Sweat burns my eyes as I heave into the gushing water. My stomach burns with a fresh bout of pain, bringing me to my knees. The ripe stench of death wafted up to my nostrils from the black water. Oh, god, would it never stop? Translucent claws reach from my shirtsleeves, seeking support. I wrap blistered fingers around the dirty grate. I turn my head, limp braids, once charcoal, now white, fall into my eyes. "Got to keep running" I whisper. My legs, twitching in the last throes of pain, are scorched by the chasing heat. Fire, heat, isn't there anything else?
"If there is I don' know bout it." The feeble voice with the skeletal face stared back at me from a window of dead, vacant eyes. Pale skin, facial hair burnt from its adolescent innocence, is lost beside the porcelain audience. My face is now a charred mocha brown, and floats, haunting the silent tourist gift shop. I shudder, my death a foregone conclusion. Cockroaches scurry across North Franklin Street, as eager as I am to outrun the looming darkness. "You bout done there?" He dances on his feet, an unasked plea.
The sound of hoof beats fills my ears. Both I and Jim, I'll call him Jim, everyone needs a name but not everyone has time to hear it. Both I and Jim peer over our shoulders, our feet skid along the gravel strewn pavement as we surge forward. I cry out as I crash to the ground, rough timbers outside Burger king skinning my knees. A rough hand grabs my shoulder and yanks me to my feet. "Move! It's comin'!"
I shake my head, bringing myself out of my reverie. Sweat breaks my skin beneath a blackened sky. I shudder with a chill as heat pierces the tender skin between my shoulder blades, stabbing at my lungs. I run on, my feet echoing on the grates of the bridge across the glen stream. My nameless companion runs close behind. His own shallow breaths match my own. The shadow of the Glen looms over me. It draws my eye up to the stone bridge far above the stream of writhing water. A child, long dead, lays draped over the stone wall, her pale skeletal features peering forever into a swirling miasma of blackness. As I watch she vanishes into the maw of engineered black locusts, one scream ringing from her lips. My own screams fill my ears. Still alive. Now she's dead.
It's come before. Through Willard, the panicked corpses clinging to the fences of the correctional facility, frozen until blackness claimed them. Through Ovid, skeletal children scattered on the mammoth front lawn of the once welcoming faade of the elegant school. Through Hector, where black waters pulsed over the once vibrant falls, settling into an oozing sludge at the lake's bedside. They come too, the white deer, harbingers of death for unseen enemies. Their fur remained white, pure, while ours became blistered and black. They brought death.
Wild red eyes chase us, the heavy pounding of their feet shake the bridge grates. Their footprints bring blackness. Their howls echo among empty homes, an eerie serenade for the dying. "Crap! They're almost on us! Run, Jim, run!" Jim looks at me, his eyebrows raised but bends at the waist, running until he is a good six feet ahead of me. Hot breath chases me as I surge ahead, frantic to out run the white demons. Demons, fallen angels. It was a fitting name for the once docile creatures that grazed along the fences of the old army base. Until now, victims themselves, they have been engineered into angelic monsters.
Jim falls, his shirt caught in a felled tree outside my childhood home. The sagging branches hold him captive as the deer and locusts descend on him. What have they done? I turn my head, my feet finding their way across familiar cracks in the sidewalk, unable to watch as they devour the little flesh remaining on his frail white body. My fist clenches and I will away nausea as Jim's screams are added to the howling of the masses. A rocking chair creaks, summoned by the hot winds of the slithering blackness.
Creak. Creak. Creak. The sound grates on my ears. Forward, don't look back, forward, don't look back, forward, don't look backThe words become a chant in my head as the salivating losers from the momentary feast bear down on me, intent on claiming its next victim. My breath comes in gasps, my lungs are ripped from my chest, my muscles throb, and my screams go on. My life goes on new drive plunges me forward, past the dead swamp grasses slithering with unseen creatures, newly infected by the black cloud above me. The waters lick at my feet, relishing the taste of human flesh, the pain rockets through my body. I jump to the side, leaping over the piecemeal of human appendages, the victims of the first swarm, the small swarm.
The heated air is pungent with the scent of burnt flesh, devoured flesh, and dead flesh. I gag on the black dust, the taste of copper and ipecac gritty on my tongue. Only a little further. Just to the Lady of Winter. I choke on the smoke rolling from the grasses across Catherine Creek. The Johnson's house, sacrificed to "the future" of warfare, is engulfed in flames. Flakes of fire hot embers rain down on my skin, igniting my clothes and doused by the mist of the springtime run-off. Were there were flames, patches of bone show through. I stumble on, clothing shredded and stuck to blistered skin.
The howling becomes a bone chilling hum. My joints throb as the bones respond to the sibilant call. Subtle vibrations of anguished voices fill my head. The plundering darkness has slowed and I fall to my knees, my breath coming in fog as my cold breath hits the overheated air. Just to the Lady of Winter.
She stands, glorious in white, as sentry over Catherine's Creek. A queen remembered in long-told stories. She grows younger as the spring comes until she is nothing but a memory. But in the winter her simple beauty grows with grace and dignity, drawing awed breaths from passersby. Winter is here, I feel the first touch of wet snowflakes drift across my brow and collapse onto the icy cold bridge pavement, content to let my overheated body cool in her shadow. White deer mill around the edge of the creek, hesitant to come onto the metal span. A few brave ones venture forth to prod my body. They don't like already dead dinner. They like their dinner fresh and kicking. Their rank breath snuffles my hair, beaded braids now lying in a mat around my face. One gleaming stud, his muzzle bathed in blood, takes my braids into his mouth, chewing, contemplating dinner's worth.
Skin already numb from burns and scrapes I had long tuned out I don't feel the first bite. The second bite comes as a revelation to both me and the deer. Voices surround me, hushing my screams as I try to comprehend what they have done. "Successful?" says one.
"Sir, yes, Sir. Phase two is a go. Death toll is at 98%." Other survivors? The voices shoo away the jaws knawing on my left forearm.
"Survivors?" the gruff voice comes from the direction of Montour.
"Yes, Sir. The others are currently undergoing reparation in preparation for Project Jeffersonville. They remain unaware of their part in this. All implants are functioning as expected. Shall we deploy them, Sir?"
"No. Not yet, let's see what this one can give us. She isunique." My body bucked in protest. My arms jerked, my legs spasmed, smashing against the metal guardrails. Rough gloved hands held me down, panting deer pawed at the ground, the scent of fresh sweat and blood awakening their latent need for flesh. A pause filled my head. Silence, for the first time in days. "The specimen is not aware of her identity is she?" I kept my mouth shut.
"No, Sir. No indications of awareness at all. Shall we repair her?"
A grunt came from beside my head. "Go ahead, Private. What she doesn't know won't hurt us until tomorrow. We have been lucky so far. If that day ever comes we can take measures then."
I laugh to myself as flesh left a trail across the tarmac where I was deposited with three inert beings like myself. Jim was the lucky one. I do know. I know who I was, who I became, what you have made me, what you have done. Advancement is not worth this. I kept my lips sealed. Tomorrow is today.