Degeneration (31 page)

             
Finally, he made a decision.

             
If death was coming for him, he vowed to accept it, but he refused to die alone in a closet, hiding from the creatures lurking outside in the dark. Granted, he hid while his men were being massacred, so he knew that opting to save himself after the chaos settled down was a selfish decision.

             
It didn’t matter to him though; he made selfish decisions his entire life.

The i
nfected
had
stopped
pounding
against the
closet
door
many
hours ago
and he
no longer heard
them
wandering
outside in the hall. In truth, it was hard
for him
to hear anything above the rumble of his stomach and the steady
, albeit dwindling,
sound of oxygen
flow
ing
through his
white-suit’s
respirator.

             
He looked down at the gauge on his hip.

H
e had
a few
hours of oxygen l
eft in his tank.

If he planned
on getting out of the city
, he knew he wou
ld have to act fast
. If he ran out of air and had to t
ake off his respirator to keep from suffocating… it would be certain death.

             
He
reached forward and gripped the doorknob tightly with one hand while gripping his pistol with his other. Taking a de
ep breath
, he swung the door open and stepped out into the hall.

             
The electricity was out and the hall was pi
tch-black.

He swept the LED’s beam across
the wall
and along the floor
.
The intense heat from the fire bombardment had pealed the paint off of the walls and blackened the ceiling. Dried pools of blood and black soot covered the concrete floor.

Out the corn
er of his eye he saw a glimmer
. He t
urned towards the light and spotted
the fire exit
at the end of the hall.

The door
was slightly ajar
and sunlight seeped-in around the edges
.
The door was charred black and warped from the intense heat.

             
He heard a rustle.

He quickly turned towards the noise and froze with surprise when his
lamp’s beam
reflected off o
f the back of a CDC white-suit. The light glimmered off of the suit’s reflective lettering.
The
CDC
white-suit did not appear bloodied, battle-worn, or compromised
in any way
. It stood motionless at the far end of the
hall with its arms at its side with its back turned towards Mathis.

Mathis stared at the white-suit for several minutes
, aiming his
pistol
between the white-suit’s shoulders
.

             
The thought occurred that perhaps the man was another survivor or part of a rescue detail, so Mathis finally spoke
, barely above a whisper.

             
“Hello? Are you… healthy?
”

             
His voice reverberated down the silent hall.

             
The CDC white-suit spun around at the sound of Mathis’ voice
.

The white-suit’s faceshield had been shattered and the ma
n’s face was badly disfigured. H
is nose
had been bitten off
and his lower jaw was
missing
.
The man’s tongue
freely
lolled out of what remained of his mouth
and dribbled salvia
down
onto the CDC logo on his chest.

             
The
CDC
white-suit gurgled
,
making
blood and pus
bubble
out of his throat
and roll off of his tongue
. He
clouded gaze
fixated on Mathis and he
started sprinting towards him, pumping his arms madly
as he closed the distance quickly
.

Mathis
panicked and
quickly opened fire in rapid succession.

Gunfire lit the hallway with
orange strobe.

The white-suit
’s body
jerked with each shot
until one bullet landed in his forehead. He collapsed face-down and slid across the floor, stopping just a few feet away from Mathis and leaving a
bloody smear
across the floor
in his wake.

Feral cries
and rapid footsteps reverberated off of the walls as a horde of infected rushed
towards him.

Mathis quickly scanned the hall with his pistol as his shoulder light revealed five infected soldiers sprinting
towards
him, arms extended
.
Behind the
soldiers,
he
saw
numerous
white-suits and
burnt
civilians approaching
joining in the chase
.

Gasping, he
lowered the pistol, turned towards the fire exit, and ran
for his life.

The LED light attached to his shoulder bobb
led
as he ran and his warm breath quickly fogged
hi
s faceshield. He heard
the snar
ling horde behind him closing the distance
at a relentless pa
ce. Just when his energy nearly
left him in the seemingly endless hallway, he slam
med against the fire exit door.

It
swung open
easily
and the hallway was inundated with
harsh
sunlight.

Mathis threw his
hands up and shielded his eyes
from
the scalding sun. He ran blindly
, squinting, barely able to make out basic shapes as he ran
across the burnt parking lot.

The horde followed in a frenzied pace.

Mathis forced his eyes open and hissed in pain
as his pupils constricted.
He reached up and
wiped the condensation off of his fac
emask as he continued forward.

H
e was
in the parking lot
behind the
half-collapsed concert hall; half of the concert hall had burnt down to the ground
. Red fliers littered the ground, c
orpses were baked onto the half-melted pavement
, and thick smoke
inundated the air
.
Small fires smoldered on the burnt vehicular skeletons that peppered the lot and fires had gutted most of the surrounding buildings.

He threw a
quick
glance behind him
as he ran.

T
he pursuing horde had tripled in number. Infected men, women, and children
emerged
out from in
-between
the flame-gutted vehicles and from the alleyways
to join
in t
he pursuit
.
Many of the infected were mutilated by severe burns and could only hobble along. Chunks of flesh fell from some of the more severely-burnt pursing corpses.

The infected were closing in from all directions.

             
Mathis frantically searched the lot for some sort of shelter or escape. On his left he saw a metallic awning with three white FEMA vans parked underneath it.
The flames had gutted two of the vans, but the van in the middle appeared relatively unscathed.

A man in tattered civilian clothes lunged out from behind the
center
van and charged toward
s–

             
Mathis fired two shots into the man’s chest.

             
Blood erupte
d from the man’s back and sprayed onto
the FEMA l
ogo adorned on the van’s backdoors.

The man gurgled
, tripped,
and collapsed facedown.
He struggled to get back up.

             
Mathis approached the man and fired another shot into the back of the man’s head, blowing out the back of the man’s skull.

             
The man collapsed back to the ground and lay motionless.

             
Mathis darted towards the driver-side door
of the van and climbed into the cab, slamming
the doo
r shut behind him.

             
The key was missing from the ignition
switch
, despite
FEMA’s
motor pool regulations.

             
He
started searching
fr
antically for the key. The front seat was cluttered with stacks of folders, paperwork
, empty coffee cups, and germicidal masks.

A charred corpse, sex unrecognizable from the severe burns covering its entire body,
slammed against the outside
of the van’s driver-side door and
started sla
pping
both
open palms against the glass, gurgling
.

Mathis
hurriedly
pre
ssed the door lock button and created an audible click as the van’s
door locks engaged. He leaned over
the passenger seat
and
dug
through the cluttered glove compartment.

The i
nfected converged
around the van
en-mass and pounded
it from all sides
, snarling and screaming
. T
hey
rocked
the v
ehicle from
side-t
o-side, trying to bash their way in.

An infected SWAT officer wearing full tactical gear punched the passenger-side window and created
a large crack
down its
center.

Mathis
shut the glove compartment and searched the driver-side
visor
but
found nothing. He pulled
down the passenger-side visor–

A single key fell to the floor.

He
leaned over and sn
atched it off the passenger-side floorboard.

The SWAT officer
punched the
windo
w a second time and the glass erupted
i
nto small fragments. He
reached both arms into the vehicle
towards Mathis, snarling
.

Mathis shot back up in the driver’s seat,
aimed his pistol at the SWAT officer
, and pulled the trigger–

‘
CLICK
’

His pistol was out of ammunition.

“Goddamnit!” Mathis shouted.
He dropped the gun, slid the key into the ignition, and cranked the engine.

The van started-up effortlessly. The blue
strobe
lights
in t
he van’s grill started flashing and the siren started wailing, attracting more infected to the scene
.

The SWAT officer
, undeterred, s
tarted
to climb in
through the sha
ttered passenger window and claw his way across the seat
towards Mathis.

Mathis threw the van into drive and f
loored the accelerator, plowing a path through the besieging infected gathered around
the
front of the
van. Bodies crumpled aga
inst the front bumper and slathered the windshield with blood. The van jolted violently as it crushed corpse after corpse.

The SWAT officer
slid backwards but
held onto
the passenger-side
door
with both hands.

The van broke free from the
horde
and careened through the
desolated
parking lot while the SWAT officer
clung
to the
passenger
door
, steel-toe boots throwing sparks as they drug across the pavement
.