The Reaper Virus (22 page)

My abject horror came from seeing arms waving
above the water line. Those barges of litter were made of
people
… or at least they
used
to be people. Much like the dim lighting that
spared me from the details of my first kill, the brown water
concealed most of the gore. One or two would go by, then another so
bloated it looked only remotely human, then a quartet got caught up
on each other’s motionless corpses. There was one flailing near the
bank on the south side of the river. Another was speared upon a
tree branch protruding from a mass of timber stuck on a
shallow.

For the first time since taking to the rails
I looked back towards Richmond. I had gone far enough that the
quaint skyline disappeared behind the trees and this harboring
landscape, but there was evil to been seen behind me just as there
was flowing aside me. A plume of swirling smoke connected the
devastation of the city to the desolation of the sky. It connected
the ravaged land to the heavens above. There was no difference
between heaven and hell… now there was
only
hell
to be found.

I could have stared all day. Seemingly every
wave brought a new instance of this unequivocal repugnance. This
was no longer the James River I knew – this was the River Styx. All
of my happy memories felt drowned by the sight of this watery
funeral procession for Richmond. Vomit began to work its way up my
esophagus. Before submitting to this nausea, my attention was
grappled from a noise somewhere ahead. I stopped dead and listened.
The ever-present river roar and gurgle of my churning stomach were
muted as I focused like a predator. The noise I heard was a voice.
I grabbed my pack and bolted towards the westerly cry. The
wonderfully pain numbing effects of adrenaline relieved my aching
body in support of my excitement for finding another
living
human.

“
Help me!
”

Now I knew I wasn’t crazy. The voice grew
louder as I closed the distance.

“
PLEASE SOMEONE! Please
God, help me!
”

It was a man’s voice coming from an area on
the bank just ahead. The already thin tree line between the tracks
and water became even sparser here. I was close.

I nearly fell over when I saw him. An oblong
oak tree grew over the water. It formed a thick branched arm that
came within inches of the surging rapids. The man clung to the
branch. He faced the oncoming waves as his body traveled eastbound
with the current. I released my survival pack from its place on my
back before I even stopped moving. The loud crunch that rang from
its impact with the gravel alerted the poor man to rescue.

“Hey man, I’m over here!” I imagined him
waving like an excited friend if his arms weren’t wrapped around
the long oak limb.

“I’m going to get you out!” I shouted,
eliminating my previous stealth. “Just hang on! I’ll get to
you.”

The muddy slope was treacherous. If I let the
excitement get the best of me I’d end up down the river myself. My
boots sank into the muck as I reached for the tree. The long
horizontal branch dipped down at the tree’s trunk and went beneath
the waves. It then broke from the water and continued up several
gravity-defying feet before making its proper vertical climb.

Assessing the situation, I knew that if I
attempted to cross the branch I’d end up taking us both down the
rapids. I could see him clearly now. He looked like a stray cat
after being stuck in a rainstorm. What worried me more than his
pathetic appearance was the sheer desperation in his eyes.

“I can’t get across to you,” I began to say
as he splashed his legs in the rapids and cut me off.

“PLEASE OFFICER! You can’t leave me! Those
things keep floating by!” he screamed back.

“Sir, just settle the fuck down! I’m NOT
leaving you.” Upon hearing this he stopped his frantic kicking and
just froze. “Listen, I’ve got some rope in my pack. There’s more
than enough for me to get a line to you.” I couldn’t tell whether
or not he was nodding in acceptance or just freezing cold. “Just
hang on, man – I’m not going anywhere without you.”

It didn’t matter if he responded. Time was of
the essence and I had to act quickly. The thing he said about
“things going by” concerned me. Assuming I could get him on the
line, one of the infected could grab him and we’d all end up in the
water.

I looked around, paranoid, my peace
shattered. The butterfly coil of rope came off my pack without
resistance. Before turning back to the river bank I had a vivid
image of being swept away in the rapids by bloated undead arms. I
yanked the crowbar free and tucked it into the belt line at my
back. The last thing I want is to need it for defense or as
leverage to pull myself from the water, but I’d rather have it on
me than watch it disappear from the river.

Three seconds later I was back at the murky
waterline. I knotted one end around another oak tree a few feet
from the rapids. The man watched every move as intently as a
prisoner does his executioner.

“What’s your name, buddy?” I was desperate to
break the tension. The man was black with short hair matted with
silt, and was probably just a few years older than me. He looked to
be wearing a light jacket that was equally coated in grime.
Everything chest down was still enveloped by the James.

“Philip. Most people call me Phil,” he told
me shakily, clearly exhausted.

“Well, Phil,” I tried to sound confident, and
selfishly was just worried about sounding like a coward, “my name
is Nathan and it’s nice to meet you. Sure could’ve picked a better
time to go swimming, eh, Phil?”

This elicited a tight-lipped smile, his jaw
trembling from chattering teeth. “Yeah… guess I could have. Are you
a cop? Is more help coming?”

My shoulders sank, and I silently screamed
profanity at my stupid jacket. “I’m sorry to answer no to both
questions. I just work… err
worked
for the
police department and it’s just me trying to get home to my
family.”

The rope was tight. An infected woman
splashed by about six feet from Phil. “Hey, Nathan… uh, can you
please hurry?” Phil shouted through a wave that splashed against
his cheek.

Rather than responding I just worked faster.
I grabbed a piece of driftwood that was sanded down from its watery
travels. Its leg-length, oblique angle allowed me to attach it to
the rope without issue. I set it down and tested the rig’s strength
by stepping on it and pulling up.

Confident it wouldn’t snap on us, I moved
back to the waterline. “Listen, Phil – this seems solid. I’m going
to throw it as close to you as possible.” The desperately pathetic
man nodded furiously with every word. “It might take a few tries so
don’t grab it if you’re not sure. We’ll keep trying until you’re
out of the water.”

I made a pseudo-throwing motion to signal the
ready. “Alright, my friend, you ready to get out of there?”

“I’m ready.” The water splashed over his head
again. A downward facing and motionless corpse coasted closely
by.

The first toss missed him completely and the
current tried to pull the whole rig downstream. This told me that
when I did get him on the line, I’d have a tug-o-war on my hands.
Toss number two was close enough to splash him on its impact. Those
were my practice throws… I had the hang of it.

Toss number three came within inches of his
back. For all I know the driftwood did hit the part of Phil which
was submerged in the rapids. He released his hold and flipped
towards the lifeline. Immediately I felt like I was fishing and had
hooked a whale. I braced against the other oak tree, which was the
only thing that saved me from getting yanked into the water. Every
pull took levels of strength I did not think I still had. My body
screamed at me for subjecting it to more torture.

Phil still had enough in him to hang on. The
length of rope between us shortened inch by inch. I tried not to
think about how many times I felt my muscles telling me this was
the end. My desire to have the company of a living person again
fueled each pull. A few agonizing minutes later I began to see more
of Phil emerge from the murky depths. My burning palms radiated
their pain throughout my body. Another second and the pulling
became easier. Phil’s feet were finally able to find leverage on
the bank. With his last lunge for self-preservation and another
yank on the life line from me, Phil at last emerged from the
water.

I threw a numb arm out and grabbed him near
his elbow. He did the same, pulling back using all the strength he
could muster. Momentum carried us past my vertical oak bracing and
to the sloping bank. A banshee-like shriek emanated from the spot
Phil just vacated. I only caught a second’s glance of the
half-faced beast before the rapids silenced it. Pulling this poor
man from certain death had already made me wish to be far away from
this river, but hearing that unholy sound only spurred me on. I
leapt to an uneasy footing and dragged Phil to the gravel line by
my pack.

I’d like to think even an Olympic athlete
would be wiped out after this ordeal. Both of us lay motionless and
near hyperventilation. Everything hurt so bad that I wanted to
sleep right then and there. It didn’t matter that my new companion
had been through far more than I. All I could think now was how the
steel rail and coarse gravel were as comfortable as my memory foam
mattress.

With every heave of my chest, my thought
process jumbled further. I have always thought of myself as someone
who has affected many lives, but I’ve never directly saved one.
Pulling Phil from the James River was an out of body experience.
Even though I was exerting myself like never before, the immediate
memory was that of watching someone else doing it. I was not the
hero. I was not the savior. All I was was someone who wanted to get
home.

Reluctantly, I’d become the hero. From then
until whatever day I die I would be the one who was completely
responsible for the continuation of another life. The plan that had
kept me alive to that point would have to change. Any selfishness
that came through surviving the newly severed bonds of human
reality had to be abandoned. Those thoughts unnerved me. Lance came
to mind; that must be how he felt around me. I began to wonder if
he was still alive but stopped that train of thought to focus on
everything around me.

Phil drifted in and out of consciousness a
few feet from me. A glimmer of medical training popped into my
brain. Letting him fall asleep probably wouldn’t be helpful for his
possible hypothermia and shock.

What mattered was that we were safely beyond
the reach of the churning deluge. If I had the strength to stress
myself out with thinking, then I sure as hell had to find the
strength to keep Phil alive. The sun had moved to the far end of
the sky. Glancing at my watch I remembered the approaching darkness
and sighed. Sunset was less than two hours away and I was stuck
without shelter, with a waterlogged stranger. I groaned like an old
man and rolled over to check on my new companion.

* * *

1541 hours:

It took two hard slaps on the face before
Phil came to. He sat up in a fearful startle. Still worried about
drawing any landlocked zombies to us, I stopped him from expressing
his surprise out loud. Several minutes later he began to come back
down to our harsh reality.

“How did you get here?” Phil inquired in a
shakily uncertain voice.

“I walked in from the city. I got trapped on
duty a few days ago.” I removed the crowbar from my back and
returned it to the proper place in my pack while I spoke. He
watched me closely. In this new, violating world still being human
wasn’t enough to earn trust. Phil had every right to be suspicious
of me. I sure as hell was suspicious of him. “How is it that you
ended up dangling from a tree limb in a corpse filled river?”

His eyes drifted to the left then back
towards me. “My girlfriend and I were canoeing and camping our way
down the river. We started a week ago. Last night we camped on the
outskirts of Powhatan State Park.” Phil stopped and coughed up what
I hoped to be water. “Today we started seeing the bodies. Every
minute we got closer to Richmond more bodies were in the water.
Then we started seeing some of them on the banks. My girlfriend
would call out to them, but no one responded. We’d never been
through Richmond… I assumed it was because they weren’t friendly. I
mean I read about that virus and all, but we both camped a lot to
stay away from people. I didn’t think these people we were seeing
were sick.”

“Those
people
aren’t
people anymore. They are dead. The virus takes over them and turns
them into something else. If you give them a chance they will tear
you apart and infect you too.”

Phil’s expression grew distant. I knew I’d
been too cold in what I just said. He had no idea what I’d been
through and I was just as clueless with him. I mentally kicked
myself for being so matter of fact about this hell we now live
in.

“Yeah I had a feeling, but my girlfriend
wouldn’t listen. A little while later we saw the first ones in the
water that still…
moved
.” A tear cleared a
path through the muck on his cheek. “I told her to leave them be. I
told her that they were sick, but she wouldn’t
listen
! She paddled over to this guy that looked
mostly normal. The closer we got the more I noticed the black lines
around his neck. Until we got right up on him… his neck was turned
away from us.”

He was tearing up and stuttering words now.
“Phil you don’t have to. I’m sure you did what you could and now
we’ve got to move.” The man was in pain and it was my
responsibility to help him fight through it.