Vir Rabido

“Man would I kill for some steak right now.” Brutus said as he stretched his arms while exiting his tent.

“Would human steak be satisfactory for you?” Canelly shot while cleaning her knife.

“If it’s yours then that would be very… very… satisfactory.” Brutus answered pervertedly.

“I’m sorry but the only one that’s readily available right now is the Brutus Special.” She said as she threateningly stood up walking towards Brutus.

“Alright that’s enough from the two of you!” Margaret shouted as she got between the two.

“We should really put that animal on a leash.” Canelly spat as she turned and walked away.

“Anyone up for some fish skewers?” I shouted as I finished grilling the last of the fish I had just caught earlier that morning.

“Me! Me!” Fanna shouted as she came back from picking up fruits in the forest. “I’ll take them all if no one wants to!”

“Nobody said they didn’t want it though.” I tell her as I keep the skewers away from her.

“How was your morning patrol Evans?” Margaret asked as she wrapped up the quarrel and sent Brutus off for his round of patrolling.

“Oh well as you can see, nothing ‘fishy’ to report here.” She was not happy with that joke.

“I see. Well good work. Let’s hope it stay that way again today.” But she brushed it off like it was a fly that buzzed past her ear.

“I’ll take these!” Fanna shouts as she takes two of the skewers from my hands.

“Hey only one per person!”

“She can take my share.” Margaret says as she heads back for her tent. “I’ll have the fruit she brought back instead.” With an apple already in her hand.

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It’s been almost half a year since the first case of the “Vir Rabido” infection was reported. The virus caused those affected to involuntarily attack other people on sight. When the outbreak started with Vir Rabido I, it stopped at people attacking and injuring each other. As the days went by and no cure was found, the virus underwent two major mutations. The first was Vir Rabido II, where infected people advanced from injuring to killing people. And the latest more dangerous mutation, Vir Rabido III, finally made people become crazed, man-eating monsters. Those infected with the strain cannibalized their fellow humans whether they were alive or dead. At this point, everyone had already started calling those infected: Rabids.

The government and the military tried its best to contain the outbreak, but after mere months, there was no government or military left to even talk about. Our final ray of hope came from their last broadcast saying that a cure would be found by the following year.

That was almost three months ago…

Most of the survivors have either formed groups or have hidden themselves away hoping to wait out the worst of it.

We were one of those who decided to group up and try to survive together.

Initially, we were three separate groups holding out on our own. The first few months, Fanna and I were jumping from city to city on our own. The main reason being us trying to get as far away from areas with the most infections being reported. As soon as a case of the virus was reported in the city we were in, we would immediately bounce out of there. Eventually, when border controls were strengthened, we had no choice but to stay and hole up in one place.

We first met Margaret in the city we got trapped in. She was apparently some high-ranking government official who returned home just as things were going bad. When the Vir Rabido III strain started to manifest in some of the infected in the exact city we were in and evacuation orders were given, the entire city fell into chaos. We ended up saving Margaret after her convoy was attacked by a group of Rabids. Long story short, we became a three-man group from there. Well, one man and two women.

We got out of the city and got to the nearest refugee camp at the suggestion of Margaret. It was a long way from the city we had just come from so we ended up taking a few days to get there. Regrettably, the moment we got there, the camp had already been wiped clean by the Rabids. But, that was where we came across Canelly and Brutus. They were also headed for the refugee camp and arrived not long after we got there. These were two people who were constantly at each other’s throats but apparently had been travelling together for a while as well. Their odd chemistry made us wonder how they ended up tagging along with each other. But, as firm as they were about how much they hated each other, they couldn’t be budged regarding their pasts either. Margaret’s social skills proved useful in convincing them to come with join us. Seeing the large build of Brutus actually gave me some peace of mind that we would at least have another combat-able person aside from me and Fanna on the team. I was in for a shock when I later found out that Canelly was even more capable than Brutus when it came to fighting the Rabids.

From there, we were almost out of options with regard to where we would hide ourselves until the vaccine was produced. The cities were the last places we wanted to stay in, much less any place remotely near any highly populated areas. Checking each one of the refugee camps was also too much work and there was no guarantee that any of them would be any different from the one we’d just come from. We were at our wit’s end when Canelly suggested something none of us thought of: the forest.

It was true that the farthest we could get from civilization by any logical means were the forests or deep in the mountains if possible. So we went with that idea and ended up travelling pretty far out.

It felt as though we'd totally left all of humanity and its problems behind us.

We were lucky to have been able to find a small clearing in the forest which happened to be near a river. That basically gave us the bare minimum setting we needed to survive for a long time without ever having to rely on the outside world.

Almost a month of living in the forests and we'd gotten pretty used to our new lives. We had established several rules and assignments in order to maintain the little peace we had found by being forest dwellers. We created daily patrol routines which was set at four hours of patrol per person and only involved me, Fanna, Brutus, and Canelly. Margaret, who wasn't much of a hard labor kind of person was in charge of handling things at our camp. Her experience in different fields made her very knowledgeable in ways to improve our camp life. For other small but important jobs like cooking, woodcutting, fishing, and fire making, we split it among ourselves based on who believed that they could do the job better.

Since I had more experience in fishing, something which stuck with me from my childhood days, I went and volunteered to bring in fish every morning. Brutus and Margaret worked together to build a treehouse that could fit the five of us. It seemed much safer to be off the ground not only because of the Rabids, but moreso because of the possibly dangerous animals that were roaming the forest floor. It’s been almost a month and they are finally advancing to putting on the final touches before we finally move from our flimsy tents to a more comfortable resting space. Fanna who is a little nimbler than the rest of us volunteered to gather herbs and fruits around the nearby area. And, since we didn’t have much to go on in terms of weapons, Canelly was left in charge of creating makeshift weapons like bows and spears. She was surprisingly good at it too.

We put up a simple alarm system in place using some rope and cans. Yes, it’s that cheap mechanism that clunks whenever someone trips over the ropes we laid out around the perimeter of our camp. It wasn’t much but we were able to sleep a little more soundly thanks to that.

“There was a dead pig by the river.” Brutus reported as he returned from his patrol. He was carrying the said pig, which was definitely a boar, over his shoulders, its blood soaking the entire right half of his body.

“And it wasn’t you who killed it?” I asked.

“Yeah, well it wouldn’t be a ‘dead pig by the river’ if I was the one who killed it.” He snapped back at me.

“What’s up with having a dead boar? Maybe Canelly hunted it down and just forgot to bring it back right?” Fanna said while downing the last chunk of an apple.

“Doesn’t look like it.” Brutus said as he dropped the boar corpse in front of us.

It had several bite marks on it. Bite marks that looked like they were made by human teeth.

“Oh shi-“ Fanna and I said in unison as we backed off from the thing. “Rabids!?”

Margaret came out of her tent after hearing the commotion.

“Looks like it. So what are we gonna do about this Margy?” Brutus asked while removing his blood-stained shirt.

I hadn’t seen such an alarmed look from Margaret in a while. She was seriously thinking about how we should go about the situation.

“We’ll stop with the individual patrols for now.” She said as she finished her assessment of the situation. “We’ll be going with paired patrols until we find out if it was really Rabids that did this.”

“I don’t think there’s any other explanation for it though…” I said, pointing out the bite marks.

“That’s why it would be much safer to have you watching each other’s backs during patrols.” She paused while intently looking at the animal corpse. “Have animals always really been a target for Rabids as well?” She asked knowing that none of us knew the answer.

Canelly was returning from her hunting trip bringing in a few rabbits and a snake she was able to bag.

“So who scored this beautiful piece of meat?” She asked while dropping off her haul.

“The Rabids did.” Brutus answered.

Once she saw the bite marks as well, she didn’t need any more explanations.

We explained the plan to her while over dinner.

Margaret and Brutus would finish the treehouse in the next two days while we maintained the paired patrol routine. We decided that the best outcome right now would be us finding the Rabid even before we finished the treehouse but our first priority was always our own and each other’s safety so we agreed to not venture too far from the camp just to hunt it down.

We had no idea that the following night was going to be one of the worst we’d had since the start of this hell.

That night, I paired up with Fanna for patrolling.

We first headed for the river where Brutus found the pig. Whatever did it could have still been lurking around that particular area so it was as good a place as any to start.

We followed the river downstream first, since that was leading towards where we came from when we first arrived in our camp. There wasn’t anything particularly unusual. Four hours passed by quickly and we wrapped up our patrol.

Just as we were about to arrive back at the camp. We heard the sound of cans clacking at each other—the tripwire alarm.

We immediately headed for where the sound came from. It was pitch black and there was no way to confirm what exactly it was we were dealing with. So, I chopped off a branch from a nearby tree and ripped off a part of my shirt wrapping it around one end of the branch. I took the lighter I had in my pocket and set the makeshift torch on fire. With that, it was much easier for us to maneuver around.

In the distance, we could faintly see beams of light swinging around.

“They’re using the flashlights.” We agreed to only use our most important tools when we had no other choice. This only meant that this situation was seriously bad.

We slowly moved towards the source of the light. Not knowing what we were really up against, we had to be extremely careful not to get caught off guard ourselves. Fanna prepared her hunting knife and moved with me in unison. She watched my back as I led us forward.

As we got closer, the light we were following disappeared. Then, it was silent for a few moments.

I heard a rustle come from beside us. Without warning, someone popped out and tackled me to the ground. This person took the torch from my hand and threw it far.

I had my eyes on the flying torch as it lit a part of the dark forest. What it revealed wasn’t a sight to behold.

A group of Rabids, maybe three or four, was visible for a moment before disappearing again from view as the torch hit the ground. We could hear them snarling and scrambling for the torch. They were too near for comfort.

“SHH!” The person who tackled me sounded. It was Brutus.

I nodded understanding the situation. Fanna had the knife pointed at Brutus’ neck, backing down as well after realizing it was him.

“We’re going back.” Brutus whispered. “Margaret has a plan.”

We followed him back to the camp. Luckily none of the Rabids were hot on our tail. The three of us climbed up to the supposedly unfinished treehouse in which Margaret and Canelly were already waiting.

“Glad you guys made it back in one piece.” was Canelly’s welcoming remark.

After settling ourselves, I just had to ask, “Is this really gonna hold the five of us?”.

“Well as long as you don’t jump or suddenly get any heavier, it should hold out just fine the way it is.” Margaret answered. I let out a sigh of relief since it naturally felt much safer up there.

“So what’s this plan of yours Margaret?” Fanna asked.

“Right now we have three options.” She started. “We’ll go with whatever sounds best to the majority.”

We all nodded and continued to listen.

“First, we could just wait up here until morning then hunt down the Rabids once we’ve got better lighting. There’s virtually no chance of them getting up here, especially if they’re all type three Rabids. The problem here is if we’ve got type one or twos since they might still be smart enough to find a way up here; they’ll also have the element of surprise against us in that case.”

“Second, one or two of us could lure them here and once they’re in the camp, we could use this vantage point and take them all out tonight. This is a riskier option than the first since we don’t have a clear idea of how many they actually are. If we actively provoked all of them at once and find out afterwards that this is a bigger horde than we imagined, that won’t pan out too well for us.”

“Third and last, we could create a forest fire away from the camp and lead them away. The risks involved in this one should be pretty obvious. This would probably be the most effective method to buy us enough time until sunrise, but by that time, we might not just be dealing with the Rabids we have here. A large fire is sure to attract Rabids far from here too. If we’re lucky though the fire itself could trim down their numbers quite a bit.”

“Well there’s all our options. What do you guys think?” She concluded.

We looked at each other trying to read the other person’s thoughts. I think the four of us had the same idea for once.

“Why don’t we go with all three?” I suggested. All three of them were quiet. I don’t really know if that meant I read them right or if they just didn’t know what to choose and were glad I said something.

“We’ll set a fire far from the camp to lead them away, cut them down while they’re distracted, then clean up the rest come morning. If they still end up too many, we can just retreat back here after rounding them up and pick them off one by one.” I proposed. “The fire doesn’t need to really be a forest fire does it?”

“Yeah a big enough bonfire should be enough to attract them.” Canelly answered.

“Then we’ll just take all of the firewood we have here and build one in a clearing upstream. It’ll take a lot of time so I’m thinking all of us should go together. We’ll have better odds of succeeding if there are more people to count on just in case things go bad.” I suggested.

Everyone agreed unanimously and we started to prepare.

I brought the pistol that I’d been taking care of since the start of everything. And even before everything started. I checked the magazine and saw one bullet inside. It was just enough.

The plan commenced.

We found a good spot upstream and set up the bonfire. A few Rabids were able to stumble upon us building it so those who weren’t working on the bonfire took care of them with Cannely’s weapons.

We completed preparations in under an hour and set the bonfire ablaze.

“You all ready?” I said, holding up my gun.

They all nod.

I fire into the air. And a very long night started.