The Rabid: Fall Read online

  The Rabid: Fall

  J.V. Roberts

  Copyright 2016 by J.V. Roberts

  Also by J.V. Roberts

  The Rabid

  The Rabid: Rise

  Tower of the Dead

  The Saboteur Chronicles: The Fall of Man

  For Lizzie: For seeing the diamond through the coal. I hope I’ve made you proud.

  Find out more about J.V. Roberts on Facebook. Go to www.facebook.com/thejvroberts

  You can also check out his website and all of his books at www.jvroberts.com

  1

  There was a time, not too long ago, when I viewed the apocalypse as just some wrinkle in the fabric of human history, some fad or trend that would eventually fade away like a shitty, pop-radio inspired dance routine. Then a small army of Rabid killed my sister, momma, and over a hundred other folks. To my knowledge, only three of us made it out of that attack alive: me, Katia, and Sonny (our heavy gunner). Now the bubble has been popped, the simulation has ended, and I’m living in the real world. I don’t care about the what or the why anymore, I just want the who.

  That’s our mission now.

  We’re driving back to Dallas to link up with Ruiz (Katia’s brother) and General Norton. We’re going to join the fight and see it through to the bitter end.

  We’ve been on the road for a few hours and have finally reached the place where our convoy was attacked. The parade of vehicles appears before us, a weaving, winding spine of deformed metal and shattered glass. Low-level flames still lick the air, clinging to the skeleton frames of Humvees, cars, trucks, and vans. Katia guides us through the ruins, weaving us in and out of the line of destruction.

  Lots of blood.

  Lots of spent brass.

  Few corpses.

  A graveyard without bodies.

  The dead have risen and joined their killers. They’ve gone out into the world, Rabid disciples, looking to swell their ranks. I have no doubt that Momma is among them, her eyes a milky white, the hunger rumbling in the back of her throat. The fact that I couldn’t spare her that fate burns deep within my belly, a hot coal rolling around, intensifying at every totem of death and ruin that passes before my eyes.

  Who am I kidding?

  I couldn’t have spared her. I couldn’t even spare Bethany. I had to give Katia the gun. Someone else killed my sister while I curled up and blubbered on the ground.

  It fits the pattern.

  Losing and dying. Dying and losing.

  I can’t seem to plug the leak, no matter how many fingers I use. All I’ve managed to do is slow the flow. With time, everything I love slips through and disappears down the river.

  Sonny, our gunner,is on clean-up duty, tasked with shooting the lingering Rabid that charge the Humvee. It’s the same routine. They leap up and down and claw at the windows and he cuts them down. I feel a sense of empathy as I watch their heads explode across the glass. I see how little there is that separates me from them. I am a shell of my former self, guided by nothing more than bloodlust, just like them, casting aside all else to satisfy my hunger.

  Sure, I have the power of speech…the power to pick and choose my targets.

  Semantics.

  I’m a slightly more evolved Rabid.

  One of them rolls onto the hood of the Humvee and begins pounding at the windshield, sliming the glass with bloody spittle.

  “Hey, Sonny, wanna do your job?” Katia yells back over her shoulder. “Qué chingados!”

  Sonny sprays the monster across the chest and sends it toppling backwards. The Humvee sways slightly as the tires trample the body.

  “How you doing?” Katia takes my hand and squeezes my fingers together.

  I don’t expect her touch and startle a little. “I’m fine. Just trying to process.”

  “Lost a lot of good people,” she sighs.

  “Yeah.” There’s this dread building inside of me that I’m gonna see Momma coming for us; the twisted, broken shell of the person I loved. There’s this aching in my heart that’s blocking me in, refusing to let me accept that she’s really gone.

  “You know if you ever want to talk about it…or whatever—”

  “I know, Katia. I appreciate it.” I look at her and force a smile.

  Her grip loosens, but she doesn’t let go. “I want to get us a couple miles outside of this and then we can find somewhere to bed down.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I pull my hat a little lower as the setting sun begins to attack my eyes, “not like any of us are going to be able to sleep.”

  “Rest and food are still important, whether you sleep or not. Push yourself too hard and you’ll end up making a mistake; you know that. Don’t go getting careless. What’s that little thing you like to say?”

  “Survive or die.”

  “Exactly. That’s how we survive. We keep doing what we know to do. And if you don’t wanna do it for you, do it for me. Believe it or not, I need you.”

  All the stuff I’ve put her through and she’s still pulling for me. If that ain’t love…well, it’ll do. It’s not the same as having Momma and Bethany around, nothing is…nothing ever will be. But to hear someone say they still need me, it does something. It causes me to sit up a little straighter and act like I give a damn. I still have something that’s mine in this world, something to hold on to, to protect; it’s purpose, it’s hope.

  There are two whispers from Sonny’s rifle. Two Rabid drop to their knees a few feet away from the Humvee. Sonny ducks his head down behind us. “Maybe we should stop and scavenge what we can from the vehicles; gotta be something we can use out there.”

  Katia shakes her head. “And risk getting swarmed? Nah, we’ve got enough to last till we get back to Ruiz and Norton, no need to risk our asses unnecessarily.”

  She’s right, no need to risk it.

  Survive or die.

  2

  “What are you gonna do when all of this is over?” Katia asks.

  “You really think all of this is ever gonna be over?”

  We are sitting on the top level of a parking garage. My silenced M4 rifle is clenched between my knees, and Katia’s katanas are crossed over the tops of her thighs. The Humvee is parked behind us and Sonny is asleep on the roof. In front of us, in the distance, the jagged Dallas skyline cuts dark shadows across the midnight horizon.

  “No, I don’t. But hypothetically, if we were able to find whatever switch has been flipped and flip it back, what would you do?”

  I sit back on my hands. “Hell of a question, I don’t know. Maybe go back home, try to rebuild. What about you?”

  “Same, I guess. Even before all this, life was always hectic. We bounced around a lot; Indiana to Texas, everywhere in between, the existence of a military family. I guess I’d try to get something normal going.”

  “What’s normal?”

  She shrugs. “Stability, you know…roots. That’s the normal I want.”

  “You could always come to Georgia with me.” I nudge her.

  She turns her head and fixes her eyes on mine. “You asking?”

  I’m completely caught off guard. I wasn’t expecting such a forward response. “Well, I mean, you’d want that? Like…to live with me…in Georgia?”

  “You haven’t asked.”

  I clear my throat. “When…if…this is all over, would you want to stay with me in Georgia?”

  She taps her chin. “Hmm, okay, if you insist.” She pecks me on the lips, laughs, and tries to roll away from me.

  I grab her and pull her back as she squirms and pounds softly at my arms. “I can’t picture it.”

  “Picture what?” She gives up and drops her head against my chest.

  “You as a country girl.”

  “Fool, don’t get ahead of you
rself. I said I’d go with you to Georgia, I didn’t say I’d be a shit kicker.”

  “You think we play banjos too?”

  “That or you know someone that does.”

  “Come to think of it, I did know a kid that played a dulcimer.”

  “A dulci-what?”

  “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s got strings. Most folks set the instrument on their thighs to play it. I’ve seen them at fairs. Saw a guy make one once at Dollywood.”

  “What’s a Dollywood?”

  “It’s this theme park in Tennessee. Dolly Parton created it, I think.”

  She starts laughing. “The country singer?”

  “Don’t judge! It was a family tradition. We went every year.”

  “I don’t know about you, Tim.” She cuddles up closer to me. “Only theme park I’ve ever been to is Six Flags. Last time I went, I hated it.”

  “Too many lines and too few rides?”

  “Nah. It wasn’t that. It was off season, so we could pretty much ride whatever. It just lost its luster. Didn’t think it was fun getting my neck jerked around by coasters and having my stomach tossed up into my throat. All I kept thinking was how I’d rather be at home doing nothing. You know what I mean?”

  “It was action figures for me.”

  “Action figures, really?”

  “Yeah. Just got bored of playing with them one day, put them in a box and never looked back.”

  “I don’t think it’s the same thing.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “No, a lot of adults still love theme parks and roller coasters. But you’re supposed to grow out of playing with action figures at around…oh, I dunno, twelve.”

  “I was fourteen.”

  “Figures.”

  “I’m sure there’s an adult out there that still plays with action figures.”

  “You find them and then we’ll talk.”

  A comfortable silence develops between us. The wind rises over the wall of the parking garage and breaks across our faces; it smells vaguely of rotting corpses.

  “So tell me about your home.”

  My left leg is falling asleep so I readjust, lifting Katia’s head just long enough to make the shift. “What do you wanna know?”

  “CliffsNotes.”

  A wave of memories wash over me: Bethany and me putting on plays in the backyard, Woody Allen movies with Momma in the living room, practicing my latest routine on the front porch beneath the watchful eye of the bug-covered floodlight hanging from the side of the house. Each image is more bittersweet than the last. I push them down, stilling my chin and tightening my throat. “Well…um…”

  She sits up and turns, placing a hand on either side of my face, no doubt having picked up on the quiver in my voice. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. Don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “No, it’s good to remember, even if it hurts; learned that after I lost my dad. If you don’t hurt when you lose something, then you never really loved it, right?” I take her hands off my face and just hold them. “When I was a kid, it was paradise; thick woods, big yard, we even had a chicken coop.”

  She narrows her eyes and frowns. “Did you kill them?”

  “No. They were pets. I could never.”

  “Such a softie.” She pokes me in the chest.

  “I am a paradox; the look of a cowboy, the heart of a hippie.”

  “I like it.” She wraps her arms around my neck. “The traditional manly-man, the supposedly masculine type, they don’t seem to understand any emotions beyond their own. They’re the type that’ll tell you they love you and then go sleep with your best friend.”

  “Speaking from experience?”

  “Maybe,” she laughs. “So what happened to those chickens? You leave them behind when all this happened?”

  “Nah. They were dead long before all this. Possums and eagles got them.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “No, ma’am, I am not. An eagle came right out of the sky, took Bethany’s favorite chicken away right in front of her; traumatized her for a week.”

  “You saying all this makes me not want to move to Georgia.”

  “You gotta be open minded, give it some time. The country has a way of seducing people. We’d have you in a hat in no time.”

  “We’ll start with a pair of boots and go from there.”

  “I can live with that.”

  “Black ones with zippers on the side.”

  “Not sure those count.”

  “Baby steps.”

  Soon Katia grows heavy in my arms and begins snoring softly in my ear. I don’t care. One of us deserves to get some sleep. To be fair, it should be Sonny keeping watch, not me; the guy has been sleeping since we parked. But I doubt sleep would find me even if I made myself available. Hell, I wouldn’t want it to find me, even if it could; I am terrified of the nightmares that wait on the other side of consciousness.

  A ball of light rises in the distance. I sit forward as I follow its ascent, stirring Katia. The concussion hits us a few seconds later, shaking the structure beneath us.

  “What the hell?” Katia jumps to her feet, hands on the hilts of her swords.

  I hear Sonny grunt as he falls off the roof of the Humvee.

  Tracer rounds light up the Dallas skyline. There are more explosions, smaller than the first one.

  Katia runs across the parking deck to the waist-high wall, hands folded on top of her head. “Oh God, no!”

  “Katia, what is it?” I come up beside her, toting the M4.

  “Ruiz! That’s Ruiz!”

  “Katia, calm down, you don’t know that.”

  “Pull your head out of your ass, Tim! Who else is in the city besides them and the people looking for the drive?”

  “If there’s one thing your brother and Norton are capable of doing, it’s handling themselves.”

  “We’ve gotta go!” She runs for the Humvee. “Sonny, get your ass up and get in!”

  “Katia, wait.” I stay on her heels. I want to grab her and turn her around, but I don’t want to get punched. “We need to wait for sunrise. Traveling at night is stupid, especially with only three of us.”

  “Stay here if you want, Tim, but I’m going.” She hops into the driver’s seat.

  “Wait!” I grab the door as she goes to pull it shut.

  “Let go, Tim!”

  “Just listen to me for one second.”

  “Let go of the door!” she leans out of the Humvee and screams in my face while trying to yank the door free from my grasp.

  “Not until you hear me out.”

  She starts crying and my heart breaks. “Tim, please, my brother could be dead…please, let go?”

  “Katia, if we leave right now, our chances of making it are not good. Think! What would Ruiz want? We wouldn’t make it there till morning anyway, even if we left right now. Come first light, we’ll haul ass over there. I promise you. But we need to wait for morning. If we’re dead, we can’t help anyone. Survive or die, right?” I’m tensed up, white-knuckling the handle, ready for her to give it another tug.

  She deflates and falls back in the seat, tears still rolling down her face. “First light?”

  “First light, we’re out of here. I promise.”

  Sonny has one foot in the Humvee. His eyes are panning between us, like a child watching his parents fight, trying to pick a side.

  Katia slides out of the driver’s seat and falls to the pavement, shaking as she watches the tracer rounds poke red holes in the black canvas of the night sky. I fall in beside her and cautiously take her in my arms, positive that she’s going to push me away. But she doesn’t. She folds into me as if I’m her last refuge in this crazy storm.

  I will do for her what I couldn’t do for Momma and Bethany.

  I will protect her. Whatever it takes. I will save her from all of this.

  I will die for you.

  3

  “Damn it! I knew we’d be too late!” Katia
throws a piece of smoldering wood into the crater.

  We are standing in the middle of a battlefield. The blackened skeletons of Jeeps and Humvees surround us. There are shell casings and corpses, some with their faces smashed in by shrapnel. I recognize some of the men; they were on our side. But a large majority of the bodies are wearing uniforms alarmingly similar to the ones worn by the men that attacked me and Bethany at the storage shed.

  Katia is kicking through the debris. “Don’t just stand around, assholes; help me look!”

  “We’re looking. I’m not seeing him, unless…” I start to point out the headless, faceless corpses, but stop short. “There are tire tracks leading out of here. There’s a good chance he got away.”

  “But we don’t know that for sure! How the hell can we know that?” She tosses aside a flat piece of ply board, coughing as a cloud of ash billows into her face.

  “We don’t know that, but from the looks of things—”

  “That doesn’t mean anything!”

  We’re not able to advance too far into the wreckage of the warehouse; the twisted wall of steel and wood make passage impossible.

  “Guys, you really think it’s safe to just be standing out here?” Sonny is turning circles, his gun aimed skyward, as if he expects the Rabid to swoop down on top of us from the rooftops.

  “Shut up, Sonny!” Katia turns, her fists raised like she’s ready for a brawl.

  I put a hand on Sonny’s back. “Go wait in the Humvee, I’ll deal with her,” I speak softly, not wanting to provoke Katia any further.

  Sonny nods and retreats to the Humvee.

  Katia watches him go. “He’s such a pussy.”

  I walk over and place my hands on her shoulders. “We don’t exactly have folks lining up to watch our backs; he’ll have to do.”

  “He’d be more useful as Rabid bait.”

  “Come on now, you don’t mean that.”

  “Of course I do.” She twists away from me. She kicks at the debris pile in frustration before falling to her knees. “We can’t catch a break!”

  “The fact that we’re all still breathing is a break in and of itself.”