Degeneration (43 page)

“How big is their flight crew?”

“Six, sir, but like I tried to
–
”

“Have them turn around and report to Crabtree immediately. Securing that immune civilian is our number one priority.”

The lieutenant threw an uncomfortable glace around the small office.

“But, sir,” he said nervously, “aren’t the orders from Central Command to cease all evacuations and observe and log what we
–
”

Yate’s face contorted with rage as he grabbed the laptop off of his desk and threw it full-force across the room.

The laptop shattered against the doorframe just inches away from the lieutenant’s head.

The terrified lieutenant quickly retreated from the doorway and ran back towards his control station, almost tripping over his own feet in the process.

“Do not ever question my authority again!” Yates billowed out from his office. “Until the goddamn president comes out of his hole in the ground and steps into this trailer, I am the
only
one making the decisions! If we don’t capture that immune civilian, we’re all going to be left here to rot! He is our last hope! Do you all understand!?”

“Yes, sir!” came the immediate reply from the terrified console operators. They kept their eyes glued to their monitors.

“Now, Lieutenant, order the helicopter to turn around and bring me that civilian! I don’t care if they have to pull his mangled corpse out of the wreckage! Is that understood?!”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant quietly replied, defeated.

Outside of the trailer, gunfire erupted and alarms started chirping throughout the complex.

“Proximity alarms are activating along the western side of the perimeter!” one of the console operators yelled, terrified. “It looks like a herd of them!”

“Infected?! Way out here?! All detachments, masks on! Masks on! Perimeter units, engage hostiles!” Yates ordered, fumbling to slide his gas mask over his fat face.

25

             
T
he lights were off in the Belk department store. The store was afforded some meager lighting from the moonlight shining through the overhead skylights and from the continuous white strobes of the fire alarms. The obnoxious fire alarms blared every ten seconds and echoed throughout the store, staying in sync with the wall strobes. Droplets of water trickled down from the sprinkler heads. Overturned display racks were scattered across the floor and piles of clothes lay soaked in the pools of water that had collected on the floor.

             
Mathis and Medford switched their white-suit’s lamps on and swept their beams across the jewelry department that was situated right in front of them. The glass jewelry cases had been shattered and everything of value had been stolen. Costume jewelry and cheap watches lay left behind in the water on the floor. Some of the water was tinged red, mixed with blood and small bits of flesh.

             
Richard stayed hidden behind Mathis and Medford and stared at the infected as they shook the security grille, desperately trying to pull it down. He gipped his pistol tightly, trembling, neck twitching.

             
Mathis kept still and silent, but he didn’t hear any movement inside the store.

             
“Why did they lock this place up?” Mathis whispered to Medford.

             
Medford hesitated a moment, afraid to venture ahead. He looked over at Mathis and spoke quietly.

             
“We… tried the antivirus that we had on file for ‘PT-12’,” Medford finally said. “They wanted us to try it, even though we already knew that ‘PT-12’ underwent an antigenic shift and the ‘vaccine’ was useless. It’s a joke, really. The ‘vaccine’ is simply another virulent pathogen that was engineered to devour ‘PT-12’ strains without causing ill effects to the hosts. The plan was to use one virus to cure another virus. We had no idea that the virus we were using as a cure was so volatile. We never even passed the antivirus through the final stage of testing, so how were we supposed to know?”

             
“There’s a cure?!” Richard exclaimed, rubbing his neck.

             
“They distributed it
here
?” Mathis asked, ignoring Richard’s outburst. “From what I heard on the HF lines, it sounded like the vaccine wasn’t working.”

             
“You’re right. The stuff is deadly,” Medford said reflectively, shaking his head. “At the CDC, we knew that the antivirus wasn’t ready going in, but the orders were to try it anyway. I guess they ran out of options and were getting desperate. Like I said, if we knew what that the antivirus was capable of once it got into a human host, we would have never risked trying it, despite the ill-informed orders…”

             
“What do you mean?” Mathis asked.

             
Medford laughed darkly and shifted uncomfortably inside his bulky suit.

             
“We… abandoned the operations center for a
reason
, colonel. I suggest that we hurry to that secure terminal and then get out of here as soon as quickly as possible.

“And if you’re considering moving forward without me, the door to the operations center is reinforced and secured with a battery-backup lock and I’m the only left alive who knows the code,” Medford said in a tone meant to sound threating but ultimately came out frightened.

             
Medford started to move forward, but stopped when Mathis grabbed his shoulder.

             
“Where did you store the oxygen canisters for the suits?” Mathis asked, glancing down at his nearly empty tank. The red light on his gauge flashed steadily.

             
Medford glanced down at his own tank, satisfied; he had the foresight to exchange his canister before they abandoned the center.

             
“Those are all stored in the armory we sat up in the supply office, next to the store manager’s office,” Medford said. He looked at Mathis, and saw that he was no longer carrying his rifle. Seeing Mathis without a weapon gave him a sense of security. “Maybe while you’re in there, you can find another weapon, since you seem to have lost yours.”

             
“Give me yours,” Mathis ordered, holding a hand out.

             
Medford gripped his pistol tightly, suddenly frightened again.

             
“I’d…I’d prefer to keep my pistol,” Medford said sheepishly.

             
Mathis clinched his fists, but then relaxed, forcing a sense of composure. He knew that it would be smarter to wait until the man let his guard down. He turned and looked at Richard, remembering that he held the other pistol…

             
Richard was stroking the pistol and staring down at it longingly. His lips were moving, speaking in silent whispers.

             
Mathis turned away. He knew that something wasn’t right about Richard, and he really didn’t want to test the man in such a dangerous state of mind.

             
No.

             
He would go after Medford’s, when the time was right.

             
“I hope you can shoot,” Mathis told Medford bitterly. “Go on! Lead the way, since you’re a leader of men all of a sudden.”

             
Medford uneasily entered the jewelry department, scanning the area with his nearly depleted pistol, navigating a maze of shattered glass display cases.

             
Mathis followed closely behind, staring at Medford, calculating.

             
Richard trailed in the back, clinching his teeth together as Andy continued to scream inside his head. Andy had been prattling on nonstop ever since the CDC white-suit mentioned a cure.

             
You have to do it!

             
(I can’t yet though! I need to wait until–)

             
Excuses! You’re fucking pathetic! Didn’t you hear what he said?! There is a cure – and they have it!

             
Richard shook his head and slapped his forehead with his open palm, groaning.

             
(YES! Yes, Andy, I know! Give me time to–)

             
Time for what?! They have a fucking cure! A cure! That means that you are worthless to them! Don’t you get it?! You’re expendable to them now and they’re going to kill you the first chance they get! Did you hear it?!

             
(Yes, Andy, yes! I know! I know already!)

             
Do you hear it?!

             
Richard stopped walking and started to pace back-and-forth, slapping his forehead with a closed fist. The gun in his other hand shook uncontrollably.

             
(YES! YES! YES! I KNOW, ANDY! I KNOW!)

             
Shut the fuck up! DO YOU HEAR IT?!

             
Richard stopped pacing and looked at the two white-suits in front of him; they had stopped walking and were staring off into the distance.

             
“Do you hear it?” Medford asked again, the fear evident in his voice.

             
Mathis shushed him and listened attentively.

             
The sound of multiple footsteps sloshing through stagnant water echoed above the blaring of the fire alarm. The sound seemed to be closing in from all around.

             
“God, we’re surrounded,” Medford whispered as he aimed his gun blindly ahead, frantically scanning with his light.

             
“Kill the lights,” Mathis whispered. “They’re honing in on us because of our lights.”

             
Medford and Mathis both shut off their white-suit’s light and the sound of sloshing feet abruptly stopped.

             
Medford shuffled ahead and made his way around a toppled display case full of gemstone earrings. He kept his weapon and eyes fixated blindly ahead, using the white strobes from the pulsating fire alarms to gain some limited visibility.

             
Mathis followed close behind, tailed by a nervous Richard.

Flies filled the air and the stagnant water on the ground was thick with blood.

             
Medford tripped over a mutilated torso and fell face-forward into the bloody water, screaming. In his panic his index finger tightened around the trigger–

             
The gunshot reverberated throughout the store and the sound of sloshing footsteps resumed, moving faster.

             
Medford flailed about in the puddle, panicking. He had gotten his foot tangled in something.

             
Mathis stepped back and quickly switched his light on. He aimed his beam down at the torso of what was once a teenage boy and immediately cringed in revulsion.

             
The boy’s arms and legs had been gnawed off and his innards had been dug out and lay strewn around him like confetti. Most of the boy’s face had been gnawed down to the bone.

             
The boy’s remaining eye fluttered opened and he started weakly opening and closing his mouth, biting the air, staring at Mathis with a ravenousness hunger in his eye.

             
“
Doctor!
” Mathis growled at Medford, snapping the man back to his senses. “What the
fuck
is in here? Infected don’t do
this
! They bite to infect, not… not
this
…”

             
Medford hurried back onto his feet, and freed his foot from the boy’s stringy intestines. He walked backwards away from the ravished corpse, stammering, shaking his head.

             
“That-that is why we need to hurry and–”

             
Medford’s words were cut short when he bumped against a tall man wearing the tattered remnants of a National Guard uniform.

             
The soldier’s left arm and the lower half of his jaw were gone. What remained of his tongue lolled out of his mouth and dribbled blood down the front of his already badly stained uniform. His milky eyes fixated on Medford.

             
Medford spun towards the soldier, faced him, and screamed.

             
The soldier drove his right fist back and punched it through Medford’s faceshield.

             
The plastic faceshield shattered and Medford’s white-suit depressurized instantly.

             
The soldier wrapped his cold hand around Medford’s throat and lifted him off of the ground, staring at him.