by Rick Wood
But then she was required elsewhere. Her government needed her, she was told, before she was taken in a van by the army, passing buildings on fire, hearing nothing but gunshots, passing deformed creatures who chased after them.
She soon got closer to those deformed creatures, spending most of her early days picking apart their corpses, scrutinising the infection, what it was doing, how it was spreading.
This was different to her previous work.
She wasn’t looking for a vaccine. Or a cure.
She was looking for something else.
Something to make the infection… stronger.
“Good afternoon!” came that friendly voice that wasn’t so friendly. Its cheeriness came with a loaded, sinister twinge that was hard to pinpoint, never mind articulate – but was there all the same. “Everyone hard at work, I see?”
Eugene saw her. Raised his eyebrows in greeting. His armed guard waited by the door as he approached.
“Doctor Janie Starton, I presume?” he said.
“It’s Doctor Janine Stanton,” she responded. “And please, call me Janine.”
“Oh, I will. How goes it, Janine?”
“Well, sir. Really well, in fact.”
His grin alighted.
“Wonderful. I trust you have some good news for me?”
“I think I’ve got what you wanted.”
“Well, let’s see it.”
“First, before I show you, can I ask about my future? Should it be what you are wanting, I would very much like to–”
“Show. Me. It.”
She felt like bowing. Curtseying. She didn’t. She nodded fervently. She did consider, for a fleeting moment, refusing to show him anything until he listened; then her eyes drifted to the armed guard stood by the entrance. If she picked up a scalpel and lodged it into him, could she make it out alive?
No. Because she was a doctor. They were soldiers.
Such intermittent thoughts were pointlessly futile.
“Yes,” she answered. “This way.”
She led him to her work station and presented a microscope.
“What I am looking at, Janine?”
“Just look, please.”
A brief scowl at her impatience flickered across his face. He peered into the microscope. He hovered there for a few seconds. His neck was exposed. Then he looked to Janine with eyes full of curiosity, like a child in a sweet shop, suddenly excited by the possibilities.
“Is this…” he asked. “Is this… really it?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“I’m pretty certain. If you look at the cells – it’s a cell of a human and of the infected. It’s no longer attacking it.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It’s merging.”
“And you did this from the blood of that feral girl?”
“I did, sir, yes.”
He held his arms out into the air, as if he was about to embrace her in a hug, but just held them there, his grin getting wider, unnaturally so, taking up such a large portion of his face.
“Where were you eight months ago, eh?” he exclaimed, his voice full of bounce. “Where were you then when I needed this? This is… Ah, Janine. You are my saviour. This is exactly what I wanted. Exactly!”
“Could I – could I go home now?”
He raised a finger in the air and took a deep breath, feigning a look as if he was deeply considering this.
“Surely, Janine, surely, in good time.”
“In good time?”
“Could you synthesise this?”
She looked to her research, then back to him. She didn’t see why not. She would require more resources, but it could be done.
“Yes. I would need more people, but–”
“Then people you shall have! How soon could you have it done?”
“Give me enough people and I could have it this afternoon.”
He clapped his hands together, hard, and waved his hands joyously in the air.
“Right, Janine, listen carefully. Here is what I want you to do…”
Chapter Nine
Singing to yourself passes the time. But does it make you sound crazy? Guess it does. To some people.
Then again, doesn’t having an interior conversation with yourself make things worse…
Gus wasn’t even sure if he was even speaking out loud anymore. Was that humming him? Was it an open vent? A fan? Someone else?
No, there was no one else with him. Who could it be?
How long had he been in there now?
Ooh, say, about, a few months…
Got to be realistic.
Can’t be years. Haven’t been fed enough.
Got to be months.
Surely.
But can you be positive?
Oh God, I’m doing it again.
He clenched his right fist. Pulled on his restraint. Felt it give a little bit more. Or did he?
Fact is, he’d been pulling at it for hours on end every day since he first arrived. Biding his time. Hoping it would give way eventually. Tugging on it a little bit each day; it’s got to give some day, hasn’t it? It may take forever, but surely – someday, right?
The bed frame looked to quiver. Fractionally. Buckle so minutely only a keen, in-tune mind would perceive it.
But that ain’t me.
He was imagining it. It wasn’t moving. Couldn’t be.
It could.
Who knows.
The door buzzed. It opened once more. Corporal Krayton entered. His gun aimed, his eagle eyes looking through the viewfinder, focussing its target directly at Gus.
Gus smiled for him. Smile for the camera. For the audience. Give them a show.
“Well how do you do?” he asked. The intonations of his voice made him sound like the Mad Hatter. Which was strange, because he didn’t know who the Madder Hatter was. Guess it just feels right.
He stopped pulling on his restraint. Stopped trying to make it buckle. What if Krayton saw the tiny movement?
Well. Yeah, go on. What if he saw it?
What then?
Krayton would have to react. Move a bit more. Interact. Pretend like Gus was a living organism, not an immobile object to be watched with a loaded weapon.
The doctor entered.
“No!” chimed Gus.
The doctor didn’t react. Just carried on walking in with the tray.
“No, I said! Fuck off! Don’t want you!”
Gus was so hungry. So, so hungry.
But also stubborn.
“You heard me, dick-face, beat it.”
The doctor paused. Looked over his shoulder to Krayton. As if he was going to give some indication as to what to do. He never did anything. Just stood there looking at Gus through a gun.
“What you looking at him for? Boy ain’t got nothing about him. You ain’t going to get shit from him.”
The doctor looked back at Gus, then to Krayton.
“Ain’t that right, soldier?”
Krayton shrugged at the doctor. A small gesture, but one very much noticed by Gus.
“Oh God, he reacts. There is someone lurking beneath.”
The doctor left. Krayton went to go.
“When I kill you,” Gus declared, “you’re gon’ look more like one of the infected than you do now, you stupid little prick.”
Krayton paused. Held himself still in the doorway. Straightened his back.
“Oh my God, he reacts! He actually reacts! The fucking idiot zombie-head actually does something other than point a gun. Can you do anything other than point a gun?”
Krayton turned to Gus. With a knowing smirk. A dismissive shake of the head. A raise of his arms that reaffirmed who has the power.
“You got a wife, pretty boy?”
He raised his eyebrows and went to leave again.
“’Cause after I kill you, I’m goin’ to fuck her.”
He turned back.
“Yeah, that got you, didn’t it? She
a zombie yet? Cuz if so, I’ll still fuck her walking, talking corpse.”
Krayton raised his gun and rushed to the side of the bed, pointing it at Gus, but with more power, more aggression, holding it without the precision of a cool-minded sniper, but the rattled member of a shit gang.
“That got you, didn’t it?”
“Just you wait,” Krayton whispered, his voice low and husky, deeper than Gus was expecting. “Soon as Mr Squire gives the go-ahead, I’m gon’ use this one bullet I got saved for you.”
“But until then, you’ll just have to behave. So, what is your wife’s name? In fact, skip her name – if you could just write her address and phone number on the side there for me, I can do the rest.”
Krayton smashed the butt of the gun into Gus’s cranium.
Gus laughed. He thought that would hurt him? He had one fucking leg. That was like rubbing a bit of felt across his face, the inept idiot.
“You wan’ know a secret?” Gus taunted.
“What?” Krayton spat, his face venomous, yet still incontrovertibly in control. After all, he wasn’t the one fastened to a bed.
“Come closer, I got to whisper it.”
Krayton leant lower.
“Closer…”
Krayton leant lower still.
In a sudden rush, Gus threw his head upwards to dig his teeth into Krayton’s neck.
But he didn’t dig his teeth into Krayton’s neck.
He missed by inches.
His aim, his awareness, everything that made him a skilled fighter – it was way off. He was losing it. And Krayton found that hilarious. So much so, he fell to his knees laughing. Laughing at the idiocy that Gus Harvey thought he could fool him. The idiot who got himself captured and lost a leg – the washed-up, suicidal alcoholic who thought he was a bloody legend, held captive in a utility, with no knowledge of his friends’ existence, thinking he could fool Krayton.
Gus watched the arsehole laugh. Watched him guffaw, screech, weep with convulsions of hilarity.
“I’ll get you…” Gus said.
“No,” Krayton said, standing up whilst wiping the tears from his cheeks, struggling to calm his hoots. “No, you won’t.”
Krayton left, still chuckling, and the door buzzed after him.
Alone again.
Hello, darkness, my old friend.
He tugged on his restraints. Looked to the headrest.
It didn’t move.
But he’d get there eventually.
Surely.
Eventually.
Chapter Ten
Janine chewed the end of her pen.
It was a habit she used to hate in her students, in her brief time lecturing at the university whilst she acquired her PhD. She would look up, mid-talk, and notice it – a student with the end of a pen stuck in their mouth. Then the student would take it out and the pen would be mangled, squashed and condensed into a wreck barely recognisable as a writing utensil. Then she’d carry on. Detesting that individual student for no other reason than that they mildly chewed the end of their pen.
But, there she was, years later; her puzzlement reflected in arduous nibbling.
Then again, she was in a situation with overwhelming ethical complexities – she had the right to chew her pen. What reason did that student have? Exam deadlines? Relationship troubles?
Oh, what she’d give to only have the stress of an exam deadline or a difficult boyfriend. To resume such normalities of life, rather than being stuck between her patriotic duty and creating something potentially destructive on a worldwide scale.
Though, in all honestly, that student was probably dead now.
As was most of the country.
“Doctor Stanton?” a colleague said as they appeared at the doorway.
She shook her head, breaking herself out of a distant trance, and gave them her attention.
“Yes?”
“The subject is ready for you. Where do you want him?”
“Ah, I… Wherever.”
“We have a private lab set up for you next door. Would you like him in there?”
Janine looked at this colleague. Was he thinking the same thoughts as her? Did he have the same hesitancies? Or was he also working on a broken promise he’d get to see his family someday?
Or was he as he appeared, and did in fact have no clue what was happening?
“Sure,” Janine confirmed.
The guy nodded and left the room.
She waited. Sat alone in the silence of her tranquillity. Her own desk beside her, papers symmetrically arranged, paper tray perfectly organised, and the handle of her coffee cup pointed at a perfect right angle to the table.
She stood. Walked to the small window toward the top of the office, pushed herself onto her tiptoes, and looked out.
There they were. In the near distance. Surrounding the fences. Hundreds of them. Possibly more. There was always that distant growling, like a constant hum they’d grown used to. Then there was the smell that she didn’t even notice anymore. But seeing them, in all their disgusting glory, clambering against each other, reaching for the fence, desperate for their next meal, was something else. It was a different experience entirely.
Her colleague’s face appeared at the door once more.
“He’s ready for you, Doctor.”
“Is he strapped down?”
“Yes.”
“Then leave him be. I’ll be in in a moment.”
“Right you are.”
The guy left.
Her subject awaited.
That poor, poor subject.
Did he have any idea? Did he know what was about to happen? Was he a willing volunteer, a delusional madman, or a manipulated prisoner?
Whatever he was, he was just another tool of Eugene Squire. Something beaten by the marvellous General Boris Hayes – and, let’s face it, who hasn’t taken a beating from him every now and then?
Shortly after she had started there, he’d made a pass at her. Whilst his wife was sleeping in his room. She’d rejected him. He hadn’t liked it. She’d learnt what kind of man he was.
She stood. Sighed. Wiped her hands over her face.
I could do with a cigarette.
Not that she’d ever had one. She’d just heard it calmed nerves. And she could do with whatever she could get.
She stepped out of the room. Looked down the corridor. Sterile. Clean. Blank.
Two armed guards stood outside her private lab.
Of course they did.
She closed her eyes. Dropped her head.
Why was she doing this?
She could refuse.
And what then?
Some other genius would take her place, and she would be left to fend for herself in the herd of infected battering at the fences.
No. It was up to her.
She walked weakly down the corridor. It was only a few paces, but she felt her knees buckle, her legs wobble like jelly. Already she could feel her blouse sticking to her body, stuck to her by sweat. She had a hot flush. Her belly lurched.
She needed to get a grip.
Control yourself.
She caught sight of her own reflection in the glass walls of the passing laboratories. She looked like hell. Maybe it was a glimpse of what she’d look like after she was thrown into the horde outside for refusing to do her job.
Her job.
Jobs have pay checks.
What did she have?
My life.
And she guessed that would have to do.
She gripped the door handle too hard. Softening her push, she opened the door, but its weight held itself against her. She pushed harder and stumbled in. She closed the door and locked it.
There he was.
The subject.
Sat on a chair in the middle of the room. Her equipment had been set up on tables around him, every utensil she’d need, whether it be for analytical, surgical, or synthetical purposes, she need never leave this room.
He looked young.
Younger than she expected. Though she wasn’t sure what she had expected. His hair looked scruffy, like it had been poorly styled into a bed head – a popular style boys used to have when she was still at school and dating. His face was bruised. His bony arms, peeping out of his white patient’s outfit, clutched the side of the chair.
His face was red.
He was breathing erratically.
But he didn’t say anything. For some reason, he looked like he couldn’t. Like there was something behind his eyes, or in his mind, irreparable damage that had scarred his perceptions. Whatever it was, something was keeping him still, yet petrified, yet cooperative.
“Hello,” Janine said, unsure what she was saying. “My name is Doctor Janine Stanton. Do you understand what is going to be happening to you?”
His eyes widened. Like his eyelids were being pulled apart. Pure terror. Yet completely docile. Aggressively submissive.
“What is your name?”
His mouth didn’t open. It remained tightly closed.
She picked up his chart.
“Well, it doesn’t say your name here.”
She flipped through a few pages, then she saw it. His name, from before.
“Well, I guess I’ll just call you by this previous name, then,” she said.
She held her eyes over him. Fixed. Surveying his reactions.
She’d better get to work. She didn’t have long.
“Right, shall we get started then, Donny?”
FIVE DAYS LATER
Chapter Eleven
Rage is something shared across most species.
It’s more than annoyance, or anger, or hostility. It’s something that starts inside and burns its way through the acidity of your stomach, blackens your blood, scorches through your nervous system, coasting along on its own adrenaline.
It’s something you can recognise in yourself, but usually not until long after it’s started. For a human, it’s something you can consciously acknowledge, and either control, harness, or release.
For an animal, it’s not words; it’s a familiar feeling. Not something one knows through internal awareness, but something one is still unmistakably aware of. Like an old friend that causes you nothing but misery, but you shake their hand nonetheless, welcome them into your life with their sledgehammer and let them batter away at everything you’ve built.
