It took Jimmy off guard, and he slackened his grip on the pistol hidden inside the back of his pants. He saw his mother wandering toward him, bringing a sour look on his face.
“Let me guess, you and Mom are having a baby?”
Stanley’s face darkened, and his tone changed from a gentle creek to a crashing wave.
“You need to show some respect you little —”
“Little what, Pops?”
“I’ve done all I can for you, but even my patience is limited. You can say what you want to me, or about me,” Stanley was towering over him, making him cringe, “but don’t talk about your mother like that. Dead or alive!”
Jimmy wanted to crawl in a hole at that moment and began to have second thoughts. What am I doing? What do I do? Why am I here? Something reminded him of Nate McDaniel. Oh yeah! The evil twinkle in his eye returned, as fast as it had left, and Stanley stepped back with a look of uncertainty.
“Oh, I agree Stan,” his voice was like a slithering snake as he snorted, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “As a matter of fact, I was just coming down to say good-bye. I have another job lined up. What do you think about that?”
Stanley was backing away as he spoke, looking for something.
“Oh … well that’s great Son.”
“I need a favor though,” he said, stepping toward the autopsy table and glancing at the twins with a seedy smirk. “I need a reference.”
“Sure Son, anything, let me type you up a letter.”
“Great Stan, and while you are doing that, whip me up all the paperwork for the XT Serum, I’ll be needing that too.”
Stanley turned as if someone had just been shot only to see the barrel of a gun lowered at his belly.
“N-N-Now—put that away, J-J-Jimmy.”
Jimmy took a step forward saying, “Don’t you mean ‘Son’?”
“S-s-son.”
“Give me the serum or I’ll put you away—and don’t call me Son!” he said, placing his other hand on the gun and pulling back the hammer with a click.
Stanley fidgeted in front of him, eyes fearful and darting.
“What do you want Son—excuse me—Jimmy?”
“Fire up that computer—put it all on here and give me the serum,” he said, pulling out a jump drive. Stanley didn’t move. Jimmy knew that Stanley kept all of the information on his own personal computer.
“Now!”
Stanley flinched and sat in defeat before his computer. Sweat was rolling down his crinkled forehead as he wiped his mouth and tried to log in. The shaking was so bad Stanley had trouble finding the keys.
“Hurry up!” he screamed into Stanley’s ear.
Stanley held his hands up and said, “Okay, I’m in. Here it is.” Stanley looked back over his shoulder and shrugged.
“Load it on here.”
“Come on Jimmy, don’t do this. It’s for all of us. That’s why I brought you back,” the man stood up, “… to celebrate.”
He wanted to believe. He knew Stanley didn’t lie. Stanley had been good to him. Something jostled him from behind.
BANG!
Jimmy screamed. He had squeezed the trigger as his mom’s cold hands gripped his head and neck. He tore away, dropping the gun to the floor and running away. He saw his mother standing there, listless, with his hat and some hair in her hand. Stanley was kneeling before her, grasping his bloody belly, eyes filled with shock.
“Dad!” he cried, but he didn’t know what to do.
He watched as Stanley clutched the waist of his late wife and looked up into her gaunt face.
Stanley was saying, “Though I walk in the shadow of the valley of death I shall fear no…” He died there, hands sliding down her legs, as her hand came down and stroked his head before she walked away.
Jimmy stood huffing in the corner, bewildered. It took almost a minute before he was able to move. Slowly, the power of greed gave him the strength to move. Stepping over his stepfather, he downloaded all of the files from that workstation as he snatched the jump drive. He slid open the glass doors of the refrigerator. Two glass bottles with cork tops were almost filled with a milky blue liquid marked XT. He found a black traveling case nearby with a syringe and needles stuffed in black foam inserts. Empty gaps were cut out the size of the bottles and he placed the serums inside, snapping the case closed. He checked his pocket and felt the jump drive. Now he had the serum in hand. He was worried as he looked around when he saw the gun laying on the floor by Stan. He snatched it up. He had it all.
“Yes!”
He looked over and saw his mom bumping between the autopsy tables.
“Bye Mom, next time I come back I’ll have the cure.”
Now it was time for him to finish off the rest.
CHAPTER 27
They were all transfixed at their individual workstations above the daycare room. Everything was quiet as they clicked back and forth, trying to find images of the floor below them. Tori was more pressed to keep tabs on Henry. Where is he? What’s wrong? Her monitor didn’t show anything, just the same picture of the play room below, free of lumbering children. She wasn’t the smartest girl in town, but she understood how to operate a computer. What twenty something didn’t know how to these days? It was a second language if anything.
“You guys find anything?” she said, her voice trembling. She was picking at her lips between clicks on her mouse.
Rudy and Weege both answered, “No!”
Rudy added, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t think Louie is in there.”
“He has to be! Find him or you're going down there,” she said, shaking her fist.
“I'm not online! I don't have Internet!” a shrill voice said, like the sky was falling. The computers and cameras had been screwy ever since they got back up to the observation level. It was frustrating everybody.
“Chillax Weege!” she snapped.
The flickering screens and shaking walls seemed to pitch from the winds, rain and thunder outside. She banged her mouse on the counter and decided to take a walk and look over the rail. There was nothing, just annoying cartoons and plastic toys. She wanted to cry, but tried to be strong for Henry. She closed her eyes and sobbed, thinking of their first date. Someone tugged at her arm.
“Let go Rudy, now’s not the time,” she said, jerking her arm away. The cold grip held her fast as she turned to face him.
“What the He—AAAAAH!”
Louie held her wrist with an iron grip that she couldn’t tear free. Louie was a bearish boy, slightly fish-eyed, round faced and a mouth full of cracked gray teeth.
“Numma! Numma!”
Her legs sagged beneath her, others were screaming as well. She screamed again, ringing her own eardrums at the creepy sight of him.
The boy had nipped her finger, let go and began to trot off in a funny way, holding his ears and cringing. Rudy chased after the boy with an umbrella, roaring like a neutered lion. The closer Rudy got, the more Louie slowed down. The boy turned back towards him, still backing away.
“Numma! Numma!”
The boy backed over a ladder hole and fell down through.
Tori was still screaming in the background.
“It scratched me! It bit me!”
Rudy slammed a lid down over the ladder hole, and latched it shut.
“It can climb. That damn thing can climb! Weege I’ll lock the lids—you get her to the medical bay—now!”
She was bawling as she looked at the bloody gash that tore the skin on her hand. There was a deep bite mark on her index finger, dripping blood.
“I don’t want to be a zombie!”
Her tiny friend was pulling her along, and she felt helpless in his grasp. Weege shoved her into a white room, along the back wall, that looked like a dentist office with an over-sized circular saw.
“No, no, no Weege! I can’t do it!”
“Take off your lab coat!” Weege yelled like an angry cartoon character.
Sh
e clutched at it, shaking her head.
“Now woman—or you will be a zombie!” he said in an urgent accent. “Now dammit!”
She did it, and as soon as it fell to the floor he tied a knot of medical tubing above her bicep. She couldn’t believe what was happening, her hand turned cold and numb. She couldn’t help but cry. Her hand was pasty and white, lifeless as fallen leaves, while everything above her wrist began to burn. She saw Weege punch a green button on the circular saw and it whirled into action. She was crying uncontrollably now, thoughts filled with despair and Henry.
“I don’t want to lose my arm Weege,” she pleaded.
“There is no time for drama, close your eyes and shut up!” he said, putting a rod of wood inside her mouth.
She clamped down, tears and mascara mixing into lines and running down her cheeks. He positioned her arm beneath the spinning blade. She wanted to die, be shot, anything but this.
“I don’t want to do this.”
“Say your prayers!”
She didn’t even notice he covered the exposed appendage with a blanket. He jammed a needle in her shoulder, shooting something that burned like fire inside.
“On three!”
She bit down hard praying. God, don’t let this happen! She was whimpering, lip trembling.
“One!”
He pulled down on the handle with all his might.
SLICE!
“Aaaagh!” Her head was exploding when she blacked out and slumped into the chair.
She woke up and her arm felt like it was burning. She was strapped to the dentist chair and saw Weege wearing green goggles wielding a blow torch. The stench of burnt hair and skin wafted into her nostrils as she writhed in agonizing pain.
Now her own fury was unleashed as she tried to speak.
“What the fah—”
Another needle plunged into her skin, and as she turned to see Rudy’s bushy face, the room turned dark as she passed out again.
Rudy stood there, shaking his head in despair, as Weege finished cauterizing the wound. She lay still on the table, like a discarded whore, makeup smeared and soaked with sweat and blood. Her chest rose up and down as he studied her dismembered arm. The flesh was pink above the cut and the rest of her looked fine. He stroked her wet hair from her eyes. This must be the hottest one-armed chick ever.
The surgery was finished, she was alive and well, but he couldn’t take any chances. The two men left her strapped in the room and secured the door. Louie was still trying to push his way in through the ladder hatch below.
“Watch this,” Rudy said as he stood beside the portal. When he screamed, the zombie boy cringed.
Weege pulled up his goggles.
“Hmmm … I’ve never seen a zombie do that before. Do you think XT Serum works?”
“I don’t know, but we're trapped up here unless help comes.”
Weege looked worried.
“What if Tori … you know … starts to become a zombie?”
He shook his head saying, “Then we better get some zombie dew.”
The zombie boy’s head and his mallet hands were banging underneath the latch, shaking the catwalk. They checked their phone signals and no bars showed. They fidgeted, paced, and sweated while waiting, still looking for Henry.
“Numma! Numma! Numma! Numma!” continued to throb in their ears.
CHAPTER 28
Back in the security room, Jimmy slung a chair into the wall and kicked the old guard’s corpse, screaming aloud. They were all alive inside the zombie’ arena. He blinked again and again, and tried to figure out why Louie had not bitten them, or at least torn them to bits.
“They should be zombies by now!”
But they weren’t. He saw Henry, still trapped in the corridor, pacing while pulling his thick black hair in clenched fists. Tori was harnessed to a table, now missing an arm and out cold. Good. The other pair he hated fumbled at their computer stations, shouting back and forth, while Louie tried to press through the metal hatch onto the catwalk. Jimmy wondered if he could release those doors, but he couldn’t. He punched the monitor and screamed again. His knuckles bled and he sucked on them as he thought.
He cradled the black case holding the serum to his chest. I just got to leave and get paid.
“The videos! I need the videos!”
He checked the DVR recorders, but there wasn’t anything significant on them. No one had been turned, and no one was dead, but Stan. He couldn’t let it all end there when he was so close. He had to see them all come to an end. He couldn’t leave them around to steal his glory. He had the serum and the notes. He had them all trapped. One by one he pressed the keys and watched his brother in the corridor.
“Let’s see how this treats you Henry? It’s dinner time, Louie.”
CHAPTER 29
Helplessness crushed his will. Henry heard his girl screaming, and he could only imagine the worst. They were all doomed, trapped inside with a monster boy. He hurt his other shoulder trying knock the door aside. He struck it with the butt of his shotgun, denting the shining surface a dozen times.
“Tori! Tori! Tori!” he yelled, his voice full of agony.
He was hoarse, throat dry and spirit broken. Jimmy had done this; he had no doubt. He had two options: wait for a miracle or head for the office. He went inside the elevator and began to pop the hatch in the ceiling.
He could hear the thunder and the beating rain above his ears. A ladder led to the roof where another pair of elevator doors was closed. He had an idea; he could get outside and try to get help. There was a problem, what if he couldn’t get the door opened? Jimmy would have secured it just the same as the rest. He hopped back down inside the elevator, landing hard on his ankle and rolling to the floor.
“Ow!”
It hurt, but he got up despite the agony. He’d had plenty of ankle sprains before. He tried walking if off. Circulate the blood. Don’t get stiff. What about Stanley, Tori and the rest? He had to help them, or why had he even come back?
He headed toward the security door and pressed his wet ear on the cold metal. He didn’t hear a thing. He took out his security card.
“Why not?”
In a limp motion he pressed it over the pad. The door slid back open. He stood gawking, as a wave of cold air mixed in with his sweaty zombie-proof suit. He looked all around, head turning in all directions. He knew something was out there. He grabbed the shotgun, which was propped up along the wall, and stepped outside. Nothing, not a sound could be heard, except the humorous sounds of the TV and symphony music.
He scanned his card, allowing the door to close back, but he wedged the shotgun lengthwise on the sweep. The doorway remained two feet open. He walked into the room, eyes darting and every step more painful than the one before.
“Henry! Henry!” someone was yelling from above, “He’s over there—in the ladder shoot. He’s in the ladder shoot!”
He could see Rudy’s frantic hands motioning across the catwalks. A meaty figure was scrunched inside the metal ladder tube. He saw its head turn, freezing his blood. The boys nostrils flared, in an urgent move it began climbing down the ladder and falling onto the floor.
It can climb! Panic raced though Henry’s body.
No one knew what to do, as if all their thoughts became stuck in a snow bank. Someone’s mind thawed in time as Louie began coming his way.
“Get up a ladder chute!” It was Weege’s shrill voice shouting.
There were several ladder chutes along the walls; he bolted for the closest one. Rudy was running over the top trying to guess where he was going. The boy was coming his way in a stiff trot, elbows locked, and mouth clutching. It sent a jolt of adrenaline through his body. He was faster, running at full speed, oblivious to his swollen ankle, and trying to distance himself further from the boy. He leapt over a set of massive toy blocks that the boy crashed through. It’s fast! Shit! It doesn’t look fast!
Running eve
ry direction he could, he created little comfort space. He needed more time to get in the tube. He was exhausted and in a heavy sweat-soaked suit. It occurred to him too late that the suit was slowing him down. Crap! He circled around the edges of the room, but every time he got too far away the boy would cut across the middle. His lungs were burning and he was slowing down. He had to go for it. He made another half lap, dashed below one of the tubes and began climbing up. He made it up the first few rungs when his gloved hands slipped, he began to fall, but his foot caught on a rung. Pain lanced through his ankle. Looking down, he saw Louie’s clutching mouth and green eyes peering hungrily up his way. Rudy and Weege were screaming for him to move.
Fighting his way up the rungs, he hit the top and pounded away at the locked hatch.
“Open up! Open up! I’m trapped in here!”
He had never felt fear like this. Louie fumbled on the rungs below, lips and jaws smacking, eager to have a bite of him. Henry wasn’t sure the suit would stop him from being torn to pieces if Louie got to him. The snap of the latch resounded from above, and the hatch was pulled open with Rudy looking at him eye to eye.
“It’s about—urk!”
Something powerful was pulling Henry down. His arm got caught in the rungs, pinching him underneath his armpit. Rudy was trying to pull him up, his bearded face filled with red cheeks and wrought with panic. He could feel the boy's hands crushing his ankle in a mighty grip, something clamped down on his toe like a bear trap. He screamed in agony, drawing a high pitched frightened pig squeal from his friend above. The child’s grip and jaws released his toe as Louie fell hard onto the matted floor. Henry didn’t look down; he was out of the chute and on the catwalk. Rudy slammed down the door and latched it shut.
He mustered quick breaths as he struggled to pull off his suit.
“Get it off me! I’ve got to see!”
Rudy stood there, beet-faced, with snot running down his nose. Henry thought he was choking. Rudy pulled out an inhaler and sucked in some white misty air. Now Weege was at his side, helping him jerk off the suit. Henry pulled off his socks and checked his foot and ankles. There were red impressions on his ankle and his toes were bruised, maybe broken, but the skin didn’t break.