I tried to walk away from him but he grabbed me by the elbow, his fingers digging into the flesh. He towered over me at nearly six feet.
“Jenna, this isn’t a joke. Breton is a serious dude. He’ll do whatever he has to for your father’s work.”
“You’re hurting my arm,” I said, wrenching it away. An AS came around the corner.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Nothing, we’re just talking,” Wesley said.
I used the distraction to slip away down the hall. A maze of hallways led away from my cell. I turned right, still looking for an exit.
I ended up at another cell. This one was occupied. It didn’t have a wall, but glass panels running from floor to ceiling. There was a girl inside, with long brown hair. She had her back to me and was swaying back and forth. She wore white scrubs. There wasn’t even a bed in the cell. What were they doing to the poor girl?
I raised my hand and rapped softly on the glass. The girl stopped swaying, her head moving, trying to find the source of the noise. I knocked again. The girl turned slowly on the spot.
I took a step back, feeling my heart racing in my chest. At first, I thought her face was covered in makeup, but it wasn’t makeup. Dark circles ran under her black eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks. Blue veins spidered across her forehead.
She opened her mouth, releasing a stream of black ooze, which dribbled onto the floor.
Running at the glass, she slammed her hands into it, as she tried to get at me. I leapt back, still not able to process what I was seeing.
Wesley caught up with me, “You’re not supposed to be down here. It’s restricted.”
I pointed a trembling finger at the creature behind the glass, “That’s a…zombie.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, quietly. I noticed he avoided looking directly at her. Then again zombies were always a problem for him.
The girl had her face pressed against the glass now, her black eyes flicked back and forth between the two of us. Probably trying to decide which one of us looked tastier.
“Are you sure he didn’t leave you anything?” Wesley asked again.
I snapped out of my stupor, “Are you blind? That’s a zombie! They’re supposed to be extinct.”
“Don’t be so naïve, Jenna. You really think the Alliance was able to get them all? There were millions of them. Yeah, they certainly made a dent in their ranks, but they didn’t get all of them.”
I felt sick. The only thing that helped me sleep at night was knowing that they were all gone. That we were safe. Now to find out it had all been a lie. I felt the walls closing in on me.
“If they’re still out there, then why aren’t there more attacks?”
Wesley sighed, “A lot of them have been driven underground. You have to remember the Alliance controls the media. Any stories that leak are either ignored or people think it’s a hoax.”
“And her?” I nodded towards the girl who was busy licking the glass, leaving a trail of black bile behind.
My stomach heaved. I walked away. Wesley followed me, “Z-183 was grown in the lab for study.”
183? I couldn’t help but wonder where the first 182 went.
“Is this what my dad was working on? Is that why he cracked up?”
“He’s been working here, yes. But I was only brought in after he disappeared. They figured I would be able to decipher his work, but I can’t. There’s a huge chunk of it missing.”
“I want to go back to my cell now,” I said. I couldn’t talk about this anymore.
Wesley ran a hand through his hair. It was so greasy that it stood up on end. “Okay, but if you remember anything, you will tell me?”
I nodded. Once I was back in my cell, I sat hunched over on the bunk, trying not to lose it.
A zombie? How could they have one here? If it escaped…?
I felt a wave of panic wash over me. What if it did escape? Would the door hold against it? Even vaccinated, would it be enough? The Alliance lied about the zombies, maybe the vaccine wasn’t real either. Just a way of controlling the masses.
I have to get out of here, I thought. I leapt to my feet, but too quickly. The room tilted and I crumpled to the floor.
Four
Jenna
I sat on the basement steps watching Dad unload equipment from cardboard boxes. He was looking after me today, while mom was working. Despite having a state of the art lab at work, he had decided to build his own in the basement.
“Where does this go, Dr. D?” Wesley asked, holding up a microscope. He was his lackey from work.
Dad pointed to the work bench in the corner, “Set it up, over there.”
He turned back to the box. He glanced up, over the top of his glasses at me.
“Jenna, why don’t you go out and play? It’s lovely outside.”
I rolled my eyes, “Dad, I’m thirteen. I don’t ‘play.’”
“Well, whatever you call it, go and do it.”
The phone rang, Dad grabbed the portable.
“Hello? What? When? Okay, I’m on my way.”
He hung up and turned to Wesley, “That was Munroe. They delivered the samples to the lab instead of here. I’m going to have to go pick them up.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Wesley said.
“I need you to watch Jenna until I come back.”
That incited an outburst from both of us, “I don’t need to be watched.”
“I’m not a babysitter.”
Dad groaned, “I will be twenty minutes. Just watch she doesn’t set fire to anything.”
“Hey!” I cried. It was one time. I had accidentally set fire to a tent in the back yard last month. It wasn’t my fault. Dad had left me with the task of starting a camp fire without using matches. It hadn’t really gone to plan. I managed to burn the neighbor’s fence too. He was always testing me like that. Honestly I think he just chose the hardest task he could think of, so I would be out of his hair and he could work on his experiments. At least when Mom was watching me she tried to come up with fun things to do.
He grabbed his keys, “Don’t set Wes on fire, Jen, I’ll be back soon.”
Wesley eyed me from across the room, “Maybe you should go play with your dolls or whatever.”
“Why? Am I bothering you?” I asked sweetly.
“Yeah,” he said.
I crossed my arms and stayed where I was. Sighing, Wesley returned to unpacking. He had been coming around here a lot lately. Mom even had him stay for dinner one night. He acted like he hadn’t had a decent meal in months. Dad said he lived alone and didn’t make much money, working as an intern. I just thought he was a suck up. He was always following Dad around. Sometimes, I thought Dad spent more time with him than he did with me.
“So, why is my dad working with you?” I asked.
“Because I’m a genius,” he replied. He turned too quickly and knocked over a box. Whatever was inside, smashed.
I laughed, “Yeah, you’re a real genius.”
He glared at me, “Look, kid, get lost okay? I don’t need this crap.”
I sat for another few minutes, just to annoy him, but I grew bored quickly. I retreated upstairs and outside.
Maybe I can ride my bike around the neighborhood, I thought. It was hot outside, the June sun beating down on me. Not a single person on the block was outside. I sighed, why couldn’t there be more kids around to hang out with? The only other kid I had seen was a boy called Dylan who lived down the street. But he was ten.
School had finished, but even there I didn’t really have anyone to hang out with. It was a private school run by Alliance teachers. They were really strict and we weren’t given much time to hang out outside the classroom.
As I wheeled my ten speed out of the garage, I realized the chain was hanging off.
“Damn it,” I muttered. I flipped the bike over to get a better look. I had just finished reattaching it, when the sirens started.
It was an air raid style siren that was suppo
sed to warn everyone of an attack. I looked up and down the street. There was no immediate threat that I could see. Unless you counted unending boredom.
Probably another drill. That was the second one this month. On hearing it, everyone was supposed to lock themselves in their panic rooms.
Maybe geek boy would know if it was a drill. I turned around and found a zombie inches from my face. I screamed in terror as it lurched at me. Stumbling backwards, my legs hit my bike and I fell over it onto the grass. The zombie was male with torn brown stained clothing. A strip of skin hung off his cheek and bile ran down his chin. The stench coming from him made my stomach heave.
He swept a rotting arm at me but I rolled out of his reach and got to my feet. I took off towards the house, skidding on the grass that was still wet from the sprinklers this morning.
“Zombie!” I screamed, hurtling through the front door.
Wesley rushed out of the basement, “What’s going on?”
“It’s a zombie!” I cried again. I tried to get past him to the basement. The hallway was too narrow, so Wesley got spun around and ended up by the front door which hadn’t closed properly.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Wesley said, “There are no zombies in this…”
He stopped talking when he saw the look on my face. The zombie was standing in the doorway behind him.
Wesley turned slowly on the spot. When he saw it, he gave a strangled cry and fell against the wall. It would have been comical under different circumstances.
I attempted to run upstairs, but managed to trip on some loose carpet. My chest and chin hit the steps and I slid back down towards it. Winded, it took me a few seconds to recover.
Teeth gnashing, the zombie grabbed at me.
“Get away from me,” I screamed.
Wesley leapt to his feet; then ran off down the hall.
He’s going to let it eat me, I thought incredulously as it closed in on me.
He opened the basement door so fast it collided with the wall. The noise caused the zombie to look in his direction.
“Move!” he cried, but he stayed where he was, making no attempt to help me.
The zombie took a shuffling step towards him, unsure who to go after. I used the distraction to run for the basement. We both raced down the stairs, pushing each other to get to the panic room first.
The panic room was a six by five foot, fortified box with a steel door built into the corner of the basement. We squeezed inside; Wesley slammed the door shut behind us.
I sank to the floor. The only noise was our ragged breathing and the siren that still wailed outside. I glared at the weasel opposite me.
“You left me,” I snapped.
His eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head, “What?”
“Back there, you left me.”
His face clouded over and he looked away. He knew what he had done, the jerk.
I waited for it to appear at the glass, to see its ravaged face looking in at me. It never came.
We weren’t there for long, maybe half an hour. The siren stopped and before I knew it, dad was opening the door. I ran at him, hugging him tight.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded.
“I told you,” Wesley said, “I’m not a babysitter.”
Dad spent the next few hours yelling at Wesley. I stayed up in my room. The zombie had been contained by the AS and terminated. I didn’t think I’d ever sleep again. I could still smell its rotting flesh. And that noise it made.
From the sound of it dad wasn’t so much angry at Wesley, as he was that it had happened at all. No one knew how it had managed to breach security. Or even where it had come from. We were a long way from the restricted zones.
Well, I was angry at Wesley. The coward had left me to save himself.
The shouting died down eventually. I went to the door to listen.
I jumped back when the handle turned. The door opened slowly to reveal the zombie. I couldn’t move, couldn’t cry out, as it grabbed me and sank its teeth into my shoulder.
Five
Jenna
I opened my eyes to find I was still in my cell, still on the floor where I had fallen. If they were watching me, none of them bothered to check if I was okay.
Rolling onto my back, I tried to chase away the dream. Everything I dreamed had happened, up until finding the zombie at my bedroom door. In reality, it had been dad checking on me. There was no way that the man I knew would have faked his own death. No way at all.
I picked myself up off the floor to lie down on the bunk. My shoulder hurt from where I landed on it. I lay on my other side and closed my eyes. I was completely exhausted. I managed to sleep for an hour or two before morning.
Lewis arrived early and came to fetch me. As he led me from the cell, I asked, “Where’s the bathroom?” I was busting to go, but there was no way I was using the one in my cell, not when they could be watching me.
“Move it, Mr. Breton wants to see you.”
“But I really have to go, so unless one of your jobs includes mopping the floor…”
He sighed and pointed to the room across the hall. I hurried inside. Once I emptied my bladder, I had no choice but to go with Lewis. He led me to Breton. Another soldier was kneeling on the ground beside Wesley’s chair.
“This isn’t necessary,” Wesley insisted.
“I told you once about wandering around the construct. You’re wasting valuable time.”
The soldier moved back and I was able to see what he was doing. He was chaining Wesley’s leg to the desk. A little excessive.
“Ah, Miss Deluise. I was just explaining to Wesley here, about how I feel when he wastes my time. Now, Wesley, when are you going to have the formula completed?”
“I don’t know for sure…”
“GUESS!” Breton boomed, making me jump.
“I-I don’t…months maybe.”
“Months? No, no, no. Guess again. Try days or better yet, hours.”
“I can’t…I don’t think that’s possible. I told you, part of it is missing. Maybe Jenna knows where the files are.”
Now he was shifting focus onto me. Damn coward.
“I don’t have anything. My dad would never trust me with anything.”
“The name of the project is Genesis - dated 5/8/17.Your father never spoke about it?” Breton asked.
“Not to me. That was before I was even born.”
I saw Wesley’s eyes flick in my direction. Something struck a chord, but what? He quickly looked back at his computer.
“This is going nowhere,” Breton muttered, “Both of you should think very carefully about your futures. Because if I don’t get some results, neither of you will have one.”
“I swear I don’t know anything,” I said.
Breton looked at Wesley, “I’ll keep working on it. I will crack it.”
“Yes, you will. Take the chain off,” Breton ordered.
The soldier did as he was told. I relaxed slightly. It was just scare tactics.
“Even with the chain, he can still move around too much,” Breton looked at Lewis, “Take care of that problem, will you?”
Lewis smirked, “Yes, sir.”
“What is he-” before Wesley could finish, Lewis brought the butt of his rifle down on Wesley’s leg. There was a crack, as the bone snapped. Wesley screamed, his glasses slipping from his face, onto the ground.
I watched, horrified, as Lewis attacked the other leg. Wesley fell from his chair and lay moaning on the floor.
Breton’s phone beeped. He pulled it from his coat pocket to check it. Sighing, he said, “Put her back in her cell for now. Wesley, keep working. When I come back, I expect you to have a more realistic timetable.”
Lewis hoisted Wesley back up into his chair. He wheeled it back to the desk, slamming Wesley into it. He doubled over, his face twisted in agony. I was dragged away. Thrown in to my cell, I tried not to freak out, but how long would it be before they broke my legs too? Or worse?<
br />
I needed a way to defend myself. I searched the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. That took all of five seconds.
I flipped over the bunk. It was supported by a metal frame, but most of it was welded together. I started pulling on it, trying to break something off. The bar across the base came away in my hand, causing me to fall on my butt. I held up my prize. It was two feet long and rusted at one end, but it was all I had.
I fixed the bed back in place, bracing it against the wall so it wouldn’t wobble.
I hid the bar at my side and waited. Once someone brought me food I could hit them and make a run for it. I hoped it was Lewis.
I was starting to realize why dad had wanted out.
Wesley
I don’t think I can stand this pain much longer. That son of a bitch broke my legs. God, the pain.
It had been a few hours since Breton left and I was no closer to solving the formula. He was going to kill me.
I searched the drawers, desperate for another ampoule of Morphinal. I knew there wasn’t any left. I had taken the last one earlier, but I looked anyway. Breton brought me them sparingly. There was no way I was getting anymore until I cracked that damn formula.
I couldn’t concentrate. The ampoule I had taken had already worn off, thanks to the pain.
One guy had been left behind to guard us. He was seated by the elevator reading a paper.
“Hey, I need painkillers,” I gasped.
“Shut up,” was the reply.
“I’m serious, man. I can’t work if I can’t think.”
“Can you type with one hand?” he asked.
“I… what?”
“Because if you don’t shut up, I’ll break your arm too.”
“What about coffee?” I asked.
“Sure, mine’s black with two sugars,” he said.
The table holding the coffee maker was across the room. I grabbed the desk and wheeled myself along on the chair. Every movement caused fresh agony.
I poured two cups of coffee, but I was sure to add a little something extra to the guards. Some tranquilizers I kept on me for when I took too much Morphinal and needed to come down. I knew I was addicted to the stuff. I started in high school, before Tom gave me a job; I thought I kicked the habit. He gave me something to focus on. Until he fired me, with no explanation. Two years together, then one day it was – so long kid. I guess he was just a user like everyone else.
After Zombie Series (Book 1): After Page 3
