Authors: H. A. Rhoades
We grabbed as many supplies as we could find and loaded up the trucks. Just before the engines fired up we could hear screeching in the distance, coming from the direction of the city. The noise from the train must have gotten the attention of hosts migrating away from
Boise
, and they were heading our way. I walked to the rear of the transport
Sofia
and I were riding in and look up at her, she smiled and gave me her hand.
“Come on stud” She quipped “ I'll make the trip worth your while”
She did just that. As the convoy moved east we had the back of the transport to ourselves. We drove on for hours, talked for a while but decided we were going to take advantage of the isolation and began undressing each other. We made love, slept, woke and made love again. It was a surreal feeling, I had a warm fuzzy comfortable feeling as we explored each other. We were alone for most of the night as the convoy drove. Eventually I faded off to sleep and dreamed of the faceless woman.
The dreams I had been having about the faceless woman had been exciting at first but the fact I could not identify her bothered me. And over time, other images had made there way into my dreams, interlacing with the images of my erotic encounters were images of torn flesh and blood. I cleared my head and let images of
Sofia
invade my mind as I slept.
Sofia
was an amazing woman. she was beautiful, experienced, intelligent, and carried herself in a way that demanded respect for her intellect. She glowed with sexuality but didn't present that side of her until she was ready to let you in.
We bonded in this horrible situation and found the time and isolation we needed to explore each other intellectually and sexually. Perhaps it was because this was the end of times, or at least the end of our time. What ever the reason we took advantage of enjoying each other, for however long it lasted.
35
.
-Feast-
The convoy had been on the road for more than a day and we had traveled about 800 miles. Each vehicle had been loaded with extra fuel when we had made our last stop but these large military vehicles didn't get very good mileage and we were running low. Up ahead of the lead vehicle a rise gave away to a gently rolling valley.
“Lets bring it to a stop up here at the top of this rise.” Levitt's voice crackled over the trucks radio.
The lead vehicle came to a stop just at the crest of the hill. I could hear squealing brakes as the larger vehicles slowed behind.
“Jesus” Levitt was speaking calmly but you could hear anxiety in his voice “ Will you look at that”
As we exited the vehicle we made our way quickly to the top of the hill. I could hear the others gasping as they got a look at what had gotten Levitt's attention. I let out my own gasp when I saw it too.
The valley below us was probably not more than two miles across. At the very bottom was a small bridge crossing a creek that lazily wound its way through the small valley. The water in the creek was red. Near the bridge were the carcasses of hundreds of cattle.
“Holy shit!” Janice was standing behind me staring at the bloody mess with her hand shading her eyes.
“Janice” Levett turned “What do you think happened down there?
“I don't know Major” She thought for a moment “ Are they feeding?”
“Feeding” I had been thinking to myself over the last few days that I hadn't seen the infected eat besides the attacks on people, like Eve. But even then it did not seem to be for sustenance but rather an attack, although there was some evidence In the detention center that the dead had been fed on. The thought of the infected eating was terrifying. If they were feeding they would be able to travel further, replenishing their energy as they went. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had hoped that they couldn't survive for long after they were infected.
The convoy rolled down the hill and stopped just short of where the blood and carcasses were lying on the ground before the bridge. Janice grabbed a lab kit from the back of the Humvee she had been driving and slowly walked up to the first dead cow. She put on a surgical mask and gloves and looked around her as she stood at the edge of a large pool of blood.
“Ugh” She heaved, holding her hand over her face, the taste of stomach bile filled her mouth and she fought the urge to throw up. Lifting the mask she spit, then took a deep breath.
Janice had been trying to make some sense of what was happening. She had been studying blood samples she had taken from dead infected and was beginning to build a profile of the difference between normal samples and infected. She was beginning to see a common element in the infected blood but couldn't identify what it was. Out on the road she didn't have access to any information on blood born pathogens or any other common human infections so it was impossible to identify.
Janice leaned over the dead carcase, the smell was putrid, and she could barely keep from vomiting. She focused on the damage the infected had done. The patterns were similar on all of the cattle. All were disemboweled and the internal organs were torn out and presumably eaten. She measured the tears in the flesh and what appeared to be bite marks in some organs that were left. It appeared that the tears in the cattle’s hide's were made by human fingers and the bite marks matched human tooth patterns. After she cleaned up she measured a few of the units members' fingers and teeth to get a comparison.
“Major” Janice called over from the back of the Humvee she had set up her equipment in to do the tissue analysis.
“Janice, what have you got” Levitt said as he approached.
“I have found a match to infected blood in some of the samples I took from the cattle. It was difficult, I had to swab what I thought were teeth marks in what was left of a liver.”
“The details aren’t necessary corpsman” He had a sour look on his face. “So do you think the cattle were fed on?”
“Yes I do, between the blood samples and the measurements I took around the wounds, I am certain the injuries were inflicted by humans and they appear to be infected.”
“That means that there is a very large swarm of infected out here somewhere” He looked around the valley. “ We need to get moving” He whistled and swung his fist above his head in a circular motion. Everyone responded and remounted the vehicles.
The convoy moved on, navigating hundreds of dead cattle we crossed the narrow river. I looked over the edge of the truck as we crossed the bridge and down at the bottom of the shallow creek, under the running water I could make out a human form. The water was very red from the cattle blood but I could see a body moving, it was stuck under a log but was violently writhing trying to break free. It was close enough to the surface to get its head into the open air just long enough to get a breath then the weight of the log would pull it down again.
A feeling of dread began to overcome me while the darkening evening sky enveloped the convoy as we continued east.
36
.
-To Die-
An image of the infected that was pinned under the log continued to run through my mind as I drifted off to sleep. I began to dream about the infected overrunning the bar on that first night. In this dream I did not get away. I had stayed too long on the front porch of the bar before trying to escape and no matter how fast I ran, the infected man in the rescue uniform followed.
I ran across the street from the bar and he followed. I cut between buildings to the next street and he followed, getting closer with every step. I ran up a flight of stairs and found myself on a balcony overlooking the parking lot of a mini market. I turned in time to feel the impact of his body hit me at full speed, pushing me over the railing.
I could feel his teeth sink into my neck as we tumbled over the balcony and down into a waiting crowd of infected. His teeth plunged deep into my skin as he bit down hard and pulled away, tearing the flesh from my body. The pain was incredible and I was certain he had bitten through my jugular vain. If I survived the fall I would certainly bleed out once I hit the ground.
An instant later I felt the impact of the pavement. I landed on my back with the weight of the infected man on my chest. I could feel my chest compress until the bones began to snap. My lungs folded in on themselves and I let out a scream as all the air left my body. Then everything went black.
I could feel my body drifting alone in a dark ocean. Rising and falling with the gentle waves. I could feel that I was lying on my back staring up at a black, starless sky. I felt chilled, my flesh felt icy as the cold water engulfed me. In the back of my mind I could feel a sharp tingling, like the feeling you get in your hand when you've fallen asleep on it. It was a dull distant feeling at first but it began to grow.
I could feel a jolt through my head that was accompanied by a bright flash. The nerves in my mind were violently waking up. Another jolt shot through my head followed by another bright flash. The tingling was far more intense now and it was growing. I could feel it traveling down my spine and spread into my arms. My fingers began to twitch and burn as if they were immersed in scalding water.
The tingling traveled down my spine further and I could feel my legs fill with an electrical spark. Then another flash. Then another. My body felt like it was on fire.
My eyes opened and I could see I was lying on the ground in the parking lot of the mini market. The crowd of infected had moved off towards the bar I had just run from. I stood, and began to move towards the street. It felt like I was not in control of my body and my perception was drastically skewed. I felt as though I was looking through a kaleidoscope and I had an overwhelming urge to run that was driven by an insatiable hunger.
I ran into the street and a half a block to the south I could make out the open door of the bar. The front of the building was blocked by a swarm of infected feeding on the patrons. They were feeding on my friends. My body ran as fast as it could go and I was a spectator as I approached the crowded entrance, broke through into the main building and found Christine. She looked at me and screamed. She tried to run but in seconds I had caught her and sank my teeth into her neck. I could taste her warm blood fill my mouth as I tore her salty flesh away.
“
Duncan
!!”
I opened my eyes and Sophia was staring at me with a look of terror on her face.
“What!?” I said, my mind clouded with sleep.
“What the hell were you dreaming about? You were chewing on your bag and making this awful sound.”
“Oh Christ, It was of the first night when I ran but I didn't get away. I was bitten then I turned.” I tried to clear my head “If I keep having dreams like that I am going to lose my mind.”
37
.
-Sophia-
As the convoy moved on, Sophie and I sat quietly looking out across the countryside from the back of the large transport. I was still shaken from my dream but it was wearing off quickly. Sophia looked up at me then down at her left hand. She still wore her wedding ring and was twisting it around her finger. She began to cry.
“Can you talk about him?” I said to her as I put my arm around her an gently pulled her close to me.
“I should have been with them” She said. “I should have died with them”.
She began to sob heavily as she recalled the day she had left. Sophie's work with the CDC demanded a lot of her time. She typically worked 80 hours a week and when she was not in her office or traveling for business, she was typically spread out across her living room with case work and research papers lying around the room. Her husband and kids asleep upstairs. Often she would work till the early hours of the night and seldom did she find herself awake enough to join her husband in their bed.
She explained that this situation had left her husband upset and bitter. He had given up his job as a technical consultant to stay home with their kids so she could pursue a medical degree but once she had reached her residency it had grown to be too time consuming for her to play an active part in her family.
“He had an affair” She sobbed. “I was gone all the time, and he spent a lot of time with the other moms at the kids' school. I'm sure he was very popular with the single moms, especially since I wasn't around. Eventually he got close to a woman that was part of the carpool and they became intimate.”
“How did you find out?” I asked, knowing it really didn't matter. I think she was more upset over the fact that she had let her situation become more important than her husband than that he had been with another woman.
“I came home early from a trip in the middle of the night. I quietly crept upstairs and opened the bedroom door and I saw her on top of him. They were making love.” She had stopped crying and a look of anger was showing on her face. “I left the house and drove to a hotel. I wasn't supposed to be home for two more days and I was enraged at him so I called a friend of mine, A man that I used to date when I was young and asked him to come see me.”