by Anthology
She might just scream forever.
When at last she reached it, the doorknob felt slick and cool beneath her hand, the door itself blindingly shiny. She caught a glimpse of her own panicked face in the sterling reflection.
But that wasn't all.
Sweet mercy, that wasn't all.
Behind her, there wasn't one shambling, blurred figure, but two.
Breath caught in her throat, Joanne whirled around to see not only the Jane Doe approaching, but Dr. Fox as well, the black, gaping wound in her throat still trickling blood, her lab coat now more red than white.
Clearly dead. Just as dead as the Jane Doe. And yet moving towards her with purpose. With hunger.
Now both the corpses shuffled towards Joanne, both making guttural sounds, jaws working in anticipation.
Joanne felt the blood in her veins turn to ice water and her legs wobble beneath her.
No! she scolded herself. Faint now and you'll never wake up.
With more willpower than she knew she possessed, she turned her back to the creatures and grabbed the doorknob once more.
Only to find it wouldn't turn.
She gripped it in both sweaty hands and yanked with all her might, but it wouldn't budge.
Locked.
Of course it was locked. It was always locked. Dr. Fox never wanted someone walking in on them while they were in the middle of conducting the experiments. Safety first was her motto.
Hand trembling, Joanne reached up and turned the latch, though the sound of the lock opening offered little relief.
Her head was yanked back painfully even as she was pulling open the door, the Jane Doe's fist tangled in her hair, just as it had first tangled in Fox's.
Joanne yelped in pain and instinctively spun around, knocking her own forearm into the zombie's forearm in a defensive gesture. The maneuver worked; the corpse lost its grip on her but not before ripping out a fistful of hair by the roots.
Her yelp became a scream, but her mind would only allow her to feel the pain for a micro-second and she continued to throw herself through the open doorway and into relative safety.
Once in the vacant, sterile hallway, with its ridiculously bright fluorescent lights, she almost felt as though she'd just awoken from a particularly realistic nightmare.
The illusion lasted for only a single tick of time, however, as the zombies in the lab let out a chorus of frustrated grunts.
Debating on whether or not to flee down the hall in search of help, Joanne hesitated there on the other side of the threshold. Was anyone else even in the building at this late hour? She couldn't be sure, but even if there was, she knew she'd just be putting that other person in danger.
She couldn't do that.
Instead, she rushed forward, grasped the doorknob yet again and began pulling the door closed, intending to trap the Jane Doe and the doctor inside the lab.
Before she closed it all the way, she caught a glimpse of the Jane Doe shoving the fistful of hair she'd ripped from her head into her mouth and trying to chew it. The sight was so surreal that Joanne slowed down, completely astonished, her brows knitting together in a flash of puzzlement.
Through the six inches of open doorway, Doctor Fox's ravaged face appeared, grinning wildly, and though she gasped in surprise, Joanne was momentarily relieved to see the doctor smiling. It was a joke after all. Just a joke.
For the second time, Joanne almost laughed and then the doctor reached through the six inches of empty space and grabbed her around the throat with an inhuman strength, squeezing the air from her windpipe, causing her eyes to instantly bulge and water.
Fox shoved her weight forward, propelling Joanne backwards until she collided with the hallway's far wall, her head bouncing off with a dull smack that left her seeing stars and her stomach roiling.
She blinked rapidly, fighting to stay conscious, but immediately wished she wasn't conscious after all as the doctor's face filled her vision and became her entire world.
Joanne shrieked as Fox sank her teeth into her nose and thrashed her head like a dog with a rag doll. There was a sound like wet meat tearing followed by the snapping of cartilage. Joanne instantly tasted blood and sank to the floor as the doctor released her, too busy chewing her prize to go for a second bite just yet.
Crumpled, her back against the wall, head lolling to one side, Joanne listened to the rapid drumming of her blood hitting the floor with loud splats. When she tried to bring a hand up to her face, she found that her arm was much too heavy to lift and so she just sat, suddenly craving sleep.
An unknowable amount of time later---probably mere seconds though perhaps minutes---she watched two sets of feet shamble past, smearing the tiny lake of her blood as they went. One pair wore sensible brown shoes and the other---dirty, gray and purple, with yellowed toenails---was completely barefoot.
She felt the growing need to follow the bright red footprints they left in their wake.
* * * *
In the Blood
by
Eric S. Brown
Detective Gregory stood in the dampness of the morning fog watching the other officers scurrying around the crime scene, making sure it was properly sealed off. He reached into the pocket of his trench coat, produced a cigarette and promptly fired it up.
Becca sat leaning over what was left of victim's body, her long red hair pulled back into a tight ponytail above her forensics uniform. Gregory walked over to where she was collecting samples of the strange black blood that seemed to leak from every orifice of the corpse.
"Morning, Becca," he said, extending a hand to help her to her feet as she finished. She tucked the vials away inside her kit. "What do you make of this mess?"
Becca shook her head. "Beats me. There's no obvious signs of a struggle. No apparent trauma to the body. It looks like this man died from some weird disease and someone just dumped his body here." She slipped off her gloves and disposed of them, then quickly disinfected her hands. "I think we need to call in the C.D.C. on this one as soon as possible. If whatever killed him is contagious, we're all in real trouble and this crime scene has been grossly mishandled."
"So it's not a murder, then?" Gregory asked.
"Does that disappoint you, Detective?"
Gregory laughed. "No. My gut tells me this is a homicide. The first boys on the scene found a used syringe near this spot. I've had it sent to your lab. I'll wager whatever killed this gent was in it."
"I hope you're right," Becca said, looking back at the corpse again. Its features were contorted in a mask of pain and its clothes were drenched in its own putrid blood.
"See you later?" Gregory asked.
"You can count on it," she said, hefting her kit and heading out of the crime scene to her car.
Gregory stood and watched her go. Sometimes she took his breath away.
"John!" a voice called from behind him. Carlson came running up. The portly man was flushed and out of shape. "We got the prints back. No record of anything. He's clean. This guy never even got a speeding ticket. His name was Richard North. Worked as a janitor at a retail store in the city. No family we could find."
"Great," Gregory said sarcastically, scowling.
"Not much to go on until Dr. Abbott sends us her findings from the syringe."
Gregory tossed the butt of his cigarette into the grass. "Keep this area contained just in case I'm wrong about this not being a virus, and call me the second you hear from Becca."
"Where are you going?" Carlson shouted after him as he headed towards his car.
"The store where this poor guy worked. Might as well check it out. Somebody there might know something."
Gregory eased his car into a space in front of the small grocery store. He turned off the Johnny Cash music that blared from the car's speakers and hopped out onto the street still mouthing the lyrics of "The Wanderer" to himself. He looked up at the battered and worn sign above the store. bub's. He chuckled. The owner apparently was not exactly a marketing genius.
He made his way inside through the glass front door to the sound of the jingling bells that hung tied to its interior handle.
A young, pimply-faced man awaited him behind the counter. Gregory flashed his badge. "You Bub?"
The youth turned pale, shaking his head. "No, sir. Mr. Gallow is out today. Can I help you?" he babbled so fast it sounded like a single sentence.
Gregory instinctively knew the kid was terrified of something. He leaned forward onto the counter, making a point to brush his coat aside enough for the kid to see the top of his .44 where it rested in the holster on his hip. "Look, I need to speak with Mr. Gallow. Do you know how I can reach him?"
"What's this about?" the kid asked, nervous. His name badge read walter.
"Walter . . ." Gregory started but was cut off mid sentence as Walter broke down.
"I don't know anything about the porn in the backroom, I swear. I don't sell it. I don't watch it. All that stuff is Mr. Gallow's. He handles it all."
"Walter," Gregory almost yelled, trying to get the kid to shut up. "I'm not here about that. I don't care."
"Mr. Gallow said never to give out his number but it's in the rolodex. Help yourself to it." Walter plopped the spindle of index cards onto the countertop in front of the detective. Gregory pocketed it knowing Walter wouldn't protest. He turned to leave but not before seeing relief flood across Walter's face like water breaking through a dam.
Gregory stepped into the heat of the noon day sun and checked his watch. It was lunch time but there was still a lot to be done. His cell rang, vibrating within the confines of his coat pocket. He pulled it out.
Good, he thought, Becca's on the ball today.
Flipping it open, he lifted it to his ear as chaos erupted across the street from where he stood. A man bleeding black fluid came charging from an alleyway. The man looked . . . feral. He hurled himself at the closest person, tackling a man in an expensive business suit. The pair toppled to the concrete with the bleeder on top.
"Call you back!" Gregory barked and pocketed his phone. He sprinted across traffic towards the grisly scene unfolding before him as the pedestrians fled screaming. He yanked his .44 Magnum from the holster under his coat.
"Freeze! Police!" he yelled at the bleeding man.
The man paid him no heed and buried his teeth in the business man's cheek. As Gregory closed to within feet of the bleeder, he leveled his gun at him. The bleeding monster glanced up at the detective with rage and pain-filled eyes. Strains of the business man's flesh dangled from his teeth. With an animal-like roar, the bleeder leapt to his feet, charging at Gregory. The detective's Magnum thundered. The round hit the man dead center in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards to land hard on the street's pavement. Gregory cursed as the man sat up, pulling himself to his feet.
Gregory knew the bleeder should be dead or at least hurting so bad he was nearly immobile. He popped off two more rounds in rapid succession. Again the man fell only to get to his feet again with large gapping holes in his torso. The black blood poured from his wounds at a rate that made Gregory wonder how the man hadn't bled out already. He ignored his own confusion and fear, leaving the questions for later, taking careful aim as the man ran at him howling like a mad dog. His fourth round blew the bleeder's head to a pulp. This time the man went down and stayed there. The corpse lay still in a puddle of black filth. Sirens of beat cops already on their way to the scene filled the air. He holstered his gun and took a moment to catch his breath and collect himself. This case was getting flat out weird.
* * * *
"So it's not a virus?" he asked Becca as the two of them stood over the corpse of the second bleeder in her lab.
"No, not in the normal sense, at least. If it were, I would have the C.D.C. here on their way whether you wanted them or not. There's . . . something in his blood stream. I know that for sure but as to what it is, your guess is as good as mine. It's like something from a cheap sci-fi film."
"Mind if I take a look?"
"Knock yourself out," Becca said, gesturing to a microscope on one of the nearby tables. "I have a sample set up over there."
Gregory peered into the magnified blood cells. "What are those things? They look like tiny, little robots."
"Nano-bots. Yeah, I know." She seemed to agree with the apparent look of shock on his face. "They appear to be repairing the blood cells but altering them in the process."
"Well, the good news is it's not a virus. This means the thing with the bleeding isn't contagious right?"
"Not entirely," she said. "They seem to be multiplying in the blood sample even though it's dead. If a batch of them crossed to another person through an open wound, in theory, they'd infect that person as well, growing in numbers inside them just like they did in the original host. That black taint to the host's blood that we've seen is actually the nano-bots themselves grown so great in number their color is visible to the naked eye."
"Is it likely they'd spread like that?"
"I don't have a clue what those things really are much less whether or not they'll spread, though I do think they could. All I have is theories. Nanotech on this level is supposed to be years away from even testing. I can tell you, though, that a host infected with them will become violent and insane from the amount of pain they'd be experiencing from the nano-bots' tinkering inside them." Becca paused. "You need to get some rest. You were going nonstop before this case landed in your lap. From what I hear, you don't have a single real lead yet."
"I do now," Gregory said. "No rest for the wicked. Besides, whoever made these things needs to be stopped now, not tomorrow."
"You're not a superhero," she said. "There can't be too many places in the city where someone can get the materials to make something like these things, and whoever created them has to have an advanced scientific background. Let me check around. I have some friends at the university. I'll get Carlson on this, too. You, Detective, you go home. That's an order." She smiled.
"Yes, Mom," Gregory shot back, knowing he was defeated.
* * * *
Gregory staggered into his apartment. Maybe his fatigue was indeed catching up with him. Before the madness of this case started, he'd pulled a double chasing down a scumbag whose wife had found out he was cheating on her. The jerk's answer had been to chop her up into pieces with a meat cleaver and dump her remains down the garbage chute of his building before making a run for it.
The tired detective slipped out of his coat and removed his gun belt; he rolled it around the .44 Magnum still in its holster. He sat the weapon on the kitchen counter and opened the fridge. Mostly white, empty space stared back at him. Grunting with frustration, he looked over what little there was inside---a spoiled carton of milk, a half used loaf of bread, and a pack of cheese slices that looked a greenish-blue inside their plastic wrapping. Nothing appealed to him except the beer anyway. There was plenty of that, tucked in the side of the door. He chuckled to himself and selected a bottle before going for his chair in the connecting living room. He plopped onto it and unscrewed the cap with his shirt. It felt good to be off his feet. Reaching for the remote, he flipped through the channels until he found something he could tolerate. Cartoons weren't usually his thing but he watched Jonah Hex and Batman bring a rampaging alien to justice in the old west.
His eyes slipped closed as he wished the real world was more like the one that superheroes lived in.
The ringing tone of an emergency broadcast bulletin ripped him from his dreams. He sat bolt upright in his chair as he groggily stared at the news footage on the screen. A mass of people, all bleeding black, were running through the streets on the other side of the city, attacking everyone in their path. The reporter covering it seemed terrified and he saw SWAT officers and national guardsmen taking up positions to make a stand against the mob.
"Yes, Detective Gregory," a voice which sounded like a chorus of demons called from behind him. He whirled around to see a man standing in his kitchen. "They are my children." The man's skin w
as like water and seemed to swim around his bones as black as midnight. The man wore no clothes and was sexless, only his voice---or rather voices---identified him as male.
Gregory glanced longingly at his Magnum where it sat on the kitchen counter between him and the man.
The man noticed and waved a finger. "It wouldn't do you any good, Detective. Please, let's try to be civil about this, shall we?"
"Who are you?"
"My name isn't important. You're wondering how I found you, why I'm here. It's simple, Detective Gregory. Of every living soul on this planet, only you know enough to be a threat to me and my children."
"I don't even know what you're talking about," Gregory said, getting up from his chair to face the man.
The man walked through the counter towards him, not around it. The material of the counter seemed to dissolve on contact with the black mass of the man's body.
"The world is a terrible place, Detective. Man kills man. There's rape, lies, more evil than I can name. I'm only making it a better place."
"How?"
The man laughed. "By making it me, of course. I was once a man like yourself, but now, I am so much more. I was trying to create a way to cure cancer using nano-technology but I stumbled upon the meaning of divinity. Yes, a few died before I refined the serum but what are a few deaths in the name of progress?"
"You won't get away with this. Your children out there aren't invulnerable. Someone will stop you."
"Yes, Detective, they might, but you won't."
The man flung himself onto Gregory. They collided with the chair then went to the carpet struggling against each other. Gregory got in a punch to the man's face and his fist sent pieces of the man's body flying into the air. The face reformed itself instantly. A cold, metallic hand grabbed Gregory's neck and forced him to the carpet, holding him there. Another hand pressed on his jaws, opening his mouth. The man's fingers bled blackness into it. Gregory coughed, choking on darkness, then lay still.
