Everything Dies | Season 3

by Malpass, T. W.

  ‘I’m fine. Just keep your distance so her focus is entirely on me,’ he said.

  Before Foster could reply, he walked towards the bracket where the creature was restrained.

  When it saw him coming, it started to writhe and try to break free of its bindings, growling intently.

  Ethan stopped with his feet a couple of inches short of the line of tape.

  The creature threw its full weight at him, applying stress to the bracket, forcing a small amount of the dry stone from the wall.

  Foster edged closer, raising her weapon to line up a shot at the creature’s head.

  Ethan gazed deep into its discoloured eyes and took one more step, breaching the line of tape.

  ‘Don’t,’ Foster said.

  He angrily raised his hand in her direction to ward her off and continued.

  The creature’s growling ceased, and although its mouth remained open, it no longer gnashed its teeth. It matched Ethan’s stare, and its pupils began to dilate. Even its body relaxed, shoulders rounding, movements slowing.

  Ethan was upon it. It could reach out and grab him if it had the inclination to, but it didn’t. It made no attempt to attack. It was fixated on him, and he on it.

  Foster watched in equal terror and fascination as the movement of Ethan’s body seemed to synchronise with that of the specimen. They were at one, and every other outside stimulus dissolved into insignificance.

  The creature’s eyes widened, and a long line of drool spilled from its mouth like it had just taken a shot of anesthetic.

  Foster lowered the gun and moved up to the tape.

  ‘Ethan?’

  He didn’t acknowledge her call, remaining completely still, lost in the creature’s eyes.

  The most disconcerting development for her was the fact that the specimen hadn’t reacted to her own proximity to it either. Ethan had become the centre of its world, and not even the presence of new uninfected flesh could break the spell.

  Still keeping the pistol handy, Foster waved her other hand in front of her patient’s face, hoping obstructing his vision would bring him back.

  It had absolutely no effect.

  In a panic, Foster placed her hands on his shoulders and shook him violently.

  ‘Wake up,’ she shouted, yanking him away from the creature’s stare and back beyond the line of tape.

  Ethan shifted with the contact, as if a bolt of electricity had passed through his body, and he recoiled from her grasp.

  He reached up to his face and searched the room with his eyes to try to come to terms with his surroundings again.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked. ‘What happened to you? Where did you go?’

  ‘I… I don’t know,’ he replied.

  He took a few staggered steps forwards, and Foster caught hold of him, fearing he might fall over.

  ‘I think I need to go lie down,’ he said, reaching up to touch his face again. ‘I’m going to my room.’

  ‘I’ll help you.’

  ‘No,’ he said, pulling away from her. ‘I’ll be fine on my own.’

  He left the lab as disturbed as when he’d entered.

  Foster could do nothing but recall what she’d witnessed and try to make some sense of it. She turned around to look at the specimen. It too had broken from the strange trance, but it was still left subdued by the experience.

  It wasn’t paying any attention to Foster, its eyes glazed by the fog of its cerebral encounter.

  The doctor turned again to retreat deeper into the lab, but she staggered and almost keeled over, having to use one of the benches to lean on to keep her on her feet. She rested her head on the wood until the room had stopped spinning and the dizzy spell subsided.

  For a moment, she wondered if she had also been pulled into whatever unusual event had occurred between Ethan and the creature, but when her thoughts cleared, she knew the real reason for her episode.

  After a couple minutes, she was able to stand straight and steadily retire to her quarters.

  2

  O.B. inserted the full magazine into the hand grip of his gun until he heard the click indicating it had locked in place.

  He placed the gun on the table in front of him, then picked up the earmuffs and secured them to his head. The human silhouette corflute targets he faced were staggered between five and twenty yards from his firing position.

  He exhaled a slow, controlled breath, picked up his weapon, released the safety, and pulled back the slider. He lined up the first target and fired two shots. One struck the silhouette on the left side of its neck, and the second hit it square in the chest region.

  O.B. shifted his aim to a different target that was positioned farther away and pulled the trigger again, this time catching the silhouette in its midriff.

  As he was about to unleash his next shot, an image flashed into his mind. Rotten teeth biting and tearing through flesh… blood flowing and gargling in mouths… an indeterminate feeding frenzy.

  The bullet struck the target but missed the silhouette’s right shoulder by an inch.

  O.B. lowered the weapon and reached up to massage the bridge of his nose between his eyes in an attempt to rid himself of the horrible vision.

  He had no idea if it was a fractured memory or something that had been conjured from the dark recesses of his imagination. All he knew for sure was the images were accompanied by a panic, accelerating his heart rate and tightening his throat.

  His body broke out into a sweat, but he raised the gun to fire again at the target right at the back of the makeshift range. He managed to steady himself and hit it twice.

  The nightmarish images forced their way into his head again, flesh ripping and guts spilling out as dead hands dug in.

  Rather than breaking away, he pulled the trigger and emptied what was left of the clip into the range, missing the targets and striking the wall.

  He stepped back from the trace wisps of gun smoke and tore the earmuffs from his head.

  The images had gone, but the ripping and gargling sounds of the dead still echoed in his ears. His thoughts turned to his cousin Bruno and how he had visited his dreams at the facility. He remembered the last thing the vision had said to him, word for word.

  ‘You know as well as I do that you can’t watch their backs, and eventually they’ll give up watching yours. Listen to what I’m saying, little cousin, or you’ll end up here… with us. Maybe it’s not a bad idea after all. In here, there’s no fear anymore, but it’s colder… much colder.’

  A lot had changed since then. He’d changed. Raine had taught him how to take care of himself—how to survive. He could not have been a more willing student, but even after everything, no matter how he’d hardened himself, he was still afraid.

  Being consumed by the dead haunted his every waking moment, and it took all he had just to hold it together.

  He threw the weapon and mufflers onto the table and left the firing range. He had no idea where he was heading; he just needed to quiet the noise in his head.

  3

  Approximately three hundred yards from the compound, beside the rock ledge hanging over the deep drifts below, Crawford and Raine worked to secure the helicopter after their flying lesson.

  They had already fastened the tiedown ropes to the fuselage mooring points and fixed them to the ground anchors, plus attached cables to the rotor blades.

  Crawford clambered on top of the aircraft as she carefully pulled the protective cover over the length of one rotor blade while Raine held it in place with a stripper rod from the ground.

  ‘Got it,’ Crawford said as she tightened the cover on the last section.

  ‘Do you think it’ll hold? The winds have picked up again over the last few days,’ Raine said.

  ‘I could have kept her in the hangar for a while longer, I guess, but it’s always better to be able to plan a quick getaway as often as we can. As long as it’s properly secured, these winds aren’t stron
g enough to do any damage.’

  ‘Planning on leaving in a hurry, Crawford?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be me anymore. You and Schaffer have reached the stage where you can start taking her up on your own.’

  Raine shook her head, hooking the stripper rod to the next rotor cover so she could send it up to Crawford.

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘I’m your instructor, right? I’m giving you both the green light. You’ve passed your preliminary pilot’s licence. Congratulations,’ Crawford said.

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ Raine said.

  ‘Have yourself a drink to celebrate.’

  ‘I’m not so sure that’s a good move right now.’

  ‘Suit yourself. I’ll have one for you,’ Crawford said, tugging on the cover.

  ‘Maybe it’s not the best idea for you either. We could be packing up and leaving any day now.’

  Crawford stopped pulling on the tarp for a moment.

  ‘Salty came to see me. Told me about what you’ve asked Foster to do with the kid and that dead head you brought in.’

  ‘You don’t sound as though you approve too much,’ Raine said.

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Mind telling me why that is?’

  ‘I remember when I first came on board at the project. I left my family, full of hope that we could turn things around quickly. When I got to the facility, it had already been up and running for a couple of weeks, so most of the science team were there and hard at work.

  ‘My job during the early part was ferrying supplies and personnel in and out. Everyone seemed so relaxed and focussed on the job in hand. “They’ve got this,” I thought. “In a month or two, the world will be back to something approaching normality, and I can return to my family knowing I did my part.”

  ‘Once things really spiralled out of control, I started hearing rumours about what caused the outbreak. Y’know how people talk when they’re confined. Word gets around like it does in prison.

  ‘Then folks started abandoning their posts and making a run for it. Either that or they offed themselves. That’s when the ones remaining really got candid about what the Lazarus Project actually was and how it had evolved.

  ‘I pieced it together, and it dawned on me that, right from the beginning when I’d seen all those relaxed demeanours and smiling faces, they fucking knew they were responsible for millions of deaths around the world. Even in the face of that destruction, the same shit-eating arrogance led them to believe they could put it all back together again. The monster they’d created was eating them alive, and they never lifted their heads from their computers long enough to notice.’

  By the time Crawford finished her story, she’d covered the second blade.

  ‘I get it. You think we’re kicking the hornets’ nest again,’ Raine said.

  ‘You asked for my opinion and I gave it—for what it’s worth.’

  ‘Fair enough, but that doesn’t mean you can skip the demonstration when they’re ready. I want everyone there to witness it so we can all make an informed decision how to move forwards together.’

  Crawford nodded, and they said no more about it as they continued to secure the helicopter against the elements.

  Once they’d covered the remaining blades and the cockpit, Crawford left for her cabin, and Raine made the short walk to the main compound.

  When she reached the tractor garage, Foster was waiting for her, wrapped up for the weather, arms folded.

  ‘He says he’s ready,’ she said.

  ‘Do you think he’s ready?’ Raine asked.

  Foster responded with a sarcastic smirk. ‘Since when does it matter what I think?’

  She started to walk back through the garage to G section, and Raine called after her.

  ‘Get the lab prepared for the morning. I’ll arrange for the others to meet there at 10:00 a.m.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Foster said, slamming the door.

  4

  Salty grabbed his tattered baseball cap and pulled it down over his head to tame the mass of curly red hair that looked even angrier first thing in the morning.

  He stroked the wispy ends of his beard, deep in thought. He then picked up his coat from the hook on the wall of his room.

  As soon as Anna saw him getting dressed, she raised her head from the floor and pricked up her long ears in hopeful expectation.

  ‘Sorry, Anna. Daddy’s got to go see somethin’ that you wouldn’t like,’ he said. ‘I doubt Miller would be too impressed if you attacked that thing and wrecked the show.’

  The dog responded with the faintest of whimpers and placed her chin back onto her front paws.

  ‘I’ll be back in an hour, and then we can take a trip outside.’

  Salty waved to her and left the room, leaving the door ajar for her in case she needed to stretch her legs.

  He left the building through C section via the laundry room and trudged to the lab.

  O.B., Jason, and Crawford were already in attendance, watching Raine secure the creature to a workbench. She and Foster had cleared a space by moving all the furniture and apparatuses to one side of the room.

  She fixed the creature’s hands together in front and tightened a cable tie around one of its ankles and the leg of the bench while it snapped its teeth and hissed at her.

  O.B. turned up his nose at the dead woman in disgust, keeping one hand close to his sidearm.

  Raine moved away from it to a safe distance and turned to address the group.

  ‘You all know why I called you here. Ethan has agreed to show us how easy it would be for him to walk among them. In terms of gaining access to certain locations, it could mean everything for us.’

  ‘We may have different opinions on what it could mean for us,’ O.B. said.

  Raine glared at him and noticed Jason shifting uncomfortably behind him.

  ‘I wanted you to witness it first-hand, and then we can discuss and decide how we move forwards,’ Raine said.

  She nodded to Foster, and the doctor left the room to alert Ethan that it was time for him to make his entrance.

  Salty deliberately avoided O.B. and took up a position next to Crawford.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d show,’ he whispered.

  ‘I’ve gotta hand it to you people. Whenever I’m driftin’ away, you always come up with some fresh insanity to keep me interested,’ Crawford replied.

  The creature strained the bindings on its ankle, trying to attack its audience, gnashing its teeth and growling like a cornered animal.

  Foster returned with Ethan in tow. He kept his eyes from the others. It seemed his entire body was contracting, as though the sting of scrutiny had caused him to visibly shrink.

  When Foster ushered him around to face the creature, she whispered something in his ear that the rest of the group were too far away to discern. She then backed away to give him some space.

  Ethan stood motionless, not even looking up to acknowledge the specimen. Before he lifted his head, the undead woman started to lose interest in the others and focussed on him, almost like it recognised him in some way.

  Eventually he met its sad, tortured gaze, and its expression changed. The usually contorted grimace subsided. Its facial muscles relaxed, and it quickly became docile.

  The onlookers were already intrigued. They had never seen one of the creatures behave this way before towards a human being. It displayed a distinct sense of vulnerability that was unnerving to behold.

  Ethan moved closer, and the creature opened its mouth in a way that suggested it wanted to verbalise something but was unable to.

  As he got within touching distance, it turned its head away from him, behaving like it felt ashamed to be looked upon.

  The group watched in awe, wondering whether they really wanted to stick around for what was about to happen next.

  Ethan placed his hand over the shredded wrists of the specimen and removed a medical scalpel
from his pocket. He used it to cut through the cable tie, freeing its hands.

  Foster gasped. She didn’t know he’d stolen and concealed the knife from her and had no more idea what he had planned than the others did. Her curiosity prevented her from taking action, and she watched on.

  He dropped to one knee and reached around the creature’s legs to sever the binding around its ankle.

  The specimen was now able to roam the lab, and the audience automatically shuffled backwards.

  ‘Ethan, what—’ Foster cut herself off as she saw him turn in the direction of Raine. The dead woman mimicked his movements and also circled to face her.

  It gradually stumbled forwards to its destination, but without ravenous intent. Its arms remained at its sides, its teeth hidden behind its flaking lips, its expression soft and unassuming.

  Everyone collectively held their breath. It stumbled for at least five more yards before O.B. drew his weapon and took aim over Raine’s shoulder.

  Raine realised what he was about to do and immediately grabbed his arm and forced it away.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Almost simultaneously the creature stopped its march.

  All eyes turned to Ethan as he casually strolled to the nearest desk to collect the swivel chair tucked underneath it. He wheeled it to the centre of the clearing created for the demonstration. He then fixed his gaze on the specimen, and it turned 180 degrees from Raine and ambled back to its controller.

  Painfully slowly, it made for the chair Ethan now stood behind. Upon reaching it, the creature again turned its back and lowered itself onto the seat cushion, sitting perfectly upright and still.

  The loose-jawed onlookers thought they were the butt of a sick joke or they would suddenly wake up from a fever dream.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ!’ Crawford said out loud what everyone else was thinking.

  Ethan rested his hands on the creature’s shoulders and looked directly at Raine.

  ‘How did I do? Was it enough to keep my head for a while?’ he asked.

  O.B. had already retreated to the entrance of the lab, still holding his gun, fear and confusion pumping through his veins.