Omega Pathogen: Despair

by J. G. Hicks Jr

  Royce put the truck in park, got out and stood by the pickup’s bed. Jim didn’t speak; he kept looking through the binoculars. “What is it, Jim?” Royce asked.

  “Motherfuckers,” Jim muttered with his lips drawn tight. Royce could see hate and anger on Jim’s face. Royce wondered then if he had made a bad choice when he escaped with Jim from the hospital. He reconsidered when he remembered how he had felt when his family were still alive and in danger.

  Through the binoculars, Jim could make out the unmistakable shape of the black MRAP he and his family had traveled in from Texas. The MRAP was off the road about one hundred yards at a ninety-degree angle from the main road and apparently, despite its four-wheel drive, was stuck in mud in the marshy area due to its bulk of over forty thousand pounds. The large armored truck was buried deep, with the mud nearly above the tires.

  Between the MRAP and the road, on firm earth, was the dark red Ford F350. The red pickup truck was parked facing the rear of the MRAP, but just off the road on the level shoulder. A copse of trees was between the armored truck and the ones that had chased it.

  The pickup truck had been modified with what appeared to be steel sheets affixed to the bed enclosing it. He could see only the passenger side of the cab, but it too had been reinforced with some steel plating. The plate of steel over the window had a small slit for looking out or shooting, Jim guessed.

  Jim could see a small campfire and two figures milling around behind the truck. They seemed to be making an effort to keep from coming into view of the MRAP. Jim suspected his sons were probably been taking shots at anyone that slipped up and came into their view.

  As he slowly scanned and rechecked the area around both the MRAP and the red pickup truck, Jim noticed both living and dead bodies around them. He hoped that they were only those of the infected that had come during the night or part of the group that had chased his family. All the bodies around the armored vehicle had their lower bodies buried in the mud. Some were on top of those in the muck, and had apparently used the bodies of their brethren to try and gain access to the MRAP.

  He spent a lot of time examining each one. He finally relaxed a little when he was satisfied none looked like family members or others in his group. Jim could see that many of the infected had obvious signs of having been a snack or dinner for some of the alligator population that was notoriously high in the marsh and swamp area of Paynes Prairie.

  Jim focused his attention back on the red truck and those around it. Attached to the red truck was a trailer with an airboat. He reasoned the degenerates that had attacked his family were planning on using it to approach the MRAP. They hadn’t gotten the chance; his family, trapped inside, had kept them at a distance.

  He couldn’t know for certain, but he and Royce didn’t seem to have been noticed, and he hoped to dictate the time when he showed himself. “Back us up the way we came. Go slow,” Jim said without removing his eyes from the binoculars.

  Royce climbed back into the driver's seat of his truck and reversed for a few minutes until Jim tapped on the roof again. Jim leaned down and pointed to a hiking trail behind them and to the left. “Can you back us up in there?” Jim asked.

  Royce craned his head out the window to get a look. “Sure thing,” he replied, resumed backing the truck and wrenched the steering wheel to aim the rear end into the path. The hiking trail had a thick chain across it to prevent vehicles from entering, but was set off from the road they were on enough to help conceal their position.

  Royce joined Jim in the bed of the truck and tried to see what was going on further down the road, but without the aid of binoculars the distance between them prevented him from seeing much of anything but flat land mixed with some oak trees and marshlands. He could just make out the color and shapes of the vehicles.

  They remained there; Jim bent over with his elbows rested on the roof of the truck to steady the binoculars as he watched for over an hour. Neither man spoke.

  Jim seemed to suddenly notice Royce and handed him the binoculars for a look.

  “So what are we gonna do, Jim?” Royce asked as he took the optics away from his face.

  Jim continued to stare down the road into the distance. He couldn’t see either of the vehicles very well without the powerful binoculars, but continued to hold his gaze. Jim eventually looked at Royce: “I’m going to wait until it’s dark and approach that red truck. I will then remove the threat to my family,” he answered.

  Royce cleared his throat. “Okay. And once we take care of those assholes, how are you planning to get that black behemoth out of the mud?” Royce asked.

  Jim thought for a moment and then shrugged. “I haven’t given that much thought. I’ll use the airboat to approach the MRAP, but I guess we’ll need a big tow truck,” Jim said.

  Royce removed the binoculars from his eyes again and said, "I know where we can get one of those, Jim.”

  Royce told Jim he had seen a semi-tractor tow truck just north of the intersection they’d passed through earlier.

  They decided to drive back to the intersection to see if the tow truck would run. The tow truck had a city bus attached to it, and its tanks were empty of diesel fuel. Royce found two five-gallon fuel cans in a large cargo compartment on the rear of the truck’s cab. Jim grabbed the siphon hose and began to transfer fuel from the bus into the cans. The tow truck’s ignition had been left on, so after the fuel ran out the batteries had been drained. While Jim filled the fuel cans, Royce connected his jumper cables and let his truck re-charge the dead tow truck.

  With one of the tow truck tanks now nearly full, Royce climbed up into the cab, and after several attempts the semi rumbled and came back to life. After examining the controls on the rear driver side of the tow truck for what seemed like an extraordinarily long time to Royce, Jim was able to get the bus lowered and then disconnected.

  “Ever driven a semi?” Royce asked as he looked down from the cab.

  “No. You have, right?” Jim replied.

  “Yes, I have. Where do you want it?” Royce said.

  After a short pause while he thought for a moment, Jim said, “Let’s leave it behind the ranger station we passed. It should be far enough away that they won’t hear you approach, and it should be hidden pretty well behind the building.”

  Royce nodded down at Jim and closed the cab door. Jim followed Royce to the station, where they left the semi.

  Back at the hiking trail, Jim and Royce stood in the bed of his truck. Jim continued his watch on the people around the red truck and tried to see any activity in the MRAP.

  “Why are they just sitting there like that?” Royce asked, referring to the occupants of the red truck.

  “I’m not sure. I do know they want the MRAP and probably the weapons and ammo. I would guess they mean to get it by any means necessary. My family and friends are inside it and in their way,” Jim said.

  “So how are we gonna do this?” Royce asked Jim.

  “We need to cut this chain blocking the trail and back up further off the road. We’ll hide until dark,” Jim said, not removing his eyes from the binoculars. He resumed answering the question after a few seconds of silence, “When it’s dark enough, if we don’t have infected everywhere, I’m going to try to sneak up on those bastards. I’ve got night vision goggles; I hope they don’t. You’ll need to stay here, Royce. We’ve only got one pair of NVGs. So you’d be pretty much blind.”

  Throughout the day, Jim and Royce periodically heard the sounds of jet aircraft. Twice they observed pairs of military jets as they streaked overhead, headed to the south. Jim rarely removed his eyes from the binoculars.

  “Jim, you know there’s a ton of alligators in this area, right?” Royce asked.

  “Yeah, I remember that from living nearby. Some of the dead infected out there have been snacked on by the gators. I’ll be keeping an eye out for them tonight,” Jim said.

  Jim saw movement from the rear of the red truck and adjusted the focus of the binoculars. He wat
ched a giant of a man step from the bed of the pickup. His weight caused the compressed shocks to rise after he stepped down from the truck bed. The man turned back and reached into the enclosed bed of the truck. Jim made out the shape of the object the man removed from the truck as a body.

  The body being carried looked nearly as large as the man that carried it. Jim noticed that the shape appeared deformed. Jim couldn’t be sure from the distance, but it looked as though the right arm was gone from the shoulder down. The giant man walked away from the red pickup truck. He looked back every few steps; he seemed to be trying to make sure he kept the truck between him and the MRAP. Jim watched as the man placed the corpse on the ground and then began digging a grave.

  Luther Vance finished digging the grave for his younger brother Raymond. It wasn’t six feet deep, but he guessed it’d be deep enough to keep any dogs or other scavengers from his brother’s remains. With each shovel full of dirt he flung from the earth, his hate for those in the MRAP grew more intense. They’d pay for what they did to his brother. Since the driver of the MRAP took the wrong turn and got stuck in the mud, he had been trying to figure out a way to get to those inside.

  Luther had the makings of a plan when he took the airboat from the ranger station, but then those inside the black armored truck blew a hole in his truck’s engine block, pinning down him and his group. It didn’t matter now, it was a test of wills and he would win.

  Few thoughts, other than him finally being able to get his hands on the one that shot his brother, entered his head. They blew Raymond’s arm completely off with their cannon. He thought of different things he’d do to that person and the one that shot through the engine block of his truck. He thought about using the rifle they had shot his truck and brother with to impale them. Hell, they’ll all suffer. Real bad, he thought

  Luther placed his younger brother in the grave and filled in the dirt. As he walked back to his pickup he took care and made sure he kept it between himself and the armored truck out in the mud.

  Vanessa, his friend Freddie’s wife, was filling a pipe with crystal meth as he approached. She wrapped her dry cracked lips around the mouthpiece and inhaled as she lit the bowl.

  Luther reached down and grabbed her left hand containing the pipe with his right. The force of his grip caused her to cry out. Luther lifted, pulling Vanessa’s buttocks off the ground. He reached over and grabbed the pipe with his left hand, and then released his grip on Vanessa. She dropped to the ground on her butt.

  Luther stared down at Vanessa, daring her to object or to even speak as he put the pipe to his mouth and inhaled deeply before he walked back to the bed of his truck.

  She knew better than to object. Even an attempt at saying anything to Luther in his current mood could be hazardous to anyone’s health.

  Freddie moved over in the bed of the truck to give Luther plenty of room as he climbed in. “Want some?” Freddie asked and held up a bottle of vodka toward Luther.

  Luther didn’t acknowledge the question or even look at Freddie. He took another long hit from the pipe and stared at nothing. “Beer,” Luther said.

  Freddie knew that voice. It meant keep your mouth shut and do as you were told or get hurt. He had learned that tone from the years they spent together in prison.

  Freddie opened up the cooler and grabbed a beer and held it out to Luther. They no longer had ice, but Luther greedily drained the can of its lukewarm contents in a few long gulps. “Get the fuck out,” Luther said. He turned and glared down at Freddie.

  Without any argument or delay Freddie scrambled toward the back of the truck and jumped out onto the ground.

  Luther decided that he’d get drunk. Maybe something would come to him, an idea to get those fuckers out of the armored truck while he drank into a stupor to mourn his brother. Luther finished off the crystal methamphetamine in the pipe and slung it out the back of the truck. He drained what remained of the bottle of vodka Freddie had left and grabbed another beer.

  Jim wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but he believed there were three people. That was all he’d seen in his hours of watching. Three threats he had to deal with, two men, one of them a freakily huge giant, and a woman. The sun was nearing the western horizon; he’d soon know their numbers for certain.

  Jim asked Royce to watch the distant vehicles while he emptied his bladder and began to ready himself. He checked and re-checked his weapons. He wiped down his AR-15, unloaded and re-loaded his full single magazine. He checked the placement of two his fixed-blade knives, one rested on his thigh beside the empty holster for his Glock that Royce now had. The other knife was in its sheath, attached to his belt on his left hip. Satisfied with his gear for now, he then had something to eat and drink.

  Jim originally had planned to make his approach around 3:00 or 4:00 AM. Around those hours of the night were notorious for being the time when most people were the least alert while on watch. But his and Royce’s observations of the group indicated they were well on their way to becoming very drunk. A man and a woman sat outside drinking, and they had occasionally seen the giant exit the truck to urinate, most of the time with a bottle of booze in hand. Jim decided he’d move on their position as soon as it was dark enough.

  Judging by the increase in low clouds moving in, he’d at least have a near pitch-black night and maybe even some rain. All would help conceal his movements, unless they had night vision capabilities, too.

  “So you’re still going through with this?” Royce asked.

  Jim looked up at Royce standing in the bed against the cab of the truck. “Yeah, I am. I’m hoping that they’ll all be good and shit-faced in that truck,” Jim answered.

  As dusk approached, Jim donned one of the black balaclavas and pulled it over his face. He put on his black tactical gloves, he hoped to conceal most of his skin. To prevent from giving away their position, he removed the dome light from Royce’s truck and put the bulb in the glove box.

  Jim took back the binoculars from Royce and watched as the normal-sized man and the woman sat on the ground behind the red truck and passed a bottle back and forth. They seemed to also be taking turns passing a joint between them. “Drink up and smoke away,” Jim mumbled as he watched.

  Chapter 4

  It was dark enough. The three people they had watched seemed to have retreated to the bed of the red truck for the evening. The cool day had steadily warmed as low clouds filled the skies, and would help conceal his movements to the red pickup truck. Jim hoped that those waiting out his family didn’t use searchlights. The light would attract more infected but he couldn’t assume they were that cautious.

  Jim discussed the plan with Royce as he rechecked his equipment again; Royce would sit in his truck for safety and wait for Jim to come get him or for a signal indicating it was okay to approach. He’d watch for Jim to retreat and be ready to assist.

  Jim took a sip of water, sloshed it about in his mouth and spat it out. His mouth had grown dry from nervousness. He shook hands with Royce through the open driver door window and walked toward the road.

  Jim couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet or so from the pickup truck before Royce had already lost sight of him in the rapidly growing darkness.

  Jim kept a slow cautious pace towards the red pickup, deciding to stay in the middle of the road. Normally it would be wiser to stay near one of the edges of the road, or even off of it entirely, but with most of his attention on the red pickup truck in the distance, he didn’t want to walk right into any infected that could be concealed in the brush.

  Jim constantly switched his gaze from the pickup truck to the spotty patches of brush near the sides of the road and checked behind him. He heard some faint voices from inside the pickup’s enclosed steel bed: a male voice that grew louder and seemed agitated, and then the faint sound of metal squeaking. Jim took a knee and quickly checked his surroundings and watched the truck.

  Jim saw the smaller man stand up through an opening in the enclosed truck bed. The man wo
uld quickly look around one side or the other of the roof hatch and the trees between their pickup and the MRAP with what looked to be binoculars. Jim’s anxiety increased when he realized they weren’t regular binoculars but hand-held night vision optics.

  Jim waited and watched for several long minutes and found that the man never looked in other directions with his optics. He concentrated only on the MRAP.

  As Jim stood to a crouch to continue forward, the man looked down into the truck and said something. Jim froze. In a second or two what looked to be an AK-47 or SKS rifle was handed up to the lookout man.

  The man sat the rifle on the roof beside him and resumed his pattern of quickly looking at the MRAP through the optics and hiding behind the hatch.

  Jim moved toward the pickup truck again. He was even more careful than before; if the man on lookout happened to look to his right, he knew he’d be spotted.

  Jim angled his direction of approach toward the rear of the pickup and to the shoulder of the road on the opposite side of the truck. He tried to stay out of easy sight of the man standing watch, but the man still only seemed to be interested in watching the MRAP whenever he quickly poked his head around the side of the hatch.

  A little smile formed for a second on Jim's face as he watched the man. His family had done well. They took out one of the threats and had those remaining too fearful to approach. Then thoughts of his younger children, Berk and Kayra, flashed through his mind. The fear they must have felt when these scum had attacked them outside the hospital and forced his wife to flee. He pushed his anger and thoughts of his family to the back of his mind and focused only on where he was and what he was doing.

  Jim angled further toward his left and into the shallow ditch on the opposite side of the road of the pickup. He lay prone, close to the fresh grave of the man buried earlier in the day. Further to his left he could now see water and noticed several alligators feeding on a human corpse. The large reptiles weren’t as active during the winter months, but in Florida a day or two of cold weather could be followed by several warm days. They took advantage of the warm winter night and the easy meal. Three alligators, varying between four to eight feet long, clamped down on different parts of what remained of the body. As each one bit down, their death spin quickly followed and ripped away hunks of flesh and bone.