The Omega Virus

Chapter 2

~Chapter 2~

                    

          The rain at first began as a mysterious mist, and then gradually came down harder, darkening the already cloudless night, but I still thought of it as a blessing.

          Together we covered the cage on the back of his truck.  He paused to look inside before letting the flap fall over our gruesome dead.  Sure, our precious dead didn’t appear to feel the cold, but we still felt compelled to shelter them from the elements—perhaps to prevent further decay, to keep them as they once were for as long as possible.  It wasn’t enough, of course.  They moaned hungrily and looked at us with empty eyes.  Those moans had become increasingly weaker over the last few days, their hunger intensifying.  Animals didn’t seem to fully satisfy them, only the human species seemed to ‘hit the spot’—and that we couldn’t and wouldn’t offer them.

          Night enveloped us with its own blanket, as though to shelter us from the darker secrets of the universe…but was there anything darker than this earth infested with walking, dead, humans?  Even though it was a cold blanket, it hid us for a little while from the horrors of the world.  The darkness brought with it and illusion of peace that lulled us with each sound of falling raindrops on the windshield, the terror that was plainly seen by daylight was for a few hours diminished.  The rain somewhat masked the sounds that had become common in this world, the moans, the screams, the terrors of the night.  Of course even this illusion didn’t last forever, as the rain subsided the moans began to pierce the night again, this time followed by a not too distant scream.  This was not an uncommon occurrence; we were all prey after all.  Each time this happens our ever human heart screams right along with just as much desperation, begging us to listen to this weak heart of ours and rush to save our fellow human—but the instinct of survival is always selfish and always stronger.  So, we sit.  We listen.  We do absolutely nothing other than pretend we cannot hear them, thus, more Dead are born as a result of our pitiless inaction.  I shiver, more from self-loathing than anything else.  My selfishness doesn’t stop there, I find myself sad that the night had not remained silent; all I wanted was to hear the calming rhythm of the rain falling over our truck.

          When the last echo of the screams faded, we silently settled back in the seats, locked the doors, and despite the cold left one window cracked open a centimeter—just enough for a little bit of air to seep through, but not enough for the fingers of the Corpses to claw through.

          I wrapped an old, musty blanket around me, but still couldn’t keep myself from shivering uncontrollably.  Resting my head against the window I slowly closed my eyes, hoping sleep would come mercifully.

          “Why don’t you ever call me Fred?” he asked and I could feel his eyes on me.

          “Hm?”

          “Or even Fredrick?  Or Rick?”  Everyone else did.”  He continued in that quiet voice that let me know he was desperate for a distracting conversation.

          For a while I remained quiet, then spoke.  “Do you think the stars will appear after it’s done raining?”

          “And why must you always do that?” his voice rose only a little.  That was the thing about him; he always seemed calm, though I’ve learned to tell when he was not.

          “I like Callum better.”  I murmured through chattering teeth.  I wished that we could have found a house to sleep in, this nigh of all nights that would have been nice.

          “Why’s that?” he persisted—another thing he did a lot of and I supposed that to have made it as far as he did in Hollywood, he had to have some measure of persistence.