by Brown, Wayne
“We have a last avenue to explore” he began …. “towards the end of the previous year we launched into a research which we believed to be worthwhile in this lab and the results we got have been resounding and astonishing. Not much is known outside about this research as we did everything including funding of this research within ourselves here. We succeeded in developing a serum which can regenerate dead cells. It has been administered to smaller mammals and has worked. I’m suggesting we try this serum on our specimen. It might yet revive him…..”
They had all been listening attentively. As opposed to his expectation that they will be offended that they had not been involved in the research and development of the serum, they were curious to see the effect and use of this serum which would be fascinating if it did serve the purpose it is said to.
“ I very much hope you’re not squeezing our balls with this one….and for the sake of your job, you better fucking hope it works!” said one of his superiors.
“Do we have this bloody hell serum available now?” Dr Kerkov chipped in and asked.
“Yes we do,” Mabel replied.
“Let’s give it a try then..” Kerkov replied, looking at the rest of his colleagues who gave their approving nods and looks.
Mabel led the way through the flight of stairs and passage that led to the serum storage area. It was a cold room which ensured the serum is stored under temperatures that favors its preservation. He took out two tubes filled with the serum. Mabel told them that he was not certain the dosage to be given to the vampire as they had not administered it to a large mammal before then. They talked about how best to determine the appropriate dose while questions were thrown also as to how it was usually administered. They brainstormed when they got back in the theatre and after few deliberations, decided it would be appropriate to calculate the dosage to be given based on the body mass ratio of the vampire to that of the smaller mammals that had been used in the initial tests of the serum. Mabel checked his records and obtained the file for the rabbit named ‘Malcolm’ on which they tested the serum first on. After calculating the mass ratio and obtaining the appropriate dose, Mabel instructed the assistants to set out the tools and equipments for the bone marrow operation. The delegates from the National scientific research body were excited as much as they were surprised at the intricacy of the procedure. They had not expected that the point of injection would be the bone marrow. The surgery which took nearly an hour was a tedious one and everyone was glad when it was all done. They left the theatre and after taking off their overalls and gloves, they washed thoroughly before going to the lounge to relax. A training assistant to Mabel kept watch to observe and look out for any changes. After two hours of rest. Mabel announced that he wanted to go and check on Michael who was observing the Vampire. He met him there, still waiting but there were no changes yet in the readings of the meters. Mabel told him he could now let it be.
“He is on lock down anyways; whenever it awakes we would come to see him” he said.
They both left the lab and joined the rest of the teams at the lounge. The team of expert scientists asked where else they ate around and Mabel offered to take everyone to his favorite eating spot. They soon left for the restaurant. They arrived at the eating spot and had lengthy and scientific discussions over their meals. The main topic that took the centre of discussion was their questions on how the serum was developed. It dragged Mabel into explaining to them the biological make up, procedures of preparation and test and countless failures that they had to go through before arriving at the final serum. He also explained how he had singled-handedly gone around motivating the people he had access to, in order to get them to invest in his research and how at last he was able to raise all the funds needed. They left the restaurant and made small talk as they headed back to the lab. Mabel did not speak much on their way back as his mind was preoccupied with imaginations of what good news it would be to find the vampire awake when they returned to the lab. On getting there, they stepped in and Mabel directed everyone straight to the lab. He unlocked the door but was surprised to find the surgical bed empty. He was strapped to this bed when they left. He was still thinking of the possibilities, wondering whether the assistant who they left to take care of the lab while they went out to have dinner actually did transfer the vampire to another room.
Mabel was heading back through the door to go ask Michael, the assistant some questions when a low growl was heard. Before he could look around, he suffered a bite off of a huge trunk of his jugular muscle. His bite sent his body into shock as he slumped to the ground. It happened so fast. The now revived creature had now attacked a second personnel. The others tried heading out of the room but were stopped in their tracks. The ‘back from the dead’ creature quickly followed suit and got to them before they could make it out of the door. It was very fast and the rest of them who were standing could not see any good in the fate that awaited them given the killing machine that was before them. Two State Security Service agents had already pulled out and had their revolvers in hand. They rained bullets on him repeatedly, but were dazzled when it turned around and confidently made its way towards them, seemingly unharmed by the bullets. Bullets now seemed to have no effect on him. One of the more zealous officers took out another loaded pistol from his waist and shot the creature in the forehead again and again as it approached but it kept coming even though a good part of its forehead was already blasted open. He was still shooting when it grabbed the gun out of his hand and knocked the other officer beside him out cold. Grasping him around the neck, the rejuvenated vampire raised him off the ground with just one hand, stared into his eyes seemingly excited by seeing him visibly shaken with fear, then gave him a bite to his jugular and dropped him. The distraction provided by the two officers had provided ample time for the two remaining scientists to escape from the room. They locked the lab and ran into the night. They immediately headed to the phone booth and placed a call to the State Security Services emergency unit. They didn’t want the media attention that would follow should they call the regular state emergency unit. They were also confident that the beastly creature which they didn’t know what to classify it as was safely locked in the facility as such, it was secluded from the civilian population till the troops would arrive.
Back in the lab, the Zombie morphed vampire now having killed all but one, an officer of the SSS named Cannon who it only bit into a vampiric coma, he sought an exit. It raged on and destroyed a lot of things in the room. In its ongoing rage, it hit a side of the wall and found that it tore under his new found extra strength. The wall was a wooden partition. He tore through it and got into the adjoining room which had its door wide open. It quickly ran out that door, trailing the scent of the two scientists who had escaped. Their scent led him to the exit of the facility which was securely locked. It hit the door very hard, even running towards the door to give it a massive hit. Despite all its efforts of charging the door to break it down, it left nothing more than a dent of his fists on the metal alloy. It gave up on that and went back to room where he had attacked his victims. It went in and settled to make a meal of his victims. It fed voraciously, now eating their flesh as opposed to drinking only blood that it would have when it was only but a vampire. It now had very powerful jaws that chew through human flesh and cracked the bones as though it was merely munching on chicken leg bones. It cracked opened one of the bones after skinning it and sucked out every sip of bone marrow in it. Its eyes now a dirty light green, it left the room to seek an alternative exit and soon it found a window. It broke the louvre of glasses with its bare hands, suffering cuts that it seemed not to feel at all but met with the metal burglary protection fixed to the windows. He pushed a couple of times on the thick bars of metal before realizing it was not going to budge like that. It went around looking for a tool and stumbled into the tool room. The heaviest metal it could find was a huge adjustable spanner that had a heavy head. He picked it up and back at the window, it broke the concrete into
which the rods were cast. Within few minutes of work, it was out and he was out in the open. It ran around the building to get to the main entrance and from there trailed the two that had escaped. It was determined not to let them go as its memories were now of them puncturing his calves and injecting something into him; memories he acquired as he ate the brains of the unfortunate remains of those in the lab. Given his speed, he got to the phone booth in no time and saw a blurred human figure within the three inch thick glass. Though he could not see who it was, he followed the scent and grabbing the caller, found it was not his game. He killed the man in his fury amidst his cries for help and immediately was on his way still trailing the scent of the two.
Drs. Kerkov and Socrates had just left the other phone booth, panicking and contemplating where to go from there. They were yet afraid to go and wait around the medical facility till the emergency troops arrived. They had therefore opted to find a lodge or motel around and wait. They were still walking down a road that they expected to find a lodging accommodation along when they felt like they were being watched and followed. Kerkov was first to feel a tingle of his skin and stopped as if his sixth sense was in over-drive. He spun around sharply but there was nothing there. Socrates also felt strange and thus shared Kerkov’s suspicions. They hastened their footsteps in fear as the road was rather lonely. They had only walked briskly a little distance when a shadow fell before them. The figure was obviously standing right behind them judging from the light source and where its shadow fell. As Socrates turned around in horror, the creature’s tooth sank into his neck and it did not let go of him. Kerkov shouted and ran but he fell to the ground. The creature growled upon seeing Kerkov running away and quickly set his sights on him. He was fast, his speed was the same as that of a vampire; features he obviously retained in spite of his part transformation into a zombie. He was now fully transformed into a ZOMPIRE ….. a zombie vampire hybrid. Kerkov’s run for his life was in vain as the zombie morphed vampire closed in on him and knocked him flat to the ground. Whilst trying to regain his composure and get back onto his feet, he looked up into the menacing face of the creature, begging for his life to be spared. The zompire stood there looking at him rather menacingly. He got close and took ahold of Kerkov’s leg …. dragging him up by the leg and sinking his powerful jaws and teeth into his leg. Kerkov screamed out in agony but that was his last as his scream annoyed the morphed creature and it grabbed him by both legs, now holding him upside down, smashing his head onto hard asphalt. People living in the neighborhood who heard the shout and looked out to see what was happening were shocked to see the inhuman nature of the treatment being metted out to a human being by a large human looking creature in the coolness night. Within minutes, the emergency services units’ telephone lines were flooded with calls summoning them to quickly come to Glover Street where something resembling a vampire was causing grievous bodily harm to a man and may attack innocent bystanders. Other reports that came in were that of a dead man lying on a street adjoining Glover Street. The reporter said he heard a scream which seemed to come from afar but upon looking out his balcony he saw a body lying lifelessly on the road sidewalk. The police emergency response units were immediately on their way and were positive the report from Simpson’s street would not be unrelated to that of Glover Street.
Chapter 6
When the emergency response team arrived some seven minutes later, they were told by a number of witnesses of how they had seen the zombie smash the man’s skull on the streets and gone on to eat every bit of his brain, even to the point of licking the parts splattered on the street. The very visibly shaken residents could only point in the direction through which the creature went off in, their faces filled with fright. Their trained police dogs were already pulling their followers in the direction the offender went. They followed suit while the ambulance unit cleaned up and took possession of the two bodies which were confirmed dead on the spot. They were to be put in the agency’s repository till their identities are linked to family members and their bodies claimed.
The search team kept on in pursuit led by their dogs. They ran all the way and were soon out of breath while their dogs barked at instances. The zompire seemed to have quite swift legs. Judging from the reports from citizens of a zombie being responsible and other citizens saying it was a vampire, police officers were baffled because zombies are not known for being speedy creatures, but yet they said it couldn’t have been a vampire either because vampires only suck blood and don’t eat human body parts. They expected to catch up with it within a couple meters from the murder scene but they were surprised as their pursuit led them into dark alleys and places that didn’t guarantee their safety. Soon their dog stopped by a tree. It circled it twice and then jumped as if with an intent to climb it. The leading police officer went to see what the dog was barking at. As soon as he tilted his head to look up into the tree, all he could see was a figure jumping down onto him.
“ Holy fuck ,” he said as he was frightened.
Before he could pull his firearm, it knocked him to the grassy ground under the tree. Gunshots rang out in the direction of the zompire, some of them hitting him. The creature ran away briskly, its body riddled with bullets. They were amazed at how fast it moved and though a few of them gave chase shooting at it, the second in command of the team called off the pursuit and instead declared an emergency help response for their team leader. They radioed the ambulance and gave it a direction towards them while they gave first aid. They carried him and hurriedly went to the meeting point. The ambulance was there and from there they headed to the hospital even as efforts were still being made to resuscitate him in the vehicle.
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The State Security Services emergency response team arrived at the research laboratory facility and from what they saw, they immediately knew something was amiss. The hawk eyes of one of the agents saw a huge footprint at the main entrance which led them around the house. As they suspected, there was a breakaway window through which the owner of the footprint had probably escaped. They climbed in to see what they would find as they had called Kerkov’s phone line several times but were yet to get an answer. When they got in, they were alerted by the total state of disarray of things in the lab. They all unlocked the safety on their firearms as they vowed not to suffer the fates as some of their other colleagues. There was pin drop silence and they maintained the status quo so as not to announce their presence as they were not certain what kind of situation or monstrosity they were actually dealing with. The lead pointed them in different directions and they spread out to quickly scope out the perimeter. All was clear as they converged in the laboratory theatre where twelve bodies lay with blood splattered over several surfaces. There was also the awful looking remains of a man which was now but almost half eaten. Some of the men breathed a sigh of relief as all the search units reported back “ ALL CLEAR”. They took their time, taking into record all observations and collecting as much evidence as possible when a call came in from their control office notifying them of reported violence in the area leading to the death of two men who were reported to have been attacked by a zombie by eye witnesses. The information further stated that the states security agencies had gone in pursuit of the zombie but that under quite queer circumstances, it had escaped.
The team continued with the situation on ground knowing that the zombie that they were dealing with was in fact not a zombie but a vampire with zombie features and an appetite for flesh. Going after it right then would yield no results as it would have gone far by then. It would only be a matter of time before it kills again and they would be able to track it ……hopefully. They set to cleaning up the lab as instructed by the command headquarters, ensuring that there would be no trace to the lab as the source of the evil that was now on the streets. They confiscated anything that could suggest the project that had taken place there and left hours later.
The head of the state security service picked up h
is phone and called a very disheartened Dr. Lenzo. He communicated to him that the state needed his presence immediately. He was required to announce that the vampire whom they had caught a few days ago was dead. That way no suspicions would connect the lab and the new creature which has displayed vampire and zombie behaviors and was now loosely roaming the streets. Dr Lenzo wasn’t so sure that this was a course of action he would want to be a part of and follow through with it. If it was squarely his decision, he would’ve just made the general public aware of the seriousness of that matter at hand.
“Hiding it would do more harm than good,” he thought to himself.
He even feared that such statements would only incite the vampire clan and probably lead to their having more problems on their hands. He lacked the will to protest being on an all time emotional low. He agreed and a press conference was slated for 12.00pm. Lenzo prepared, attended and said what he was told to; that done, he was happy to be allowed to go back to stay with his family in peace. He was devastated by the loss of his friend and all the men he went on the last expedition with, all in one day. He seldom spoke after that and was always by himself. Even to his wife he spoke very little. She was the only one that could make any sense to him. She knew he was in a very deep place right then and she didn’t want to add to his problems. She simply supported and strengthened him through his tough time.
