The Nameless Survivor (Valkyrie) (29 page)

             
Within minutes the incursion subsided, and slowly I stood and crept back outside to investigate the damage. To my surprise there were no flames, no destruction or any obvious sign of an attack. The streets were as calm and empty as we had left them, not even the sound of the plane could be heard.

             
“What was that?” Mia asked.

             
The answer to her question soon drifted down upon us, thousands of leaflets, quickly collected upon the streets like oversized confetti. Curiously I reached out and snatched one as it slowly drifted down like a lost feather from a soaring bird. Just a narrow strip of crudely made paper, a recently manufactured product, the signature of a new yet primitive industry. It was a message, a communiqué for us and anyone else who continued to live.

Global Federation of Survivors

There is still hope,

The Infected are Starving, they are dying.

Keep to the main roads, travel only by day,

Seek the closest GFS Refugee Camp.

Do not give up hope, do not fall prey.

SURVIVE.

              This was the sign of hope that Mia and I were looking for, and with it our spirits were high. We withdrew back into the hotel for the night, a smile comfortably resting across both our faces. It will be a long night, our minds raced with excitement, and sleep was an impossibility. Instead we sit close to each other and talked, for the first time, about our foreseeable future. Assumptions, aspirations, and simple predictions carry us through the twilight as we ponder all the wonderful things to come. A great man once said, ‘Tragedy is a necessity in order to reunite a feuding family.’ Befitting this tragedy that has fallen upon society, but just might allow us to overcome our own hate and corruption, and reunite once again as the strongest of the species.

             
The abrupt end to our past had left me all but incomplete, although over the last few years I would have never admitted to it. Then came Mia, and I concluded that she was the missing piece, an end to my eternal solitary. However, it wasn’t until an epistle fell from the sky that I realized the depth of my social pining. I yearn for Barbeques, Sports Games, Holiday Parties, and even Menial Work. Trivial activities of the Old World that once felt condemning and torturous to me, are now encouraged and welcomed.

             
The sun had yet to peak over the horizon when we set off this morning, the stars still sparkled brightly in the sky, and the haunting hoots of a lone owl was a fitting sendoff.  Six GFS Refugee Camps were listed on the backside of those leaflets, staggered up and down the east-coast, along with one in Newfoundland. The closest, Fort Rockland, nestled on the coast just south-east of us. Rockland was a small town settled along the outer edge of a quaint harbor, cut off from the open-sea by a mile-long granite break-water. At one time, long ago, it was a major port for New England's fishing industries, and now it seems to be a haven for survivors.

             
We were at least a hundred miles away from this sanctuary, maybe more, and I feared that our bus would not make the trip. But I held my chin high and navigated carefully down a deteriorated road, dodging debris and puttering through a maze of abandoned cars before we exited Kingfield and onto more rural and barren byways. Mia and Nova rested in the cracked pleather seats, staring out the dusty windows and watching the ever changing scenery. The mountains were slowly fading behind us as the country-side opened up into severely neglected farmland.

             
Although the radio was still functioning, I was surprised there were no Emergency Broadcasts, no message from the GFS, or any other transmissions. The airwaves were just as empty and lonely as the roads we traveled, silent and dead except for a numbing static. I even scanned the CB Radio, calling out only multiple channels hoping for someone, anyone to respond.

             
“Hello, is anyone out there?” Nothing but static.

             
“Can anyone hear me?” I tried again.

             
“Luke, I am your father!” Lightening the mood with a cheap imitation.

             
Giving up, I refocused on the road, pushing the bus to its limit and hoping to put as many miles behind us as I could. My mind faded into a calm and silent trance, only visions of a desolate path repeatedly passing beneath us like an unstoppable treadmill. The landscaped slid by us without notice, not even the sound of our rumbling chariot could disrupt my center. I was in the zone, on a mission, and nothing was going to stop us… Nothing.

             
We couldn’t have traveled more than an hour when a thunderous and startling thunk resonated from the engine. A most unnerving discord, in extremely hostile territory no less. Soon followed by a thick cloud of black smoke, billowing up from underneath the hood before she slowly sputtered to her death. My confidence was once again crippled by misfortune, and in disgust, I slammed my head hard upon the steering-wheel.

             
“You bitch!”

             
Quietly Mia kept in her seat, she knew not to provoke an angry bear, and my temper had reached its tipping point. My knuckles were painted white as I gripped the steering-wheel tightly, hoping, praying that this was just a dream. Deep breathes, slow and systematic, taming the wild beast before it was unleashed insight of my beloved. I was losing my cool, and we were in the worst of places for me to fall prey to foolishness.

             
The radio still crackled with a ghostly static, and silently I focused on the neutral hiss, using it to take back control. At first I dismissed the muddled echo behind that constant buzz, maybe I assumed it to be natural feedback, or simply did not care to take notice. I don’t really recall my thoughts at the time. But soon thereafter and without warning, something snapped-on in my head, and in an instant the world rushed back into focus.

             
There was a voice, the words reached out from behind a cloud of white noise, so faint yet so familiar. Slowly I turned the volume to its max and almost instantly a vintage-melody cut through the static with such anguish and sadness. A moment of relief set in as a smile broke out from underneath my beard, someone was broadcasting!

              Billie Holliday’s voice rung true in my ears, Strange Fruit struck like a knife of depression and despair through the heart. My grandmother adored her music, and every evening her music played upon an old record-player on my grandparents back porch.               Those words of anger, an outcry against racial persecution, from a time when hate ruled the country. But, now seemed justly fitting for the persecution we face from today's plague. This world – a world that we once looked upon as a trivial means to life, is now nothing more than a strange and bitter crop.

             
“Who is that singing?” Mia asked as she finally walked towards me and lay herself against my back.

             
“Billie Holiday.” I answered as I placed my hand upon hers.

             
“Are we walking now?” she asked.

             
“Yes Mia, we are.” I responded.

             
Ditching our crippled chariot, we found ourselves hiking once again, ignoring the screams of agony resonating from our muscles. As we stumbled along I searched intently for radio towers, for anything that could have been used to broadcast those depressing lyrics. Although I had no clue as to what or who we may find, we had little choice but to expose ourselves in the hopes of finding another means safely across this vast and unforgiving landscape.

continuance;

              By late afternoon we came to an old gas station, Everett’s Garage, and like a beacon from heaven I spotted the pint-sized radio tower barely clinging to the roof. A dusty solar panel rested purposely to its side, weather beaten yet in one piece. Just maybe those old and decrepit cells retained just enough life for a simple yet continuous broadcast, a message, a somber sonnet dedicated to a desolate but not yet dead world. I held back my excitement as not to give Mia any false hope, for all I knew this could be nothing at all, or quite possibly a trap.

             
Mia and her pup followed me towards the garage-bay, fearful and curious. The old repair-shop did not appear to be occupied, at least not for a few year now, anyway. The structure was weak and in the process of slow decay. Although I was unsure of its architectural integrity, my own curiosity negated any concern for our safety. Or maybe it was out of desperation, either way it was reckless at best.

             
Nova's ears perked up, and her soft pelt became erect and coarse, she could hear something. Calmly I pulled out my pistol carefully stepped through the hollow doorway and into the building. The garage bay was cluttered with rusted tools and other junk, garbage was strewn about the place and an old beat up Chevy Impala rested tireless upon crumbling cinder-blocks. The doorway to the office was obstructed by a stack of busted pine pallets, and at the far end of the bay stretched a staircase that rose up to a sagging second floor. Only foreboding darkness escaped from the room at the top, and for a moment I considered retreating back onto the street.

             
Slowly we ascended, if all was clear we would have ourselves a secure place to rest, at the moment my only concern was that the floor boards would hold our weight. Ignoring the groans and creaks of every step we entered a large room at the top. Only one dust-laden window spilled in the suns light revealing a similar scene to the first floor. A trashed and empty storage room with the remains of a mice-infested couch to one end. On the opposite side of the chamber lay another doorway, beyond, more darkness.

             
Slowly I crept forward, my gun poised in one hand, as my other held tightly to Mia's. Faint orange rays of sunlight bled through a single crack along the wall, barely enough to illuminate the room. The alcove was quite small, at first I assumed it to be a closet or even a bathroom, but in reality it was something much more sinister. As the floor boards settled from the strain, a faint whisper arose over the silence. I almost didn’t notice it, but then that familiar and depressing voice registered like a freight train in my ears. My eyes widened and adjusted to the dimness, and in the corner lay a small record player still spinning an old forty-five on repeat.

             
Beside the turn-table was a small lantern for which I quickly snatched up and lit. Mia gasped as the room came to light revealing a corpse in the other corner. More of a skeleton, its skull shattered long ago by the shot-gun that lay to the floor. His dingy clothes were still stained with blood and clung like skin to his bones. Whoever this man was, unlike most, knew that there is more to fear in life than there ever was in death. The only question we face is if there is something meaningful that is worth living in fear for.

             
We found little of use amongst all the junk, yet still decided to stay the night. Although I closed the door to Billie's room, Mia found it difficult to relax, and the faint mumblings dancing throughout the airwaves did not ease her anxiety. For some reason it just didn't feel right to shut down the broadcast. Dawn is almost upon as I conclude this entry and soon we will leave this place behind, allowing Billy's voice to live on as a timeless eulogy for the dead.

Requiescat in Pace.

             
Back in the day, long before the fall and when I was just a boy, I heard many tales of a mysterious plague devastating the deer populations across the country. The Government warned citizens to avoid any consumption of organ meat, most importantly the brain. Yet, there was no evidence that this Chronic Wasting Disease affected humans. But with the scare of Mad Cow Disease among other food-borne illnesses, the CDC was taking no chances. Some, including my father, believed it all to be a myth, pathetic propaganda from PETA or some other hippy-veganist-organization.

             
However, when I was maybe fourteen, my father and I witnessed that horrible blight firsthand. We had been tracking a lone spike-horn for miles across unfamiliar country when the forest parted into a serene clearing. A stench of rotting flesh flooded our senses, the putrid smell was beyond grotesque, and we covered our face with our shirts in a failed attempt to block it out. That same foul odor would become all too common after the Great Outbreak.

             
The sun dazzled down upon an unimaginable and horrific sight. The secluded plot was abandoned of foraging critters, and overrun with a swarm of flies buzzing around the dead and dying carcasses of maybe thirty or forty deer. Those that were still alive were barely able to lift their heads above the golden swale-grass, simply too weak from malnutrition. Ribs bulged from their pelt and swollen tongues hung from their lifeless mouths. It was exactly how they had described the disease, factual propaganda and an unfortunate waste of life.

             
At first I was confused by the sight before us. Why did they all come to this place, why die here? Just by the perplexed look on my face, my father knew what I was asking myself. He slowly knelt down, tugging my arm to follow suit, and in his wisdom he explained as only he could interpret it. “In the face of death, life tends to seek out the comfort of their own kind.” Social instinct I presume, life’s natural fear of death.

             
I hadn't thought about that day for many years, not until today. Mia and I left the roads and began walking through a vast stretch of abandoned farmland, hoping that cutting cross country would save us some time. Grasslands, pastures, and corn-fields, now overgrown with milk-weed, hog-grass and all sorts of ravenous plants. Each field lay sectioned off by miles and miles of rock walls. These old barriers have stood for many years, built way back when men were stronger and more self-sufficient. A time when a hard day of manual labor was respected and a normal part of everyday life. A time when the dead, actually stayed dead. A better time.

             
One such meadow stretched down a gradual slope through a mass of tall golden reed-grass, almost untouched by other more hideous weeds. Towards the far side rose a large and ancient apple tree with little foliage left on its dry limbs, let alone apples. An ominous flock of crows circled elegantly above, like us, hoping to find some fresh fruit still worth eating.

             
Nova instantly darted off into the tall reeds, rapidly zig-zagging through it like she was dodging bullets. Mia on the other hand, slowly picked her way through a maze of discarded spider webs, the broken strands still cradling the remains of spent bugs. And although the garden-spiders had already died off with the coming winter, the bug necropolis was an unfortunate sign that, unlike humans, the insect population was booming.

             
As I made my way across the field, a growing and all too familiar rotting stench filled my nose. Nova smelled it as well, although I could not see her, she had stop in her tracks and had begun to let out her signature menacing growls. The odor was slightly more putrid then that of those wasted deer, the decay in the air seemed to rage like fire within my nostrils yet also muddled with a strong yet sweet overtone. Unmistakably this was the rotting odor of the infected. I pulled out my gun and immediately signaled for Mia to hang back as I pushed forward.

             
In reservation I cleared the tall grass and found myself standing before that great tree, only to have my deprived stomach empty itself upon the ground. Strewn about the area laid a mass of decaying corpses. The crows that circled above were after them, not the fruit, as it was obvious that some of the corpses had been pecked clean to the bone. Men, women and children along with a small assortment of woodland creatures were among the masses. An execution site was my first assumption, a small herd gunned-down by a group of survivors. Yet it wasn't until I forced myself to inch closer that I realized the true nature of this unsettling pastoral scene. A single female body, resting back against the tree, shriveled and rotten much like the fallen fruit that surrounded it.

             
The corpse's legs were rotted away below the knees, leaving only shattered, sun-bleached bone. Her clouded eyes stared up at me as if asking for help, yet still she lay motionless, lifeless. But, she was not dead. None of them were truly dead. Weak, decayed and starving, wasting away within an unbreakable shell of evil. This was no massacre, nor was it a cleansing, those bags-of-bones came together in the face of an ungodly famine. Maybe out of instinct, driven by the virus’s will, or maybe, just maybe there was something of humanity left within their gray-matter. A lost fear of dying utterly alone. The irony in this unforeseen behavior soon set in, this Necrotic Wasting Disease.

             
Gently I knelt down before the young girl and looked back into those murky eyes. She was maybe only eight when she turned, just a child. She appeared so fragile and innocent that a moment of sympathy had nearly caused me to forget her true nature. And yet there was also something too familiar within her dark and sunken gaze. Something from my past, something...

             
The Devil’s Orchard! It was the same child-beast I had crippled many years ago back at that desolate orphanage. How she survived this long boggled my mind, and even more how far she had traveled. No longer was she the sweet little ginger from hell, but withered and ultimately forsaken. Only the faded freckles on her cheeks and the emptiness in her eyes gave away her identity, let alone the shattered bones in her knees. Her finger tips were no more than dirty and worn bone, the flesh torn away from digging into the earth and dragging herself across the state for so many years.

             
Gently I brushed the girl’s scraggly hair from her partially decayed face, her mouth trembling open as she tried to use what little strength she had to bite. A pitiful site to see, such a ferocious creature now weak and helpless. Guilt that was once long forgotten flooded my emotions again, the guilt of allowing her to suffer any more than she already had.

             
“I should have ended this long ago.” I whispered, just as Mia cleared the tall grass and walked up behind me. Silently I pulled out my knife with one hand and pulled the girls head down with the other. Swiftly I plunged the blade into the base of her skull, and what little life remained within those degraded muscles vanished in an instant. “Rest.” I breathed as I drew the blade back and wiped it clean upon her ratted dress.

“You knew her?” Mia asked.

“Not exactly.” I answered. “She was just a past revelation.”

“I don’t understand.” She mumbled.

“It doesn’t matter.” I said with a quick wink. “Give me a hand.”

             
Mia helped with the task of dispatching the remains of the others. She assisted with a sharp stick without any rejections as I continued on with my blade, such a strong-willed woman she has become. There was no time to bury them, instead we would leave them where they lay, for the birds to feast. Before walking away I took a brief moment to carve a short inscription into the bark of that old tree. A eulogy for the condemned and tormented. A memorial to those who have suffered and continue to suffer, and to those who gathered at that very tree to forever waste away.

“Here lay a strange and bitter crop,

Some fruit for the crows to pluck,

And some for the sun to rot.”