The Creepers (8 page)

CHAPTER 7

Held in check by
the potent cocktail of sedatives Ryan battled a terrible fever. He thrashed
wildly against the restraints, fighting some nightmare she could not see.

Lyda set a tube
of the boy’s blood in the small centrifuge on her desk. The device had been
plundered from Boulder County General several years ago. They weren’t even
supposed to check the hospital, after all, hospitals were the first places
stripped bare when the Fection took over. Panicked masses flocked for help, for
a cure, for answers, to the places they’d been used to attaining such things
from, but the hospitals were not safe, they were wounded centers, from which,
sprang countless new cases of the Fection.

Lyda remembered
well when the Fection hit like a tsunami. There were those, the smart ones, and
she lumped herself in this category, along with the rest of the Folks, that
took heed of the warning ripple on the beach, but the rest of the planet
ignored the signs, and when the wave finally came crashing ashore they had no
chance.

Stupid and smart
alike, it didn’t matter when everything turned to chaos. Those first few weeks
were like a worldwide looting spree. The initial outbreaks of violence across
Denver claimed more lives than the living dead and the Fection they carried,
combined. Before the news feeds died out the reports were the same from every
corner of the globe. People reverted to their savage roots. Like caged animals
they fought for survival against anything that got in their way. Undead or
living, it didn’t matter. Food, shelter, water, protection . . . these were the
things that mattered.

Lyda, along with
Ma and Pa Crannen, Pastor Craven, Ol’ Randy, and several other close friends
had been preparing for the worst well before the wave crashed.

There were those
within their congregation that called them insane, laughed at them in tight
clusters at gatherings, and lamented their warnings. When the strange tales of
people eating people began to find their way onto obscure news blogs and
conspiracy websites it was the Crannen’s who took notice. Shortly after, they
asked Lyda to take a look one night after service.

The medical
accounts of the cases intrigued her, but when the world went to shit, so too,
did all hopes of gathering information. What little they did know of the
Fection was enough to spurn them to action.

Lyda was
instrumental in planning the framework of the micro society they were to form.
Wherever they decided to hunker down there were two things she championed above
all others, and those two things, education and medicine, were the only two
things that would allow them to survive beyond the first generation.

Once their plan
was set in motion there was no turning back. All of them devoted their
resources, money, and every waking hour to see it through. They purchased the
tiny abandoned mining town of Tuls, Colorado off the internet for a small
fortune. The mayor of Tuls, who held the deeds, but resided in Denver, told
them he would be laughing all the way to the bank. He laughed alright, laughed
himself to a horrible end when the Fection decimated the city.

With their first
hurdle out of the way, they took to their professions to build it from the
ground up. The Crannen’s, lifetime farmers, began the long task of tiling the
land and coaxing sustenance from the tired dirt. Ol’ Randy, along with a few of
his Army buddies, retired carpenters mostly, began building. The old veteran
wasted nothing though, and a majority of the Settlement’s buildings were
refurbished from Tuls’s decayed past.

Lyda began to
scour the web, consignment stores, newspapers, anywhere that advertised medical
equipment for sale. But as she searched, the stories began to pour in at an
alarming rate. Time was running out. When they finally closed the gate, and
settled in for the long haul, they were grossly undersupplied.

After the first
winter, with casualties mounting, the Crannen’s made the decision to begin
plundering what they could from anywhere they could. It was dangerous, but
necessary work. By the grace of God that first foray into the madness netted
them a fully functional hospital bed, and one extraordinarily gifted Russian
engineer.

Lyda almost shot
him. She fired at him, but the Lord swayed her aim that day. She remembered how
he looked, emaciated, sunken eyes, dirty, he looked like one of them. He’d been
living inside the air duct system of the hospital for almost a year. She
couldn’t imagine how he had the will to hold on amid all that chaos, alone. But
in the moment he stood before her, hands out, pleading, tears streaming from
his eyes he did something that she’d never forget. He pulled a small gold cross
from the pocket of his dingy shirt and kissed it, fell to his knees, and
thanked the Lord. It was a sign from God, the supplies and Yannek, were a
miracle from the Heavenly Father. They were on the right path, God approved.

Lyda rejoiced,
but their victory was short-lived, they lost three good men that day. The Lord
always demanded sacrifice in these hard times. She wondered if Ryan would be
another of those sacrifices. She prayed for it.

The centrifuge
hummed as gravity worked its magic on Ryan’s blood. Lyda checked the clock.
Almost a full twenty-four hours had passed. The boy was dangerously close to
the point of no return, but she had to check his blood work first. There was
still a slim chance that the Fection had not spread, but it was highly
unlikely.

While the blood
spun she busied herself with observing the sleeping boy for more pronounced
signs. He was gravely pale, yet, his skin still retained a healthy tone. No
yellowing or bruising, and his toes and fingers moved easily. He wrestled with
the nightmare that contorted his face. None of the precursors of the Fection
were there. He was minus an arm, he’d never play baseball with the other
children again, but all things considered, he looked like he was going to make
it. But the blood would be the great decider . . . it never lied.

Lyda had seen
many victims of the Fection show the same positive signs of recovery before,
only to have them slip into death shortly thereafter. She checked the
restraints and checked them again. When the already taxed medical system became
flooded with that first wave of cases many doctors made the mistake of
signaling the all clear. Those same doctors fell victim to their own false
sense of security and the hubris of their craft. Their crisp whites turning
blood red as they supplied fresh meat for the second wave.

She removed a
rubber mouthpiece, salvaged from a dilapidated sporting goods store, from the
tray beside the bed. Lyda squeezed Ryan’s clenched jaw, jabbing sharply with
the tips of her bony fingers, she worked it open and jammed the mouthpiece in.
She pressed his mouth closed and set a few strands of duct tape over it. She
thought about her actions, how they would seem cruel to the uninitiated, but
each precaution further protected her from a potential enemy, besides, the
uninitiated were dead.

“I hope the Lord
values you enough to make it. I hope you make it so you can live a long, hard
life. I hope every day is painful, and that you toil and scrap to get by. I
will remind you every chance I get that my son was forced out so you could live
among us. You will live the life not meant for my son. The Lord works in
mysterious ways and this, this is but a test of my faith and my will. I will do
everything I can, guided by the Lord’s hand, to save you,” she said, running a
gloved finger across his slick brow.

The centrifuge
beeped and began to whir down. Lyda snatched a glass slide from the counter and
took the tube from the centrifuge’s cradle. She gently put a drop of Ryan’s
blood on the slide, applied methanol to bond it, added dye, and set it to dry.
Back before the Fection she would’ve never dreamed of using a centrifuge on a
blood sample, it just wasn’t necessary, but the Fection was different.
Normally, a smear was used to separate cells from one another thereby giving
the viewer a better glimpse of the infection. But she used the centrifuge to
compact the cells so it was easier to spot the one, or ones, that stood
out among the crowd.

Lyda had spent
many years in Sub-Saharan Africa studying Malaria. As part of her service to
the church, and humanity, she helped identify and treat cases of the infectious
disease. The Fection shared many similar traits with the mosquito born disease,
but unlike Malaria, it did a marvelous job of hiding itself in the early stages
of exposure. Upon entering the bloodstream the parasite lodged itself in the
host’s liver. Once enough replication has taken place the Fection waged an all
out war on the red blood cells. It behaved like a suicide bomber, closing in on
a cell, hiding within it, and then it would explode, causing it to spread to
the other cells for maximum damage. The Fection had no set timeline for
detonation, it could take twenty four hours, or twenty seconds. Then the
reanimation would begin, followed by the hunger, a perfect weapon. But Lyda,
along with many other scientists and doctors, ruled out that possibility soon
after the beginning of the First War. The Fection wasn’t manmade. It was
natural, a test from God.

As she slid the
slide onto the microscope she expected to see healthy cells, but what she found
was something entirely different. The Fection was there, but it was
somehow
. . . changed. The tiny banana-shaped parasites were not attacking the blood
cells. There was something coating them, essentially trapping them, keeping
them from doing any damage.

Lyda rubbed her
eyes.

Something else
about the parasites unnerved her. They were dead, and it appeared that they had
been suffocated by whatever encased them. In all her experience with the
Fection she had never observed a dead parasite even in the blood of a headshot
case. The Fection, when under duress, would go dormant and wait for another
host. Heat was the only sure way to destroy it. Soap, bleach, and antibiotics
were useless against it, yet, somehow she found herself staring at dead
parasites. What kind of devil was this boy? She wondered.

Were the rest of
his brothers infected with the dead parasites? What would happen if the
parasites were not encased in that strange barrier? So many questions, and only
one of them she truly knew the answer to. If that barrier fell those dead
parasites would rise again and wreak havoc on a host. She had seen it with
frozen parasites, gone dormant for hundreds of years, early in her medical
career, studying ice core samples in the Arctic. They may look dead, but she
knew better. Another of God’s mysteries.

Lyda looked over
her shoulder. The sight of the boy repulsed her. He was one of them . . . in
disguise. She had to tell Pastor Craven. The thought of the other four running
around the Settlement, ticking time bombs, frightened her. Had the Crannen’s
known?

Cautiously she
prepared a strong dose of sedative. Not enough to kill the boy, not yet, there was
much she needed to discuss with Pastor Craven first, but enough to keep him
safely knocked out. She checked the restraints again, and added another strap
just to be sure.

In her haste to
be out of the boy’s presence she did not notice that he had removed the IV.

Pastor Craven gripped the pulpit in his
bony hands. His knuckles stark white against the rich luster of the
dark-stained wood. He bent over his bible like a starved vulture, skin hanging
loose from his face and neck, wisps of yellow-gray hair clung to his
liver-spotted scalp, barely a skeleton of a man inside his patchwork brown
tweed. But he demanded full attention, and he got it. His sharp eyes
acknowledged the weak crowd. He understood the reason for the thin flock this
night, and he knew the Lord did as well. The first storm of winter wouldn’t be
long now, and there was still much work to be done.

The rows of pews creaked, someone
coughed, but all were at full attention even in the thick warm air of the
chapel. Pristine white walls surrounded them, and the worn eyes of a wooden
Jesus reminded them of their savior’s sacrifice. Pastor Craven looked up at the
fine craftsmanship with a bit of pride.

It was he who rescued the cross from a
church five winters ago. He was part of a small supply party sent to the town
of Renard to salvage what they could. Surprisingly, when they arrived they
found the town empty. No corpses, no Creepers, and no signs of past struggles,
a ghost town. That was until they came to the church. The doors of the small
stone monument to God were chained. The windows boarded.

Pastor Craven ordered the chains
removed, and after a stiff resistance from Ol’ Randy the doors to Renard’s
church were opened. Nearly a hundred and fifty Creepers, that had been dormant
inside for who knew how long, poured out. Rotted nuns in tattered habits,
little dead girls in yellowed and frayed Sunday’s best, the preacher still
clutched a crumbling bible in his worm eaten grasp. The collective moan sent
their small party running, but Pastor Craven rallied them, warning them that
this was a test from the Almighty. He told the party they were to cleanse the
church for God’s sake.

All veterans of the First War, and many
harsh winters, the party fought through the town for almost two days. Using the
bait and kill method, they thinned the herd, killing a few at a time and
distracting them, while snipers picked them off from the rooftops. And in the
end, they were victorious in clearing God’s house of the blight.