The Reaper Virus

by Nathan Barnes

  I owe a huge debt to Tim Long for opening up so many doors and for the continuous guidance as I walked through them. Thanks to the almighty Robert Elrod for originally bringing my vision to life on the cover of the book’s first printing. I’m grateful for having talented friends like Michael S. Gardner and Jeremy Peterson to help develop ideas and hear me gripe about creative plights. A little while after I started putting the blog out there I started getting support from an incredible group call LEGO ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE which brought me tons of new readers and introduced me to a valued friend, Erik Mudrinich, who also created the LZA page. Finally thanks to Alfredo Torres for doing my first interview then becoming a great advocate and friend.

  It’s the world wide readers of The Reaper Virus blog and their global support that have made this a dream come true. Posting this originally as a blog connected me to people and fans I’d fight the undead with any day. I’ve also been able to participate in several online communities of zombie/horror lovers that always offer support. Special recognition goes to: David Moody, Jacob Kier, Nicholas Clark, JD Daniels, Ethan Maas, Tyler Tompkins, Patrick Montcalm, Cat Milton, Donisha Terry, Monique-Cherie Snyman, Sherry Jensen, S.P. Durnin, Carey Kussmann-Andersen, Chris Philbrook, Lance Glisson, Sacha Aislabie, and Rena Ingersoll.

  There are no storybook endings during the apocalypse…

  Throughout this tale the character obsesses over the thought of seeing his family once again. In his mind, the only end he will accept is the one where he reaches the people he loves. Even though Nathan is seemingly bitten by one of the ravenous infected and must be dragged into safety, he still fulfills that core obsession. The book ends with him happy because regardless of his physical state the people he loves are there. However, when the dead rise and life as we know it collapses, is there really such thing as a happy ending?

  No. There are no storybook endings during the apocalypse. Under this pretense I thought it was necessary to provide an alternate ending to THE REAPER VIRUS. Even though I’m happy with the route I took I still couldn’t shake the “what if?” Please keep in mind that this is not the true ending of this story. The ending you already read is how I wanted to close this novel and lead into its sequel, THE REAPER VIRUS: WHAT REMAINS.

  So if you’re like me and tend to think about the ways things could have gone differently then please enjoy this piece which was written as a short story originally for an unpublished anthology. It’s not how my tale ends, but it so easily could have gone this way…

  Hellacious

  Biting wind brought awareness to my battered face. Confusion was second only to exhaustion. I had reached a point where factoring pain into my state of being was an exercise in futility. This place was so familiar. Yet, as I looked around I couldn’t help but see the blurred landscape as a twisted doppelganger of the area I knew.

  I furrowed my brow attempting to process a tidal onslaught of memory. The contortion of my facial muscles was met with searing pain. Instinctively, I raised my hand to my forehead. I glanced down to see why my extremities were ignoring orders barked out by my brain. Each hand was covered by a soiled work glove, both tightened in a white-knuckled grip. My left hand was clasped tightly around the bike handlebars. I held onto this unfamiliar bicycle like it was a rope dangling me over an abyss. My right hand was attached to something completely foreign feeling: a pistol.

  This was madness. There wasn’t time to contemplate how I got there. The wind nipping at my tear-choked eyes reminded me that I was moving. In fact, I wasn’t just moving I was rocketing over the pavement like a kamikaze. Traveling that stretch felt like second nature. Even beyond the confusion I had a sense of déjà vu, as if I’d crossed this place countless times. I gazed up through the growing veil of nightfall. At the end of the road I saw a wall of twisted figures. This sight brought about a tsunami of dreaded recollection. Not seconds earlier I was desperate for answers, but I was sickened by the realization that the dead were waiting for me ahead.

  I picked up the pace and plummeted down my neighborhood street. Beyond the wall of undead my house was shrouded in darkness. Everything came back to me in a rush. I remembered fighting my way out of the city. The palpable dread I felt from every human shape cut down during my hellish trek felt anew. In spite of it all, I remembered that my reason for surviving this road to perdition was to reach what lay past those demons. Barely a soul remained on this earth or within me. If I didn’t reach Sarah, Maddox, and Calise, then every sin I’d committed would undoubtedly crush whatever remained inside my heart. They were my reason for being… they were now so close.

  My right hand rose to a parallel angle with the road. The group of undead noticed a meal barreling towards them. They twitched and pulsed with unnatural fury like a worm tossed into a campfire. Shrieks emanated from the wall of hungry dead. A burning sensation tickled my throat. I had become so separated from reality that it didn’t even dawn on me that the burning originated from my bloodcurdling battle cry.

  Thunder boomed from my elevated fist. The pilfered weapon belched explosions of fire towards the now advancing ghouls. Time slowed to a crawl under the oppressive hand of chaos. During the strobe-like flashes of muzzle fire I could discern every horrid detail. I suddenly saw it all, from the spiraling striations in the bullets to the bits of glass and gore peppering the pavement. Logic pecked inside my brain telling me that everything I was witnessing was too insane to be real. Then a shell casing was expelled upward at my forehead. I couldn’t tell if the pain came from it burning my skin or the wound that was there already. My attention was refocused by the immediate reminder of injury.

  One of closest monsters took a round of lead to his shoulder. He flipped around and dropped to the ground. Two of his undead colleagues tripped over the flopping corpse and joined it on the ground, creating a gateway for me. My thoughts screamed with worry that the gun would be empty from so much frantic trigger pulling. A final bullet burst forth and punched through the eye of a woman lunging for my tire. This collision course had reached its end. Recognizing this, I braced for impact, flanked by creatures on both sides.

  I’m going to make it. I’m going to make it. I’m going to make it, repeated my thoughts.

  By the grace of God, I cleared enough room to make it through. The shape of my waiting house revealed itself deep in the cul-de-sac. Panic kept the empty weapon cemented into my right hand. I pushed my gun fist against the bicycle grip to brace for the punch past the dead.

  I’m finally here, ran through my mind in that eternal second.

  Then I was thrown off my steed. One of the monsters lunged towards me as I passed. The collision was a perfect combination of misfortunes. Any slower and he would have sacked me like a quarterback; any faster and he would have missed the bike entirely. His dive sent a rotting arm into the spokes of my rear wheel.

  Repulsive sounds from consequences to the undead man echoed in my ears and painted a vivid picture of his fate. My imagination showed a man looking just like me torn from this illogical apocalyptic place. The ground floated beneath my numbed body hurtling through the air. For a split second I knew my house was approaching at an unsafe rate. Somehow I felt able to control my velocity at the last moment. I went from a catapulted rag doll to a cannonball tucking in for impact. Then the pavement met me.

  I came to a stop in the ditch bordering my property after tumbling several feet. While in mid-somersault I felt a sharp pain radiate as something pushed between my shoulder blades. Lying in the wet ditch leaves I saw what it was that caused the oddly placed pain: a shiny silver blade. How could I have forgotten about my Kukri? The life-saving weapon was all that had allowed me to reach that point. The crooked scabbard was taped to my jacket to allow easy over the shoulder access. Force from impact had launched the precious blade out and javelined it into the ground.

  Thrumming from my pulse drowned out all sounds. I remained on my back in the ditch inspecting myself for new injuries. Silhouettes quickly hobbled up to the property. I was lying the
re like a buffet. Injured or not, I had to move. After everything I’d been through I couldn’t allow myself to just be eaten on my own doorstep. I hoisted myself up onto unsteady feet, pain throbbing from every inch of my person. Warmth from spots where life leaked out of me broke the monotony of debilitation. My hearing began to return enough to recognize the sound of my clattering pursuers.

  I yanked the Kukri from the ground and looked around for my discarded pistol. The gun was nowhere to be found. It may have been out of ammunition but there were more rounds packed with my bike. My thoughts raced through what else I was abandoning in my supplies. There was a shotgun tucked onto my backpack with a small number of shells. I looked back and couldn’t even see the crashed bicycle. Whatever life savers may be there still, I couldn’t even consider retrieving them at that point.

  The front of the house was completely boarded up.

  “Good,” I muttered to myself, “at least they are locked up tight.”

  Hopefully my family had heard the shots and would be ready for me. Within seconds I was at the gate to our privacy fence. I pushed on the wooden wall and heard the rattle of a chained padlock on the other side. There wasn’t any way to open it from the outside while it was secured that way. Peering over my shoulder sent waves of pain through my neck. At least four undead were nearly upon me. I let out a deep sigh of dread knowing that I’d have to climb over the fence.

  I placed the blade back into its scabbard. Even with the zombies closing on me I’d need both hands to get over the six foot privacy fence. The Kukri voiced a grinding objection to being re-sheathed in such a dirty state. I forced it onto my back and leapt up to grab hold. For a moment I just hung there pathetically. Every ounce of strength went into my muscles and I barely moved. The first pursuer was now at least ten feet away from me. I jumped again and got an arm over the wooden ledge.

  “Climb you fat fuck!” I screamed at myself desperately. The insulting self-motivation further excited the predators behind me. They moaned and shrieked like I was the dangling cure for world hunger. More altitude was gained within seconds. The wood pressed into my cracked ribcage. Pain flooded out from the area with ferocity equivalent to the infected desire to feed. My grunting noises sent the leading undead member into a frenzy. It lunged towards me, clearing the last several feet with concerning ease. I crested the fence right as the beast reached me. My foot shot out and the filthy police-grade boot that had carried me through hell connected with the zombie’s nose. While the creature fell I was pushed away and over the fence. I fell flat on my back inside the backyard. A root protruding from the ground met my skull, robbing me of my fragile consciousness.

  Persistently violent tremors shook me awake. The surrounding fenced-in yard was now dimly visible. Holy shit. It must be morning. I was knocked out all night? On the opposite side of the fence I could hear figures fidgeting around the un-raked autumn leaves. Rigor-like stiffness fought my sitting up. I battled through the objections of my broken body in order to survey the area.

  Light mist formed a blanket that separated the browning grass and brisk November morning air. The yard was barren of any activity beyond me. I looked intently at the slightly frosted dew glaze on the ground for signs of disturbance. Trails in the shimmer might indicate that my loved ones had been out to check on me. The scene before me was one of untouched morning serenity, and it terrified me.

  “Why didn’t they come out?” I growled through a scratchy throat.

  I struggled to get up. It felt as if jagged weights had been placed all over my body. Filth, everything from dirt to gore, wetly splotched the black uniform jacket that had kept me warm countless mornings. My struggle to stand was not a silent one. The undead on the other side of the fence began pounding their rotten fists against the wooden planks. Although I was safe for the time being, I took their excitement as motivation to move. Oddly enough, it was the numbness from cold that spared me from much of the pain during my crawl. I inched along on my hands and knees while bracing myself against the house. Minutes later, I reached my target: the rusty garden hose stand beneath the window leading to the bedroom I shared with Sarah. My damp, gloved hand patted around the boarded window until I felt movement in the wood.

  Back when I secured the house, before things went to hell, I had worried about getting locked out. And Sarah said I was being paranoid… I eased my tingly fingertips under the new gap in fortification. Pain screamed from every inch of me. I ignored it all in order to hoist myself through the trap door. I tumbled into the house, knocking a dead alarm clock off the nightstand under the window and finally crashed to the floor. Warmth of memories from this happy room felt soothing despite the current darkened state of things.

  Waves of aching throbbed throughout me from the carpeted impact. In the past few days I’d had to rest on every manner of horrendous surface. With the pain aside, this light padding of carpet felt like a cloud in comparison. It took several minutes of lying there to regain my sense of priority. Why hadn’t they come to see what the crashing sound was? My heart palpitated with worry while full body injury became a moot point.

  “Sarah! Maddox! Calise!” The volume of my voice likely sent the creatures outside deeper into fervor.

  My body shook with every movement. I didn’t know if the tremors were still a result of the core-chilling night spent outside or from the sudden surge of adrenaline. The air temperature was about ten degrees warmer in the house but still far below comfort levels. Within seconds I reached the bedroom door. A banging noise somewhere on the other side stopped my frantic motions. It should have been second nature to reach for my Kukri by then. The only reason it wasn’t was simply because the blade had rarely left my hand since the dead came back. My gloved fingers fumbled over my shoulder and found the wooden contours of the weapon’s handle. Having to pull a weapon in your own home is a heart-sinking affair that I never once thought I’d encounter.

  I took a deep breath and gripped the familiar killing tool tightly. It was pointless to try and calm myself. I scoured my memory to recall if I’d seen the car in the driveway or any breach in our fortifications. My brain was attempting to use the persistent pain and vivid details as evidence that this couldn’t be some illogical nightmare. However, the remaining logic in my mind was pecking away at any acceptance that this could actually be real. The questioning of reality was working me into a further panic and it would be the death of me.

  Sounds from before became difficult to discern over the pulse pounding in my temples. Then a muffled shriek leaked through the walls. My erratic mind took the sound as evidence that my family was in immediate peril. I burst past the door ready to hack evil to pieces. The house was so dark that I practically had to feel my way around.

  “Hello!” I hollered. “Sweetheart! Kids! Daddy’s home now… please come out so I know you’re alright!”

  The noise inside drew attention from the ghouls shambling about in the yard. When I hobbled into the living room I couldn’t even hear my heartbeat over the racket on our porch. The pair of windows in our main living area looked out onto a quaint front porch. A small mob of infected had made their way onto the porch and were pounding furiously. Muffling from the walls made their unholy moans sound like sorrowful weeping. That must have been what I’d heard while inside the bedroom.

  As the minutes passed it became clear that the only thing in this house was me. Every window was blocked with furniture. Blankets or linens had been tacked up to prevent any light from going in or out. The family room windows shook from a constant barrage of impacts on the other side. I was ready to give up hope entirely. I’d begun pacing back and forth in the hallway helplessly. The windowless hallway was the only place I could bear to be. Everywhere else just showed me reminders of my loved ones and desperation. The empty house, combined with the droning sound of evil, brought me over the brink. My legs gave way and I fell into myself.

  I would have slumped over into the fetal position if the burgundy painted walls hadn’t stopped me. My
eyes drifted to the side, consumed by the hollow ache of dehydrated tears. Faint traces of crayon marks on the wall only deepened my sorrow. This had to be a dream. They couldn’t be gone… they just couldn’t. Anger bubbled up inside me.

  “Why would You bring me so far only to crush me completely? If You are punishing me for the sins I committed to get here by taking it out on them… well then You are no better than the virus that killed the world,” I whispered to the empty hall.

  The only response to my sacrilegious ramble was pounding fists outside. I looked up as if some final confirmation was needed from absent omnipotence. Then I saw the frayed cord for our pull down attic ladder. Just as quickly I found myself on my feet and pulling on it.

  Of course they would hide in the attic! They probably thought I was one of the infected that got inside! Hope returned to me for the first time in seemingly forever. The ladder creaked downward. I started calling into the dark opening above, “Don’t be afraid, it’s just Daddy. I got home as soon as I could.”

  No voices came out of the concealed expanse. I fumbled up the wooden ladder like the ground was on fire. The last step caught my foot causing me to crash over onto the plywood floor. The fractured ribs in my chest seethed with sharp pains from the impact. Blurred areas plagued my vision. The acutely angled wooden beams comprising our roof blended together. Every time my pulse pounded the surroundings distorted like gasoline in rippling water. Any grip I had on reality was leaking away from me. This couldn’t be a nightmare because dreams would never be this cruel.