The Omega Virus

Chapter 3

-Chapter 3-

He leaped over the seat to the front. A chill invaded my bones as soon as he left my side. I remained sitting frozen. The numbers of corpses were staggering, their eyes reflected in the night a cold, glassy, gray. For the millionth time I wanted to cry, but tears have abandoned me a long time ago. Perhaps one day they would reappear, but not today—today they would remain captive, just as we are captive.

He fumbled for the keys in his pocket, his normally steady hands trembled terribly. His eyes met mine in the rear-view mirror and I knew his thoughts mirrored mine. This horde was larger than those we have encountered before, in fact they looked like a legion. Death was multiplying at a mind-numbing rate. What the darkness allowed us to see was nightmare, and I wished the night was darker. Finally he turned the key and the engine roared to life. There was a little hope in that, it sounded like a lion, roaring in defiance.

However, the truck only lumbered forward for the dead clung to it with stubborn determination to devour us. All that could be seen was the sea of dead, lifeless, fearless eyes. Fearless. The Dead were indeed void of fear. They cared nothing for lost limbs, or bruises, or if their comrades perished forever. I envied their macabre, twisted bravery, and wondered what it felt like to care for nothing, to have no worries at all. I envied and hated them simultaneously.

“Brace yourself!” He ordered through gritted teeth. A subtle fear could be seen in his eyes, yet there was a strong determination to live which defied all his fears.

As the truck struggled forward, we could feel their corpses crunching underneath. I could hear their involuntary moans, clinging to a life long gone. We were going far too slow, as if passing through a lake of thick, murky water. Callum switched from forward, into reverse, then back to forward, over and over again, trying to clear the way. A grisly face pressed itself against my window, splotches of oily decay clung to the window everywhere it touched. This one was a newly born Dead. It was young not just in the fact that it was not yet as gruesome as the others, but also in that it was a child. Hungry. Some illogical instinct wanted to nurture it, to give in, to help it survive. This child couldn't have been more than twelve when death captured him. His eyes glowed in the night, a strangely beautiful, ethereal blue, not as murky yet as the others. They looked like an ever darkening ocean fighting to turn into an angry, foamy white. This one I couldn't hate. I pressed my palm flat onto the window as though to touch his face, the child snapped hungrily with his teeth against the glass. His hunger would continue, it would not be satisfied, his struggle was futile—for the glass was bulletproof.

It was then that the smell began to fill into the truck, and for a moment I was baffled. With a jolt I remembered and saw the window that was still opened a crack. In panic I lurched toward the power button to roll it up. At that moment Callum switched the car into forward faster then before, he was making headway, but as he did so my finger slipped, the window was buzzing as it was coming down. The dead boy's hand shot through the tight space, not caring for scratches, not feeling pain, only being driven by its hunger, and to him I must have looked scrumptious. I scrambled away to the other side of the seat just out of his reach. I breathed hard. As my heart began to slow it started racing again as I saw the hand reaching toward Callum's head. Without further thought, taking a quick, deep breath, I reached back toward that blasted button. Nothing escaped the dead child's attention. It smelled, or saw, or what ever, for my arm was in his in the span of a heartbeat. It tried to bring it to his mouth as I struggled with all my might to pull back.

“Callum!” I cried desperately, knowing he could do nothing to help. I fought, I struggled, I clawed at the thing. At last, finger by finger I pried the thing's fingers from my arm, pushed it back through the window and in the same breath pressed the up button. I sighed with relief, yet my breathing couldn't be controlled.