by D, Hannah
Zoe and Jeff had made it up to the end freezer were some packaged foods had been left out to defrost and they were pretending to look through them all. Seeing the food did make Zoe’s stomach growl and she hoped that her and Jeff’s snooping wouldn’t make them get thrown out or killed before they could eat whatever it was that Alice and John had prepared for them.
One of the doors leading to the back had been left open and Zoe could smell the food coming through them.
“That must also be where the kitchens are where Alice and John have been cooking. We might be able to get through without cause it Sylvia and the rest of them any alarm” Zoe said to Jeff.
“Here’s hoping. Lets get through there. We won’t run, just walk. Make it look as natural as possible and not like we’re up to no good” Jeff said.
“Okay, lets go” Zoe said.
Zoe and Jeff made their way up to the doors and managed to slip through without anyone from Sylvia’s group come running up to them to question what they were doing. They noticed the kitchen area where Alice and John were doing their cooking just to the left of them.
“Well, we know what’s there, lets go off this way” Zoe whispered to Jeff as she pointed to the right.
Jeff nodded his head and started to follow Zoe off along the corridor. Most of what they saw where more kitchens and storage area’s, nothing that caused Zoe and Jeff any alarm. Zoe was beginning to feel stupid for thinking there was something going on with this other group and was about to say to Jeff to head back when she heard voices coming from one of the end rooms just up from where they were standing.
Zoe put her finger to her lips to tell Jeff to be quiet and motioned for Jeff to follow her to where she had heard the voices and stopped just outside the door where she and Jeff could now hear what was being said.
“Is there any progress yet on it?”
“Not yet, same response as yesterday.”
“Have we tried to train it for food. See if it likes animal meat more than human meat?”
“Well we’ve ran out of the human meat, we’ll need more to keep up our tests. As for the animal meat, it prefers the meat uncooked.”
“We’ll get the human meat no problem. Not so good that it likes it’s meat raw huh?”
“As I said, no change and we are making no further progress than we did when we first started this experiment.”
“Damn it. Right we’ll get the human meat for you for tomorrow. Just finish up for the day and make sure to keep it locked up tight with the others. Can’t have them all running loose in here.”
“You got it boss!”
Zoe and Jeff both turned and started to run back down the corridor and through the back door before anyone could’ve seen that they were there and heard everything that had been said. When they were through the door they slowed down to a walking pace so as not too look obvious that they were panicking and had to tell their group what they had just heard.
“Human meat!? Are they going to kill us for whatever experiment they are doing back there?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t know, maybe? We have to get out of here before we find that out though” Zoe said.
“I think that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard!” Jeff replied.
They made it back to where their group were all sitting and from the alarm on their faces everyone knew that whatever had happened wasn’t good.
“What’s up? Find something irregular in the juice aisle?” Sophia asked.
“We weren’t there. We snuck into the back and overheard them talking about some experiment they’re doing and how they’re using animal meat and human meat and how they’ve ran out of human meat and they’re going to get more for tomorrow!” Jeff told them.
“Where the hell are they going to get human meat from?” Simone asked.
“Us! We’re the only humans nearby for them to get meat from as quickly as tomorrow!” Jeff said.
“Not a fucking chance. We need to get out of here!” Michael growled.
“Everyone start gathering your things and let’s go” Zoe urged.
They all hurried around each other, packing their belongings that they’d unpacked from their bags. They all left their weapons out because they would probably have to fight their way out of here. Jeff kept Alex beside him at all times whilst he was packing everything away, not wanting to take his eyes off of him for even a second. Michael and Mark had found a chainsaw amongst the gardening stuff here and had said it would break through the shutters no problem for them to get out.
Zoe had decided that she would be the last one to go out, opting to fight off this group if they tried to stop them from leaving. Jeff also wanted to stay to last but Zoe had old him to get himself and his family out and promised that she would be fine. Jeff wasn’t going to let her until Mandy said she would stay with Zoe to fight off anyone who tried to stop them. Zoe could tell that Jeff still wasn’t happy about it but he nodded his head which was his sign of eventual approval.
They had managed to get themselves packed with Alice and John stealing some of the sweets, chocolate and crisps to take with them for food.
“Right, lets get going!” Jeff said.
They all made their way to the front doors, Michael and Mark had picked up the chainsaw before they all heard a throat clearing coming from behind them.
“Are you leaving us?” Sylvia asked them confused.
“Yeah, we uh decided we should get moving. We don’t want that other group to find us and bring the trouble here to you lot” Zoe said, her heart pounding.
“No don’t be silly. If they knew you were here they would’ve tried to break in already. Just stay, at least for a few days. You’re safe here” Sylvia said.
Jeff scoffed from behind Zoe. Sylvia heard him and looked at him confused.
“No really, we’ll feel better if we left and knew you were all safe but thank you so much for letting us in and everything. We appreciate it” Zoe told her.
“Why do I feel that you’re lying to me?” Sylvia said.
“We’re not. I swear!” Zoe replied. She could feel the sweat running down her back.
“You are lying, I can see you shaking and avoiding my eyes. Why are you lying and running from us?”
“Because you’re going to kill us to use us for your freaky experiment!” Sophia yelled.
“Experiment? How do you know about that?” Sylvia asked.
“We overheard you discussing it in the back. We snuck in. We heard you saying you would get more human meat by tomorrow and well, we’re the only humans in here and accessible for tomorrow” Zoe told her.
“Well, that’s true, I’ll give you that” Sylvia said.
“Just let us leave without causing a fight to happen” Zoe said.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that” Sylvia told them.
“We are leaving whether you like it or not you bunch of nutcases!” Michael yelled as he brought the chainsaw to life, pointing it at Sylvia.
“I think you have gotten the wrong end of the stick here. We’re not going to kill you. We have somewhere we get the human meat from. I meant you can’t leave until I show you the experiment we’re working on” Sylvia told them.
“And how do we know we can trust you? How do we know that you’re not going to trap us and kill us?” Zoe asked.
“You don’t know. You just have to trust your gut on this I suppose. You can bring your weapons if you like? If that’ll make you feel safer?” Sylvia asked.
Zoe looked around at her group. She was curious as to what experiment they were working on if she had to be honest with herself. Plus if they had their weapons with them then they had a fighting chance to get out of here at least.
“Fine. Well come look at this experiment on one condition” Zoe said.
“And what’s that?” Sylvia asked.
“That if we still want to leave after we’ve seen it then you let us leave with no fighting and peacefully and without harming any of us” Zoe told her.
“Se
ems fair enough. Deal” Sylvia said as she stuck out her hand.
Zoe shook her hand and hoped that Sylvia was an honourable woman and stuck to her word. Zoe didn’t want to have to fight her way out of another situation.
They all followed Sylvia back up and through the back doors. Jeff and Sophia had a tight grip on Alex’s hands as they followed Sylvia.
Sue and Sarah had opted to stay at the back doors just in case the other group tried to lock them in. They were covering g themselves at all angles. Sylvia had nodded her head at this and didn’t show any panic in her face, the sort of panic when someone plan isn’t going to go to plan. Zoe was keeping a close eye on every movement and facial reaction that Sylvia was doing.
Sylvia took them to the door and stopped them just outside.
“I will just warn you that what you’ll see isn’t very pretty and might set alarm bells off in your heads to run but please, just let us explain before you think the worst” Sylvia said.
“Okay” Zoe said.
Zoe wasn’t making any promises. She couldn’t promise to not want to run and think the worst if Sylvia was already trying to prepare them at the closed door before going into the room. Plus, Zoe couldn’t speak for everyone else in her group, they were all headstrong people which is why they didn’t have an appointed leader.
Sylvia opened the door and walked in which Zoe took as her cue to follow her in. Mike was the last one in and he had appointed himself at that door t make sure they didn’t get locked in this room. Zoe didn’t think they would get locked in here considering Sylvia was already in the room and she was the leader but again, they just couldn’t take any chances.
“Sylvia? You’re back? Oh and with the new group I see” A man said to her.
“Yes I’m back Tom. This group overheard our conversation about the experiment and us getting more human meat which they thought meant them. I’ve brought them here for us to show them our experiments and to show them they are in no harm from us” Sylvia told Tom.
“Right. Okay. Very well. I’ll just go grab Eve so she can do the explaining. She is the scientist after all” Tom said as he went off to get Eve.
Tom was an older man and he looked like someone that Zoe could trust. He did look like the kind of doctor you would want to be looking after you.
“He won’t be long” Sylvia said as she walked off to the side.
Zoe still kept her eye on Sylvia and nearly jumped out her skin when she heard Eve start talking from beside her.
“Hi everyone, my names Eve. I’m the scientist here who started off this experiment” Eve said to them.
There was a murmur of hi’s and hello’s coming from everyone. You could tell they were all curious and a little scared to see what the experiment was. Zoe felt like she was back in high school, watching and learning from her science teacher about an experiment.
“We are experimenting on those living dead things out there to see if there is a way we can prevent a change to become one of them by being bitten or to even see if we can reverse the process and make them human again” Eve told them.
“No offence but half of them out there have limbs and no faces anymore and their insides are spilling out. Don’t think they’ll be coming back to being human and if they did they’d die all over again from their skin eater injuries” Michael said.
“Yes you’re right there. Unfortunately those ones won’t be the ones we will be bringing back to life which is why we have been using the more recently turned skin eaters, as you call them, to experiment on” Eve said.
“And you think this will even work or be possible?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know but we have hope that it will. Come, let me show you our test subjects” Eve said as she motioned them to follow her.
They followed Eve further into the room and saw Tom standing in front of another door. He had on what looked like a ski uniform. He had padding on his arms and legs and a helmet over his face. He did look a bit funny but he was obviously wearing them to protect himself against the skin eaters.
“The living dead, sorry skin eaters, are just behind this door. We did put makeshift straight jackets over them and helmets over the faces to stop them attacking us but you can never be too careful so stand back whilst we grab one to show you” Eve said.
They all stood back as Tom opened the door. The moans which you heard from behind the door when it was closed got increasingly louder as it opened. You could hear their feet shuffling towards the light and the smell of their food. When one appeared, Tom reached out and grabbed it, Eve slamming the door shut after to stop even more coming out.
“Put it on the table and strap it down hunny” Eve told Tom.
Tom done as he was told and placed the skin eater on the table, taking one arm out at a time from it’s makeshift straight jacket and strapping it onto the table. Eve had already strapped down it’s legs. Tom then took of it’s helmet and strapped it’s head down, he was careful to watch the skin eaters teeth to be careful not to be bitten.
The skin eater they were showing them used to be a woman. She still had flowing hair and her flesh didn’t look as dead as the other skin eaters Zoe had seen outside. The woman still had all of her limbs and flesh still intact and none of her insides were dragging along on the ground.
“This woman here was bitten outside a few days ago and came running here, banging on the doors asking for help. We let her in and my husband Tom tried to save her life but ultimately she died from infection from the bite and came back as one of the skin eaters” Eve started.
“We already have more of them, fresh skin eaters should we say, locked in that room there but she is better for me to experiment on and has more hope of us finding a cure. So far we don ‘t have much to go on, only that a bite starts an infection and spreads throughout the body, eventually killing you and bringing you back to life as a dead cannibal. One patient we had asked to have his hand cut off to try stop the spread of infection, he had only been bitten five minutes prior so we amputated his hand but it didn’t work. The infection had already spread and he came back as one of them.” Eve finished.
“Sure it wasn’t blood loss he died from from having his hand chopped off?” Jeff asked.
“We are most certain that it wasn’t. The infection spread faster than me or Tom have ever seen an infection spread before. If you get bitten, we guessed that you would have to remove that body part in the first ten seconds after being bitten to stop the infection spreading, then you would probably die from blood loss” Eve told them.
“Right so what else have you found out when you’ve been doing this experiment?” Michael asked.
“Not a lot. They still have blood but it’s completely black, like something you’d see in a horror movie really, if you watch those kind of movies. They also have no brain function, at all. It’s weird they can still walk or even move at all. They also don’t like meat that has been cooked and they much prefer human meat to animal meat but they’ll still eat the animal meat, only when they are really hungry though” Eve told them.
“That’s why we need human meat. We’re trying to train them I guess you could call it to prefer the animal meat to human meat but so far it’s not working. Even when we starve them and then only feed them animal meat, as soon as we introduce the human meat they chomp it down in seconds, always looking around for more” Tom said.
“It’s a working progress but we are hopeful for a cure and will continue working tirelessly for one” Eve told them.
The woman skin eater on the table was looking hungrily at all of them, chomping it’s teeth and straining against the restraints on the table to try and get to them. It really didn’t look like this experimenting was going well at all.
“That’s all fair and well but uh, about this human meat? Where are you getting it?” Jeff asked.
“Ah, that’s were we ask you to keep an open mind and not to judge us. Thanks Tom and Eve, we’ll leave you be now” Sylvia said.
They started to follow
Sylvia back out of the room and she took them to the opposite door from the one they had just went through.
Zoe didn’t have a good feeling about this and her stomach was churning. Zoe didn’t know if she was going to be sick or just faint.
“You will all still be able to leave if you want to but you have to let me explain before you do. I don’t want you all running off in fear of us, we’re not bad people I promise” Sylvia said to them.
“Just open the door Sylvia” Zoe said.
“Okay” Sylvia breathed.
It all happened in slow motion really. Sylvia opened the door and pulled on the string that was dangling beside the door to turn the lights on.
There was a little foggy mist that came out the door and it did feel a little cold but not unbearably cold and soon they were all able to see what was right in front of them.
On the floor there were wriggling bodies of humans all tied up and with their mouths taped. They all looked absolutely terrified and began to make muffled sounds from behind the tape over their mouths. They were all looking at Zoe and the others, begging with their eyes for them to set them free. Zoe was too stunned to speak or even move.
“What is this!?” Jeff yelled.
“Well, this is where we get the human meat from” Sylvia told them.
“You’re keeping live humans here as food sources for the skin eaters you’re experimenting on!?” Michael shouted.
“Yes but..”
“But WHAT! This is in humane! You people really are crazy!” Michael yelled again.
“They’re not good people! These people here murdered other humans when this all broke out. They tried to murder us when we let them in, when we tried to help them!” Sylvia shouted at them.
“So what? You’re getting payback by feeding them to the skin eaters!? How is that any better than what they tried to do to you lot!?” Michael asked.
“Because they are now doing something good with their lives by giving them up for us to hopefully find a cure!”
