked.

             
“I’m a Colonel in the United States Army. You need to relax; you’re in good hands… considering the circumstances.”

A squadron of fighter jets roared overhead, headed out of downtown.

“How far has it spread?”

“As far as I know, just Raleigh, Durham, and maybe a few surrounding towns,” Mathis answered.

Richard pictured Andy sitting alone in an abandoned prison, frightened, left to rot by the guards. He winced and stared down at his bit hand. The blood had already soaked through the fabric he had wrapped around the wound.

As much as he hated to ask the question, he asked.

             
“I have to do something important… Are you going to kill me soon?”

             
“If I thought you were infected, I would have already shot you.”

             
Richard rolled his eyes.

             
“Come on! Don’t bullshit me! I was bit! Twice! I was bit and one of… of… those
things
vomited all over me. We both know I’m infected.”

             
“You would have been symptomatic by now,” Mathis said, leaning forward, trying to peer through the dark smoke outside. “Right now, I just need you to stay calm and let me get us out of here.”

             
Richard backed away from the grille and sat down on the metallic bench, staring at his feet.

             
“Before I get sick, I need to go to Butner. At least give me that much before you put a bullet between my eyes.”

             
Mathis thought on it a moment, and then asked out of sheer curiosity.

             
“What is so important about Butner?”