The Rotting Souls Series (Book 5): Charon's Vengeance

by Ray, Timothy A.

  “Oh my God,” Carrie uttered over the line.

  He had no words; his nightmarish fears come to life.

  “That does not mean that there is no hope of survival. Your government is throwing all its resources into developing a vaccine to fight this virus. It’s important that you hear me on this and understand, you will be perfectly fine as long as you are alive. Simply getting bitten is not enough to kill you unless the wound is left untreated. I cannot stress this enough. Stop killing people just because they have come into contact with the infected. The virus reanimates dead tissue; it does not convert the living. The top minds in the field assure me that as long as a person stays healthy and alive, they are not in danger of becoming one of these monsters the virus creates. If we are to survive this, we will need every living soul to help stave off the waves of undead and you are killing that by acting rashly, murdering those that could help ensure our survival.”

  “I have raised our threat level to red. Our military forces are on the highest alert and have been working throughout the day to fight outbreaks occurring in the largest population centers of our country. I have declared martial law to help differentiate the living from the undead and ask that all of you listening to this broadcast cooperate completely with this order. By nightfall, all citizens are to remain off the streets so that the military can easily tell friend from foe. This is for your safety, as the threat against our way of life is so severe that only drastic measures can be used to insure our continued existence. I have ordered all forces abroad to return home and the National Guard to be integrated with our other armed forces as we move to end this attack without further loss of life.”

  “I will not lie to you. Our nation is going through the darkest moment in our history and I need each of you to help me if we are going to see this through together. Stay within your homes, keep your televisions on, but keep them at a low volume to avoid drawing attention. Listen to the radio for updates. And most importantly, regardless of who it is, regardless of what they mean to you, you have to drive a sharp implement into the brain of anyone that dies. If you don’t, you put yourself and everyone else around you at risk. I know that what I ask is a terrible thing, but I assure you that this is necessary. I promise you that your government is working hard at ending this threat. We will not spare any resource and we will take every measure possible to end this swiftly and return to our way of life.”

  “Keep those that are dying tonight in your thoughts and prayers. Preserve the lives of your family by fortifying your homes and staying indoors. Ration supplies and please use common sense when dealing with people trying to get in your home. One saved life is one less infected person trying to kill you. Let’s help each other get through this and in the end, I promise you, we will prevail. Life will go on. May God be with us, goodnight,” she finished, and the seal flashed on the screen for a second before returning to its former state.

  “Oh my God Kyle, what the fuck is going on? Where are you? Why aren’t you here?”

  He gulped, tried to clear his throat, and hadn’t realized that a few tears had begun streaming down his cheeks. “I’m outside Durango, I should be there before noon. I promise.”

  This had to be a dream, or a test of some kind. This couldn’t be happening; zombies were not real. Even as he thought it, he knew better, and realized that the world that he had known was gone.

  Chapter 7

  I

  He had talked with his wife for a bit before bed, the President’s speech the main topic of discussion outside of Carrie’s insistence that she make a run to the Wal-Mart for groceries in the morning. He’d argued strenuously against that, knowing how panicky people could be at even the mere mention of a disaster, much less being in the middle of one. But she claimed there wasn’t much in the way of food in the pantries, and she hadn’t thought to stop on her way out of town; it’d be hard enough to leave town as it was without having to pull off at a store in that madness anyhow. He’d thought of the Dollar Store, then on Jessica; he could relate so he quit harassing her about it.

  He hadn’t told her about his brief passenger and didn’t want to relive it now by doing so. It was too fresh, and the guilt would not let up; it was best not to feed it anymore. What else was he going to do? She’d just ignore him and go anyways. What was he going to do, tell her no? Then tell her no again? No, the only thing he could do was get to her as soon as possible so that he could take on the more dangerous adventures. He was useless out here in the middle of nowhere hundreds of miles away.

  The shower he had forced himself to take was brief, but it did make him feel a little normal and more refreshed as he took up his bags and stepped outside, tossing the key to the room on the bed and closing the door behind him.

  The SUV was right where he’d left it, so he triggered the door locks on his FOB and tossed his bags in the backseat, grabbed one of his 2 liters of Coke, and climbed into the driver’s seat. The sky was bright for early morning, the cloudless sky making for a beautiful day in the apocalypse. He cursed not getting a pair of sunglasses and was thankful that the first leg of his drive would be away from the sun as he turned the engine over and shifted it into reverse.

  A horn blared as an Escalade flashed past, nearly taking his bumper off, and he jammed his foot on the brake and came to a jerking halt. “Fuck! Damn son of a bitch!” he yelled to no one as the car sped down the frontage road and back onto the highway. “Asshole is going to kill someone.”

  His phone rang just as he shifted into drive, making him jump. It was a number he didn’t recognize, so he sent it to voicemail and applied the gas. He’d call his wife to check in when he got to Durango. It was still two hours away and he wanted to get out of Colorado and into New Mexico as quickly as he could. He’d had enough of this state; his sister could keep it.

  His voicemail beeped as he pulled back onto the highway, and when he was sure that no one was going to ram him in the ass or swerve into his lane, he pulled it up and hit the play button. “Due to a National emergency, Rhodes Retail is closed for the next few days. You will be receiving paid leave for hours missed and should take the time to enjoy some much-needed vacation time on us. We ask that you stay indoors, refrain from traveling the roads unless absolutely necessary, put up your feet and relax. Your government is on it. Have a nice day,” a mechanical voice told him in a cheerful tone.

  “What the fuck is that shit?”

  His phone rang again, and he irritably looked at it, then sighed with relief when he saw that it was his wife. “Hey Babe, what’s up? You make it to the store okay?”

  “You could say that,” his wife responded. “The doors had been forced open, there were no employees in sight, and it looked like it had been looted recently. There was still plenty laying around, so I had the kids each take a cart and we filled them up. We’ve got food and supplies for a bit. Even found you a rifle and some ammo that should work with it.”

  Wow, she’d done better than he thought she would.

  “Nice.”

  “Did you just get a weird phone call? A number I didn’t recognize just called to say the Casino was giving me PTO. Weird. None of my coworkers or my boss know anything about it,” she said. “Well, the few I got ahold of anyways.”

  “Yeah, I got one too. Guess you don’t have to worry about calling in tonight. Listen, you should load that rifle and keep it handy. Things might get even crazier today and I will have an easier time doing what I need to if I know you’re safe,” he told her, wishing he had more than a pipe and gardening sheers himself.

  “I’m not touching that thing. You can mess with it when you get here. How far out are you?”

  “I just hit the road,” he answered with a sigh. Her fear of guns was something she was going to have to get over, fast. The world being forced upon them preyed on the weak, and he couldn’t protect the four of them alone, he knew that. “Barring any problems, I should be there in the next seven hours. I’ll stop in Farmington for gas. It’s far enough in th
e middle of the New Mexico desert that it should be free of this for a bit, but it’s not like I have a lot of choices after that. Next big stop will be Holbrook.”

  “Well, Peterson’s just pulled in about an hour ago. Randy says Flagstaff was being bombed by the military when he fled last night. Don’t know if they’re gonna head east towards Winslow or Holbrook or not, so you may want to find an alternate route.”

  “Through Springerville? That’ll add more than an hour to my trip. I’ll see what it looks like when I get there. Look, there are a lot of assholes out this morning, and this Beamer flew past me doing ninety. I don’t have my Bluetooth, so I’ll call you back on my next stop, okay? Just, stay inside, keep the doors and windows locked, and be careful. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Okay, I love you.”

  “Love you too,” he replied, then hung up.

  They were bombing Flagstaff? Already? Maybe Farmington wasn’t as safe as he thought it’d be.

  First things first. Get past Durango before you worry about Farmington.

  Gripping the steering wheel tightly, he applied a bit more gas and sped down the winding highway, the mountainside becoming a blur as he sped for home.

  II

  Traffic started to back up to the point that they were now traveling below fifteen miles-per-hour. He expected traffic jams back home, but here? His elbow was on the door, his hand against his forehead as he applied the brakes once more, nearly coming to a stop.

  Were they blocking the way into Durango? He hoped that that was all it was, because if he was driving straight into another horde like he’d left behind, he was screwed. There were only so many ways to get into New Mexico from here, and most would lose him half a day if he was forced to turn around.

  The one bright light in the darkness was that there were cars going in the opposite direction, and none of them were fleeing like their lives depended on it.

  The radio had latched onto a country station, the music playing without break, as if someone’s iPod was hooked up and on shuffle.

  It took a while, but as he saw the signs for the turn off increase, he began to see the cause for the slow down and felt surprise at the flashing emergency lights of an ambulance. He hadn’t seen any sign of cops or highway patrol since leaving Denver and although it was commonplace for them to be at the sight of an accident, it just seemed off given the present circumstances. Maybe Durango hadn’t been hit after all.

  The signs were telling him to get over to the left to merge onto the highway heading south, the traffic slowly edging that way as the people in front of him kept looking to the right. No one could pass an accident without looking, it was a near impossibility.

  The lights caught his eye and he briefly turned his head to look, his face becoming frozen as the scene before him unfolded. The black Escalade that had nearly run him off the road was a crumpled mess, the debris from the front end spread out beneath a large logging truck, the tools used to force the door laying discarded by the car’s driver side door. The driver of the car, a young man in his twenties, was bloodied, had a face laceration, and was currently trying to claw his way through the window, his seat belt straining to keep him in place.

  A paramedic with his throat torn out was feeding on a fireman, the man’s body twitching and convulsing as his colleague’s teeth tore through his flesh. A man with coveralls was charging the Beamer that had passed him earlier, his face enraged, his fist slamming into their window as he tried to get at the occupants of the entrapped car.

  Other vehicles were struggling to get away from the outbreak, but were being cut off by the people behind, the faces of the driver’s he was passing full of panic.

  The SUV bucked, and a loud crunch erupted from before him; he’d hit the station wagon that had suddenly come to a stop, his head jerking with the sudden movement. “Goddammit!”

  The station wagon lurched forward, the back door crumpled in, the rear bumper hanging off as the driver hit the gas and sped for the median. The longer vehicle bounced as it drove up the other side into oncoming traffic, then disappeared down the highway to the south.

  A gunshot rang out, making his heart pump faster as he veered to the left and raced after the departing vehicle. Not to exchange insurances, but to take the other’s initiative to get the fuck away from what was happening twenty feet away.

  Hands slammed into the passenger side door, the sound of the accident having drawn attention his way, and his eyes widened at the gore filled mouth in the window, the former truck driver staring at him like he was a raw steak at a Texas Roadhouse. The glass splintered as the back of the man’s fist struck harder and his foot reflexively hit the gas, another loud thump sounding from in front of him. He turned his head just in time to see a body fall forward and out of sight; he’d just hit someone.

  Fighting the instinct to get out and see if they were okay, he threw the SUV in reverse and backed up, barely missing the front of a Ford Explorer as they surged towards him. The truck driver whacked his hood, then came at the broken glass window across from him once more, just as a body shakingly got to their feet in front of him. When the face turned in his direction, he knew that the woman in a yellow sundress and flowing brown hair hadn’t been alive when he’d hit her, no way the bumper tore her chest open like that, the bones and muscles underneath showing through, blood drenching the front of her dress like a red apron.

  That’s all he could take. He floored it and the Acadia charged forward, the side mirror on the passenger side ripping off as the cannibalistic truck driver tried to hang onto his fleeing meal, the right side of the hood crunching further as it struck the woman and threw her forward once more. The SUV bucked like he was going over a curb, the wheel jerking to the left in his hand, but he held it tightly and applied pushed the gas pedal down hard enough to lift his ass off the seat, his head scraping against the roof. The four-wheel drive kicked in and lunged forward, narrowly striking another car that had been attempting to get away as well.

  A scream tore through the air, the passenger of a parked car being ripped from their car by two bloodied corpses who looked to be a middle-aged couple on vacation. They were about to have their picnic lunch and he was not going to stick around to watch.

  Bursting through the median, he swerved to the right and flipped the car off that honked at him, then jerked the wheel the other way and got onto the highway to Farmington. A few people were running after him, other cars were trying to follow his lead, and the sound of approaching sirens to the north echoed across the mountainside as he turned his attention to the road and the string of cars fleeing south before him.

  His phone rang.

  When he was sure that he could steer without running himself off the road, he hit the accept and put it on speaker. “What’s up? You okay?”

  “Are you?” his wife asked. “You were supposed to check in after you passed through Durango. Should have been half an hour ago.”

  “Timing me, are you?” he returned, trying to get the tremble out of his voice. “You’d think you had a tracker on my phone.”

  “There is, but it’s not working right now. I can make calls but that’s it. No data. Your daughter is piffed because she can’t go out looking for Pokémon. Now, seriously, are you okay? You’re trying to hide something from me, I can hear it in your voice.”

  The downside to being married as long as they were, it was hard as hell to hide anything from the other. “Just a bit of a traffic jam at the turn off. I’m alright and heading south right now. Remember that trip to Durango we took last August when you came to the Bloomfield job? I’m passing through the farmland on the way to Aztec where we explored those old ruins.”

  “Right, the ones that made you claustrophobic,” she observed, sounding calmer.

  At least one of them was.

  “I don’t know how those people lived underground, whether it makes sense in the desert or not. I would need fresh air and would constantly worry about a cave in. No thank you,” he said automatically, e
yes flashing up to the rearview mirror and checking for traffic. There were several vehicles back there, the sun was glinting off their windshields, but none were pushing the speed limit to overtake him; obviously satisfied with the speed they were traveling.

  “We may never know, right?” she asked, then her voice softened, “just another thing that will be lost in the days ahead.”

  “You don’t know that,” he replied. “They could get this thing under control. It could be over tomorrow. We don’t have any information of how bad this is, how wide-spread. They could find a cure.”

  “You don’t believe that anymore than I do,” she sighed. “We may have food for the next week or two, but what happens then? You gonna learn how to hunt? Do we try to plant food? I don’t know a thing about either of those things, do you?”

  “I don’t. Look, we have to just take this one day at a time. If it lasts more than the week, then we’ll start to worry about that stuff. Right now it’s more important that I get to you, that we hunker down, and that we protect ourselves until the first wave of this thing passes. To do that, I need to concentrate on what I’m doing. More than once I’ve been blindsided and I can’t afford to let it happen again, my luck may just run out. I love you, I’ll call you after Farmington.”

  “Okay love, be careful.”

  Chapter 8

  I

  Traffic heading into Aztec had started to slow down with very few vehicles heading north along the highway towards Durango. If that had increased, he’d be more worried, as it would signal that something was going on ahead that people were running from.

  He took a drag off his cigarette and tapped the ash on the cracked window edge. He wasn’t supposed to smoke in the rental, but at this point, with the damage it had taken, a cleaning fee would be the least of his worries; if he ever got the chance to even turn it in. Who knew for sure if that even mattered anymore?