The Lazarus Impact (16 page)

CHAPTER 31

Dr. Vogel hears more accidents on the road, followed by grotesque sounds of the dead eating the living. He wriggles himself loose from his seatbelt. He deflates the air bag to get a better look out the windshield, but there’s no windshield, and the engine hood is completely flipped up in its place. One of the glass eye pieces in his gas mask is cracked, but not broken through. The window beside him, however, is completely shattered, and the roof of the car is nearly sandwiched down onto his head. The driver’s side door is stuck shut from the point of impact, and there’s no way he can fit out the window there. He’s not sure he wants to either. The sounds grow louder; grunts, groans, gnawing, slobbering, heavy breathing.

One of the beasts eyes him and gets close to the car, reaching out for his flesh. Dr. Vogel quickly squirms his way over the console and into the passenger’s seat, where there’s more room and the window is still intact. The mindless zombie reaches for him through the driver’s side window, but he’s too far.
Just out of reach, you bastard
. After several moments there’s finally a distraction, pulling the undead cannibal’s attention away from the car.

Dr. Vogel examines himself for injuries. He’s shocked. He barely has anything worse than minor cuts and bruises, though his left ribs feel extremely tender.
A fracture at most
.
Nothing life threatening
. His biological samples are still in their case, also undamaged.
I was lucky
.

Out the window he sees the insanity that has taken over the road. He thought he was clear of it, but more and more accidents jammed the entire highway as far as he can see to the east. The sick were driving, then seizing, and then dying, causing accidents.
The dead can’t drive
. Anyone still alive outside on foot is getting mauled by the infected and crazed monsters. He waits. Several zombies press their face to the passenger side window, but Dr. Vogel sits still and quiet, out of reach and safe in his destroyed car. He waits, and waits, and waits.

Eventually things grow quiet, as the infected follow runners from accidents further down the road where he came from. He slowly and quietly steps out of the car with his samples, making his way to the woods line along the side of the road. He stays low to the ground, ducking down between cars to avoid being seen by any stragglers. He grabs a broken metal mile marker post for protection as he walks east. It’s like a light weight axe or spade, with a particularly unlucky mile number acting as the blade.
I’m 13 miles from the Pennsylvania border
.

The runaway car that took out the sign hisses steam up a thick tree trunk. It finally stopped just a few feet into the woods line. Torn between his obligation to get the samples to a lab and his duty and oath as a medical doctor, Dr. Vogel stands in thought, staring at the crashed car.
Should I see if anyone needs help? The driver is either dead or one of them
.
I better not get any closer
.
There are probably hundreds of cars just like this one behind me and ahead of me
.
Why check this one and not the others? They would be easy to ignore
.
But what then? What kind of doctor, no, what kind of man would I be if I ignored them all? What if there’s someone in there who could still survive? Or better yet, what if it’s someone I know or someone that could help me in my quest to get samples to the government?

He walks toward the car. Surprisingly the windows are still intact, and all four doors are shut. He sees the driver; a man slumped over the steering wheel. Beside him is a mess of gore, and what looks like the remains of a woman lying dead in the passenger seat. A car window ice scraper is lodged in her eye socket, handle-end in with the flat, angled scraper side sticking out. The driver’s body slowly inflates and deflates.
He’s still breathing
.
The passenger must’ve changed while they were driving
.
She likely tried to attack him, but he somehow defended himself from the woman, only to crash into a tree and get knocked unconscious
. He can’t see any injuries on the man; just the stains of blood on his clothing.

After working up the courage, Dr. Vogel begins to knock on the glass. The driver stirs awake, holding his head in pain as he squints out to see Dr. Vogel. Tears fill his eyes upon seeing the dead woman next to him.

“I’m a doctor. Are you injured?” Dr. Vogel asks.

The man looks himself over, checking for wounds. “Leg,” he says.

Dr. Vogel opens the door and examines his leg. There’s a break just below his right knee. He carefully helps the man out of the car and lays him down on the cold dead grass. He grabs a sturdy tree branch that had been cut back from the road and snaps it down to size.

“There’s a break. I need to set it and get your leg in a splint,” Dr. Vogel explains. The man nods. His face is pale and clammy, as if sweating out in the cold. “Probably best to cover your mouth and nose. The debris cloud might be shifting.” Dr. Vogel tears a strip of the man’s pants from a small rip near his thigh to uncover the area near the break. He hands the fabric to the man to use as a makeshift mask.

Upon closer examination Dr. Vogel sees that the break is compound, with a piece of bone jutting through the skin. He also sees some slight bruising and puncture marks on his thigh.
A bite
.
I guess the passenger got to you after all
.
Setting your leg will probably prove a waste of time
.
Soon enough you’ll seize, die and return from the dead with a hunger for rare man-steak
.

“This is going to hurt, so just hang in there, okay?” Dr. Vogel warns him, receiving a nod in return.

With a yank, a twist and a shove Dr. Vogel returns the bone into the man’s skin. He groans in agony and pain, writhing and gritting his teeth. Dr. Vogel dresses the wound, tying strips of pants around the tree branch to keep the splint in place. He turns his attention to the bite, which seems to grow darker and more ominous by the moment.

“You know you were bitten?” he says.

“Yeah. It’s alright. I’ll be okay. Please take me with you. Take me somewhere I can get help,” he pleads.

“I’m going in the opposite direction. You’re welcome to come with me, but I’m kind of in a rush,” Dr. Vogel explains.

“What the hell are you going that way for?” he asks through increasingly tense breaths. His leg begins to twitch.

“Take it easy. Relax. Keep that leg still,” Dr. Vogel instructs. There’s no response. The man’s breathing becomes heavier. He sucks air in and out of his mouth furiously through tightly clenched teeth. Soon the leg twitch becomes a steady shake, spreading from his leg throughout the rest of his body. Dr. Vogel steps back and picks up his mile marker sign. He knows what’s about to happen. He waits for it. When the man’s eyes burst open revealing the yellow look of living death, Dr. Vogel jams the ragged end of the metal sign post handle into the man’s chest to kill him. To his medical astonishment, this does nothing. The man reaches up for Dr. Vogel with bloodlust, his mouth searching for man meat.
What the hell?
Dr. Vogel removes the handle from the man’s chest. He’s seen a few zombie films in his day, so he tries the head next. He shoves the pointed handle down into the man’s golden, bloodshot eye, piercing his brain. That does the trick.

Once his head clears, Dr. Vogel begins to put the picture together.
There are two distinct ways to change into the creatures
.
First is from breathing in the Lazarus meteor dust
.
The second is from a bite or bodily fluid transfer
.
The way the particles grew in the Petrie dish suggests that breathing them in causes a physical blockage in the lungs
.
Eventually the person dies
.
But that doesn’t explain the seizing, the foaming at the mouth, the reanimation, the change in eye color, and the blood thirst
.
Something must happen in the blood
.
This particle from space, this organism, this living crystalline structure, must somehow take over the blood, brain and body, and alter the human state
.
It’s not a virus, and it’s not bacteria
.
It’s a parasite of some kind; perhaps even a living, thinking being
.
It’s certainly like nothing mankind has ever seen; an alien life form
.
Both the organism and its effects on mankind are beyond normal; they’re paranormal
.
And they are beyond what could be observed in nature; they’re supernatural
.
And it is extremely aggressive
.

As he gets closer to Pennsylvania he starts to see strange yellow signs along the highway; newly erected, bright yellow pentagon-shaped signs with a black gas mask image in the center.
Do the officials know it spread beyond the quarantine? If not, the containment zone needs to be widened ASAP
.
All the more reason to get to the barricade and talk to someone in charge
.

He sees an exit sign for a county road that he knows runs east into Pennsylvania. Still worried about the outbreak on the highway, he turns off down the local road. It's a lonely road, dotted with farms and woods, but that means it's a safe road. Every road will be guarded, so the smart bet is to stay off the big highways, where more people are likely to jam up the roads and cause problems. He's getting close.

He hears a rustling in the woods beside him. It freezes him in his tracks. He holds his mile marker sign with two hands, with the biological sample bag slung across his shoulder. The rustling grows louder as it draws closer. He sees shadows shifting among the trees. Then what looks like moving branches emerge into a small clearing.
Antlers
.
It’s a deer
. Dr. Vogel is apprehensive.
If the animals can change, then people are in real danger
. He steps toward it and the majestic animal fixes its eyes upon him.
They’re normal, not glowing yellow with the bloodshot bloodlust of the people on the road
. Dr. Vogel steps toward it again, but the animal bolts back into the woods in fear.
If it had changed, it would’ve attacked me
.
But why didn’t it change?
Perhaps there’s something in human blood that makes us more vulnerable, or perhaps the lungs of wild animals are strong enough to withstand the airborne onslaught of this microscopic being
.
That would explain Wolf’s delayed and slowed symptoms
.
He’s in incredible physical shape; one of the world’s most fit
.
But without further study I can’t know for sure
.

He wishes he never left his career in immunology. As fearful as he is, this is also an exciting opportunity to discover more about the nature of life in our world, and the nature of life in worlds beyond.
If I were still in the labs down at the CDC I might be able to study this further, to contribute, to make a difference
. But fate works in mysterious ways. His career change took him away from there, but it also put samples into his hand that might be important for the study of this microbial life form.
Perhaps I’m the first to discover that the particles from the meteor might actually be alive
.
I wonder if any other scientists know that
.

CHAPTER 32

After some time there's room to drive along the side of the road, so Marcus takes the pickup down from the monster truck rally on top of the highway traffic. Michael’s skin seems to rattle with the lingering sensation of motion, but he can finally breathe again without feeling like he’s about to throw up. Marcus keeps his speed moderate, since he doesn’t want to burn through gas any more than he already has. A jacked up ‘86 pickup with a blown 350 doesn’t do well in the whole miles per gallon arena. No doubt they’ll have to stop and try to score gas at some point.

Amy turns her head to look in the truck bed; everything is still in its place, strapped down securely with bungee cords. Amazed, she congratulates Marcus on a job well done. She slides open the rear cab window and begins to climb back into the truck bed.

“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” Michael asks.

“I haven’t ridden in the back of a pickup since high school,” she cheers. “Do you mind?” she asks Marcus.

“Go right ahead. Just hang on,” he says.

Michael glares disapprovingly. “Be careful.” He watches her all the while.

They hit a small bump in the grass, giving Amy a little toss as she gets into the truck bed. She laughs it off and stands up, grabbing hold of the pipes that secure Marcus’ array of high beam lights on top of the passenger cab. With her other hand she holds her mask, securing it in place and keeping it from blowing off her head in the cold winter wind. She doesn’t mind the sting of frost in the air. She feels free.

“I had no idea she ever rode in the back of a pickup,” Michael says to Marcus.

“Everybody got their secrets,” he says.

“Yeah? And what’s your secret?” Michael asks.

Marcus leans closer to Michael and whispers, “It’s a secret.”

The amount of stopped cars on the highway lightens as they make their way further from the city, and soon Marcus is back on the pavement. Every so often he dodges and weaves around abandoned cars or bodies.

“The concept of road kill has completely changed in meaning, eh?” Michael says.

“Indeed it has,” Marcus responds. “Indeed it has.”

They’ve entered Pennsylvania, and as long as the roads stay somewhat clear, they’ll be at Amy’s parents’ house in a few short hours. But gas is getting low, so Marcus begins to check each car they pass. Amy helps him get the plastic tubing out from the truck bed and hops out to watch him siphon bits of fuel off from each car. On occasion he slides himself underneath the back ends of cars and punctures the gas tanks, filling a plastic gas can from whatever flows out of the abandoned or wrecked cars. They quickly notice they’re getting more from wrecks than abandonments. It makes sense: the people that ran out of gas must’ve left their cars in search of fuel; but when people were in a crash that totaled their car, they often still had plenty of gas so long as the tank wasn’t ruptured.

Amy moves back into the cab as they get closer to her town. Strange plumes of smoke rise up from alongside the highway, ruining her free-spirited ride on top of Marcus’ truck. Craters dot the cornfields and farms of rural Pennsylvania. Ahead in the distance they can see the ghostly, faded shape of a massive and dispersing mushroom cloud.

Amy guides Marcus off the highway at her exit, and they slowly roll through the ravaged town that was her Main Street when growing up. Homes and storefronts look devastated, like a tornado hit the area. Some are in shambles, and others, usually the ones with sturdier structures, remain unscathed. There are more bodies and more abandoned cars. Amy begins to worry about her parents. After a few quick turns they arrive on her street. The home is okay, but three bodies are flopped on her parents’ lawn. She knows right away. One of them is her father, up by the glassed-in porch. His face is covered with a mask but she knows it’s him. She climbs over Michael and jumps out of the truck before it even comes to a stop. Her mask fills with fog and tears as she kneels down beside her father’s body. She sees the gunshot wound on his chest, and picks up his gun beside him.

“Something went wrong here,” Michael says as he and Marcus approach.

“Yeah no shit! My father is dead!” Amy cries out.

Michael consoles her. “No I mean... look. He was defending the house from these two,” He points at the male and female corpses in the front of the house. “They look like they changed and he shot them. But your dad still has his mask on. He was shot, not bitten or sick.”

“There was someone else shooting,” Marcus adds. “These bullet holes on the bodies here... they ain’t from his piece. These are like rifle shots.”

“How can you tell?” Michael asks.

Marcus pauses, still reluctant to bring up his past. He knew the difference between a pistol wound and something else like a rifle or a shotty.

“My mom might still be inside,” Amy blurts, running inside.

“Whoa, whoa hold up!” Michael chases after her, noticing the broken windows and wide open doorway in the front of the house. Marcus follows with his scythe across his back.

“Mom! Mom!” Amy yells as she peeks her head into different rooms on the first floor.

“Okay try to calm down,” Marcus says as he catches her in mid-stride between the living room and dining room. She buckles in his muscled arms and cries on his shoulder. Marcus passes her off to Michael. “Stay here,” he says to Michael. Michael nods, and Marcus begins to cautiously sweep the house.

He creeps from room to room, stalking every single nook in the home, closets included. He takes notice of all the religious images displayed throughout the house; paintings of Mary, framed images of Jesus, a cross somewhere in each room.
God is watching
. He hears something fidgeting around upstairs. The ceiling squeaks with movement from above. He slowly goes up, one step at a time, silently placing each foot with care, holding his breath so as not to make a sound. The noise is coming from the right. He can hear what sounds like a woman struggling, breathing heavily. Marcus gets up to the top of the stairs and turns the corner to see an Asian woman tied to a chair on the far side of a bedroom, beside a vanity next to a window. Her face is exposed to the poisonous air that pours in from the broken windows below. Her sunken eyes glow with the dirtied amber color of piss. She drools at the mouth upon seeing Marcus, violently shaking in her chair, trying to get at him. Marcus sweeps the rest of the upstairs quickly before going back down.

“Is she okay?” Marcus asks Michael in private.

Michael shakes his head no.

Amy catches her breath and collects her emotions on a chair in the living room. Marcus pulls Michael into the kitchen and whispers to him what he saw upstairs, but Amy overhears them arguing about whether they should tell her, and she hears the noises from above. She goes up on her own as they bicker. When they hear her scream in terror at the discovery, they both run up to her.

“No! No, mom, no!” she cries. Amy’s mother stretches her head so far out toward them, trying to bite them, that she nearly pulls the vertebrae in her neck out of articulation. That hunger, that rabid desire for flesh, completely consumes her.

“Hey what’s this?” Michael says, picking up a letter on the vanity beside Amy’s mother. It has Chinese characters scrawled onto it.

“It’s addressed to me,” Amy says. “A note from my mother.” She opens it and reads it to herself, whimpering all the while.

“What does it say?” Michael asks.

Amy looks longingly into her mother’s pissy eyes and ravenous face, trying with every ounce of her will to find a shred of humanity left in there. But there’s none. She knows it.

“Baby?” Michael puts his arm around Amy.

Amy begins to read with anger in her voice. “Dearest Amy. If you should find this note, please know that your father and I love you very much. We have always wanted happiness and success for you in life. We were hiding away here. The air was safe for us inside, but no longer. We know what happens next. If you should return and find us here like those demons, please put us down. We do not wish to become the living dead.”

The groans and seething hunger of Amy’s mother break the tension that lingers in the air among them. She lunges at them fruitlessly from her chair. Her skin rips and tears beneath the bindings that tie her down, exposing meat and bone beneath.

“What could have happened?” Marcus asked.

“Maybe the windows broke and she started to get sick, so she wrote the note to Amy,” Michael offers.

“But we still don’t know where those rifle rounds came from,” Marcus adds.

Ignoring the discussion, Amy holds her father’s gun to her mother’s head. Her mother tries feverishly to bite her hand. Tears stream down Amy’s face.

“Do you want me to bear this burden?” Marcus offers.

“No. It’s my burden,” she says between sobs.

She fires a bullet into her mother’s temple. A red spray coats everything nearby, soaking a framed image of Christ with Amy’s mother’s blood. A long silence follows, interrupted only by the pitter patter of brain bits and skull fragments that fall from the nearby wall and curtains like raindrops as they hit the carpet.

All momentum was drained from their cause in that moment. Their destination, their solace; it was just another nightmare. Amy’s dreams of breaking her diet with a taste of the salted pork she grew up with would now remain fleeting memories of a time taken for granted.

Marcus fixes his eyes on the blood-soiled image of Jesus. He says a prayer in his head, asking for his, Michael’s, Amy’s and her parents’ sins to be washed away in the Lord’s blood. He asks that they be welcomed into God’s grace. “We should give your folks a proper burial,” he suggests after a moment. He beckons Michael over to him. He whispers into his ear that they should go find shovels and start to dig two graves in the yard. Michael agrees, and they dig. Afterward, Marcus fashions two crosses from some wood he finds in the shed. Amy joins them outside after some time passes, after gathering her emotions.

“Thank you,” she says. Michael hugs her, but the reception isn’t what he hoped it would be. She’s distant.

“Help Marcus with their bodies,” she says to him without making eye contact.

Marcus and Michael carry Amy’s parents into the backyard one at a time, and the two men bury them. As the sun sets Marcus offers a prayer, and Amy kneels with her hands folded together to join him. Michael tries not to roll his eyes or show his distaste for religion. He stands by quietly with his hands on his hips.

“Let’s stay here for the night. We can pack up some things and then keep moving west in the morning. It’s obviously not safe here,” Amy suggests. “I don’t think I can stay here any longer than that anyway.”

Marcus and Michael agree with the plan, and they all head back inside to clean up and get ready for the journey ahead. They spend the evening gathering things and packing them into Marcus’ truck.