Degeneration (51 page)

             
Andy stopped running, reached up, and slapped Richard hard across his face.

Richard stumbled backwards and caught his balance against a tree.

             
“Don’t you EVER
talk to me like that aga
in! Not after what you did1
! Do you fucking understand me?!
” Andy shouted.

             
“I’m sorry,” Richard muttered, massaging his reddened cheek. “I’m-I’m just frustrated, is all.”

             
“That
is not my fault now, is it? Getting me out of Butner
is the least you can do for me,” Andy said, crossing his arms across his chest.

             
“I just don’t know how to get–”

             
A squirrel ran out from the weeds on the forest floor and leapt onto Richard’s leg.

             
Richard startled and kicked it off.

             
The squirrel landed on its back, immediately righted itself, and ran towards him again.

             
Richard stomped down on the squirrel and sent its innards shooting out from every orifice. He grimaced and stepped back, resting against a tree.

             
Andy narrowed his eyes and stared at him.

             
“Interesting… killing a rodent makes you wince, but you didn’t blink twice when you killed
our sister
, did you?” Andy asked.

             
Richard looked away.

             
“Butner is north, so start walking,” Andy said, pointing towards a lake that was barely visible through the trees. “I’ll be there in my cell, waiting for you to set me free.”

             
Richard nodded, staring at the ground. When he looked back up, Andy was gone.

             
A grey flake slowly fluttered down from the darkened sky and landed in front of Richard. Soon, another fell, and another.

             
Richard held out his hand and caught one of the falling flakes. He mashed the flake in his closed fist, opened his hand, and stared at his ash-stained palm. He wiped the smut off and walked through the dark forest towards the lake whilst irradiated ash continued to flutter down from the sky all around him.

32

             
R
ichard stumbled out from the tree line and found himself at the edge of a barbwire-lined picnic area situated next to a large lake. He had arrived at the Falls Lake forward operating base. The dirty snow covered everything in sight under a thin layer of grey soot.

             
An armored battered trailer adorned with the Homeland Security seal sat in the center of the picnic area. The diesel generator next to the trailer was still dutifully churning. Toppled halogen lights, wrecked military vehicles, and hundreds of ash-coated human and animal carcasses littered the area. Three unscathed armored personnel carriers sat parked next to the trailer.

             
Infected meandered throughout the picnic area, most wearing combat fatigues. A few deer and raccoons staggered amongst the ranks of the infected, twitching and moving erratically.

             
One of the infected soldiers spotted Richard standing at the edge of the encampment. He stopped pacing and let out a guttural cry.

             
The rest of the infected stopped walking and turned towards Richard, staring.

             
“Fuck,” Richard muttered.

             
The infected horde started to shuffle towards Richard, making guttural moans. Most of them were no longer moving with the same speed and ferocity they had been hours ago, but a few infected soldiers near the back of the horde still had vigor in their joints and sprinted towards Richard, screaming, pushing their slower moving comrades out of the way.

             
Richard, mustering what little strength he had left, ran towards the command trailer for shelter.

             
Two infected soldiers staggered in front of Richard’s path, snarling, and reached out to grab him.

             
Richard shoved his way through them and pressed onward, unable to handle the stench of rotting flesh.

The horde started to close-in on him from all directions, threatening to drown him in a sea of teeth and nails. His only salvation would be to take refuge inside the trailer.

Richard shoved through the besieging corpses and slowly fought his way towards the trailer.

Infected scraped their nails across his skin and bit him repeatedly like rabid animals.

Richard screamed out in pain and forced himself to keep going, just a few yards away from the trailer’s door.

             
One of the sprinting infected, a man wearing a tattered uniform with lieutenant’s insignias, finally rammed his way through the horde and pounced on Richard’s back, screaming.

             
Richard fell and slid across the ash-covered ground with the lieutenant latched onto his back. He slid to a stop a three feet away from the command trailer’s main door.

             
The lieutenant flipped Richard over on his back.

             
Richard drew back his fist and delivered a vicious blow to the young man’s face, snapping the man’s nose askew.

             
The lieutenant, momentarily stunned, let out a shrill cry and tumbled off of Richard.

The rest of the horde surrounded Richard and grasped at him with their boney hands, moaning, while more sprinters jostled their way through the horde towards the trailer.

             
Richard fought his way back onto his feet, pushed the clawing hands away from him, and lunged towards the command trailer door.

             
The steel door was sealed shut.

             
He started to panic and banged against the door, screaming for help. In the center of the door there was a biometric handprint reader and a small screen that read ‘Security Lockdown in Effect – Access Restricted to Command Line Staff’.

             
The lieutenant got back on his feet and lunged towards Richard again, broken nose bleeding profusely, screaming.

             
Richard sidestepped just in time and let the lieutenant crash into the door.

             
Thinking quickly, he grabbed the lieutenant’s left wrist and pressed the man’s palm against the door’s biometric reader. The lieutenant snarled and tried to pull away, but Richard held a firm grip.

The lieutenant bit into Richard’s burnt arm, but the painful lesions covering his skin masked the sting of the bite.

             
The biometric reader beeped and the screen read ‘Access Granted – Welcome LT. HAWKINS’. The locking mechanism disengaged and the door opened.

             
Richard shoved the lieutenant back into the growing horde of infected and ran inside the trailer, slamming the door shut behind him.

             
The pressurized locking mechanism automatically slid back into place.

             
Richard backed away from the door as infected pounded against it. Even through the beaten trailer’s thick armor, he heard the horde’s guttural moans and cries. He turned and slowly started to walk towards the front of the trailer, compulsively scratching his neck.

             
The computer consoles that ran along both sides of the narrow trailer were splattered with dried droplets of blood. Each console was manned by soldiers handcuffed to their chairs. Each of the soldiers was gagged and had been shot pointblank in the forehead. They were slouched back in their chairs with their expressionless faces fixated on the ceiling.

             
Richard glanced at the blood-speckled monitors as he walked past the consoles. The monitors were all speckled with static.

Richard focused his attention on the door ahead of him that read ‘Operations Commander Maj. Gen. Yates’.

             
He slowly opened the unlocked office door and stepped into the dark office.

The commander’s desk drawers had been rummaged through, his laptop lay shattered, and his desk lamp was toppled onto the floor. A red rotary DSN satellite phone sat at the corner of his desk.

Opposite of the door Richard entered, behind the commander’s desk, there was another door labeled ‘Armory’.

The armory door had a leather office chair propped underneath the handle to prevent it from opening.

Piles of dried human feces and puddles of stale urine sat in the far corner of the office, reeking.

Major-General Yates sat slumped in the corner of his office still wearing a gasmask, motionless. An emptied pistol lay by his side.

Richard carefully maneuvered around Yates’ corpse and went towards the armory door. As he walked past the desk, he accidently brushed against the red phone and sent the receiver flying off of the cradle. The receiver dangled from its red wire off the side of the desk.

             
As Richard rolled the office chair out from the underneath the armory door latch, he heard a small voice coming out of the phone’s receiver.

             
“
Hello? Hello? Hello, Falls Lake, this is CENT COM, can you hear me? Hello? What is your status?”

             
Richard turned towards the desk and picked up the red phone’s receiver, cradling it against his ear.

             
“Careful,” Andy said, leaning against the wall in the corner of the room.

             
Richard was startled by Andy’s presence, but his curiosity was too aroused by the sound another human voice to stop what he was doing.

             
“
Hello? Hello? Falls Lake?”

             
“H–hello,” Richard said weakly into the phone.

             
“Falls Lake, it has been over six hours since your last update. We thought that you were overrun. Report immediately. What is the status of the immune civilian you promised? Is he or is he not in your custody yet?”

             
There was a pause on the other line.

             
“
Falls Lake, who am I speaking with?
”

             
“Richard.”

             
“Rank and number?”

             
“No,” Richard muttered, “I’m no soldier.”

             
There were murmurs in the background on the other end of the line.

             
“Richard, is there somebody you can let me speak with, someone who is in charge?”

             
Richard looked down at Yates’ corpse.

             
“Everybody is dead. This trailer is surrounded by those things.”

             
There was a pause on the other end and more murmuring in the background.

             
“Who is this?” Richard asked.

             
“Richard, you seem to be able to speak coherently, your voice doesn’t sound muffled by a respirator, and I don’t hear you coughing. Do you feel ill at all?
”

             
“No, I feel fine. That is the way it is supposed to be. You see, I can’t get sick because Andy is counting on me,” Richard said, staring at Andy in the corner.

             
Andy nodded.

             
“So… you’ve sealed yourself safely inside the trailer? Are you armed?”

             
“Why?” Richard asked cautiously.

             
“Sir, just
–
just stay where you are. Will you stay on the line with me for a while, Richard? Please?
”

             
“I can’t,” Richard said, matter-of-factly. “I have to go to Butner and save my brother. I am sorry.”
             

“
No! Richard, please, PLEASE just
–
just stay on the line and talk with me a
–
”

Andy walked over, grabbed the phone out from Richard’s hand, and hung it up.

The red phone started ringing again immediately.

Andy pulled the cord out from the jack in the wall and the ringing ceased.

“Enough talk,” Andy said flatly, “get to Butner and save me already.”

Andy’s visage disappeared and Richard was left alone in the office holding the phone’s cord in his hand.

Richard dropped the cord and opened the armory door.