I felt her reach down and put something in my hand, as she got to her feet and left the room. Her shoes were soundless as she shuffled out of the door, and I heard it creak with finality as she shut it.
I was alone again, except this time everything had changed. It was still dark in my cell, but I stayed on the floor, afraid to move. The pain was exquisite as I carefully tested each limb for movement. I rolled over onto my back and stretched out my arms and legs. I flexed my wrists, my ankles; bent my knees and rolled my shoulders: it all worked.
Miraculously nothing was actually broken, although the movement hurt like a sonofabitch. I reached up and poked each of my ribs, the result of which was less optimistic. The bastard had broken at least one for sure. To complete my inventory, I reached up and attempted to discern the overall condition of my face. My left eye was still swollen, but I was able to open it at least partially, and my lip was split and starting to scab. It wasn’t right. I shouldn’t be healing this fast, yet here I was: able to move without too much issue.
It had to have been the serum. There wasn’t any other explanation for this, and I guess it made sense in a way, considering it had corrected my vision. It wasn’t too far off to surmise it had allotted me super-human healing abilities. I wasn’t a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but it made sense that something designed to bring zombies back to life, might give a regular person unusual abilities. So far I could see better than I’d ever been able to in my life, and my body was healing pretty fucking fast from what I could only guess was the kind of beating meant to kill me.
The sudden realization that maybe Ian had sent the guard to rape and beat me on purpose made my stomach sour and churn. What if the whole thing had been on purpose to test me? Anger started to boil in my veins at the thought, until I remembered Dr. Fields. If I was supposed to have been dead, why send her in to check me out? Maybe it was to see if I was still alive, or to see if the damage had been life threatening. It didn’t make sense to kill me after injecting me; wouldn’t Ian have wanted to study the effects of his serum before disposing of me?
I knew I wasn’t going to figure this shit out until my next visitor, so I turned my attention to the object Dr. Fields had placed in my hand. Running my fingers along it, I discovered a short plastic handle attached to a rather long, sharp blade. It would seem the good doctor had left me with a knife. I curled my fingers around the hilt and smiled into the darkness. Zombies or not, I was going to kill them all.
Chapter 19: Breaking Out.
There are moments in your life when you stop and are forced to appreciate the significance they carry. I knew this was one of those moments. It seemed ironic that in the last few days I had gone from boring IT Professional to badass Zombie Killer, to scared victim curled up on a cold floor in the dark. If someone had asked me last week what I’d be doing this week, I would’ve been hard-pressed to come up with any answer, let alone dream up this shitstorm.
And yet here I was. So what to do? At some point they would come get me so Ian could do some more mad scientist-like crap with me, and when it happened, I needed a plan. So far I was sure of a few things: First, they all had to die. If the world was resorting to Marshall Law, then I didn’t see the harm in taking out anyone who gave new definition to ‘depraved’.
Second, I had to find Jack and the kids and get the fuck out of here. I still had an island to get to, and after this, there was no way in hell I wasn’t going to make sure I ended up in the only place on the planet I was sure I could find some peace. That and if the last god-only-knows-how-many-hours had shown me anything, it was that I loved them, and I wasn’t nearly as tough as I thought I was.
I supposed that was the point, though. Usually things don’t happen to reinforce your self-esteem, but to test it and blow it apart completely. I was aware that the events preceding this moment were done to me, not by me, and I was pretty sure it made no difference. I couldn’t go back, I couldn’t change it, and I wasn’t sure I would’ve done anything different leading up to getting captured. On second thought, passing this place completely might’ve been a better option….
Pulling myself out of my clusterfuck of what to do, I noticed sounds out in the hallway. I could faintly make out soft footsteps that were getting louder by the second. Considering they were probably headed my way, I quickly shoved the knife Dr. Fields had been so considerate to leave me with, down my pants. I made sure the handle was close to my waistband so that it could be accessed easily, but not too close so that someone would notice it was there. Lucky for me my cargos had gotten scary baggy in the last few days. Apparently living out your worst nightmare is amazing cardio, and I half wondered if I could find a scale somewhere to see how many pounds I had dropped.
Letting that thought go, I stopped breathing, and closed my eyelids until I could see just a slip of light. Relaxing my muscles, I focused on looking beaten and broken, which given the state I was currently in, probably wasn’t much of a stretch. Still, I didn’t want to show my hand and let them in on my new Spidey-senses.
The noise stopped just outside of my door, I could hear someone struggling with the latch, and the faint sound of muffled voices. I didn’t have much time to wonder who, as the door swung open.
Through the slits, I was able to make out two more lab techs complete with white coats that I didn’t recognize. They hadn’t turned on the light in my cell, and I could barely make out their features in the light cast from the hallway. Not saying a word, the first one reached down and checked the pulse in my neck.
“She’s still alive,” his gruff voice echoed softly in the room.
“Alright, let’s get her back to the lab then. The boss is gonna wanna see if there were any changes.” Lab tech number 2 sounded local, and his gruff, southern drawl was colored with a grunt. I had to wonder if he was a recruit from the survivors, considering all the professional types I had ever met tended to use better grammar than ‘gonna wanna’, but I was going on assumption here.
They wasted no time, as Lab Guy 1 reached under my shoulders and took hold of my torso, Lab Guy 2 reached down and grabbed behind my knees. With a look, they synchronized their lifting, and soon I was being hoisted off the ground and onto the cold familiar steel of a gurney they had brought with them.
Neither one said anything else as they began wheeling me out into to the hall; neither did I, for that matter. They didn’t bother strapping me down, probably assuming I was too beaten to fight back. While I would normally agree with them, I could feel adrenaline coursing through every fiber of my body and knew that when I saw a window, I was taking it.
I focused on the squeaking of the wheels while I worked out my options. If I fought them now, it would be 2-1 odds, and while I was pretty sure in my current state I had a good chance of an outcome in my favor, I decided against it. My ultimate goal was to cut the head off, so to speak, and I knew if I didn’t take down Ian, it would all be for naught. While he was definitely on my hit list, so were the official looking guys I had seen in that meeting with him. I still had no clue who they were, or what they ultimately wanted, but considering what they let happen to me, I surmised it couldn’t be good.
It would appear they had been working on a cure; maybe even in conjunction with others around the world, (if there was any communication left) but that was only a guess. It still seemed weird to me that they were here of all places, and this whole place had seemingly already been set up with whatever they needed. That sounded relatively premeditated, which would lead me to believe that perhaps a larger conspiracy was in the works, and that only made me want to kill them all even more.
I felt the gurney turn a corner, and the sounds of the lab again filled my ears. The beeping of the machines and Ian’s voice became the center of my focus. I closed my eyes fully and concentrated on who was in the room. There were a few more than had been there initially, and I was pleasantly surprised to recognize the officials as well my attacker. I had to fight back a smile at the thought that most of t
he people I wanted dead had all gathered in one room, which would make taking them out that much easier.
“Ah, Angela, so good to see you again. How are you feeling?” I cracked an eyelid and made what I was hoping was a pathetic sounding moan as Ian started poking the bruising on my neck. I could just make out his face; features twisted in concentration as he inspected what he could see of me as if there were a microscope involved.
He stopped poking and turned to the men in the room, addressing the one who had beaten me. “I thought you told me she was near death when you left her?” Irritation colored his voice, and my suspicions that the whole thing was his orchestration were confirmed. That rat-shit bastard did this. It wasn’t his hand, but he had been the puppeteer. I felt my pulse speed as my rage built, and I knew I would take great joy in killing him.
The attacker cleared his throat, and I heard him shuffling his feet. “I did, sir. I beat the fuck out of her and I’m kind of surprised she’s still alive.” The anger and astonishment in his voice were pretty clear. I had a feeling the jig was about to be up and they would soon learn my secret.
Ian made an admonishing noise in the back of his throat and proceeded with his examination. Wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm, he addressed the official guys. “The subject shows obvious contusions and the signs of a brutal assault are apparent. While there is blood, the wounds have already closed and are starting to coagulate.” I felt him trace a particularly nasty cut on my lip as he continued. “Look here, the bruising is already starting to turn yellow; a sign of healing. This wouldn’t normally occur until days after the wound was inflicted.” Fuck, he knows… I thought as I followed his train of reasoning. If I was going to do this, I didn’t have much longer.
“What are you saying? Is this some sort of super healing?” The incredulity and skepticism was unmistakable as one of the men leaned over me to get a closer look at the cut on my face. He was so close I could smell the ham and mustard from what was probably on his sandwich for lunch on his breath. Gross.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” Ian’s excitement over this realization was palpable. He knew he had somehow discovered a medical breakthrough, even one that could save the human race; too bad it was too late.
It was that moment a piercing alarm broke the conversation. It reminded me of the fire alarm in my apartment building; the kind of sound that digs under your skin until you have no choice but to get as far from it as possible.
Now, I’m not one to sing the praises of Divine Intervention, but I had to wonder as pandemonium broke out around me. I still kept my eyes somewhat closed and watched the chaos as Ian, the techs, and the official guys started to panic.
“What the hell is that?!” The guy who attacked me started to scream and I could almost taste the panic seeping off him. I knew that guy was a pussy…. I thought with a smile. I could hear him running to the glass door leading out of the lab.
Somewhere in the room a walkie went off, and through the static I could just barely make out what the person on the other end was saying. “Breach…Infected….Oh God!” The static cut off. I didn’t need to hear anymore to know what was up. No one was paying attention to me as they ran around the room trying to figure out what to do. It was probably lucky for me that no real soldiers were down here, and I was pretty sure the official guys had never seen more than a paper cut from their cushy desk jobs.
This was it. This was what I was waiting for. My eyes snapped open and before I could even look around the room, I sat up and jumped off the gurney. Ripping the cuff off my arm, I reached into my pants and pulled out my knife and started to advance in Ian’s direction.
Before I could reach him, one of the officers had opened the door, letting a group of zombies come lunging into the room. He tried to duck around them, but not before what looked like one of the soldiers who had been at the gate when we first got here grabbed his shoulder and bit into the portly man’s neck, coming away with a mouth full of his larynx. I can’t say I was sorry to see him trying to squeal without vocal cords, but my enjoyment would have to wait.
I turned and ran towards Ian, knife out and looking for a target. He chose that moment to finally acknowledge me, and shock filled his eyes. There may have been fear mixed in there somewhere, but just seeing the surprise on his face was enough to send me to the grave with a smile on mine.
He reached behind him and grabbed a scalpel off the counter and raised his arm at me. I didn’t even hesitate as I reached around his arm and in my momentum rammed the knife all the way to the hilt into his gut. He froze, and his eyes widened in shock as he lost his grip on the scalpel and it clattered back to the counter. Holding his gaze, I twisted the blade for good measure until I saw blood start to trail from his mouth. The light in his eyes went dim, and I knew he was down enough to not be able to fight off the zombies currently terrorizing everyone else in the room.
There wasn’t any time for me to stop and appreciate the fact that I had killed a person who hadn’t been infected, but deserved it all the same, as the lab was currently being overrun. I turned around in time to see a zombie security guard chewing on the eye of my attacker while he tried to push it off him. Yeah, definitely one of the best things I’d ever witnessed, and a high point of my year.
As much fun as standing around and watching the people who had tortured me die was, the room was filling up with the infected fast, and I could see more out in the hall. I wondered how they had gotten in; I had thought this place was pretty well fortified, but guess not.
There were now five zombies in the lab: the one eating my attacker, two of which were busy tearing into the other techs, the soldier from the gate working his way through the spinal column of the officer, and a zombie in full cowboy regalia who had gotten Dr. Fields. I was slightly conflicted about that; she had tried to help me after all, but it was too late.
I reached down and pulled my new knife out of Ian and ran to the door, dodging zombies on my way. It wasn’t hard at all, considering they were all too preoccupied eating to notice me. I peered out into the hall and was met with a few more infected who were also pretty busy already. I didn’t remember there being this many people when they had first brought me to the lab, but figured that when all hell broke loose upstairs, they must have thought it would be safer down here. “Fucking idiots…”
Looking left and right, it occurred to me I had no idea how to get out of there. Deciding any direction was better than just standing there, I chose right and started to run as fast as I could down the hall, while jumping over chomping zombies, like a bizarre and slightly bloody gazelle.
As I ran and ran and jumped over bodies, it occurred to me I wasn’t even winded yet, and that was kind of a new thing for me. I had never been Susie-Sports, and was sort of amazed at how high I could jump, but chalked it up to the serum. “Thanks Ian, for making me a superhero,” I thought to myself wryly as I reached a turn in the hall and ran face first into an extremely large zombie.
This fucker had to be like 6’4’’, but the truly terrifying thing was he was dressed as a clown. A GODDAMNED CLOWN ZOMBIE. Now I’d seen my worst nightmare come to fruition. I knew it wasn’t a lingering affect of my little acid trip as he gained an ironclad grip on my arm and aimed his mouth in the direction of my face.
My adrenaline spiked with fear, and I wasted no time ramming the knife I was clutching into the side of his neck. He stumbled and his grip loosened on my arm enough for me to pull the knife out and jab it back in sideways, turning it all the way. Every muscle in my body was screaming with the effort, but I didn’t stop until I felt the sickly crack of his neck, and using the force of my stab, pushed the knife until his head fell off his shoulders and dangled down onto his chest. There was no shortage of blood as his enormous corpse fell to the ground with a resonating ‘thump’.
I pulled my knife out of his spine as he fell, and stopped to catch my breath. I wasn’t tired from the effort of essentially decapitating Zombie Clown Sumo, but from the abject
terror of being confronted with a clown. The only thing that could’ve made it worse would be if he had been holding a yellow balloon. Yes, my fear of clowns and yellow balloons was irrational, but I’d let myself have it considering the circumstances.
I stepped over the now still body and continued to run down the hall the clown had come from when I heard footsteps crashing around a corner ahead of me. At the rate they were coming at me, I knew they weren’t infected, but that didn’t mean they were friendly. I raised my knife, ready to stab anything that got too close.
Arm raised, I prepared to turn the corner and got the shock of my life. I skidded to a halt just in time to see Jack cleave a zombie in half before looking up at me. I froze, afraid that I really was imagining things. He rose, and I stood staring while his chest was still heaving from effort, and sweat was starting to drip from his forehead. He looked dirty, and was bleeding from a cut on his left shoulder, and I had never seen anyone more beautiful. I don’t want to say that time froze, considering the sounds of unmentionable violence still ensuing from all directions, but I only had eyes for him.
His mouth broke out into his signature crooked grin, lighting up his hazel eyes until I thought I might go blind from their brilliance. I didn’t say anything as I ran the last few feet to him and threw my arms around his neck; likely choking the life out of him, but at that moment, I couldn’t say I cared. Jack was here, he had found me and he was here. I buried my nose into his neck, inhaling deeply the smell of generic soap mixed with the unique scent that was all him. Wasting no time, he returned the favor by wrapping his arms so tight around my waist I thought he might crush my already broken ribs. Pain shot through my chest and I whimpered slightly with it. I didn’t care. He could break every bone in my body and I’d go out in ecstasy. Arms around me, he pulled me off my feet until our bodies were flush in our embrace.
Least Likely To Survive Page 23
