The Zombie Virus (Book 2): The Children of the Damned (3 page)

Steven wound his way back to the bathroom and
relieved himself, grabbing a handful of trailmix and stuffing it in
his mouth on his way through the kitchen. He lightly stepped over
the still sleeping form of Kera and stood again before the great
window and stared out at the rising golden globe of the sun and
wondered if his son was watching it also. He missed him terribly
and his one and only goal in life was to be repatriated with his
boy at any cost. It had been over two months since he had last seen
Jeremy. However, over the course of his and Kera’s travels they had
found signs that he had passed ahead of them; little messages that
Jeremy had left for them to find. One of Steven’s last promises to
his wife was that he would find Jeremy and see that he survived
this pandemic.

When he looked down again, Kera was awake and
looking up at him with an impish-smile spreading playfully across
her face. Her raven black hair hung past her shoulders and framed
her porcelain-like skin in a halo of dark beauty. She stretched in
the golden light that enveloped her lithe, naked body then reached
up and grabbed Steven’s flaccid penis and pulled him down into her
waiting arms. He didn’t stay flaccid long. They made quiet,
passionate love in the warmth of the sunshine, taking their time
and savoring each moment. After their climaxes, they fell apart,
breathing heavily from their exertions.

“Can we stay here another day?” Kera asked,
snuggling her nose into his neck. “This is such a nice place.”

The house stood deep in the woods on the side
of a small mountain overlooking Interstate 64 near the suburbs of
Charlottesville, Virginia. It was one of the first places they had
spent the night that was completely free of Loonies. It was a large
contemporary log home with huge windows facing the valley below. It
had running water and a propane powered water heater and stove. The
night before they’d had their first hot baths in what had seemed
like ages. They also found razors in the bathroom and Steven had
been able to get rid of his beard for the first time in weeks while
Kera had shaved her legs and other parts.

Steven pulled her youthful body closer and
they entwined their legs with one another. “That would be nice,” he
replied in a quiet voice, “but you know we can’t.”

She turned her head away from him and
whispered, “I know.”

Though they had lost any sign of Jeremy
further east of Charlottesville, nevertheless, Steven knew deep
down in his soul that his son had passed through here and was still
ahead of them somewhere. Their travelling was painfully slow,
especially when they were forced to avoid ever larger groupings of
Loonies that infested their path every step of the way. Trying to
get past choke points, such as bridges over rivers, was even more
hazardous and time consuming. They regularly had to raid homes for
the increasingly scarce supplies of food and even sparser ammo, as
they didn’t dare infiltrate any of the towns or cities that
populated their course. The hordes were simply too overwhelmingly
large around what used to be human population centers.

Steven stood and stretched again. Without
looking at Kera, he stepped over her to their discarded pile of
worn, dirty clothing, sorted through the threadbare garments, and
began dressing. He finally looked back at Kera, who had rolled over
onto her flat belly and lay, still naked, stretched out in the
comfortable sunshine. Her shapely ass with its inviting dark cleft
almost lured him back over to her, but instead, he tore his eyes
away and gazed out the large window.

“You need to get up and dressed,” he said
softly. “We need to get back on the road.”

“Ooh,” she cooed, “you sure know how to take
the fun out of a beautiful morning.” She got to her feet, tempting
him with her every sensual move. He tossed her her clothes and she
quietly dressed, making him pay with his watching eyes. Steven
walked to the window again and peered down the mountainside toward
the highway. He pulled out their small binoculars and scanned the
roadway. Nothing moved. The road was deserted as far as he could
see. They would have to make a decision on which route to take. A
set of rail lines headed west toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, far
in the distance and roughly parallel to the highway to the south.
It would be much safer, however, he thought the chances were much
better that Jeremy had stuck to the highway. If they chose the
railway instead and Jeremy was following the road, they would never
catch up with him before they reached the farm in Southwestern
Virginia.

The
farm
.

That was their destination… and Jeremy’s. A
large parcel of land nestled at the base of a mountain containing
an old farmhouse and barn. A place where they could make a home.
Due to its seclusiveness, it would be a safe haven from the hordes
of infected that permeated the cities and towns that populated the
countryside. At least that was his hope.

His thoughts went back to the decision at
hand.
What
would
Jeremy
do
? Steven knew
that his boy had the GPS unit he had taken from the truck, which
was programmed with the fastest route to the farm. It would guide
the boy there via the roads, not by rail. However, they had talked
about it before, about getting out of dodge in an emergency and how
much safer railroad lines were when on foot compared to highways.
Would Jeremy have remembered that and decided to take the safer
routes? The GPS unit would still guide him correctly if he did make
that choice, if it could still retain a charge for that long.

Steven scanned the highway once more with the
binoculars, confirming that there was still no Looney activity
among the scattered and abandoned vehicles that dotted the road in
both directions. He turned to Kera, who had finished dressing and
was wolfing down some packaged peanut butter crackers.

“We’ll stick to the highway. I think Jeremy
will be following it instead of the tracks.” He made the hard
decision and put it aside. “I would like to make it to the
foothills of the Blue Ridge by nightfall.”

“I thought the tracks were safer?” Kera
asked, standing next to him at the window.

Steven nodded. “They are. Nevertheless, I’m
betting on Jeremy sticking to the road as much as possible.” He
kissed her gently on the forehead, then turned and picked up his
Colt short-barreled rifle, briefly turned on the EoTech to check
the battery, and then slid it into the sling, cinching it tightly
to his chest. He checked his Sig P220 .45 to make sure that the
magazine was topped off and that a round was chambered before
stuffing it into his drop leg holster. He then patted his cargo
pants pocket to make sure the two extra magazines were still there.
“Let’s go. Time’s-a-wasting.”

Kera slung her shotgun across her shoulder.
She had chosen to stick with her Saiga 12-gauge shotgun instead of
Holly’s short-barreled Colt M4 rifle that Steven had offered to her
weeks back, even though the shotgun only had five round mags
instead of the 30 rounder’s that Steven carried for the AR. She had
told him that she liked the effects the double-ought loads had on
the Loonies compared to the smaller 5.56 mm rifle round, plus
shotgun shells were much easier to come by. He picked up his
military-style patrol pack in ACU digital camo and slipped into the
straps, clipping the pack clasps under his rifle. Steven still
carried Holly’s rifle stuffed in the backpack, despite the added
weight. He gave a myriad of good reasons to keep it, although he
knew in his heart that it was really because he was loathe to give
up anything linked to his beloved wife. Sticking out of the pack
next to Holly’s rifle barrel was his grandfather’s old katana
sword. He had learned he could swiftly reach back and grasp the
handle and extricate the sword from its sheath, which would stay in
the backpack.

Within an hour they had cautiously picked
their way down the slope of the hill to the steep berm that led up
to the four-lane highway. They scrambled up the weed choked slope
and emerged onto the wide expanse of pavement. Only a few abandoned
cars were scattered about the long stretch of what made up the
westbound lanes. Steven searched both directions with the
binoculars for several minutes trying to detect any movement.

“I don’t see anything,” he muttered to Kera,
who stood beside him shading her eyes from the rising sun as she
looked back along the highway.

“Always a good way to start the day,” she
stated matter-of-factly.

Steven had started noticing several weeks ago
that the Loonies had begun swarming together in groups like flocks
of birds or insects. It was becoming rarer to find them wandering
around alone anymore. Like a ravaging swarm of insects, they were
becoming more coordinated in their attacks. In his mind this made
them even more dangerous. He hadn’t mentioned the observation to
Kera yet. He wasn’t sure if they were isolated incidences, and
didn’t want to frighten her any more than needed.

They were only a mile or so east of the
center of Charlottesville, Virginia. Suburban sprawl from the city
spread out to the north and west for many more miles, even though
it was hidden from view by the thick forest bordering the highway.
They could hear the wild animal sounds in the distance from the
throngs of infected as the creatures moved with the start of the
new day.

“Come on,” Steven said in a subdued voice. He
started off at a distance eating pace along the sunlit pavement,
scanning for any signs of danger. Kera kept back five or six paces,
periodically walking backwards to look for any approaching threat
from behind. Both had their long guns at the ready. Up ahead a
long, flat bridge crossed over a wide, muddy river. The expanse was
clear of both Loonies and cars.
Always
a
good
thing
, Steven thought to himself, staring down to the
home-lined streets that hugged the banks of the river further up
from the north side of the span.

When he reached the foot of the bridge he
signaled for Kera to halt while he stopped and surveyed the highway
that stretched ahead of him until it disappeared over a small rise
several miles ahead. Five hundred yards past the end of the bridge,
an off ramp gently left the road and dropped out of sight,
disappearing down a hill past a stand of trees. Spotting no signs
of danger, he motioned to her and they continued on tentatively,
cautiously crossing the bridge span.

Something didn’t feel right. There was a
buzzing in the air, not quite audible, it was something he
perceived in his chest, like a swarm of locusts approaching far in
the distance. Neither of them said a word while they scanned the
area. Kera now heard it too, coming from somewhere up ahead.

“Baby, I have a bad feeling about this,” she
whispered over his shoulder. Before Steven could respond, he caught
movement coming up the off ramp in the distance. First, it was only
one or two heads bobbing into view as a group of people appeared on
the rise of the pavement, then more and more, until a flood of
humanity crested the rise and poured onto the highway. The buzzing
noise was their combined ruckus of babbling and growls. Steven
involuntarily took a few steps back until he bumped into Kera.

“There must be thousands of them,” he
whispered with his eyes riveted to the approaching horde. He backed
up rapidly, pulling Kera with him. Almost instantly, the Loonies in
the front of the pack spotted them and started a mad dash toward
them, screaming an enraged cry. It was like the start of a marathon
to reach them; more and more Loonies joined in the chase as they
swarmed over the highway in a seemingly coordinated movement.

“Oh fuck!” Kera cried and turned to run back
down the highway with Steven keeping pace next to her.

“I told you we should have stayed in bed this
morning!” she yelled at him over her shoulder.

“This way!” Steven yanked her to his right
when they reached the end of the bridge span and they ran across
the road to the wooded berm that separated the westbound lanes from
the east. They sprinted through the woods and out onto the
eastbound lanes as the horde reached the bridge. The crowd was so
large that it spread out into the eastbound lanes and came on like
an impenetrable wall. Still grasping Kera by the arm, Steven ran
across the road and onto the steep slope on the other side that
dropped off to the river nearly a hundred feet below. Kera took one
look at the almost vertical-looking rock and shrub covered hillside
and abruptly dug in her heels.

“Huh-uh! I can’t!” she screamed at him,
already feeling the vertigo from the height while she stared down
into the river.

“No choice, girl, and no time to argue!” He
tugged her arm hard and they both slid down the loose scree of the
slope. Kera fell to her side and dug in with clawed hands trying to
control her descent and her terror. Dust billowed up behind them as
they descended the hill practically out of control. The swarm
turned as one and flowed like a living waterfall over the side of
the concrete bridge railings, pouring through the air in a tangle
of arms and legs. Some splashed into the river, the smacks and
cracks of bodies crashing into those below them echoing off the
banks. Steven stared in amazement, fighting to maintain a
controlled slide through the loose talus of the steep slope. Bodies
broke and bounced off the embankment before rolling lifeless into
the boiling water. Other Loonies rolled down the slope around him
and Kera, smacking into the riverbank and bouncing into the
churning water.

Except for one.

A large male Loony in the remnants of a plaid
pajama top stood with its hands tightly gripping the railing of the
overpass staring at them with blazing red eyes, its jaws snapping
open and closed spasmodically. It simply stood there watching them
while its brethren flowed around him. Steven glanced at the man
briefly and felt a chill race down his spine, then was forced to
move his attention back to the bodies falling around him.