by Amy Cross
“She has a fever,” he explains. “The sickness affects different people in different ways, and this is the first time I've seen it in a child. She's delirious and I don't even know if she...”
He pauses, before turning back to her.
“I don't even know if she can hear me,” he adds.
I take a step closer, and now I see that Polly is constantly clenching and un-clenching her left fist.
“After her mother died,” Musgrave continues, “I swore that I'd always keep her safe. That was all that mattered to me. She went a little inward, she became very closed off from the world, but I told myself that was just her way of dealing with her bereavement. I still don't understand how she managed to get sick, I took every possible precaution, but I swear I'm going to save her. I would burn the world down if that's what it took to keep her with me.”
I hesitate, still wondering whether or not to tell him that Carter infected Polly. At the last moment, however, I can't quite get the words out.
“Are you sure there's nothing I can do to help?” I ask. “Even if it's just fetching and carrying.”
He turns to me again.
He looks absolutely terrified.
“You have to do this,” I remind him. “She's relying on you, and so's Elizabeth.” I turn and see Elizabeth still tied to the wall, still snarling and trying to get free. “You're their only hope,” I add, turning back to Musgrave, “and time's running out so you have to focus. What do you need me to do?”
For a moment, he seems completely unsure, but then he gets to his feet.
“Do you know the storage room at the far end of the building?” he asks.
I nod.
“There are some boxes filled with glass vials,” he continues. “Can you fetch one of those boxes and bring it here? Then I need you to sterilize them, but I'll show you how to do that.”
“I'll be back,” I say, turning and hurrying out of the room.
“And Thomas?”
I glance back at him.
“Thank you,” he says. “We can do this, you're right. We're going to save both of them. Not just Polly, but also your friend. I promise.”
Without answering, I make my way up the staircase that leads into the main part of the hospital, and then I head outside and make my way along the side of the building. I could go through the interior, of course, but it's easier to just avoid all the derelict rooms and go across the grass. My mind is racing, and I know that we're running out of time to save Elizabeth, but I tell myself that I just have to stay calm and do whatever Musgrave tells me to do. I can't believe that he'll let his daughter die, and if he saves her then he'll save Elizabeth as well.
Reaching the storage room, I start looking around for the boxes that Musgrave mentioned. It takes a few minutes, but finally I find one that contains a bunch of glass vials, so I haul it into my arms. The box is heavy, and I have to adjust my grip for a moment before turning to head back out.
Stopping suddenly, I see a figure standing in the open doorway, aiming a gun straight at me.
“I promise you one thing,” Robert Clayborne says firmly. “This one's fully loaded.”
Thomas
“I know what you're thinking,” Robert says, taking a step toward me while still aiming the gun at my face. “The dumb bitch should have killed me. Well, you're right, she should have. But she didn't. So here we are.”
“I have to get back down there,” I tell him. “You don't understand, I -”
“No-one's stopping you,” he replies, cutting me off. “I want you to go back down there. And you're going to take me with you.”
“Please, don't do this,” I say. “Don't interfere.”
“I almost died yesterday,” he explains. “It was a fluke that I bumped into a patrol. I told them about this place, but do you know what they said? They said it wasn't anything to do with them, they said Doctor Sarah Carter has special privileges and that no-one's allowed to interfere. I tried to persuade them that what she's doing here is wrong, but they wouldn't listen. Finally they let me take some weapons and they promised not to tell anyone if I came back. So here I am, and here you are, and I reckon it's time to clean up this mess.”
“The little girl is sick,” I tell him. “Do you remember Polly? Now she's sick too, but Musgrave -”
“He's gonna find a cure?” he asks, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Sure he is. These sick assholes are always promising things like that, but how often do they deliver?”
“If -”
“The only cure,” he snaps, taking a step closer, “is to eradicate every last one of those creatures. They've almost died off as it is. So I'm going to cure your friend and that little girl right now, by putting them both out of their misery. And you're going to do the right thing by showing me the way down there.”
I pause for a moment, before realizing that he's never going to listen to me.
“No,” I say finally.
“No?”
“I won't show you the way.”
“Then I'll find it myself.”
“You can't. There's a -”
Suddenly I realize that I left the door open, which means he'll have no trouble getting down to the laboratory. At least if I go with him, I can maybe raise the alarm and warn Carter so that she has time to seal the laboratory from the inside. It's not much, but at least it's a chance.
“What in that box?” Robert asks.
“Glass vials.”
“You won't be needing them. Put them down.”
I hesitate, and then I do as I'm told.
“Now walk ahead of me,” he continues, “and don't try anything. I don't have any particularly strong feelings about you, Thomas, but I will shoot you if that's what it takes. Even in the back. I'm going to do whatever it takes to shut down this place.”
Figuring that my best bet right now is to slow him down, I raise my hands and step out of the storage room, and then I start making my way toward the hospital's rear door. It'll take much longer to reach the laboratory if we go through the inside of the building, and I might find a way to slow us down even more. As I make my way through the door and into the first wrecked room, I'm already starting to wonder whether I might be able to give Robert the slip.
I can hear him behind me, he must be only a few paces back.
We step through another doorway, into a narrow corridor with several doors on either side. I'm still not sure that I can make my move, but one thing I know for certain is that I can't let this idiot get down to the laboratory.
At the end of the corridor, I take a right turn into a small room. A moment later I slow slightly, and sure enough I feel the gun bumping against the small of my back.
“Keep the pace up,” Robert says firmly. “I know you're thinking of trying something. I'd very much suggest that you don't.”
I lead him through to another room, and then another, and suddenly I realize that we're only a few rooms away from reaching the open door that leads down into the laboratory. My plan to make a break for cover has come to nothing, and I'm starting to think that my only option is to do whatever I can to warn the others. At the same time, I know that I might end up taking a bullet in the back.
“You're not leading me round and round, are you?” he asks as we reach the next room.
“Of course not.”
“Because I'm getting down there,” he continues, “with or without you.”
We step into the next room, and I see the open door.
“Okay, Thomas,” Robert says, “what -”
“He's here!” I shout, as loud as I can, desperately hoping that Carter and Musgrave will hear me. “Lock the door! Don't let him -”
Before I can finish, I feel a harsh bang on the back of my head. I fall forward and drop to my hands and knees, gasping for breath as a sharp pain ripples through my skull, and then a moment later I'm shoved out of the way as Robert races to the door. I lift my head and watch as he hurries down the stairs, but I can see spots of light in my vision an
d I'm starting to think I might be about to pass out.
Forcing myself up, I start making my way to the door, while trying to ignore the sudden sense of nausea in my belly. I can hear voices shouting downstairs, and a moment later three gunshots ring out.
“Stop!” I gasp, finally reaching the door and taking a moment to steady myself. “Please, stop all of it.”
I hear more shouting voices, although I can't make out the words, and then there's another gunshot followed by some loud banging. I have no idea what's happening down there, but I can only hope that Carter and the others managed to get the door shut before Robert reached the laboratory.
“Elizabeth,” I whisper, as I realize that Robert would have instantly tried to kill her. “Please be okay.”
There's more shouting down there, and I start making my way down the stairs. I still feel as if something's wrong, and the pain in my head is getting worse, but at the same time I know that I have to help the others. A moment later, as I reach the bottom of the stairs, I hear a man's voice crying out in pain, and I genuinely can't tell whether it's Musgrave or Robert. My vision's starting to get blurry now and – as I reach out to steady myself against the wall – I realize that my hand feels a little numb.
Another voice is shouting in the distance, but I can't quite tell who's speaking.
Finally I reach the door that leads into the laboratory, and the first thing I see – through my fading vision – is a body on the floor.
I step forward and squint, trying to see better, and to my horror I'm finally able to make out Doctor Musgrave's face. Or at least, what's left of his face, since his jaw and his left eye have been blown away. Looking over at the nearby bench, I see a large spray of blood that has reached as far as one of the walls.
Hearing Carter's voice in the distance, I step around Musgrave and start making my way toward the other chamber, although I stop after a moment as I see Polly shivering on the floor.
I want to help her, but there'll be time for that later.
“It's okay,” I stammer, even though I just saw her father's corpse. “It's going to be okay.”
Empty words, but they'll do for now. I hurry past her and head into the next room, and now I can hear not only the sound of Carter yelling but also a series of pained cries. A moment later, Robert screams, and I make my way as quickly as possible to the corner, and then I step around and see that Carter is holding a knife to his back as they both face the three caged zombies.
“I'm not a cruel woman by nature,” Carter sneers, as Robert – who has clearly been wounded in the legs – tries in vain to get free. “You, however, have pissed me off, so I'm afraid you're going to suffer now.”
“What are you doing?” I ask.
Instead of replying, she moves the knife down to the small of Robert's back, and then I watch as she slides the blade straight into the base of his spine. He cries out and falls forward, finally slumping down onto the ground.
Reaching down, Carter pulls the knife out.
“I'd better hang on to that,” she mutters. “Just in case.”
“You fucking bitch!” Robert yells, as she steps past him and wanders over to the cages. “I'm going to fucking kill you.”
“Unlikely,” she replies, glancing at me briefly and then looking down at him again as he tries to get up. “I knew exactly where to cut you, Mr. Clayborne, to rob you of the use of your legs. And I rather think your new-found helplessness is going to put you at a distinct disadvantage as you meet my three friends here. Allow me to introduce you to Adam, Eve and John. They're each, in their own ways, very hungry.”
With that, she starts opening the cages.
“What are you doing?” I gasp. “You can't let them out!”
“Relax,” she says with a sigh, coming over to join me as the zombies start dragging themselves out of their cages. “I'm in total control.”
“You can't let them get to him!” I tell her. “This is murder!”
“It's an eye for an eye,” she replies calmly, as two of the zombies stagger closer and closer to Robert. “He took a life, and now he's paying with his own. I don't know about you, Thomas, but I find that rather appropriate.”
“But it's -”
Before I can finish, one of the zombies – the female creature – hisses and falls against Robert. He cries out and manages to push her aside, but in doing so he allows the first male creature to come up behind him. I watch with a growing sense of nausea as the male zombie pulls Robert's head back and bites down hard into his throat. Blood starts spraying from the wound, and Robert lets out a gurgled cry as the female zombie grabs his arm and bites off several of his fingers.
“Nasty,” Carter observes. “Messy, too. Still, I get a strange sense of satisfaction from this. It's nice to see them behaving like proper, old-fashioned zombies for once. I'm glad they're getting this chance right before...”
Her voice trails off.
Robert screams as the male zombie bites his face and tears away part of his cheek. I want to look away, but instead I watch with grim fascination as the zombie rips off a section of skin that stretches all the way up to Robert's eye.
The third zombie, meanwhile, is slowly crawling over to join the feast.
“Poor Adam,” Carter muses. “He's completely legless, but he has that same urge to feed that characterizes all zombies. Even though he'll be late, there'll be plenty left for him.” She turns to me. “It's the blood they really want, you know. It's almost as if they're trying to drink the blood in a last-ditch attempt to save themselves. The whole macabre thing is almost poetic.”
As she finishes speaking, one of the other zombies starts tearing away the front of Robert's chest, snapping the ribs one-by-one until a huge chunk of flesh is left hanging from a thick section of membrane.
“Something's wrong,” I whisper, as I feel the whole room starting to spin around me. “I'm not...”
I reach out to steady myself, but my vision is blurred and somehow I manage to lose my footing. I slam down hard against the stone floor, and as I lose consciousness the last thing I hear is Robert's final agonized scream.
Day 107
Thomas
When I open my eyes, the first thing I notice is that the screaming has stopped.
I'm on my side in a darkened room, with just a hint of light breaking around the edges of the door. I'm cold and the air feels damp, but there's a blanket over me and after a moment I shift my weight and I feel some kind of makeshift metal-framed bed creaking and almost collapsing. I start to sit up, and the bed wobbles slightly, and then I lean to one side.
The bed tilts and crashes over, sending me thudding to the floor with a shocked gasp.
Once I've regathered my composure, I push the blanket aside and stumble to my feet, and then I make my way over to the door. I feel stronger than before, although there's still some pain in my head. At least I'm not dizzy and, as I fumble for the handle and then pull the door open, I find that my vision has cleared.
To my surprise, I see Doctor Carter working at one of the benches nearby, and I realize that I must have been sleeping in a storage cupboard that I hadn't previously noticed.
“Oh,” she says, not even turning to look at me, “you're alive. I was starting to wonder. Wonderful news. Don't worry about the mild concussion. You'll have a nasty headache for a day or two, but you'll live.”
“What...”
I hesitate, trying to remember everything that happened. Suddenly thinking back to Doctor Musgrave's dead body, I look over toward the main door. The body has been moved, but there are still splatters of blood on the floor and wall.
“I gave him what you would consider to be a decent burial,” Carter explains. “Nothing too fancy, but I'd be happy with the same treatment, given the circumstances. You can't really expect anything too fancy these days.” She finally glances at me. “Please don't go off on a tirade about what is and isn't the right thing, Thomas. I really couldn't give a crap right now.”
“Eliza
beth,” I whisper, turning and looking toward the far wall, only to see that Elizabeth is gone. “What did you do with -”
“I cut her up and burned what was left of her,” Carter says.
I turn to her.
“I used a hacksaw to take her head off,” she continues, “and to isolate the sickness. It's possible that her skull's still yakking away in the forest, but that'll only last for a day or two. By the way, that girl turned out to have some very interesting tattoos. I think perhaps she wasn't quite as pure and vanilla as she seemed.”
“No,” I stammer, shaking my head, “you can't have done that.”
“Relax, I was joking,” she continues with a chuckle. “You should see the look on your face. Elizabeth's pretty much the same as she was yesterday. I moved her and the little scamp into the other room, though. For their safety and for ours. They're both in one piece.”
I step over toward the arched doorway, desperate to check on Elizabeth and make sure that she's okay.
“Don't,” Carter says firmly. “Do yourself a favor, Thomas. You don't want to see her right now. You don't want to see either of them.”
“The cure,” I stammer, stopping as I hear a faint growling sound coming from the next room. “Wait, what about Clayborne?” For a moment, his screams ring in my ears. “Is he...”
“Dead?” At this, she allows herself a faint chuckle as she gets to her feet and wanders over to one of the other benches. “Yes. Very. And buried. And once they were done with him, I humanely exterminated the three old zombies as well. Well, I'm telling you it was humane, so you don't moan about it. In truth, I just made it quick for them. But Adam and his amigos are nothing but piles of charred bones now. Again, save the lecture, I don't want to hear it.”
She picks up a syringe, filled with a yellowish liquid, and studies it for a moment. I've seen that syringe before; it contains a pure sample of the sickness.
“As for the cure,” she continues. “I have good news and bad news. Doctor Musgrave was close, but our wannabe-action-hero friend rather put an end to his work. So now I have to finish it, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm not as good at these things as Musgrave. Still, when one's under pressure, one can generally surprise oneself.” She stares at the syringe for a moment longer, as if she's lost in thought. “I gave myself until you woke up, to finish the cure under my own steam. Now that you're up and about, however, it's time to really up the pressure. I need to have something to show Patterson soon.”
