01.5 Reaper's Run

by David VanDyke

Sam ate silently while staring into the fire thinking of nothing in particular. After finishing the alligator steaks he opened a jar of pickle spears and ate several before putting the rest away for later. He then pulled out a pan and carefully popped popcorn over the fire pit. The Pack perked up, popcorn was one of their favorites. Sam could almost feel his body respond to the carbohydrates and felt a little bit sleepy even though it was early. He washed everything down with a bottle of fruit juice and then cleaned up the cooking utensils.

  The dogs were beginning to settle down for the night in positions close to the fire. Sam realized he had better lay out his sleeping bag soon or all the best spots would be taken. He pulled his bag and pillow from the jeep and seeing the clear and beautiful night sky, also grabbed the telescope. It was the most compact and powerful one he could find and was perfect for gazing up into the heavens and nights like this.

  Sam set up the tripod and aimed the telescope towards the inner part of the Milky Way. Should have been an astronomer, he told himself. He stared at the amazing cosmos going from star cluster to star cluster wondering if there were others out there like him. He lit a stale cigar and felt a little less alone in the vastness of the universe around him.

  His eyes finally grew tired and the cigar was finished. Sam put the telescope away and took off his boots. He was about to lay down when he saw two figures run from behind the jeep into the woods near the highway. Both had long black hair, and were holding hands. One was a child.

  Sam stood suddenly knocking over the telescope. The dogs looked up at him quizzically and he realized the figures weren't real. "Damn, stop it!" Sam said as he put his fists to his head. He picked up the telescope and went about lying down for sleep intentionally not looking around the campsite. The dogs would warn him if there was anything that needed his attention.

  As soon as he was in his sleeping bag, Molly and Tanner came over and lay against him sharing their warmth and comfort. Sam closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but it was a long time coming. He gazed up into the vastness of the cosmos until he faded into sleep's blessed oblivion serenaded by the song of the frog and cricket.

  ***

  Sam liked the jeep because it had four-wheel drive and was light making it ideal for going off-road around most of the abandoned car bottlenecks. The few times the jeep had gotten stuck in soft mud or dirt, it had been relatively easy to pull the jeep back up to the road using the winch on the front bumper.

  They traveled steadily north over the next few weeks, staying as close to the Atlantic as possible. Sam frequently consulted road maps and chose scenic routes near the sea over larger roads or more direct routes. Many of the paths he had traveled before, but some were new as were the sights.

  One morning he awoke to a ball of smoke in the sky to the north. Sam almost didn't believe it at first, but after rubbing his eyes several times convinced himself the smoke was actually there. He raced north at a pace that wasn't entirely prudent. Around noon, and after many wrong turns and dead ends, Sam found the source of the fire. A large barn on a dairy farm was burning with great fury and Sam even felt the wall of heat from the road. After a careful search he determined no one had been around for years. It probably started by a stray spark, or a compost pile heating up, or even a stray bolt of lightning. What it wasn't, was a sign from another human being. Sam choked down his disappointment and got back on his path.

  Sam now had a little bit of a problem. The problem was he was no longer sure exactly where they were. In his excitement, he had simply followed the smoke in the sky and stopped consulting the maps. He could tell where north was by his compass, but that still left a lot of unknowns.

  They continued to drive generally north on numerous back roads and forgotten highways until the sun sank low into the sky. Sam was close to pulling over in a field to make camp when he saw a sign ahead that read "Town Limits - Carthage, Population 1,492 - Best Little Town in East Florida!" They passed the sign and drove toward the town center. Sam considered stopping at a gas station on the edge of town, but he was near full anyway having steadily siphoned gas out of abandoned cars along the way. Besides, light was failing and night was coming on strong.

  Carthage had an eerie feeling about it, thought Sam. None of these old towns were like freaking Disneyland or anything, but this one seemed somehow off. It was as if instead of being dead it had unfinished business to settle. Sam would prefer to explore and see what this was about, but the sun was almost down and he didn't like moving about in the dark. They were approaching some sort of park and Sam decided that would be as good a place as any to camp for the night.

  He drove the jeep up into the park under several majestic trees and turned off the engine. The dogs jumped out and went running off to explore. Sam didn't worry, they rarely went too far and would be back when he started cooking. He began gathering firewood and picked a spot out from under the trees for their nightly blaze.

  He got the fire going just as the final rays of the sun were fading from the western sky. One of the biggest shocks to Sam after the world ended was how hard it was to start a fire. No boy scout, he had always assumed a lit match in combination with dry wood produced a roaring and satisfactorily warm fire. He was soon disillusioned and learned that starting a fire was work...unless you used lighter fluid or gasoline and Sam felt guilty about wasting that limited resource. It wasn't as difficult as it had been in the early days, though Sam still felt slightly spent after successfully getting a fire going.

  He piled up a few nearby rocks and logs to create a support for the metal grating he used to cook on. He laid it over the fire and then poured an extra large can of baked beans into a saucepan and set it on the grating. They hadn't had fresh meat for several days and Sam knew they would need some soon. The sheer work of hunting, killing, and preparing meat had been as great a surprise to Sam as preparing a fire had been.

  The Pack straggled back in, drawn by the smell of the beans. Sam opened cans of dog food and poured them out into a couple of large bowls and the five canines attacked their dinner with enthusiasm. He stirred his beans and then ate them right out of the saucepan.

  Sam was just getting ready to clean the empty pan when in near unison the dogs started going berserk. Raven and Scotch were in the front facing the darkness of the town center, the others a little behind. All of them had their hackles standing straight up. Sam began to shine a light towards what they were agitated about, but heard strange grunting animal noises and instead went to the jeep and took the M1 carbine out of its case. He checked to make sure it was loaded and turned around to see the dogs backing away from some sort of monster entering the circle of firelight.

  Sam was uncertain of exactly what he was seeing. There were three or four of the monsters that he could see and they were gigantic, easily the size of buffalo, but longer like a hippo. They stared at him with intelligent eyes over wicked tusks and long noses. Sam realized with a shuddering shock that they were pigs. Pigs larger than any pig should ever be...and unafraid. The lead animal strode forward and stuck its snout into the pan so recently filled with baked beans and began making slurping noises. The others gathered around and Sam could see another four or five materialize out of the darkness further back.

  He jumped into the jeep and called for the dogs to follow him. For once Raven didn't hesitate, nearly knocking Sam over in his eagerness to get away from these nightmare monsters. The lead pig had finished licking out the pan and cast it aside. Another giant pig incredibly began chewing up and eating the pan. The pigs sniffed the air and approached closer to the jeep containing the smelly man and loud annoying dogs.

  "This is total bullshit!" screamed Sam at the swine. They approached and stuck their long snouts into the open sides of the jeep opening their mouths to try to get a hold of anything edible. Sam had had enough, he leveled the rifle at the pig closest to him and shot the animal in the head at point blank range. Blood flew from the animal and it looked at him with concern and then evil intent. It leveraged all its weigh
t against the jeep and pushed.

  Sam felt the light jeep lift up on its side and he nearly panicked. If they ended up on the ground the pigs would have them for sure. He fired again and again at the lead pig until it finally stopped pushing the jeep and stumbled away before falling down, its head crashing into the fire. The other swine without hesitation moved forward to begin feeding on their dying brethren.

  Sam was repulsed and wanted to shoot at the monstrosities, but was afraid it would attract their attention. They were already staring at him with intelligent curiosity while they dined and Sam felt as if he were somehow the entertainment piece of dinner and a show. The dogs had also thankfully ceased their crazed barking and now simply whined and growled.

  The smell of roasted pork was somehow nauseating. The pigs feasted and tore apart the giant animal, fighting with each other over the choicest portions of entrails. Sam and The Pack watched the spectacle fearful and horrified for long hours.

  Finally the monsters had cleaned the carcass to the bone and were satiated enough to have little interest in the smaller game in the jeep. The pigs wandered off into the darkness to pursue other piggish activities.

  Sam and The Pack remained in the jeep and continued their vigil throughout the long night, awaiting the blessed light of the dawn.

  ***

  The next morning they drove on into town. Sam wanted to be away from this place as fast as possible, but the quickest way was north through dead Carthage.

  The body hanging by a rope around its neck from the railing of a water tower caught his attention first. It was hard to believe that after all of this time a body could resist decomposition so much that it actually could hang, but there it was. On the tower this corpse, or another, had painted in large black block letters, "Abandone hope all ye who enter here" and followed this up inexplicably enough with a giant smiley face.

  At the town center, in front of the old courthouse, Sam slammed on the brakes and just stared. There was a pile of charred bones as high as the second story of the courthouse. It must contain hundreds of bodies, thought Sam. A bucket truck stood beside the pile, itself partially charred, several dead bodies in the bucket itself. The piles had been disturbed and trampled upon, likely by the pigs.

  Sam felt sick to his stomach, but before he could turn away he saw three tall wooden stakes in the ground with blackened earth around them out to about fifteen feet. Blackened bones littered the ground at the base of the stakes. He tried to look away quickly but before he could saw a charred human skull no bigger than his fist seemingly cradled in the protective charred boney hands of an adult.

  Driving fast, much too fast. Sam heard loud moaning noises, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. He could hardly drive for Molly sitting in his lap licking his face. Sam finally let his foot off the gas and just let the jeep coast until it stopped in the middle of the road. Tears were streaming down his face.

  "Oh God, what happened to us?" Sam asked. "Why is it all gone and why am I still here? If it's the freaking apocalypse you forgot something!" he screamed into the sky. "You forgot to take me! Do it! Take me!"

  Sam hung on the wheel and sobbed. Molly's insistent licking in his ear would not be denied. He grabbed the dog by the neck angry, but ended up hugging her close caressing and drawing comfort. He eventually got himself under control, wiped his eyes and looked up. Rachael, his dead wife, was standing there in front of the jeep, smiling and lovely, her long dark hair still in the breeze.

  "Not now, honey," whispered Sam and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, she was gone.

  ***

  The math was irrefutable, yet still not borne out by practical observation. Even if the plague had been 99.99% fatal to all those infected, making it by far the most deadly pathogen even seen, there should still be thirty-five thousand survivors in the United States alone and sixty million survivors worldwide presuming a 100% exposure rate. But where were they?

  The East Coast was the most densely populated region of the United States. If there were survivors, then some of them should be here. Sam had gone up and down the entire coastline a half dozen times and seen no evidence of other survivors. Could he really be the only one left alive? Wouldn't it be more likely that all of this was some sort of delusion? Maybe he was dying too, or in a coma from a car crash, or dead already and this was hell.

  If he were the only survivor, what had made him different, he asked himself. He hadn't just survived infection; he had never even gotten sick. No one knew what the disease was and in the end they called it The Plague, which was as apt a name as any. The signs of the disease were high fever, painful sores, and delirium, but what made it truly deadly was the fact that an infected person was a carrier for nearly a week before showing any real signs of infection. In months The Plague had swept the globe.

  Sam suspected that the suddenness of the disease, and the total lack of immunity by humans, indicated the disease was manmade. The fact that all animals were immune strengthened this hypothesis. Someone must have screwed up royally, he thought.

  A blood test to confirm infection was quickly developed, however it only served to ignite chaos and panic once it showed nearly everyone carried the disease and would die in a matter of days. Those days were a nightmare to Sam. Parents killing their children to prevent suffering. Roving gangs of madmen wandering the streets killing, maiming, and raping with abandon. At first there was a pathetic effort to dispose of the bodies. Mass graves soon led to giant furnaces which turned into whole fields piled high with bodies hosed down with gasoline from fire department pump trucks before going up in a giant fireball of ineffective cremation. Eventually, even the thin veneer of civilization collapsed. Police, soldiers, doctors, firemen, government leaders all evaporated into the futility of wasted life and the certainty of impending death.

  Sam never bothered to even get the test, just assumed he was infected like everyone else and would die soon. He'd been away on business, unable to get home or even call. Mass transportation came to a standstill and the roads and highways were thin ribbons of clogged hellish brutality in a vast landscape of death and rot.

  He supposed the only thing that kept him from killing himself like so many others was the thought of getting home to his wife and daughter before the end. Countless occasions he almost died anyway due to near accidents, wanton violence, or sheer chance.

  As everyone around him died off and the world became more still, Sam let himself feel some hope for his family. Maybe he was alive because of something genetic, so Rachel and Barbara could be immune too. They might be alive and holding on in their house in Williamsburg, Virginia.

  Getting home consumed his being. He had long ago tried to blot out that journey. It was a voyage over a dead landscape covered in bodies where the rats and roaches had quickly multiplied by the trillions to consume the rotting stinking flesh. Giant plumes of smoke lifted into the air in every direction and on some days dirty ash fell from the sky like snow. Sam learned to avoid habitation and highways, traveling mostly cross country and only entering buildings out of great necessity.

  Williamsburg lay on a peninsula cut lengthwise by only one real interstate and this road had become more of a killing zone that most. Sam remembered this highway was frequently packed bumper to bumper each weekend in normal times and at the end, millions had clogged this already ineffective escape route. Sam had no other choice but to travel down this highway. The surrounding land was narrow, swampy, and thickly wooded, so I-64 was the only real option.

  He spent most of the time walking over the hoods and roofs of cars, trucks, and vans covered in others' belongings, some clearly necessary for survival, others pure vanity or delusion. At night he would stay in one of the many recreational vehicles on the highway after dragging the dead inhabitants outside with as much respect and tenderness as he could summon. He would eat what was stocked in the vehicle's kitchen heated by propane tanks and he could usually even get a shower.

  It took over a week to cover th
e sixty miles in this manner. When he finally made it to his neighborhood, it looked almost normal. Bodies were few and only a couple of the houses had burned down. Sam made his way to his house and family with trepidation.

  He began running when he saw his home and started yelling for them. His cries startled a flock of crows and his cries echoed back to him unanswered. Dead windows everywhere greeted and watched him.

  Rachel had loved this home, they both had. It wasn't too big and in a nice area with a beautiful view. They had bought it with the intention of growing old in it together and of it being the last house they ever owned. They had been happy and content here, Sam realized as he stood at the front door. An envelope was taped to the green surface with 'Samuel' written in Rachel's beautiful looping cursive.

  Sam reached out and took the envelope with shaking fingers and pulled out a folded letter filled with more of Rachel's writing. 'Samuel, my love,' it began. 'I pray you find this letter and are well. Barbara and I have the plague and know what that means. At least we have each other. I hope you are not alone at the end. If you get home soon and are not infected, please, if you love me, do not enter! There is nothing you can do for us and we want you to go on, even if that means without us for as long as you can. Your love and the life we have lived together has been more than I ever even hoped to dream for. Farewell my love, you will see me again I promise. Rachel and Barbara.'

  He dropped the letter with shaking hands and a photograph tumbled out of the envelope. Sam reached down and picked it up. It was a picture of the three of them that summer on the beach. One of those wonderful moments that they had taken for granted, back when they had believed happy days would stretch out before them without end.

  Sam put his hand on the door knob and found it locked. He got ready to knock down the door but was racked with sobs. He could imagine them lying in there together in bed, loving and comforting each other until the end, but dead and decaying now. His brain couldn't stand the thought, and he knew if he saw them like that right now it might drive him insane.