Riposte (The Redivivus Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  Perhaps more than any other, that aspect of the plague frustrated him the most. It was as though they were fighting a war against a faceless enemy. The revs were little more than virulent pawns in a vast army of death led by an otherwise unknown adversary. John was certain there was no nefarious master plan inside the rotting heads of the revs, no concerted effort to recruit the uninfected to their side of the fight. Without knowing who or what was really responsible for all of this, how can we ever truly win this war?

  From somewhere behind him, Kate’s voice brought him back to the moment. “John, are you okay?” She had been quietly observing his body language, which readily betrayed the emotional turmoil with which he grappled.

  Thankful for the redirection, John took a steadying breath and nodded. As much as it pained him to admit it, he knew it was time to head to Atlanta in search of his friend, Dr. Lin San. He had come to this conclusion the previous night as he wrestled with the thought of abandoning the search for Ava. While he had no supporting evidence, deep down he truly believed that she was alive somewhere. If indeed that was the case, he rationalized he had to go to Atlanta if it would increase the chance that his little girl could live out any portion of whatever remained of her life without constantly running from monsters.

  While he knew even making it to Atlanta was a long shot, he felt they had to try if they ever wanted to stop running. He knew how truly brilliant Dr. Lin San was, and with what she had told him during their brief, broken communication almost a month ago, he believed she had the necessary information to help her to find a way to stop the plague. As a final conciliatory thought, he told himself that if their trip to Atlanta was unsuccessful, he could always return and pick up the search for Ava once again. After all, if she was alive she had managed to survive just as long as he had, which meant she could take care of herself.

  In the blink of an eye, all of these conflicting thoughts and emotions flooded John’s mind leaving him overwhelmed and nauseated. Thinking back to what Kate had said to him about the dichotomy between hope and closure, he was unable to contain his tears. To hell with closure! I choose hope! Between sobs, he managed to choke out a few words before turning to walk toward his waiting companions.

  “I will always love you, Ava.”

  In the distance, the horde’s agitation inexplicably intensified as if in response to the words they could not possibly have heard.

  * * *

  While John took a few final moments to make peace with his old life, Ethan and Reams headed out to procure transportation for the trip to Atlanta. The previous night the group had discussed their transportation needs for the nearly three hundred-mile journey. They imagined the roads near the larger cities would be far more congested, and given the conditions of the roads they had seen thus far, they all agreed that off-road capability would be essential. They also agreed that stopping to refuel, assuming fuel was available, would be a risky endeavor thus making fuel efficiency a valuable characteristic as well. Accepting that they were unlikely to find a large enough vehicle that satisfied both criteria, John proposed a suitable alternative:

  “My neighbor, Bob Taylor, lives a few houses down and has this obnoxiously big Hummer that he treats like one of his kids. I’m not sure if he or the truck is still there, but it’s a place to start. It should be plenty capable off-road and has a small pickup bed for supplies. I’m sure fuel economy is complete shit, but we can always gather a few gas cans to take with us,” John said.

  After a bit of discussion, the group decided it was as close to their needs as they were likely to get. With a smirk, Reams shook his head, and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me! We’re in the middle of the damn apocalypse and we’re going out looking for a Hummer. Tell me we’re not going to the mall to hole up once we find it? You know when that shit happens in the movies, it’s the black guy who gets it first, right? At least tell me the truck’s not yellow?”

  Feigning amazement, John shot Reams an incredulous look that said how did you know the color of his truck, before saying, “It’s actually black. Bob had an appointment to have it repainted in a nice lemon zest but decided against it when the body-man tried to eat him…and don’t worry there, tiger, we’ll drop you off at the water tower on the way to the mall.”

  Not wanting the conversation to break down any further, Ethan broke in with a serious tone and shifted the discussion back to the issue of transportation, “John, do you know how many people lived in the Taylor house?”

  “Bob, his wife, and three kids—between nine and fifteen years old, I believe,” John replied, his demeanor once again deathly serious. He knew why Ethan asked the question, and the thought of the infected family trapped inside the house instantly quashed his lighthearted banter, leaving him feeling rather queasy.

  “We have to be ready for any possibility. You never know what we will find. We can check it out at first light. I don’t want to take a chance on making a bunch of noise until we are ready to head out. The last thing we want to do is call a group of them to our position and get ourselves boxed in,” Ethan added.

  The following morning, Ethan and Reams decided they should go to the Taylor residence, leaving John at his house with Kate. Reams sensed John’s mind was not completely clear, and he certainly did not fault him for it. Ethan and Reams agreed it would be best if they allowed John some time to himself before leaving later that morning.

  With Ethan on point, the pair slipped silently out the back door of John’s house, moving undetected through the neighboring yards until they reached the Taylor’s residence. As they had been friends, John knew Bob Taylor kept a spare key hidden in the tree in his backyard.

  Ethan and Reams knelt at the edge of the yard, keenly observing the landscape for any sign of trouble. The chill in the early morning air made their breath come out like little puffs of smoke as they watched in silence. Satisfied there was no apparent danger, they crept onto the wooden deck and over to the sliding glass door. A loud groan of protest punctuated the predawn quiet as a piece of loose decking shifted under Reams’ substantial weight.

  In stark contrast to the pervasive stillness in which not even the sounds of animals could be heard, the creaking noise was as loud as a tree splitting after a lightning strike. Both men froze instantly; an icy chill enveloping them as they waited for the ominous reply they were sure would follow. After several tense moments, Ethan let out a long sigh of relief when nothing happened. The spectral silence to which they had grown accustomed returned as the perfect soundtrack for the equally ghostly landscape silhouetted by the dim light of the early morning sky.

  While the sliding glass door and the rear windows of the house were covered with drapes and blinds, there were no obvious signs of damage or forced entry to the back of the house. During the discussion the previous night, John informed them that the front of the Taylor’s house appeared unscathed when they passed it on the way in. Moving to the door, Ethan crouched and placed his ear directly against the glass to listen for any movement within the home’s darkened interior. Hearing none, he pulled gently on the door’s handle but found it was locked. He glanced down at the lower track to ensure there was no security bar in place and was relieved to see there was not. Turning to Reams, he signaled for him to retrieve the key hidden inside the knothole in the tree behind the house. Reams complied, being careful to avoid the loose board as he climbed back onto the deck to give Ethan the key.

  Without a sound, Ethan slid the key into the lock; the soft click that came when he turned it told Reams the mechanism had disengaged. Slowly, Ethan slid the glass door along its track, praying it was not in need of a shot of WD40. Covering the widening doorway with his pistol, Reams felt as though Ethan was rolling the stone away from the mouth of a tomb. The putrid stench of death and decay that assaulted the olfactory center of his brain immediately reinforced that sentiment, and he struggled to control his revolting stomach. As he did, he thought of his grandmother reading her favorite passage from the Book of John, recall
ing how Lazarus’ sister, Martha, vehemently protested the opening of his tomb due to concerns about her brother’s stench given that he had been dead for four days. Now I know what she was so worried about! Breathing through his mouth, Reams focused his mind, gagging once more before finally stifling his nausea.

  “Holy shit, that stinks!” Ethan said, as he busied himself tying a handkerchief around his face. “Remind me to get some peppermint oil the next time we’re near a pharmacy. I’m pretty sure this won’t be the last time we run across that rotten-ass corpse smell! You good, buddy?”

  Reams gave a tentative nod, and the two men cautiously entered the Taylor residence. Reams soon became acutely aware that he was in fact far from good, stopping just past the threshold before staggering back against the doorframe. The overwhelming totality of horror bombarding all of his senses simultaneously surpassed even that which he experienced at the carnal house in Hermitage Estates. While the meager amount of light creeping in through the cracks in the blinds did little to dispel the room’s inky blackness, Reams could clearly make out dark splotches of all shapes and sizes adorning every surface in the shadowy room. The noisome air was thick—moving as though charged with a subtle and ominous electrical current.

  Reams watched the dense miasma swirling within the murk before it collided with them as it rushed through the open door. The itching sensation of a hundred tiny things brushing against his face at once made him want to claw his skin off, and he wriggled violently to escape the barrage. It was worse than if he had walked through a thousand spider webs one right after the other. Only when he took a sharp, involuntary breath and his mouth filled with the buzzing blowflies did he realize what was brushing past every exposed portion of his skin. As if in defense of his aerodigestive tract, bile rushed up from his stomach, simultaneously flooding his mouth and drowning the unfortunate winged trespassers that had flown into the open cavity.

  For the first time since the early days of the plague, Reams thought he had reached his limit. Hurtling his massive frame through the open door, he landed on his hands and knees on the deck outside. Spitting, shaking his head, and rubbing his face wildly, he tried desperately to expel every trace of the depraved house from his body.

  As Ethan watched, he was suddenly very thankful for the bandana. He shuddered at the appalling thought of the damned flies swarming through his open sinus cavities.

  “Reams. You okay, buddy?” Ethan called from the doorway, simultaneously keeping watch over his friend outside and the darkness within the house. Although he thought he knew the answer to the question, he handed the big man a spare bandana and added, “Here, put this on. It won’t keep the smell out completely, but it’ll help a little.”

  Reams wiped his face and mouth on his sleeve before taking the bandana. “Thanks, man. I’m sorry. What the hell happened in there? It’s like pure evil and rot was bottled up—festering—just waiting for someone to let it out.”

  In a matter-of-fact tone, Ethan replied, “If you figure the person or persons in there died near the start of the outbreak then the body would be well into the putrefaction stage. All the bloat is gone, and the gases have mostly been expelled by now. Between that and the bacterial decomposition, the intensely strong smell of decay attracted the blowflies, which fed and laid their eggs, furthering the whole process. With the house being sealed up, it’s all concentrated. Now, all that’s left in there is likely a grease spot and a rotten, custard-filled, skin-sloughing sack of bones…and of course, the stench and the flies.”

  Feeling the overpowering nausea inching back up his throat, Reams responded with annoyance, “Damn, Ethan! It was a rhetorical question! I don’t need to hear that shit! What the hell’s wrong with you, man? Let’s just get in there and do what we came to do so I can get far the hell away from here!”

  “Take it easy, Reams. I’m just saying…” Ethan replied defensively.

  While it was not possible for them to be truly prepared, they at least knew what to expect when they entered the darkened house for the second time. Ethan was relieved that the interior of the house remained quiet aside from the droning buzz of the remaining blowflies. Satisfied that no revs were lurking in the shadows, Ethan switched on his flashlight and panned it across the room.

  Even though both men had a sense of what lay in store for them within the house, the scene proved far more grisly than either could have imagined. The beam of the flashlight illuminated a gruesome tableau in which at least two people appeared to have suffered immensely before their deaths. Dried blood covered everything and looked like black tar except for the subtle, dark crimson rim around the edges. A viscous, oily slime surrounded the corpse sprawled across the linoleum kitchen floor, as if all of the juice had been wrung out of the dead person’s tissues like a wet towel. The putrescent fluid made the floor extremely slick, and Reams prayed he would not fall as he gingerly crept through the room.

  Ahead of him, Ethan stopped and motioned toward a door to the right. Based on John’s description of the layout of the house, he knew the garage should be through there. At the mouth of a long hallway on the left, Reams saw the remains of another person; though they were so badly mutilated he could not be certain it was only one. The area around the body looked like a run at a dog kennel, except that it was gore ground into flattened carpet instead of grass into dirt. Before he could ask Ethan’s opinion, the man opened the door leading to the garage and let out a low whistle.

  Through the door was a spotless, black Hummer H2 SUT, complete with a lift kit and a sturdy roof rack. As it was clear the truck rarely left the garage, Ethan wondered why Mr. Taylor had bothered with the high-end off-road modifications. “Holy shit! Reams, check this out! The only thing better would be a Bradley!” the soldier said with unbridled excitement in his voice.

  Reams walked up to the passenger side window and peered inside with ease, despite the truck’s impressive lift kit. “That is, if we had the keys,” Reams said as he stared at the empty ignition. He opened the door and searched through all the usual places one might hide keys in a parked vehicle but came up empty-handed. “Dammit! Did John say where we might find the keys to this thing?”

  “No, he didn’t,” Ethan replied, feeling momentarily deflated until his light settled on two five-gallon gas cans resting on a nearby shelf. “Come on. Let’s head back into the house of horrors and find the keys. You check the kitchen, and I’ll head down the hallway toward the front door.”

  When Reams reached the kitchen, he scanned the table and the counters but found no keys. They could be buried under all this gore and no one would ever know. For a moment, he imagined himself chiseling away at the dried blood and tissue like an archeologist looking for a fossil at a dig site. “Hell no! I’d rather walk to Atlanta,” Reams muttered.

  A distinct thud came from the front of the house just as Reams was finishing his search. He paused, and was reassured when he heard nothing else. All of a sudden a much louder crash erupted from the same direction, and a chill shot up his spine as the image of the worn, gore-trampled carpet surrounding the second body flashed through his mind.

  * * *

  Ethan advanced through the hall that connected the rear of the house to the foyer. He assumed the most likely places to find the keys would be by the garage, in the kitchen, or by the front door. If not, he planned to check the bedroom next. While he knew it was a possibility, the last place he intended to look was in the pockets of the rotten meat piles they found in the house. Please don’t let it come to that…

  As the foyer came into view, the beam of his flashlight fell on a long narrow table against the wall just inside the front door. He saw various items scattered across its surface—junk mail, an unread newspaper, and a shallow wooden dish. Before he could get close enough to discern any more detail, a low thump resounded from somewhere down the hall behind him.

  Startled, he spun around, training his pistol and flashlight on the emptiness of the hall. Since there were no doors leading off of the ha
llway, he assumed the sound echoed from another location entirely. Still, he had definitely heard something, and he moved cautiously to discover its source. Although he could not be certain, he did not think Reams caused the sound, as it seemed to originate from somewhere between their respective locations. The noise sounded far too close to have come from the back of the spacious home.

  While he heard Reams moving in the kitchen moments before, all was quiet now, and Ethan assumed the big man was investigating the noise as well. Without warning, a thundering crash of splintering wood and flesh colliding erupted from above Ethan’s head. His gaze shot up reflexively, and the drywall showering down upon him filled his eyes, eliminating what little vision the darkness allowed him. Next, a searing pain shot through his head and down his spine as his mind struggled to comprehend what had just happened.

  Reams rounded the corner and immediately came to a screeching halt, unable to wrap his mind around the chaotic scene before him. Beyond the swirl of dust dancing lazily in the beam of his flashlight, he saw far more arms and legs than he expected. Lying in a tangle of splintered wood and pink cotton candy insulation, Reams could make out at least three moaning and writhing forms. A thin veil of white drywall dust covered everything, making it appear as though someone was in the midst of a flour fight in the middle of a bake-off. As the figures struggled to disentangle themselves, their uncoordinated movements made it clear they were infected. Seeing Ethan’s bandana moving amongst the bodies, Reams feared the worst. He breathed a sigh of relief when the thing holding the bandana turned and he caught sight of a matted, rat’s nest of dirty blonde hair still tied up in a pink bow.