Max smiled a bit at the mercurial and fast-talking child. He genuinely did not want to scare her, but knew he had to get her out of the closet and back to wherever her father was.
"Yes, sure, Joan," Max began soothingly. "My name Max. You need to come out, so we find your family. I little funny-looking like other guys, but I won't hurt you, I will help, okay?"
In a surprisingly short amount of time, the closet door opened, and out came a young girl of no more than five, wearing pajamas decorated in penguins. Showing only curiosity and no fear, she looked straight up at Max. He immediately knelt to her level. Joan stared at him a moment longer before throwing her arms around his neck in an embrace, either not caring or not noticing his pale skin and blood-spattered face. Max sat there in shock for a moment before tentatively patting the small girl’s back. Wetness filled his eyes at the unexpected show of affection.
Pulling back, Joan looked up and down the hall before pointing down the hallway. “I came from that way,” she declared as she started off down the hall with confidence. Max paused before following little Joan, remembering he had left Jay by himself with his meal.
He didn't want to worry the girl, but knew that without his full brain function, Jay could be vulnerable. Making a decision, he stopped Joan before she could continue.
"Joan, I have a…friend. Over here. I need get him before take you back, but need you follow me close, and if I say do something, you do right away. Can you do that?" Max asked.
Joan beamed. "Sure, Max! I like friends!" He smiled at the girl and brought her back towards the lobby. He stopped her for a moment before they went through the doors. Mindful of what Jay was likely still doing, he made a plan. As he looked into the room he noticed that there was a potted tree just outside the doors where it was unlikely Joan would be able to see up the stairs.
"We go through these doors. When we go, need you to hide behind that tree while get my friend. Okay?" he asked. Joan nodded at him and happily skipped through the door with him, ducking down beside the tree and giving him a thumbs up.
Max returned the gesture and continued up the stairs, where he found Jay still sitting on the landing with the corpse. Max smiled when he got closer, realizing the infected boy was in fact sleeping with the corpse across his lap, the body significantly worse for wear at this point. Max shook Jay gently, who woke with a start, growling before realizing it was Max who woke him. The teen gave Max a bloody grin with a small happy moan.
"Come on, Jay-man. Time get up." Max pushed the body off his lap and helped Jay to his feet.
Before they walked away, he looked Jay in the eyes, holding him by his shoulders.
"Jay-Man, I made friend. Want you to meet but need you to listen. Can you do that, buddy?" Jay look at Max and gave him another smile, blood still dripping onto his already filthy shirt. The meal seemed to have improved not only his understanding but also his spirits. Max smiled at him and continued.
"I met little girl name Joan. We need help get back to family. She isn't like us, Jay." He paused for effect, staring into Jay’s eyes. "She NOT for eating, okay? She is going to smell like something make you hungry. But we need to help, not hurt, okay?" Jay frowned a bit, trying to comprehend Max's words before smiling and nodding. Max was relatively confident that he understood, and he walked back down the stairs and around the corner to where Joan was still crouched behind the pot.
Jay paused when he saw the small girl, and Max stood on guard, prepared to tackle the boy if he needed to. He watched Jay's expression closely, looking for any signs of aggression, and was pleased that he saw none.
After staring for a moment, Jay gave the girl a bloody and brilliant grin and shambled over to her. Despite the blood, Joan obviously felt the smile was friendly and jumped up to meet him partway.
The two stared at each other for a moment, then Joan smiled and waved. "Hi, Max's friend. I'm Joan. What's your name?" Jay stared at the girl, a bit of bloody drool hanging from the corner of his mouth. He looked over to Max for help.
Max cleared his throat and replied, "This is Jay. He can't talk, but think he is glad to meet you. He going to help us get back to your family."
With the acceptance and exuberance only a child can have, Joan smiled again and wrapped her arms around Jay's middle.
"Thanks, Jay!" Joan exclaimed, totally ignoring the blood that now stained her penguin pajamas. "Can we go find my daddy now, Max?" she asked, turning to him.
"Yup. Let go find him."
"I think I came from that way," she stated, grabbing Jay’s hand, walking him down one of the hallways.
Stunned yet again, Max followed the little girl and Jay down the hall. He noted the little skip in her step as she walked beside Jay. It made Max’s chest feel tight and he felt grateful for his increased control. After two turns and one set of stairs, Joan told them she thought her room was just down the hall.
They walked up to the door, and Max hesitated for a second before he let her knock. Putting his ear to the door, he couldn’t hear anything.
“You sure this one?” he asked Joan.
The little girl nodded at him.
“Yup! One-four-two-zero. My daddy taught me,” she responded proudly, pointing at the number on the door.
Max gave her a small smile and looked down at the blood covering his body, realizing her family might not receive two bloody, infected people as well as she had. He pulled her a few doors away and knelt again. Jay stayed perched at the end of the hall, watching with interest.
“Hey, Joan, don’t know if your parents want zombie dropping you off, so we going to wait right there behind corner where Jay stand,” he said, pointing to his left. “But we stay until you get in, okay?”
Max had really come to like the little girl in the short time he had known her, and he didn’t want to cause problems. Joan smiled and hugged him again, squeezing tightly around his neck. This time Max hugged her back. Very subtly he smelled her, and while he could still detect that same enticing scent, he also didn’t feel tempted by it, especially coming out of such a small and cute vessel.
“Thanks for saving me, Max. And it was nice to meet you, Jay. You guys are like my bestest friends,” she said cheerily as she waved at Jay and skipped back down the hall.
Max positioned himself behind the corner, peeking out, and gave her a thumbs up and a smile. Joan returned the gesture, still holding her thumb up as she knocked on the door.
Before Max or Jay had time to react, the door opened, and Joan screamed as a figure growled and yanked her into the room by her arm. The heavy door slammed shut behind her.
CHAPTER 11
The morning after Clara had spoken to Three and Seventeen, a new person came downstairs, different from the others who watched them.
The first difference Clara noticed was that she was a woman. Secondly, she wore all white, as opposed to the dark greys, blacks, and greens of the others watching them. The third thing she noticed was the curious gleam in her eyes, so different from the aggressive look of most of the people she had encountered so far. Clara watched her, uneasy about anything different than could bring change to the temporary peace of confinement.
The woman walked halfway across the room before turning to one of the soldiers standing behind her.
“Have any of them shown any signs of intelligence or speech?” Rachel asked briskly.
The soldier she had addressed, Private Roberts, looked a bit surprised, but started to shake his head before stopping to consider the question for a moment.
“Actually, there’s that grey dude over there. Pretty quiet usually. Always looked to me like he was thinkin’ a little harder than some of these undead assholes,” he laughed, eliciting a chorus of repeats from the others around them.
With a fake smile, she asked him to point out the one he was talking about.
Clara tensed when she realized they were talking about Three, and struggled to retain her aloof composure, as Three himself had directed her.
What would
they do? Clara wondered. What happened to those others that Three and Seventeen had talked about before? Panic and awful scenarios ran through Clara’s mind, immobilizing her.
The woman in white approached the cage, making several of Clara’s roommates go wild trying to reach her. Three sat in his spot in the back like usual, and Clara willed him to get up and act stupid. Three sat there in silence like a petulant teenager, just staring ahead, perfectly aware of what was happening.
“Please bring him upstairs for me,” she asked the soldiers, not taking her eyes off Three. She ignored the muttering and objections directed at her as she continued, “But be gentle. If you ask me, you are all entirely too rough,” she scolded, turning on her heels and walking through the heavy doors and back up the stairs behind them.
The five men turned back to the cage once the woman had left, and Clara noticed a feral glint in their eyes that was not unlike many of her ‘friends’ in the cage. Clara instinctually started growling, a light rumble in her throat, her brow furrowed.
One of them immediately took charge as the alpha, advising the rest to pull out their cattle prods and pistols. While Clara didn’t know what all of those words meant exactly, she did understand that it wasn't something good, and recognized him as the man from the van who took her. The other caged occupants immediately became more agitated, but moved away from the door once they saw the weapons.
The soldier who had pointed out Three took a set of keys from his belt and unlocked the door, keeping his eyes inside the cage while two others stood closely with their weapons ready.
The door swung open, and for a moment everything in the room was totally still.
One heartbeat.
Two.
Suddenly, it was a blur of movement and buzzing. Several of the zombies who had visible bite marks, the ones that Clara had previously recognized as having little if any memories from before, rushed forward towards the open door. In a flash, two went down, howling as the electric charges rushed through their bodies. The men holding the prods grinned while several more came forward into the cage, ready for any more of the brave and hungry to rush forward. On seeing their two downed companions, the remaining infected became warier, growling and biting towards the soldiers but not wanting to end up like the others.
The alpha soldier, Johnson, stepped in the cage, kicking one of the downed zombies on his way in, eliciting a yelp that made Clara's blood boil. He grinned and stepped forward. The rest of the group cleared a path around him as he approached Three.
"Come on, you stupid ugly fucker," he goaded as he slowly stepped forward. Three continued to sit against the wall, staring straight at his jailor with contempt but not making any move to get up or defend himself.
Another zombie, a woman this time, rushed towards Johnson and was immediately brought down with a prod followed by several punches and kicks. The alpha ignored this while two of his men continued to beat on the now wailing zombie, who was clearly no further threat. Blood poured from the woman’s mouth and face, but the soldiers continued. After another moment, there was a loud crack and the wailing stopped. The female ceased moving.
Seventeen growled and made a move to step forward, but Clara grabbed her arm and shook her head slightly.
"That's enough," Johnson said to the soldiers. "You've had your fun. Now grab this asshole and let’s go."
No one put up any further fight as they grabbed Three by the arms and pulled him roughly out of the cage, slamming the door behind them. Three put up no resistance, resigned to whatever fate awaited him.
Clara and Seventeen squeezed each other’s hands as they watched the soldiers take him up the same staircase Rachel had left through only moments before. The two women stood in silence, wondering if they would ever see Three again.
Rachel sat in what used to be a storeroom, now emptied out other than a few metal racks that were attached to the floor and the two chairs she had specifically brought in. She couldn't risk any of the infected destroying her lab.
Since her examinations which proved that the infected were not in fact dead, as well as determining where the brain damage was centered, she hoped to prove that rehabilitation was in fact possible. Rachel wasn't stupid. She understood that many of the soldiers had a tendency towards violence, and nothing short of hard proof would ever convince them that their zombies were, in fact, sick people with a stable mania that could likely be managed with time and patience.
She felt slightly ill thinking back on the previous experiments she suspected had taken place in the lab in the Seattle. Soldiers and scientists alike had dissected, tortured, and torn apart their specimens. Rachel hadn’t been there, but had heard rumors of fire, amputation, and other various forms of dismemberment. Even at the time when she thought they were truly the undead, she couldn’t help but be slightly horrified and sincerely hoped the rumors weren’t true. Now that she knew otherwise, she was determined to prevent further loss of life. If she could help one of the infected regain some of their former capacity, perhaps they wouldn't be so inclined to shoot first and ask later.
Rachel sighed to herself, wringing her fingers in her sweater while waiting for her first subject, the man who had been pointed out by Private Roberts. She knew that so much of her success, or lack thereof, would dictate many things about the way humanity treated the infected going forward.
She heard footsteps, and something being dragged closer, and stood up. Two soldiers walked in with Three held between them. Although the soldiers both had a good grasp on the infected man’s arms, the intensity with which he stared back at Rachel made her shiver.
"Please, come in," she said, trying to compose herself as she pulled out one of the chairs. One of the soldiers frowned looking at it.
"Doctor, we need to lock him down. Captain Wolfe's orders." Rachel reluctantly agreed, and the infected man was handcuffed, one arm on each side of the metal chair. She dismissed the soldiers, turned on her camera, and shut the door. The infected man now had his back to the door, and she couldn't help but stare for a moment, thinking how normal he looked from behind.
His shoulders and back seemed tense. She wondered how many, if any, emotions the infected could still feel. If this was a normal human in front of her, she would guess he was nervous or apprehensive based on body language. Clearing her throat, she sat in the chair across from him and found him staring at her intently, not moving.
"Hello," Rachel said, unsure of where to begin, "My name is Doctor Rachel Samborski." The man stared blankly at her. She looked down at the paper in front of her detailing where he had been found, as well as where he had been taken since.
“I see you were our ‘Subject Three’ in Seattle. Do you know where that is?”
Again, no response.
Reddening slightly, she continued. "Do you remember your name?"
No reaction.
"I am a doctor. A virologist. I'm not here to hurt you. I brought you here to help."
She went on, noticing that his shoulders did seem to relax ever so slightly at her words. Thinking that maybe he did understand, she pressed on, this time with a bit more confidence.
"My name is Doctor Rachel Samborski. I am recording this on September 16th, 2019, in the military facility site outside of Abbotsford, BC. Subject A, also known as Three, has been brought in to attempt memory stimulation and regeneration." Rachel declared to the camera recording behind them. Turning her attention back to the man in front of her, she attempted a small smile.
"As I said, I am not here to hurt you. I have been doing studies that have shown that people who have been infected, like yourself, have the potential to regain more brain function. To remember." She watched him closely and noted that, while he didn't respond, he did appear to be listening.
Three was listening, of course, but after his previous interactions was wary of non-infected, regardless of what they said.
"Do you…understand me?" she continued.
Three stared at her, not giving anything away. Rachel sigh
ed and pulled out her medical kit. "I need to do some tests, check some things." She paused. "I will not hurt you…so please don't hurt me."
Rachel approached Three, preparing for the physical.
CHAPTER 12
The moments that followed room 1420 opening were a blur for Max. Immediately after Joan had been pulled into the room, Jay had rushed forward to go after her before Max even had a chance to process what happened. Jay banged on the door and howled, trying to help his small friend.
Max rushed over too, but found the door locked. Even his newfound ability to open doors couldn’t help without a key, and he didn’t know what else to do. Jay continued his assault on the door, oblivious to the futility.
Max fell back against the wall, stunned, rendered motionless by his inability to help Joan. He listened in horror to the screams on the opposite side of the door.
It seemed like forever before the noises stopped, and even longer still before Jay calmed down and came over to him. The feeling he had now, the useless, hopeless feeling, was worse than any other emotion he could remember.
Max thought about Clara and wondered what had happened to her since he left. Although he couldn’t remember many specific details, when he closed his eyes he could see her smile, hear her light laugh floating through his mind. He may not have been able to help Joan, but in that moment, he vowed to himself that he would find Clara and save her from this awful and cruel new world.
Wetness burned in his eyes and it took Jay a few moments of prodding Max before the man finally turned his attention back to the teen. Although Jay obviously lacked a lot of his former self, his expression reflected the loss that Max felt. They stared at one another for a few more moments, letting it sink in, before Max finally stood, not even waiting this time to see if Jay was following.
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