by Luke Duffy
“It’s okay,” he whispered to himself reassuringly as he took in the amount of moving corpses that were steadily filling the industrial complex. “You’re safe. They can’t get in here. You’re safe now.”
He looked across to the area where he had last seen Tina. She had gone down behind a blue saloon that was parked in front of the warehouse situated at the end of the staff parking area and running at a ninety-degree angle to the one he and his sister had been sharing, roughly seventy metres away. He squinted and craned his neck in an attempt to see, pressing himself up close to the large panels of glass and paying no consideration to whether or not the infected below could see him.
A number of other cars blocked his view of what was happening on the ground but the dozens of bobbing heads around the vehicles and adjacent building’s entrance confirmed that the feast had indeed begun. More infected arrived and joined in and soon it became a seething mass as they tore into his sister.
Christopher imagined her lifeless body being ripped to shreds, her limbs pulled from their sockets, her abdomen being tore open, and her intestines devoured. He hoped that she had been alive long enough to suffer the slabs of flesh being savagely gnawed from her. He particularly savoured the image of her eyes being gouged out and her tongue wrenched from her mouth while she lay screaming in pain.
Christopher grinned ruefully.
“Fuck you, sis,” he sneered.
12
Samantha was pacing. Her nails were becoming shorter by the minute and she had gone through over a dozen hair-clips over the last six hours as she nervously twisted and pulled at them with her fingers. The atmosphere within the Operations Room was becoming tense. Samantha herself was causing the vast majority of the tension as she hounded every person around her for updates and ensured that they had checked and double-checked every detail of their duties.
“For Christ’s sake, Sam, will you relax?” Gerry hissed across to her, as he remained seated behind a desk with his feet up on the table top. “You’re like a bloody dog with a bone. They’ve just got underway and you’re driving everyone around here nuts.”
Samantha stopped and checked herself. He was right. The mission was in its early stages and already she was on edge. She needed to calm down.
“If you’re like this on phase-one, Sam, what will you be like when the attack on the harbour begins? You’ll be no use to any of us and I need you at your best, not a quivering wreck because of self-induced pressure.”
“Yeah,” she nodded, “you’re right, Gerry.”
She looked around at the rest of the operations staff. Some of them were watching her expectantly. They appeared like caged animals with skittish movements and wary eyes. From the moment, that the signal had been received from Captain Werner that they were en-route to the drop off, she had been hovering over them to provide her with information. She had even lost her temper with a young corporal from the Royal Corp of Signals when he stood up from his workstation to get a drink from the fridge. If she continued in that way, they could snap under the strain.
“They’re submerged now, Sam. So we won’t hear anything from them until they surface again and if all goes to plan, that won’t be for another sixteen hours or so. In the meantime, I suggest you go and get some sleep or do whatever it is you like to do to relax around here.”
“Like what, Gerry?” She asked with a hint of aggression.
“I don’t know, Sam. Go and paint a frigging watercolour landscape or something. I really don’t care, as long as you’re not hanging about here like a fart in an airtight room and putting people on edge.”
Gerry was conveying it as a suggestion but she knew he meant it as an order. He did not want her burning herself out in the early stages of the operation. She paused for a moment and held his gaze. She felt like running over and hitting him. Finally, she nodded, brushing her stubbornness to one side and heading for the door.
Outside in the corridor, Samantha ran into Melanie coming in the opposite direction and making a beeline for her. Since their ordeal in the bunker complex below the city of London and Melanie’s dramatic rescue of the team stranded in Manchester, Samantha and the young pilot had become close.
“I was just coming to find you,” the helicopter pilot said as she approached. “I was wondering if you wanted to join me for a coffee.”
“You mean Gerry got in touch with you and told you to come and get me out of the way for a while?”
“Uh, yeah, something like that,” Melanie smiled sheepishly.
There and then, Samantha made a conscious decision that as soon as she came across any person holding a cigarette, she would snatch it from them and begin puffing away again. She had fought against her cravings throughout the crisis and had beaten her addiction each time, but now she was ready to give in to it.
I’m running out of hair-clips, so I need to do something, she thought.
“How’s it going in there?” Melanie asked.
Samantha shrugged. There was nothing really to tell and at that moment, she really did not want to speak about it. Gerry had been right. She was getting herself all bent out of shape for no reason and it was best if she took a step back from the operation until it really began. Stan and his men knew what they were doing and they would not need her input until they were in their over-watch positions.
They began to walk away from the command room. At the junction in the corridor, they made to turn right but something brought them to an abrupt stop. A long drawn out howl filled the air around them. It was a distant sound but clearly coming from somewhere within the building. It clawed at their ears and nerves and sent shivers running through their spines. The gut wrenching wail was suddenly cut off. It did not fade out but finished swiftly, as though someone had put an end to the lament.
“What the fuck was that?” Melanie gasped with dread.
To their left was the set of steel stairs that led down into the basements where the scientists carried out their experiments. To most people, the area was off limits but Samantha was one of the senior operations staff and had clearance. She leaned over the railing and peered down into the darkness deep below them. She could see faint traces of light that seeped through the doors leading into the laboratories but there was no sign of any disturbance. She moved down onto the first of the steps and turned to Melanie.
Melanie hesitated but then began to follow her. She was used to running in the opposite direction whenever she heard that unmistakable sound, but now she was deliberately heading towards it. Her guts tightened and a light sweat began to seep from her pores as she followed after Samantha, gently placing her hand over the butt of her pistol.
The further they descended the cooler the air became. Even if they were blindfolded and had no idea where they were, they would automatically come to the assumption that they were below ground. The staircase had that hollow, dank subterranean feel about it and the slightest noise echoed hollowly.
As they reached the bottom, a guard stepped forward out of the gloom and almost caused both Samantha and Melanie to jump out of their skins. They expected a soldier to be there but his sudden appearance still surprised them. He recognised the Captain and gave a questioning nod to the woman standing beside her.
“It’s okay, she’s with me,” Samantha said with authority.
The soldier was not about to argue. He knew the reputation of Captain Tyler and being an obstacle in her path was far more trouble than it was worth. He nodded and handed them a pair of surgical masks then allowed them to pass through the door and into the brightly lit corridor of the underground labs. Originally, the place had been a large wine cellar and storage rooms. When the military had occupied the island, the basements had been retrofitted to suit the needs of the scientists conducting their research and experiments. They insisted on a cool environment and rather than waste fuel to power air-conditioning units, the naturally chilled environment below ground was chosen.
They walked passed a number of offices and small laboratorie
s where people stood scrutinising data on clipboards and computer screens, or sat staring through microscopes. At the far end of the corridor, they came to a large open space that was separated from the labs by a thick sheet of opaque plastic hanging from the top of the doorway. They pushed through the split in the centre and into an area that was roughly half the size of a tennis court with bare brick vaulted walls and ceilings. A strong smell of damp, decomposition, and disinfectant lingered in the air and plucked at their nostrils.
Along each side of the room, they saw numerous operating tables and hospital gurneys with monitoring equipment and instruments beside them. Bright surgical lights that were connected to retractable brackets reached down from the ceiling above and shone onto the tables, casting the area directly below them in a brilliant white glow. On each bed, Samantha and Melanie could see a body. A number of men and women, dressed in protective surgical clothing, stood around each of the individual workstations, talking amongst themselves while one of them conducted the procedures.
Beneath each of the operating tables, the floor was awash with blood and gore and in the far corner of the room, Samantha saw what she believed to be a pile of bodies that had been unceremoniously dumped there, awaiting disposal.
At one of the gurneys, a number of doctors were watching as a surgeon cut out each of the internal organs of a specimen, one by one. Samantha could not hear what they were saying but as the man held up the discoloured and shrivelled heart of a reanimated woman, the rest of them nodded vigorously. Next, he reached into the exposed ribcage and began to pull out the rotting liver, kidneys, and bloated stomach. All the while, the corpse beneath them violently thrashed and pulled at the restraints that held it in place. Its head swivelled continuously and its jaws snapped at the living people around it from beneath the thick leather gag that had been strapped over its mouth.
The doctors paid very little attention to the infected body that was struggling to break free and tear into them. They continued to be engrossed in the work they were conducting. They were clearly used to handling reanimated corpses and had become numb to the horror of the situation or the plight of the human beings they worked on. They had an almost blasé and casual demeanour about them as they poked, prodded, and sliced through the flesh and organs of the dangerous creatures lying at their mercy. The shock and revulsion that the scientists had no doubt felt at the beginning of the outbreak, even the terror at the sight of the infected, had been replaced with inquisitiveness and a detached and completely emotionless approach to their patients.
“Good God,” Melanie exclaimed, as she raised her hand to cover her mouth and nose from the overpowering smell of rotting blood. The foul odour found its way into her senses despite the mask she was wearing. “It looks like Frankenstein’s laboratory down here. What the hell are they doing?”
“You tell me,” a voice suddenly said from close behind them.
Samantha gasped and spun around with fright. She was ready to strike out at anything she saw, despite the fact that the owner of the voice was clearly alive. A tall slender man with wispy light brown hair stood staring back at her. He did not flinch or step back from her sudden turn but merely stood his ground with an indifferent expression upon his face. He was not wearing the same protective clothing that the other scientists had covered themselves in. Instead, he opted for his lab coat and did not even bother to wear a mask.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Doctor Warren said with a brief smile as he stepped closer and took a sip from the cup he was holding. “But to answer your question, Lieutenant Frakes, I have no idea what they’re doing down here. For the last three months I have been telling them that we should stop with anatomical and biological experiments and concentrate on more important, practical matters, but no one will listen. I’m just the crazy guy who failed to find a cure before it all got out of hand.”
“So what are they doing, Joseph?” Samantha asked as she nodded over to a rubber-clad surgeon who was holding a severed head aloft and showing his assembled audience how the creature’s senses were still functioning.
“Supposedly, they’re looking for answers,” he sighed. “Personally though, I think they’re just curious and behaving like kids with a magnifying glass over an ants’ nest. They’re learning nothing that we don’t already know and wasting time and resources if you ask me. They’re pretty much reinventing the wheel down here.
“Very early on in the epidemic we learned that the process of decomposition slows dramatically after a while and despite our best efforts, we were unable to understand why. Some doctors are still searching for an answer to that riddle even though it’s utterly superfluous now.”
He took another sip and nodded to the gurney holding a woman’s corpse as the doctors continued to strip out her internal organs.
“Over there, they’re still trying to work out why the reanimated cadavers attack and feed on the living. They have no need for nourishment but still, they do it. Personally, I gave up trying to work that one out a long time ago. Some are still studying the virus itself and trying to understand it and where it came from. Others are studying the brains of the victims in the hope of finding answers.
“As for me, I just look for easier ways to kill them now, and in large numbers without causing casualties to our own side. Not exactly deep scientific stuff of course, but someone needs to keep their head out of the clouds. We’ve tried all kinds of methods. Chemical weapons were our most recent attempt but they proved to be completely ineffective. More hazardous to our own people than the infected. Some believe that radiation might have a more positive outcome but I have my doubts. At the moment, fire and massive trauma to the brain are still the leaders in dealing with the plague.”
The three of them fell silent for a short while and stood staring at the macabre experiments that were being carried out on close to a dozen individual bodies. Grunts and muffled wails continued to fill the air all around them, interrupted only by the high-pitched whirling sounds of surgical drills and the grating of bone saws.
“Looks like you’re not running short on specimens, Doctor,” Melanie noted and indicated the pile of corpses in the far corner. “Where you getting them from?”
For the first time, Doctor Warren suddenly looked uncomfortable and his gaze dropped to his feet. He shuffled nervously as he considered his answer but Samantha interjected before he was able to speak.
“The camps,” Samantha said flatly, as she eyed the pile of rotting human corpses at the other end of the room. “You’re getting them from the refugee camps, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“Are they all dead when you bring them in, or are you taking the living as well?” Melanie asked as she turned to him and scrutinized the expression in his eyes.
“All our specimens are infected, Lieutenant, but yes, some of them are still alive when they’re collected,” he replied with a heavy hint of regret and shame. “Some of us are still trying to find ways of reversing the infection and live specimens are the only way they can carry out their tests.”
“Jesus,” Melanie gasped, shaking her head as she stared at the grotesque experiments being conducted around her and the doctors who were enthusiastically carrying them out. “It makes you wonder if there’s anything worth saving.”
“What about that one over there?” Samantha asked as she pointed to a bed with the still corpse of a man lying on top of it.
“Died twenty minutes ago,” Warren replied. “He was brought in two days ago with the flue and kept under observation. He was actually a soldier and not one of the civilians. I assure you that he was treated humanely and his comfort was a priority. We have accommodation units down here where we house the living and keep them under quarantine. When he passed, they immediately brought him here and the clock was started.”
As if on cue, a door to their left opened and a figure appeared carrying a pile of food trays, empty water bottles, and used plastic cups and cutlery. Before the door closed again, Samanth
a was able to catch sight of a pair of soldiers guarding the entrance to a long corridor with a number of doors leading off into separate rooms on either side. She made the assumption that they were the accommodation units for the living that Doctor Warren had just mentioned.
“The clock?” Melanie asked.
“Yes, the clock. To see how long it takes him to revive. Some of the doctors believe that the time between death and reanimation is slowing down.”
“And is it slowing down?”
“It’s hard to tell, Sam. Each and every case has always been different. Some have revived within minutes and others have taken as long as eight hours. I guess we’ll find out when he wakes up,” Doctor Warren shrugged.
Samantha had seen enough. The atmosphere in the underground laboratory was nauseating and she could feel her skin becoming cold and clammy. She wanted to get out of there and into the fresh air above ground. She understood that studying the virus and its effects was important, but she could not bear to look at the doctors who treated living people as nothing more than just livestock while they anxiously waited to begin ripping them up.
Five minutes later Samantha and Melanie burst through the doors of the main building and out into the pitch black of night. The air was cold on their lungs as they breathed in deeply and savoured its effects. It was the best Samantha had ever tasted as far as she was concerned, and she was more than happy to pollute it with the carbon monoxide from the cigarette she placed between her lips and proceeded to light.
