One Blink From Oblivion

by Mark Curtis Bullock

  Max shakes his head, “Something is off. Someone put these cars here like this.”

  Max slows down as he approaches within thirty feet of the wall of cars. He comes to a complete stop and then puts the Hummvy into reverse. As soon as the Hummvy starts to move backward, blinding lights from nearby rooftops fill the car disorienting everyone inside. Max instinctively guns the engine but has discovered the trap too late.

  A soldier pulls a heavy-duty spike strip fixed with ten inch serrated blades across the road behind the Hummvy and Max is unable to react before the vehicle has crossed it. The strip shreds every tire in an instant. Max knows the heavy duty Hummvy tires may continue to run after crossing the strip but thinks better of attempting to evade the military. Heavily armed soldiers surround the Hummvy and shout orders at Max, Vinny and Brooke to shut off the engine and exit the vehicle immediately. Max advises Vinny and Brooke to disarm their selves completely and he does the same.

  “We don’t want any yahoos getting trigger happy on us.”

  Max and Vinny open the doors and the three of them exit the vehicle with hands up. The soldiers instruct them to lift their shirts and turn around.

  “We’re unarmed!” Max says loudly.

  He’s been here before and knows this drill. Whether it be cops or soldiers, the best thing you can do is let them know you pose no threat. Apparently satisfied with what they see, one soldier tosses two zip-ties on the ground at Brooke’s feet.

  “You two guys put your hands behind your back.” the soldier yells at Vinny and Max before pointing at Brooke, “You pick those up and tie their hands. Make it tight.”

  Brooke complies but grimaces when she cinches Vinny’s wrist in the zip-tie. She bets that right about now he was wishing he’d opted for the morphine. The tie locks his shoulder in an unnatural position, but he appears to be no worse for the wear.

  “Now, you turn around and kneel down on the ground with your legs crossed under you.”

  Brooke complies again and two soldiers swoop in and quickly tie her wrist in the same manner she had tied the others. One of the soldiers gives the tie an extra tug and it bites into her skin.

  “Hey, that hurts!” she barks at the soldier who immediately applies the same tug to both Max and Vinny’s ties as well.

  Max decides that now is the time to speak up since the soldiers should be feeling a bit more secure, “We didn’t jack the Hummvy. Gilly let us take it.”

  This statement peaks the interest of a nearby soldier with dark hair and wide eyes.

  “P.F.C. Gilly? Where is he? That’s bullshit. Why would he let you take it?”

  The soldier’s shoulder shows the rank of corporal and his pocket tag reads ‘Steward’.

  Max realizes that this young soldier must have been a friend of Gilly’s and decides to tread lightly, “He was hurt and he gave us the vehicle so we could get away from a swarm of those things.”

  “So you just left him?” shouts CPL Steward, his voice now a couple of octaves higher than it was a moment ago.

  “It wasn’t like that,” adds Vinny.

  “It sure as hell looks like that.” The wide-eyed soldier spits at Vinny before turning to a man out of the range of the lights, “We gotta’ go get him serge’!”

  “You can’t,’ says Max, “He’s dead. He died in a fire.”

  Brooke quickly adds, “He died to save us,” her voice tremors a bit and her eyes well with tears once more.

  The man in the background steps into the light and looks Brooke up and down.

  He says, “Maybe, maybe not, but even if it’s true the three of you look like you’ve been exposed, and far as we know, you could be halfway to turning already. You best come with us just to be safe.”

  He makes the last statement with a thick amount of sarcasm in his voice. He then turns and disappears back out of range of the lights.

  The soldier that had earlier shouted orders at Brooke begins to shout more now.

  “Let’s get them on the truck!”

  A large troop transport vehicle pulls up and the tailgate swings down to reveal a truck bed already occupied by several people that all seem to be suffering from various stages of infection.

  Brooke is the first one led to the truck and she protest loudly, “Those people are infected! You can’t put us in there with them!”

  “They’re all chained up. You’ll be fine Ms.” One of the soldiers leading her by her arm tries unsuccessfully to reassure her.

  As soon as she is seated on the bench in the back of the truck, she too is shackled to the floor.

  “Sorry Ms. Just a precaution,” the soldier attempts to reassure her again.

  Max realizes that the soldiers have taken Brooke first in hopes that it will make it easier to get them inside and tethered without a fight. It’s a smart move. What man is going to run off and leave his lady friend that is already chained up in a truck full of infected? Well, no real man would do that anyway.

  They come for Vinny next and one soldier stands behind him with something that looks like a cattle prod. Max can see the two electrodes on the end of the staff and wonders if the soldiers found that electricity was an effective method in subduing the infected.

  Just as they get Vinny up into the back of the truck one of the rooftop lights on a nearby Johnny Rockets is extinguished with a hollow popping sound. A muffled squeal follows from the same area. Within seconds, the neighboring light is put out in the same manner. Shortly after, something that sounds like a large bird can be heard just overhead, moving across the narrow one-way street from one rooftop to another. In short order, the final light has been extinguished.

  “Circle up!” calls the voice of CPL Steward.

  All of the soldiers quickly form a loose circle with their backs to each other and scan the night. Some of them snap their rifle lights on and pan the rooftops.

  “They’re here, be ready.” calls out one soldier.

  “Don’t let them break the line!” yells out another.

  Max stands outside the circle –weaponless- with his hands tied behind his back and feeling as naked as a newborn. He knows he is useless to his friends given his circumstances. Brooke and Vinny are in all likelihood safer than he, since they’re surrounded by infected already. The moon and stars provide enough light for him to find his way to the passenger side of the Hummvy, where he quickly drops to the ground and rolls under the vehicle. He prays that the stench of the stale infected blood on their clothes will be enough to keep he and his friends out of harms way.

  Everyone falls silent, waiting and listening for the horde of infected. Their wait is short lived. A guttural voice shatters the silence.

  “Keep your fucking hands off of my dinner.” The voice emanates from within the middle of the circle of soldiers. From under the Hummvy, Max can make out the imposing and all too familiar silhouette of the freeway-man. The moonlight glints off of his oversized teeth and reveals a wide sadistic grin.

  As the soldiers realize what has happened they begin to spin around to face their attacker. Max realizes that they’ve been outmaneuvered by the freeway-man. There is no way to fire on him in the center of their circle without firing on each other. Before anyone can decide what to do the freeway-man has reached out to the soldier nearest to him and grabbed him by the top of his body-armor. With a quick swipe, the freeway-man peels the armor from the soldier’s body and flings it at his next target that is far less fortunate than his armor-less comrade.

  The armor hits the soldier in the head, and while he reels from the impact, the freeway-man closes the gap between them and in one mighty stroke drives the soldiers nose into his brain so deeply that only a small jagged hole remains where the soldiers nose used the be. In a flash, the freeway-man leaps through the air to the other side of the circle where he again rips the body-armor from a surprised soldier. The soldier instinctively fires his weapon in the direction of the freeway-man but none of his bullets find purchase in their intended target. The freeway-man is simply t
oo fast to pin down. The soldiers swing their weapons wildly trying to track him, but instead only blind each other with the tactical lights affixed to their rifles.

  The freeway-man bolts to his next mark, and without breaking stride snaps the soldier’s knee with his left hand. Now ten seconds into the attack the circle begins to lose its cohesion and the soldiers start to fire wildly at the rapidly moving biter. The freeway-man darts from soldier to soldier ripping the body-armor from some and injuring others.

  Now, most of the soldiers are firing their weapons at will. Occasionally one will find its target but more cases than not the soldiers end up hitting each other. Without their body-armor to protect themselves the freeway-man is in essence making them kill each other.

  Max is shouting at the top of his lungs from under the Hummvy, “Shock him! Shock him!”

  One soldier that has turned to flee apparently hears Max and decides to take his advice. He pulls the cattle prod from his waist and returns to the fray waving it frantically as he goes in, in an attempt to get others to join him. His plan seems to work and a few of the remaining soldiers produce their prods as well. The first one in is swatted hard by the freeway-man and sent sliding backward across the asphalt. The next soldier has slightly better luck and gets a shock in before he too is flung sideways into a parked car. The shock seems to slow the freeway-man down just a bit and this spurs-on the remaining soldiers to forge ahead with prods in hand.

  The next soldier gives the freeway-man a solid shock to his midsection stunning him, and is immediately joined by two other soldiers that do the same. The freeway-man drops to a knee and they continue to shock him. If he had indeed been some kind of cattle animal the level of voltage now coursing through his system would surely kill him.

  One of the wounded soldiers makes his way to the truck and produces a pair of shackles. The chain is thick, resembling the kind used by slave traders while attempting to control their captives. The injured soldier lugs the shackles over to the downed biter and with the help of his comrades, binds both the hands and the feet of the freeway-man. For good measure, they continue periodically to shock him.

  “Let’s get him in the truck.”

  Upon hearing this, Max rolls out from under the Hummvy and launches a protest.

  “You can’t put him back there with us. That thing has been hunting us half the night. We’re the reason why he’s here.” Max pleads with the soldier.

  A deep scowl covers the soldier’s face, “If you’re the reason he’s here then you’re responsible for the deaths of these men. Now you can get in with or without our help.”

  Max can tell by his tone and the look on the soldier’s face that he would prefer to help him into the vehicle. His father always told him that it was better to risk possible death than to accept a sure beat-down. Once again, there were unexpected words of wisdom from a man that lived his life as though he had none. Max helps himself into the truck and picks a seat next to Vinny. The soldiers are still tending to the freeway-man but as soon as they are done, they make sure to strap in Max as well.

  The freeway-man is still dazed from the shock he’d sustained but that isn’t making anyone else in the truck any more at ease. Even those that were newly infected and not yet turned look upon the freeway-man with eyes full of dread.

  Before the last soldier steps down from the back of the truck Vinny asks him, “Hey dude, do you think you could give his ass one more jolt with that thing before you go, just for shits and giggles?”

  The soldier turns to Vinny and reveals a slight smile on his face, it’s Gilly’s pal. “No problem,” he says.

  The soldier removes the prod from his hip and returns to the freeway-man where he stops and stands facing him. He lifts the prod, presses the button and lets it crackle a few times into the air. The back of the canvas-covered truck is filled with a blue light for an instant before the moonlight returns. The soldier laughs a bit and turns quickly; he plunges the prod into Vinny’s gut and lets the voltage loose. Like a rattlesnake, the fangs of the prod bite into Vinny’s abdomen and release a burst of electric venom that causes all of his muscles to contract at once.

  Max lunges against his chains trying unsuccessfully to reach the soldier. The soldier releases Vinny from his electric grip and his body goes slack.

  He points the stick in Max’s direction and asks him, “Ready for your turn boy?”

  To Max, it’s beginning to appear as though he’s going to get that beat-down after all.

  Before the soldier can step in and zap him, another calls from outside of the truck, “Corporal! Stand down!”

  Luckily for Max, the corporal decides to obey the order and he promptly exits the vehicle.

  A moment later the truck rumbles to life and the vehicular blockade is cleared from the roadway. The convoy gets underway and heads west to the freeway. Max ironically feels a tinge of relief in his current situation. Granted, he is locked in the back of a military transport vehicle with several people that are believed to be infected, not to mention another one who he was beginning to believe was the anti-Christ. His situation could certainly be better, but on the other hand, it could be worse too. The fact is that they are most likely headed to the valley- ground zero, and this time they have a military escort. Their chances of getting there alive –assuming the freeway-man remains in his semi catatonic state for the duration- have just increased tenfold. In addition, Max had to admit to himself that he was happy to share the title of protector for his two closest friends. As the evening has gone on, the job has grown exponentially more difficult and he was not looking forward to whatever trials that may lie ahead.

  The truck hits a pothole and the canvas that covers the bed gaps momentarily. Max catches a glimpse of the roadside in the moonlight. The scene is surreal. The gutters are littered with the burnt out corpses of what he can only assume were the infected. The bodies aren’t just burned but broken as if shoved aside by a snowplow. If the military was wholesale burning the infected then why hold onto the few in the back of this truck? In the case of him and his friends -who are not infected- he wonders what their intentions might be. At the moment they are along for the ride and not in control of their fates, but Max decides it’s best if -once they reach the valley- he keeps his eye out for a means of escape. In this rapidly changing landscape, whom do you trust?

  The truck hits another pothole while turning onto the onramp and the freeway-man stirs just a bit. Brooke tenses and watches him fearfully. Her jaw is visibly clinched and she strains her wrist against the zip-tie holding her.

  “It’s no use, unless you’re a stage two infected there’s no way you’re breaking those things. Anyway, your friend there won’t be waking up any time soon,” the words come from a fit, thirty-something, middle-eastern woman with short hair, bright eyes and a British accent wearing a smart gray pantsuit.

  Brooke looks at her, mystified, “Excuse me?”

  The lady sits up and straightens her posture as best she can with her hands tied behind her back, “Forgive my rudeness, you are absolutely correct. Our current state of affairs is no excuse for me to forego propriety. My name is Alia, or Doctor Al as my friends and coworkers at the CDC have come to call me. Being that we all find ourselves in the same unfortunate circumstance, please consider me a friend and call me Doctor Al. However, it would appear that my services are no longer required by the CDC, so I guess it would be more appropriate for you to just call me Al.”

  Brooke –a bit perturbed by Alia’s sense of decorum given the circumstances- asks, “What do you mean, ‘stage two’.”

  Alia purses her lips and gives her hair a quick flip before she responds, “Pardon me, I spend so much time conversing with other scientist in my profession that I occasionally forget how to speak laymen.”

  Vinny interjects, “As much as I’m enjoying your accent do you think you could get your nose out of the air long enough to get to the point.”

  Apparently not hearing, or just choosing to ignore Vinny’s
statement Alia continues, “This virus is quite remarkable; it attacks the body’s various systems in stages. To put it simply, the initial stage is the sickness itself.

  This is the stage in which all of us here find ourselves afflicted, in varying degrees, of course with the exception of your friend over there,” she nods in the direction of the slumbering freeway-man. “The only early symptoms are a high tolerance for pain, somewhat increased strength, a slight yellowing of the eyes in some cases and unusually aggressive behavior. It hasn’t any of the traditional symptoms we generally look for with an infection. There is no fever of any kind, no lethargy, headache, respiratory problems etc… Most cases however, do present themselves with that god-awful scream that I’m sure you’ve heard. All of those subjects are in stage one of the infection. In order for the virus to move into its second stage, a person that is infected must replace the nutrients that the earlier phase has depleted. It would appear that the most expedient way of doing so is by feeding on the blood of the uninfected. We’re still in early trials of determining how exactly the ingestion of human blood triggers the proceeding changes but what we do know is that it causes the virus to reproduce and spread throughout its host exponentially. The rapidity of the virus’s propagation seems to have a direct correlation with the volume of blood consumed. As the virus infects the more vital systems, including the nervous system and brain, it sends the body into over-drive. I imagine the feeling is quite intoxicating to those that live long enough to reach that level.”

  Brooke doesn’t try to hide the disgust in her voice, “You talk about the virus as though you admire it. We’ve lost so many friends already, some by our own hands.”

  Alia purses her lips again, “My dear, that is truly unfortunate, and it is not my intention to make light of your loss, but this virus could be the most important scientific discovery of this century to say the least. We owe it to ourselves to treat it with the respect and dare I say, admiration, it deserves. We could be standing on the precipice of a great changing. A virus similar to this could actually be the missing link between man and ape. Now that you too are infected, I suggest that you find a way to accept your circumstance. Resisting it would be an exercise in futility.”