The Scourge

by R. Tilden Smith

  Marcia saw something move in the darkness beyond the open loading dock door. She glanced at Oscar then took a step toward the screen to be sure. “I thought you said the Astrodome was empty.”

  “It is,” he replied.

  The overhead door suddenly shot upward, opening to its full height. General Adams and the child ran inside, disappearing into the blackness.

  Oscar's jaw went slack. “What the hell…?”

  The soldiers began to backtrack, frantically firing their weapons into the black void of the loading dock. Suddenly, the void moved. It was like the shadows gained substance then melted, collapsed then broke apart again. Suddenly, a writhing tidal wave of jagged dark shapes poured from the door.

  “What in God's name...what are those things?” the lieutenant said, his voice hoarse with fear.

  Mutants. The forbidden word bubbled up in Marcia's mind as she watched, dumbfounded, as an utterly alien army of beasts—she didn't know how else to describe them—overtook the soldiers, burying them in an avalanche of pixelated limbs. The black wave rushed toward the camera view until the entire screen turned black. “Tell them to zoom the camera out!” Oscar said, his tone urgent, forceful, with a touch of that composed confidence she found so attractive in military men. But something was off with him; the way he was moving around the room, his body language was off kilter for a man of his stature and experience. She didn't want to admit it, but she saw it in his eyes when those beasts burst out of that loading dock and swallowed his men; Oscar Manuel Hernandez, a career military man she has known for over thirty years, was afraid. And if he was afraid, there was a good chance that she was not going to leave this place alive. Oscar, you were right. I shouldn't have come.

  56

  “Miss Wilma watch out!” Lara screamed. She bolted upright, her hands reaching out to brace herself against a dashboard that wasn't there. “Where…?” she said, shaking her head to clear the fog from her mind. It's so hot. Sweat pooled on her brow and dripped down the bridge of her nose. A gray haze filtered in through the heavily draped window, spilling dusty light onto big, boxy furniture, the kind her momma and daddy had in their bedroom. Why don't I remember how I got here? The last thing she remembered was sitting in the truck with Wilma, Crystal, and the army-man, driving through the horde of unborn, trying to get to the bayou so she could find the…what? I was so sure of it back then, now I can't remember. I needed to find something, no, someone. I needed to find someone...

  “...The queen!” Lara said excitedly. “I know where she is!” She snapped her head from side to side. “Crystal, Miss Wilma, army-man, are you here? I know where the queen is. We have go where she is so we can get the doggie's soul back and all the other souls too…”

  There was a moan, a groggy kind of moan, coming from outside the room.

  “Hello?” Lara said, suddenly frightened. She swung her legs around and let them drop over the edge of the bed. It was only then that she noticed that, other than a thin cotton bedsheet draped over her lower half, she was naked. She snatched the bed sheet up around her neck and shoulders, burying herself within it. Memories, old, terrifying memories, came rushing back. Where are my clothes? I'm not supposed to be naked! Not now!

  There was a noise outside the bedroom door, a shuffling of feet on carpet followed by a soft murmuring.

  “I don't want to do it!” Lara squealed. “I'm not ready! I don't want to! I don't want—”

  Ray opened the door and rushed into the room. “Mo, are you ok? What's wrong?”

  Lara jumped off the bed and backed into the corner of the room, dragging the bed sheet with her. “I don't want to, army-man!” she screamed, “I don't want to! I don't want to!”

  “Mo, calm down! No one is going to make you do anything you don't want to. No one is going to hurt you. You're safe here. You hear me? You're safe. Ok?”

  Tears streamed down Lara's cheeks. She pulled the bed sheet tight around her body. “I don't believe you, army-man! If no one is gonna hurt me then why am I naked, huh? Can you answer that question, army-man?”

  Ray took a few hesitant steps toward Moji. He held his hands out in front of him. He was holding several articles of clothing. “Moji—I mean Lara—I am talking to Lara, right? That's your name, Lara?”

  Lara shrank away from Ray, pressing her back into the corner of the room, then slowly sliding down into a crouch. “You know who I am army-man! Don't pretend that you don't!”

  Ray didn't move any closer, but he crouched down so that his eyes were level with Moji’s. “I know we met when you first got into the truck yesterday but we didn't formally introduce ourselves. My name is Ray.”

  "Where are my clothes! I shouldn't be naked!”

  “That’s a good damn question,” a voice from behind Ray announced.

  It was Crystal.

  Still groggy from the sedative, dressed only in a lace bra, skirt, and panties, Crystal clung to the doorjamb for support. “Why is Moji crouching in the corner with nothing on except a sheet?” Before Ray could answer, she held up her hand. “And why did I wake up in a strange bed, topless and hung over?”

  Ray stood up. “Crystal, I can explain everything.”

  Crystal limped into the room and plopped down on the bed. “I sure the fuck hope you have a better excuse than Bill Cosby did.”

  “Crystal!” Ray said, “Nothing like that happened, ok! When those unborn things sliced you up, you got infected and went all delirious on us. We dragged you here, to this apartment of a friend of mine, so we could patch you up. Your back has a couple of stitches in it. I had to give you a sedative and remove your brato do it. That's all that happened. I swear to God on my mother's grave that's it.”

  “Uh huh. And what's your excuse for Moji? Why did you drug her and strip her naked? Did she have a hangnail?”

  “And my pee-pee hurts!” Lara blurted.

  Crystal’s whole body ached and she felt feverish. She turned her torso slowly and stiffly until she was facing Moji. “What the fuck did you just say?”

  The way Crystal stared at her scared Lara. She'dnever seen Crystal look so mean. “I said my pee-pee, you know, my vagina, it's sore and it feels all wet and squishy inside. I think somebody did the bad thing to me when I wasn't watching.”

  Crystal's head snapped around. She glared at Ray. “You perverted motherfucker!” She jumped off the bed and stood to Ray’s right, blocking his exit.

  Ray did a double-take. What the hell is happening to her?Crystal's face was changing right before his eyes. He took a step backward. His heel brushed the threshold of the master closet. “Now hold the fuck up Crystal! You don't understand what's happening here. Shit did not go down the way you think.”

  Crystal’s eyes bulged from their sockets, their whites were streaked with jagged lines of red and yellow. The tendons in her hands were taut as guitar strings, curling her fingers into sharp, nail-tipped claws. A thick, yellow liquid dripped from her fingers, filling the room with the smell of sulfur. She moved toward Ray as a tiger would toward trapped prey, slow and deliberate. “Oh, I have a pretty good idea of how shit went down motherfucker. You drugged me and then you drugged and raped Moji.”

  “No! Crystal, please listen to me! That's not what happened at all. Can't you hear how Moji's talking? She sounds like a little girl, just like she did yesterday in the truck, remember? Moji never told you this but she has—”

  “You're a liar army-man!” Lara screamed from the corner. “There’s nothing wrong with Moji!”

  Crystal hissed and swiped at Ray’s midsection, missing him by only a few centimeters. Ray threw himself backward into the closet and pulled the two bi-fold doors closed in front of him, creating a flimsy barrier between him and Crystal. She's turning into some sort of monster! I only have a few seconds before she rips me up. He turned and used his chest and stomach to push his weight against the back wall of the closet while simultaneously reaching his right arm over his head and pulling hard on the light switch cord hanging from the ceiling.
He heard a click as the lock behind the false wall released and the pair of hidden doors opened inward, separating at his sternum and continuing to the floor. He pushed the door all the way open and ducked into the opening just as the bi-fold doors behind him were yanked outward and ripped from their hinges.

  Don't look, just go! Ray thought. He was inside Terp’s panic room. Terp showed it to him one day when they were playing hooky from work. “I got enough stuff in here to kick some serious zombie ass!” Terp told him while they admired all the guns and ammunition he’d collected over the five years he’d lived in the apartment. There was a wide assortment of handguns and rifles mounted on the walls, cabinets labeled with the names of various foodstuffs, and drawers etched with the word “ammo” and a caliber designation. But Ray was only interested in one item. He saw it yesterday afternoon when he entered the room to get the first aid kit.

  The sawed off shotgun.

  The 12-gauge shotgun was on a small table in the center of the panic room where Terp cleaned and loaded his weapons. Ray lunged at the table, sweeping the shotgun into his hand and twisting his body around to face the door all in one motion, just as Crystal's torso darkened the doorway. He fell backward onto the table as he fired, the boom of the shotgun drowning out Crystal's high-pitched scream. The blast tore through Crystal's midriff, shredding her internal organs and spraying black bile and blood back into the bedroom. She stumbled backward and fell over the bed’s footboard, landing face up on the bed, arms spread, with her wrists dangling over either side of the mattress.

  “Holy shit!” Ray said as he lay on his back panting, unable to catch his breath. “Moji! Moji, are you ok?” There was no answer. He scrambled to his feet and stepped through the doorway and back into the closet, then out into the bedroom. He averted his eyes from the bed. The shotgun had made a mess of Crystal and he didn't want that image to be how he remembered her. Moji was still in the corner of the room. She had curled into a fetal position and completely covered herself with the bed sheet. He ran over to her, then bent down and touched the sheet. “Moji—I mean Lara—are you ok? Were you hurt?”

  Moji pulled the sheet back and threw her arms around Ray's neck. She was sobbing.

  Ray pulled her close. He could feel her heart thumping in her chest. “I'm so sorry,” he said, fighting back his own tears, “I didn't want to hurt Crystal.”

  “Why is everyone I love dying Ray, can you tell me? Why is God punishing me?”

  She was speaking in Moji's voice again.

  “This is not your fault, ok?” he whispered in her ear. “It’s the virus. The virus did this to Crystal, not God. The God I know doesn't turn people into monsters.”

  Moji squeezed Ray tighter, he could feel her nails digging into his back.

  “You're wrong,” she said, almost too softly for him to hear.

  57

  The fluorescent lights dimmed then flickered, bathing the corridor in an undulating wave of funhouse shadows before blinking out for good, leaving the eight of them huddled along one wall, frozen like gazelles surrounded by an encroaching pride.

  “There go the generators,” Marcia heard Harold say, from somewhere behind her.

  “Stay in formation and get ready to move!” Oscar ordered from his position at the front of the line. “I want the president on that chopper in two minutes.”

  Marcia heard a spattering of “yes sirs” from those gathered around her. She was flanked by Carol Macy and Melvin Proctor, two of the youngest secret service agents in her entourage. They're just kids, she thought, angry with herself for putting their lives in unnecessary danger. I should have never come. I should have listened to Oscar and stayed in Washington until the CDC and the army had declared the area absolutely safe. She wrung her hands together in anguish. I'll be responsible for their deaths. How will I explain my decision to their families? Carol was in front of her and Melvin behind, his hand firmly on her shoulder to guide her or to drag her to her feet in case she should stumble or fall during the extraction. The gunfire outside echoed through the stairwell and into the hallway where they waited. On the conference room monitors, Marcia and her team had watched helplessly as the beasts poured out of the Astrodome loading dock in the thousands, plowing across the parking lot, destroying everything and killing everyone in their path. Under Oscar’s direction, the troops had consolidated their forces around the president’s helicopter, intent on keeping the path clear until she could be safely evacuated. But that order left the stadium vulnerable, and the beasts swarmed into the arena where tens of thousands of survivors lay too weak to run or put up much of a fight. It’s my fault, she thought, I've killed them all. She felt Melvin grip her suit jacket a little tighter. “Time to move ma’am,” he said.

  The hallway and stairwell were devoid of natural light and there was no emergency lighting, so they held on to each other, forming a tight conga line, and felt their way down the hallway.

  Fear numbed Marcia’s senses. She was having trouble staying alert. As they drew closer to the stairwell, its hollow acoustics funneled and focused the sound of the battle raging outside its walls and the slaughter happening within them until it built to a deafening crescendo. She put her hands over her ears and leaned against the wall, trying to block it out, but the haunting, alien squeal swirled around her like a powerful dust devil, sucking the breath from her body, making it difficult for her to think. Oh dear God! What have I done, what have I done? Her guilt over those trapped in the stadium, unable to get away from the horrible creatures she saw on the surveillance monitors, boiled over in her mind, rising like phlegm in her throat, until she was choked with it.

  Melvin pulled her upright and roughly pushed her forward. “Ma’am! Ma'am!” he screamed in her ear, “Don’t stop, keep moving!”

  Marcia twisted back and forth, trying to break free from his grip. “We can't leave those people in the stadium to die! We have to help them! We have go back!”

  Oscar heard Marcia's outburst and reached back and took her hand. "Madam President, there's nothing we can do for them. Our first priority is to get you to safety.”

  “Can’t we call in more troops or something? There's has to be a way we can help them!”

  “I'm sorry ma’am, it's too dangerous. We have to contain this virus. We can't let it spread outside the impact zone.”

  “Oscar, I...I didn't become president so I could stand around helpless while people die. Please, I want to do something.”

  Oscar squeezed her hand. “I know you do Marcia.” He guided her down the stairs. The rest of the group followed in silence. They reached the ground floor. The first light of dawn had crept under the windowless metal exit door and laid a dull orange patch of sunlight on the gray concrete floor. Spiky shadows moved quickly within it, making the light flicker across the floor like a two dimensional flame.

  “Lieutenant, let them know we're in position,” Oscar said, his voice raised to a near shout to be heard over the noise of the chopper blades and gunfire bleeding into the stairwell. The lieutenant nodded then flicked his radio call button and began to shout orders to the troops on the other side of the door.

  “Marcia,” Oscar said, “when this door opens, no matter what happens, I want you run straight to Marine One. Do not stop. Do not deviate. Do you understand?”

  Marcia nodded that she did.

  Oscar placed his hands on the shoulders of agents Macy and Proctor. “Protect her with your life,” he said. Marcia thought his face was as solemn as she had ever seen it.

  Carol and Melvin gave the general a quick nod. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, guns drawn, with Marcia pressed against the concrete wall behind them. Jim, Harold, and Charles lingered near the staircase, while Oscar and the lieutenant stood near the door, waiting for the signal for them make a run for the chopper.

  There were two quick knocks on the door.

  “Time to go people!” Oscar said, then he flung open the door.

  Outside, the parking lot had devolved into a war zone.r />
  Marcia gagged. The air stank of rotten eggs and burning tar. Vehicles burned around the entire perimeter of the parking lot, releasing black, acrid smoke that hung in the air like a dense fog, blocking the sun and turning dawn into dusk. Close gunfire erupted in bursts, sending everyone scattering for cover.

  Get her outta here!” Oscar screamed.

  Marcia lay flat on her stomach. Marine One was straight ahead, its main cabin door open, its rotors whipping the thick smoke into a frenzy, forcing the foul odor into her eyes, nose, and throat. In the distance, within the wavy sheen of the fire’s heat, Marcia got a good look at the mutants as they advanced on the soldiers at the perimeter. They were grotesque creatures. Their skin was black, featureless, and seemed to absorb all the light around them, so they looked more like shadows than living things. Human-sized, they moved quickly on four spindly appendages, and used pincer-like mandibles to rip the soldiers in their way apart like paper dolls. Thousands of them scrambled toward the helicopter, crawling over the dead bodies of soldiers and other mutants like a marauding colony of hungry army ants. There's too many of them! she thought. Oscar was off to her left, pointing at the helicopter with one hand. He had a gun in the other. Suddenly, Marcia was yanked off her feet and dragged in the direction of the helicopter.

  “Run, ma’am, run!” Melvin said.

  Marcia couldn't keep pace with the agents, they were running, shooting, and dragging her along like a kidnap victim. They reached the helicopter and tossed her through the open door then dove in on top of her. Bullets ricocheted off the helicopter’s skin just above the door opening. “Who’s shooting at us!” she wailed, covering her head with her arms.

  “Our own military...infected soldiers,” Carol said, as she scrambled to get clear of the doorway as Jim, Charles, and Harold climbed in.

  “Go go go! Take off now!” Jim screamed at the pilot.

  The rotors whined and the cabin swayed as the helicopter lifted off.