I knew she was right; instinctually, I knew the hag was right. It’s just that her methods went so against the grain of everything I believed in. “When can I expect my own bullet?”
“It’s not like I’m going to tell you, Michael. Let’s go.” Her cylinder clicked closed a moment after the tinkling of an empty brass casing hit the floor and bounced into a spreading pool of Captain Najarian’s blood…where it would most likely reside for all eternity. I couldn’t help but think it looked a lot like the sap that covered the mosquito in Jurassic Park. Who knows, maybe some advanced humanoids or possibly aliens would unearth this structure someday far in the future and clone the captain. My guess is that he would go hunting for Deneaux as soon as he was able. The fucking bat would probably still be around.
We weren’t more than ten feet from the server room door upon exiting when the first of the zombies rounded the corner from a side hallway. Eagle Eye behind me drilled him in the forehead from twenty-five yards. My ear rang from the explosion. I felt the heat from her barrel as the bullet left the chamber, that’s how damn close it was to my head. A few more inches and she could have just separated my brain bucket from the rest of me. I grabbed her arm and pulled her flush with me.
Tommy looked like a commando as he fired controlled rounds into the oncoming storm. It wasn’t going to be enough, not by a long shot as the corridor was flooding with zombies. The damn had broken, and the ground was wet with them.
“Ready to run, Deneaux?” I asked as I tapped Tommy on the shoulder and pointed behind us.
“That’s why I have my tennis shoes on.”
Tennis shoes, who calls them that? This I thought, as there wasn’t enough time to verbalize. Speeders, deaders, bulkers, skullers (the ones with the extra thick skull plating) were all in front us, so thick that their forward progress was being hampered by their sheer volume. Had to have been fifteen feet from wall-to-wall in the passageway, and they were wedging themselves in tight trying to get to us. Did the ones in the middle even know what they were chasing or were they just being pulled with the tide? In the end, it really didn’t matter much. When we got what I figured was a safe enough distance away, I would stop and quickly pop off some shots. Wound or kill; I didn’t care as long as I could potentially make a choke point.
“How big is this friggin’ place?” I asked as I once again caught up to Tommy and Deneaux. I let my empty magazine fall to the ground as I shoved in a new one. “Two left,” I said, more to myself.
Deneaux was keeping a pretty decent pace, but even demons get tired. She had most likely been one of the ringleaders who had wanted to cast stones at Jesus’s Mary. Her age was catching up to her and she was beginning to flag. Why, why, why couldn’t I just cut her loose? She’d served her purpose. She’d shut this base down and gotten rid of two viable threats. All I had to do was basically…nothing. Just keep running. The zombies would overtake her, and it would be over.
But nope, no it wouldn’t, the thought dawned in my head. She’d shoot us both. Sure as shit she would. If she couldn’t make it, nobody would.
“Tommy, you want to shoot or carry?”
“What?” He figured it out as soon as he looked at Deneaux. I was wondering if he was thinking the same thing.
‘Why won’t her fucking heart just burst? I thought to him. ‘Something that small, shriveled and underused can’t be of much good. And her damn lungs have got to be bits of charcoal by now, don’t they? She must have smoked three packs a day for something near to three thousand years…that’s like a billion coffin nails. But no, not this one, the cigarettes are too scared to give her cancer.’
‘Hate has its own power.’
“At least I didn’t say that out loud.”
“Perhaps he should carry you.” Deneaux took in a big breath. Looking down to her pocket, I knew what she was thinking. She was wondering if she could get a drag from a cigarette before the zombies caught up.
Tommy quickly handed me his magazines and scooped up an indignant Deneaux. “You are more solid than I would have thought,” Tommy told her.
“That’s not an appropriate thing to say to a lady.” Now that she realized she had the time, she dug for that cigarette she’d been pining for.
I laid down another ten rounds to give us a little breathing room between the deadly tide and us. We could still hear fighting going on around us, I couldn’t make up my mind if it was worth going toward or away from the sound. Both paths had their own inherent dangers built in.
“What about the labs?” I shouted out in question.
Tommy’s shoulders sagged, as he knew what I was asking. We had to do our best to find Porkchop and Doc.
Chapter Ten – The Lab
“I thought we’d have those new blood samples by now,” June commented as she once again peered up from her microscope.
“You know, no matter how many times you look at those slides, that virus isn’t going to reanimate,” Will replied, smiling.
She hated that he’d used that word. Since the zombies had “reanimated” people, her life had devolved into nothing more than work. There wasn’t a family out there that she pined for, but she mourned for the loss of her social life and her friends.
“Now take this zombie virus. It’s not much hardier than our vampire virus, but with some bonding agents, we can at least keep it stable enough to get a live virus into a host.” Will jumped rails, something he was oft prone to do. “Don’t you think it strange that these two monsters are created by a virus? How strange is that?”
“I don’t think it’s that strange at all. A virus is a living organism, and what is the primary directive of any living entity?”
Will looked at June as if she were trying to trick him. “Survival?”
“Survival,” she answered as if he was in grade school and she was giving him affirmation. He seemed pleased with himself. “What would be a virus’ biggest threat? Think, Will. There’s a reason other than the Demense Group’s involvement as to why the zombie virus is so prevalent.”
Will sat there for long minutes. June prodded more than once to see if he wanted the answer and each time he’d held his hand up to stop her from giving it. Finally he looked up. “It can’t be? How would that even be possible? It’s man and Vira-stat, the anti-viral drug! It has to be.”
June nodded. “I don’t know for sure, but we were so close to having a drug that would attack the proteins in a virus, taking away its fuel to replicate. We were months away from wiping hepatitis, AIDS, mumps, measles…all of it off the face of the planet. It would have taken minimal effort to change some of the genetic markings the Vira-stat needed to look for in each virus, and we would have finally cured the common cold. We were on the edge of a dawn for a new age of man.”
“This place is a conspiracy theory, June. I don’t think you needed to go to a cellular level to look for one as well. Maybe someone here knew how close your work was and unleashed this before you could destroy something they’ve been working on for decades.”
“Maybe there’s just something about a disease that has a one hundred percent transmission rate and a one hundred percent fatality rate.”
“It’s man-made, so of course it’s going to be more virulent, it’s designed to.”
An alarm klaxon went off, causing June’s arm to flinch, sending her coffee mug full of herbal tea crashing to the ground. Chunks of ceramic littered the floor. “Damn it, I just made that.”
She got up to get the broken pieces. Will went to get some paper towels to soak up the still steaming liquid. She thought she was done until she saw the handle some ten feet away. She debated asking Will to get it, but he was still bent over sopping up the tea. The handle sat up on the two broken ends, looking as if you pulled on it you could find a trap door underneath that would lead away from this insanity. Iggy, the five hundred pound male silverback mountain gorilla, looked from the cup handle to June.
She’d hoped the milky white cataracts that covered both his eyes would somehow
obstruct her from his view. Iggy was the result of Will’s genetic tampering. Up until two days ago, the zombie virus was exclusively a homo sapiens malady. The virus scared her like no other, on some level, though, she thought the world would most likely be a much better place when the virus had run its course and removed its biggest threat from the face of planet. But her lab partner may have changed all of that. If she had the courage, she knew the right thing to do would be to slit his throat while he slept and destroy his research.
Will had found a way to bridge the one-point-six percent genetic difference between ape and man. That he’d found this relatively extraordinary leap before the point-nine percent difference between monkey and man was just a testament to his perseverance or luck. True science usually was a decent combination of both. The monkeys, no matter the species, would die almost instantly when the virus was introduced into their systems, despite how many modifications Will had made. It was Iggy who somehow had the strength to survive those first few agonizing hours. The poor beast had screamed in pain and clawed at his body in an attempt to rid himself of what he’d been infected with.
A line of drool hung low from Iggy’s mouth as he watched June approach cautiously. His silence was unnerving. He didn’t bang against the cage, nor did he uselessly attempt to poke a hand out knowing she was too far away. He just watched and waited for an opportunity, his gaze never leaving June’s. She broke the handle into two smaller pieces as she stepped on it, not daring to take her eyes from Iggy.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s five feet away, he can’t possibly reach you.”
She verbalized her fear in the way she had during her childhood in an attempt by making it auditory to make the imagined fiends go away. But Iggy wasn’t imaginary as he cocked his massive head to her words. As she peered at the gorilla, she wondered how much trouble she would get in once they found Will’s body. They might do nothing, seeing as how her work was vital and it didn’t look like there were any replacement candidates coming any time soon. Even if they did throw her in a cell, or even the extreme of execution, so what? Her small sacrifice would pale in comparison to what she was saving.
Now that Will had discovered how to mutate the virus to make it transferrable to other animals he wouldn’t stop until he’d gone as far as he could. Dogs, cats, emus, rats. He’d never stop and his reasoning would be just to see if he could. Once the first zombie rat escaped the facility and oh yes it would, they always did, the world would be devoid of nearly all life. Maybe not the insect or plant variety but within a few short years everything else would not even be a memory for there would be nothing left with the power to remember. It was even possible that the insects would adapt as well. June shuddered at the thought of a zombie mosquito.
The only thing that moved on Iggy was the drool that was nearly touching the floor and his eyes. His unblinking, watery, unwavering gaze stayed steadfast on June as she bent down and cautiously reached around to pick up the broken pieces. She was rewarded with a painful skin-tearing slice for her efforts.
“Got it all,” Will said as he tossed the paper towels and came toward her to see if she needed any further assistance. He stopped when he saw what she was looking at. What she was looking at with abject fear he was staring at with unbridled pride. Iggy was his greatest achievement. “Beautiful isn’t he?”
June didn’t answer; Will didn’t seem to notice or care. She figured the trumpets going off in his head were loud enough anyway. She stood, the modest heel on her boot twisting slightly from an unyielding piece of the handle she’d missed. She would have been able to make the necessary adjustment if not for the explosion that made her lose her balance. Will spun in an attempt to get his hands under her arms and keep her from toppling over. He was quick enough, but did not have the stability to keep them both upright as he was twisted to the side. June fell over, knocking Will off-balance toward Iggy.
Iggy was lightning fast, his hand shooting out, completely enveloping Will’s neck. June was still recovering from her near fall and did not realize what was happening. She was smiling in embarrassment and about to thank Will for saving her life when she looked up. Will’s face was cherry red and his eyes were bulging out from the pressure Iggy exerted on his neck.
Will had one hand tearing at Iggy’s in a destined-for-failure maneuver. With his free hand, he was reaching out to June for help. It was a dead-heat for which one was a more useless gesture. June backed up, one hand on her throat as if in sympathy, the other reaching around to make sure she didn’t walk into anything.
Iggy was crushing Will’s airway. He couldn’t even manage a strangled cry from the vice-like grip the large primate had him in. Will slowly slid to the ground as Iggy loosened his hold.
He’s still alive, June thought; although she moved no closer. She was transfixed as she watched the events unfold before her. Iggy reached his other hand through the bar underneath the cross bar that was about midway high on his cage. He obviously doesn’t want Will to potentially slide out of his reach. They had three tranquilizer guns in the lab, all of them loaded with darts. She knew if she put the gun up to the bars it would be impossible for her to miss. She could save Will—she had that power. She could also save the planet. There was a very good chance that the Medical Sciences lab would perfect the vaccine they’d been working on so diligently. Man could recover from this but not with Will’s work running loose.
“Please,” Will pleaded. He could not manage much more than a broken whisper and a half-hearted attempt at raising his hand. Iggy had him pulled tightly up against the bars.
“I...I can’t.”
Betrayal, hurt, and resignation showed on Will’s face. Iggy reached out with his free hand and yanked on Will’s shoulder until his arm was within reach. There was a nauseating cracking of bones as Iggy pulled Will’s arm backwards and through the bars. By the angles of Will’s arm, June figured that he’d at least had his shoulder wrenched from its socket and his elbow broken. There was also a good chance that the ulna was broken as well. Will’s screams were cut off as he passed out from the pain, thus saving himself from having to hear Iggy tear through his lab jacket to the soft flesh and tissue below. He did not eat though; puddles of drool were dripping onto Will’s exposed arms, and Iggy’s teeth were bared, yet he did not eat.
June jumped back as Will’s body was slammed up against the bars repeatedly. Iggy was savagely jerking on Will’s catatonic body until the arm came free with a shredding sound. In comparison, once he had torn the arm loose, he was almost tender as he pulled the meat away from the bones getting at all of the protein.
June was swallowing back gorge as she watched Iggy clean Will’s arm much like a bar-goer would a chicken wing at happy hour. Blood poured from Will’s wound; yet, incredibly, he was still alive. Iggy switched hands so that he could get at Will’s other arm. Thankfully, an explosion nearby masked most of the sounds of bones being traumatized. Iggy didn’t waste any time pulling Will’s other arm off, and once again he ate.
June could not tear her eyes from the beast. At first, she thought that perhaps Iggy was tearing Will limb from limb because of reach and perhaps that was part of it, but then she thought there might be more to it.
“He’s trying to not infect the rest of him. Oh, my God.”
And this time her splayed fingers were no match from the volume of bile that leaked through and around them from her mouth. Will had turned an ashen gray, but not from becoming a zombie. He’d died sometime during the assault.
They knew from enough trials that human zombies would eat a non-infected human only for a certain amount of time before becoming disinterested in the carcass. Many of the scientists had argued that, by stopping at a certain juncture, this allowed the host to repair the damage done by the zombies and let the virus replicate in the new host, thus adding to the numbers of the infected. This angle never made a great deal of sense to June. If the zombies were merely trying to swell their numbers, why do all that damage to begin with? She’d tol
d them as much.
It was her research that proved, without a doubt, that the zombies became disinterested in their victim when, and only when, the introduction of the virus had reached a certain threshold; and without fail, they would leave the tainted meat. She acquiesced that, in part, this could be a built-in function of the virus’ need to sustain itself. But, more importantly, and she’d laughed when she’d discovered it, zombies weren’t cannibals. They would not eat their own. In that, they were actually more civilized than man, whose history had been wrought with that particular affliction.
Will had clearly bled out by the time Iggy had torn off his lower left leg. He was digging at the bone with his dexterous fingers, making sure to get all the marrow free.
“I’ve got to get out of here.”
June was looking from Iggy to the door, where sounds of fighting were intensifying. Iggy was watching her carefully even as he slurped up a particularly long string of muscle. He had also quickly learned that, by killing his meal first, he did not allow the virus to replicate upon the host’s own cells.
“If only the first zombie thought the way you did, Iggy. This thing would have been contained in a couple of days with only a few hundred deaths,” June muttered.
Will had somehow luckily stumbled upon how to disable the trigger that had been engineered in the original weapon. This version of the virus wasn’t as concerned with affliction as it was with consumption.
“You could be the key, Iggy, but somehow I don’t think we’re going to get the chance to find out.”
The lights were flickering; the only thing keeping Iggy in his cell was the magnetic door lock. If the power went out, he would be free. Mr. Hawes had assured her that this could not happen as there were redundancies set in place to make sure that power flowed uninterrupted throughout the facility at all times.